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Yes it is. they'll attack you once you take London or a (few) port(s) on the British Isles.
No, it isn’t!
It all depends on how aggressive you are as Germany. If you do the usual, Poland, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France, but do not invade Norway and Yugoslavia, you can invade the UK without a Russian DOW once you take Dover or London. This doesn’t mean they wont DOW you at some point, but I’ve had games where I controlled Liverpool and everything south of it and the USSR didn’t DOW me. If you do conquer Norway and/or Yugoslavia, the USSR will DOW you once you control Dover or London!
But to be honest there is always a certain risk of a DOW. So I usually invade the UK about 1.5 months, end of March or start of April 1941, prior to Barbarossa (1 May 1941 always). This way I have enough time to control most of the UK, so I can focus on the USSR, but I also have enough troops ready for Barbarossa and to cover my border with the USSR. So even when they do DOW, they won’t attack because of my troop build up, but more importantly I’m ready for them and start my invasion straight away.
Why doesn’t the USSR DOW Germany?
Not invading Norway and Yugoslavia, or other countries like Spain, will keep your threat down. I you’re also willing and able to do some trade with the USSR, you improve your relations and it’s unlikely the USSR will DOW. I’ve done it numerous times and it works.
When should I invade countries like Norway, Yugoslavia and Spain?
I take them out after the Russian defeat. I need to build up an army to invade the USA anyway, since I can’t withdraw my Eastern army. It’s a nice way to have your units gain some experience and to kill some time before you invade the USA. But there are also tactical reasons:
1. I found out that invading Norway, before I take out the UK, will result in convoy losses. This effects my NU but more importantly it has an effect on available IC because you need to produce convoys to cover the losses.
2. Invading or inviting Spain into the Axis is never a good idea if you don’t control the UK. The coastline is to big to guard, Spanish units are crap and the revolt risk is high. So what usually happens, is that the Allies at some point invade Spain and before you know it, they have 40+ divisions in Spain and it’s too late.
3. To invade Yugoslavia, again, it’s essential to control the UK. You can’t trust the Italians to guard Yugoslavia and again the UK will try to invade Yugoslavia.
4. To guard countries like mentioned above, you need units this costs IC. IC that can’t be used for the preparation of Barbarossa! IMHO as Germany you have only two priorities: Take out the UK and the USSR. They are your only competitors in Europe. Once you control them, nobody can stop you (in Europe) and the USA won’t invade because it’s too far away. Or as they say in football: Keep your eye on the ball! Furthermore the threat of invasion in these countries results in a major commitment or withdrawal of units from the Eastern front. So keeping them neutral is essential.
I’ve explained the do’s, don’ts and how’s more detailed in quite a few threads. I can’t find them right now, being at work doesn’t help
, but I think you can find them if you google something like “HOI3 Germany controls London”…
It all depends on how aggressive you are as Germany. If you do the usual, Poland, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France, but do not invade Norway and Yugoslavia, you can invade the UK without a Russian DOW once you take Dover or London. This doesn’t mean they wont DOW you at some point, but I’ve had games where I controlled Liverpool and everything south of it and the USSR didn’t DOW me. If you do conquer Norway and/or Yugoslavia, the USSR will DOW you once you control Dover or London!
But to be honest there is always a certain risk of a DOW. So I usually invade the UK about 1.5 months, end of March or start of April 1941, prior to Barbarossa (1 May 1941 always). This way I have enough time to control most of the UK, so I can focus on the USSR, but I also have enough troops ready for Barbarossa and to cover my border with the USSR. So even when they do DOW, they won’t attack because of my troop build up, but more importantly I’m ready for them and start my invasion straight away.
Why doesn’t the USSR DOW Germany?
Not invading Norway and Yugoslavia, or other countries like Spain, will keep your threat down. I you’re also willing and able to do some trade with the USSR, you improve your relations and it’s unlikely the USSR will DOW. I’ve done it numerous times and it works.
When should I invade countries like Norway, Yugoslavia and Spain?
I take them out after the Russian defeat. I need to build up an army to invade the USA anyway, since I can’t withdraw my Eastern army. It’s a nice way to have your units gain some experience and to kill some time before you invade the USA. But there are also tactical reasons:
1. I found out that invading Norway, before I take out the UK, will result in convoy losses. This effects my NU but more importantly it has an effect on available IC because you need to produce convoys to cover the losses.
2. Invading or inviting Spain into the Axis is never a good idea if you don’t control the UK. The coastline is to big to guard, Spanish units are crap and the revolt risk is high. So what usually happens, is that the Allies at some point invade Spain and before you know it, they have 40+ divisions in Spain and it’s too late.
3. To invade Yugoslavia, again, it’s essential to control the UK. You can’t trust the Italians to guard Yugoslavia and again the UK will try to invade Yugoslavia.
4. To guard countries like mentioned above, you need units this costs IC. IC that can’t be used for the preparation of Barbarossa! IMHO as Germany you have only two priorities: Take out the UK and the USSR. They are your only competitors in Europe. Once you control them, nobody can stop you (in Europe) and the USA won’t invade because it’s too far away. Or as they say in football: Keep your eye on the ball! Furthermore the threat of invasion in these countries results in a major commitment or withdrawal of units from the Eastern front. So keeping them neutral is essential.
I’ve explained the do’s, don’ts and how’s more detailed in quite a few threads. I can’t find them right now, being at work doesn’t help
, but I think you can find them if you google something like “HOI3 Germany controls London”…
As pointed out, it's never a guarantee that the SU will or won't declare war if/when you invade the British Isles, but if you keep your threat under control and maintain high relations and a heavy border contingent with the SU, the risk is a lot lower. It's not "hard coded", but the AI does a check when you take any of several UK provinces (London is one of them).
I've taken YUG in several games, mainly for a port on the Med, since there are only 2 ports which need guarding, but you also need to keep a small mobile force handy in case the UK lands at one of the Italian ports or in Albania (which Italy doesn't always garrison). Spain is indeed too expensive to guard for the small amount of gain, and Norway is a problem to guard and to supply or ship resources from if you don't have land access through Sweden.
Generally speaking, if it's got a lot of coastline (like France), I may only invade it if it's an outright belligerent (like France) or if there's some huge benefit in terms of IC, Leadership, or Resources which outweigh the costs (like France). I don't attack Luxemburg or Norway in some GER games unless they join the Allies, because the gain simply isn't worth the increased Threat, and have even done a few games where I didn't attack Belgium or Netherlands, until/unless they went Allied. In other games, I grabbed as much as I could, regardless of the costs of controlling it. Then again, if your goal is to paint the entire map gray, then it's merely a matter of timing, and sooner may be either better or worse than later, depending on the target. Determine your priorities (I change those from game to game, to keep it interesting), figure out the REAL benefits and costs to your plan for each invasion, and then act accordingly.
I've taken YUG in several games, mainly for a port on the Med, since there are only 2 ports which need guarding, but you also need to keep a small mobile force handy in case the UK lands at one of the Italian ports or in Albania (which Italy doesn't always garrison). Spain is indeed too expensive to guard for the small amount of gain, and Norway is a problem to guard and to supply or ship resources from if you don't have land access through Sweden.
Generally speaking, if it's got a lot of coastline (like France), I may only invade it if it's an outright belligerent (like France) or if there's some huge benefit in terms of IC, Leadership, or Resources which outweigh the costs (like France). I don't attack Luxemburg or Norway in some GER games unless they join the Allies, because the gain simply isn't worth the increased Threat, and have even done a few games where I didn't attack Belgium or Netherlands, until/unless they went Allied. In other games, I grabbed as much as I could, regardless of the costs of controlling it. Then again, if your goal is to paint the entire map gray, then it's merely a matter of timing, and sooner may be either better or worse than later, depending on the target. Determine your priorities (I change those from game to game, to keep it interesting), figure out the REAL benefits and costs to your plan for each invasion, and then act accordingly.
the Netherlands is worth it because they always have a huge surplus of rares and oil and a couple of great ports for hunting the royal navy from.
True, if they will trade with you. Usually any allied leaning countries won't trade with me after the first Munich agreement and then for sure after the second.
Makes sense.. I do think the soviets declared after I took Dover, but they played sitz krieg with me until I was ready for Barbarossa in July '41, so no harm done
Speaking of.. this is the weirdest HoI3 game I have ever played I think..
First the Czech refused to be Anschlussed in '38, so I fought them.. a few weeks into the war, the UK declared war on me and brought in Poland and friends.. so no Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. I did sea lion in late '40 and the UK surrendered in early '41.
.. and now it's November '41 and I get the message that the US is storming the beaches of my undefended Caribbean colonies. I go drat, has the US decided to join Canada and South Africa in harassing me at last?... then I see this:
:blush: Damned commies.
On a side node, Japan did extremely well this game.. they didn't seem to mind the early ww2 one bit
Speaking of.. this is the weirdest HoI3 game I have ever played I think..
First the Czech refused to be Anschlussed in '38, so I fought them.. a few weeks into the war, the UK declared war on me and brought in Poland and friends.. so no Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. I did sea lion in late '40 and the UK surrendered in early '41.
.. and now it's November '41 and I get the message that the US is storming the beaches of my undefended Caribbean colonies. I go drat, has the US decided to join Canada and South Africa in harassing me at last?... then I see this:
:blush: Damned commies.
On a side node, Japan did extremely well this game.. they didn't seem to mind the early ww2 one bit
I always go for the conquer option. The rares are too attractive to let go and otherwise I spent a fortune in LS on influencing the Netherlands. The LS the Netherlands provides is also very welcome.
Conquering the Netherlands, Belgium and France usually provides me with enough resources. I won’t need to trade for oil anymore and only a little bit of rares and steel. Though rares are in the red, by that time my stockpile is so big I can keep going till after Barbarossa. Barbarossa also gives me enough steel to stay in the green. And after the bitter peace event I start trading rares with the Soviets again
Didn't we just indicate that it's not hardcoded?
The Soviets won't launch an attack if they see their border garrisoned too strongly. They also cannot break the NAP in any way that breaks the rules. This means that if you are still under the early effects of the M-R Pact, the Soviets cannot even unlock the option to DOW you because of brigade ratios. Which is why some players try to run Sea Lion as early as possible. Get it done in late 1939, and then rush everything to Poland to deter a preemptive Soviet strike.
There are checks to ensure that it's not a suicidal DOW and that the Soviet AI doesn't break the rules.
It is.
You have ~40% chance that SOV tries(!) to dow you. So you must be one lucky guy somehow.
To dow you, SOV can only declare war if it has enough units on its borders. Or you not enough units. Taking MR into account, then it gets some harder for them to meet the needed ratio.
You can look it up in the country Lua code of SOV.lua and the ai_support_functions.lua.
The provs that are crucial for this check are:
Code:
local laProvinceCheck = {
1964, -- london
2250, -- plymouth
2135, -- bornmouth
2021, -- dover
1790, -- lowestoft
1616, -- grimsby
1524, -- hull
1255, --newcastle
1128, -- edinburgh
894, -- aberdeen
604, -- scapa flow
2018} -- bristolConquer of the rest of Europe doesn't make any change to this behaviour.
Exactly:
Code:
-- Can we DOW the Axis Leader
if lbSealion then
if math.random(100) < 40 then
voForeignMinisterData.Strategy:PrepareLimitedWar(loAxisTag, 100)
end
elseAnd that "lbsealion" check is just checking if the axis is having control already of any of those provs in UK.
If yes, then SOV prepares for war with a chance of 40%.
Strange very strange. When PI changed HOI3 in one of the versions and you couldn’t invade the UK anymore, without the chance of a Russian DOW, I did a shitload of trials. The result was don’t DOW NOR+YUG and you’re in the clear. So I was so sure it was threat related that I never checked the files
Maybe, ok skip the maybe, I’m just being stubborn but is the chance of a Russian DOW not increased through any of the other mechanics in the game? I can imagine that the Russians are far morel likely to DOW GER when they control all of Europe then when they just go historical. Or is that the way it should be?
Maybe, ok skip the maybe, I’m just being stubborn but is the chance of a Russian DOW not increased through any of the other mechanics in the game? I can imagine that the Russians are far morel likely to DOW GER when they control all of Europe then when they just go historical. Or is that the way it should be?
I recall that the original release of HOI3 included Threat, Relations, and a lot of other variables in its behavioral scripts. Once they decided that it wasn't working as intended, they scrapped most of it and replaced it with hard-coded and scripted events with few checks to keep them from being triggered under absurd conditions, then added a few hasty fixes to stop a few of the worst cases and to keep people from exploiting it too badly. The limited checks for things like the Soviet DoW are probably a result of those "fixes".
As another poster put it, I really hope this is handled better in HOI4.
As another poster put it, I really hope this is handled better in HOI4.
There is an easy solution for this:
1. Disband the convoy that the supply AI creates and replace it with a short one running from Kiel to Oslo, as that should only run through 2-3 sea zones.
2. Place most of Kriegsmarine surface assets in the sea province south of Oslo. Make sure it has plenty of DD's for ASW duty.
3. Place a 4/5xINT air group above your ships on permanent air superiority.
4. Enjoy your popcorn as the French and British navies slowly commit suicide.
Even if their surface assets mostly stay away, as sometimes happens, their submarines will get destroyed, you will not lose any convoys and your forces in Norway are supplied. After a while, it'll be safe to put a convoy from Hamburg to Narvik and you can use few NAV to patrol that route, though it's unlikely any Allied subs would be left.
As the operation I described above runs mostly on its own, you can easily leave it while you focus on conquering Benelux and France.
That will not work for the Northern port in Norway since it doesn’t have a land connection with Oslo
But there are other reasons I don’t invade Norway:
1.As long as you don’t control the UK, you need at least 2 units per port to avoid UK invasions. If you conquer Norway after conquering the UK proper, you can do with just 1 unit per port and 2-3 units guarding inland.
2.You don’t have to worry about the RN
3.I simply can’t find the IC to produce the units to guard Norway without endangering the amount of available units for Barbarossa.
4.I strongly believe in taking out the majors first. They are, no matter what country you play, always your biggest competitors and threat. All other countries, can be beaten later or you beat them if they are in the way of your advance and you can spare the units (i.e. SOV vs. RUM).
5. As said in my earlier post building an army to conquer the USA takes time. So conquering other European countries after Barbarossa, is a good option to gain some experience for the new units and it keeps me busy instead of waiting around for 1-2 years.
But thanks for sharing the option. It made me realize I probably can do with less convoys for Norway.
Strange - I haven't found it difficult to build enough troops for a historical Barbarossa while guarding all continental ports. You are, of course, completely free to play the game any way you wish
As for Kirkenes, that last little port up there, it's pointless to guard it. It's size 1 IIRC and, as stated, has no land connection to Narvik as the infra is too low. So even if the Allies land there, they won't get anywhere and even if they invade Finland, they will starve thanks to supply issues. Though I've seen the AI to invade Kirkenes in the first place.
Personally, I upgrade the port at Kirkenes so I can run a supply convoy there, as I also build an airbase there to help Finns take Murmansk - placing 4 TAC in Finland kills their supply system, I've found, especially after I send few MTN divisions to help them out, as USSR seems far too eager to capture Finland after Barbarossa starts even when it is losing all of Baltics, Belorussia and Ukraine.
As for Kirkenes, that last little port up there, it's pointless to guard it. It's size 1 IIRC and, as stated, has no land connection to Narvik as the infra is too low. So even if the Allies land there, they won't get anywhere and even if they invade Finland, they will starve thanks to supply issues. Though I've seen the AI to invade Kirkenes in the first place.
Personally, I upgrade the port at Kirkenes so I can run a supply convoy there, as I also build an airbase there to help Finns take Murmansk - placing 4 TAC in Finland kills their supply system, I've found, especially after I send few MTN divisions to help them out, as USSR seems far too eager to capture Finland after Barbarossa starts even when it is losing all of Baltics, Belorussia and Ukraine.