Who Should Take the Northern Italy IC?

[Suppressmeajumma]

Hi,
I know this forum is for the most part inactive but wanted to hear anyone’s thoughts on who should take Italy if it becomes possible to take it. For purposes of simplification I want to leave out the Soviet Union as an answer since the game is probably already over if they are in a position to take the Italian territories and hold them until their next turn. Here were my thoughts. This is not a thread as to IF the Allies should try to take Northern Italy but WHO should take it if it becomes possible.

UK:
Pros:
Gives UK more money to work with (also consider Southern Italy is most likely guaranteed to be in Allied control if Northern Italy is taken)
UK can now have more land units on the continent without buying more transports to compensate.

Cons:
UK might not have the money to sustain both the London IC and N. Italy IC (Being capped at 4 units is not that small of a number for the Italian IC imo)

US:
Pros:
A complex in Europe puts US that much closer to the action
It has the money to sustain both the East Coast IC and N. Italy IC

Cons:
The US does not need the money as much as the UK
It takes longer for the US to reach N. Italy than it would for the UK (1 extra turn)
The circumstances of the game might make it so that it is difficult for US planes to reach the battle unless Vichy France, Corsica, or Sardinia, were legal landing spots because of what happened in earlier rounds.

I think it comes down to if I want the UK to have the income from the territory, or do I want the US to have it because they can use the factory more effectively.

[DoManMacgee]

I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing here (if you’ve gotten far enough along to be in Northern Italy and USSR hasn’t died yet, you’re probably going to win no matter what you do), but for the sake of argument, I’d vote for US to take the factory. US has 40+ income for the entire game, so being able to build 4 FTRs immediately on the front lines every single turn is way better than anything the UK can manage. The US also has the much longer supply line to reach the front lines, so it’s more beneficial for them to be allowed to seize a factory that’s closer to the action than it would be for the British.

[Suppressmeajumma]

I agree with your first sentence. Is it because you think it’s better if the US and UK are both focusing on landing troops in France? In some games I’ve played, I found it’s better if the Western Allies are concentrating their landings in the same spot.

[DoManMacgee]

@Suppressmeajumma The Western Allies should certainly be landing in the same spot, and Northern Italy, since it has a factory, is certainly a good place to land (France is also good, since it’s two spaces away from any German Factories, so harder to reinforce). My point was more that defending the USSR should be the main objective of the US/UK, not making some kind of grand D-Day Style Landing. You might want to prioritize landing troops in Leningrad before making any landings in France/Italy, so that they can liberate the factory there for the USSR and defend Moscow from the German onslaught.