Unless you had similar forces elsewhere that could be moved in for another attempt sooner. There's also the problem of what's going on with the war in the two years you might need.
Historically, even with a successful Overlord and Germany surrendering, it was going to be more than a year (possibly two, if the 1946 dates were chosen) for the massive invasion of Japan in Operation Downfall.
I can't see a failing Overlord giving the Allies less than a two year operational pause with major amphibious invasions. It might even be worse depending on the circumstances of the loss (again, early loss or later loss).
Anyway, I'm not just talking elections. The tempo and nature of the military actions could be altered, there could be penalties effecting attrition, casualties, organization, increased revolt risk, decreased productivity, more intelligence problems. Non-representative governments could experience most of those problems.
If there was some kind of general staff system, and it implemented a "failure results in losing generals from staff positions due to their failure" mechanic, I might be more on board with this. In that case, Ike loses Overlord and is fired and "retired" even though the player thinks he Ike would still be a good leader and useful.
I agree once more!
Could you please stop making good comments?
Okay, how about a mechanic where Congress and Commons mess around with leaders, and a system where autocrats like Stalin and Hitler randomly change your leader assignments and sometimes just delete leaders permanently.
And then they assign Glitterhoof to leader STAVKA.
The way I see it working is as part of a "war exhaustion" mechanic we've dicussed on this forum earlier, where the nation or faction eventually gives in and leaves the fight because the war is costing too many lives for too little gain.
Well, that's always a problem. How do we stop the "The US will always come back with more stuff later" problem? There is a case to be made for war exhaustion beyond the whole amphibious invasions issue.
I'm honestly not sure HOI4's political mechanics are detailed about to create a sensible system. Sure, you can just have a game with specialized rules for Italian morale, but when thinking about US participation in the war, I have a hard time reconciling a rational war exhaustion mechanic to the US abandoning the war with what I know about the mechanics right now.
US participation is kind of complicated. Method of entry, economic ties to various countries, and progress of the war are all intertwined together. For example, I can't see the historical US abandoning the war (or even being that exhausted) from a failed Overlord or failed invasion of Okinawa. There were too many victories by then, and thanks to method of entry, there is no reason for the US to bow out.
I guess what I'm saying is that, in the case of the US, the casualties and equipment losses required to cause any kind of reconsideration of US foreign policy (outside of just firing some admirals and generals) would have to be so catastrophic to preclude further offensive action due to a lack manpower an a deficiency in stuff like trucks and tanks.
For all its flaws, the HOI3 total war mechanic had its advantages. Once you were in the war, you were more or less committed to complete victory or defeat. While Italy and the Axis minors didn't really follow this pattern, the majors of all factions sure as Hell did.
