Faction-joining Dates

[incognitus]

There seem to be certain points of time after which AI nations join one of the factions. What are your experiences?

In my next attempt at world domination with a minor / regional power I'd like to avoid war with one of the factions as long as possible. In my current game with Turkey several of the American countries have managed to join the Allies before I was ready to attack them, resulting in a rather patchy looking map with Mexico, Honduras, Panama, Venezuela and Bolivia still "free". Mexico is especially annoying, as without a naval base in Mexico I cannot reach Vancouver from the west and therefore canot conquer Canada.

While attacking a country just before they join a faction works fine as in not dragging the rest of the faction into the war, but it still results in the unsatisfactory "limited conquest" where the country simply won't disappear until the whole faction is defeated.

An upside is that exploit that allows you to attack all the American nations without the US bugging you once they have joined the Axis... wonder if that works for BeNeLux as well... mhmmmm...

 

[21oliver]

Hungary typically joins the Axis after Czechoslovakia is dissolved. Romania will drift towards the Alliance but then start to turn back after Germany orders her to give over territory to Hungary. When Bessarabia is fired Romania runs towards Germany. After this you will see Bulgaria join the Axis as well. Disrupt the chain and everything changes.

 

[incognitus]

That was my plan in the Turkey game. I beelined for Austria, the Hungary and Czechoslovakia and finally Poland to prevent Germany from going through the motions. After Poland I wasn't fast enough unfortunately and failed to attack Mexico before they joined. Same with italy, I attacked them about a month or two before they joint, but that meant that I couldn't fully conquer them anymore and that after taking their VPs all I got was the boot and Sicily. So I definitely have to attack Italy a lot earlier next time.

 

[marxianTJ]

If you are exceptionally belligerent it will speed up nations joining factions because of the threat. A good indicator of this, is if your threat on the US is higher than Japan's prior to Germany's war on Poland. If that is the case, nations will end up joining factions *much faster* than they normally would. If you go absolutely crazy with conquests it's *really* easy to draw the USA into the allies in 39' as opposed to the historical 41' lol. Which can actually be a big-big problem because the USA will end up with over 1,000 IC as a result lol.

 

[incognitus]

1000 IC?! wtf...

 

[21oliver]

It is far too easy and tempting to go on an early conquest spree, no matter whom you play in HOI3. If Ultimately your going to be on the opposite side of the USA you need to show patience as the more aggressive you get the earlier they kick start their economy / industry and join the Allies which can cause you a variety of problems. At the very least influence the US to keep them away from the Allies corner as long as possible. If your playing a nation whereby the US is likely to be on your side or at the very least indifferent to you (Soviet Union?) then it may be beneficial to get them going early.

 

[marxianTJ]

See, the US has very low MP, but nearly limitless resources, so the AI (as of TFH) is programmed to blow some of that IC into making *more* IC in the early years, so if you ramp the USA up earlier, they will blow all of that extra IC into making more IC - and will continue to do so in small random amounts for the duration of the game. It's pretty typical to see them in the 700-1000 range on Normal, and the 1,000-1.25k range on Hard, and around 1.5-.7k on very hard. That is, if you get the excited fairly early in the game (because the AI won't actually start building units in any appreciable amount until post-1938, but if you've already given them better laws by then it'll all be locked into producing more IC).

That's why a lot of "world-conquest" oriented games as minors aim to take the US out fairly early, so that they don't become some unconquerable IC juggernaut lol.

 

[incognitus]

So the only option is to annihilate them as early as possible before they join the axis? Their isolationism isn't represented very well in this game...

 

[marxianTJ]

Well they don't naturally become that way until 1941 - if you're totally passive and just let the game play out the US is more "historical" but if you get them excited by kicking over lots of fruit stands (or especially joining a faction and then kicking over fruit stands) they will balloon very quickly because your threat will cause their neutrality to drop - in proportion to the threat.

If you want to carefully manage it - you want to avoid ever having a higher threat than Japan or Germany (or at least equivalent to what they'd normally have at that time - it's ok to be a few points over). That way they won't end up in a faction prior to when they more or less should be - the same will go for whomever is still alive.

The only hard and fast join date I've seen is that Italy will tend to join the Axis somewhere in mid 37' - mid 38. Japan will join the Axis in Summer 37' or Summer 38' and Hungary will usually join the Axis some point in 1939.

South Africa and Canada will usually join the Allies around March of 1938.

and Sinkiang will join the Comintern around Summer of 41'

That is assuming threat isn't fiddled with at all and nothing crazy happened in elections.