Italy needs a complete change

[Flayer92]

Wide variation is correct. Reading the accounts of units like the Ariete and the Folgore leaves no doubt of their bravery.

[plasticpanzers]

Another point to consider if you start Italy on a multinational conquest path in 1936 you are
cheating Italy of the 4 years they could have to improve their technology, industry, and military.
Would have the same effect of using a 1936 US Army.

[JASGripen]

I think ITA might have a bit to much MP, it is hard to deplete the pool for ITA.

[blue emu]

This is a perfect example of how retarded the Italy AI is. I totally understand if you want to make them weaker to reflect history, but at least give them a chance and/or brain. This game is becoming ridiculous. I might go back to Rome Total Realism.

If I understand your point correctly... you are using AI-Italy's failure to beat Yugoslavia, Greece, Austria and Switzerland simultaneously in 1936 (!) as an example of HOI-3's "lack of realism"?

This would appear to be some specialized usage of the word "realism", of which I was not aware.

[Panncakemouse]

...To be further noted, in the Greco-Italian campaign, the Italians had only eight divisions stationed in Albania against fifteen Greek divisions, and of these only three were sent on the initial offensive. Badoglio projected that 20 divisions would be needed for a successful offensive, but was overruled by Mussolini and given only 12 days' notice before the attack would begin.

The failure was entirely a strategic/logistical one based on totally inadequate planning. A well-led Italy could have achieved much more than it did historically. ....

This last part basically says you agree that Italy had a lousy AI in reality, but you want a ahistorically smart Italy in game.
To my that does not compute.

[Panncakemouse]

Another point to consider if you start Italy on a multinational conquest path in 1936 you are
cheating Italy of the 4 years they could have to improve their technology, industry, and military.
Would have the same effect of using a 1936 US Army.

My experience is actyally quite the opposite (as human player). 4 years of continuous war expanding the Italian in the Balkans, Turkey, Persia and Spain/Portugal gives you added IC (both during wars and as part of territorrial gain) and a very experiened army & airforce.
THis is too easy for a human player to acheive - and it is a good thing the AI don't do the same.

[Panncakemouse]

I think ITA might have a bit to much MP, it is hard to deplete the pool for ITA.

If you go all out on infantry you can more or less deplete the manpower while fighting SU in the south. But I agree that Italy do have a lot of MP.

[tommylotto]

No thread griping about the state of Italy would be complete without complaining about the fact that the majors are hard wire programmed to never declare war on a neutral Italy no matter what it does and no matter how threatening it gets.

This game was just vanilla FtM without any cheats. Germany had no problem as Italy absorbed Austria,
Poland and all of Scandinavia. The UK had no problem as Mussolini annexed Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

[GCZ]

No thread griping about the state of Italy would be complete without complaining about the fact that the majors are hard wire programmed to never declare war on a neutral Italy no matter what it does and no matter how threatening it gets.
(...)
This game was just vanilla FtM without any cheats. Germany had no problem as Italy absorbed Austria,
Poland and all of Scandinavia. The UK had no problem as Mussolini annexed Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Il Duce would be really proud of you for giving him the empire he wanted. But it's strange if noone declares war against Italy. Could be a bug...

[GCZ]

Btw: to add my two cents to this discussion, I really don't want to see the AI of Italy (or of any other nation) to be more powerful and capable in the game than "it" was in reality. Such an opportunity should definitely be left to the player alone, as the player should be the key component behind any changes of history, not the AI. As a player, I don't want to see the AI to perform too differently from how the nation performed in real. I want to do that by myself!

[Charles Reeps]

Btw: to add my two cents to this discussion, I really don't want to see the AI of Italy (or of any other nation) to be more powerful and capable in the game than "it" was in reality. Such an opportunity should definitely be left to the player alone, as the player should be the key component behind any changes of history, not the AI. As a player, I don't want to see the AI to perform too differently from how the nation performed in real. I want to do that by myself!

So you don't want a challenge?

[Cybvep]

As a player, I don't want to see the AI to perform too differently from how the nation performed in real. I want to do that by myself!

Then you can forget about a challenging, unpredictable AI. With hindsight, even a poor strategist can beat the AI every time if it always does the same things RL countries did IRL.

[Flayer92]

Agreed. What I've talkedabout is the potential for the AI to succeed in the game in places where it could have succeeded IRL. The only place this typically happens in the game is in France, because the French AI is bad at reallocating forces between the German and Italian fronts.

[podcat]

No thread griping about the state of Italy would be complete without complaining about the fact that the majors are hard wire programmed to never declare war on a neutral Italy no matter what it does and no matter how threatening it gets.

This game was just vanilla FtM without any cheats. Germany had no problem as Italy absorbed Austria,
Poland and all of Scandinavia. The UK had no problem as Mussolini annexed Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

oh god. we should probably fix this loophole

[death1081]

Was that an AI controlled Italy or Human? I don't think i have seen the AI pull that off!

[tommylotto]

Was that an AI controlled Italy or Human? I don't think i have seen the AI pull that off!

No that's not the Italian AI, even Skynet could not have pulled that off. That was me taking advantage of a loophole. I raised France's threat so that I could attack Austria before the Anschluss, then every non-guaranteed neutral on the planet had to learn to sing "O Sole Mio" ...

[Charles Reeps]

No that's not the Italian AI, even Skynet could not have pulled that off. That was me taking advantage of a loophole. I raised France's threat so that I could attack Austria before the Anschluss, then every non-guaranteed neutral on the planet had to learn to sing "O Sole Mio" ...

Why did you let France live?

[Lord Curlyton]

B/c its part of the Allies. He's just eating up the non-aligned, non-guaranteed world and making it all ITALY. Now if he takes out non-aligned USA that will be even better.
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By the by, I do not feel Italy to be under-powered in AI specifically. Its quite capable of doing a back and forth with UK in Africa and the UK AI tends to spread the RN out too much and it gets whittled to nearly nothing by the time I engage it. If you take out UK Home Islands, they will eventually ship the majority of their army over and crush the British. It was actually quite fun watching the rest of UK sans the Home Islands (which approached 90 IC and decent manpower) go up against Italy, at least until I decided I needed to end the allies and start annexing all those lovely European territories I'd been holding.

[Charles Reeps]

Just coup France out of the Allies. Its NU drops close to 5. You only need 5 or 6 VP provinces to conquer it. Gamey? Yes, but so is taking all the territory in tommylotto's example.

[Lord Curlyton]

Well yeah he could do THAT, but since he didn't mention it I presume he never did such.