Does that happen even if I start in the 1944 scenario?
(ie Japs giving them a hard time while I clean up Japanese puppets, then start to push Japan off China.
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Does that happen even if I start in the 1944 scenario?
(ie Japs giving them a hard time while I clean up Japanese puppets, then start to push Japan off China.
In most of my campaigns, the CC get conquered by Japan, eventually. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
I've seen Japan fighting Nat. China in 1944 still, and in some games Japan had complete control of China by 1941.
It's fairly random. Much like the rest of the game ... there have been instances in which the German AI beats the British Navy on the sea (I have still to figure out where in the nine hells they got 8 Bismarck-class battleships).
Each game has different results. Although it can be easy to break it and cause it by yourself, just for fun. Start as, say, Greece and DoW Turkey ... last time I did that, Poland entered an alliance with Germany, Germany DoW'd the USSR in 1938, and the Allies joined in, at which point the USA DoW'd Britain. Totally random. :sweatdrop:
Im interreste in a MP game
And a bunch of high xp divisions. It's the only way they can survive the Nationalists early on, I guess, apart from their mountain fortresses.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiberius
They aren't that relevant, though, usually, to the prospects of Japanese victory in China. Their most significant impact in an AI-vs-AI war is to stretch and slow down Japanese advance from Manchuria long enough for NatChi to regroup and tie them down. If the Japanese make steady progress anyway they'll come back to eliminate the commies eventually.
The reds just don't have the resources to sustain a general warfare.
That's half the fun. ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Keba
The '36 start in Europe is all about gridlock. One declaration of war and say hello to World War II. My favorite has to be a Hungarian "get the Nazis to back us up" Eastern Europe rush I did some time ago.
I've had interesting results as Italy: DoW on Switzerland, and then the whole of Eastern Europe joined the Axis, as well as Nationalist Spain. Spain took Leningrad, as well. The Allies also got dragged in when I DoW'ed on Denmark (oops :sweatdrop:) then annexed Greece and proceeded to take all my colonies. Needless to say, with that being my first ever game, I quit right there.
Antiochus: In my current Italian campaign, WWII has started, but I'm not in it. I've taken all of Portugal (apart from Lisbon) and her West African colonies, La Coruna and Zaragoza from Republican Spain, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Albania and Dalmatia from the recently annexed by Axis Yugoslavia. I've liberated a few countries (Angola, Somalia, Saudi and Ethiopia) but my belligerence is still at 82 or so. Not at war right now, though, and debating as to whether or not I should join the Axis.
Keba: In mine, the Japs have actually taken some lands from the Russkis. The Russkis have taken lots of the puppet states though. Interesting how apparently others have never seen Japan declare on Russia, and my first campaign that lasted over a year had it happen.
Is it a good idea to build ships by the way? Or should I focus on industrialising early in the game?
Japs going agains the USSR is something I've seen happen every now and then. They get an event in which they can declare war on them or sign a non-agression pact.
Sometimes in German campaigns I can drag the Japs into the war, they can do well in holding the USSR forces in the Far East busy. They usually take Vladivostok and proceed north until they reach the northern border of Machuko, after which they fight mainly to hold the Russians at bay.
You have all that and aren't in war ... how are the Germans doing? If you have sufficent troops, then you can get involved. Remember, as Italy, almost all you do will be in Africa. Also, once you get involved and the US is in, they have a habit of unloading in Africa. Those are easy to beat back, since they usually only take one province with one or two divisions, but if you let them, you'll be facing a lot of American troops, there are a lot of beaches in Africa.
As Italy, building ships is vital. They take a long time, but they don't cost that much IC. If you can spare it, build a few Super-battleships, they're plain better then normal ones, and are very useful. A few carriers are recommended (if only to keep enemy carriers at bay, carriers are murder on battleships if you don't have carriers), but Italy has the battleship naval tree, not the carrier one.
Usually, however, I spend the first two years pushing up the industry, then start building a fleet. The earliest you can join the war with Italy is 1940, which gives you time to build up a sizeable fleet to match the Brits.
However, I'd recommend that you always research the most modern ship models. They don't upgrade, but new ones are better, and the older ones are still useful as secondary fleets (fleets don't spend oil while docked, I'm not sure about supplies).
Hmm, apparently Carriers aren't good for Italy. But I've already spent all my time researching carriers and upgrading them, I think my carriers are the Third of Fourth tier and I'm building some. My navy's rubbish though, and I'm scared that it will get destroyed once I fight the Allies. I'm also not very good at the game, and somewhere in this thread I saw that even the GERMANS had trouble with taking Britain. On the subject of the navy, I've also not researched SBS.
My troops are practically my old ones.. ie the ones I started with. I've added a few tank divisions, and built a few marine divisions (which landed on the Peloponnese and got destroyed), and partisans to deal with Portugal, Macau and my Spanish lands.
My airforce is currently just playing around in Europe, with some TACs at three or four stars.
Germany has taken the whole of Europe: the only remaining non-German countries on the continent are me, my (former) ally Bulgaria (banished them to avoid the stupid scripting from making them DoWing on me when they attack Yugo, who was my puppet. Yugo was un-puppetised to avoid war with the Allies, Axis and Bulgaria), my puppet Republican Spain, the USSR's European land, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Axis (Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, maybe also various puppet states). Oh, and Vichy France. The French are down to two little bits of Africa. The UK is bombing Germany quite a bit, I think. The USA is neutral.
On armies: would you recommend having one commander per division? Or just lump them all under a General, to avoid the faster units (eg cavalry) being munched up and retreating?
I also wasted lots of time on building factories.. should I just cancel all factory orders now? It's 1942 or something.
That depends on your IC, but, yes, I'd say that you should cancel industry construction, or, at least, most of it, maybe continue with one IC/year.
Italy is all for battleships, carriers, however are very, very useful, even outdated ones can still have their CAG upgraded, making them, probably, one of the most useful naval units. However, their require a lot of research, industry, and upgrades. To handle the Brits, you need, one or two carriers, fully upgraded with the best CAG you can build, four of five battleships (at least Littorio-class, if you can do it, better), and as many smaller ships as you possibly can.
Once you enter the war, take Gibraltar immediately, it will force the Bris to go the long way around. To take the Suez, you'll need a quick strike group. Say, two Tank corps (6 divisions total), two motorzied corps (6 divisions total), one mechanized corps (3 divisions total) and two cavalry corps (6 division total, attach light armour brigades to all of them). With that force, you can take Egypt by storm, and reach Persia within a year (the advantage of fighting in Africa is that you can fight even in witner).
Additionally, marines for taking Malta are vital.
Once you have finished North Africa, you can toy with the Royal Navy, they will be out of supplies, and unable to repair, unlike you.
I've yet to see the German AI take Britian, however, when you play Germany, it is easy, really. Park about twelve transports in the Channel (dock them in one of the ports), assemble invasion troops, load four para divisions on transports and assault one of the Brit coastal areas, afterward, it's easy, take the transports, load them with as many troops as you can, and unload on the island ... then scram with the fleet. You can't match the RN on their ground. Once you have a foothold, it's easy.
Commaders, well, corps (units of three divisions or more) must always come with a commander (if three, Lt. General, if more, General, if more than six, Field Marshall). Smaller units you need not bother with. At least, not when playing Italy, Germany has so many commanders that you can put a Mj. General to every garrison division you have.
righty-ho.
Problem is.. I have absolutely no carriers, or anywhere near the amount of troops you said in the Suez taking. My marines were destroyed. Also, I'm not particarly good buddies with der Fuehrer, as I've chosen the isolationist things like not signing the anti Comintern pact, in hopes of staying out of the war or at least going on a non-German side. I'm still undecided.. Germany seems easier to take out than either the USSR or USA+GB.
About the generals: a major pain is that I've 'groomed' two major ones: Graziani and Balbo. Then, history is unavoidable and Balbo dies in a mysterious accident. Yippee.
Those troops are for taking all of Africa ... half of those would be enough, though I would start the war at Gibraltar ... you can trade territory in Africa for time, but keep a couple of divisions in each of the port provinces in Libya. IIRC, two tank corps are enough to take all of North Africa.
Germany may seem to be an easy target, but you have little to gain, you'll probably end at war with all of their allies, and the Germans have so many troops that they can hold you off and then hit with a hundred divisions.
Carriers aren't vital, if you hold the Med, since you can eventually rip apart the Brits at your leisure ... later you will, however, need them, when you venture out of the Med (if only to support the Germans or even to invade the British isles).
You will however, need a lot of transports, and you need to take either the Gib or the Suez immediately after entering the war ... once you are at war with England, all your troops on the other side of the passages will become cut off from supplies. Once you have the passages, your transports will alow you to manouver, take out South Africa, and take territories of the Free French and British in the war. Once you have Africa, then you can get involved in the rest of the war. Turkey, for one, or even the British isles.
I just feel my navy is too weak to take on Britain though...
Taking on Germany, of course, would wait until the end of the war ~;)
With Commies on one side, and the Allies on the other, They're going to be easy. Hell, I started the 1944 scenario with SPAIN and took 4 or 5 German provinces, destroying a few divisions in the process.
From my experience, Germany has 50-50 chances to win in Russia ... or, at least, capture Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad. So far, I don't remember any D-day landing attempts by the allies.
As for the Brits, soften them up first with Naval Bombers, they can cause a lot, and I mean a lot of damage. When they get lucky, they can sink a battleship in under 3 hours.
Just out of interest, do any of you folks name your divisions or ships or corps?
It auto names, doesn't it?
Anyway, does the bitter peace event get triggered by the capture of Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow?
Don't know, as I've said, I play HSR at the moment, and the Soviets get an event in which they can sign a peace with Germany following the capture of Leningrad, Stalingrad, Moscow and Omsk (which becomes capital after the capture of Moscow), or they can continue to fight.
Since most of Soviet industry gets moved with the war, I usally opt for total conquest, with the establishment of puppets (Ukraine and Kazakhstan are most useful, Trans-Ural Republic and Siberia can also provide troops for the campaign as you advance east).
Granted, when playing Germany you don't go East before conquering Britain (and esablishing Scotland, a source of troops on the isle, and protection as well, the Brits try to re-capture the isles).
I've never really played Britain or the Soviets. I only have experience with France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the USA ... even when playing Soviets I never managed to get driven back enough for such events to trigger.
@Duke Malcom:
Yes, I do, occasionally. If I add the elite attachement to a unit, I tend to rename it (the elite 204th Motorized doesn't sound particularly ... elite). I also name ships that I find have silly names (such as the HMS 3rd Light Carrier division, I mean, WTF?).
I regularly rename armies and corps, for easier management (and when you get into the hundreds of corps, you really need unique names).
I see.
I don't want to play the HSR though, as it seems too limiting of what you do: eg if you play as Italy it's very hard to not join the Axis or something like that, I've heard.
Anyway, I'm thinking of starting a new campaign. Does it increase belligerence if you puppet a state? If it does.. can I just cancel it out by releasing a puppet or giving a colony a puppet government?
On the Spanish Civil War: should I help either side? It really depends on the benefits of puppets to me.. I'm not sure if it's better to puppet the winning Spanish faction or just ally with Nationalist Spain and assume military control. By the way, in your experience, is it possible to puppet a country (which doesn't become an ally) and then assume military control?
You also need Baku & Sverdlovsk plus Paris must be under german occupation and USA cant be at war with Germany IIRCQuote:
Originally Posted by Tiberius
It does limit you, yes, though I've found the advantages to be well worth it, especially in the AI department.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiberius
Anyways, creating puppets will decrease your belligernce, but increase dissent. That can turn out to be a problem, dissent, I mean. In my current campaign, I have belligerence of 35, with Germany, after dropping two nukes on the US, all because of the puppeting.
Spanish Civil War, in vanilla with Italy, generally, the rule is that you invade and keep the area. It is easy to defend, and offers some fairly good advantages. That, and taking Gibraltar is just too easy once you get involved ... Actually, it isn't, since Gibraltar is mountain with lvl 5 land fortifications, but sufficent bombardment softens it up.
Puppeting offers advantages over alliance, but a puppet cannot form trade deals with other factions (thus, they can run out of resources and have their industry shut down). Also, a puppet needs to rebuild his army from the ground up. On the other hand, when you make a puppet, you generally give him all your technology (minus Secret Weapons and a few others).
It all comes down to what you prefer in the end.
Close, but not quite. USA can be at war Ger, and the provinces need only fall, not necessarily be in Ger's possession. At least, those are the criteria for when Japan is in the war but doesn't follow the 'Japan wants a bigger piece of the pie' string of events. There's also a separate peace trigger for when Ger is at war with Rus and Japan is not.Quote:
Originally Posted by lancelot
Malcolm, I don't bother naming them in HoI, but I do in Victoria.
Ah, Vicky's a bugger for names, they always come out as 1st Inf. Regulars... takes me sooo long to get an army ready to be dispatched...
So... it is possible to assume military control of a non-allied puppet?
Oh, yes ... you get an option to do just that, it goes active.
I'm not sure how exactly it works when you're not the leader of an alliance. Never used it myself, a bit of an exploit, that.
Most of the time however, the AI will keep sending useless expeditionary troops to you. I don't care that I'm allied to China, the Soviets are gone and I don't need to get involved in the Pacific. No, I don't want those 14 militia divisions, you can have them back. Thank you for sending them again, but I really don't need them. That's the sort of thing the AI will do, it's just that helpful. :help:
Well, they're useful for softening the enemy, aren't they?
More useful for guarding coasts.
Is coast guarding very important? Does the AI actually try naval invasions?
Yes ... some are scrpited, but some are not. Of the scripted ones, Torch would be a more important one. Otherwise, lots of them happen.
Obviously, in the Pacific, yes, however, I'm having trouble with them in my German campaign. Every few months, the Allies try to take Bermuda, establish a beachead on the British isles, and fight off the American landings in Africa (they shifted gears, the East is too well defended, so they tend to land in either Somalia or Ethiopia).
So, yes, defense against naval incursions is vital, otherwise your advance can be suddenly cut off.
Normally, garrison divisions are good enough for that, usually with an attached artillery brigade. Make sure to upgrade them ASAP to the 41 model, otherwise, their hard attack is on the low side (I mean, even after the upgrade it's on the low side, but it's about equal to infantry).
Sounds really interesting, but isn't it a mistake to attack in June? You might not reach the key cities before the Russian winter.
By the way, how does everyone build so much? By using Series or Parallel?
When you blitz through France, you can also land in Britain, by that time, their defenses are awful, and a group of 4 paratrooper divisions can take a coastal province, while you can keep your transport fleet in Cherbourgh.
I've experimented with the Russians a lot. My solution is Tank armies (6 armoured divisions) and Armies (1 HQ, 2 armour, 6 mechanized), with holding corps (3 motorized). It turned out to be highly successful, the Soviets were annexed in 4 years (I started in 1942, so in 1946 they were annexed). Now, you really don't want to see the oil stats, but since I control the Middle East, am allied to Persia, am allied to Romania, and have the Russian oil fields, well, that has it covered.
However, due to TC, my troops are consuming a good 2,000 supplies per day.
Aircraft, oh, how I love thee ... 39 retreating divisions, and who do they ground attack? One division three provinces away from my advancing armies. Oh, joy.
Since I tend to scatter my forces, I need high powered groups for breaching lines. More so since the Russians tend to concentrate their troops. The key thing when fighting Russia is a continous advance. That is the reason infantry is not really suited for such warfare, aside from the swamps in the north, they are far too slow for any sort of maintained offensive.
I generally start campaigning against Russia in May of 1942, it buys me an extra year to prepare, and is equally harsh on unprepared Russian forces as 1941.
Now, if you plan well, and get a bit lucky with the enemy forces, you will manage to get Leningrad by winter, and possibly have Moscow either encircled or within artillery range (in my current campaign, I actually dared a winter offensive and managed to take Moscow). The second year is generally directed at Stalingrad and Baku. The third, on breaching Soviet defenses in the Urals. After that, you can continue the advance at a constant rate, since they can't really hold you back anymore, even in winter. Granted, that is if the Soviet surrender doesn't fire ... which it never has for me, I always had to go and annex the Soviets.
As for Britain ... I'm only following old German plans. Transports from France deploy additional troops after the paras have emptied a landing site or two. The first batch is generally Marines, the second holding corps, then two or three tank armies, and Britain falls.
@Tiberius:
Both, serials will reduce the time needed of building a unit, but parallels will produce at the same time. So, a tank army is built, in my case, three parallel tank productions in a series of two. Ships are generally produced in parallel, with only smaller ones built in series.
Yes, it should be enough ... on average, the Soviets employ more primitive versions of units. They only had BT-7Ms and one division of T-34 m.41s by '46 against my E-50s. Granted, I kept pushing them, but still.
On average, they will always be at least one step behind you technologically. After all, Germany has the absolute best Tech teams in the game, well, except for nuclear, the Americans have better scientists for that, but yours are second-best.
However, as soon as you can, begin replacing those motorized divisions with mechanized. Past the Urals infrastructure levels are fairly low, and the speed of mototized is deeply dependent on infrastructure. Also, with smaller corps, you'll have to very carefully pick brigade attachements. SP artillery and SP anti-tank are a must, so pick the third carefully (although Heavy armour is very, very good for attacks, they add a lot to heavy and soft ratings of a unit).