Fair enough. I completely forgot that subs are useless for blocking in AA50. Anyhow, I found out that a group of destroyers and transports, backed by one cruiser, should always be in the Baltic. In the game I played last night, the U.K. player had a vast fleet lying in the SZ between Iceland and England, because he feared being attacked by German bombers in SZ 6. So amazingly, the German player pulled off the unexpected. He was bogged down in Russia, so he lashed out and landed 2 infantry and 2 artillery, plus the cruiser shot, and all of his planes in England. Needless to say, he took the U.K.'s capital even while they had a massive fleet right there. So Germany, simply because it chose to keep some ships tucked and out of the way in the Baltic won that game at a stroke by boldly assailing the U.K.
Now I’m not saying this is going to happen every time, and if the British player had been paying attention, he would have destroyed the German Fleet in the Baltic, but he was to in love with his ships, which he feared losing to Germany’s planes. Also, he should not have been so confident in his naval power as to leave merely 2 infantry and 1 tank, with 2 fighters as the sole defense of England. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is you should have ships somewhere to take advantage of any opportunity. And I particularly like subs sprawled out across the seas, sneak attacking any lone ships. It’s worked for me many times, and ships are incredibly useful in attacking Karelia. I think if Russia does a stupid buy one turn (unlikely, but it does happen) than Germany should use that turn to pump out ships, as that’s what happened basically last night. The Russian player bought 2 fighters 2 artillery and a cruiser, for god knows what reason, he told his allies that “He had a plan.” Anyway, this took pressure off the Russian front, which allowed the German player to expand his fleet, to dire consequences.
It’s obvious that the Allies will control the sea, as the U.K. will more than likely be spending most of it’s money in securing the Atlantic against Italy and Germany, and the U.S. likewise with the Pacific against Japan. However, by building ships every so often, you concentrate their focus on the seas. If you have no ships, than they will not bother to buy anymore, and instead prepare for amphibious assaults in Europe, or by bombing the hell out of everything. If the Fleets disappear than Italy loses it’s bonuses, and the U.K. secures all theirs (unless Japan takes India or Australia), not to say that Italy is relegated to doing nothing as they cannot expand anywhere. If nothing else than at least Italy should be building ships. There’s nothing I hate more than seeing allied ships sprawled out by Canada and Eastern U.S., transports with only one destroyer as escort, or with no escort at all, and not being able to do anything about it. Having ships forces their fleets to stay together for fear of being picked off, and that lets you slip past them in the night, and capture territories not contiguous with your capital. Hardly something I would throw away lightly.
