@Bean:
Another small strategical question. Please explain your answer for a better discussion :mrgreen:
It’s a bad question. You should build according to board position, so in some situations no transports are OK, in some situations you want seven or eight.
As for the basics, the reasoning is as follows:
1. No extra tranports (total of 4 transports) –> with 4 transports, you are already transporting the maximum number of units off the UK every turn. Save the extra IPCs for a rainy day in Africa, for extra planes, or for the day when you finally capture S. Europe and now can churn out 14 units!
Depends on the stage of the game. If it’s early, and Western Europe can’t be seriously threatened, four transports is fine.
2. One or more extra transports (5+ transports total) –> with more than 5 transports, you have some interesting effects. Although you won’t be making use of them most of the time, it’s the ghost of the threat that counts. First obviously is that you have a better naval defense. Second is that you can lose a tp or 2 and your shuck still continues at maximum strength. The third and scariest is force multiplication; now you can land 10-12 units in W. Europe or the capital, which means Germany has to commit some extra defenses in both territories, which means they may have to step back from their Eastern front on that turn.
Again, depends on the stage of the game. You’ll hit 5 transports about midgame anyways without even buying one, as the UK transport off Australia reaches Africa - if it survived, of course, see what I mean about board position? And you can’t threaten “force multiplication” if you don’t have the units, though, obviously. So again you can see what I mean; you will certainly not want 5 transports on UK2, for example.
If you think building extra transports is the best case, please detail how many extra you think is reasonable.
Depends on the stage of the game, and how Germany has responded to Allied moves, and the Japanese position - among other factors. If Moscow is secure and Germany is turtling with infantry, UK should hit 7-8 transports. Otherwise, UK will have less.
This of course assumes a KGF; KJF is entirely different.