I played a lot of 4v4 games, and I can tell this, Axis always need at least 1 player to choose ele/JT doctrine because of the Churchill/AVRE/Crocodile spam. With the support of these 1400 HP tanks any german infantry including mortars which has the same range as 17 pounder can't even get close to the 17 pounder, it means if you don't have a 105 LeFH/JT you can hardly counter the 17 pounder supported by churchill/AVRE/Crocodile.
And the most important thing is, the 17 pounder is a stock unit while the 105/JT is a doctrinal one.
AVREs and crocs cannot be spammed, they are limited to one per player. the someone spams chruchills get a pair of jpIVs and hard counter them.