Slitherine

http://www.sonshi.com/vegetius.html
http://www.sonshi.com/frederickthegreat.html
Playing as the Axis has its difficulties against even the worst of opponents after all.

I see one parallel: all three of them stuck their noses out farther than their military and economy could handle. The Roman Empire and the Axis were eventually destroyed by their unrealistic ambitions, and Frederick was only saved by the timely death of the Russian czar, as great a general as he was. It's obviously not that simple, especially in Rome's case, but you can't argue that the expansionist agendas of all three powers came back to bite them.