1939 Campaign strategy questions

[guz]

I'm about to start a game with a friend in the 1939 campaign after beating him with Axis. Now it's my turn to play Allied and I have a few questions in regards to the beginning strategy. Some of you veterans may have good tips:

• Any good moves that can be done with the Polish before their surrender ?
  
• Since I understand IT is the most important technology to get early for USSR, may it be worth while to reclaim some of the pre-invested chits (from production technology for example) to be able to add a second chit into IT ?
  
• What is the most important technology for China to get early?
  
• What is the best use of the French fleet, since it soon is lost with the inevitable surrender of France. I was thinking if it made sense to declare war on Italy soon to try to destroy their fleet with a pre-emtive strike? Or perhaps attack the German cruisers head on. Any tips?
  
• Fort De France, can Allies get the ships (including carrier) I managed to get there for the Germans? If so, do I have to land a unit there before the Axis?

Any other good tips for Allied strategy are welcomed

Awsome game btw !

[Big Al]

Focus on strategic goals not little things. Thats what wins games like this.

[guz]

That's true. Nevertheless, the allied strategy is a bit limited to holding on until the cavalry arrives, so strategic decisions such as whether to attack Italy soon in the game to try to gain total naval control of the Mediterranean at the cost of possible reactions of other countries, is not such a "little thing" in my opinion. Even if what you say is true in essence, every little detail also counts

[david12345]

I can touch on a little of this - but I'm not an expert by any means.

Polish-I just try to damage any germans I can. If they put a ship in the port, go after it with land units. I attack anytime I can get any chance of doing damage.

Chits - I would not sell any chits that you think you might want later, you will just end up buying them for twice what you sold them for. If you don't think (for example) that you will build heavy bombers as the British, then I would sell that chit.

China - I go for Inf weapons, then industry.

French fleet-I chase the Graf Spee, then mass with the british when italy joins. Haven't tired a pre-emptive.

Just my .02

[Minty]

David 12345 advice sounds pretty solid. mine would be..

1) No , not against a half decent player anyway

2) No, you may not get any IT hits for a while and every MPP is so precious to the cash strapped Soviets.

3) inf weapons or IT. against a decent player you'll struggle to invest the cash anyway

4) either early sub hunting/ norway invasion cover / kamikaze vs italians / shore bombard coast of belgium or France againts Panzers.

5) yes but really allies don't need the extra ships so much as stopping the nazis from potentially having 2 carriers. that can be really disruptive to any wally invasion.

It all depends on what the other guy is doing. Guz is right that you do have to be responsive as allies but I wouldn't agree entirely that it is just wait for the cavalry, you can knock him off timetable with just the brits and chinese.

Good luck, game a little bias still in favour of axis methinks but I hope to prove the allies can pull it off even against legendary opposition.

[carverrt]

I look at Allied strategy from the standpoint of what can each country do best. I think the UK can build up her fleet and related technologies assuring max MPP each turn. The USSR can build units and strategy with an eye towards being on the defensive for two years, the best they can do is tie down the German army for that time. The best the Chinese can do is hold on and keep the majority of the Japanese army busy. The USA can affect the game early through lend lease to the UK so I build up USA industry technology first.

[Wushuki]

1) I believe that plunder is dependent upon the size and strength of the army, so you might want to try to reduce the German plunder by getting your units as damaged as possible. Of course, the actual gains here won't really determine the outcome of the game.

2) Yes, IT gets you about 100 MPP per turn. When I need cash for intelligence and IT I always cancel motorization, production technology and advanced aircraft. In addition I scrap the plane I receive for additional cash.

With the 1.02 patch air might have become a viable option for the USSR however, so you might want to keep your air. For China it is a different story, scrapping your air units with them for cash to invest in technology is an excellent idea.

As for motorization, you won't have any large scale offensive operations with the USSR and so motorizing your infantry is very unwise to begin with. If you need chits, it might be worth considering to drop that one, although motorization is still useful for tanks, so you might need to research it again later. PT has been improved in 1.03, but I'd probably still drop it for IT. IT makes its money back in 1 turn, PT in 6 or so.

In general I wouldn't be too worried about losing 50 MPP if it means you get important technology earlier.

3) IT and infantry weapons. IT gets you about 30 resources per turn and infantry weapons are highly necessary to stop the Japanese from killing your units with just infantry.

4) The french fleet is useful for raiding Norwegian convoys close to Germany. I believe it doesn't even increase the Norwegian activation if you stand near Denmark, so you can destroy fairly many enemy resources with this.

5) Good question, I don't think so, but I am not sure. If you could still land units in fort de france even if you say do not first accept the decision event, then what would be the point to agree to the fort de france decision event? But if you want to be sure, start a new game and try it.

As for the other tips, the most important thing to realize is probably that tanks are heavily overpowered. A fully upgraded army is weaker in every aspect and more expensive than a level 0 tank. On top of that, tanks have more upgrades than regular armies, so in the late game they completely obliberate all infantry without any risk of being destroyed themselves.

To illustrate this, in order to destroy a level 5 tank with fully upgraded armies it would take 5 consecutive army attacks, the infantry would take about 35 damage points back in return. Clearly this is not realistic, so infantry simply cannot defeat tanks, especially not in the late game. This means that for all country you need to rely on tanks and you should always build them before you build any infantry, even the tanks that only get 1 attack per turn. Getting the heavy tanks research should also be one of the top priorities with all countries. The only country that does not need tank upgrades is China, because they can only build a single one.

[guz]

Thanks guys, there is a lot of stuff to consider