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eqqman

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albania1934.gif

[size=+2]
Kneel Before Zog!: 1936 Kingdom of Albania​
[/size]

Hello, and welcome to my fourth AAR, FtM 3.05. This one takes its inspiration from a few written by mnplastic, namely ones covering [post=11386600]Lithuania[/post] and [post=12759598]Luxemburg[/post]. While I was taking a break from the United Kingdom AAR that I am also currently embroiled in, I looked around the AAR library for countries that weren’t yet represented and might also be in a position where you could actually accomplish something in a game. Luckily for me I needed to look no farther than the one that comes right at the top of the list alphabetically, good old Albania. I already had a quick run-through to see if I could do anything at all that would be worthy of doing an AAR, and I can assure you it is possible, due to some quirks with FtM. No money, no national unity, no industry, no leadership, no officers, and no military units (aside from the free theatre HQ everyone gets), is there a more unlikely candidate for world conquest? All of these issues attracted me to the challenge, and when I saw the name of the head of state, it sealed the deal. Time to get Albania back on the map where it belongs!

King Zog I is a pretty interesting character. A Muslim from birth, he oversaw the independence of Albania from the Ottoman Empire before the first world war and worked hard to try and make it a secular, prosperous country. He might have succeeded if the Great Depression hadn’t placed Albania at Italy’s financial and (later) military mercy. The King escaped just as the Italians were invading with his wife and firstborn son, who had been delivered two days earlier. After the war, the country was liberated by partisans with Communist leanings and strong ties to Yugoslavia; needless to say, the king was not invited back. A referendum in 1997 during the post-Communist era failed to put his son on the throne. An interesting bit of trivia is that blood vendettas have been an Albanian tradition since mediaeval times, and a tradition that the king worked hard to try and abolish. Despite this, he found himself on the receiving end of numerous vendettas and had to spend most of his life heavily guarded. On a visit to Vienna in 1931, one man trying to settle a vendetta took shots at the king and the king replied in kind before being spirited away, making him the last known head of state to exchange gunfire with a potential assassin.* Sounds like our kind of guy. Let’s see if we can do him proud…


[size=+1]
Table of Contents​
[/size]

[size=+1]Part One: Lighting the Fuse[/size]
  • [post=12816314]Chapter One: 1936 - Road to War[/post]
  • [post=12826479]Chapter Two: 1937, Winter & Spring - Puppet Master at Work[/post]
  • [post=12829840]Chapter Three: 1937, Summer & Fall - Foundation of Empire (w/Apologies to Asimov)[/post]
  • [post=12856672]Chapter Four: 1938, Winter & Spring - World at War (Already!?)[/post]
[size=+1]Part Two: The War Against Britain[/size]
  • [post=12883276]Chapter Five: 1938, Summer & Fall - Guests That Won't Go Home[/post]
  • [post=12887248]Chapter Six: 1939, Winter & Spring - Reducing the Kessel[/post]
  • [post=12921315]Chapter Seven: 1939, Summer & Fall - Tough Nut to Crack[/post]
  • [post=12935715]Chapter Eight: 1940, Winter & Spring - You Call This Archaeology?[/post]
  • [post=12956748]Chapter Nine: Summer 1940 through Summer 1941 - Calm Before the Storm[/post]
  • [post=12967331]Chapter Ten: 1941, July - Albania Attacks![/post]
  • [post=12978231]Chapter Eleven: 1941, Second Half - A Pox on Japan![/post]
[size=+1]Part Three: The War Against China[/size]
  • [post=12989345]Chapter Twelve: 1942, Winter - Big Trouble in (Indo) China[/post]
  • [post=12996632]Chapter Thirteen: 1942, Spring - Mopping up SE Asia[/post]
  • [post=13008602]Chapter Fourteen: 1942, Summer - Cantonese Takeout[/post]
  • [post=13070903]Chapter Fifteen: Fall 1942 through Winter 1943 - Tie Me Kangaroo Down[/post]
  • [post=13102158]Chapter Sixteen: 1943, Spring - Back to the Grindstone[/post]
  • [post=13109690]Chapter Seventeen: 1943, Summer - Persian Rugs[/post]
  • [post=13113186]Chapter Eighteen: 1943, Fall - Canton? Can-do![/post]
  • [post=13126157]Chapter Nineteen: 1944, Winter - Diversions From the Main Problem[/post]
  • [post=13131641]Chapter Twenty: 1944, Spring - Moving Like Molasses[/post]
  • [post=13147515]Chapter Twenty-One: 1944, Summer - Still Ain't Over[/post]
  • [post=13164702]Chapter Twenty-Two: 1944, Fall - V-C Day[/post]
[size=+1]Part Four: Wars Against the Majors[/size]
  • [post=13172083]Chapter Twenty-Three: 1945, First Half - Tropical Vacations[/post]
  • [post=13184260]Chapter Twenty-Four: 1945, Second Half - Operation ZOG FURY[/post]
  • [post=13196863]Chapter Twenty-Five: 1946, First Half - So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish[/post]

[size=-2]* On the American side, President Andrew Jackson was once confronted with an assassin in 1835. The man’s percussion cap pistol failed to fire, but no fool he, he pulled out his backup pistol which also failed to fire. At this point, the President proceeded to beat the man with his cane until he was apprehended. In subsequent testing, the pistols never misfired again and some estimates gave the President’s odds of surviving that attempt at 100,000:1. You can easily imagine that if he had been armed, Jackson wouldn't have been afraid to shoot back.[/size]
 
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Welcome! Based on my one practice game I'm confident it won't be short, but we'll see. There is a window where I will be in danger of an early elimination, so it will be exciting to see how that plays out.
 
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[size=+1]1936 – Road to War[/size]

First off I should warn everybody that updates might come a little slowly, since I am working on this AAR and another at the same time. Never a good idea to dilute your efforts, but there you have it. As you might expect, things are going to play out very slowly for the first couple of years as it will be pretty much impossible to do anything really. I will likely run through right before I make my main move that really gets the ball rolling and leave you dangling for more… heh, heh.

Since the first few years have me doing nothing but watching the AI have fun, I thought I’d do a quick comparison of some of the other micro powers (under FtM patch 3.05):

  • (Country)(Energy Production)(Metals Production)(Rare Materials)
  • Albania: +.61 +4.35 +2.67
  • Tannu Tuva: -5.11 +2.44 +1.22
  • Luxemburg: +.56 +12.78 +1.89
  • Haiti: +3.83 +3.91 +2.70
  • Panama: +1.66 +4.33 +2.16

  • (Country)(Base IC)(Manpower)(Officer Ratio)(National Unity)
  • Albania: 5 10 2% 50%
  • Tannu Tuva: 5 37 46% 75%
  • Luxemburg: 10 5 51% 80%
  • Haiti: 5 15 75% 75%
  • Panama: 5 1 75% 75%

  • (Country) (Military)
  • Albania: NONE
  • Tannu Tuva: 3x Reserve Infantry Division
  • Luxemburg: 1x Reserve Infantry Division
  • Haiti: 3x Reserve Infantry Division
  • Panama: 3x Reserve Infantry Division

From this partial list of micro powers it seems easy to conclude that Albania is probably the worst country to try and play (or hardest, depending on how you want to look at it). The only thing that gets me here is the terrible national unity. I haven’t read anything about the Albania of the time that would justify having one that low… and in countries that only have one province holding VPs, national unity is largely irrelevant when it comes to fighting. With national unity at 50% I’ll never be able to get access to the laws that let me unlock the full power of my whopping 5 ICs. I can only imagine that the developers were having fun seeing how much they could make Albania suck. My tool-tip for the officers says “We have 2 officers covering 1 brigades…” I shall name these officers ‘Manny’ and ‘Moe’. Perhaps in time I will be able to recruit a ‘Jack’ to go with them. This kind of seems like another deliberate insult… not only am I left with just a theatre HQ here, I don’t even get any officers to lead it? Seriously?

Luckily (I suppose) things won’t take too long to set up since my choices are extremely limited. Here’s my wonderful leadership and Infantry tech tree:

Ch01_01_AlbaniaTech1936.jpg

Notice that I can’t even make Infantry, even if I wanted to. I imagine I should be grateful I even have Militia Support Weapons at level 1 to start with… at least there is ONE thing I don’t have to research. My tech plans will have to be brutally short. ’Operational Level Organization’ is a must no matter what kind of army you set up for yourself. I will research the Militia techs to get me on my way to Infantry divisions. After that I will stick mainly with Infantry techs and Agriculture. I notice in a lot of AARs of people playing small powers that they still try to squeeze in Education and the Computing Machine techs. When your leadership is this poor (certainly under 5) it takes years before these techs pay for themselves because any bonus times zero is still zero. I would have to complete Education research 8 times in order for it to award me more than the 1.0 leadership it costs me to research it. If I start making some gains in leadership due to conquests, I might consider it, but until then, it is off the table. I won’t alarm you by giving you a tour of my other tech tabs (HINT: when I said ‘Militia Support Weapons’ Level 1 was the ONLY thing I didn’t have to research, I wasn’t fooling around).

Production is pretty simple. Since I can pretty much only make Militia, I queue up a 3x MIL + 1 ART division to guard Tirane. This division will take years to complete since I won’t even be able to fund it at 30% production. I also toss some Convoys in there just to have them in the queue, they won’t get produced, but later, when I finally have some ICs under my belt, I can start to work on them. Note that I only have 2 Convoys available to start with.

Ch01_02_AlbaniaProduction1936.jpg

On the politico-diplomatic front, I engage one of the two FtM tricks that will propel me to world domination. My starting neutrality is at 70, and by engaging the new ‘Prepare for War’ I’ll be able to get this down to 10 and pretty much be able to DoW anybody I like. I’m not as happy about this as I would like to be. It feels like they just took the ‘noneutrality’ cheat and attached a shiny button to it, so I’m a bit insulted as a player. Call me a grump if you wish but I would have been happier if they had fixed things in a manner consistent with all nations. In my day, neutrality made far more sense (even if it didn’t make perfect sense).

”…and we LIKED it! We LOVED it” – Grumpy Old Man

Ch01_03_PrepareForWar.jpg

In the cabinet I only get to replace 4 of the possible 10 ministers. I’m not impressed with Haxhi Lleshi in Armaments, but the other choices just give bonuses to practicals I don’t have anyway. However I like him a lot better as Minister of Security. You’ll note that the old Zogmeister isn’t afraid of giving himself as many jobs as Pooh-Bah. He’s also head of the Tirane HQ.

”It is consequently my degrading duty to serve this upstart as First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the Buckhounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop of Titipu, and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one. And at a salary! A Pooh-Bah paid for his services! I a salaried minion! But I do it! It revolts me, but I do it!” – Pooh-Bah

Ch01_04_Cabinet1936.jpg

One last little chore is to pop over to the Intelligence tab and make sure that I don’t accidentally send spies anywhere they aren’t wanted. Once I get 10 at home, they will work towards raising my national unity. One small advantage of Albania is that the other AIs don’t seem to feel they need to waste time spying on you. In my practice game, I never caught any at least. My last step is to make sure I align to the Axis. My schemes might work if I joined another faction, but they would be far more dangerous. I think that about covers it, so let’s get started.

*Click*

1 January: I move the theatre HQ to Tirane since I literally have nothing better to do. The current projected completion date of my Militia division is October 10th, 1937. I suppose you might predict at what date I will start my first war… or would I? Mwahahaha… I should point out that this division is not reserves, since I can’t afford to have any understrength troops floating around for any length of time, and I also don’t have any ICs to spare for the extra replacement costs for reserves. I suppose every player always says they don’t have enough ICs for all they want to do, but I’m pretty serious. Luxemburg is a powerhouse at 10 ICs compared to what I have going here.

9 January: France does Popular Front.

11 January: I get Major Worker Strike. Naturally I pick the option that doesn’t further reduce my pitiful national unity. These random events are going to be a pretty big burden when I don’t have any largess to spare for additional penalties.

February: Nothing happens of significance.

2 March: Italy makes the Trains Run On Time.

5 March: I get my 10 Spies, so time to switch to raising national unity and doing tech research.

18 March: Italy puppets Ethiopia.

April: Nothing much happens in April.

”And that’s just the way it happened” – Tommy Flanagan

May: Nothing happens. King Zog takes the dog for a walk.

June: Nothing happens… or does it? No, not really.

July: Nothing happens. August might be our month. National unity has skyrocketed to 51%!

August: Turns out I’m wrong, I thought my neutrality would get me into the Axis this month but now I’m blocked by alignment issues.

11 September: I finish Militia Small Arms.

October: Nothing happens.

24 November: I Prohibit New Parties. Whew! Thought nothing would happen this month.

26 November: I finish Militia Light Artillery. Note that my monthly gain is listed as “0” for manpower, so I haven’t gotten anything back yet after investing in my Militia division.

7 December: I finish Operational Level Organization. This will stay at the top of my tech queue as long as it isn’t being researched ahead of time, since my leadership is so poor I can’t afford any wastage. The ETA on my division has gone up a bit to October 2nd, 1937.

25 December: Spanish Civil War breaks out. Man, they couldn’t have waited one more day to give everybody a break?

2 January: I join the Axis. For reasons I don’t understand, just the act of joining the Axis drops my Industrial Policy law down to Consumer Goods Orientation when I started the game at Mixed Industry. With my national unity at 52% (yes, I went up again) I can’t do anything about it just yet. Zog I, Skanderberg III, King of the Albanians, is now ready to embark on his path to conquest (what? where’s the army?). I’ll be able to pull this off with my next FtM trick but I’ll leave you a couple of days to guess what it is.

220px-Ahmet-Zogu-1895---1961.jpg
 
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Or you can just play HPP, they have a proper Albania (yes, with actual units!).

Welcome! What fun would that be though, if I actually had an army?
 
Cannot wait to see our new Albanian overlords!

Welcome! Don't worry, nobody will be forced to toil in the underground sugar caves.
 
Neat! I don't have FtM yet, but I'll be following along here.

Welcome! I've played through another six months, so there will be an update when I get home tonight. I'm trying to give this AAR and my UK one equal time.
 
[size=+1]1937, Winter & Spring – Puppet Master at Work[/size]

Okay, it’s time for the big reveal. Here’s Albania at the start before I set the world in a flame… isn’t she cute?

Ch02_01_Albania.jpg

The key to my initial success is going to be the fact that the new war goals for FtM lead to some interesting side effects. More specifically, I am going to take huge advantage of the fact that “Puppet” trumps “Conquer” in precedence. I will start out by declaring war on a country that cannot possibly attack me in return but which could be defeated by Germany. By adding the “Puppet” war goal, when my victim is defeated, I will get a new puppet and Germany gets nothing but my warmest thanks. I repeat this until I have enough puppets that I think my puppets can defeat another nation without Germany’s help. At this stage, I will switch my war goal to “Conquer” and my expansion will begin. By the time I reach this point, my newly acquired conquered territory should allow me to have enough production that I can make troops to fight my own battles. This is my cunning plan.

”I have a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel.” – Edmund Blackadder

I have to pick my victims carefully so that things don’t go spiraling out of my control. I would also like to avoid having a border with the USSR until Germany is 50km from Moscow (or thereabouts). In my practice game, I started with making Austria and Czechoslovakia my puppets. However, if I puppet Austria and vitiate the Anschluss, then I am depriving Germany of the 500 manpower bonus from the scripted event. Since I still expect them to perform the heavy lifting against the Soviet Union, I don’t think taking this away from them is a good idea. Poland is a tempting replacement, but as I said I don’t want a border with the USSR just yet and I also don’t want to screw up any events that will set Germany at war with them. I am going to start out with going to war with the Czechs and the Swiss. The Swiss will give me access to France later on so I might be able to get a slice of their turf if Germany doesn’t form the Vichy government. So let’s get this party started!

”Who let the dogs out? Woof, woof, woof, woof” – Baha Men

You’ll note that Germany doesn’t have deployments conducive to my plan, but I have faith in them that a little strategic movement will fix that right up.

Ch02_02_PrewarBorder.jpg

Note that the “Acquire Territory” goal also trumps “Conquer”, so I could puppet Czechoslovakia and take the Sudentenland from them no matter what Germany desires, but since I want them to be a decent ally I won’t cripple them this way. I will use this technique against somebody else, though…

Now that I am at war, I can finally get my Militia division produced and some officers recruited after changing my laws.

3 January: I get news that my efforts to align to the Axis have expired. I need to tell the foreign office that they don’t need to use semaphores to transmit news anymore. For reasons that I don’t care to try and explain, the Czechs are pulling all their divisions away from those nice forts and mountains into the easily attacked center of the country. The Swiss also appear to pulling away from their border.

Ch02_03_EmptyFort.jpg

4 January: Now that my Militia division is 98% funded, it will complete in March instead of October.

13 January: German troops enter empty Swiss and Czech forts.

Ch02_03_FortPullback.jpg

16 January: Germany asks me to allow debt; I guess they don’t know that Italy manages the finances around here. I politely decline since I’m poor and need money.

1 February: My “assistant” slowly advances. I can’t complain since they weren’t deployed to be in a position to help immediately.

Ch02_04_GermanAdvances.jpg

11 February: Switzerland is defeated and becomes my puppet.

21 February: I get Economic Boost.

24 February: This isn’t going quite as well as I’d hoped, since the Czechs are letting too many divisions be encircled and eliminated.

Ch02_05_CzechLosses.jpg

7 March: France mobilizes.

8 March: The Czechs surrender and become my puppet. My results here are far inferior to my test game, as almost the entire Czech army has been eliminated to encirclements. I only see 3 Infantry divisions left and two of these are being reported at 0% strength. My laws have also reverted to the worst ones possible. This is also a fairly new feature and a bit of a waste. It’s another bad fix to try and stop players from making intelligent game choices (i.e.- stay at the best laws you can). And like most of their “fixes” it is still easy to circumvent- I could for example just declare war on Yunnan or Tibet and never end that war.

In the meantime, I will now DoW and try to puppet Hungary, since I still need to get a puppet under my belt that has some sort of an army, and I need good laws long enough to get my Militia division completed.

24 March: My Militia division finishes. Woo-hoo! I have troops! With only 2 manpower now available, I decide to buy a Sturmpanzerwagen A7V license from Germany, although I had thought the A7V was a vehicle from the last war…?

Ch02_06_A7V_Buy.jpg

Apparently all the Albanian men are busy working in the factories and don’t have time to spare for military service. Hey, the Zogster is equal-opportunity.

Royal_Albanian_army_2.jpg

29 March: I happen to notice a German HQ serving in the Swiss army… seems odd, in light of the fact that it is the Czechs which need help. Back east, I must confess I don’t see the German warplan here…

Ch02_07_HungaryProblem.jpg

…unless they are a victim of the bug that the AI won’t attack from an ally’s territory. I’ve written at length on this topic in the bug report forum and have received no comment yet from the developers. So I decide to save and reload in the hopes that this will shake up the AI, and I guess it does, since it starts moving these stacks away from the Hungarian border. I’m really hoping Germany will start giving some of these troops to the Czechs.

13 April: My hopes are dashed regarding a German attack, and I get tired of waiting and reload as Germany to force them to attack. I’m very frustrated that my game is getting spoiled by an obvious bug. And to be clear, this issue has nothing to do with the sneakiness of this particular game. I’ve had troops of my own in other games that my AI generals just pile up at the borders of friendly countries until I force them to march across.

After watching German troops get one province into Hungary, I reload as Albania and fix all the goofy stuff the AI did in my place. I notice that they are moving my Militia division out of Tirane… absolute madness when your capital is your only source of VPs. My scheme did work, though- now that Germany has a single Hungarian province in their hands, they are finally attacking on their own deeper into Hungary. I really wish the developers would at least acknowledge this is an issue, even if it can’t be fixed.

17 April: My loyal Swiss have arrived to help out.

Ch02_08_SwissTroops.jpg

1 May: I defeat and puppet Hungary. My next target is… Italy! I pick them since the fighting will take several months, and Italy has some regions I can acquire as war goals which won’t interfere with their border with France. In my test game I accidentally took too much of Italy and they weren’t able to stop the British from landing on their shores and getting well entrenched. This is the riskiest part of my strategy, since I know from experience that Italy will launch landings on Tirane repeatedly. In my test game, the Militia division was enough to keep me safe, but anything could happen. I’ve assigned a “Defense” leader to the division and a “Trickster” to the theatre HQ. I also have objectives set for all the Axis members on Tirane in the hopes they send me expeditionary forces, although in my test game they didn’t.

5 May: I finish the last Militia tech, so I can finally start on researching Infantry divisions. The ETA on this is November.

8 May: In my test game where I made a puppet of Austria, the Axis had an easier time heading into Italy. This time, it is a bit more inconvenient since they have to schlepp all the way over to Switzerland (this is another reason why I made the Swiss a puppet). I can see after taking a quick peek around that the Germans did finally give the Czechs some troops.

Ch02_09_ItalyAttack.jpg

20 May: Germany looks like it is getting blocked trying to advance into Italy, but I can’t tell if this is the same situation where the AI is stuck when trying to attack, or if they are just afraid to face the forts. I will load as Germany once again to find out. After doing this check, I see that they are attacking one of the forts, so the issue this time is that the odds are bad. This isn’t exactly how I would prefer things, but as long as Germany can still do the Anschluss, then the border will crack wide open in 1938.

Ch02_10_ItalyStacks.jpg

1 June: I get the expected Italian attack on Tirane. If they would simply land troops adjacent to the city, I would be wiped out quickly, but they don’t. In my test game, the battle never went more than 3% in their favor despite numerous attacks. At this time I also add “Trieste” to my territorial war goals.

Ch02_11_TiraneAttack.jpg

6 June: The naval assault on Tirane ends with zero Albanian losses.

11 June: I see that Germany has a slice of Italian territory, so I don’t have to worry about that front not going anywhere.

Ch02_12_ItalianAdvances.jpg

14 June: Italian TAC is bombing Tirane, this is actually fairly serious since I could lose all my ORG pretty quickly and be forced to retreat. If that happens, I may attempt to end the war with a white peace to avoid defeat.

Ch02_12_ItalianAir.jpg

17 June: Nationalist Spain wins the Spanish Civil War. Franco may be a bit peeved that Albania has been keeping him off the front pages recently. Later in the day I receive another amphibious attack from the Italians, this time starting at 3%, not 2%. I’m concerned since my monthly gain on manpower is only .3 right now, and I’ve quickly lost what little I had saved up replacing my losses from the bombings.

23 June: I hold out in Tirane again.

1 July: I add “Udine” to my list of regions to acquire from Italy. And I give the game a rest here. I hope to have Italy in my pocket by the end of 1937.
 
Nice update.
Will you order your future Italian countrymen to kneel before the Zog of Tirane or the Tirane Zog? =D

About your UK AAR: I haven't read it but I plan to do so eventually. Sure you're not comparing the insignificant British Empire with the mighty Albanian Hordes of Zog, the First of His Name?
 
Nice update.
Will you order your future Italian countrymen to kneel before the Zog of Tirane or the Tirane Zog? =D

About your UK AAR: I haven't read it but I plan to do so eventually. Sure you're not comparing the insignificant British Empire with the mighty Albanian Hordes of Zog, the First of His Name?

Hmm, interesting choices there, but either way the virtual Italians are long overdue for kneeling of some sort at the hands of Albania.

Right now the Brits do have a bit of a better empire going, but we'll see what happens as the game goes on.
 
Whats an Empire when you do not have Albainia. Absolutely nothing!

Therefore you are already ahead.

Well, it's usually best to quit when you're ahead, but I'll see what I can do.
 
[size=+1]1937, Summer & Fall – Foundation of Empire (w/Apologies to Asimov)[/size]

Here’s a rundown on the Albanian conquests-by-proxy so far: I have Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Switzerland as puppets. All these guys are stuck in the western Alps working to make Italy another puppet.

Ch03_01_ItalianSwissBorder.jpg

Italy is a nice country to target since it has tons of territories that I can demand once my allies whip them. This is the territory I hope to claim from them once the war ends:

Ch03_02_ItalianClaims.jpg

I’m hoping this will give me some ICs without crippling Italy too much as a partner. After that, I intend to take Yugoslavia, but the timing on that will be tricky. I have to make sure that it doesn’t interfere with the start of out war with the Allies as defeating France will be our top priority. You can also bet your boots that I will be keeping an eye on Austria, if the Anschluss doesn’t happen, they will be going into the Albanian corner. Since I share a border with Yugoslavia, I have to be careful that I don’t war with them too soon. My Militia division is awesome, but I think I’ll need just a wee bit more before I get too aggressive.

”if you don’t look good, we don’t look good.” – Vidal Sassoon

Royal_Albanian_army_1.jpg

I’m currently producing an Armor brigade on license. It’s an A7V, which is odd as I would have thought that the German Armor line started with the Panzer III. Maybe they consider the A7V a “Medium” tank since it had an 18-man crew. I’m wondering now if I should have produced an AA brigade first, since I’m being hit by Italian TAC.

1 July: Japan goes to war with Shanxi. Shanxi attempts to align with the Allies.

3 July: Japan joins the Axis. Now I have both them and Germany constantly bugging me to allow debt.

13 July: Italy assaults Tirane by sea again, starting at 3%.

19 July: Attack on Tirane ends, I’ve held out.

20 July: Sinkiang aligns to the Allies.

22 July: Hungary captures Milan in the name of Zog I. I’m hoping the Italians aren’t going to allow their men here to get caught in a pocket, but it’s a vain hope I know.

Ch03_03_MilanTaken.jpg

24 July: Nationalist China attempts to align to the Allies.

25 July: Guangxi Clique attempts to align to the Allies. I think this bandwagon is starting to get pretty full.

27 July: As expected, valuable Italian troops are caught in a pocket and are sure to be eliminated. At least some divisions are getting away, though. Once Axis forces reach the neck of the boot, there should be fewer opportunities for this kind of thing to happen.

2 August: Yunnan starts to align to the Allies. I add “Treviso Region” to my list of war goals on Italy. I only have one region left to claim, the one holding Zara province.

3 August: Italy attacks Tirane again at 2%. Italian conquests by my puppets have boosted my manpower gain from .3 to .8 per month.

7 August: Battle for Tirane ends yet again. Torino falls into my control, that plus Milan boosts my monthly manpower gain to 1.2!

Ch03_04_GenoaTaken.jpg

14 August: Genoa falls into my hands… and the Italians promptly sink a Convoy that was shuttling supplies over there. Since I only started the game with two Convoys, this isn’t the best of news.

15 August: Italy sinks my last Convoy.

17 August: Italy attacks Tirane again at 3%. I’m starting to lose count of these invasions.

21 August: I do a trade deal with the USSR to buy .7 Rare Materials. It ain’t much, but it puts me in the green.

23 August: Attack on Tirane ends.

31 August: Attack on Tirane commences at 2%.

2 September: I add “Yugoslavia” to the regions claimed from Italy. Axis forces are starting to head down the Italian boot.

Ch03_05_ItalianBoot.jpg

6 September: Attack on Tirane ends. The Germans bless me with an Infantry division!

”Ho ho ho! Now I have a gun.” – John McClane

Ch03_06_GermanInfantry.jpg

11 September: I complete Operational Level Organization to level 2, and since level 3 is ahead-of-time research, I drop it to the bottom of my queue. I notice my leadership has increased slightly from the Italian provinces claimed in my name.

22 September: I complete Agriculture research. Not the most exciting of news, but things are fairly quiet in Albania. Most folks spend their evenings at home listening to all the wonderful battles being fought across the Adriatic Sea in our name. Axis troops are now outside Rome.

Ch03_07_OutsideRome.jpg

29 September: Rome is taken. The Italians lose more divisions in a pocket at Rome and one in Trieste. I am hoping these Italian losses will be offset by the fact that Germany gets to spend an extra two years at a war footing. Italian surrender progress is over 80%.

3 October: Soviet Union invokes Operation Zet – Assistance to China. I add “Split Region” to my list of war goals, it is redundant with “Yugoslavia” but there is nothing else I can add. Any further demands on Italy will leave them gravely weakened and give me borders I cannot defend against France & the UK.

5 October: We take Naples; Italian surrender goes to 91.9%. For some reason Italy finds the UK to be their highest threat, at 2.1.

20 October: Germany captures Taranto, and we make Italy a puppet as well as taking off a slice of their turf. Here’s the current Greater Albania:

Ch03_08_GreaterAlbania.jpg

Now that Italy is our puppet, we also get the Pact of Steel strategic effect. And there’s even more good news. Since we made Italy a puppet, we still get to be at war with Ethiopia. Needless to say, that’s one war I won’t be in a hurry to end any time soon. Call it lame if you like, but I’m not the guy that didn’t give Albania even a single reserve brigade of anything, even though they did have more than 10,000 in the army at the start of 1936.

”Throw me a friggin’ bone here…” – Dr. Evil

The downside to this scheme is that Germany may need to be at peace to execute Anschluss… but as I said, if they don’t take Austria, I will. This little snippet of conquest brings my base ICs up to 9 from 5. A big question now is- should I attack Yugoslavia now, or later? Since Germany gave me the free division, I am leaning towards now, as I might be able to survive a land assault on Tirane. Also, there are a lot of Axis troops in the area who would otherwise be pulling away from the border. What the heck, I’m feeling saucy, let’s go for it.

”Not today my friend, I’m feeling saucy. Do you accept… cash? CA-CHING” – Wayne Campbell

Ch03_09_YugoslaviaDoW.jpg

23 October: The Balkan War starts off as I might have anticipated, with everyone’s armies heading off into areas you wouldn’t expect, instead of into the empty enemy territory right next to them. Since this is the case, I decide to invest Skopje and do my little share.

Ch03_10_SkopjeAttack.jpg

28 October: The first Albanian-led conquest of the war. Later I will send the Tirane HQ to capture the empty Bitola province, making that the first purely Albanian conquest of the war.

Ch03_11_SkopjeFalls.jpg

30 October: For some reason, instead of taking the short route through Trieste, everybody seems to be going the long way around Austria to attack via Hungary. Perhaps this is due to the usual bug with AI attacks from allied territory?

Ch03_12_MarchingTroops.jpg

5 November: I complete research on Infantry divisions. Who knew you actually had to learn to hand someone a gun?

12 November: Italy ships me some men. I have enough now to make it worth my while to produce an HQ. Not all of these divisions are the greatest, but I’m not in the habit of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Ch03_13_AlbanianOOB.jpg

29 November: I trade a few provinces back-and-forth with Yugoslavia. In the north, my allies haven’t proceeded very far. An interesting question arises on what will happen if I issue a call-to-arms on Germany. I can add “Yugoslavia” as a region to claim as a war goal, which will cover the entire country, and I know this goal has precedence over “Conquer”. So by using this I might be able to still get the whole country even if Germany helps. I decide to make the experiment. The call-to-arms is issued and accepted.

7 December: Germany sends me another Infantry division. I think they owe me after selling me an A7V out of their junkyard.

28 December: The year closes out with some minor Axis advances in the north of Yugoslavia, and the Royal Albanian Army holding a line in the south.

Ch03_14_AlbanianFront.jpg
 
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