Kneel Before Zog!: 1936 Albania

Wraith11B said:

I don't know about this... ...Odds would go up in restricted waters like the channel, but in the open ocean? It would be better if there was a way (tech/doctrine) to do some Huff/Duff (HF/DF) so that you can narrow your search down further, but with only one stat (visibility) to key off of, it'd be hard to reflect it adequately in the game.

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I counter-agree that the game does a good job of modeling the difficulties of finding a small group of ships in open water, but it goes to extremes. As I mentioned in my example, even when you have absolute perfect intelligence on enemy fleet movements, you still can't get them engaged. I can track a wolfpack for days as it moves along my coast, yet the DDs lying in wait for them miss them every time.

I know that historically it was air reconnaissance that found a lot of enemy fleets, but the game doesn't model the equivalent of PBYs that I would be using to look for ships right off my shores. Instead I would have to keep a combat wing doing the Air Superiority mission (I presume) over a sea zone to get the in-game equivalent, but again, even when enemy fleets are perfectly spotted by *something*, the fleets I need to use to attack them never get to see them unless the enemy spends an undue amount of time sitting in the sea zone. Typically that usually only occurs during amphibious invasions or is the sea zone is larger than usual or you have extremely slow ships.

Wraith11B said:

I'll leave it at this (because otherwise I could go on for ages about how likely combat is in the open ocean... and I really should probably keep working on my own AAR post): even in the modern era, a large grouping of ships can escape notice by RORSATs. There is a real reason why most naval combat happens in or near the littoral... so, it's hard to know exactly what goes through the developer's mind when they're trying to create the naval model.

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Yes, the naval game is a multi-page thread all on its own.

[size=+1]1941, Second Half – A Pox on Japan![/size]

In this update, Albania should finish off the UK and then move on to its next victim. I’d like that to be the USSR, but I don’t find a Comintern – Axis war to be a wise move at this stage while the Japanese are faring so poorly in China. If they go to war now, T-34s will be rolling through Manchuria unopposed.


My forces aren’t doing so well in Ethiopia. The last game I attacked them in, it sufficed to send a single corps down from Port Sudan. But in this game my troops are constantly out of supply and making no progress. Don’t let the tents fool you, these men are miserable!


I’m wondering if my problems are a result of interference from the slice of Italian territory on the north coast. Italy is also at peace with Ethiopia and has transit right through them. I don’t see anything on the Diplomacy menus that would allow me to get them into this war. But whatever, I’m not bothered yet if it takes the rest of the game to deal with that area.

2 August: The stacks of HQs in Cornwall are eliminated. I add some Transports to my production queue since I’m getting ready to need two separate Transport fleets. I’ve also learned from my UK game that you can expect to have most of your Transports sunk at any time.


3 August: Major attack on Liverpool. The Cavern Club lies in ruins. This is pretty much the only serious engagement Albanian forces have to fight for the rest of my time here.


7 August: I’ve taken Liverpool, so the capital of the UK moves to Calcutta. Surrender progress at 77%.


19 August: A landing behind the lines to take Belfast.


26 August: Northern Ireland is in my hands. Surrender progress at 83%.


1 September: I take Glasgow which is the last VP in Britain. This means to force surrender I need to get a VP from either Gibraltar, Malta, or India.

17 September: I have enough of the UK that three of the corps I have there will be recalled to other duties. I will make one attempt to take Gibraltar by sea, and if that fails, then I will sail for India. My other troops will be used to take Norway.


19 September: Since my Leadership is (for the moment) over 10, I add Construction Engineering, Single Engine Aircraft, and Destroyer to my list of techs. Better spend this largess while I can.

25 September: The attack on Gibraltar. Wish me luck.

”I don’t believe in luck, but I do believe in assigning value to things” – John Nash

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28 September: Gibraltar falls. My national unity hits 60%, allowing me to switch to Mixed Industry if I wish. Taking Gibraltar only puts me up to 96% surrender on the UK, so I will have to try taking Malta.

29 September: I give Mixed Industry a shot. My demand for consumer goods shoots up to 2.28 from zero. Given how few ICs I have, I’m not sure if it’s worth it to ditch the 5% efficiency hit. I’ll give it a shot for a few months, though.

3 October: I advance my laws to Legalistic Restrictions so I can ditch the 10% Espionage penalty. I take a look at my intel and see that the UK has given up spying on me, no big surprise when I’ve taken so much of their Leadership away.

7 October: I launch my attack on Malta, with good timing as I see the Italians are way ahead of me, thanks to the decisive leadership of Capitano Antonio Lotto.


10 October: Malta is defended with Mountain troops, so it will be a tough nut to crack.

20 October: Malta is taken. Maddeningly, this puts the UK at 99.7% surrender. I’m forced to get at least one Indian VP.

24 October: (Meanwhile) I arrive in Bodo as the first step in the invasion of Norway.


3 November: I take Oslo without a fight. As soon as it falls into my hands, the Germans send Rommel and a whole mess o’ troops over here.


4 November: Some very unwelcome news, especially since they are making no progress in China:


5 November: The foolish attack by Japan opens up a bunch of events. I just love scripts that take no account of the current geopolitical situation. I had hoped this would be a limited war, but no. All of the Axis powers are involved.


9 November: I move into Narvik, which takes Norway out of the war. Next stop: Sweden, unless the USA changes my plans for me.

17 November: The Japanese attack really screwed me. The boost to National Unity that the UK received from their event has put them at 92% surrender even now that I have Bombay (which would have ended the war, if Japan could have waited three weeks to DoW).

30 November: Sweden attempts to counter my landings near Stockholm. Luckily I win with no losses, although one Transport is knocked down to .16 STR (yes, that’s point-one-six).

”There goes the luckiest tank in the Iraqi army” – Norman Schwarzkopf

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My landings seem to have been a wise choice despite the risk to the fleet, as Stockholm appears to be undefended.


2 December: The attack on Calcutta begins. Note that because I am impatient, I am directly assaulting the port. This is very dangerous if any ships are hiding in there.


6 December: The UK tries to stop my attack on Calcutta with a naval battle and fails. I have Stockholm and Malmo.

10 December: Calcutta is mine. The UK’s capital moves to Delhi. Zog is furious that the British refuse to surrender- reports are they are only 97.8% willing to give up. Instead of marching to Delhi, which would take forever, the Albanian forces will now move on Malaya. I had to come this way eventually anyway if I was ever going to reclaim Indochina so it’s not a total wash.

11 December: I complete research of Radios and fill that slot with Census Tabulation Machine.

13 December. I take the last VP needed to get Sweden out of the war. Can I defeat the UK this year?

18 December: I’ve made my landings in the Malay Peninsula; can I get all three VP provinces before year end?


26 December: Christmas passes with no signs of activity from the United States.

27 December: Taking Kota Bharu puts the UK at 100% surrender before I need to capture Singapore.


So it took me six months to defeat them, it would have been shorter if Japan hadn’t gone and let them raise their National Unity. Releasing the UK as a puppet is a big hit to Albanian Leadership- my total drops from around 13 to around 6. However, at least as a puppet the RN might keep the USN occupied. I will now declare war on Siam so that I can link up Malay and Indochina by land and push towards China. I might have toyed with the idea of taking on the Comintern, but with the USA in the game that is off the table for now. Here’s a map of the glorious Albanian empire to conclude this update. Bhutan has assumed leadership of the Allies.

”See you next time!” – Fred Rogers

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Wraith11B said:

Woooo Bhutan! Yeah! Talk about some big nations, eh?

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Avindian said:

Very nice work!

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KyrionMyrthar said:

Bhutan? LOL!

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It seems clear that they just assign the next country in the list to head of the faction when the old one is lost, so, if either myself or my British puppet feels like taking a trip up the Himalayas to get rid of Bhutan, then at least we're already in position for when Nepal takes over.

It was tempting to just move into Finland when I had a lot of troops over there, but I am still very sensitive to waking up the Russian bear.

Jorlaan said:

The US joined Allies and didn't take over? Thats wierd. Still, awesome!

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Welcome!

Well, as I just mentioned, the game seems to go entirely by seniority when choosing the next faction leader. As the USA is currently at the bottom of that list for the Allies, it will be a while before their turn comes up. In a more realistic version you might expect a "most powerful/suitable" system to be used, but for the purposes of HOI3 I don't know if it matters much. Although, I am curious about one thing... normally, Bhutan wouldn't be able to influence other nations to go Allied since they aren't a major power, but if they are now the faction leader, is this restriction lifted?

mnplastic said:

Does Malaysia and Egypt belongs to you or the UK? If it belongs to you how it happened? I thought puppets keep their colonies.

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They do, but I added every possible territory demand before they surrendered. I stuck some Albanian flags on my Eurasian map there to try and indicate this but it might not be entirely clear. After the surrender I took the Middle East, Egypt, Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Malaya, and Borneo from them. Once the entire map is proudly colored with royal Albanian purple it will be much easier to see!

[size=+1]1942, Winter – Big Trouble in (Indo) China[/size]

At the end of the last update, I had just finally defeated the United Kingdom. My gut instincts told me to pursue an attack into China afterward, but Japan’s DoW on the United States has changed the political situation a little. I am now contemplating an attack on the USA instead.

”Madness! Madness!” – Major Clipton

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I’m sure all my loyal readers can give me a hundred reasons why this would be a stupid idea. And you would all be right! But logically, none of those reasons are likely to ever go away in the next 6 game years, and the situation is in all probability merely going to become worse since the USA has ten times the economic power of Albania. So basically, while my odds are terrible right now, they are the best ones I have. Zog should make a play while the USA is still recovering from the effects of the Great Depression. Of course, I could just play it safe and help defend Asia. I could easily work to keep the Americans bottled up on their continent as my only goal. But since such an outcome wouldn’t be in doubt, where’s the fun in that? I don’t mind playing a game where I might lose horribly… and people are always saying that you learn more from failure than success.

That said, I am still going to try and advance into China. Japan is going to be useless as an ally until I can free them up for use against the United States (or the Soviet Union, if it ever comes to that). If we get rid of Mao and Chiang, then we can face our destiny to the east shoulder to shoulder.

Also, Nepal and Bhutan look like they are ready to make some sort of aggressive move into India. As the UK has almost nothing there except HQs, Zog may be obligated to send help.


Right now the vaguely thought-out Albanian war plan is to move up through Siam, reclaim my lost Indochina territory, then hit China via the Guangxi Clique. Moving into southern China proper should start to divert enough Nationalist troops that Japan can resume its offensive in the north. Then I might take the Philippines and Guam to eliminate the forward elements of America’s power base.


Here’s a quick review of the totality of the Albanian armed forces:


[size=+1]Ground Forces[/size]
4 corps assorted foreign divisions
2 corps Garrison foreign divisions
5 foreign divisions scattered and unassigned to HQ
1 Albanian Infantry corps (3x INF + 1 ART)
1 Albanian Armor division (licensed) (2x ARM + 1 MOT + 1 ENG)
3 Albanian Militia divisions (3x MIL + 1 ART)

[size=+1]Naval Forces[/size]
1. Royal Albanian Navy c/o 3 Light Cruisers + 7 Transports
2. Royal Albanian Navy c/o 3 Light Cruisers + 5 Transports
9th TP c/o 1 Transport


Something I find odd is that it already stopped giving me Albanian names for my Transports after I made the 6th one. I thought the game used a formula so that you could get the generic, native unit name no matter how many you produced? Ah well… let’s get on with attacking Siam, shall we?

2 January: The attack on Bangkok. I’m being bold and attacking the province already since I know the Thai navy is not to be feared.


4 January: The Thai navy comes out for an engagement.


Later this same day I get very unwelcome news. This seems to be happening a lot… At least somebody is happy though.

”Happy, happy, joy joy!” – Ren & Stimpy

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Since there will now be a USSR – Axis border if I want one or not, I let the Axis powers join in on the fun and issue my own DoW on Poland. I claim “Western Poland” as a war goal to make sure I get a slice of territory out of the deal. Since my aim of preventing contact with the USSR is now moot, I will then DoW Romania the minute the war with Poland is over.

5 January: Germany invokes Blitzkrieg event.

24 January: If Poland can hold out until the 4th, I can demand “Eastern Poland” as a war goal. Since the Soviet Union is not part of the Axis, I am curious to find out if that gimmick could be used to slip their conquests away from them.


25 January: My attack on Bangkok was aborted after several weeks, so I have to focus a bit on marching up the peninsula instead.

27 January: I decide not to wait and launch an attack on Nakhon Pathom, which is undefended along with the port of Phet Buri right below it. This should help me out a lot.


31 January: Poland surrenders and I get my nice chunk of it. If only they could have held out for five more days…


6 February: My next attack on Bangkok.


8 February: Poland has given me a big shot in the arm; I now have 83 ICs to work with (only temporary, the number drops later for some reason). I use this extra bit to get another MOT on license from Germany. This will round out my second Armor division. My puppets seem to be in position, so I will now DoW Romania. You can see that the Romanians are going to make deep inroads into Albanian territory, but that’s fine, they won’t reach Tirane before the Hungarians reach Bucharest.


10 February: Another Albanian Light Cruiser finished. It amuses me to see that at the moment Albanians have more practical knowledge with Light Cruisers than with anything else. Perhaps by the end of the war, the whole world will be coming to Tirane to have their Light Cruisers built.


12 February: I move into Bangkok, Siam surrenders. Now it is time to deal with the Vietnamese rebels to the east. As I thought, the Himalayan kingdoms are making tiny inroads into India. Since the UK only has one corps of Infantry covering the whole subcontinent, I feel a bit obligated to send them help, since I don’t want conflict in this region dragging out forever.


14 February: The rump of Poland is still holding out against the Soviet Union.

17 February: I’m getting victimized once again by the “no allied attack” bug. Take a look at the 5+ division stacks all around the Romanian border, but nobody will just move inside.


Luckily I still have a corps of foreign volunteers in the Balkans, so I will redirect them up to make the strike at Bucharest myself.

25 February: Landings near Da Nang to help get rid of Indochina.


1 March: I notice that somehow I am at war with Poland again, which still hasn’t surrendered to the USSR, so I add “Eastern Poland” as a war goal.

2 March: Poland finally gives up and I do get a province or two out of what is left, but my experiment to steal land from the USSR is a failure. I guess it only counts for parties in your own faction.

8 March: I take Hanoi.


22 March: Romania surrenders. This brings my base ICs up to 70 (again, I only get this for a week or so). I notice that since Poland went GiE, the USSR is getting a huge boost by this since they get to remain at war.

30 March: I’m having a bit of a problem in Indochina. They hold no Indochinese VPs, but the surrender progress is at 0%. I’m not sure if that means I have to reclaim every last province from them before I can take them out of the game. They did get a VP from Siam after I annexed them, but with the FtM mods to the surrender rules, that shouldn’t keep them in the game. Well, maybe I can get rid of them by the next update!

Post Script to this update: I *did* load up as Bhutan, and they did not have the option to influence others into the Allies, so the IC limitation is in effect even for faction leaders.

Baltasar said:

There are names for every country and every possible unit somewhere. If you produce enough units of any type, the game will start giving them generic names, ie 1st CA, 1st Infantry Division etc. You'll have to manually add names in these files if you want more of the "real" names.

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Wow, so if I see some country with "20 (Ethnic name here)" on a unit, that means that there are 20 entries for that in a file? It had to have been less manual labor to just write code to use a formula to let you make as many ethnic-named units as you wanted.

King50000 said:

I wonder if Poland could have held out against the Soviets this time around, seeing as how they have had years more to keep recruiting and strengthening than in RL.

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Well, for much longer certainly, since the Soviet attack was very halfhearted for whatever reason.