Bulgaria: Balkans, Battles and Bruises.....

[PNEawf]

Hoi 2 Ver 1.3b. N/N, no mods


Georgi Keoseivanov loked at the map of Bulgaria. He looked at the members of his government. He looked at King Boris II. He looked at his Generals and finally he looked in the mirror. The room waited in anticipation.

"Gentleman," he began, "we suck!" His face was deadpan, his audience knew he was serious, and it knew he was right. Murmurs of agreement filled the room before Georgi raised his had to silence them. He continued.
"We are surrounded by forces superiour to ours, to nations wealthier and more advanced than us, We have no friends and our industry is only just out of the middle ages." He looked at each person in the room individually, then added.
"Gentlemen, we have a difficult trask ahead of us and if I could sack you all I would. Unfortunately the only person I can sack is the Chief of the Navy, something and someone that is utterly pointless as we don't have a navy."
He looked at his Chief of Staff, Hristo Lukov.
"Hristo, your task is to replace our generals with people who can run things more efficiently. I don't care if they can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag as we aren't going to fighting anyone if I can help it. Not yet anyway."
Lukov nodded and left the room as Georgi finished his speech.
"The rest of you, well just don't mess up too much. Now go pretend you know what you're doing and lets get some articles in the papers about how brilliant this government is. Just remember everyone. No mentioning to anybody about our plans to conquor Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania and Turkey."

Georgi then turned to Dr Watson and said:

The game is afoot!

Dr Watson wondered what the hell he was doing in Bulgaria..................

[PNEawf]

January 1, 1936.

Diplomacy:

Slider change 1 towards Hawk.
Ministerial changes, none. Only the Chief of Navy can be changed at this point, and I can't see any point as I have no navy.



Technology:]

Basic machine tools seemed a no brainer, and I decided to get my military improved as fast as possible and went for early INF.



Production:

I couldn't see any obvious path to follow here and decided to build a couple of factories. With only 1 80% province the second factory wont be finished for over a year, but in the long run the iC is going to help.



Military:

I left the arny where it was as I have four army groups in reasonable places, and replaced their leaders with my four Logistics Wizards.






International relations:

I am going to use my excess supplies and any other raw materials I have to build up my reserves of cash and kiss up to Germany. I want into their alliance and I want those beautiful blueprints. Anything I have on top of that will be used to improve relations with the USSR and the UK.

[Yoy21]

Good start to a potentially good AAR. I wish you the best of luck as Bulgaria.

[Atruejedi]

Yes, I look forward to this one, too! Will be interesting to see how far one can go with Bulgaria (and no cheats )

[PNEawf]

January 3, 1936:

I have set up 3 trades.

38 energy from Germany for 3.7 supplies.

3 money from the USSR for 6.1 supplies.

5 metal and 3 rares fron the Netherlands for 5.7 supplies.


Leaving me with a very small surplus in everything except Rares, which I am breaking even on. The money will keep my research going and over time help me to get into the Axis.

[PNEawf]

Yes, I look forward to this one, too! Will be interesting to see how far one can go with Bulgaria (and no cheats )

I am not expecting great things. I am the eternal pessimist!

[PNEawf]

Long Term Goals and Strategies:

If I may be permitted to blow my own trumpet, my strength in the game is to be able to develop a long term strategy and ruthlessly pursue it. However, my goal here is simply to survive without being slapped silly by a superpower. My strategy will be to adopt a more flexible approach. I intend to woo Germany for blueprints, but will happily swap to neutral or even to the Commies if circumstances dictate.
I am pretty good at making trades work for me, so I intend on trading between Italy and the USSR to get free resources, I will also look at how other countries view me and try and make good deals between them and either Germany or the USSR to get more freebies. This should help with getting more cash to persue my friendship with Germany, while at the same time staying on the good side of the USSR and the UK.
Militarily I have designs on Greece and Yugoslavia, then maybe Romania and Turkey, but in the end I will be happy ending the game in no worse a position than I started. I will not take control of any allied forces unless they are under me in an alliance, ie I wont control germany or the USSR, but if I allied with Turkey, I may. Otherwise I feel it would give me too much of an edge and allow for gamey attacks from Bulgarian territory using German or Soviet forces.
My timescale for attacking my neighbours is pretty flexible. I don't want an early war, so I will play it by ear as of September 1939. Until then my thoughts are on research and production, and getting as many resources as possible.

So, with that in mind, any advice will be gratefully accepted.

[Yoy21]

Here's some advice: Don't piss off the SU. They have everything...EVERYTHING!!! Rares, tanks, people, food, oil, and everything else that YOU don't have. If anything, ally with them to get some sweet trade deals. I don't care if it means fighting the Germans...do anything you can to get on the Red side of the wall. Got it? good.

[lifeless]

good luck! should invade greece first!

[PNEawf]

It is now January 1937:

I traded my excess supplies for cash and after i had increased my influence with Germany to 50 using trades I began to influence her.



By October I had my influence to 180 and a 61% chance of joining the axis.





I chanced my arm......



.....and joined the axis.

My reward was blueprints and resources:

[PNEawf]

Research:

My first techs were researched slowly:



replaced with...



Then:



was replaced with....



By now I was getting blueprints from Germany and things picked up.



was replaced with....



and I started



(I seem to have lost some shots!)

[PNEawf]

Jan 1937:

No minister changes, but another slider move to hawk.

My first factory was built in Varna



I decided to build another there.

Then the second in Plovdiv arrived.




and after rearranging a few trades, as I needed less money now, I decided to build two more factories.

[PNEawf]

Diplomacy.

I have now started influencing the uSSR and have my influence at 110.

I have been trading between the USSR and Italy and I now have a steady supply of resorces being stockpiled.

I haven't yet started upgrading my troops as my aim is to wait until I have 1939 INF so I get the obsolete bonus.

[stnylan]

When will you start building troops?

[Yoy21]

Ok, but when the SU comes knocking on your door, you're going to switch sides, right? Right?

[Marchalk_Zjukov]

Ok, but when the SU comes knocking on your door, you're going to switch sides, right? Right?

It is eather that or being annexed.

[PNEawf]

When will you start building troops?

Jan 1st 1938. My next factory should finish the previous day, I get another slider change to hawk and then I start producing some MTN units. I will start on INF when the other two factories are built on Jan 26th.

Ok, but when the SU comes knocking on your door, you're going to switch sides, right? Right?

Too right I am!!

[Yoy21]

Hey, I also found a helpful guide on Minor and Micro nations at wikipedia. If you need help, that is...

[PNEawf]

JANUARY 3, 1938:

Another dull year at the Bulgarian Government.

Lots of trades, and I now have the USSR at 200 inf and the UK at 110.

My research went as follows:

[PNEawf]

I continued to receive blueprints from my new best friend, Germany: