UK Tips

[pdBravo]

I notice not many people play as UK and the wiki guide, while helpful does miss a few things, so I though I'd pop up a few things I've learned along the way.

Playing UK is a great game because to be successful you need to at least respect all sections of the game.

1. Diplomacy. UK is rich in resources, so you need to trade to bring in supplies and money. Enough to maximise the available IC.

2. Early game either sell or get the manpower for your level 1 ships. They are neither use nor ornament. I tend to get the manpower.

3. Take off auto sliders early game. You'll have some dissent from sorting ministers out, but come June 23rd 1936 you'll get -5% dissent, so don't waste the IC on it.

4. Maximise manpower asap, via techs and ministers. +10mp early on is Baldwin who you will lose around October, but another is available Jan 1st 1937. A +25%mp is available Jan 1st 1940.

5. Build the navy. Yes it's big at the start but that's because it needs to be. To keep up you will need more. Aim for at least 2 fleets with 2 x BBIV by the end of 1939. (MY own preference is BB over CV)

6. Build expensive (in terms of IC) units. With such low manpower and so many obligations, you need to make your units count wherever they are.

7. Buy units from allies. You can build entire armies by trading with allies, give them some blueprints plus a few resources and they'll give you infantry and tanks. Note, that an ally still in the game means that the unit will still be at their tech level rather than your own. SO if buying such as TAC's buy them from countries about to go under, then you can upgrade them. This does cost you manpower to get the units but from what I've seen, it is less than what it costs to build.

8. Help China. With resources. If you don't, they will fall quickly.

9. Avoid long term attrition campaigns. Every attack, every plan, must be with the thought of encircling and destroying the enemy. If that's not possible, pull back to a position more favourable to do so. Any ground given is only temporary anyway as once the enemy is destroyed, you regain it by default.

10. Keep good reserves. Try to keep (especially with navy) a good reserve so you always have a capable fighting force out at any one time. I tend to keep my home fleet as a permanent home reserve, and this is where I deploy new units to. Once a fleet engages, I send them there for replacements while sending my other new fleet out. This way I always maintain a ready fleet.

11. Keep reasonable sized naval forces scattered about (Bermuda, Gibraltar, Tel Aviv, Sheffield, Liverpool) as a quick reaction force to thwart lightly escorted landings and hamper enemy subs. At least until a more reasonable force can get there. Even maintaining a steady patrol in the coastal waters of likely landing points by such as a BC + support can go a long way.

12. Some of the commanders rank up pretty quickly, so not so much need for promotions. Use everything available, use single divisions under MG's etc. My early armies would consist of 5 corps of HQ,I,I - I,I,I - I,I,I - A,M,M - I - I - A (the single ones can vary, I tend to mix them up between arm,mot, inf, mtn, cav (just a few) ).







I think that's pretty much all I can think of for now. For those that have never had a go, it really is a good and enjoyable game as UK. For those that have played as UK, are there any of my tips you disagree with? Or you have other tips to add? I'd love to try new things if anyone has suggestions. Cheers

 

[JRHINDO]

This should be part of the wiki.

 

[Zardnaar]

In my experience your early navy can be ignored except for new destroyers and some aircraft carriers which will crush Italy. Your old battleships are good enough vs Italy, and carriers/new destroyers vs Germany. New battleships are a bit useless vs Japanese carriers. Consider switching to base strike doctrine in 44 when you get a new tech team and can research it via USA blueprints- assuming Japan is still in the game. D-Day Germany 1943 in the Balkens and advance into east Germany/Europe. Liberate Poland and Romania. This will mean WWIII with the USSR later but never mind. A single production run of tac bombers and interceptors+ buying a few of Canada/Australia and countries like Belgium/Norway/Holland in 1940 will give you a large aifocre. Around 20 tac bombers and a similar amount of interceptors is good. Artillery brigade for infantry to reduce losses and conserve manpower. CAS maybe at some point, ignore strat bombers and bombing Germany in general as this will eat up your precious IC.

 

[pdBravo]

I find the old Battleships nowhere near enough, though I only tried this once, and it was disasterous so I never tried it again (as it is too long a preamble to take lightly). I opt for BB over CV because they sink ships rather than win 'victories'. CV victories mean you still either need to maintain a presence in the theatre or invest in other means of destroying the enemy (in my experience - once I found BB's sank ships quite nicely I didn't need to experiment much further). So, leaving only a skeleton force in the north sea/Med you can have a nice collection of fleets by early 1942 in south east asia. I run them on a 3 fleet rotation. True the early skirmishes you have to hit and run vs the best Japanese fleets, but they're soon overcome with remarkably little loss.

A few more tips occurred to me:

13. If you opt to defend France (it is possible to save it if you pull your socks up but much more fun to let it fall), when you want to withdraw your troops there is no Dunkirk event. However, if you allow your troops to fall back to around Paris or so, do a strat deploy to Brest. If the vichy event fires while your troops are deploying, they will redeploy to London which sort of makes up for the lack of a Dunkirk event. Bear in mind I play on 1.2 as the 1.3 always crashed my comp and I enjoy it enough anyway on 1.2. So if this was 'fixed' in 1.3 I don't know. Failing that, of course you should be able to transport most if not all out the manual way.

14. Make sure you maintain a presence in Belfast. I find a garrison + militia is sufficient to prevent landings, though a garrison will attract AI landings and get you much ranking of whatever general you place there, and also get you easy killings for the small fleet that Germany sends (no need to reinforce, just kill the transports). A bit gamey that one though.

15. Re Zardnaar's point above about not using Strats to strategically bomb. I fully agree. It's just a waste of IC replacing manpower and using up supplies. I sometimes use the strats as a long range version of battle support though even in this role they aren't too effective, so it's probably best to sell them early on for those much needed early resources of supplies and/or money when you're first kicking off. The USA can afford to give you a good wedge for them by about February 1936 or so

 

[Iwo Jima]

My 2 cents:

1. In middle war, after Italy joins Axis, focus on Italy. Free Africa first. Then take Roma. Mediterranean is vital. So concentrate one of your best fleets there (if you are lucky enough, you should destroy main German fleet in early war, so you could concentrate almost all your fleets). Be sure to have enough interceptors and/or fighters, to counter Italian naval bombers. Also the good idea is before the WWII to buy some of the best french ships.

2. Old-fashioned DD, even DD-I are absolutely the same with DD-IV in sea detection, visibility and therefore in positioning. Don't scrap it. Use modern DDs in ASW operations, use old-fashioned as screens and patrols. You can use modern DDs also, if need a long range. ALso, remember, that CVL are very good at ASW. So, support your DDs with CVLs.

 

[pdBravo]

My 2 cents:

1. In middle war, after Italy joins Axis, focus on Italy. Free Africa first. Then take Roma. Mediterranean is vital. So concentrate one of your best fleets there (if you are lucky enough, you should destroy main German fleet in early war, so you could concentrate almost all your fleets). Be sure to have enough interceptors and/or fighters, to counter Italian naval bombers. Also the good idea is before the WWII to buy some of the best french ships.

Would you wait until Germany invades Russia? Or strike when they declare on Yugoslavia?

The Trento - Venice line is holdable against significant forces with a relatively minor force but pre Russia Germany can send some very overwhelming numbers down there.

Good idea re French ships.

2. Old-fashioned DD, even DD-I are absolutely the same with DD-IV in sea detection, visibility and therefore in positioning. Don't scrap it. Use modern DDs in ASW operations, use old-fashioned as screens and patrols. You can use modern DDs also, if need a long range. ALso, remember, that CVL are very good at ASW. So, support your DDs with CVLs.

I did at one time use the 43 level 1 ships in 7 fleets of (iirc) one or 2 CL's with 4 DD's. I found them reasonable against early subs but got splatted later. They weren't really needed in my games for such long periods of time, and then when required they didn't have the range and were soon overcome. In short, they sat there eating supplies for 18 months then died.

I was hoping you'd reply here as you have the game down to a fine art so I know you'll be right and I wrong I'm just relating my experience.



Re the Italian fleet yes. I send from the initial starting fleet the 3 x level 2 CV's with a CL2 and 2 x DD2 and call that my Med fleet. I use them as convoy raiders and the Italian fleet has nothing that can touch them, they will happily raid convoys for a long time and I think I had to repair one of the CV's once but that was from an air strike.

I think one of the reasons I shy away from CV's is because I don't like the unrealistic battle of nothing ever being sunk. It's a nightmare if you lose a BB of course but great to watch enemy ships going to the bottom. But that debate is for another thread I guess.

15. So, my additional tip would be to keep a small fleet on interdiction patrol just north of the red sea to prevent landings.

16. Use troops from Yemen/Oman to keep Suez secure.

oh and

17. I tend to liberate Ethiopia as soon as I took it from Italy (right from the start of 1936 I leave 4 militia around and as soon as Italy declares I send them in (it is unsupplyable by Italy and thus unmanned so long as you keep Suez), the rest go to man Middle East beaches). Ethiopia will produce a good 5 or 6 mountain divisions with reasonable leaders before Japan declares. A better use of the areas available resources I think than I could make of them.

18. Re Italian invasion. Sardinia is strategically a good move to take first. You can then put paratroops to man the island with a militia. When you want to invade the Italian mainland Spezia is usually undefended. Land your paratroops there with a quick follow on of more troops by sea. Branch in two directions to hold the North to prevent German reinforcement and carve up the south encircling and swallowing up on the way. Try to back them either into Taranto so they are easier to destroy utterly. Or even further landings supported by paratroops, though this isn't usually necessary by this stage.

19. Liberate countries such as Flanders, Italy, FRG etc. Better as puppets than some of the weirdness I have seen late game.

20. Make various saves along the way at stages you can come back to later. You will definitely want to try different approaches from some of the key stages.

 

[Zardnaar]

The other thing is don't forget about the rest of the Allied countries. In 45 the Soviets launched WW3 but I had anticipated it. With my army + French, Canadian, Aussies, New Zealand, Poles, FRG, Romania, Hungary etc I had 300 divisions massed on the Soviet border. By the end of 45 they were somewhere in Sverdlosk and the FRG and Hungary were kind enough to nuild HQ units- 4 of the in the FRGs case+ multiple tanks. The French had also been kind and I wiped out Vichy after a smear campaign got their belligerence up high enough to DoW them. I normally hold Burma with a around 20 British divisions+ the Ausies, Kiwis, Nepal, Bhutan, Iraq, Oman and Yeman troops. Feed your puppets and allies blueprints.

 

[pdBravo]

Absolutely use your allies forces, remember some aren't as strong unit for unit as your own though so make allowances when planning attacks. I do find North Africa a bit too easy though, so what I tend to do is limit myself with the number of troops I use in that theatre. No more than 12 of my own divisions engaged with the enemy covering the whole front, just using allies to prevent landings I find makes a decent game. I only use 4 x TAC and no fighters. Just a bit more fun I've found but not strictly a 'tip'.

21. As soon as Japan and USA are at war, ally USA. At first I thought it did it automatically, but it doesn't. Ally chance is 100% straight away but this does go down over time, so if you want them as allies, do it straight away.

22. Siam. Defeating Siam will trigger a surrender event that it is highly unlikely you will like. To annex them, take their victory provinces first and capture Bangkok last. As soon as you enter Bangkok annex them. Depending how well you supplied China, this may be quite difficult or quite easy.

 

[unmerged(105989)]

A note about sending your fleet into the med. A very good idea, but make sure that you have some fighters operating out of Malta to keep Italian Navs out of the way. They can sneak up on you and send an expensive BB or CV to the bottom pretty quickly.

I remember one time as the US I sent a fleet into the med thinking the UK would provide Air supieriority (I saw their stuff flying around there). It wasn't like they were helping in Europe. Well, they didn't, and I lost 2 BBs to Italian Navs.

On the ally front, definitely make use of your allies, but also try and knock Germany's allies out of the war early too. Germany's key limiting factors are resources and MP, much the same as the UK. They can alleviate both with alliances (Romania for oil, especially). You will find divisions that you think are German, but in reality, are Hungarian, Slovak, Italian, Romanian, Bulgarian, etc. Thus, the sooner you take these small guys out of the fight, the less divisions Germany has to fight with. In the same manner, you should remember to protect your smaller allies, they can come in handy, as you mentioned.

 

[Iwo Jima]

Would you wait until Germany invades Russia? Or strike when they declare on Yugoslavia?

I think it doesn't really matters.
After you clear Africa and Mediterranean you could start landing in Europe.

I did at one time use the 43 level 1 ships in 7 fleets of (iirc) one or 2 CL's with 4 DD's. I found them reasonable against early subs but got splatted later. They weren't really needed in my games for such long periods of time, and then when required they didn't have the range and were soon overcome. In short, they sat there eating supplies for 18 months then died.

I was hoping you'd reply here as you have the game down to a fine art so I know you'll be right and I wrong I'm just relating my experience.

Can't show you results, just because I haven't played recently with UK.
In my Japanese AAR I keep all my fleet, but sea battles will not coming soon.

About old-fashioned DDs I'm going to start new thread.

 

[pdBravo]

A note about sending your fleet into the med. A very good idea, but make sure that you have some fighters operating out of Malta to keep Italian Navs out of the way. They can sneak up on you and send an expensive BB or CV to the bottom pretty quickly.

Yes, good point, I should have mentioned.

23. I use the royal divisions from Oman/Yemen to add to the Malta defence very early. They aren't much use anywhere else but to augment the Maltese defence (never known it broken, where just garrison did get beaten once)

24. I always have at least 2 ints and a fighter in Malta right from the start of the war. Initially to clear up the pesky Germans raiding convoys, then later the Italian air force. A full four plane defence (3 ints, 1 fighter) based in Malta is enough to keep the AI at bay for the entire war. For raids in red sea and just north of Alexandria, the TAC support (with escorts on air superiority mission) to the infantry is enough to clear off the odd raid the AI makes.

25. SLIDERS. No need to do hawk or intervention. Events get both to full by (iirc) mid 1940 when you appoint Churchill finishes them off.

26. Helping rep Spain. If you do, you get an intervention, plus if they win (you may need to help with resources for this) you get a random blueprint, a cut in dissent, and a bit of MP (not sure exact, the blueprint is what I focus on). Germany rarely declares on Rep Spain but it does happen (known it once).

 

[pdBravo]

Just watched a video of someone struggling organising their UK fleet. So

27. Day one 1936.

Go main page, select the navy button and choose the first fleet (Home Fleet iirc)
Right click Norwich (or any other port)
Press the full stop (period) key on your keyboard
Right click Norwich
repeat until your entire fleet is sent to Norwich.
A much easier way of getting your fleet sorted than trying to run round the map looking for them all.

After a while (I think China station is the last to arrive though might be subs which I usually scrap) they'll all be there, you can merge them and then sort from there.

28. Keep 'Home Fleet' as a never used fleet, just form new fleets from it. It is much easier to place new ships into it, especially if you have built quite a few, as it will be at the top of the list.

 

[Zardnaar]

I normally make a few fleets out of the UKs starting ships.

2 BB based SAG. Equip with radar and FC.
1 small BC based SAG
2 Cruzergs fleets using lvl 2 CA and lvl IV CL.
And I build 2-3 carriers and eventualy end up with a CAG or 2 floating around.

X2 lvl 4 DD lines in 37 and a 36 single line CVL gives you all the screens you will ever need as well. German fleet can be ignored and your starting fleet can easily destroy the Italian fleet. I scrap the lvl I and II destroyers, CA and CL.