That’s part of why I still play 1942.2! For all its many flaws, there are some very interesting tactical puzzles around how to optimize the shuck that I am still wrestling with and still enjoying.
Like, on turns 1 through 3, you can unload some troops in Morocco or Norway, to sort of chip away at Axis income. You can unload them in London, to help prepare for a larger ‘D-Day’ later in the game. Depending on how and when you make these runs, you might need to risk (or sacrifice) transports, or you could wind up with a transport that’s temporarily out of position, or with some troops that are isolated and unable to link up with the main body of your invasion force. You can try to run a ‘triangle’ for the first few turns, from the Eastern US to Morocco to Eastern Canada, so that you’re unloading troops in Africa on the first few turns, even as you’re setting up your main shuck from Canada to France. If you do run the triangle, you have to decide when and how to pull the plug on the triangle shuck and convert to a 100% Canada <-> France circuit. And of course you don’t have to go on any of these ‘side quests,’ but if you don’t do any of them, then you risk Germany getting too big to stop when the main force does show up. So there are all these case-by-case trade-offs that are really interesting (for me) to try to optimize each game.
