Thank you for the quick response.
That is what i thought but not having huge experience under the belt i just wanted to double check here.
Have a good day.
UK Strategy -"Middle Earth"
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I fail to see why anyone would build a NB in the Gulf of America.
While it would be economically possible, I just see no benefit to a 89 SZ NB in any situation.
If Axis have control of GIB, you could shuck fast movers, albeit only one per Trprt, to F WAF and back to SE Mexico as Cornwallis suggested.
Might be best to just save the Inf that would ride along and let them concentrate until you can hit GIB in force.
I just see no use for a NB in 89. Doesn’t really do you any good going to the Pacific either.
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@barnee I’m not recommending a naval base in Mexico; I’m just pointing out that Cornwallis’s plan of repeatedly shucking units between Mexico and southwest Africa seems to imply the presence of a naval base there. I agree with you that such a naval base is ill-advised.
I think there is very little point in shucking fast movers alone to west Africa – the extra defensive value in, e.g., Cairo is not worth the cost of the transports, let alone the naval base. America starts with only one transport in the Atlantic. There’s no sense in building up a fleet of American transports unless and until you’re ready to seriously challenge a sea zone that can actually put real pressure on the Axis.
If for some reason you really need to defend Cairo, American fighters will be more efficient. For example, if you build 3 transports on turn 1, then you have a fleet of 4 transports, meaning you can shuck 2 fast movers to West Africa per turn. You admittedly start with 4 mechs that aren’t urgently needed elsewhere; let’s say you buy 2 more mechs and 2 tanks to give them a bit of offensive punch. So now over the course of turns 1-4 you can ship your 6 mechs and 2 tanks to West Africa, and they will arrive in Cairo by turn 6. This costs the US $21 for the transports, $15 for the naval base, and $20 for the extra mechs/tanks – a total of $56 to get 8 hit points into Cairo that defend with 24 pips.
Alternatively, you could just build 6 fighters for $60. That gets you 6 hit points into Cairo by turn 4 (reach West Africa on turn 3) that defend with 24 pips. You arrive notably earlier with a force that’s very nearly as powerful as the mechs/tanks, plus your starting mechs are still available to fill up transports going to, e.g., Hawaii or to prepare for a later assault on Gibraltar.
All that said, one of the many advantages of a Middle Earth strategy is that you can safely withdraw from Cairo into Sudan/Jordan. It’s not urgent for the British to hold Cairo if the Allies don’t build a factory there. The UK can build 6 new units/turn (from S. Africa & Persia) that can attack Cairo, plus most likely some support coming in from India, Malta, the troops you divert to clean up Ethiopia, and so on. By contrast, Italy is very unlikely to be able to get anything like 6 land units per turn down into the region while also defending against, e.g., American subs. Over time, the balance of power will shift back toward the Allies and you will force the Italians back out.
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@TheDesertFox if axis leave that door open then you go for morocco but our German players on G1 buy fleet and the occasional bomber and sub to keep allies at arms length so Japan can expand. This was just one idea to prevent that arms race but still help UK and you can invest in pacific.
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@Argothair no you don´t from Mexico it´s 2 spaces to gibraltar or West Africa.
I said West africa, not Congo. It is within range of the US and out of range of german subs. Total cost 21 IPC on tpt and 6 for 2 inf… you already have the mechs and 2 inf. -
@Argothair you don´t need a naval base there bc it´s 2 spaces away from moroco or W Africa. Buying 2 or 3 extra transports is not that an investment if later on (turn 5 ot 6) you stop chucking to W Africa but converg with a built up allies fleet on gibraltar. This is just in the early game when you are at war but are not strong enough to go for gibraltar. You have the fast movers in the US, so why not use them for what they are made…
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@Cornwallis I think there are a few different proposals all being discussed at once. Let me try to be clearer about why each of them falls short of being a successful strategy.
- Ship just your starting mechs to West Africa over the first few turns.
- Ship a large number of infantry and mechs to West Africa over many turns.
- Ship a large number of infantry and mechs to the Congo over many turns.
(1) is not a bad idea, but it’s also not really a full strategy – it’s just a way to squeeze out a little bit of extra defensive power with some more-or-less available units. The mechs can drive to Cairo, but this means your early transports aren’t available to ferry units out of Brazil, the starting mechs aren’t available to garrison Hawaii, and you’re vulnerable to having your shuck disrupted if the Italian fleet comes west through Gibraltar or a couple of German subs head south, because now you have transports off the coast of West Africa that can’t easily escape back to a safe sea zone. The benefits of this plan are minor, the costs of this plan are minor, and even if you use this plan, you still need a strategy for what the UK is going to do with most of its units and cash.
(2) is a terrible idea because the infantry will be stuck in West Africa with nothing useful to do for too much of the game. The US really needs to be working toward gaining control of the sea zones around Gibraltar and London, or else it needs to be pushing back Japan and retaking the money islands. Stacking troops up in West Africa gives the illusion of progress without accomplishing any of these goals.
(3) is not possible – there are no sea zones bordering the Congo that the US can reasonably reach by sailing from North America.
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Personally I think if we were dealing with a scenario where Germany had a fleet and some bombers, I would build that same bridge acrossed the Atlantic but instead of going to central Africa I would have it run from Quebec to either Scotland or England. I know this strategy isn’t exactly new but to me it feels the safest mostly because the hypothetical german fleet in question should be in the Med and even if they have a lot of bombers, enough carriers/fighters + 3 fighters to scramble from the UK (and Scotland i think) will dissuade a German expedition to try and sink your convoys.
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@Cornwallis I do enjoy this Strategy and I think it would work really really really well for a really really long game. Or a “full length game”. I do think this will work very well in conjunction to the ME strategy.
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Like I said earlier I have looked into transporting troops from east coast to west/central Africa. I have never really tried it because I think the consequences will be too big elsewhere. Once the shuttle is established you need 6 transports and this will allow you to put 2 fast movers and 2 infantries to French equatorial Africa each round: You need two transports in 89, 3 transports in 87 and 1 transport in 82. You build 2 inf and 2 fast movers in central USA each round and move to Mexico area bordering sz 89. Then you have 4 transports (2x2) shuttling 89/87 and 2 transports (1x1) shuttling 87/82 with the 2 infantries. Of course you have some starting units you can start with, but once you buy 2 infantries and 2 fast movers it takes 5 rounds for the fast movers to get to Egypt and 6 rounds for the infantries. This is the main reason why I have never tried, because it takes for ever.
But you also need more stuff: You need to control Gibraltar with a three-fighter scramble with at least a destroyer in 92 or 91, probably both. This will prevent axis sub from 93 to kill 87. Likewise, you need to control Morrocco and Algeria. Bombers from W-Germany or southern France can land here after killing 87. Or if axis control Algeria you have the same problem. Finally, you need to control the Atlantic Ocean so there are no enemy subs. In summary you need some navy and some planes.
So, what does this achieve, at best little, I think. Yes, you will get a nice number of American units to Egypt/middle east, easily 20 American land units by round 9 or 10. Like pointed out it’s possible to combine with Middle Earth and this will provide an allied fortress in the middle east. So, it can be a way to secure Cairo from axis take over and then prevent the win
Most likely there will be no pressure on Germany on the western front, and this will mean Russia is captured at the latest on G8. You also need to look out for a late sea lion. Finally, the question becomes if USA has enough resources to contain Japan. I don’t know.
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One thing that occurs to me today is why not send send 2 transports, 2inf 1mec 1tank to FWA. 1TT tales the 2 inf around the Cape of Good Hope, a plane or two later and attacks Saudia Arabia, obviously with another attack on Spain and UK attacking Turkey. Ties up a minimal number of units and with a Middle Earth strategy, the neutral crush and a neutralise Italy first strategy are pretty advisable. If there is a Vichy activation, an additional transport to FWA with an inf and art are probably advised.
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@simon33 The thing about the neutral crush is that if the Allies can pull it off successfully, then they’ve probably already set themselves up for victory anyway. There’s 6 infantry in Spain, 8 infantry in Turkey, and 2 in Saudi Arabia. The US is limited in the opening in terms of how many loaded transports it can afford to send across the Atlantic, and the UK is limited in the opening in how many units it can build up in the Middle East, even in a Middle Earth strategy. If you’ve overcome these limits and managed to build up both a US force and a UK force each of which can successfully kill off 8 defending neutral infantry, and those forces aren’t urgently needed for defense anywhere, then (a) you probably could and should just successfully kill off 8 defending Axis infantry; there ought to be some target that’s worth taking that’s not so well-defended, and (b) you’re probably doing so well that you will win no matter what you do as long as it’s not insane.
On the US end, one of the challenges is that the coast of Spain is not necessarily a safe place to park your ships – it’s typically in range of German fighters and tac bombers flying out of West Germany; to block this attack, you would need to hold Morocco and Gibraltar strongly enough that Italy can’t take them back on its turn – which is hard to do if the Allied infantry headed for the western Med are all going to Spain. You need to crush Spain’s 6 infantry hard enough that your survivors can resist an Italian/German counterattack from France; you have to take and hold Spain so you can build facilities and land planes there; otherwise you’re just trading territory that’s far enough away from the German core that it’s not really a threat to them.
On the UK end, there’s nowhere reasonable to put a third factory in the opening – you can use your starting factory in South Africa and build a new one in Persia on UK2 after activating Persia on UK1. However, it’s not safe to put a factory in Egypt against a competent Italian player, and it’s not reasonable to attack Iraq any earlier than UK2, because you need time to activate the Persian units and bring them into the fight, as well as time to contain the Italians in east Africa. So the earliest you could build an Iraq factory is UK3, which means you don’t get any new units out of that factory until UK4 – and even then, the British economy is usually too weak to fuel all 3 factories reliably. You might be earning 42 IPCs if you’re doing very well. If you want a reasonable mix of land units, so you can, e.g., put fast movers in Persia and keep them involved in the action despite their relatively long walk to Cairo, then the buy looks something like 4 infantry, 2 artillery, 2 mechs, 1 tank, which costs 34 IPCs. You probably also need to buy at least a destroyer in the Atlantic to cope with German submarines, so that’s the full 42 IPCs. If you get hit with a successful convoy attack or strategic bombing run, or if you’ve lost even one original territory anywhere (e.g. Alexandria, or Gibraltar, or British Somaliland), then you have to make some painful cuts somewhere.
So as the British, you can’t reliably crank out 9 units per turn every turn in the global South – for the first few turns your factories aren’t all online yet, and then even after that sometimes you won’t be able to afford it. Let’s say you manage 7 units per turn. OK, but Italy can typically unload at least 2 transports a turn into north Africa or Syria, so you need 4 units per turn just to counter that…which means you have something like 3 units a turn to build up to a force that can sack the 8 units in Turkey at a profit. And that assumes you’re not diverting units east to save India from Japan, or buying fighters to send north to save Moscow, both of which are often a higher priority than a neutral crush. Maybe you can build up an uncommitted striking force of 12 British units by turn 7 or 8…but most of the time I’d rather use those units to retake Cairo, land in Greece, push into a German-occupied Caucasus, etc.
Yes, it can be annoying to wait until you have enough British transports to support a landing in Greece, but it’s also annoying to gift Germany 2 infantry in Switzerland, 6 infantry in Sweden, and the loss of whatever Allied units take hits in the first round of combat against Spain, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. On average, even a perfect attack that ends in 1 round will cost you about 5 Allied units. So if the Allies are going down 5 units, and the Germans are going up 8 units, that’s a swing of 13 units. In return, the Allies gain 6 IPCs per turn – it will take them 7 turns of collecting that income to build 13 infantry and show a tiny profit, plus another couple of turns for that profit to be converted into units that can be built and transported to the front lines. If the neutral crush happens early – say, round 5 – then you’re not really breaking even until about round 14, by which point the game’s outcome has usually been decided.
It’s not that a neutral crush is never the right answer, I just think it’s rare, and I wouldn’t want to plan ahead for it by making an early investment with the US by making an otherwise-unjustified early move to French West Africa.
Of course, if you want to do a neutral crush because it’s fun, or because it’s surprising, or because you think your opponent won’t know how to defend against it skillfully, have at it! Those are all good reasons to do a neutral crush. I just think it very rarely makes sense in terms of this game’s economy, even assuming Britain is running Middle Earth.
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You are playing against a much stronger Italy than I normally am. If everything goes well for me, all its ships are sunk UK2. Here’s what I do:
- bid Malta fighter and sz98 sub
- attack sz97 without the CV but with a fighter and bomber from London. Biggest risk is no enemy hits.
- move CV and sz109 units to sz92
- land 2 british inf or mech inf to Algeria. Optionally add a fighter.
- If Italy does grab Algeria console yourself with at least nabbing a few Luftwaffe
- Sometimes I do indeed buy 5 inf and an Egypt factory UK1. Depends on how likely I think a Sea Lion is.
- Later, use US subs to convoy off Italian income.
Onto your points about how early this can happen. In most Balanced Mod games, there is a J3 DOW. If we assume that, earliest this can be executed is US6. If there is a J1 DOW I would leave this strat in the bag for later in the game anyway and it is still only possible US5 because you really need that second transport for it to work. Looking at a game where I did the neutral crush round 12, I think I could have lined it up for round 7 and would have been much better off for it. Round 6 would have been too early and this is a game with a UK1 Egypt factory.
I don’t know about the neutral crush being a guaranteed win if executed well though. It draws in a lot of US money to Europe and you can’t completely ignore Japan. I lost one neutral crush game this way. Other games where I saw the opportunity to crush the neutrals later I felt like I was late to the party.
The neutral crush is especially valuable when Normandy is left French.
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The purpose of the neutral crush isn’t so much to get more allied income but to allow USA to put down an IC on Spain, allow passage of the Turkish strait and to allow overland invasion of the Balkans.
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@simon33 The fighter+sub bid in the Med is interesting; maybe I’ve been putting too much of my bid into the Atlantic. Honestly, it’s been a long time since I’ve played OOB Global; I tend to play either Balanced Mod or Bloodbath Rules when I play at all. If you crush Italy hard enough in the opening then I could see a follow-up neutral crush being effective around turn 7, as you suggest. I think this would be easiest using OOB rules, which give you more flexibility to concentrate Allied assets in the Med.
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@Argothair said in UK Strategy -"Middle Earth":
The fighter+sub bid in the Med is interesting
No one else does as of yet. Although I have seen people do the same attack but with 2 fighters from London. Which is highly dangerous. One game I was playing axis and was disappointed to have 2 hits.
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