In Axis and Allies, is the Axis "economic victory" condition a valid one?
The game becomes very interesting when the Axis achieves its goal of 84, only to lose France, or possibly some African territory.  They then take it back the next round, but only at the cost of expansion to other territories, and perhaps lose a couple of IPC's in the process.  I have witnessed this on a few occasions!  It mainly occurred because the Allies (usually U.S.) had just built up a large invasion force, and it would land on the same turn that the Axis got to 84.  Then Germany would have to fight backwards, and the next turn another invasion (U.K. this time) would hit France.  After that, it was typical for the German player to give up.

I have never seen the Axis fall below pre-war economic levels and then comeback to win the game.  Every time that has happened, we would play one more round, but it goes from bad to worse for the Axis, and mostly Germany.

If they had to take London or Washington, the Allies can simply stockpile in those locations, and Germany and Japan will be frustrated ad infinitum.  With the economic option, the Allies must get aggressive at some point and attack the Axis holdings.  

This mimics the war in a fairly realistic sense, and I think that, for an early WWII game, A&amp;A did well at capturing the urgency for the Allied powers.