Best 18 ipc's spent on land defense

@krieghund Yeah. Fair enough. Fortunately he resigned because of Germany. I wanted to play out the fight. :-)

“Never” is a strong word, and you even went so far as to hold down shift as you typed it and then went back to underline it afterwards.

If the airbase lets you hold Gibraltar for one extra turn, maybe even two, then is that 15 IPCs worth it for you?
Very possibly, sure. Delaying a US entry into the Med for one turn probably saves Italy at least 5 IPCs right off the bat, not to mention delaying its eventual economic implosion by an entire turn more of income.

Is it still worth it if the Americans can fly straight to Egypt or Norway from Gibraltar now?
Maybe they can’t do that yet, and won’t for another turn or two. Very possibly, yes, it’s still worth it. Maybe because you had that airbase, however, your Axis units were able to abandon Gibraltar and get into a better position on their way out. Lot’s of “if”'s. A lot of combinations of them add up to it being worth it.

Is it still worth it if the Americans can scramble planes off of it to defend their navy?
If you weren’t planning on attacking their navy (maybe because you simply don’t have the resources to do so), yes, absolutely, then there’s no difference at all.

So, yeah, sometimes it’s alright to give your opponent a facility if you got your money’s worth out of it first, even if it is only for a turn or two. Plenty of US and JP plays depend on building a naval base that’s only ever really used once in the game. There are some cases where the same is true for air bases all over the place.

I would move the Naval units south to Australia too.

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Unfortunately my friends don’t come over enough, so I end up just testing out different strategies. Right now I am trying really hard as Germany to bomb the living heck out of Britain. And it’s working: at the end of G2, ALL British facilities on the island (except for airbase Scotland) were gone. The whole Royal Navy was gone as well (but so was the Kriegsmarine). I figure with the bombing and the subs I’m throwing at Britain it’s almost better to just bomb them. Because I think I could even when the US came into the war. Russia is going to die, and I think Germany is going to do really well.

As for Italy, they’re in major trouble with Africa. On UKE1 I tried out taking Tobruk. I succeeded (albeit at the cost of not having my Med. AF available to pound the Italian Navy), which has thrown Italy on its heels. Also, I landed 1 loaded trans. from GB (with 2 inf.) and if it survived the U-boats G2, it would’ve grabbed Brazil.

Japan is probably going to crush India/China, but since Russia is under so much pressure to retreat they’ll probably leave each other alone and not trigger the Mongol infantry.

@Gargantua:

Yea… I Just wanted to talk some smack.  HOWEVER there is a Singular truth.

This only applies to GLOBAL  in Europe you lose the -2 for France…  This is what spawned my original thought - as my last game I only scavenged 17 from France!

But… if France conquers North Italy, their income goes up with 4, no? That would make 21 IPC! Et voila!

At first I couldn’t believe that nobody picked Heavy Bombers.  Then I remembered that in the Europe 40 rulebook they changed Heavy Bombers to where you roll 2 dice and pick the best result so you still only get one hit.  WHAT A CROCK!!  That sounds more like smart bombs to me.  Basically you are getting a better chance of hitting the target by rolling 2 dice instead of 1.  As far as I’m concerned, Heavy Bombers carry a bigger bomb load so they destroy more stuff.

I DO NOT use the new 1940 rule for Heavy Bombers.  In my games, if you get Heavy Bombers then you get to roll 2 dice and get 2 hits (assuming both dice came up 4 or less).  In the case of Strategic Bombing, you can now inflict up to 12 damage points on an IC rather than up to 6.  I guess that is my house rule.

With that in mind, I think Heavy Bombers is the best tech for USA and maybe Germany too.  Although Super Subs would probably be even better for Germany.
USSR = Advanced Artillery or Improved Mechs
UK = Radar, Improved Shipyards
USA = Heavy Bombers, Long Range Aircraft
ANZAC = Increased Factory
Germany = Super Subs, Improved Mechs, possibly Heavy Bombers
Japan = Long Range Aircraft
Italy = Improved Shipyards, War Bonds

Yeah, I don’t know about Global, but I love it in Pacific. It removes the extreme Japanese advantage from a J1 attack (although I havn’t actually tried that, but seems pretty obvious).

A J3 attack should go Japan’s way if you don’t make any errors and dice are even, but only just. This setup was way more enjoyable than any original setup game I have played.

NO’s aren’t collected before the game; otherwise, UK Europe would start with 34 ipcs, not 29.

UK is splt because is Empire was stretched around the globe. Money from Canada and UK and Africa more easily reach UK than India. On the other hand, the US in contingent and well connected by railways