Matrix Games Forums

Hi! I´m going to play with oil rules by first time and I am something lost.[:(] I got a few questions about it:

1) How many oil units is advisable to save for each turn and each major power?
2) what are your favourite locations to save it? Why?
3)When do you consider the oils reserves are enough to not save more oil?
4) How many sinthethic oil do you use to build? when?

That´s all by the moment, thanks!

1. For the Axis, I save at least one more in early war per Axis power than I need for reorganisation in the early years (and this isn't easy). For France, try to have at least one oil point saved each turn, to be able to reorganise units next turn. The CW, US and USSR usually have enough oil available if you make sure you give transporting of normal resources to factories in the UK priority.

2. As far away from enemy STRAT bombers as possible. Spread them out to make sure that if a city is attacked, losses are minimal. Try saving oil in cities where no partisans can appear.

3. There is never enough oil...

4. With the Axis: somewhere in 1940 for Japan and 1941 for Germany/Italy. As the allies usually don't build them.

Concur, although a focused and successful BoA can make the CW Synth a good investment.

You know, it's funny. At 8 BP, the synth isn't really any more expensive in terms of expenditure than say, sending a resource from India if you go around Africa, or from Australia if you use the Pacific hop. 8 convoy points costing 1 each vs the plant that costs 8 and gives you an oil. Every CW game, I promise myself I'll scrimmp and save somewhere that to get that synth plant.

I never manage to keep to that resolution There are always too many more immediate needs.

That's only true if you have to build the CPs. You start with a bunch, but if the BoA turns ugly, the choice is this:

8 CPs that can get sunk and have to be replaced again vs. 8 that allow an extra oil every turn that can't be sunk. (Seems pretty much a no-brainer.)

In 20 years, I never saw a real german victory in BOA. The u boats are more a menace than real danger. In fact, in my game group axis not use to spend many building efforts in them specially when barbarossa begins. So I think CW sinths are not necessary. I would like to learn one day how use german subs in more effective way because in our way they are useless...

Assuming you grab Portugal, and let's pretend we're not even playing with Oil for a second,and while we won't ship resources through the Med, we're willing to take "risky" routes through the Atlantic; then to get the 15 resources I'd need for full production:


1 convoy to get Portugal to England.
12 to get the 4 Canadian resources to England.
12 to get the 3 Venezuelan oil.
8 to get the resource and oil resources from British Guyana.
4 to get the Dutch Guyana resources (assuming the Dutch are in the war)
12 to get the 3 SA resources.
8 to get one from either India or to do the reach-around by sending an Australian resource to Canada and another Candian one over the Atlantic.

That's 57 convoys already. If you're playing with LOS, you'll want some boats running from India to the Red Sea to keep Egypt in supply, (2), you might want to give resources to the Chinese, which will be another convoy or two, and sooner or later, you're going to want to lend-lease to the Russians, possibly even hauling junk all the way from America, which can be 6 convoys per build point. And, of course, you might not want to go all aggressive in Portugal, and you might be playing with oil, which will necessitate more convoys to make up the lost production.


Add in some reserves you'll need to keep on hand for inevitable losses, a few more than that if you want to do operations in the Med, and I often find my "minimum" number of convoys necessary for everything I want to do with the CW running to 120 or so; and even if I get scads from the Axis invading places, I find I don't need enough, which is where the Synth plant comes in.

And that's assuming the u-boats don't sink a single convoy point; which isn't likely to happen.

I don´t understand why CW should attack Portugal except to recover a lost Spain in 1942 or 1943, in these time BoA should be over. By other side we never play with LOS but I understand your point o view. Every way if the CW is strong at sea, the usual tihng, I won´t build sinths for them but if ther is a weakeaned royal fleet could be necessary.

The single biggest reason (even above and beyond the easy resource) is that if you grab it, the Azores offers the only point in the game you can get to stick land based air in the North Atlantic sea zone. Since your sea zones with the most convoys are generally going to be the Canadian Coast, the North Atlantic, and then either the Faeroes Gap and or the Bay of Biscay depending on what the status of France is, those are the places the Germans are going to look first to go raiding.

And ships in the 0 box at least are a bit lame for protecting against subs. 2 asw factor per ship is not a lot, especially when, if you spend 4 bp on a swordfish, you can get 3-4 asw AND force him to spend effectively 5 surprise points to be able to call sub combat (4 because you have an air unit, 1 more because of the nav's effect on the search box)


Covering the 0 box of the any given sea zone at all times means either double-shifting tow of your CVL, waiting to get a CVE if you play with the option, or sticking a plane in a port somewhere nearby and using naval air intercept to jump in the second the combat is called. Considering the latter is cheapest on oil and usually the most effective, it's what I like to use to win the BoA. But, of course, if you want to cover the North Atlantic such, poor Portugal is going to need to be smacked.

There are a few other minor advantages: Lisbon is actually a pretty decent port for maneuvering around the southern Atlantic and med, it never rolls partisans, and if you're willing to wait a long time to fully metabolize all of Portugal's colonies, grabbing East Timor lets you put a bit of force in the Pacific at a time when US entry options make it harder for you to stash troops in that part of the world. The threat of a suicide cruiser run can do mean things to the Japanese player.


Personally, for the cost of a low amount of USE (-5) and a bit of risk in the Portuguese forces themselves, I think it's a pretty good bargain. I do it roughly 80% of the time when I play the CW, and if I'm not, it's because I'm probably attacking Iraq.

A Sunderland based in St. John's, Newfoundland has enough range to fly an interception mission to the zero box of the North Atlantic Sea zone. The Sunderlands are very high priority units for me when I play the CW; certainly I build them before I build any LND-4s. The fact that their air-to-sea combat factor is only one or two is irrelevant; the key is their range 20.

Yes, I understand now, I could not see it before becouse in WIF there´s no azores [;)] I must to accustom to mwif map changes to make good use of it. In fact, I tyr to put in practice in my current game [:D]