Another handsome chapter. I think your approach of chapter size by whatever fits for the subject is good. Can be whatever you like for each one, of course.
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Interesting, I never experimented much with the custom start feature... that's some pretty random Tech allocation by the AI...The reason that it happened was that I was trying to redo the tech tree (not overhaul, just reassign techs as necessary) for my game; what this meant was that rather than a Germany which didn't have any techs, I had all of the CV techs up to 1934 levels? I had raised issues about it before, but I guess the system was looking for a certain amount of points and if it didn't see them, it would "give them" out. I've explained this away obviously as above, and imposed a rule upon myself that I could not build any carriers before 1940. I had other concerns, so don't expect a fleet of Graf Zeppelin to be steaming around!
The build up is well underway
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Those six BCs sound pretty beasty, great write-up . Probably almost a perfect-sized post from my angle, but don't feel like they need to be this small on my account .
Another handsome chapter. I think your approach of chapter size by whatever fits for the subject is good. Can be whatever you like for each one, of course.
That's going to be a potent navy... 6 Battlecruisers... interesting.
The FlAK 88s at the corps level are an interesting addition, though I wonder how useful those will be in game.
Is any industrial expansion planned?
Anyhow, great progress and a fun read.
Interesting, I never experimented much with the custom start feature... that's some pretty random Tech allocation by the AI...
Before, you had my interest, but now with 6 battlecruisers you have my attention
Excellent buildup so far I think, though do beware that you dont leave the core of the army hanging. With so much Industry focused on the navy, airforce and mobile arm, be sure to have a healthy backbone of infantry. I like where this is going.
Germany is over-powered enough that you can throw a load of IC into the navy and still have more than enough left over for the airforce and panzers. It'll be fine.Before, you had my interest, but now with 6 battlecruisers you have my attention
Excellent buildup so far I think, though do beware that you dont leave the core of the army hanging. With so much Industry focused on the navy, airforce and mobile arm, be sure to have a healthy backbone of infantry. I like where this is going.
Germany is over-powered enough that you can throw a load of IC into the navy and still have more than enough left over for the airforce and panzers. It'll be fine.
The British negotiators were not, despite appearances and later actions, complete idiots. As the concern was the Freak Fleet of convoy raiders the 35:100 rule applied to categories of warships and to total tonnage precisely to stop Germany pulling the sort of trick you have them doing.This time line, the AGNA is being followed to the letter if not the spirit. With all capital ship tonnage being lumped together as part of the 35:100, even going off of HoI3's OOB, the UK has 12 BB, 3 BC, 3 CV, 3 CVL and 16 CAs, depending on if you wanted to lump the heavy cruisers in with the capitals or not (I didn't). It's 21 units worth of tonnage, so six units of Scharnhorsts wouldn't necessarily alarm aside from the fact that it's not by type. France would be hoppin' mad, and they are already, but their IC is so weak (and I didn't know how to edit it to make it make sense or give a good response) that they don't matter much--sorry, France.
The eternal Italian issue: so much to build and upgrade with so little industry. Bases in Eritrea is an interesting choice, I would've imagined there to be about half a million more pressing matters than a hard to defend faroff colony that doesn't really give them much. But maybe I'm grossly mistaken
Besides historical role-playing, there is some value in maintaining a base in Eritrea, as it turns out to be an excellent location to base some convoy raiders - particularly in vanilla HoI3 in which India, Burma, etc. are considered part of the UK instead of being puppet states, which means that there are vulnerable supply convoys to be raided. Of course, the trouble is that Italy has to seize the Suez Canal very quickly before the Armata dell'A.O.I. gets wiped out due to being out of supply!
Plus, if Suez is secured, Italy can do nicely mopping up the rest of British East Africa and potentially even launch a naval invasion of India or thereabouts. So there's a lot of opportunities for Italy if she does well in the early days of the war and ideally can secure the Med from the British menace.
Taking over the Med is imperative for Axis victory as it will put Allied supply networks under considerably more strain, while making a conquest of African and Arabian resources easier, even before Barbarossa. As you say @Finshades an Axis-dominated Mediterranean is an excellent staging ground for an Axis offensive into Persia and India.Especially with Germany and Japan co-operating intelligently (read: not AI), Italy can afford to not invest heavily in its ground forces. Further, those bases could well facilitate joint invasion of India by Japan and Italy as well as combat and anti-shipping operations in the Indian ocean, hurting trade and making the deployment of ANZAC expeditionary forces much more dangerous. It could even serve as a transit route for Japanese troops, if they manage to crush resistance in the Pacific quickly or the decision is made to not fight the USA early on.
The eternal Italian issue: so much to build and upgrade with so little industry. Bases in Eritrea is an interesting choice, I would've imagined there to be about half a million more pressing matters than a hard to defend faroff colony that doesn't really give them much. But maybe I'm grossly mistaken
Besides historical role-playing, there is some value in maintaining a base in Eritrea, as it turns out to be an excellent location to base some convoy raiders - particularly in vanilla HoI3 in which India, Burma, etc. are considered part of the UK instead of being puppet states, which means that there are vulnerable supply convoys to be raided. Of course, the trouble is that Italy has to seize the Suez Canal very quickly before the Armata dell'A.O.I. gets wiped out due to being out of supply!
Plus, if Suez is secured, Italy can do nicely mopping up the rest of British East Africa and potentially even launch a naval invasion of India or thereabouts. So there's a lot of opportunities for Italy if she does well in the early days of the war and ideally can secure the Med from the British menace.
Especially with Germany and Japan co-operating intelligently (read: not AI), Italy can afford to not invest heavily in its ground forces. Further, those bases could well facilitate joint invasion of India by Japan and Italy as well as combat and anti-shipping operations in the Indian ocean, hurting trade and making the deployment of ANZAC expeditionary forces much more dangerous. It could even serve as a transit route for Japanese troops, if they manage to crush resistance in the Pacific quickly or the decision is made to not fight the USA early on.
So, Germany is building 6 BCs and Italy only the historical 2 BBs? Interesting... I guess you're quite limited by Italy's Industry...
It's good that the Regia Marina is moving on from the Navigatori... interestingly, HOI3 seems to bunch together the Freccia-Class and the Maestrale-Class, but considering the latter was basically a larger version of the former, that seems fair. (unless the next in-game class of Destroyers is named Freccia, then I take that back)
Taking over the Med is imperative for Axis victory as it will put Allied supply networks under considerably more strain, while making a conquest of African and Arabian resources easier, even before Barbarossa. As you say @Finshades an Axis-dominated Mediterranean is an excellent staging ground for an Axis offensive into Persia and India.
I don't believe @Wraith11B is playing as Japan as well, so that might make the Indian Ocean connection trough the Red Sea even more important as he may have to send forces to help an incompetent Japanese AI and to retain the resources of S-E Asia. In that light,the bases in Eritrea are perfect.
Looking forward to your take on the night of the long knives...
It's not wrong, what I meant to say is that the game goes straight from Navigatori to Maestrale, while there were IIRC two different types before the Maestrale (I even forgot about the Folgore). As all three were variations on the (initial) Freccia Design, the Folgores were narrower, making them faster but less stable, and the Maestrales were larger and carried more potent guns. One could probably argue that the Maestrales were the most well rounded of the three... Then again, the Freccia was loosely based off the Turbine-class design, from before the infamous Navigatori's etc. It's a big mess, and I'm not even sure I know all the classes that they had... I'm really nitpicking here...The HoI3 next Italian class of destroyer was the Maestrale-class, and so since I was still building some "Navigatoris" I named them the Freccia and Folgores, though only here. I did a significant amount of research trying to make sure that what was shown in the game was what I wanted, but it seemed not to have actually come out that way all the time (or I missed something etc.)