Thoughts on BRITISH strategy:
Britain starts the game in an excellent position – you have a decent starting income, very few of your territories start out under any serious threat, and you have powerful naval groupings in most corners of the world that can be used or combined to help solidify your control over a region. Unlike Global 1940, the 1939 setup puts you in no immediate danger from a Sea Lion attack, because the German economy just isn’t strong enough yet to drop multiple transports into the Baltic (at most, they can manage two transports on G1). Britain’s weakness in the opening is that it has many small territories held together by many small industrial centers – if you don’t start producing in Capetown or Sydney or Calcutta a couple of turns before they come under seige, then you won’t be able to produce fast enough to save them from a serious attack, but you also can’t afford to produce infantry everywhere at once – you also need your cash to buy fighters for your carrier groups, to repair the starting damage on your colonial factories, and to replace early losses at sea.
What to do in Europe
What Britain wants to do in Europe depends a lot on what happened to France. If Germany invaded France successfully, then you need to look at the forces they left in Paris and see if Paris is vulnerable to a counter-attack. Even if you can’t hold Paris, it’s often worth sacrificing a transport or two to force Germany to divert troops and planes from Berlin to re-conquer Paris – with only 17 IPCs of income on G1, Germany is rarely in a position to both re-conquer France on G2 and press its attack in the east. You also get 6 IPCs for trading the territory, which helps defray your losses. You will likely have some bonus forces in the French colonies that defected to your side after the German invasion; depending on their location and on how many troops Germany brought to Africa, you can try funneling them toward Egypt or South Africa, or just use them as fodder to attack the remaining French colonies to maximize your income. Keep in mind that your Canadian infantry can reach French West Africa by transport if needed; that’s not a bad place to consolidate your Canadian and South Atlantic fleets if the Germans neglected to block your path. Follow up by building transports and ground troops in London, building at most one fighter to keep your Canadian carrier company – Germany is going to be weak on the ground in the opening if they have to keep trading France, and you want to capitalize on that by quickly sending more infantry into the western European region. That doesn’t necessarily mean you always unload transports in Paris – if the Germans took Norway, you might want to take it back, and once the Japanese start taking the money islands, you might be able to reinforce a suddenly friendly NW Europe.
If you can’t or don’t want to liberate an occupied France, then you will need to withdraw any ships still in the English Channel, because German planes can fly three spaces to the Channel and then land in occupied France. As long as you’re pulling boats away from mainland Europe, now might be a good time to try to clear out German subs in the Atlantic, and to re-position your navies to be able to deal serious damage to German boats on B2. You want to try to trap one of the three major German task forces (South Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean) so that anywhere the task force moves on G2 it will be subject to annihilation on B2, while being careful not to put your own fleets in the same position.
If Germany invaded France unsuccessfully, then it should be your top priority to reinforce France with all available troops and planes, even at the expense of losing the long-term battle for control of the Atlantic. A failed German attack on France is a huge blunder, and you need to capitalize on it effectively so you can turn it into a game-ending blunder. Plan to spend your cash on clearing out at least 10 pips of industrial damage out of France and then dropping something like 3 inf, 1 ftr right into Paris during your build phase on B1. Consider launching suicidal attacks from, e.g., Egypt to Libya, and ask the Russians to rush everything to Ukraine and Belorussia, just so that the Germans are short on reinforcements.
If Germany skipped attacking France altogether, then your options in Europe are more limited, because Germany probably has a lot more surviving troops milling around eastern Europe, and Germany is either blowing you up in the Suez or threatening to do so next turn. It often makes sense to counter-attack in Norway and/or Finland, depending on how those battles went for Germany on G1, and on where the German navy finished its turn. Otherwise, conserve your troops, consolidate your fleets, and get ready to make a landing (probably in NW Europe) on B2.
What to do in Africa
The glaring difference in Africa for 1939 vs. 1942 is that the Axis still have control of Italian East Africa, starting with 3 inf, 1 art, 1 ftr there. Because Italian East Africa (Ethiopia) is right in the middle of the southern British empire, it kind of limits your flexibility and your security; you wind up having to leave garrisons around to deter a surprise attack. There’s also that Axis sub off the coast of Ethiopia, which can be used to pick off undefended transports. It’s not necessarily a good idea to attack Ethiopia on B1 unless Ethiopia splits up its forces – even if you bring in the Trans-Jordan fighter, the Indian Ocean fighter, and a transport full of ground troops from India, you’re still only looking at ~80% odds, with an average profit of 10 IPCs – not great for such an all-out attack on a marginal territory. On the other hand, if Ethiopia does attack, e.g., Rhodesia, then you know at a minimum the Ethiopian fighter is going to be separated from the Ethiopian ground troops, and then it makes sense to attack one or both of the Ethiopian territories.
In north Africa, you may have a chance to take Libya if Germany either evacuated it or failed to reinforce it – you can’t hold both Libya and Egypt against a determined German assault on G2, but picking off 2 German infantry and denying German planes a safe place to land in north Africa can be a worthwhile use of the Trans-Jordan fighter (3 inf + 1 ftr vs. 2 inf is a good battle for the British).
If the Germans captured both Egypt and Trans-Jordan, you will have to figure out if if it even makes sense to fight for Africa – trying to supply both South Africa and India at the same time will give you a headache and drain your budget. You may be better off leaving South Africa alone and activating the Sydney factory to help protect India – you do lose the victory city in Capetown, but it’s not as if capturing a damaged factory in South Africa will be a huge strategic coup for the Germans. Africa is much harder for the Germans to blitz through in 1939 than in 1942.2, partly because of the French neutrals, and partly because the British start with more in the way of garrison troops there. Even if you never build or attack in Africa, it can still take 4+ turns and a heavy investment before the Germans control the entire continent, which means that Germany has a much harder time making an African campaign pay for itself before the game ends on turn 10. Meanwhile, the Russians should be in excellent shape with so much German material heading south – if you can scrape together a few bucks to drop a loaded British transport in, e.g., NW Europe or Norway every turn, then Germany may be in trouble despite its superior income. If you do abandon Africa, be on the lookout for opportunities to re-take Trans-Jordan from either India or Stalingrad, so that you can close the Suez canal and stop Japan from linking up its fleets with the Germans.
What to do in Asia
Britain’s biggest decision in Asia is whether or not to try to fight Japan for control of the Indian Ocean. If you want to contest the seas, you can immediately unite your Indian Ocean and Australian fleets in SZ 37, for a total of 1 CV, 1 CA, 1 DD, 1 SS, 1 ftr. If your fighter from trans-Jordan survived, that fighter can also reach SZ 37, making it 2 ftrs in the combined Pacific fleet. Make sure to take control of French Indo-China when uniting your fleet on B1 (using the transport from India plus your infantry in Burma and Singapore), or else Japan will be able to hit you with its entire starting air force and land in Vietnam.
Assuming you do take Indo-China, Japan can hit your fleet with 1 CV, 1 CA, 1 DD, and 4 fighters, which gives Japan very slight odds – something like 55%. Even if Japan does win, you’ve got about 70% odds of killing at least three Japanese fighters, which can seriously retard Japan’s economic growth. Because Japan starts with only 15 IPCs, they don’t necessarily want to make an even trade with their fleet and air force; it gets in the way of them trying to quickly conquer the money islands and southeast mainland Asia. Still, stacking the Pacific British Navy on B1 is a gambit – there’s a signficant chance Japan can just thump the fleet and live to laugh about it.
Another, more conservative option for contesting the Indian Ocean is to stack in SZ 46, off the coast of Western Australia, leaving a lone destroyer off the coast of Burma to stop Japan from attacking India on J1. Japan can’t hit that sea zone on J1 with anything more than 4 fighters, which you can easily handle. You can use the Australian transport to ferry the New Guinea infantry over to Western Australia on your way to SZ 46, leaving you with 3 inf, 1 art on a land territory next to two well-protected transports. On B2, those transports can strike at the Philippines, New Guinea, Borneo, East Indies, Singapore, and/or Burma – a very reasonable strike range for ANZAC forces. This setup works best if you build additional ships and planes at your India factory so that you can try to dead-zone SZ 36, or at least force Japan to invest in expensive new ships if they want to advance their navy.
You can, of course, choose to abandon the Indian Ocean entirely, retreating to the Persian Gulf with your Indian forces and sending the Australian navy to either the Philippines or Hawaii. It can still make sense to block SZ 36 with a destroyer to slow down the Japanese attack on India by a turn, but be careful of leaving an undefended carrier next to the Ethiopian submarine – if you lost Egypt or if the Germans sank your fleet in the eastern Med, then you might actually want to use the carrier as the blocking ship in Burma, and use your fighter and destroyer to hunt down the Ethiopian sub.
If you do abandon the Indian Ocean, it becomes less critical to take Vietnam, which gives you other options for your Asian infantry. One neat idea is to stack up 2 inf, 2 ftr in Yunnan, which, together with the 3 American inf + 1 American fighter you can move there, will make Yunnan a highly undesirable target on J1. Japan can take out 5 inf, 3 ftr using only three transports and its air force, but the cost in planes is high enough that the Allies should be happy to make the trade. Be sure to rotate the remaining American infantry clockwise (Szechuan -> Anhwei, Anhwei -> Kwangtung) so that you don’t leave Yunnan open to attack by the Manchurian tank.
