Hi malleberserker,
In most games, even ones that the Allies win, the UK income will take a hit for a couple rounds before coming back up. Don’t worry, it’s no cause for alarm. A few thoughts:
–-Your forces in the Indian Ocean area (south coast of Asia, the SZ 35 and 40 fleets, and your African and Australian troops) are enough that you can make a play either in Africa or against Japan, but not both. So you have to pick one. I usually go after Germany in Africa. At best you can slow Japan down a little (unless you’re playing KJF–whole other topic–in which case UK is VITAL), whereas you can actually help bring Africa under Allied control for the long haul.
—Germany usually takes Egypt on turn 1. If they take it with fewer than 4 ground units remaining, I almost always counterattack on UK1. You can get 3 inf (2 by transport, 1 from Trans-Jordan), 1 fighter, and 1 bomber to the battle. Even if you only take it over with planes, you’ve stopped the Panzers from blitzing the heck out of sub-Saharan on round 2.
—It’s good for both the Brits and Americans to get involved in Africa in the first couple of rounds. Often you go for a combined move to SZ 12 on either round 1 or 2. From there your forces can march across North Africa, or you can send a transport or two down to SZ 23 to hit whatever Germans are reachable from there. If I do make the latter move I usually prefer to do it with the Americans, so the Brits can get back up to Europe ASAP and take Norway and start pressuring the German coastline.
—If you managed to retake Egypt on turn 1 you can usually stop the bleeding in Africa without too much problem. Germany retakes it on G2, but you may be able to re-retake it on UK 2 (if your transport survived J1) and either way, by the time Germany starts heading south from there your troops from Algeria are close on their heels.
—Even when going after Germany in Africa, I still send the destroyer to SZ 59 to take out the Japanese transport. Not much else to do with it, and it does help slow them down.
—If Egypt is taken with too much to retake on UK1, my favorite alternate start is to take Borneo with the transport from India, and still send the destroyer to SZ 59. I usually also move the carrier to the Borneo sea zone and land the fighter on it (after the fighter helps attack Borneo). It annoys the heck out of Japan, and if they decide they need it back immediately then they have to concentrate a lot of their first turn on that. I’ve seen some J1’s practically end the game because they made a risky attempt to recapture Borneo and lost a lot of expensive hardware in the naval battle. You create a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong.
—Overall: Don’t bother with India or Australia, you’ll lose them anyway (again, assuming KGF rather than KJF); South Africa complex is not bad, but you can get Africa without it; and don’t think you’re necessarily doing something wrong if it takes a few rounds to get your income back up to healthy levels.
