Having just captured Kuching, I’ve gained a gold mine of resources there. When you capture a port (this I did not know), you also capture whatever resources have built up there, waiting to be shipped. Apparently, even the British weren’t able to fully gather in all the resources at this port before I got there, and so some of my initial convoys carried hundreds of units of crude oil and rare materials home. You can see some still flowing, but there was a flood at first. I need more escorts.
You can see I’ve placed more convoys, and some escorts, into my production queue as early as the 5th day of war. This is because, having captured about six or seven new ports (Dakar, Douala, Saigon, Conakry, Kuching… and I think some other smaller ones) in these first days of war, I’ve already seen enormous stresses upon my early convoy and escort fleets – one convoy to take supplies and fuel out, one convoy to bring stockpiled resources back home for my national stockpile. Convoys to places further from home use more convoy ships… You can begin to imagine my yawning fear that I’m way behind the curve in convoy contruction… Because my whole strategy is based upon the capture of new naval bases across two oceans!
Fortunately, my submarine has begun to also score claims against the enemy convoy routes. They need convoys too, for their far flung empires. Ironically, I’m quickly relieving them of the same stresses on my convoy fleets they started with!
Easy come, easy go! Our destroyers are scouting out possible landing sites in Singapore and Kota Bharu (British Malaya), and the invasion force that took Saigon is in Kuching. Now, I did see a French HQ unit way up the coast from Saigon, but I really didn’t think it would have the speed to make it back to Saigon so quickly. Apparently, I was wrong. We’ll deal with that later – I have limited resources, but I’m crafty.
Finding the British forces along the Gold Coast and Slave Coast of Africa garrisoning their ports, I’ve landed at Kumasi (without a port). The defenders at Accra instantly attack me (with motorised infantry, no less! – two regular brigades and a motorised brigade).
Now that western Africa is pretty much secured the way I want it (I’ve taken all the ports along that stretch of coast), I start looking around for more targets. I sent an expedition to Ascension Island, in the mid-Atlantic, but it was garrisoned, so we’re coming back up toward the port of Abidjan, in French Cote d’Ivoire, because it appears to be ungarrisoned. My other transport is hanging out nearby, just in case the British defeat my unit before I have a place for them to retreat to. And I’ve positioned my submarine subron just outside the Accra harbor, waiting to see if the British will venture forth to attack my navy.
Meanwhile, back in Asia, I’ve noticed that the French HQ unit is again heading back up the coast – the same as it was when I first saw it. I have no idea what urgent task it’s on, but it’s left Saigon unprotected again. I had another division en route to Kuching from Hong Kong – meaning to capture more of the Borneo coast and maybe deal with those British units there – but I turn him around to head back to Saigon.
My transport arrives at an undefended Ivory Coast, and he begins his invasion. My bombers are bombing the marines at Bathurst (Banjul), unmercifully, and my divisions are closing in there, too. And in French Indochina, on the 25th, our division recaptures Saigon, and begins marching up the coast to try to find this inattentive headquarters and destroy him.
At Kumasi, now that he has someplace to retreat to, I decide there’s no point in losing more of my precious troops. This strong infantry division in Accra will have to be defeated by guile, not by brute force (not yet, anyway). By leaving my captured ground behind, I’m thinking I may have left a vacuum he will feel compelled to fill. If he does…
My dumb luck has finally run out in the Atlantic. I had just captured more ground in French West Africa, completing a land supply route from Dakar all the way down to Conakry, when one of my small fleets was surrounded by French submarines!
They savaged my destroyers, which did their job in screening the transports, most of which escaped. I did take a bite out of one of their subrons. I’m not likely to survive another of these encounters though. They’re costly! Such is the lot of one who’s handicapped with such an impotent naval force. I use it as best I can, and sometimes I get burned.
You might have noticed Chief Ragusa’s comment, just a moment ago. Very timely! In the screenshot below, you’ll see my first use of the tactic he recommends – he points out that it’s faster to conquer a shoreline by sea, than by overland travel. So I’ve loaded my infantry division at Saigon onto a transport, and I’m stairstepping him up the coastline by one amphibious landing after another, building a supply line as I go. We’ll catch up to the HQ at some point (and then you’ll see some interesting stuff!).
We get transit rights from Spain – not sure how we’ll use that yet. The South Africans have taken our city at Lourenco Marques, Mozambique (one of Portugal’s Victory Point provinces, because it’s the Mozambiquan colonial capital, but it has no other value to me). Our Tac Bombers have switched their target from Bathurst, where those marines have just admitted defeat and begun retreating into the African desert toward Diourbel, and have begun bombing the British at Freetown, hoping to keep our garrison from defeat by them. I’m also trying to get reinforcements to that battle, but the French submarine menace is making me wary of transport by sea.
Above, you can see my breadth of conquest along the west African coast, as well as the dry destination of those marines… Swim those dry riverbeds, Tommy! I wasn’t sure, yet, if they’re worth pursuing. Ultimately, I decided that I needed a “warning” province – a buffer, which they would have to take before they could attack the provinces I’d value. That way, they couldn’t sneak up on me. So I send my cavalry into the desert to take Diourbel, too. That will cover that avenue of attack, and then I’ll also use the cavalry to take the province of St. Louis, to the north of Dakar, for the same purpose. I have to use quick cavalry for that, as moving garrions is slow as molasses!
My submarines are still screening my movements along this dangerous Slave Coast as I land another garrison at Lome, in the French-held colonies of Togo and Dahomey (Togo is a former German colony). This has the effect of bracketing the British at Accra. I’ll have to figure out how best to use that leverage….