Caspian Sub Policy Paper #15: Do you know a sucker?

[Imperious Leader]

WAIT!! i need to understand your reasoning CrazyStraw and I am positive your participation here will help hundreds of people OTHER than him.This site is here to help others understand how to play better and many here dont want to join Yahoo anything. PLease dont let that braggard kill the information for the rest of us. If you would be so kind as to either post everything you guys came up with or email be the stuff, so i can reformat it to work in this forum. The eyes of many are upon your next move…

[trihero]

I don’t think people are looking at the 3 transport buy the same way the author does:

He’s not buying it because he plans on invading London. He does it for flexibility and to increase the suicide value of the fleet. The transports can invade London and can do a couple of other nasty land grabs if the Allies aren’t careful, but that is more of a bonus thing that you can catch a couple of newbies with or at least force a suboptimal build with the Allies.

If the UK does plop down a carrier and combines a massive fleet in SZ6 on UK 1, I’m pretty sure it’s an awesome trade for Germany: the Baltic fleet, normally worthless, is now being traded in for a massive amount of UK naval gear that could have been used to protect future landings or enhance their attacks: no more BB for bombardments/soak up hits, 2 fighters/carrier down, 1-2 transports down. That’s an insane amount of gear that the UK has to replace, and the Germans probably still have their entire airforce intact. I would gladly trade in 16-24 of Germany’s first turn IPCs to slow down the UK probably at least 2 turns if he were to try such an obvious tactic as block on turn 1; the UK isn’t looking at the big picture if he thinks it’s worth it to trade his navy for the German navy.

The UK has simply too little money and not enough starting forces to economically soundly block a link of the fleets if the Baltic has been reinforced with 2-3 transports.

If you kill all the Allied capital ships early you have now set the UK back about two rounds.  They will need one round to rebuild transports and another round to build capital ships to protect the transports.  So your most likely outcome is that you have spent 16-24 IPCs in the Baltic to set back the Allies for somewhere between one to two rounds.  That is more than a worthwhile investment.

I quote this directly from the paper, and it makes a lot of sense.

You will be a little bit on the rough side with Russia for the first couple of turns, but this soon turns around since you can focus your full effort on him after spending a wad of money on turn 1 to slow the Allies down. Letting the Allies slide with safe and free shipping is not a good idea at all, and hastens Germany’s death. The purchase of 2-3 transports and linking the fleet gives the German navy a great edge in delaying the Allies. You can do the same with a carrier, but the carrier doesn’t carry the same amount of threat to the capital that the transports do.

One part of the paper that it hinges on is also the bid; it’s assumed you have something extra in Africa so you can take Egypt on the first turn without too much sweat.

[Guest]

Well, I’ll be brief here because I’ve been lengthy elsewhere.

1. Yahoo provides a lot of great content for no cost.  They have been an excellent company the whole time I have used their services (about 10 years), so don’t let the registration hold you back.  (Full disclosure: I own no Yahoo stock, but I really wish I did)

2. We have Beginner Strategy Guides at Caspian Sub.  The guides for Germany and the UK both recommend buying carriers.  Carriers are fine basic moves; they are easy to manage and fairly strong.  But the transports are far more flexible, and 2tra are better than 1car on offense in a reasonably sized attack.

3. I don’t like building capital ships with the UK.  I’d rather buy transports, ground troops, or planes.  It is a much more effective use of the US/UK strengths to let the US drop the German boats.  This is covered in Policy Paper 14: Baltic Part III.

4. If I was a German player, I would be salivating if the UK built a carrier in Z06 (see N. Witch’s earlier post).  It’s about the worst move the Allies could do, short of abandoning London.  That means I pound down 2 Allied capital ships, 2ftrs, and 2 UK transports without losing a grey plane.  So if that is the ‘counter’ to a German invasion of London, then please counter me all day long.

5. If I was playing as the UK and for some reason I DID want a carrier, in almost no circumstance would I build it on the first round.  It’s crummy on offense so you’re buying it to defend, not attack (and there is no real way for the US to leverage it as a landing spot on R1 in a way that is significant).  It is much better to build your UK transports in Z02 on round 1 so that the Germans have to worry about a landing force.  Then, if you need the carrier for extra defense, move the fleets to drop gear in Europe and build the carrier in the sea zone where your transports are.  That’s much more efficient.

Peace