Germany is out of manpower at early -42 !

[GarfunkeL]

It's not going to be any better, that's for sure. Since Pdox refuse to consider such basic things as implementing railroads.

Anyway, if you want some serious laughs, check any of the minors in the '44 start.

EDIT: most people seem to play with GER/USA/UK/SOV/ITA/JAP anyway.

 

[misterbean]

It's not going to be any better, that's for sure. Since Pdox refuse to consider such basic things as implementing railroads.

Anyway, if you want some serious laughs, check any of the minors in the '44 start.

EDIT: most people seem to play with GER/USA/UK/SOV/ITA/JAP anyway.

Well, I recently played Romania. Managed to reunite the Austria-Hungarian empire (well, most of it anyway) by 1938. By that time, I had a bigger peacetime IC than Italy. All that was lagging was my tech. So I think that is the main problem. Minors could get something done if they weren't left with turn-of-the-century LS.

 

[Opanashc]

Well, I recently played Romania. Managed to reunite the Austria-Hungarian empire (well, most of it anyway) by 1938. By that time, I had a bigger peacetime IC than Italy. All that was lagging was my tech. So I think that is the main problem. Minors could get something done if they weren't left with turn-of-the-century LS.

I think, that TRP has an idea in the right direction. Having universities as buildings, that raise local LS. That way, it would be possible for Western Europe and off-shots to have higher LS output, while the rest of the world (SU, China) needs to invest in education to catch up. Possible nerf of LS on the map for Germany and such, while giving them more advanced education tech. After all, SU was just establishing compulsory education in late 1920's, while Germany had it since 1870s.

 

[Industrious1]

Sometimes german AI wont DOW the low countries if its already moving in against france prior to the coded date

 

[Lynx190]

Well, I recently played Romania. Managed to reunite the Austria-Hungarian empire (well, most of it anyway) by 1938. By that time, I had a bigger peacetime IC than Italy. All that was lagging was my tech. So I think that is the main problem. Minors could get something done if they weren't left with turn-of-the-century LS.

Well, Sweden at least gets a decent amount of leadership compared to most minors, with those provinces that give LS and nothing else. But the country that really disappointed me when I checked out their starting situation was Switzerland. I recalled that they got pretty nice tech teams in HoI2 (better than most minors anyway) which gave them long-term potential once they escaped their democratic government and found room to expand; I thought with HoI3's tech system they'd instead get a chunk of extra leadership like Sweden. But hell no, they've got barely as much LS as a OPM and mediocre initial techs to boot; I don't even see any reason to try playing them at that rate.

Lack of initial theory/practical stats is the other problem for minors, you have to have leadership/IC to build them up rapidly in the first place, and without that they can't even research a single tech as fast, aside from the limit to simultaneous techs. It would be nice if minors could at least convince faction leaders to share tech; licensing is a perfectly good way to handle it (and more realistic, honestly), but I still miss HoI2 blueprint sharing (It was fun to play Argentina, join Axis after conquering the continent, then trade Venezuelan oil for juicy blueprints while fueling Germany's panzers).

 

[Kovax]

I think, that TRP has an idea in the right direction. Having universities as buildings, that raise local LS.

Great idea in theory, but not very useful to a minor country in its implementation. Those Universities gave a small percentage bonus to the province, so if you had 1.0 Leadership in your capital, you only got something like an additional 0.1 Leadership with the building. If you were a major country, your capital might give 5.0 Leadership, so that's an additional 0.5 Leadership. The UK, for instance, had several provinces with 5+ Leadership, so you could really boost them if you could afford to spend the IC. With Practical levels considered, it typically costs a minor country 20% more to build one, and then they only get 1/5th of the benefit. The big get bigger, and the small get table scraps at best, even if they DO manage to occupy enough of the world to out-produce a few of the majors.

While I don't think that the minor countries should be able to "conquer the world" in this limited sort of time frame, it's infuriating how they're not able to even do most what they did historically, while a couple of major countries are simply handed everything they had on a silver platter, with the ability to do a lot more if you try.