When did you attack the true neutrals?

As the axis, if I’ve reached relative economic parity,  I consider attacking them.

OR

As the Axis I consider attacking them, to get the Turkey Landbridge going RIGHT into the Middleast.

• as axis, especially when rushing to egy after moscow s fallen, can use turkey to strafe-teleport units, preferabbly huge stacks of infs, from balkans to middle east. relatively more powerful if allies have a foothold in normandy, ie giving iberia as foothold wont be a huge disadvantage, since they already got a foothold.

• as allies, can just declare war on neutrals (not necessarily attacking) to deny gertaly strafe-teleportation through turkey. keep in mind this is kinda last-resort-tactic, since allies will be saving only 1 round, but still can make a huge difference.

• as allies, if a foothold in europe s desperately needed but cant be achieved, can land to portugal n move+land spain next round, or can land to spain, depending on the axis defences. but must have a clear upperhand in middle east to make sure giving turkey wont mean losing the game on the long run.

If you plan it well as the allies,  the Americans can quickly add all of South America to thier income, as well as Spain/Portugal.  With the Axis only really getting about 16 infantry activated.

It’s good for games where you are downright winning in Europe, but losing ground in the Pac.

@Rhey:

I suppose if I ever had to attack the true neutrals, it would be either Spain or Turkey… I don’t really see the point in the others…

If Sweden is pro-allies you lose the Iron ore NO so if you attack Spain or Turkey you probably also want to take Sweden if you have Norway and Denmark.

With Spain you can make use of the Gibraltar naval base so you don’t need another one.  A good place for a new naval base would be Argentina if you look closely at its proximity to Gibraltar and Sydney.  You could even have UK put one in Gold Coast and shuck units to Africa from there from your new South America ICs.  Lots of possibilities but very expensive and slow to build all that infrastructure.

When I feel like I need to give the guy chance, otherwise never.

I joined in as Italy late in a game where Germany declared war on all neutrals turn 2-3. He attacked spain/turkey/sweden all in that same turn. Access to mideast oil made up the difference for south america. Italy had lost it’s fleet by then, so stacking spain denied the allies access to the med and gave Italy access to africa + it’s NOs via the middle east while germany slowly wore down russia.

I came in when it was very very tight . . . both italy and germany were making lots of $$$ thanks to all their NOs, but they were both spread out and the hold on spain was tenous. The only thing holding the allies back early was morocco stayed french and it didn’t occur to the allies that they could take rio de oro and put a naval base there. I prioritized defending the western coast and spain with italian blood so Germany could concentrate against russia, but even so the allies kept landing and threatening and germany had to spend $$ defending the coast as well. Eventually that front somewhat stabilized at the cost of southern africa as the SAF IC’s builds started to make some headway towards egypt. By then Russia was pretty much gone and they fell soon after to give the axis the win in europe. US and UK tried a last gasp at opening up denmark and trying to take germany itself. But 20 some units in denmark ended that last try.

@Cow:

When I feel like I need to give the guy chance, otherwise never.

This.

Attacking true neutrals gifts the other side a huge opportunity.  Whether or not the opponent seizes the opportunity depends on them.

A guy who playd vs me attacked spain with italy to have a place to land german fighters after killing UK/US/French fleet and 6 trannies (one with 2 french inf). It worked ok but Soviet got real bad after taking Turkey and India was saved by afganistan. Slowed US/UK alot though.

Well basicly never. However I can see 2 reasons to attack the neutrals.

#1 if you cant get a foothold in Europe, land an army in Gibralter - then when its big enough you move into spain.

#2 Turkey - as the axis or the allies its a more direct route from the middle east to Europe. And there are some cases where that might be a attractive option. For instance if you are done with the Italian fleet and have finished the Italian army in Afric off, Turkey is a quicker way to impact the game, and you might not have time to get to Moscow.

8 inf is nothing to shrug at on turkey. very situational I feel.

Alot of it depends on what you can do situationally.

If you have enough men, planes, and or transports out of position and unable to do anything that turn, but in good position to do a neutral strike, you might aswell.

If you hammer turkey and sweden hard, sometimes you can take those territories with only the loss of 2 or 3 infantry each.  (as the axis anyways)

As the allies, the game is much different.  South America is ALWAYS a gift to the US,  but not at the expense of giving the axis 8 inf in turkey, and 6 in sweden, not mentioning +5 or middle east access.  But if the game is say… going your way VERY well in Europe,  but dangerously close to failure in the Pacific, and again, you’ve got a contingent of troops in the atlantic that can do something,  go for it.

In our games, the Allies have never attacked the strict neutrals. I guess we get in the mindset “Hey, we’re the Allies, the good guys and we aren’t going to invade anyone’s neutrality”.

We did have two games where the Axis (mainly Germany) tried the “round 3 neutral crush” hitting Sweeden, Spain and Turkey all at the same time. In one game, the Axis won and the other they lost. I don’t remember there being a lot of difference between those two games except for dice rolls and minor planning differences.

In the Axis won game, the Italian and Allied fleets wiped each other out in the Med and the Italian army was killed off in Africa. Every time Italy put transports in the water, UK fighters flew out from Malta and sank them. So, once Turkey was taken, Italy simply built tanks and mechs then went rolling into the Middle East and got Egypt anyway. Not only that, but they threatened Calcutta, which allowed Japan to more easily take India. Sweeden pretty much locked in the German NO for Sweedish Iron Ore. Spain ended up being a back and forth battle between US and German forces, which kept the US from helping either Britain or Russia and gave Japan a little more breathing space in the Pacific. Also, the US invested too much in grabbing up the South American countries all at once and didn’t send enough transports down to bring all those new men back to the front.

In the Allied won game, the US still got the South American countries, but more leisurely. They landed in Brazil and activated those units. Then the Brazilians activated Venezuela and Argentina. Then Argentina activated Chile. Then all units moved back to Brazil and US sent a few transports. It took a few rounds, but suddenly USA had several more transports filled with men to land in Europe. The Turkey battle went badly for Germany and Italy ended up taking Turkey instead, which was then taken, and kept, by Russia. So instead of the Axis having a gateway to the Middle East, now Russia had an extra avenue into Southern Europe. The US held onto Spain and was then able to liberate London after Germany took it. The troops used in Sweeden left Finland weak so Russia was able to bully them out of the way and took Norway, which cancelled the German Sweedish Iron Ore NO after all.

So, in one game, it seemed like a brilliant strategy that worked very well. In the other, it cost too many Axis resources and preperation that wasn’t being used on their true enemies, who took full advantage of that.

Simple answer: Never
Complicated answer: Never