Hello Paradox! HOI3 Ministers Inquiry

[incognitus]

Okay, but if I go on a rampage as, say, Rep Spain or Finland, it will be a long time before MY actions drive South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the like into the arms of the Allies, right? I will only be freaking out Germany, the SU, Japan, Italy...

 

[marxianTJ]

Possibly it depends on just how many DoWs there are before you come for them

 

[incognitus]

I guess the best approach, really, is to go for the US first (when playing a major), then South Africa who are always the first to join the Allies. Then Australia, New Zealand and the next one is usually Paraguay.
If you're a minor, you might want to farm some neutral minors first before attacking the US, maybe even South Africa and the two Australasians.

Ideology makes a huge difference. When I rampaged as Japan, I had 370 threat against UK and most South American nations, but Bulgaria had me on 3.7 points of threat.

 

[Kovax]

Proximity also has an effect, with countries on the same continent heavily affected and adjacent countries even more so, but ideology is still the biggest factor. The UK has provinces all over the world, and is therefore easily affected by the threat of almost any country, but disproportionally so by Axis and Commintern threats. The game is set up so that Japan is considered "closer" to the US than Europe is to the US, so the US (and the rest of the Americas) is more easily affected by Japan's threat than by Germany's or the Soviet Union's.

A lot of odd things were done in this game to balance it, and I don't agree with some of the decisions, but if the choice is between living with Paradox's decisions and not playing the game, I'm still happily playing it, problems and all.

 

[incognitus]

Well I guess the US and Japan are really close geographically, because they own islands literally next to each other in the Pacific. Of course the SU is also close to Alaska, technically, but in the context of the 30s/early 40s they were perceived as being more distant because in Japan a major power was a buffer in between the SU and the US.

Proximity is indeed the smaller factor, after all I had conquered Greece as Japan in that game and Bulgaria simply didn't care.