UK Europe opening moves

Admiral & Omega - by the time I read and re-read what you both wrote, you’re pulling me in the direction of the fighter on UK1. Consistent Fighter purchases with Britain tend to become very effective, and a first turn purchase creates more flexibility… I’ll think about it!

I like to attack Tobruk, Ethiopia, and Taranto on UK1.  All attacks should be successful and Italy is left with just one transport, hardly enough to hurt Egypt, and it’ll take several turns before Italy will be at their initial starting strength again, and they’ll have a hard time clearing out the French fleet in order to gain the NO bonus.

I agree with the UK1 attack on Toburk, its got a very strong chance for success and is a major setback for the Italians. I would hesitate to do all those attacks at once with the UK, might over stretch yourself.

Omega, I dont see whats wrong with having 6 or more tanks sitting in London by the end of UK2. When I play as the UK, I usually go heavy turttle with them, and wait till the Germans are at war with the Soviet Union before making major offensive moves. On Uk1 I will buy 9 infantry, saving 1IPC, attack the Italian fleet in sz95, using the UK fleet in sz98, the fighter from malta, and the cruiser from sz91. Then for non-combat I move the fighter from Gibraltar to London, I bring the infantry and tank over from Quebec to London, if possible, if not, it goes to Africa and the destroyer in sz71 moves up to sz81. I will usually fall back from Alexandria, leaving a lone ANZAC trooper, and hold up in Cairo until I see how Italy reacts to my opening move, and I begin the march up from South Africa, and from India towards Persia. Also, depending on the situation, I’ll move my transport from sz98 to sz99 with 1 infantry in it and activate Greece, just to be a nudge. This gives me 12 infantry, 3 fighters, and 1 tank in London and allows me to collect 36IPC on the end of UK1. On UK2 I buy 6 tanks, the fleet in sz95 should have been reinforced by the French forces in sz93, provided anything was left for them to reinforce, and I will move the remnants of this fleet to finish off the Italians, reinforced by the destroyer from sz81. Again, for me its really hard to predict just what I do on UK2, manily because I really need to see the situation before I decide what to do, so anything beyond UK1 is a guess. However by G3, when sealion is usually attempted, the German player is looking at 12 infantry, 3 fighters, and 7 tanks in London, and a rapidly crumbling Italy, which I think would give him pause and make him redirect his economy and forces towards other fronts.

But then again, thats just me  :-D

A. Darlan, its actually quite important to know what Germany’s 1st turn builds are.  if they go 1CV 1DD 1 SUB, then the threat of sealion on G2 is greatly reduced.  If they instead purchase 1 CV 2 trn, then you should see that UK is under severe threat and do a max build of inf.

I have purchased a UK ftr before, but I still think that if trns hit the water on G1 then the only purchase UK can make is all inf in London.  UK 1 is not the turn to be spending excess ipcs on upgrading inf to arty.  Save extra money for more inf UK2 in case Germ puts more boats in the water.

The concern you have for Africa seems a bit misplaced.  Your primary concern should be the defense of you capital, no?  If this is the case, then I would counsel not to attack Taranto but instead bring those aircraft back to UK.  Of course you don’t have to have a passive UK turn, you can still smack Tobruk and destroy 3 trns worth of troops in Africa before Italy goes.

Lastly, I’m not a big mathematician, but I also thought 2 inf are better defenders than 1 tank.  Anyone got any stats to back this up?

My math was off a bit, I forgot to include the French forces in my total for defending London, which would make it 13 infantry, 4 fighters, and 7 tanks, oops my bad.

Also, and this is some-what irrelevent to Admiral Darlans posting, but in my games the British forces in Normandy are deployed in London at the start of the game, for a number of reasons. So in my games by UK2 there are 14 infantry, 5 fighters and 7 tanks, if this gives better prespective, on my stratgey

Two infantry are much better for defense than 1 tank.  2+2=4 > 3.

thats not the right math shadow, i think its 1/3 times 1/3.  Is that greater than 50%?  Because then you have to add the fact that the 2 inf can get 2 hits….again I’m not a mathematician.

@JimmyHat:

thats not the right math shadow, i think its 1/3 times 1/3.   Is that greater than 50%?  Because then you have to add the fact that the 2 inf can get 2 hits….again I’m not a mathematician.

The probability of a tank missing is .5 (4,5,6 on d6).  The probability of a single infantry missing is .666 (3,4,5,6 on d6), therefore the probability of both infantry missing is .666 * .666 = .443 therefore the two infantry is a better buy for defense since they will get at least one hit .556 of the time, not to mention they can get two hits .110 (.333 * .333) of the time, as well as the extra unit that can soak a hit from the enemy.

Anyway, not to sideline the entire topic, but two infantry are much better.

Additionally, you can generally get a perfect picture of the odds by just adding the values togetehr and seeing which is better.  2+2 = 4 > 3 is extremelly valid.

I can see the math and I understand what you’re saying, I just never see the Germans come out with enough to chew through the stack of 14 infantry in their first round attacks, and my counter-attack is usually very devistating. Germany only has a very small window to pull of a sealion, if they can’t do it on the third turn, its not going to happen. Again, since this will take 3 turns to develop, there are too many variables to consider, what the Germans buy, what units they move to where, the effects of strategic warfare (bombings and subs), what the Russians are doing, but im confident that that stack of forces would be enough to hold London in the event of a G3 sealion, somewhat  :-D