Bad Idea?

[BrotherJonathan]

Evening all, I'm looking for some advice on my latest USSR game ( standard 1936 start, no mods). One of my main goals throughout the game has been to rope more nations into the Comintern using spies. I use coups to turn their governments Communist, then influence them into the Comintern through diplomacy. However, it's almost 1938, and so far this tactic is only working on Czechoslovakia (sucessful coup on 1/1/1937). I have a somewhat realistic chance of getting them into the Comintern before the war starts, but I'm wondering if I should. I've heard that if Czechoslovakia somehow manages to join a faction before GER can annex them, it will break the whole event chain and the war will never start at all. Is this true, and, if so, should I back off Czechoslovakia and focus on someone else? Or am I just wasting my time with this whole plan in general? All advice appreciated.

 

[Wardog012]

Hello,

When you use spies on countries to make your party more popular, use them to lower that country's national unity as well. The lower national unity, the easier to make a coup.
In some countries its impossible to make a coup, or your party popular. Try making a communist USA. If you start doing it in 1936, im sure that you will be able to make a coup around 1941 succesfully.

If Czechs can join a faction, it doesn't matter. I dont think this will brake the National Decision for Germany. I recommend tagging to Germany to see what are the conditions for the decision. I think if they can't annex the Czechs they will attack them, or just go for Poland. But im not 100% sure
(I'm using a mod, I'm not sure how does this go in the basic game.)

 

[The Nothing]

It depends. I used a glitch in my last game to cancel "Munich treaty", and after that Germany didn't declare war on Czechslovakia. Nonetheless, I highly advice you not to bring Czechslovakia in Comintern. That countrie is pretty useless when the war breaks, it lacks of manpower, and mostly the AI will not mobilize in time, so Germany will annex the countrie in a few weeks. Even when fighting Poland + France + Czech, Germany got no problem to defeat these countries.

 

[ThatStrategyGuy]

If your trying to bring other countries into the comintern I find it much more effective to support party but instead of couping them just invade, install communism and puppet them. The high communist party support will help them recover lost NU. this way you also get some experience for your armies. Just try not to destroy the armies you're fighting against.

 

[Kovax]

My advice would be to allow Germany to enact the "Munich" decision, and try to draw CZE into the Commintern before "1st Vienna". I don't know if that will prevent the event from firing or not, but at least you won't break AI Germany's event chain: they'll still initiate "Danzig or War".

As pointed out, CZE is fatally flawed in the game. They need to give up their fortified border provinces in order for the rest of Germany's decisions to fire, and they're helpless without those fortifications, not that they're any problem to defeat even with those. They basically don't have enough manpower to mobilize their existing army at the start, and building more units only compounds the problem. They also fail to mobilize in advance (low NU prevents it), and their armed forces suffer a hit due to low NU, so their entire army will be mostly broken and retreating after the first few days, and thanks to the motorized and armored units chasing them, will never recover. With their abysmal National Unity, it's an almost trivial point for GER to grab one decent VP location and tip them into surrender. I had no trouble conquering the country with Hungary; it felt like a case of beating up an invalid, not really a fair fight, and against Germany that will be even more unbalanced..

As pointed out, if you're going to conquer and puppet a country, try to push back their army rather that overrunning and encircling it, so it remains mostly intact. Place a "Puppet" wargoal, instead of annexing and then releasing them, or else their original army will be completely erased and will need to be rebuilt from scratch. If CZE being in a faction doesn't prevent GER from triggering "1st Vienna", then whether you bring them into your faction or not is irrelevant.

 

[marxianTJ]

It's much easier to just convince the democracies to *elect* Communists, but it's hard to get everybody in line before the war breaks out and your massive coalition has to fight. The German AI is typically pretty screwed - especially if you invade using your navy and *not* through Poland.

 

[BrotherJonathan]

Thanks guys! The reason I'm using coups instead of military force is becasue I heard somewhere that Comintern countires get an espionage bonus, so I'm trying to expand that way as opposed to fighting. I didn't really plan on teaming up with CZH (they sort of "fell into my lap"), but my plan is to use them as an excuse to DOW GER early, thus hopefully avoiding a massive initial invasion and giving me time to build up my military while they fight everyone else on the planet.