I gave Canada a try for the first time today, and despite the obvious focus bloat and the silly choice between industry and manpower, I was having a reasonably enjoyable time building up a specialized army to help out in key battles. By Spring '41 I had four 40-width LARM/LSPG3+MECH2 divisions and was beginning production of Fighter 3's and CAS 2's. After helping in North Africa and Sicily, I was standing by in Sicilian ports to wait for a naval invasion somewhere that I could support, at which point the AI decided to leave the strait connecting to the mainland despite having over 10 divisions on it, and then all my tanks got incessantly attacked until they were de-orged and wiped, wasting several years of production. Because I chose national steel car, even if I wanted to rebuild those divisions I'd have no manpower left for air, and since we all know the AI can't handle air at all, why bother with a land army?
Could I have done something to stop that from happening? Sure, but I find it rather tiresome that whenever you're in an alliance you have to make garrison 10 widths just to protect yourself from AI stupidity, and in the case of Canada, take an objectively worse focus chain just to reach their historical level of available manpower. I also find this to be an example of the only immersion breaking thing that actually bothers me, that it's better to have no friends and do everything yourself. It makes most the work done in TfV rather pointless in my estimation since it's impossible with their resources (except for Raj since they actually have manpower and industry), and is simply less fun. I like the idea of being able to serve a specialized role as a minor, but I don't see how it's worth it in single player.
Could I have done something to stop that from happening? Sure, but I find it rather tiresome that whenever you're in an alliance you have to make garrison 10 widths just to protect yourself from AI stupidity, and in the case of Canada, take an objectively worse focus chain just to reach their historical level of available manpower. I also find this to be an example of the only immersion breaking thing that actually bothers me, that it's better to have no friends and do everything yourself. It makes most the work done in TfV rather pointless in my estimation since it's impossible with their resources (except for Raj since they actually have manpower and industry), and is simply less fun. I like the idea of being able to serve a specialized role as a minor, but I don't see how it's worth it in single player.