Trulpen is a fun player to play with!! I have to admit he will make you think!!
UK Strategy -"Middle Earth"
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@Cornwallis Not my experience, are you scrambling to 110 or doing something else non standard?
I kind of agree about Gibastion not being so optimal because it means you have to deal with the Italian fleet for a long time until you can sink it. Not too sure what you mean about “backfire so easily” though.
With a bid of 16+ I like the idea of sub 98 ftr Malta, that way you can sink the Italian BB and keep the UK CV alive in 92 with the 109 DD. Surviving ships in 97 need to be attacked by Italy. so normally the Italian fleet is pretty toast after this attack. Weakness is that Italy can land on Algeria and then the Luftwaffe can attack but expect to lose 2 planes in the first round. I suppose the transport can put 2 UK land units on Algeria.
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@simon33 no i don´t scramble in 110 anymore. Have done it 3 times and got diced all three times. We play with no bid.
Backfires as in they take algeria and destroy your fleet cheaply with luftwaffe. -
The Middle-earth strategy is often seen online. Granted variations of it are always different. It is a solid strategy. I play a couple of games a week on Triple A and there is a good chance I see it weekly.
I have even seen the version detailed here, with the Harbor in Persia.
Interesting strategy.How I see the Middle-earth strategy used over at Triple A is as follows.
1.The Allied player occupies the Middle East and gets IC’s up and running.
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Planes fly down thru Africa and around to Middle East(Once threat of Sealion is gone)
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The Russian players fight a delaying action. Very few counter attack ( I always attempt to counter attack).
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When the fall of Moscow is inevitable, anywhere from turn 5-8 the Russian player abandons Moscow. They then usually fall back on the Middle East, looking to join the Russian stack with the now sizable Brit forces. This often slows the Germans considerably.
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USA sets up a schuck/schuck thru the Med. USA-Gibraltar-Egypt. Where somewhere around 8 troops a turn are dumped into the Middle East.
Then with the Germans facing a huge Wall in the Caucasus and unable to advance further…the USA will attempt to finish off Japan.
Once Japan is neutralized or defeated then the full might of the USA is applied, usually thru the Med…but sometimes to the North thru Norway.If done right, the Middle-earth strategy can lead to very long games. 18-25 turns. This is the most common style of Middle-earth strategy that I encounter. It can frustrate Axis players with low attention spans (looks in mirror) For the Axis to win, it will be a slog. Which is part of the strategy, bore your opponent to death and suck the fun out of the game. That being said, it is effective. I still lose to it on occasion, even when I know it is coming. I have probably lost to it 3-4 times in the last year, yet I have seen it dozens of times. Usually the economics defeats the Axis. When I have lost to it, people have done well to neutralize Japan.
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Middle Earth is a rather intuitive strategy; however, there’s only one problem and that’s Japan. Back when I experimented and replicated a typical Middle Earth strategy you described, the downfall of the Allies was quite literally Japan winning the game with 6 victory cities. And Japan won before Germany could even get to Moscow.
I see middle earth as a double edged sword. Sure the Axis cant get to you directly, however you’re sinking a lot of your money into an area of the map where the game is not won and lost.
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I am no advocate for it…I do not use it. Just commenting what I encountered.
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Whats a good alternative UK strategy that you like using?
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The problem with middle earth is the british are poor, 30-35 ipc usually. They cant build a lot of infrastructure, minors/airports/naval. For it to be successful, maximum a minor and airport in egypt. Then a tranny shuttle to and from egypt/SA can work. But as a minimum it cost 15 each round (3 inf in egypt and 2 inf in SA). If you cant afford that, its not worth it. Suddenly you need to a 25+IPC investment in london to support USA landings
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@oysteilo Much of the point of Middle Earth is that you skip the landings-from-London. The US comes to Gibraltar and supports the UK in attacking Italy.
A factory built in Egypt itself is typically not safe, and as you point out, the UK can’t really afford to fuel more than 2 factories for most of the game. So, you use the factory in South Africa, build one in Persia on turn 2, and then you have 6 British units per turn that you can use to secure Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq. This then lets you quickly send subs built in South Africa into the Med to start convoying Italy. If the UK can hold Egypt and Jordan and bother Italy with subs, then Italy will usually be far too poor to resist a strong US invasion; the US can buy whatever transports, land units, destroyers, carriers, etc. are needed, while the UK buys only the relatively cheap infantry and subs, plus maybe 1 tank in South Africa now and then. This makes the best use of the larger US income and also sets the US up to ‘fork’ West Germany, Normandy, and Italy from the sea zone next to Gibraltar.
The thought behind Middle Earth is that you usually need to invest something in the Med/Africa in order to avoid losing most of the British income, so as long as you’re playing there at all, you may as well go big in that theater. Better to just keep on pushing in the Med / Middle East than to try to pivot to an Atlantic strategy that will require substantial UK investment in many transports, destroyers, carriers, and so on. As @oysteilo correctly points out, you want to keep UK investment in infrastructure to a minimum…but you start with harbors in South Africa and Egypt, so the only infrastructure you need to buy for Middle Earth is a single minor factory in Persia and two transports (one at a time) to shuttle troops up from South Africa to Egypt. Total investment is 26 IPCs. It doesn’t get cheaper than that, as far as effective strategies go.
As @Galendae correctly points out, the strategy can lead to extremely long games against a competent Axis player; if the US needs to spend most of its income containing Japan in the opening, then a serious US invasion of Italy won’t come until much later in the game, by which point Moscow has probably fallen or at least been crippled. I don’t see a good way around this, which is part of why I prefer to play Anniversary these days rather than Global.
I’m curious if anyone can recommend other UK strategies, especially if they’re likely to lead to a shorter game. There was some interesting discussion of “Gibastion” a few years ago, but I haven’t heard of new ones since then.
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@TheDesertFox
The Best Allied Strategies are those that adapt to what the Axis are doing. You must be flexible and take what is available. My only axiom with Allies; “the 1st USA landing in Europe has got to stick”No getting pushed back into the ocean.
I do prefer the northern route thru Norway if it makes sense, rather than go up thru the Med.
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To fully take advantage of the minor in south africa you need a naval in Persia if you shuttle there. That can make sense if you can keep axis air out. It is also in danger of Japan subs
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Its hard to protect thats my point. Still think minor and AB in Egypt is better
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I’m curious if anyone can recommend other UK strategies, especially if they’re likely to lead to a shorter game. There was some interesting discussion of “Gibastion” a few years ago, but I haven’t heard of new ones since then.
What I have isn’t necessarily a complete ‘strategy’ per say but I suppose could be the makings of one. For one thing I think the UK should take Norway and Finland from Germany as early as possible. Not only is it a much-needed boost to the British economy in the West but it cripples the German economy by 10 whole IPCs. But that’s kind of just an ‘action’ more than an actual strategy.
The area of the game I really try to devote to as the UK is in the Pacific and Indian ocean. A while back I developed a strategy that was just food for thought but I called it the “Two-Nation Navy” where I actively tried to consolidate the British Pacific fleet with ANZAC’s fleet to make for a more formidable force against Japan. Overall, I wanted a way to prevent Japan from taking over all the islands with money and just try to be a presence for them in the sea. -
@Galendae you’re correct about middle earth making for a long game. However at high level play, the USA shouldn’t be able to take ownership of Korea, Normandy, southern France and hold them or at least not easily.
Interesting viewpoint on it spoiling the fun,
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@Argothair US can also support UK via West Africa in case Germany has a fleet and bombers to protect (dark skies). In stead then of building up an arms race in the Atlantic while Japan is growing, there is a more cheap and fast way getting US troops in the Middle East:
https://youtu.be/ZQDC0iGa7UY?si=IK9Uie74kpIKAkSb
Exact buys can differ of course, it´s more the concept i want to explain.
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I have been looking at this too many times. Its possible. The neat thing is it requires little navy, but your units are doing nothing for several rounds. It takes for ever to get anywhere usefull. and your transports are doing what after unloading? Sure, a couple can ship infatry deeper into africa/closer to egypt. But then they are so out of position and require 3? rounds to get home? In a J1 attack you are better off to secure Gibraltar. At later JDOW you are late to the party
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@Cornwallis That’s very creative, and I appreciate you sharing it, but I agree with oysteilo that sending American transports to West Africa is too inefficient to be a reasonable strategy.
After unloading in West Africa, the tanks and mechs can certainly drive to Egypt as you suggest, but the infantry are basically wasted – by the time they can walk to Egypt that theater should already have been resolved one way or another. If you are going to carry on shipping the infantry from West Africa to Morocco then you are wasting a move because they could have just landed in Morocco in the first place, and I cannot see any good reason to ship the infantry from West Africa to South Africa – if South Africa is threatened so badly that it needs to be rescued by the Americans, then the Allies have already lost. A ‘buildup’ of infantry in West Africa does not accomplish anything that you could not do just as easily with a ‘buildup’ in the eastern US, because the troops in West Africa still can’t reach anywhere but Gibraltar and Morocco.
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@Argothair you can continue shipping infantry to congo (i think it is congo) that will save one round for the unf, so it takes 3 rounds to Egypt instead of 4 from West africa, but still not too efficient.
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@oysteilo Well, sure, but then you have to dip into the thin British income to build a naval base in the Congo, or else your transports can’t quite make it back to Eastern US to pick up more ground units in one move.
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@Argothair @oysteilo
The mech inf can reach egypt 2 rounds after landing so if Japan DOW1 you can have units there US3 and a lot on US4 so one turn later in Middle east, the same time when Germany or japan break out in the caucasus or India.Going via gibraltar more often than not leads to units stacked in gibraltar doing nothing.
The transports can get back to Mexico in 1 Turn so you need to built units in Center US and move them to Mexico. That way you can Chuck units from Mexico to West africa.
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But why do that when you can get American units into Europe through Morrocco?
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