WAllies strategies for a n00b

[Agent_Fox007]

Aside from what the manual says, are there any good strategies or pieces of advice people can dish on what it takes to play the WA if a person has never played them before, even in the original WaW? I've mainly played as either Germany, Russia or Japan, but never as the WA. Is tehre anything I should know or that might be helpful in my gaming? I'm thinking of starting up a game as the WA sometime soon. Help would be nice, thanks.

[Uncle_Joe]

Its kind of hard to define a blanket 'WAllied Strategy' because what the Axis does in the early game largely determines what you will have to do.
 
In general though, as the Strat Notes mention, one key thing is to continually research ASW for at least your LFs, HBs, and CAGs. If you dont do that, you'll likely get skunked in the Atlantic and will have little chance to win. In the early game, you'll have to scrape to get by on research. But you still have to keep it up. Suspend production on HFs or other long-term projects for the first few turns in order to free up points to spend on research. 
 
A few other things:
 
1) Keep your Transport fleet up. Dont wait until you have holes in your resource line to start building them. If you suffer resource interruptions, its much harder to get the purchase points to replace the TRs and that starts to play havoc with the long-term econ. It never hurts to have a few 'reserve' TRs in port and it helps maintain a threat for invasion anyways.
 
2) You must increase your airpower. Without air superiority or something close to it, you'll have a VERY hard time invading Europe later in the game. Arty is very strong vs invasions (and even stronger at the moment due to a bug). So, you'll absolutely need to be able to bomb those arty units heavily in order to storm ashore.
 
3) Dont underestimate Paratroops. They now get the benefit of infantry research, so they are no long as hard to use as before. Having a few on hand can really help make an invasion easier. First of all, it lets you skirt the invasion 'hard limits' based on Amphib cap. Secondly, having units in a region reduces arty effectiveness when OP-firing on incoming invasions. So dropping 3-4 paras into France before invading can really make a difference in whether your units survive that Op-fire or not.
 
4) In the Pacific, if you want to take the fight to the Japanese in time, you'll need to begin construction of some CVs in 1940. If you wait until later, they wont be available in time to counter any Japanese move towards Australia. Ideally, you want to boost your CAGs' EV, AtA, and Torp ratings, but that might not always be possible due to other research needs.
 
5) Choose your battles carefully in the early game. You dont have the forces to be strong everywhere. You wont be able to guard against Sea Lion, protect India from the Japanese, hold the Suez and North Africa and still fight the U-boats in the Atlantic. You'll have to prioritize based on what the Axis is doing. For me, the big one is still defense of the Home Islands. Until Germany is 'safely' at war with Russia, you should consider the UK as the prime target for Germany. So make sure you keep Fighters teched up and in place and try and keep an Arty or so in the UK and Scotland to repel any invasion attempts. Usually a show of force is all it takes to dissuade an invasion, but a determined German will still be able to bull through if you are not careful. Keep an eye on Germany's Transports. If they suddenly start to appear in numbers, prepare your defenses ASAP. Ship units from other theatres back to the Home Islands. Its far better to lose India and Suez than London! [;)]
 
Anyways, I could go on and on, but that should be some early things to watch for and plan for. Obviously playing the AI is going to be different than playing another person head to head so all of the above may or may not apply depending on who you will be playing.
 
Good luck!

[christian brown]

As Uncle_Joe put it so succinctly above, the transport link is certainly the most dangerous aspect throughout the game, with it cut, the UK will have almost no spending power (particularly grave when they are the only ones fighting Germany!)  So yes, keep Transport builds going continuously along with submarine attack attribute increases (if you can afford it, say in 1941, try upping the evasion rating of light fleets in order not to lose them quite so easily vs teched up subs.  The other problem area is the loss of the Middle East/Cairo, for which you absolutely must be prepared for against a decent German player, make sure the Horn of Africa is viable as a fall back or face the ugly prospect of losing big segments of the transport chain and maybe even India!  Two op-fire capable units are almost always enough to accomplish this (an ART and a TAC Bomber, or better yet, an ASW capable CAG that will fire on passing subs through the straight) for example.....apart from this it is very much as Uncle_Joe tells it, you have to react for a good 8+ turns and just survive.....