Shahed said:
Hi Brasidas
Thanks very much for the reply and for the tips. I invested in IC for the first year. Looking at the first save game again just now , I built 16-18 IC and not 10 as I first thought. 2nd year I started building up for the war. I agree, with hindsight, it's best to build IC for 2 years as one year may still be enough to build up. On the other hand I'm happy that I did start building up sooner because I am now at par with USSR in INF, perhaps even ahead by 20 or so. I am ahead of everyone in Air Force and in Armor too. I'll take your suggestion and build a rocket site after major builds are complete PLUS invest 50 into new IC.
Actually, I find that even in MP a third round of IC builds is possible while still preparing for war. The reason to forego IC builds is whether you intend to field a large armoured force, a large air force, or a large navy early in the game. For any combination of these three things, its worth considering foregoing IC builds altogether. With each of these build patterns, you can make good use of the 1936 and 1937 years' worth of IC, as a 1936-era CV is useful in Sealion (the CAG's the most important piece, and you can build that later - to modern standards) and a medium-2 armoured division is one upgrade away from a state-of-the-art division even in early 1940 (you can't build Panzer IV's until then, even if you tech rush).
An early 1940 Sealion would be one case where I'd choose to build units rather than IC's, but let's work with what you've got.
Questions
-Rocket sites improve the rate at which Turbojet tech as well as rocket tech is researched right ?
Turbojets are right out in MP. Sure, research and build them, but you can't do that until 1942, even with tech rushing. The game may or may not be decided by then, but you do
not want to compromise your early war efforts for the sake of turbojets.
-Is it feasible to abandon the ICBM route all together ? since everyone else will be racing for nukes that might be a problem later.
Why would everyone else be racing for nukes? Forgive me if I've missed something while I've been getting used to Doomsday, but my experience has told me that I can't field any until around 1944. There's too many late-year techs to research to be able to stay ahead. If in 1943 you think its useful to start a nuclear program, go for it. Start researching the techs. You can still almost catch up by the time they can field their first nukes. But again, you won't be sacrifice your early game for hypothetical late-game stuff.
Good point. I'll make a plan with the JAP player for India. I intend to ally with him on 1/1/41 which will give him the opportunity ot strike SIngapore and move towards India. This will mean he will have 2 broad fronts one with UK and one with SOV. Pretty hard to deal with that as JAP.
Not really. What's a killer with Japan is having to fight in India while China's a going concern. Is China human, and is the fighting over there yet?
Japan needs to hit Singapore, then Rangoon and Ceylon in rapid succession. Once he has these bases, he can cover his invasion forces and make good progress in India, even if there is a large British force there. If he's finished China and has invested in his land forces (the one would seem to imply the other), he can sweep India.
What's happening in the Med? Can Japan expect that clean up on the Arabian penninsula will be a cinch? Or will there continue to be an RN presence staging from Port Said? This is going to affect his ability to shift forces back to Asia when you fight the Russians.
Finally, belligerance. What are your house rules on American war entry? If its simply "if USA can DoW, the USA can DoW", the combination of the belligerance from the China event and the belligerance from the German DoW on Russia (which will be shared by Japan if the two countries are allied at the time of the attack) will send Japanese belligerance high enough. Morever, there are events that will increase US interventionism with that many Axis VPs, iirc (China+Japan+Germany is a lot of VPs).
Anyway all the SOV units that go East are less units in the West. I guess his strategy should be to push into India and snail towards Central Asia, or even just pin down as many SOV divisions as he can there.
Take the coasts. If you can seize Archangelsk and he takes the pacific coast, you can cut off trade from the allies. The Soviets (not the allies) would have to invade Persia to open up another route. You could restrict the SU to relying upon its own production and not US aid.
Comments on this strategy ?
Plenty.
UK: I will invade UK as soon as The Western Armies are re-orged and reinforced in about February-March 1940. I'll use TACS and CAS over the seas to try and clear whetever I can and then it's across the Channel. AT THE SAME time, I'll be invadng Yugoslavia, then Romania and Bulgaria, and also Scandinavia. Quite hard to manage all this in Multiplayer without the pause button.
Quite hard to imagine why you're doing this and what you're doing this with. BoB is hard. If the UK's overcommitted elsewhere, sure. If you've got a large and powerful navy and airforce, sure. But planning on Sealion
that early is rather... optimistic.
You have not invested a damned thing into the navy or naval bombers from what I've seen. You may be able to establish air superiority in the south, but you can't escort those 16 TAC's further north to disrupt reinforcements from arriving at the beacheads or to support invasions anywhere but in the southernmost provinces. You can build some escorts in time, but only at the cost of your existing production slate.
How many transports do you have? How do you intend to support your operations in Scandinavia? How many troops is Italy facing in the med? What can Italy tell you about their fleet dispositions?
An early 1940, without extensive planning (ie directing your pre-war production to prepare for it) is possible. In the event that he leaves himself open to it. Not as a "I'm going to attack him at such and such time, as per pre-war planning" sort of thing.
Weigh the forces that are opposing you at the time of your potential invasion, position your forces, then jab him with your air forces. If the target looks too hard for your invasion to succeed, abort and cut your losses. Your navy's useful for operations in the baltic, and your fighters have more uses than getting slaughtered by Britain's defences.
EDIT:
After reviewing your game thread, you appear to have a unique game set up. Republican Spain is human, but UK isn't? Ookay.. Well, the battle of France is underway, which way is Spain jumping? Is he staying neutral/going comintern? Or has he gone Allied? If Allied, he can fight BoB via milcontrol, and I'd still say that the odds are against you in Sealion. If not, I'd say the odds are in your favour through shear AI incompetence. Its still not a given, though.
US war entry becomes less important, except that I would presume that the Republican Spain player will eventually jump to it after you destroy his country if you have taken the UK. I find your diplomatic policies to be rather wasteful. If you had allied Finland, Romania, and Turkey, all which is possible with a little finesse, you would have had over 100 additional divisions available to you with a significantly more difficult US war entry. Your comment about Soviet DoW's upon these countries being inevitable is disingenuous, as you could have either allied these countries pre-war or been prepared to intervene in case of their invasion.
If you had joined a war by allying an attacked country, you could have fought the Soviets at an incredible advantage. There would have been no GPW boosts for the Soviets and they would have taken up to five times the normal casualty rate.
Particularly unfortunate was your invasion of Hungary. Why?? They barely had a border with the Soviets. If they started to invade, you could have simply cut them off at Presov, then moved west from there to destroy them. Hungary was incredibly easy to ally, but if you really wished to ally no one, you could have used it as a trap. DoW'd them
and the Soviets, destroying the army as described above. But if you're puppetting these countries anyway, why the ban on allying with them when you could save belligerance (high belligerance = faster US war entry and destruction of your ability to do
anything by diplomacy) and use over 100 divs of troops?
Finally, I found your comments in the game thread to be way off base. Next post.
