Overbuilding Transports with UK

@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.

I think building 1 extra is enough, but not in the UK1, but after that.

As said before you should focus on the RAF, Royal Navy and of course the infantry.
You do not gain respect with transports, respect can be a good key to victory, having your enemy fear you, it’s all psychological, they fear you, they retreat quicker, and do not attack you that hard. ;)

So those 5 transports will do just fine, and letting you lose one if needed (while you never want to lose any)

@Cmdr:

And two years is a LONG time.

In a way it is…

In just under 2 years I have played 59 games (excluding four 2-on-2 matches and several Classic matches).  Considering it is only in the past month that I have downloaded TripleA and have been limited to 1 game at a time for almost that entire 2 years, one game every 12 days is not exactly being “sluggish” in my gaming.  :roll:

As for only playing you 3 times…I think 4 games is the most I have played against any single opponent.  There are more than 4,000 members of this site, and we have about 30-40 active gamers.  If I were being fair to everyone, at this point I would have played you 1 1/2 times.  :-P

If I may say my opinion: IMHO Switch competence emerges from his posts, not from the number of games played.

In my country we say: “There is not need of having been an horse for being a good horse rider.”

I would mean that for sure the number of game played is a measure of the experience of a player and experience is a fundamental gaming abilities.
However for discussing strategies it is needed an open mind, abstraction skills and also the ability to go over the personal episodes in the games. Other than the player abilities.
Thanks to the discussion on this forum my gaming skill is improving. There are a lots of interesting posts and opinion form many people. Comparison of different approaches to the strategic problems.

I have personally tested several idea from Switch posts and the outcome is positive!

Karma +1 for Switch!

Thank you.  I am glad that you find my posts worthwhile :-)

Switch you should add in your signature:

“An A&A nation, to be successful, should read Switch’s posts” [Romulus]

Naturally, you have to check the grammar of the sentence before… Romulus is almost famous for making grammar errors!

Obvioulsy it is a joke. Switch do not need advertisement from me! :D

@Romulus:

If I may say my opinion: IMHO Switch competence emerges from his posts, not from the number of games played.

Well, if you want to go by that basis, I’d nominate DarthMaximus.  He doesn’t post much, but I usually see some solid thoughts in his posts.

I agree.
I nominated openly only Switch in this case.
Effectively I have also read many interesting things also in Darth Maximus posts.

Darth has taught me a lot.

He is a FAR superior gamer to me in Classic.

And he is likely to win 2 out of 3 on average (perhaps 3 of 4…) in Revised.

@Romulus:

I agree.
I nominated openly only Switch in this case.
Effectively I have also read many interesting things also in Darth Maximus posts.

I forgot to mention also the strategy article written by Darth Maximus that are very useful sor looking at A&A with the correct point of view!

(That I also tralsated in Italian for the Italian website. I have still a lot of strategy article from DM to translate!)

Buth it is normal with such a powerful name!
The power of the Sith: Darth
The power of the Roman general that caused Hannibal defeat: Quintus Fabius Maximus “Cuntactor”.

From some things that DM said I thing that “Cuntactor”, in the militar view of the ability, could fit to him!

@Romulus:

Cuntactor

Orly?   :-D

Another thread where Jennifer fails to “get it” - sigh.

Yes, UK can only build 8 units, but it usually has units sitting in Norway / Karelia as well, so it can easily fill 6+ transports. This creates a BIGGER threat to WEU/GER than with 4 TRNs alone, requiring a bigger defence, meaning less pressure on Russia. Simple.

@newpaintbrush:

@Romulus:

Cuntactor

Orly?   :-D

Newpaintbrush, pardon me but I do not know what “Orly” means!
:(

@Romulus:

@newpaintbrush:

@Romulus:

Cuntactor

Orly?   :-D

Newpaintbrush, pardon me but I do not know what “Orly” means!
:(

orly = “Oh Really?”

@Ender:

Another thread where Jennifer fails to “get it” - sigh.

Yes, UK can only build 8 units, but it usually has units sitting in Norway / Karelia as well, so it can easily fill 6+ transports. This creates a BIGGER threat to WEU/GER than with 4 TRNs alone, requiring a bigger defence, meaning less pressure on Russia. Simple.

Oh, I get it.  You want to waste British resources to create an implied threat that you have no intention of using because if used it would drain your resources already transported to Europe.

I’m just saying it’s a stupid idea.  I get the idea.  And, in the very end of the game, when Germany is down to Berlin, France and Italy, then it might be okay to do it.  But by then, anything England does is okay to do because it’s already game over, Germany just doesn’t know it yet.

The difference is Germany having to hold back forces for Western, Eastern, and Berlin sufficient to defend both from a 12 division (plus air and BB) attack instead of only an 8 division attack.

And it is not an implied threat… leave one of those territories under-defended, and I’ll pull the trigger on it and take it… with a USA follow up :-D

Defend against it, and UK just keeps shuttling via Norway to Karelia and points beyond… the threat to Western, Berlin, and Eastern never diminishing.

I’ll remember that.  :P  I’ll gladly give you W. Europe to pull your forces away so I can invade Moscow without worrying about some pesky Brits retaking it!

And if you don’t take it, then it is an implied threat.  I CAN hit you with 12 ground units + navy/air, but I only MAKE 8 and that means half of last round’s deployment is being undeployed AND that means that I am weaker on your other fronts AND since Germany’s already defending against 16 units (8 US 8 UK) odds are you are getting destroyed and making life a LITTLE easier for America, the nation that doesn’t NEED the income, generally speaking.

As I said.  It’s nice if you have the extras. (Like if you reduce Japan to an island) or if you are massive in Europe and build an IC in Canada and need more to transport from there.  But to just go off building transports like the TripleA Artificial Intelligence is silly and wasteful.

@Cmdr:

Oh, I get it.  You want to waste British resources to create an implied threat that you have no intention of using because if used it would drain your resources already transported to Europe.

That line shows that you don’t get it. No one except you said this is a waste of resources. The threat is real, or alternately, all threats are “implied” until they are carried out.

And as Switch said, if Germany under-defends WEU, the Allies WILL take it, wipe out the German defenders, and force other German units back away from Russia to re-take WEU, unless Germany wants to let the allies reinforce WEU and build an IC there…

It is by no means an empty threat.

The transports create what we call “force multiplication” or “force projection” - while they are not offensive units themselves, they do wonders for your land units. Think of them as adding wings to your ground units. What would you pay for Inf + Armor that were capable of striking across the ocean?

Jennifer, if the Allies are sitting pretty in W. Europe, you now have other priorities besides taking Russia…

Nothing is being “undeployed” it is being moved from a backwater like Norway to an active battle in WEU.

Regardless of who gets the income, the fact is that Germany has lost it and needs to get it back. And the US CAN make use of an extra 6 IPCs, esp. once they have an IC in WEU.

Germany loses W. Europe leaving America with a smattering of units left.

Major forces from Germany and S. Europe retake W. Europe ending all threat of British retake now that they’ve depleted their resources on the mainland and America most of their advance forces too. (Since the threat is really 16 units from America + 8 from England for 24 units in a normal game, +4 if you waste the resources for 2 more transports)

Germany then also is free to obliterate what’s left of the allies in E. Europe (Karelia, Norway, Archangelsk, W. Russia, Belorussia, etc, not E. Europe the territory, the geographic region.) And now Russia’s all alone.

Congratulations, you wasted 16 IPC on useless transports then attempted to use them by throwing away ground forces that could have been used in conjunction with the Russians instead of on the wrong side of the war.  A mistake I’ve done too many times not to point out to you boys.

On the flip side, England buys two more transports and now has no money to buy ground units resulting in no pressure on Germany and allowing more forces to attack Russia early.  Since your 12 unit threat is really only good early in the game.  End game, it’s moot because Berlin or Moscow is about to fall in which case, who cares about France?

Either way, you’re not getting an IC in W. Europe because even with 6 transports you cannot possibly bring enough fire power to bear to defeat a force expecting 24 units. (16 USA + 8 UK.)  So they have to face 28 units.  Whoppie!  Odds are, they had enough force to destroy 24 without excessive losses, so they take more losses and destroy 28 this round.  And you’re point being?

Mine is, and will be, that England has wasted 16 IPC on 2 useless transports it cannot use because doing so, in MOST games, results in their loss of the game.  Assuming just the purchase of 2 transports doesn’t result in their loss!

Unless, of course, you buy them late in the game when it’s already decided who’s going to win and you are trying to finish teh game off faster.  In which case, it’s still a waste, but you can afford the waste.

Or, if two transports are in the Pacific and you need 2 more to fully utilize your factory in England.  In which case, they are not a waste because you NEED them to move your units into battle.

Jen, you really DO miss the point.

Western falls, USA reinforces (or better yet takes Southern the same turn).

Germany has to pull back forces from their moscow attack, otherwise UK can use WUE survivors AND the 8 new units in UK to attack berlin, followed by a USA attack on Berlin and a USA build in Southern.

Otherwise you set up a capital trade scenario… the WEAKEST ally for the STRONGEST axis.