Very cautious strategy

A very cautious strategy will favour a plan to build slowly and carefully, looking for a long-term victory:

• Investing 40% of available resources in infrastructure, with priority on technology R&D and on port defences.
• Using the remainder to build a large merchant fleet (close to 30% of total ship tonnage), supported by a navy with ships designed for defensive operations. There will be a relatively high ratio of escorts to cruisers/escort carriers to battleships/fleet carriers (16: 3.5 : 1) and each ship type will be of moderate size only, as long range and high speed are not critical.
• Deploying naval forces close to home -to protect convoy routes and ports -in an essentially defensive posture.
• If land-based air or carriers are, building aircraft mainly suited to defence: 30% interceptors, 30% escort fighters, 30%bomb ers and the remainder (10%) for reconnaissance.
• If troops are enabled, planning on maintaining a ratio of 80% garrison troops to 20% amphibious troops. Also, in army assaults, the minimum aceptable odds are 5:1, and the optimum odds are 8:1.

Fleets also make cautious emergency responses - any fleet that at some point had some escort ships and then through attrition or fuel shortages now has none will tend to abort its current mission and head to the nearest suitable port if the fleet is of special value. It is of special value if it is carrying cargo or troops, or has any fleet carriers, or has some battleships that have rules of engagement that are more aggressive than 'hit and run'.

A very cautious strategy also affects the proportion of fighters that are automatically held back for combat air patrol over your carriers and airfields. These aircraft are not available for offensive strikes. Under a very cautious strategy, 50% of the full establishment of fighters for each fleet carrier will be on CAP. On escort carriers, this proportion is increased by 50% (to 75%) because of their primary defensive role.

In addition, a very cautious strategy has a default set of approved missions that your 2-I-C uses when building your fleets.

The following missions come by default with the strategy. They are listed in priority order, from top to bottom:

• Convoy
• Troop Transport
• Sub Defensive Patrol
• Ready Reaction
• Defensive Minelaying
• Defensive Patrol
• Reconnaissance
• Sub Offensive Patrol
• Combined Ops

Note that you can manually change the approved missions or change their priority, without changing your overall strategy. The strategy also has default values for certain other mission parameters, such as the minimum and optimum number of escorts for dfferent kinds of mission. See how to edit the strategy for missions for more information.