Forums → Games → Spitfire 1940 strategies

I don't really get the hate this game is getting from some quarters. It's a pretty good resource management game. It is not that difficult for anyone with even a basic understanding of resource management, the challenge is trying to finish the game in as few days as possible (though I strongly suspect that the person who did it in 1 day found a cheat or exploit).

There are two things you must accept:
1. You will lose planes. A lot of them. Pilots too. War is hell. You can always build more planes and recruit more pilots.
2. Cities will get bombed. It isn't the end of the world, the nazis don't have nukes so the damage is never immediately devastating, and you can always rebuild.

Personnel is the key to the game, and how you manage them is the most important part of planning.

Areas:
There are 6 areas you need to defend. One - the southeast - is the source of most of your intelligence - a key part of the game. For the rest, the amount of damage they sustain is irrelevant as long as you never let them get down to 0% (if 2 of them do, game over).

You assign planes and personnel to each section by the + and - keys. More on that later. Worth noting is that your allocation does not reset on each new day, so you probably want to hit the reset button before giving out assignments as the enemy doesn't tend to repeatedly target the same sector.

Recruits:
This is probably the first screen you want to check each day. Some of the jobs are more important than others.

Pilots - a key resource, many of these brave men will die to protect Britain. Ideally you should have as many pilots as you have planes - the planes can't fly themselves. Pilots must be trained before they can fly, so there is a one day delay between assigning them and having them go up.

Spies - another important resource. The intelligence reports tell you how many enemy planes are likely to attack, and where. If your intel level is low, parts of the report - notoriously the ones where they plan to strike - will be blanked out. You at least want your intel level to be high enough (I believe over 70%) to prevent that. Higher levels of intel give you a clearer picture of the number of attackers. Spies will sometimes be discovered, so you will want to regularly recruit more. Like the pilots, they have to have a day's training before taking the field.

Workers - these are the people who build your planes. Note that assigning them here is only the first step in building, you also have to go to the factory to tell them what to build. Ideally, you want a balance between workers, scavengers and pilots to keep the most planes airborne possible at one time. More on that under strategy.

Firemen - mostly useless. If a fireman is in a sector that gets bombed, they will prevent a few points of damage. It's better to have people allocated so that you can prevent damage in the first place, or take the damage and rebuild it later. The only reason to place these is if you are collecting medals. Firefighters require no training, and can be readily reassigned to other jobs.

Builders - You will get bombed. It is inevitable. Each builder repairs 5-10% of the damage. They don't need training, so they can be assigned to damaged sectors, then reassigned to more productive pursuits when repairs are no longer needed.

Gatherers - the planes need metal to build, and these people gather that metal. You probably want to average 3.3 gatherers per plane you want to build each day. The balance between this and workers is one of the key equations of the game.

Recruiters - These are the people who get you more people. It maxes out at 20, and you probably want to get to that early to maximize your incoming recruits.

Factory
This is where the planes are built. You can assign workers to build 2 types of plane - the spitfire and the hurricane. Both need 1000 scrap, and both take one pilot to fly. The spitfire needs 4 workers to turn out 1 a day, the hurricane only 2 workers per plane. Since scrap and pilots are limited, the superior spitfire is the better choice to put all your efforts into. The only reason to build hurricanes if if you are going after medals.

Intelligence - this is where the game tells you (if your intel level is high enough) where the enemy will attack, and in how great of numbers.

Medals - simply shows you what medals you have earned for special achievements. Some are harder than others.

Battle stats: The first number is the number of planes you have shot down, the second the number you have lost. Clicking on this window gives the stats for the last day (same as the end of day screen).

Strategy.
Early on you want to max out your number of recruiters. A flow of more recruits is vital to the game (and drawing the chance card that prevents recruits for a day hurts a lot). You can even neglect other areas to do this - just as a test I ran a game with no effort at defense at all and it still took 16 days to lose.

Then comes the balancing act. With 20 recruiters you will average 10 recruits a day. First priority is replacing pilots - you should add enough pilots to match the number of planes you will have tomorrow (current planes - current pilots + planes being built). After that, spies - you want After that you want to increase workers and gatherers at a ratio of about 4 workers to 3 to keep parity, making minor adjustments based on your scrap reserves. You also want to gradually increase you intel to at least 75-80% and keep it there or higher. Gradually assign builders to damaged zones as needed (with priority going to the southeast). Assign defenders to zones at about the same ratio as the attackers (put most defenders where you expect most attackers), again with priority going to the southeast if you aren't sure.

Good luck - and luck does play some role, but with good strategy you should be able to persevere.