Economy before victory?

for which side?

Which small bits?  :-)

I think everyone (well GER, Japan and Rus) should want the CAU at only 4 it is a small bit but…

WRU is 1 of two territories touching 6 others. At only 2 a pretty small bit but…

You actually have to work on BOTH as the Axis.

You need income to support your armies, prevent the Allies from outbuilding you by a massive scale, and to spread out the Allied attack.  But you need to be driving on the VC’s while you are doing it.

Fortunately, they two go hand in hand for the Axis…
India is a VC and a nice income shift (-3 UK, +3 Japan).
Karelia is a VC and reverses the income loss from Russia taking West Russia.

For the Axis, I guess the only question is Africa in the above context.  And my response there is you do an INITIAL push in Africa for a few extra IPC’s and to force the Allies to divert forces there, then you can largely ignore it for a while unitl Japan moves in.

As the Allies…
They have to preserve UK’s income to be effective, which means they have to go into Africa if Germany pushes hard there.
Russia has to trade in central Europe in order to maintain income, but the VC of Karelia is pretty much a loss for them.
India is nice to hold for a while, but ultimately too expensive to try to defend, especially in a KGF.
And in the Pacific…  Grab what you can get and not not burned on the counter!

@johnny:

Is it a good strategy to try and get small pieces to build up an economy or to try and take out victory cities first?

Depends on the number of victory cities.  If it’s 8, fighting for victory cities is a priority, because Germany can grab Karelia and assist Japan with India, and it’s game over.

If it’s anything else, generally better to FIRST concentrate on the position of units on the board, and SECOND to build up your economy.

Economy is very important.  But if you manage to kill 20 infantry while losing 10, it will probably not matter if you lost 4 IPC worth of territories over 3 turns, because although your opponent gained 12 IPC and you lost 12 IPC, you gained 30 IPC of mobilized unit advantage.  That is to say, it’s the bottom line of the economy (total IPC value of units) that’s more important than the income of the economy (IPCs per turn), although of course the former relies in great degree upon the latter.

I have to agree with newpaintbrush, units are the whole game. I have friends that claw and take massive losses to get three point territories that they lose the next turn. You can’t trade off twenty IPC of units for a territory without strategic value. However, if you concentrate on the units you will build an economy and take victory cities, so it has to be Units then economy then victory cities.

I tend to view position over economy so if I have to I may sacrifice IPCs in order to gain what I consider superior position.

By sacrifice, I mean I will forgo Ind (as Japan) in order to claim Sin, likewise with Germany I will empty WE if it means I’ll gain Cauc.
Same thing when I choose to go after Aus, NZ, HI.  I like to set up Asia first then pick up the loose ends on outer edges.

That’s not to say I’ll be careless in claiming territiories but I also won’t blindly trade just to gain 2 IPC.

An example of this would be, as Geramny I generally won’t trade Kar with the Allies after about rd 3 (unless I’m doing exceptionally well), b/c you end up trading German inf for British/US inf and Rus gets its 2 IPC anyway.  I’d rather shift an exta couple of inf from EE to Ukr.
I can see this same thing coming up will Belo.
I’d rather they be held by Russia then UK anyway, especially when I hit mid game and Japan is rolling.  It is a lot easier to counteract that and take away Russian territory then it is British.  Assuming the Allies landed in Afr at some point in rds 1-3.

@johnny:

Is it a good strategy to try and get small pieces to build up an economy or to try and take out victory cities first?

Is it a turn limit game and/or short time limit game?
If so, economy is not as significant, especially as the game gets toward the end.
In a time limit game, economy is focused entirely on “do I have enough IPC to build what I need to take the VCs?”

If it is a death match with all the time in the world, the economy becomes more important.
In the death match, if I can stalemate the VC situation while getting a leg up on the economy, I will win.  In this kind of game the 19 IPC that UK has scattered through Africa, Asia and the Pacific gets valuable.  The Allies are not well positioned to get units into these areas and even if they try to build a factory in the southern hemisphere it is either on the front lines or severely limited by unit count.  India and Sinkiang are classic gambits.  Australia, Union of South Africa or Brazil are less obvious choices with pros and cons…