HOI 1.06c – ITALY 1939 MOD
Italy in HOI is not very accurate a nation under the historical point of view, in none of the scenarios. I attempted to give suggestion to help improving this aspect, but nothing was done. Worst, unknown game balancing logics have seen this nation to go down and down in any successive versions, up to become as weak and vulnerable as to lose any interest into playing it.
Italy is my country and I love it, and I couldn’t accept such a situation in a game that was, in general, well done and funny to play. So I started working to a more historical nation.
This work upon the 1939 scenario lasted two long years of study, compilation and play testing. Now that, finally, it is accomplished, I judge it to be a good result, despite the limits given by the sources available to me and by game rules and mechanics.
Historically, Italy was not ready to war in September 1939, nor it was when it jointed Axis in June 1940, despite all efforts made in those months. Starting from a militarily weak position, it committed the two or three strategic mistakes in the begin, and this, along with its insufficient industrial production and resources availability, on the long term brought it to disaster. On the other hand, it had some chances if well lead and organised, and this is clearly shown by its behaviour from mid 1941 to mid 1942, when all branches of the armed forces scored some military success.
My HOI 1939 Italy starts really weak, and the primary duty of the player is to cover quickly the enormous military gap he has. For example, most of the infantry is antiquated and should be upgraded to the latest model (but you lack of both manpower and supplies), and you can theoretically produce good models, but you cannot hope, seen your low industrial capacity, to replace the mass of obsolete models you will find with horror to be deployed.
But even if the player acts cleverly in such hard a matter –and historically Italy didn’t- the general military and economical health is so precarious, that’s arduous to face any strategic mistakes. When playing this mod with other nations, you’ll notice a well balanced Italy that with time succumbs upon the pressure of the Allies, as it did.
A couple of warnings:
1) There is a small bug I wasn’t able to fix: you cannot operate in Torino province in the early months of the game, or game crashes; this problem mysteriously vanishes then, but remember to save the game before attempting touching Torino, until you finally succeed.
2) Your two starting air transport units are unable to load paratroopers… This is not exactly wanted an effect, but it’s not so bad, for this way you are forced to upgrade them if you wishes to launch any paras, and this reflects the fact that Italy failed in the attempted of having two or three operational paratrooper divisions at once.
Well, now, to have this mod loaded upon your HOI 1.06c version, so that you can blame me for my work as you wishes, download the file, unzip somewhere it and follow the steps below.
1) TEXT FILES
HOI\scenarios\1939\ita.INC
HOI\scenarios\1939\fra.INC
HOI\scenarios\1939\ger.INC
HOI\scenarios\1939\yug.INC
HOI\scenarios\1939\sch.INC
HOI\db\leaders\ita.CSV
HOI\db\unitnames.CSV
HOI\db\randomleaders.CSV
HOI\db\province.CSV
HOI\config\models.CSV
Simply replace these files with the ones furnished by me.
Note that models.CSV appears to be useless, because it is absolutely ignored by the game. Do use my version only if you know how to have it applied, otherwise you are wasting your time.
2) PICTURES
Simply move the picture files in the position: HOI\GFX\Interface\pics
Italy in HOI is not very accurate a nation under the historical point of view, in none of the scenarios. I attempted to give suggestion to help improving this aspect, but nothing was done. Worst, unknown game balancing logics have seen this nation to go down and down in any successive versions, up to become as weak and vulnerable as to lose any interest into playing it.
Italy is my country and I love it, and I couldn’t accept such a situation in a game that was, in general, well done and funny to play. So I started working to a more historical nation.
This work upon the 1939 scenario lasted two long years of study, compilation and play testing. Now that, finally, it is accomplished, I judge it to be a good result, despite the limits given by the sources available to me and by game rules and mechanics.
Historically, Italy was not ready to war in September 1939, nor it was when it jointed Axis in June 1940, despite all efforts made in those months. Starting from a militarily weak position, it committed the two or three strategic mistakes in the begin, and this, along with its insufficient industrial production and resources availability, on the long term brought it to disaster. On the other hand, it had some chances if well lead and organised, and this is clearly shown by its behaviour from mid 1941 to mid 1942, when all branches of the armed forces scored some military success.
My HOI 1939 Italy starts really weak, and the primary duty of the player is to cover quickly the enormous military gap he has. For example, most of the infantry is antiquated and should be upgraded to the latest model (but you lack of both manpower and supplies), and you can theoretically produce good models, but you cannot hope, seen your low industrial capacity, to replace the mass of obsolete models you will find with horror to be deployed.
But even if the player acts cleverly in such hard a matter –and historically Italy didn’t- the general military and economical health is so precarious, that’s arduous to face any strategic mistakes. When playing this mod with other nations, you’ll notice a well balanced Italy that with time succumbs upon the pressure of the Allies, as it did.
A couple of warnings:
1) There is a small bug I wasn’t able to fix: you cannot operate in Torino province in the early months of the game, or game crashes; this problem mysteriously vanishes then, but remember to save the game before attempting touching Torino, until you finally succeed.
2) Your two starting air transport units are unable to load paratroopers… This is not exactly wanted an effect, but it’s not so bad, for this way you are forced to upgrade them if you wishes to launch any paras, and this reflects the fact that Italy failed in the attempted of having two or three operational paratrooper divisions at once.
Well, now, to have this mod loaded upon your HOI 1.06c version, so that you can blame me for my work as you wishes, download the file, unzip somewhere it and follow the steps below.
1) TEXT FILES
HOI\scenarios\1939\ita.INC
HOI\scenarios\1939\fra.INC
HOI\scenarios\1939\ger.INC
HOI\scenarios\1939\yug.INC
HOI\scenarios\1939\sch.INC
HOI\db\leaders\ita.CSV
HOI\db\unitnames.CSV
HOI\db\randomleaders.CSV
HOI\db\province.CSV
HOI\config\models.CSV
Simply replace these files with the ones furnished by me.
Note that models.CSV appears to be useless, because it is absolutely ignored by the game. Do use my version only if you know how to have it applied, otherwise you are wasting your time.
2) PICTURES
Simply move the picture files in the position: HOI\GFX\Interface\pics