Blitz-AAR: Italy 1.3 RC4 (test results of the a.i.)

[seattle]

Italy 1936, normal, 1.3 RC4.

1936
Diplo: Aligning to Germany and joining Axis, influencing USA (to keep them out of the war)
Prod: 2 serials of AA and Infantry, 1 serial each of Nav. Bombers, Tac. Bombers, Interceptors.
Research: Industry conversion techs, infantry tech, bomber techs, land and bombing doctrines
Intel: Raising threat of Allies, Switzerland and Yugo (first target), lowering own neutrality.

Military: puppeting Ethiopia


1937
Prod: same as 1936 plus infra in Northern Africa and Balkans (road to Russia and Turkey

Military: Annexing Yugo, evacuation of south eastern Africa -> bolstering invasion force of Egypt and Palestine

Foreign Affairs: Japan getting slaughered in China again, strikes back (puppeting Shanxi), gets murdered again.
Austria joins the Axis during my Yugo invasion!


1938
Waiting and building up a powerful airforce with serial runs of new interceptors, multi-role, tacs and navs. No, ships or mobile land units are ordered. Fuel is reserved for the airforce -> saves a lot of IC and research

1939
Germany invades and puppets (!) Poland in May. Italy still at peace as is Germany again. Benelux, Czechoslowakia (Sudetenland never happened because Anschluss never happened) and allied Denmark have mobilized.
A major war can break out any day now.

Axis: Germany, Italy, Ethiopia, Hungary, Austria, Portugal (weakest nation in the HoI3 universe) Japan and Poland

Allies: GBR, France, Ireland, Denmark and the usual commonwealthers


I'm positively surprised by the German army composition:
287 inf, 6 light armour, 60 mots, 1 art (LOLZ)
At least it's not the 800 inf army of a.i. Germany in 1.3 RC1/2.

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TBC once new things happen. Definitely enjoyable thus far and fantastic speed even at war. Great that not every game plays out the same.

 

[seattle]

1939, part 2
Brazil and Greece join the Axis which is perfect for Italy as her eastern borders are no longer surrounded.

A pre-emptive strike is launched against Bulgaria by army group east with heavy airforce-support (10 bombers, 8 interceptors). Quickly Bulgaria and shortly afterwards Albania are annexed.
Army group east is now defending the border to neutral Romania. Turkey has mobilized, so I will keep an eye on them as well.

Peace is restored, no major war has broken out thus far. I will blame the butterfly effect for that.
1. I invaded Yugo which lead to
2. Austria joining the Axis which
3. sleeps the "Anschluss" decision which
4. sleeps the "Treaty of Munich" and "End of Czech" decisions which
5. hinders the Allies from guaranteeing Polish independence which
6. causes no repercussions for the German invasion which
7. fubars historical gameplay which
8. is fantastic because it would have been highly unrealistic for history to repeat itself under completely different circumstances (although it's no more realistic that Germany gets away with invading Poland -> Allies, Comintern would be pissed)

End of 1939. Will WW2 finally break out in 1940? I have a feeling, it will. Why? Cause I'll keep invading minor countries until the Allies finally have enough of my shenanigans. Romania and Turkey are next.


PS: Obviously both Germany and I have lead limited wars thus far.
PPS: Czechoslowakia is still intact and neutral, acting as a thorn on the Axis flank. Once Romania has fallen, the Czechs will be completely surrounded by Axis nations, hopefully to be a minor distraction.

 

[unmerged(141369)]

Well, looks like I will re-install HoI3 on the weekend

Thanks for the update, looks promising so far. It's a bit disappointing that the German AI doesn't build tanks, but that should hopefully be easily moddable.

Do you know if influencing the US / raising Allied threat is still necessary to keep everybody from going into a feeding frenzy on the Axis? Because, if I played an Allied nation and could count on having the US on my side in '39, that would be pretty boring...

Of course, I hope you can drag everybody into a nice big interesting war soon!

 

[seattle]

Do you know if influencing the US / raising Allied threat is still necessary to keep everybody from going into a feeding frenzy on the Axis?

Well, naturally I don't know that because I did influence the US and raised threat of the Allies
BTW. France's threat is 68, UK around 3. Spy priority for both was equal, didn't pay more attention. Maybe UK had better counter espionage.

My fellow Axis Kameraden do some heavy influencing, Yunnan is the latest aquisition.

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I think it's safe to say that HoI3 1.3 RC4 is finally a highly playable game. It's fast as hell and the a.i. creates interesting scenarios which are not always plausible, but entertaining nonetheless and not too too far off.
The most important fix is the a.i. below theatre level. Now you can again set objectives on the army group level and your plans will be aptly executed.

Big, big kudos to Johan and the whole team! This brief AAR will be continued later.

 

[seattle]

1940

Invasion of Romania

Due to the low NU of Romania (60), I deemed it necessary to only occupy the two eastern VPs near the frontier. For the attack against the formidable Romanian army, I ordered army group west to abandon the French border and hold the western half of the Romanian frontier. Meanwhile army group east would strike swiftly against the capital. Plan worked out perfectly and Romania fell quickly. I annexed the country as a springboard for a later Barbarossa.


Cleaning the flank

Now the Czechs proved to be an unbearable hazard in the rear, so I declared war on them in the name of the axis. No limited war, but a full fledged one.
The war didn't last a week, as Yugo was crushed from all sides by Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary and Italy (from the newly annexed Romania).


Turkey and Argentina are soon to join the mighty axis.
However, finally Britain had seen enough and declared war on us on August 17th of 1940. Let's get ready to tremble!

 

[seattle]

1940/41

Western Europe
- Germany overruns Denmark and puppets it. All quiet on the western front though, as the Benelux countries are neutral. I dow Holland, then Belgium to pave the way for the Wehrmacht. Quickly Germany steamrolls everything, but can't vichy the French. Why? Because:

Axis Yunnan invades British posessions in India and French Indochina very successfully. An event fires "France refuses to surrender to Yunnan" (with German at the gates of Paris). Henceforth France is a government in exile and Vichy never happens. All because of the military genius of an unlikely little asian helper.

Germany occupies all of France... all of it? No, a huge garrison force remains intact within the Maginot surrounded by what looks like 100 German and Danish divs. I wait two months for something to happen, then act myself. With on Italian army I starch the defenders. Immediately afterwards German High Command dow's Russia (with 90% of her troops still in Alsace-Lorraine, mind you).


Northern Africa
- My invasion force blitzes through Northern Africa without facing opposition. Then a little east of El Alamein my offensive comes to a halt, one province short of sure victory: Alexandria. The last British port and airfield stands fast and my efforts of assaulting it are futile.
Worse even, with my supply lines stretched (that's why I need that port) the Brits push me back cutting off some troops. In a daring move I take over command of a cut off division south of Alexandria. With the 30-day supply reserve in mind I drive further eastwards to the sea, in an attempt to encircle the defenders. I then swing north towards the Suez Canal. The Brits are trapped and slowly destroyed.
No further obstacle on my way to Palestine and Iraq.


Eastern Front
I was better prepared than my irratic ally Germany and swiftly gain ground in the Ukraine. Germany holds the line with the help of her Polish puppet and joins in the attack few weeks later.

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3 problems:

1. Yunnan ruins Vichy by seizing Indochina (gets Syria when France goes into exile)
2. A.I. doesn't cope well with an encircled, out of supply enemy. Probably is repelled by sheer numbers.
Solution: More aggressive a.i. that will probe the defenders once in a while. Doesn't hurt to attack for a few hours, does it?
3. German a.i. dow's Russia before moving her troops into position.

 

[imperator667]

i am playing italy too at the moment with the 1.3beta and have seen the following:

germany conquered poland and the lowlands, i had to help them against france because germany also invaded sweden and norway at the same time. vichy fired in summer 1940. then i had to clean up a garrison of belgian forces in the maginot line myself although germany surrounded them with 100 divisions.

i conquered yugoslavia greece and bulgaria, no serious british resistance in egypt and east africa, conquered those regions easily. iraq was conquered very easily. germany invades india and leaves the russian border lightly guarded! the japanese just fail on all fronts as always. at least they hold the shanghai beachhead.

it is an exciting game nevertheless.

edit: oh and by the way. the kriegsmarine sank the RN with masses of BB. the british have only destroyers and few larger ships left.

edit2: ... now in april 1941 the germans dow SU but are shipping all their troops to india, the german front is about to collapse in may 1941, that is SO stupid i cant believe it. guess well have to wait for 1.4 to fix the AI . my italian troops currently hide in neutral hungary and romania

 

[seattle]

1942/43

Russia surrendered in 1943. Germany played army group north and centre while my Italian army acted as army group south. Turkey joined later and took the Caucasus and vast parts of Siberia! I ordered a halt in Stalingrad and decided to defend my occupied terrain (cause I knew bitter peace would screw me anyways).

My airforce helped Germany occasionally in cracking pockets. The German forces couldn't finish off the encircled enemy due to supply issues!
At least 100 divs surrounding the Russians couldn't be sustained. Fortunately I had I sh*tload of spare Tac Bombers.

A mere week after bitter peace Germany dow's Russia again...


Africa
I conquer NA and Iraq and focus on building up infrastructure. Britain strikes back though and captures Saudi Arabia (threatening my oil possessions) and Tunis. Mid-term the Brits are endangering my whole Africa campaign.

My decision to seek a naval decision proved to be a piss poor choice. Within few weeks my entire navy raised the water-level of the Mediterranian by two meters.

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Performance is dropping now, but still okay. I will probably abandon this game soon though.

 

[unmerged(177078)]

A great read - keep it going!

yeah or do another one with the latest beta patch...

 

[Tritio]

1942/43

My decision to seek a naval decision proved to be a piss poor choice. Within few weeks my entire navy raised the water-level of the Mediterranian by two meters.

Haha! :rofl:

What happened?