Max German Allies via Diplomacy / Espionage

[wdmitch666]

Playing Germany 1936 at max difficulty, my goal was to bring in as many allies as possible - with long-term attempts on Turkey and the US. This account ends in Nov ‘40 (game crashed on French surrender - I attached a copy to a bug report of that title) with the following Axis allies:
- Italy - Hungary
- Japan - Portugal
- Argentina - Turkey (later surrendered to Greece!)
- Australia - Brazil
- Tibet - Yunnan
Aust., Tibet & Yunnan were the result of Japanese influence.

General:
- send spies to no more than 8 countries any any given time
- send spies only to those countries with whom you are pursuing diplomacy
- when you start to send, do it at max priority, with no mission selected, until you reach 10
- in those countries where you are exerting influence, should use spies for "our party" (i.e., support party closest to our own)
- for those countries where you are exerting influence, ID their highest threat and send spies there with mission "increase threat."
- deactivate spies and end any priority when target joins the Axis

At Start Setup:
- Leadership - 27.81 pts. total
- Research 13.0
- Espionage 8.21
- Diplomacy 6.0
- Officers 0.6
- Intelligence - bring spies up to max and then switch to mission indicated
- France increase threat
- Rep. Spain increase threat
- Turkey our party
- USA our party
- Germany counter espionage
- Politics - select ministers to
- +10% IC
- +10% counter espionage
- +10% susceptibility to axis
- +5% espionage bonus
- Diplomacy - influence
- USA
- Turkey
- Hungary

- Research - need to stick to absolute minimum
- infantry, reg and motorized
- light armor
- artillery, reg and SP
- anti-tank
- engineers
- interceptors
- naval air
- doctrines for the above
- will have to write off CAS, subs and all other naval.

Events:
- Mar '36 - France & Rep. Spain - spies change from none to increase threat
- Turkey - spies change to our party

- Apr '36 - USA - spies change to our party
- Hungary - spies change to our party
- Portugal - spy priority set to max
- Portugal - spies change to our party

- May '36 - Romania - spy priority set to max
- Accept Rhineland
- Romania - spies change to our party
- Argentina - spy priority set to max

- Jul '36 - Accept Spanish Civil war
- Accept Italy (as minor ally)
- Argentina - spies change to our party

- Aug '36 - Accept Hungary - set it's spies to none
- Portugal - exert Influence
- Brazil - spy priority set to max

- Sep '36 - Accept Japan
- Brazil - spies change to our party

- Mar '37 - Accept Portugal - set it's spies to none
- Nat. Spain - spy priority set to max
- Nat. Spain - spies change to our party
- Argentina - exert influence

- Jun '37 - France - change spies to lower national unity (no longer a max threat to Spain)

- Feb '38 - accept Anschluss
- accept 1st Munich

- May '38 - Rep. Spain - spies change to our party (looks like they will win)

- Oct '38 - accept 1st Vienna
- Argentina - terminate influence (no longer beneficial)
- Brazil - exert influence
- Japan - spy priority set to max
- Nat. Spain - spies change to none

- Nov '38 - (made mistake here - forgot to change Japan spies to max threat)

- Jan '39 - decline Molotov and Memel (for now) - continue to build military

- Jun '39 - decline Danzig

- Aug '39 - (at this point, declaring war will bring in Argentina, but Turkey and Brazil will be "impossible," and Germany will be the highest threat to almost everyone - so I pass for now)
- (at this point, approx time remaining before joining the axis
- Argentina 143 days
- Brazil 700 days
- USA 886 days
- Turkey 2,700 days)
- Japan is still the highest threat for all four above

- Oct '39 - accept Argentina - set spies to none
- Romania - exert influence
- Bulgaria - spy priority set to max

- Dec '39 - (at this point, the threat levels (need it down to 50) are:
- Brazil 55.88 Japan max
- Romania 190.54 Ger. max
- Bulgaria 146.43 Italy max
- Turkey 61.85 Japan max - USA 57.29 Japan max
and U.K. is now influencing the US - did not do this for a long time)

- Jan '40 - Molotov disappears as an option
- Italy declares (limited?) war on Greece - U.K. declares war on the axis - all axis and allies now at war (this is the turning point in the game)
- UK becomes aggressor and is now highest threat for:
- Bulgaria - Brazil
- Turkey - Romania

- Feb '40 - accept Turkey - set spies to none
- U.K. - spy priority set to max
- no new influence

- Mar '40 - accept Australia - courtesy Japan - UK was probabaly
max threat
- annex Poland

- May '40 - U.K. - set spies to increase threat (I forgot this for a couple months)
- annex Denmark

- Jun '40 - Turkey surrenders to Greece (which was allied to the U.K.)

- Jul '40 - accept Brazil - set spies to none
- dropped all influence except for USA - need the leadership points!

- Jul '40 - declare war on Netherlands

- Aug '40 - declare war on Belgium

- Oct '40 - accept Tibet - courtesy Japan
- noticed that German-Amercian Bund party in US at 39% popularity!
- changed leadership points
- increased officers and research
- decreased spies and diplomacy
- accept Yunnan - courtesy Japan

- Nov '40 - games crashes on French surrender - what a bitch!

In retrospect, I should have waited to bring in Turkey - just let it sit - apparently the join button stays lit even if the country subsequently drifts away a little.

[Servant]

Best. AAR. Ever.

[wdmitch666]

The recent patch corrected the French Surrender crash and allowed me to continue this challenge (see first post below for general strategy and execution up to Oct. 1940). I took it up through October '43.

Summary:
At max difficulty, it is possible to keep the U.S. out, and appease the USSR until ready to take them on. The U.S. never moved towards the Allies, and the Ger American Bund party was at 63% popularity by Oct. '43. In fact, if Japan had not taken out China, I think that the U.S. would have been much closer. I think that fully allying with Japan, and keeping them at war, kept them from attacking the U.S.

I let Italy and Japan take the early heat from the Allies, but repaid by taking out France and then spent 1-2 years concentrating on the UK.

Germany geared it's builds to naval air, intercepters, infantry (with art and TD brigates) and light armor (with motorized inf, SP art and Eng brigades.) Research supported these and nothing more. With a perpetually weak economy, I relied upon speed and maneuver.

Did not attack USSR until mid-'43, by which time it was almost completely surrounded by axis allies. They lasted less than 1 year. By declining certain diplomatic events, I never let it go to a war-time economy until it was too late. Once I punched a hole, they never recovered - they had too many units spread along their entire border. I just lunged for Moscow and let the minors do the rest.

By Oct '43 Eng had lost most of India and much of Africa. It was down to about 50% national unity, and had 10 convoy transports remaining - no convoys were active. (See below for info re strategic warfare campaign.) Only New Zealand remained in the Pacific.

Chronology:
Oct '40
- France surrenders - begin influence and spies for Vichy
- set Fr spies to no priority and change mission to support our party
- adjust leadership points to increase diplomacy and officers

Dec '40
- airdrop on Gibraltar from Portugal
- Romania joins the Axis - adjust spies
- send spies to Finland

Jan '41
- El Salvador accepted into Axis - came on its own

Feb '41
- Nationalist Chinese surrender

Mar '41
- Ger attacks Yugo - big push to the south - Greece and Turkey are in allied camp

May '41
- Peru accepted into axis - came on its own
- Italy annexes Greece

Jul '41
-It annexes Turkey

Apr '42
- change UK Spies to disrupt national unity (to work with a convoy bombing program in effect since the fall of France) - should have done this earlier

Aug '42
- Ger attacks USSR
- our spies in USSR change to lower national unity

Mar '43
- USSR surrenders to Romania - Ger had pushed to Moscow - let Japan and the minors do the rest of the work - Hungarians and Romanians were actually pushing the Russians back after Moscow fell - Italians pushed up from Turkey
- USSR has gov in exile - kept spies at lower nat unity - in Jul '43 they surrender completely when Mongolia and Tannu Tuva fall.

May '43
-concentrating on UK national unity with spies, V-1 bombs and 24 squadrons of naval air bombing UK convoys. Japanses / Italian conquests also helpd lower it.

Jul '43
- UK national unity at 54.1 - being cut monthly as follows: Convoy damage neg 0.73; V-1's neg 2.0; spies (4 Axis countries involved) neg 0.26; for total monthly effect of neg 2.89.

Oct '43
- UK national unity at ~50% - apparently would need a beach invasion to make them surrender
///

[Tian]

Mar '43
- USSR surrenders to Romania - Ger had pushed to Moscow - let Japan and the minors do the rest of the work - Hungarians and Romanians were actually pushing the Russians back after Moscow fell - Italians pushed up from Turkey
- USSR has gov in exile - kept spies at lower nat unity - in Jul '43 they surrender completely when Mongolia and Tannu Tuva fall.

That's interesting. Surrender to Romania did not trigger the Bitter Peace event. Will try that for myself. Thanks for the hint!

Oct '43
- UK national unity at ~50% - apparently would need a beach invasion to make them surrender
///

Just paradrop on two or three VP. If you've already taken most of India and Africa this should do the job.

[BlitzNor]

Cool and interesting way of doing it . But I'm not convinced the USSR folded because of your diplomacy, but rather because of the flaws in the game always causing them to be weak...

[Servant]

Again, Best. AAR. Ever.

I really do hope that the Americans get inducted into the Axis...rather than having a fascist Japan and a fascist America duke it out.

[Deus Eversor]

nice aar! i aprove of it!