I try to do that if I have a possibility, but it seems that Joe is a player who likes to launch Sealion or at least push into Egypt. To counter that you need to have PP's to build land units in Britain and send reinforcements to Egypt before he attacks there. Then you might do better by sending your navy to the British ports to protect against Sealion and keep them safe from sub attacks. The DD's can be built later when you get to November 1940 and invasions can't take place.ftgcritt2 wrote:This is very interesting. I am just now starting a game against Joe in which he is also axis. It's nice to get a preview of what kind of a player he is. I'll be sure to pay very close attention to the u-boat situation and try to keep up with the RN. Do you think it would be wise to build a few DD's early?
I try to build labs as soon as possible with Britain because if you get behind on the tech they you will struggle later in the war when you need to get ashore in Italy and France. If the Luftwaffe fighters get too big a headstart on the dogfight tech then you will suffer. The British bombers need techs as well to do significant damage to the German factories. You need 2 naval labs as soon as possible to get better ASW and survivability to your naval units. Failing to do so means the subs can harass the convoys for a longer period.
So Britain have much more things to spend PP's on than they can afford until 1942. You have to make priorities and deal with the consequences where you don't spend PP's.
E. g. you can take a risk and NOT build several land units in Britain in 1940 and send the Canadian units to Egypt. If Sealion doesn't happen then it paid off and you get the DD's and labs as early as you hope. But if Sealion takes place then you will probably lose Britain.
Ronnie has shown what happens if you build too many units in Britain. Then the Germans invade Egypt instead. So there is no winning strategy for the British here against a good German player. If the Germans exploit your weak spot then you will struggle for awhile. It's possible to fight back and get the initiative. E. g. Ronnie might lose the oilfields in Iraq, but with the base in Kuwait he can get new reinforcements later and recapture Iraq. He can even land a strike force in Egypt and fan out to take Libya and recapture Iraq from the west.
Britain have the following main priorities until USA enter the war (from the highest to the lowest priority):
* Not lose the British isles (meaning you need to build some land units)
* Not lose Iraq (meaning you must withdraw from Egypt if you're about to lose there)
* Not lose Egypt (meaning you must send reinforcements here)
* Not lose any Royal Navy ships (meaning you must remain in port or grouped together instead of escorting all convoys or attacking in the Med)
* Build labs
* Build new naval units to escort the convoys
* Build new air units to start bombarding German factories
My lab builds as Britain are like this:
* Air (no focus until I get strategic operations tech 1. Then I shift to focus on dogfight. It's important to get strategic operations tech 1 quickly because it increases the attack range for all air units by 3 hexes. This is critical for the fighters because the attack range increases from 6 to 9)
* Naval (focus on ASW until ASW tech 3. Then focus on Surface ships)
* General (focus on industry. To improve production and a chance to build more than 10 labs)
* Air
* Naval
* General
* Infantry
* Armor
* Infantry
* Armor
* Air
* Infantry
* Armor
When you have industry tech 3 it means you have the following number of labs:
3 infantry
3 armor
3 air
2 naval
2 general
Some people forget to build general labs with focus on industry. That means you can only have 10 labs since you start with industry tech 0. The convoys get bigger when you get better war effort %. So it's vital for the British economy to invest in general labs.
You might go for 3 general labs instead of 3 armor labs and later sell one naval lab to build the third armor lab. Then you get industry tech 3 faster and you can switch to focus on organization.
