First, you posted this in the wrong board. This is the AAZ forum. 42SE (the game Online is based on) has it’s own board (https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/category/47/axis-allies-1942-2nd-edition). I imagine a mod will move this thread at some point.
I would not recommend dropping money on an IC as UK, actually. You need every penny you can scrape together for the combination of:
- Defending/reinforcing the UK Navy off of Europe.
- Defending India against Japan.
I cannot stress how important these two points are. Not putting appropriate pressure on Germany via the fleet will result in Moscow falling, while failing to defend India will result in Japan’s economy spiraling out of control (without needing to match UK’s India stack they can take China/eastern Russia/the Pacific Islands with minimal consequences), surpassing even the USA’s. This will result in an Allied loss in the long-term.
To dispute your potential targets:
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Egypt is no-good for the reason you’ve already discovered. If Germany wants to take Egypt, they’ll take Egypt regardless of how many units you build there. 2 units/turn is not sufficient to survive against Germany’s starting assets.
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South Africa is better than Egypt, but is too far-removed from the front to do anything, really. You can take the time to build up a small navy off of South Africa to move out, but with only 2 ships/turn, Japan can easily seek out and destroy your navy with theirs if they so desire. Additionally, Germany can ferry units into Africa and put pressure on the South Africa Factory, forcing you to build Land Units there instead of the Navy you’re trying for.
USA should be the one challenging Japan’s navy in the Pacific, not UK. UK has it’s resources spread too thin to begin with. It can’t afford building 2 navies (one for Europe, one for the Pacific).