Part XXIX: April – July 1938
Now that the Anschluss was duly executed there is no much left to coordinate. I will deploy my produced land units as always in this game into six division corps, move them to the necessary places in order to pursue Germany's historical event chain (which will be now the Czechoslovakian border for the Treaty of Munich) and do some research and diplomacy according to my priority list. So until 1939 arrives and I start to present you my detailed considerations about the war I will speed things a little bit up because writing peace updates becomes increasingly repetitive after some time and leads to a lack of diligence (I've made a mistake in the last update concerning the Austrian divisions I inherited) as well as my inclination to write daily updates.
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One of the next "extraordinary" actions of Germany in 1938 is, according to our priority list, the repair of relations with the Soviet Union, beginning in April. In order to conclude the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that will add our final core provinces I need a + 50 relationship with the Soviet Union. I won't start the war without it, and as you can see from the screen my chances to influence the Soviet Union significantly are, due to the high Soviet IC, around zero. We have now around - 75 relationship points with the Soviets, and considering that the "Influence Nation" diplomatic mission will net us usually only five or ten relationship points, it's necessary to start now. So every two weeks as soon as the diplomatic cooldown expires I invest my money into influencing the Soviet Union. Fortunately our Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop reduces the costs of our undertaking considerably.
I would also normally take another measure at this point to repair the relations with the Soviet Union: I would conclude some trade agreements (not opening negotiations, I mean the long-term trade) with the Soviets. This would give us in a certain interval -- of several days I think -- a one point boost to our relations with the Soviets. This sounds negligible, but it is not -- in one of my test games I did not estimate the time I would need to influence the Soviets accurately and was barely able to conclude the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in late August; the trade agreements saved me from delaying my attack. Trading Soviet oil for German supplies is here really useful, because Germany has normally plenty of supplies and the Soviets plenty of oil. However, due to our strained IC (we had no IC run, after all) and probably also the fact that I set the Trade AI to stockpile money our supplies are actually declining, so I delayed the trade agreement strategy. Starting in April 1938 would have certainly allowed to repair the relations even if we would have only used "Influence Nation".
The Trade AI, however, decided some weeks later after my first initial influence mission that trading with the Soviets would be cool, so I'm now trading energy in exchange for money and supplies. I'm really lucky here, because normally the Trade AI would cancel all my manual trades with the Soviets after some weeks. Now I don't have to bother.
OK, let's get over with the (perceived) millionth technology update. Because during the war I will refuse to spend too much of my writing resources on domestic affairs, I will handle all technology updates from now on in this format: Old Techteam on Slot X ---> Researched Technology Y | New Replacement Techteam on Slot X ---> Researching New Technology Z, followed by an explanation. This will relieve me from the task of finding new variants and synonyms (as a non-native English speaker) for describing my changes in technology while at the same time I can focus on my actual strategic deliberations. I hope you agree with this change of style.
So, let's talk about the technology changes during the timespan of this update:
Konrad Zuse ---> Basic Encryption Devices | Konrad Zuse ---> Basic Decryption Devices
Should be self-explanatory. After we've researched basic encryption devices to make enemy army intelligence more ineffective, we try to improve our own army intelligence by keeping the Konrad Zuse techteam and researching basic decryption devices.
Ernst Udet ---> Battlefield Interdiction Doctrine | Focke-Wulf ---> Strafing Doctrine
There are still much Air Doctrines to research, so I will reserve one techteam slot for the constant research of Air Doctrine technologies. Battlefield Interdiction will help the organisation and organisation replenishment ratio of our TACs and (currently non-existing) NAVs, the Strafing Doctrine will do the same with the nice addition that Ground Support missions -- the missions we will use extensively to decimate the organisation of enemy divisions -- become fifty percent more effective.
Focke-Wulf ---> Strafing Doctrine | Hugo Sperrle ---> Logistical Strike Doctrine
We even manage to finish the Strafing Doctrine during the timeframe of this update. We will continue with another techteam that is more suitable and will research the Logistical Strike Doctrine, yet another technology that will help our TACs and NAVs regarding their organisation and morale.
I.G. Farben ---> Basic Pharmacology | Mauser Werke ---> Infantry 1939
I think that barely half of the year was over when I ordered to research Infantry 1939. However, I can't stress the importance of this technology, 109 of our 118 divisions at the time when I started this research were infantry divisions. It would be very beneficial if Infantry 1939 is already available at the beginning of 1939, so we can start with the upgrade of our divisions without any interruption. Especially the outlook that we will have to battle the French without a full second armor corps makes a modern infantry imperial.
Junkers ---> 1938 Tactical Bomber | I.G. Farben ---> 1939 Engineer
With the research of the 1938 TACs almost all techs (except NAVs) that are necessary to upgrade the Luftwaffe to 1939 status are researched. And again I decided that we have to strengthen our landforces in time: Engineers are our main (and currently only) brigade that we will use, so having the 1939 Engineer technology at the beginning of 1939 will also become highly useful.
On to the spy war. My enemies (the Allies and the Comintern) are still attacking me ferociously through intelligence missions. However, my investements into counter-intelligence paid dividends: Almost all hostile intelligence missions during the timeframe of this update failed. There were only two exceptions: The Czechoslovakian president is certainly delighted about the fact that he can now add Early Battleships from 1913 to the mighty Czechoslovakian Fleet that is currently cruising the Morava river after Czechoslovakian spies managed to steal the corresponding blueprints from us, while the British made again more use of their intelligence network and managed to disrupt the production of one PR of interceptors, which is inconvenient, but not a catastrophe. Nevertheless, the British have obviously formidable intelligence agencies, so I decide again to raise our intelligence level. I actually don't have enough money, but after a drinking spree with the Soviet ambassador the Kremlin agreed to buy 2789 tons of supplies in exchange for 943 currency units from us. In consequence our counter-intelligence efficiency again increases significantly and has now reached almost ninety percent.
Time flies, and July begins. The 150 days that must have passed since the Anschluss in order to enact the Treaty of Munich decision are over. Our units are guarding all German border provinces to Czechoslovakia and therefore we fire the Treaty of Munich as soon as possible and demand the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.
Notice that this would have been an excellent chance to enact partial mobilization -- which would normally increase our dissent by twelve percent. The Treaty of Munich reduces dissent by ten percent, which would have effectively decreased our dissent to two percent. I have, however, decided not to enact Partial Mobilization so early. This would have not only increased our belligerence excessively, made a military coup possible (you don't want to know how much dissent such a coup would produce) and ultimately disturb our current production through the restoration of the negative partisan IC modifier. I would rather like to see the Partial Mobilization shortly before the outbreak of the war if we can economise with our manpower long enough. The production during war is not as important as the current production and the upgrades in 1939.
Czechoslovakia agrees to the Treaty of Munich.
Apart from the useless ten percent dissent reduction and the hawk slider move we get one hundred additional points to our manpower pool, five Base IC (which will increase our Effective IC to a total of 227) and the Sudetenland provinces with their resources and manpower. France and the United Kingdom get of course the obligatory "Gearing Up For War" events that reduce their peacetime IC penalty. The clock is ticking ...