Aligning with the Axis as Ireland

All diplomatic actions in HoI3 costs diplomatic points. Aligning to a faction is a special diplomatic action which also cost diplomatic points over time (2 per day).
To get diplomatic points go to research screen and set diplomatic slider to right. Doing so will allocate leadership points giving you 0.5 diplo points per leadership point per day.
Although remember there are also other uses for leadership points: research, recruiting spies and recruiting officers.

Also I don't think playing Axis Ireland as your first country is a good idea. You will be probably roflstomped by UK pretty fast.

What that means is you're moving towards Germany, but are not close enough yet to join the Axis.

By choosing the "align to faction" option you will slowly drift in Germany's corner. You can check your progress by looking at the big triangle on the diplomacy screen.

Also, as a beginner you may not be aware, but joining the Axis could be suicidal for Ireland, since you're just a tiny nation and Great Britain is right next door.

You might be able to do it and survive as long as you do NOT accept Germany's call to arms and fight only "limited wars" against neutral countries. Even so, there is a strong risk the Brits will declare war on you at some point, which will likely mean your instant demise.

ItaloCelt said:

I've tried this but, for some reason, doing the "align to faction" makes it harder to actually join the Axis. For example when I hover the cursor over "Join Faction' it says "Our alignment needs to be less than 50.00 from the Axis. Our current alignment towards them is 336.74." How do I get it to go below 50.00 so I can join the Axis at some point?

Another thing is when I hover the cursor over "Offer alliance" to either Germany or Italy it says, "The difference between their neutrality and the highest threat against them is too high. This value is 44.72 while it needs to be lower than 25." I did get Italy's value to go below 25 once but, when I attempted to make an alliance it said "impossible." What exactly do I need to do to address these issues?

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Just for fun I decided to try it out. I was playing the base game with all expansions installed.

As Ireland, starting with a historical 1936 game I was able to join the Axis by September 30, 1938.

It was pretty hard, because you have a high starting neutrality and start on the wrong side of the ideology triangle. On top of that, you start out with a head of state and foreign minister which will both cause you to drift further towards the Allies.

So, starting on day 1:

*I replaced the foreign minister with the guy who gives extra intel during peace (nothing you can do about the pro-Allied head of state). I don't actually care about the extra intel, it's just he's the only guy who won't cause you to drift towards the Allies or Comintern.

*I chose "Align to Faction" with Germany.

*I chose "prepare for war" to lower my neutrality. But this will only lower your neutrality to 34, and you need to get under 25 to join the Axis, so I also...

*Spent a large amount of my leadership on recruiting spies. Once I had 10, I put them all with maximum priority into the United Kingdom. Their mission was "increase threat x3, counterespionage x1" I kept my investment in spies high so that despite my spies suffering high casualties they were at a strength of 10 at all times. Increasing the threat on your powerful neighbor will lower your neutrality and help you join the Axis.

*Once your neutrality is low enough and your alignment on the diplomacy triangle is close enough you can join the Axis. September 1938 seems to be the earliest you can do it.

Well, if you really want to be in the Axis you could always save, exit, open up the savegame file and put yourself in the Axis.

This is normally what I do when I want a nation to be in a faction that is very difficult for them to actually get in to through diplomacy.

ItaloCelt said:

Another example, when I go to Germany in Diplomacy, it says "Our alignment needs to be less than 50.00 from the Axis. Our alignment towards them is currently 226.18"

How would I go about getting the alignment less than 50.00?

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The alignment distance is how far your country is from that faction's corner of the triangle. To be within 50 requires that your little round national symbol be within about 2-3 icon diameters from the German icon, or closer. Since Ireland starts out WAY up near the UK corner, that requires a lot of drift in the Axis direction over a long period of time. Influencing another country toward your own corner, if you're a major country in a faction, burns 1 Diplomacy point PER DAY, requiring 2 points of Leadership investment (that's a huge cost for a small country), but if you're a neutral country aligning yourself to a faction, it doesn't cost you any daily amount. It can take a LONG time though, or even be insufficient by itself, especially if you're fighting against other strong drift factors working against the intended direction.

Depending on Relations, minister traits, ruling party ideology, threat, proximity, and several other factors, drift rates will vary widely. Hovering your rodent pointer over a country's icon on the triangle should show the rate of drift and the factors which contribute to it. I've seen drift rates as high as about 17, and it still took a couple of months to traverse half of the diplomatic triangle. Rates of 1 or less may result in slight visible shifts over a period of a year or so, but not much more than that. Making a few trade deals to improve Relations with a faction member will have a positive effect on drift, and assigning ministers who increase drift toward that faction (or at least don't push you in another direction) can also be a big help.

In the case of Italy not accepting an Alliance, it's likely that your Relations weren't anywhere near high enough to overcome the major political differences (Fascist ITA compared to democratic IRE). Making multiple small trade deals could improve Relations enough to give you a slim chance, but I don't think it's going to be easy to bridge that huge ideology gap.

Sounds a fun scenario. I might try that one too.

Maybe using spies to increase threat might help a bit. And of course stay out of the war until some day 1940. You should easily get Ulster then, I guess.

Yeah wait to join.

Actually, you can get ulster back without joining the axis. You just have to wait for the war to break out and after a bit of time, you should be able to declare war all by yourself.

Taking ulster should be pretty easy, and then you ask for a peace. The computer will accept every time. Then you can continue with the rest of your world conquests

Last time I played the support for the conservative party (I think that's who is in power) just dropped like a stone and the more right wing parties came to power.

Then there are other times where the support for the ruling party drops, but they still win the general election.

I think its a bit random how it works. so I wouldnt worry too much about trying to get a party in particular into power. Aside from the combat and research and maybe the espionage elements of the game, everything else is rather worthless.

There's 3 ways that I know of.

1. Cheat by editing the save game file (you'll have to search the forum for more info).

2. Win elections.

3. Stage a coup.

For #2, you'll have to first see when the next Irish elections are, then start the game as a country which already has the ideology you want to install (fascism). Then put 10 spies into Ireland with the mission counterespionage x1, support our party x3. Then the org of your party will slowly rise. Eventually this will cause your chosen party to win, though it will likely take years, and to some extent election results are random. Once your chosen party is in power, save and reload as Ireland.

For #3, start the game as a country which already has the ideology you want to install (fascism). Then put 10 spies into Ireland with the mission covert ops x3. Once you have 20 covert op points, switch to counterespionage x1, support our party x3 and eventually the "attempt coup" option will become available. But your chances of success are extremely low, and it will likely take many attempts. Also, staging a coup will cause a huge drop in your national unity. Once your chosen party is in power, save and reload as Ireland.