No Greater Madness: Spanish Civil War AAR (as the Republic)
Settings: Combination AI/Player Control, Normal difficulty
Goals: Crush the Nationalists in 1936!
Hello everyone, this is my first AAR and one of my first forays into HOI 3, so thanks to any readers for their patience. Suggestions as to the format of this AAR and my gameplay are encouraged and welcome.
I always felt that the Spanish Civil War was a fantastic playground for players to get familiar with HOI 2 since it was fought over a relatively contained yet varied geography and involved respectable numbers of army, naval and air forces. There are some interesting historical events to stir the pot as well. Best of all was the chaotic and random nature of the starting locations and forces meant that the player had to be creative and flexible, and that the fronts would be extremely fluid (at least in the beginning). I find these kinds of situations much more interesting than fighting along well-defined, single-line fronts – but that’s just me.
With HOI 3 in my hands – it was right back to Spain for me!
Journal Entry of Manuel Portela y Valladares, Prime Minister, dated 1 January, 1936:
Instead of easing the strife that now wracks our proud and ancient nation, it appears the coming elections are serving to only to intensify them. Economic and political turmoil is everywhere in Europe, but none of our neighbors’ populations seem so willing to tear themselves apart as do ours. I pray daily for our safe deliverance through this valley of shadow – and also that the far leftists in our coalition do not learn that I still seek the assistance of a higher authority. From witnessing the protesters clog the streets of Madrid, is clear to me that only Providence can save Espagne from the abyss. There can be no greater madness than to settle our differences through civil war.
President Alcalá-Zamora asked his cabinet to bring forward their best suggestions on governance during this dark time, but he was reluctant to make changes to the standing armed forces for fear of provoking the far right.
Being a newbie to HOI 3 I decided to leave the government controls up to the AI to see what they it would do, and then tweak from there. Mainly this is because I prefer letting the AI figure out trades to stabilize my stockpiles. (Frankly I am dying to channel all that leadership into research and see how far the Republic can go – a huge advantage over HOI 2 BTW – but decided to not right away.) In any case I wasn’t happy with the AI’s choice to invest in improving militia technology. I removed those and backfilled the technology queue with infantry, cavalry and industrial techs before turning things back over to the AI. I still have no idea which techs I should be choosing at this point – but my guess is that improved militia technology is not going to swing the SCW!
I chose to not change any of military dispositions as to not give myself any undue advantage over my eventual AI-controlled Nationalist opponent. I did, however, kill the two heavy cruisers that were clogging up the production queue before turning control over to the AI. IMO the Republic’s ground troops are far too out of date to be investing national treasure in soon-to-be-obsolete capital ships.
I am happy that Paradox chose to model the instability of the Republic as poor ruling party support (50%) rather than dissent (0%) in January 1936, and that changing ministers no longer causes dissent hits as in HOI 2. From a playability point of view, these decisions make the game more enjoyable, I feel. The politics tab says my next election is January 1st 1940, but I will wait until the historical elections of 16 February 1936 to swap them out (just for the sake of honoring the historical record). As it would turn out, those elections were not meant to be.
Below is a snapshot of the ground forces as of Jan 1, 1936.
Settings: Combination AI/Player Control, Normal difficulty
Goals: Crush the Nationalists in 1936!
Hello everyone, this is my first AAR and one of my first forays into HOI 3, so thanks to any readers for their patience. Suggestions as to the format of this AAR and my gameplay are encouraged and welcome.
I always felt that the Spanish Civil War was a fantastic playground for players to get familiar with HOI 2 since it was fought over a relatively contained yet varied geography and involved respectable numbers of army, naval and air forces. There are some interesting historical events to stir the pot as well. Best of all was the chaotic and random nature of the starting locations and forces meant that the player had to be creative and flexible, and that the fronts would be extremely fluid (at least in the beginning). I find these kinds of situations much more interesting than fighting along well-defined, single-line fronts – but that’s just me.
With HOI 3 in my hands – it was right back to Spain for me!
Journal Entry of Manuel Portela y Valladares, Prime Minister, dated 1 January, 1936:
Instead of easing the strife that now wracks our proud and ancient nation, it appears the coming elections are serving to only to intensify them. Economic and political turmoil is everywhere in Europe, but none of our neighbors’ populations seem so willing to tear themselves apart as do ours. I pray daily for our safe deliverance through this valley of shadow – and also that the far leftists in our coalition do not learn that I still seek the assistance of a higher authority. From witnessing the protesters clog the streets of Madrid, is clear to me that only Providence can save Espagne from the abyss. There can be no greater madness than to settle our differences through civil war.
President Alcalá-Zamora asked his cabinet to bring forward their best suggestions on governance during this dark time, but he was reluctant to make changes to the standing armed forces for fear of provoking the far right.
Being a newbie to HOI 3 I decided to leave the government controls up to the AI to see what they it would do, and then tweak from there. Mainly this is because I prefer letting the AI figure out trades to stabilize my stockpiles. (Frankly I am dying to channel all that leadership into research and see how far the Republic can go – a huge advantage over HOI 2 BTW – but decided to not right away.) In any case I wasn’t happy with the AI’s choice to invest in improving militia technology. I removed those and backfilled the technology queue with infantry, cavalry and industrial techs before turning things back over to the AI. I still have no idea which techs I should be choosing at this point – but my guess is that improved militia technology is not going to swing the SCW!
I chose to not change any of military dispositions as to not give myself any undue advantage over my eventual AI-controlled Nationalist opponent. I did, however, kill the two heavy cruisers that were clogging up the production queue before turning control over to the AI. IMO the Republic’s ground troops are far too out of date to be investing national treasure in soon-to-be-obsolete capital ships.
I am happy that Paradox chose to model the instability of the Republic as poor ruling party support (50%) rather than dissent (0%) in January 1936, and that changing ministers no longer causes dissent hits as in HOI 2. From a playability point of view, these decisions make the game more enjoyable, I feel. The politics tab says my next election is January 1st 1940, but I will wait until the historical elections of 16 February 1936 to swap them out (just for the sake of honoring the historical record). As it would turn out, those elections were not meant to be.
Below is a snapshot of the ground forces as of Jan 1, 1936.
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