How do you punish Germany for not threatening the United Kingdom?


  • So I’ve been playing G40 with my friend who moved out of town, and I have gotten into a bit of a rut, Germany builds 6 artillery and 2 inf on turn 1 planing on invading russia starting on their third turn with the italians coming in to help on their second turn building mech infantry to aid the germans.  Japan attacks on turn 1 rushing to get their national objective for the dutch east indies then takes calcutta or Sydney in short order, mostly ignoring china except for the border. I got on this forum to try to find if there was a good counter to fighting this. I looked at replays of league matches to see if other players had replicated similar conditions (turn 1 mono land unit germany+Japanese turn 1 attack of pacific allies) and have yet to find a good gameplan to replicate as the allies for my next games. The basic weakness appears to be the lack of pressure on the UK so the ideas that follow try to

    I see 2 reasonable options

    1. Place a minor complex in persia and use that+minor IC in south africa as UK.europe to help Calcutta fight japan. Since Uk pacific IPC’s are worth significantly more than UK europe IPC’s using UK europe to attack sumatra  would allow for better defense of india.
    Buy’s Turn 1 3 submarines(south africa)+3 infantry (london) turn 2 Minor complex (persia) 3 submarines (south africa)+2 infantry (london) from there put submarines in south africa and persia, with a small contingent of persian land units, and Stop japan from securing their national objective of having the dutch east indies, giving the UK in india some IPC’s to have them build land units.
    2. Build a bunch of land units in the triangle of egypt/south africa/persia and send these troops into the soviet union, defending the valuable south russian territory. (importantly stalingrad and the Caucasus.) with UK mechanized infantry. Notably the UK is building mech infantry because those can actually enter russia in time to not lose the soviet union.
    Turn 1: minor factory (egypt) 5 infantry (4 london+1 south africa) Turn 2 Minor factory (Persia) 3 mech infantry(egypt) Transport+artillery (south africa) Turn 3+ 3 mech infantry(egypt) 3 mech infantry (egypt) artillery/infantry (south africa) moving south african inf to tanganyika so that a transport can move from Sea Zone 80 to 72 in 1 turn without needing to waste time going all the way back to south africa.
    Is there a better way to punish the germans for not threatening london? I notice most games of league gave the allies somewhere between 22-35 IPC’s of extra units. The majority of these IPC’s were put into an Armour+an artillery in africa to kill ethopia  and a sub in Sea Zone 98 which makes the 3 fighter scramble from southern italy not profitable. I don’t see how this prevents italy from taking cyprus which has been the main reason why I could not secure the UK’s National objective. They then place (typically) 2 artillery in china and some number of inf/artillery in The soviet union. I’m very uneasy about this strategy relative to just pumping the soviet union full of dudes.

    My perferred bid would look like

    Sub Sea zone 98

    Infantry in

    Baltic states

    Eastern Poland

    Berberessia
    Novgorod

    Belarus

    Western ukraine

    Ukraine

    upgrading inf to artillery depending on the actual bid size.

    I’d love to test anything on Triple A if I could learn how to use the play by forum feature sucessfully. Thanks for reading this long post.


  • I’d say if Italy is not building a navy and neither is Germany then the best bet is to factory Egypt and just push Italy out of the region so they can’t get the med NO.


  • hi! If there is no sealion, UK should always try to build a mIC on Egyp, iraq and iran, and fill all of them with 3 landunits each round. usually someting lke 3 mech, 4 inf and 2 art.

    If Germany buys all land on G1, you still need to buy inf for London. So you could buy the mIC in Egypt and all inf for UK on UK1, while you buy mIC in iran, 3 mech in egypt and whatever you can afford in SA.  ON uk3 you can buy mIC in iraq and really start to produce landunits. Remember, the winner of the war is the side with the most landunits in asia. If you buy 9-12 landunis with UK in africa and middle east every turn, you might actually be strong enough to really help USSR and block germany from getting caucasus.

  • '17

    I don’t think a G1 purchase of 6 artillery and 2 infantry means sea lion is off the table at all. I’ve done a few SLs when that purchase resulted in a false sense of security for the UK. Lots of ground units are needed for Russia; especially if a Sea Lion occurs.


  • Correct. The two possible Sea Lion hint are either an all naval build on turn 1 or large amount of infantry.


  • @Ichabod:

    I don’t think a G1 purchase of 6 artillery and 2 infantry means sea lion is off the table at all. I’ve done a few SLs when that purchase resulted in a false sense of security for the UK. Lots of ground units are needed for Russia; especially if a Sea Lion occurs.

    So  if they G1 6 artillery 2 infantry I don’t want to throw away the entire turn with 6 infantry+fighter as my opening. the United states of america can rescue britian after it falls, and the soviet union can put quite a bit of pressure on germany if the germans spend 70 IPC’s on transports. Sealion is much worse in general than Barbarossa so committing resources that make their second best option better for the cost of making their best option worse seems like a solid plan to me. Especially if a J1 also happens which makes sealion even less attractive.

    @Kreuzfeld:

    hi! If there is no sealion, UK should always try to build a mIC on Egyp, iraq and iran, and fill all of them with 3 landunits each round. usually someting lke 3 mech, 4 inf and 2 art.

    If Germany buys all land on G1, you still need to buy inf for London. So you could buy the mIC in Egypt and all inf for UK on UK1, while you buy mIC in iran, 3 mech in egypt and whatever you can afford in SA.� ON uk3 you can buy mIC in iraq and really start to produce landunits. Remember, the winner of the war is the side with the most landunits in asia. If you buy 9-12 landunis with UK in africa and middle east every turn, you might actually be strong enough to really help USSR and block germany from getting caucasus.

    My concern with this is that you are spending 36 IPC’s building minor factory’s AND you are denying the russians 5 IPC’s a turn from their NO+getting Iraq, I would consider trying to build units out of my union of south africa factory instead. Russian IPC’s are worth more than UK IPC’s (though a minor factory in iraq cancels most of that out). Since russian units can get on the front line the turn they enter play. while UK mech infantry cost 25% more than a russian infantry. Fighting for the caucusus with the UK army seems like a solid plan though  I will definitely try some variant of Egypt+persia+south africa pressure on southern russia (all the 2 IPC territory seems like a great boon to defend).

    Something like building mech infantry out of persia and egypt and building  inf+arts out of south africa (using the transports from india and egypt to move the dudes) and perhaps a fighter from the union of south africa factory on occasion (due to the fact that we only have 2 transports)


  • @ussgordoncaptain:

    @Kreuzfeld:

    hi! If there is no sealion, UK should always try to build a mIC on Egyp, iraq and iran, and fill all of them with 3 landunits each round. usually someting lke 3 mech, 4 inf and 2 art.

    If Germany buys all land on G1, you still need to buy inf for London. So you could buy the mIC in Egypt and all inf for UK on UK1, while you buy mIC in iran, 3 mech in egypt and whatever you can afford in SA.� ON uk3 you can buy mIC in iraq and really start to produce landunits. Remember, the winner of the war is the side with the most landunits in asia. If you buy 9-12 landunis with UK in africa and middle east every turn, you might actually be strong enough to really help USSR and block germany from getting caucasus.

    My concern with this is that you are spending 36 IPC’s building minor factory’s AND you are denying the russians 5 IPC’s a turn from their NO+getting Iraq, I would consider trying to build units out of my union of south africa factory instead. Russian IPC’s are worth more than UK IPC’s (though a minor factory in iraq cancels most of that out). Since russian units can get on the front line the turn they enter play. while UK mech infantry cost 25% more than a russian infantry. Fighting for the caucusus with the UK army seems like a solid plan though  I will definitely try some variant of Egypt+persia+south africa pressure on southern russia (all the 2 IPC territory seems like a great boon to defend).

    Something like building mech infantry out of persia and egypt and building  inf+arts out of south africa (using the transports from india and egypt to move the dudes) and perhaps a fighter from the union of south africa factory on occasion (due to the fact that we only have 2 transports)

    Looked over it. Even if germany builds 6 inf + 2 art, You still need to get either 6 inf + ftr  or 9 inf for uk on UK1.
    If you get iraq with UK, you can get it on UK2, and start building on UK3. The earliest time russia can get it is on RU3, and then they have to send enough troops there to get it. They will probably lose 2 mechs when taking it, and those troops will not make it back to the action before RU5. If moscow falls on G8, you will have collected on RU 3-6, which will give Russia 20 IPC, and cost them 2 mech (8 IPC), while germany will collect the last 5 when russia falls. which means that you have 7 IPC profit, while you sent away at least 2 mech and 2 tanks to do the job.  If UK takes it, they will collect on UK 2-10 (at least), which will give you 18 IPC, you will lose 2 inf (6ipc) taking it and get a factory there.

    The problem with only doing SA/Egypt/Iran is that you don’t get enough boots on the ground, they are too far away from the main action, and you have to use at least 21 IPC just to get the TTs needed for the job. Iraq and Iran is close enough to cauc, so that you can build inf and art there. The key to winning is to have the biggest army. If I where to recomend factories for the UK, I would say, the most important is iran, the second most important is iraq, and the third most important is egypt.
    IMO a good uk build would be (without a sealion)
    UK1: 6 inf + 1 FTR on London Collect 35
    UK2: mIC Iran, mIC Egypt, TT + Art SA, Collect 33ish (no NO, but have iraq, iran and ethiopia)
    UK3: mIC Iraq, 3 inf iran, 3 inf Egypt, 1 inf SA. Collect 33
    UK4: 6 inf 3 art in the factories, 1 inf in SA Collect 38 (get the NO)
    UK5: Start building mechs in Egypt, start kicking Italy out for north africa, and continue building iraq+iran.

    The builds in Egypt is dependent on the situation in the med. If italy focus on the med, it might build more subs and maybe a AC.  You might also build a AB there.

    So, at the end of UK5, I should have at least 30 UK units capable of fighting for caucasus, I should have all of the uk planes ready to go to moscow, and I should be well on my way to knock out italy.


  • with the india transport and the sea zone 98 transport you have 2 transports which can move things to either A: SA to Persia and delay for a turn (building a fighter in the 1 turn lull period) or B South africa to transjordan and back again.Assuming you do option 1, and transport stuff from south africa to persia over and over. You also may have the canadian transport and the sea zone 109 transport survive, if both survive it may be worthwhile to have those invade norway and transport UK proper forces from scotland into norway/finland, you can also try to put troops from brazil.  You start with 2 transports already, so building union of south africa forces really entails no additional effort expended on the part of the UK player.

    Something like number in {} = IPC at end of turn
    UK1 Factory egypt+5 infantry London (move union of south africa infantry to Rhodesia) {37}
    UK2 2x infantry+artillery union of south africa 3x mech infantry Egypt+Minor industrial complex Persia (move transports to Sea zones 71 and 72)  {34}
    Uk3 Transport Troops to persia walk infantry to rhodesia  Build 3x mech infantry egypt 2x artillery  1x infantry Persia 2x mech infantry  1x infantry South africa {31}
    UK4 Transports move to sea  zone 72, walk union of south african forces to Tanzika (except for the inf that goes to rhodesia) Build 3x mech infantry egypt 3x Mech infantry Persia 1x infantry south africa 1x artillery south africa {31}
    UK5 Uk transports move to sea zone 80 dropping off troops from tanzika and walk the south african forces to Rhodesia Build 3x artillery (persia) 2x mech infantry 1x armour(egypt) 1x mech infantry (south africa) {32}

    On UK5  we have the following forces able to defend the caucuses
    6 Mech infantry from egypt factory
    3 infantry from south africa+1 artillery
    3 infantry that started in persia
    2 artillery from persia
    1 infantry from persia factory
    3 mech infantry from persia factory
    for a total of 18 troops in caucusus UK5

    You get the point. You’re basically using the 2 transports you start the game with as an additional minor industrial complex that is as far away as egypt from russia.

    ok so my math indicates that with a pure land unit purchase on G1, Germany can in the worst case scenario have 72IPC to build transports, and in the best case scenario 68 IPC’s  (in best case scenario they do not invade Normandy and in worst case scenario they do and build 7 artillery and 0 infantry rather than 2 inf 6 artillery)

    From here there are 2 scenarios to consider

    The best case scenario is that you have the canadian transport
    the worst case scenario is that you don’t (germany put 2 submarines in the seazone to prevent you from defending it.)

    For now we’ll assume the worst case scenario for both occurs, because that is the most probable result.

    For germany to counter your threat of 3 fighters  a bomber and a destroyer destroying their transport fleet, they will need a single aircraft carrier in sea zone 112 stopping this because if they go to sea zone 113, you can block them with a single destroyer blocker. They also will need to hold back with some air due to the possibility of a 3 fighter scramble messing up the invasion.

    Thus the G3 sealion vs turn 1

    This means that their transport fleet is going to be 56/7 or 8 transports,  giving them 8 infantry and 8 armor along with 2 bombers 3 fighters and 4 tactical bombers, 2 of their fighters is held up defending against a possible 3 fighter scramble as mentioned earlier.

    London’s defense is

    22 infantry (5 initial+2 from scotland+5 from UK1+10 from UK2)
    4 Fighters
    1 bomber
    5 AA guns

    Vs
    8 infantry
    8 armour
    4 Tactical bombers
    3 Fighters
    2 Bombers
    1 cruiser

    Which according to my simulation the UK wins 93% of the time

    While UK will fall to a G4 sealion that starts in scotland and then walks an army from scotland to the UK, at that point we have the united states of america to back us up with fighters flying in from iceland. The UK is much less likely to fall in that scenario with reasonable usa assistance.

    (wow it’s so frustrating to go through global games trying to actually do the math properly by actually playing the dang game)

    Would you like to play a game of global to challenge my idea?


  • You take the Med., then take Rome.

    alternatively…

    You take Norway

  • '16 '15 '10

    If there’s no Sea Lion threat, UK’s first priority should be neutralizing and convoying Italy.  Once that is done, then the most effective place to concentrate is in the North Atlantic (where you have your major factory).

    Your goal is to build a fleet (predominately acs and figs) around United Kingdom and threaten Western Europe (note you can build naval units at South Africa and Canada if you need).  Building a fleet to dominate the North Atlantic is, imho, more effective than building factories in the Middle East, because it threatens Germany where they live, and forces Axis to expend resources defending a wide range of targets.

    A fleet in 109 or 110 threatens Norway, West Germany, and Normandy, and Africa.  If you have an American fleet to take Denmark, you threaten Germany and Poland too.  The more transports and aircraft the UK has, the more troops Germany needs to defend whatever territories they are trying to hold.

    USA/UK4 is usually a good time to try to mass a USA/UK fleet in sz 91.  Note that all UK fleet units on the board can reach sz 91 by UK4.  If Germany fails to block you, it might be possible for USA to take Norway on USA5.

    If it’s possible to land in Norway and build American factories there, do it as soon as you can.  If it’s feasible to land in Normandy, consider that too.  Inexperienced players sometimes leave Germany undefended because they fail to anticipate America taking Denmark as a “can opener”.

    Not to say Axis can’t beat this.  A pro Germany can counter an Atlantic fleet build by building up the Luftwaffe (“Dark Skies”).  This forces Allies to dump cash on one-dimensional aircraft carriers to keep the front alive.   But note that if USA chips in, Allies can potentially outspend Germany.  And though acs are a money sink, the fighters you put on aircraft carriers are quite versatile.

    The ultimate goal for Allies should be a combined USA/UK landing in Normandy, heavily supported by Allied fighters.

  • '17 '16 '15

    shrink their borders and partition it

    oops ! misread the subject title. Go with Zhukov44’s suggestions

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16 '15

    For the 6 art 2 inf, UK buys 2 fighters and sub for London, alternative is sub, fighter and bomber.  All useful units that will not just sit in London. 2 fighters, inf and art are also good, especially if you ferry two units from London to Gibraltar.  The fighters will make it in time for Moscow if airfield is bought for Gibraltar uk2

  • '17 '16 '13 '12

    Consider scrambling in 110 to kill two German planes (if the Bismarck is on 111). Killing German planes is huge because it reduces the multi-pronged threat that the Luftwaffe becomes.

  • '17 '16 '13 '12

    @ShadowHAwk:

    @Omega1759:

    Consider scrambling in 110 to kill two German planes (if the Bismarck is on 111). Killing German planes is huge because it reduces the multi-pronged threat that the Luftwaffe becomes.

    Then again losing 3 fighters vs 2 of germany does not help the allies out that much. Also i would do this combat first as germany and if i got your whole airforce and if i whiped it all out i might actualy not strafe the 111 combat and take out all the UK air round 1.

    since i normaly send 2 subs vs the cruiser off gibraltar italy is in a good spot.

    Now taranto will be interesting with 1 dest-1cruiser-1AC 1 fighter 1 tactical 1 bomber vs my cruiser-battleship-3fighters, and the malta battle will be figher vs destroyer also not great odds.
    And italy having 2-3 transports round 1 is a lot more painfull then germany having 2 fighters extra.

    It’s a gamble for sure, All depends on the bid in the med. If Taranto works then Germany could be down another plane.

    And if you send 2 subs against the cruiser then 110 could turn to be disastrous for the Axis.

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