Help with Non Aligned Bulagria? (Battle For The Bosphorous)

[The_end_of_the_cycle]

Non aligned Bulgaria looks really fun to play until you realize you have no manpower industry, and everyone around you is guaranteed by Romania, while you yourself aren't. Nobody ever accepts Fate of the Balkans decisions, so I get stuck. Can anybody give me some tips/advice, especially on beating Romania.

 

[tksolway]

I've seen comments saying that they've annexed everything by 1940. I have no idea how though. I've run through half a dozen games trying to make Ferdinand work, by early/mid 39 you can have Ferdinand in power, but then you still need to fix your military. Meanwhile, yeah, there's Romania with it's 50 divisions sitting there, no idea how you deal with that early.

I'd love to hear the secret too.

 

[The_end_of_the_cycle]

I've seen comments saying that they've annexed everything by 1940. I have no idea how though. I've run through half a dozen games trying to make Ferdinand work, by early/mid 39 you can have Ferdinand in power, but then you still need to fix your military. Meanwhile, yeah, there's Romania with it's 50 divisions sitting there, no idea how you deal with that early.

I'd love to hear the secret too.

I am certain that you can get rid of military restrictions early on with "Demonstrate our policies of peace", especially if you go for help from the UK first. But you still do not have enough manpower or industry to get started. Romania is way stronger than you.

 

[Darksworthyone]

Try rushing Prussia of the balkans focus

 

[ThaHoward]

Non aligned Bulgaria looks really fun to play until you realize you have no manpower industry, and everyone around you is guaranteed by Romania, while you yourself aren't. Nobody ever accepts Fate of the Balkans decisions, so I get stuck. Can anybody give me some tips/advice, especially on beating Romania.

Rush for the southern most victory points in Romania. Habe armor and mot.divs. rush to the points (-20% surrender limit!) Until Romania reinforce.

I declared war on Yugo to not get the Allies involved.

 

[tksolway]

I am certain that you can get rid of military restrictions early on with "Demonstrate our policies of peace", especially if you go for help from the UK first. But you still do not have enough manpower or industry to get started. Romania is way stronger than you.

Ya I could, but there's little point until you get the industry and manpower sorted, and you can get rid of it more easily after joining a faction or going to war. I guess the point I was trying to make is the by mid 39 I've always got at least one of those things still on the docket, and I'm not ready to go after Romania yet. If you wait any longer than that Romania is part of the Axis, and well... good luck.

 

[The_end_of_the_cycle]

Rush for the southern most victory points in Romania. Habe armor and mot.divs. rush to the points (-20% surrender limit!) Until Romania reinforce.

I declared war on Yugo to not get the Allies involved.

How did you acquire these divisions? I would assume with the purchase motorized and purchase armor decisions?

 

[ThaHoward]

How did you acquire these divisions? I would assume with the purchase motorized and purchase armor decisions?

I just researched the tanks, and motorized are a production line from the start. The cav divisions have 4 or 5 cav battalions and 2 motorized battalions. I just changed them to pure motorized divisions.

 

[Ydjeen]

Hey man, i did a few runs as non-aligned Bulgaria, so i thought i might share my experience.


So the general idea sounds like that: Store 600 PP, let Zveno do their coup, so you can reject military restrictions and switch to Service by Requirement and War Economy. Spam divisions, place a new ruler, improve relations with neighbors, influence them, force Greece, Yugo, Romania and Turkey into your faction, subjugate Greece, Yugo, Turkey.

My implementation:

• Rush to Limited Women's Suffrage. In the meantime switch to Partial Mobilization (optional) and improve relations with Agrarians till they let you hire their minister. Hire Nikola Petkov and Dimitrana Ivanova.
• Go to freedom of Press. Now you have to wait till you have more than 20% of democracy support. Do not integrate Agrarians, it will boost non-aligned. Do some other focuses, but evade those, that increase Non-Aligned support. Keep an eye on democratic Party, if their support is higher than 18% after you have finished a focus - don't start a new one, wait a few days. You gonna need that PP for laws.
• So this is a part between fake democracy and civil war. So about focuses - rush to plot against Boris and prepare his assassination. Wait till Zveno prepares their coup and there is like 18 days left till it fires. Enact the decision to kill Boris, so after he dies a coup is started after a few days. It is nice to have Agrarians and NSC integrated before coup, because they give you some PP and stability, manpower, etc.
• Civil War. Refuse demilitarisation. Switch your economy law to War Economy and change your conscription law and start training some troops. You might need to wait some time to be able to get Service by Requirement, but i think it is worth it. After you'v changed your laws you have to win, try to do it in a smart way - fight only when you encircle enemy troops (best done on the bottom left part of Bulgaria) or you pin down someone so the other division can move. I do not suggest a direct push against them. Also about your construction from the beginning of the game - i usually build a few civil factories on the west (those 2 provinces that Zveno gets when the Civil war starts) and a few military factories on the east (those that i control). Civil War makes Boris reappear as a ruler, but you still have an option to go for Ferdinand or Regency Council. I prefer Ferdinand.
• Now you need to go for Guardians of the Balkan and you have to do Condemn Macedonian Organisation Focus. A smart way to deal with IMRO at the last decision would be to create a new infantry template with only one divsion. In that way when you place them at the needed positions and they get attrition you don't lose that much as you would if your normal division were staying there. While there is attrition present in those states - don't forget to remove you normal divisions.
• After that you have potential 5 Nations to influence and invite them to your faction : Albania, Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania and Turkey. Forget about Albania - Zog submits to Italy even as your Puppet, so this is a PP waste. As far as i understood - it is fine to just spam new divisions without fully training them, so that you relative strength is higher than of your neighbors. Also do not forget to improve your relations with countries you wanna force into your faction (you can guarantee a few to further improve your relations)
• So in my last game with 10 small IMRO division and 25+ normal divisions i was able to fail to force Greece(weird, they accept like almost all the time), then force Yugoslavia->Romania->Turkey into my faction. Greece declined even while having 4 green decision modifiers (Greece was thee only one i didn't influence, cause i thought it would be enough), so i declared a war against them and puppeted (with taking two historical cores back) as fast as i could. And then you can subjugate Yugoslavia->Revoke Yugo Cores->Subjugate Turkey->Try to subjugate Romania(didnt work by me).

As a result you have 4 countries in your faction, potential 3 puppets (or even 4 with Albania) before Italy declares on Greece.
What also happened by me - Romania left my faction and joined Japanese faction by some weird event/focus? Have no idea how that happend.

After all of that i justified, declared and capitulated Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq while NOT calling Yugoslavia into the war against Axis. That way you don't have to hold the front line against Germans/Italy, only to guard your coasts.

edit : typo. explained subjugation order and what to do after you'v done subjugating.

 

[JackAlNXT]

In my observations, the IMRO isn't really worth keeping around and is best gotten rid of. Doing it early might make the UK more likely to lift the restrictions (in which case you wouldn't need to have a civil war).

 

[ThaHoward]

In my observations, the IMRO isn't really worth keeping around and is best gotten rid of. Doing it early might make the UK more likely to lift the restrictions (in which case you wouldn't need to have a civil war).

I got UK to lift them at thr very start, just boost relations. I choose to support the IMRO later on. Sweet sweet cores and bonus units.

 

[Ydjeen]

One more thing i noticed in my game.
If a country declines your faction "invitation" you can try again later. Also you can try again even if a country is in another faction (but it will be considered as a red reason modifier).
After Romania switched my faction for Japanese one i have managed to get it back after another 2 or 3 requests.

 

[Caeric]

There seems to be a bug currently where certain nations break free and join a faction even as puppets since the foci that cause this do not seem to check if they are independent or not

 

[TalyonUngol]

How do you support/Get rid of the IMRO?