Hmm... Good thing I ended up with Canada after all, since I'm not much of a factor no matter how it turned.
Seems like I have a lot to learn about getting the takeover AI do a decent job! For example, AI decided to ship back the totallity of troops I had sent to Europe back to Canada, to remove some beach defenses I had made, and instead making a big stack in Ottawa. How useful! Next time I have to go before game's end I suppose I'll have to do an expeditionary force to UK and ask for the unit back afterward...
Is there any ways to set researches beforehand, so that once a slot is free, the AI researches that one instead of whichever it decides to do? For example, I'm not particularly happy that it decided to research Improved Medium Tanks after it completed the tech I had assigned it. As Canada. Production is also slightly off, but then it's my fault for thinking you would stop before getting that far since I wanted to make builds of the tech that was finishing.

No big deal though, most of the production is what I had set, and most of the rest were put in production from 1-2 days from the save file date, so no hurt there.
Well, nothing earth-shatteringly bad of course, and pretty minor compared to what's happening with Barbarossa... Only slightly annoying, hopefully I'll be able to set things better next time.
Oh, and still neutral Italy?

I suppose that's the most fool-proof way to make sure that the southern flank is secure
