Can anyone tell me where I screwed up Germany's / Italy's path?

[Thomas Krantz]

Hi!

Very new to HOI3 so forgive my newbie question. Playing as Italy, I conquered Ethiopia, raised the threat of France and Yugoslavia (to be able to declare war), invaded and annexed Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. This was ready by about mid 1939.

Germany puppeted Poland on schedule. My next plan was to wait for Germany to do their usual stuff and attack France around summer 1940, so that I could sneak in and help from the south.

It is now January 1946 and no one has sent as much as an insult towards anyone else. All countries have chosen an alliance, Axis and Allies are dead even at victory points, and Comintern is far behind. My border with France has two huge armies just staring at each other but no one is making any moves. Germany has surrounded Czeckoslovakia but not anything else.

Was it a mistake to invade Yugoslavia and Bulgaria? Or was it a mistake to raise the threat level of France as much as I could?

Grateful for any tips!

 

[marxianTJ]

Are you a member of the Axis? It's possible Germany regards you as a military threat and won't invade France for fear of being back-doored.

Not sure why Germany didn't execute its event chain otherwise.

 

[Thomas Krantz]

Yes, I joined the Axis pretty early, at the first opportunity. No troops on any allied borders. Not complaining, just curious

Do I nominate myself for the Nobel Peace Prize or does that have to be somebody else?

 

[Kovax]

Normally, Germany will declare war on Netherlands or Belgium in mid 1940, which leads to the demise of France. Not sure why Germany didn't do so.

Rather than raising France' Threat, I prefer to erode their National Unity, starting from as early as possible, which means they have trouble passing more aggressive laws to build a credible military, and require less victory points to defeat. If France built up a solid enough defense along the Maginot Line, Germany may not have considered it possible to defeat them. Regardless, Germany not declaring war on Netherlands and Belgium is hard to explain, unless Germany's troops are mostly tied up in Denmark and Norway to the point where it can't even field a numerical advantage on the Benelux borders.

 

[Wraith11B]

Yeah, what else has Germany done? There's a known issue surrounding their invasion of Norway that can lead to significant problems because they dump their armies in Scandinavia only to lose them to supply issues.

 

[Thomas Krantz]

Germany has created a puppet of Poland, and that's it. It hasn't annexed Czechoslovakia, hasn't taken either Denmark or Norway, or started Barbarossa. There is a small force along the Denmark border, but hardly enough to trouble anybody. It has deployed a lot of forces along Poland's border with the SU, but nothing is happening there either.

At this point it's 1948 and most of us have nuclear bombs, which make me kinda hesitant to be the one starting something (as it should, I guess). It would crippled my huge infrastructure project in Ethiopia.

 

[Kovax]

Question is, does Germany have 100+ brigades parked in Norway and immobilized by lack of supply? Are there enough troops on the Benelux border to fight a war? I've seen Germany crippled by sending waves reinforcements after reinforcements to Norway because the existing troops in the area have all lost combat strength due to supply issues, and the new troops merely compound the problem. In one case, it reached the point where there were only a couple of scattered HQs and a single division covering the entire Soviet border, and then Germany launched Barbarossa on schedule.

As Italy, you might have to send a transport (preferably with a division aboard) to Germany's north coast, then declare war and take the capital of Norway for Germany.

 

[Thomas Krantz]

Germany doesn't have any troops at all near Norway, far as I can tell (I think I can see all their units since we are allies?). The have a lot on the France and Benelux border, and on the Soviet border, but nothing else.

Maybe I will try to invade Norway then. Germany certainly need some help! Just hope I'm not nuked

Thanx for the tips!

 

[Pugmak]

Which game are you playing?

By that I mean, which expansions/DLC do you have?

If you have just the base game, I've remember some odd stuff happening.

One game, playing as Germany, by mid '39, Netherlands and Belgium had allied with the Soviet Union, for example.

Let us know what you're playing and that'll help with the answers.

 

[Thomas Krantz]

I'm playing vanilla. Tried to find the expansions but turns out Semper Fi was unavailable for Mac on Steam, so I tried ordering it from Deliver2, but my order is still "Pending" after 2 weeks and not getting any response from their customer service. Then I found it on the app store, so I guess I'll have to buy the whole thing twice :/

In my game, all the "classic" neutral countries have allied with the allies pretty early (Switzerland, Sweden etc.). Might be something like that?

 

[Kovax]

OK, that explains a lot of things. The base game was seriously screwed up, and while the final 1.4 patch fixed some of the main game-breakers by scrapping the original diplomatic system completely and replacing it with scripted events, it really wasn't all that playable until after the Semper Fi expansion and the final patch for that expansion. Hopefully you've at least installed the 1.4 patch for the base game....

[ I just noticed that your signature block shows no game icons, so the game isn't registered here on the Paradox website. That means you can't see the sub-forums for tech support, mods, and other helpful information, only the general discussion sub-forum. That also means you probably can't download the essential patches for the game, and playing without AT LEAST the 1.3 or 1.4 patch would be painful, since the base game was seriously broken upon release. In that case, consider yourself fortunate that WWII even happened at all in your campaign. ]

 

[Thomas Krantz]

Ok, I guess I'll have to buy the whole thing again then

Thanx for all the replies!

 

[Wraith11B]

Yeah, sounds like the typical "oops" of 1.4 that -- and I've been Emu'ed (though I guess at this point for this board it should be Kovax'ed now? )

 

[Pugmak]

I don't think you need to rebuy the whole thing.

Try going to the top of the forum and click on "Register A Game".

If you can register your game there, Bob's your Uncle. That opens up the rest of the HOI3 forum to you.

 

[Wraith11B]

I think he means that getting a version of the game that will work on his computer is what is going to be problematic without re-purchasing the game at some point.