How to avoid situation like this (screenshot). Noob tried Blitzkrieg strategy on Spanish volunteers and militia, got encircled instead.

[williampsk]

I thought my 2 Panzer divisions would smash through once I passed through the mountains/hills and hit Madrid. Instead I got walloped by Spaniards almost on all sides. I tried to leave one Panzer unit to cover a retreat while the other would pull back a province, then wheel around and hit their western flank through the plains. But no bueno. Perhaps I should've waited for the Nationalist infantry units to follow in? But who knows what the AI had in mind, so I decided to push on as a German tank commander would.. it was too late when I realized this was a similar situation IRL Stalingrad. Armor in a urban environment surrounded by light infantry. fuckmylife. Whoever has experience smashing the Spanish Civil War please help.

 

[Harin]

The Spanish Civil War is not normally something to win. Instead the war is used to grind army and air experience, war support through aces, leader traits, and level up the divisions. The longer the war lasts, the better it is.

 

[davor999]

mainly It just comes with practice, but here are some tips to start with:

- you should have more than 2 divisions. if you’d been training and deploying units you should be allowed 3 or 4 units of volunteers at least
- its easier to attack from the west just above the river. This is good terrain for attacking and very often you can get an encirclement of the troops in the mountains If you want to.
- you should be using CAS planes for support

Harin is also correct and mainly you should focus on grinding xp anyway, not encircling. It’s almost impossible to lose the SCW as fascist anyway.

 

[DystopianAlphaOmega]

Spanish Civil War is not just about exp. In fact, I'd argue that more importantly it's about ensuring you have a friendly Spain instead of a hostile Spain you'll have to deal with when Barbarossa comes. Exp is great, but you can always get more from the China War and/or Poland if you don't get enough from Spain.

Blitzkrieg is fine, but you have to be much more limited in your objectives since you only have 2 divisions instead of an entire army. Focus on smaller/local breakthroughs and encirclements and be careful not to get too far ahead of your Spanish allies covering your rear. There should be lots of opportunities to create/cut off small bulges in the enemy line which you can use to encircle and destroy Republican forces. No need to rush Madrid and risk encirclement. Taking things slower will allow the Republicans to redeploy a bit, but you should still be able to break them thanks to their poor templates and your armour (and ideally your air).

 

[mikwarleo]

If you'd left one of your tanks on the previous province you would almost certainly not get encircled.

you should have more than 2 divisions.

Might help OP and/or others to know:
It's easy to get 7 divisions (the maximum) to Spain, without building a single extra gun than those you start with.

Though the process might be considered cheesy, if you understand this meta, you can amend your play style to your personal 'reality' preference.

The maximum volunteers Spain can accept (their limit not yours) is 7, max to China (Japan) is 12.
To send 7 volunteers you need roughly 120 'division', to send 12 you need roughly 200 'divisions'.

You can easily get ~200 'divisions' before Spanish Civil War starts, allowing you to send 7 divs to Spain and 12 to China (when that starts a year later).

The thing to know is that your 200 'divisions' can be divisions of any size.

So... it could be 200 of Germany's starting 8-width Cav 'divisions' for example. But even that is impossible to reach by mid-36... there's a much more efficient way to do it. If you take Rhineland focus first up you get 5 army XP from it in March 1936... you can use that XP to make an infantry template with just one 2-width battalion in it. That 'division' of only 1000 men requires only 100 infantry equipment to be fully equipped. So 200 of these 'divisions' will cost you 20,000 infantry equipment fully equipped (and you start with about 25-30,000 with your units in the field).

However... a further thing to know is that you don't need to fully equip divisions for them to count towards your ability to send volunteers... they just need to be in the field. The minimum required to field/deploy a land unit from training is 20% equipment and 20% training... so that's only 20 infantry equip per 2-width infantry 'division'... meaning you can have 200 of them in the field for only 4,000 infantry equipment and that's easy to achieve as soon as you have the template (you can simply disband 5 of your starting infantry divisions for example to get the required 4,000 infantry equip - with some extra left over).

It takes a bit to explain how you get exactly and only '20 infantry equipment' into these 2-width units (so I wont explain it here unless asked - I'm already risking taking this thread off topic) but doing this allows you to have ~200 divisions months before the Spanish war starts.

Some other tips:
- I actually send 7x infantry division to Spain. The malaise means you get very little benefit from tanks anyway, and they cost a lot in fuel, and you get LESS army xp from your early tank divisions because they have less manpower. From what I can see, the amount of manpower in combat is the primary thing that determines how much army xp you get. With the 18w inf divisions in combat we still only get about 0.5 XP per day. But you can take that to the maximum (3 XP per day) before the end of 1936 by upgrading your units in the field as you gain XP, expanding them to 42width divisions with 5 support companies (need to have all support to get enough manpower to hit 3-per-day max... or you could just do 44 or 46 width).

I do 42 width (instead of 40) in part for the extra army XP but more so to intentionally overload the combat width which stops the Spanish from 'helping' in your attacks. If they 'help' it has a negative impact on the speed at which your leaders gain experience (but it does not impact the speed your units gain experience or the speed you gain army XP). I fight constantly in Spain except when my units are upgrading (waiting for manpower). If you do this, and fill all the support company slots, when those 7 units are all fighting, you'll max out your daily army XP gain (at 3 army XP per day). If you only fight in areas where the malaise is active... you can fight constantly for a very long time and farm well over 1000 army XP from Spain. I never fight in the mountains, but I do 'trigger' the Spanish to attack mountains to either keep them occupied so they don't help. You can trigger the Spanish to attack by attacking yourself and when they join in, wait for them to get to the front line, then withdraw your troops.

It's also possible to max-out your AIR xp in Spain (max possible air-xp is 2 per day, not 3) almost from the start of the war, until it ends. To do this you need to have about 500-600 or so planes on active missions (I don't know the exact number). The cap on the number of planes you can send to Spain will be around 200 at the start of the war (depending on how many you've built by that point). To get over the 200 limit you can, for example, order 1 plane of each type (1 fighter, 1 Tac, 1 Cas) to Spain, and after the order is set for that single plane, merge that plane with a full stack. The planes being added must be underneath in the unit list. If they're underneath, the order of the top unit remains (your single plane) allowing you to order more planes to Spain than the limit would otherwise allow. In this way you can order an unlimited number of planes to Spain. I've found you can Tac and Cas bomb the Spanish without having much impact on the war as long as the Malaise is active. I do monitor this though because I want to do as little damage as possible to the Spanish to prolong the war and get as much XP as possible.

I will often stop a battle before it's over and attack elsewhere to allow the enemy to rebuild org so I can attack them again.

While this might be cheesy if you do understand how and why it works, it may help you get more out of Spain, according to your own ideas on 'realism'.

 

[Áurum]

I thought my 2 Panzer divisions would smash through once I passed through the mountains/hills and hit Madrid. Instead I got walloped by Spaniards almost on all sides. I tried to leave one Panzer unit to cover a retreat while the other would pull back a province, then wheel around and hit their western flank through the plains. But no bueno. Perhaps I should've waited for the Nationalist infantry units to follow in? But who knows what the AI had in mind, so I decided to push on as a German tank commander would.. it was too late when I realized this was a similar situation IRL Stalingrad. Armor in a urban environment surrounded by light infantry. fuckmylife. Whoever has experience smashing the Spanish Civil War please help.View attachment 650054

You can retreat one of your units to the empty province.

 

[leftkeh]

Might help OP and/or others to know:
It's easy to get 7 divisions (the maximum) to Spain, without building a single extra gun than those you start with.

While this might be cheesy if you do understand how and why it works, it may help you get more out of Spain, according to your own ideas on 'realism'.

Holy ..., Mikwarleo!! I never even considered the SCW to be anything more than a burden... Your post has definitely redefined my views on the subject. THANK YOU!!

 

[Bunnytob]

Panzer Division in Madrid, defending against attacking enemy units.
That is exactly the sort of situation you want to be in.

 

[blahmaster6k]

If you'd left one of your tanks on the previous province you would almost certainly not get encircled.



Might help OP and/or others to know:
It's easy to get 7 divisions (the maximum) to Spain, without building a single extra gun than those you start with.

Though the process might be considered cheesy, if you understand this meta, you can amend your play style to your personal 'reality' preference.

The maximum volunteers Spain can accept (their limit not yours) is 7, max to China (Japan) is 12.
To send 7 volunteers you need roughly 120 'division', to send 12 you need roughly 200 'divisions'.

You can easily get ~200 'divisions' before Spanish Civil War starts, allowing you to send 7 divs to Spain and 12 to China (when that starts a year later).

The thing to know is that your 200 'divisions' can be divisions of any size.

So... it could be 200 of Germany's starting 8-width Cav 'divisions' for example. But even that is impossible to reach by mid-36... there's a much more efficient way to do it. If you take Rhineland focus first up you get 5 army XP from it in March 1936... you can use that XP to make an infantry template with just one 2-width battalion in it. That 'division' of only 1000 men requires only 100 infantry equipment to be fully equipped. So 200 of these 'divisions' will cost you 20,000 infantry equipment fully equipped (and you start with about 25-30,000 with your units in the field).

However... a further thing to know is that you don't need to fully equip divisions for them to count towards your ability to send volunteers... they just need to be in the field. The minimum required to field/deploy a land unit from training is 20% equipment and 20% training... so that's only 20 infantry equip per 2-width infantry 'division'... meaning you can have 200 of them in the field for only 4,000 infantry equipment and that's easy to achieve as soon as you have the template (you can simply disband 5 of your starting infantry divisions for example to get the required 4,000 infantry equip - with some extra left over).

It takes a bit to explain how you get exactly and only '20 infantry equipment' into these 2-width units (so I wont explain it here unless asked - I'm already risking taking this thread off topic) but doing this allows you to have ~200 divisions months before the Spanish war starts.

Some other tips:
- I actually send 7x infantry division to Spain. The malaise means you get very little benefit from tanks anyway, and they cost a lot in fuel, and you get LESS army xp from your early tank divisions because they have less manpower. From what I can see, the amount of manpower in combat is the primary thing that determines how much army xp you get. With the 18w inf divisions in combat we still only get about 0.5 XP per day. But you can take that to the maximum (3 XP per day) before the end of 1936 by upgrading your units in the field as you gain XP, expanding them to 42width divisions with 5 support companies (need to have all support to get enough manpower to hit 3-per-day max... or you could just do 44 or 46 width).

I do 42 width (instead of 40) in part for the extra army XP but more so to intentionally overload the combat width which stops the Spanish from 'helping' in your attacks. If they 'help' it has a negative impact on the speed at which your leaders gain experience (but it does not impact the speed your units gain experience or the speed you gain army XP). I fight constantly in Spain except when my units are upgrading (waiting for manpower). If you do this, and fill all the support company slots, when those 7 units are all fighting, you'll max out your daily army XP gain (at 3 army XP per day). If you only fight in areas where the malaise is active... you can fight constantly for a very long time and farm well over 1000 army XP from Spain. I never fight in the mountains, but I do 'trigger' the Spanish to attack mountains to either keep them occupied so they don't help. You can trigger the Spanish to attack by attacking yourself and when they join in, wait for them to get to the front line, then withdraw your troops.

It's also possible to max-out your AIR xp in Spain (max possible air-xp is 2 per day, not 3) almost from the start of the war, until it ends. To do this you need to have about 500-600 or so planes on active missions (I don't know the exact number). The cap on the number of planes you can send to Spain will be around 200 at the start of the war (depending on how many you've built by that point). To get over the 200 limit you can, for example, order 1 plane of each type (1 fighter, 1 Tac, 1 Cas) to Spain, and after the order is set for that single plane, merge that plane with a full stack. The planes being added must be underneath in the unit list. If they're underneath, the order of the top unit remains (your single plane) allowing you to order more planes to Spain than the limit would otherwise allow. In this way you can order an unlimited number of planes to Spain. I've found you can Tac and Cas bomb the Spanish without having much impact on the war as long as the Malaise is active. I do monitor this though because I want to do as little damage as possible to the Spanish to prolong the war and get as much XP as possible.

I will often stop a battle before it's over and attack elsewhere to allow the enemy to rebuild org so I can attack them again.

While this might be cheesy if you do understand how and why it works, it may help you get more out of Spain, according to your own ideas on 'realism'.

While I agree with the bulk of this post, I'd still say there is merit to sending two divisions of "tanks" to Spain (2 tank and 6 cavalry) out of your seven volunteer divisions. These are the cheapest you can make a division that both counts as "tanks" and also doesn't give reduced leader experience (divisions must be at least 8 battalions). You do it for the purpose of (a) not grinding infantry leader, and (b) grinding/not grinding panzer leader. 3/7 meets the 40% required to grind panzer leader, and 2/7 won't grind any "X leader" traits. Switch around your "tank" divisions to something else when you're about to get Panzer Leader so it stays at 99% until you're ready to finish off all the traits you're looking for, then switch them back to tanks for that last 1%.

 

[mikwarleo]

doesn't give reduced leader experience (divisions must be at least 8 battalions)

Are you saying 8 battalions is the minimum to 'not give reduced leader experience' or something else?

there is merit to sending two divisions of "tanks" to Spain (2 tank and 6 cavalry) out of your seven volunteer divisions. These are the cheapest you can make a division that both counts as "tanks" and also doesn't give reduced leader experience (divisions must be at least 8 battalions). You do it for the purpose of (a) not grinding infantry leader, and (b) grinding/not grinding panzer leader. 3/7 meets the 40% required to grind panzer leader, and 2/7 won't grind any "X leader" traits. Switch around your "tank" divisions to something else when you're about to get Panzer Leader so it stays at 99% until you're ready to finish off all the traits you're looking for, then switch them back to tanks for that last 1%.

Party this is a response to you but partly further info if anyone wants the tips/detail.

I agree there's merit to sending tanks to Spain for exactly the reasons you note, but I never do it 'first'. I wasn't as clear on this as I could have been above, I left a lot out to limit the size of my already-long post.

Personally, I usually switch one or two infantry divisions to tank divisions (in the field) in early '37 once I have the XP to do it.

There's several reasons I wait ... to save fuel ... to get more XP from the same battles/time (your early tank divisions are tiny) ... to wait until I have the XP to create larger tank divisions ... to manipulate the division so it has less equipment to free up PzIs for conversion to SPG2s in '38/'39 ... you can still easily max-out the unit experience starting your tanks later in Spain.

As I noted above, from what I've seen with lots of play testing (using detailed spreadsheets to track experience gain of all forms - unit, army XP and leader traits) manpower is the primary factor that determines how quickly you gain Army XP (equipment does seem to play some role but I've never needed/bothered to test exactly how much, it's just a lot less it seems)... number of divisions in combat (not manpower or size of divisions) impacts how quickly your leaders gain XP (along with other things like how many traits they have and if the Spanish are 'helping' in the battle -both of which drastically reduce trait gain speed) and the speed at which your units gain unit experience remains the same regardless of the above factors, all that matters is whether they're 'in combat' or not.

So, instead of sending tanks OR infantry early, I personally send 7x 18w motorised divisions first up. Again, I didn't go into this above to limit the size of my post but anyone can work this out if they realise 'manpower engaged in combat' is the most important factor in Army XP gain. With my early mot-divs I give only one of those 7 divisions trucks. The only reason I have one with trucks is to have one fast unit to 'rush' this provence:

The Spanish usually haven't manned that provence early, and it's awesome for farming leader XP, especially early because you can put all 7 divisions into this combat meaning I'm getting: cav leader, engineer, trickster (3-way battle) and hillfighter simultaneously (for both my leader and field marshal. If it wasn't for this I wouldn't send any trucks with any mot division to save fuel.

I strategically redeploy everywhere in Spain (and a lot in China too) because it's faster (much much faster with the malaise) and to avoid any attrition when crossing mountains.

The reason send motorised divisions without trucks is... the 18w mot division has the greatest manpower of any starting division template Germany gets. By not giving them any trucks, I don't use fuel and don't need to build the trucks ... but I still get XP from these units (including cav leader XP). While this leaves your units drastically under-strength, this is actually a GOOD thing when you want to prolong battles and the Spanish forces are so weak, combined the the malaise penalties, you simply don't take losses, but you DO gain a lot more early XP. You can see in my screenshot, even with drastically under-strength units, I've still got as many as I can attacking across the river to further reduce their strength and further prolong this combat. Once the defenders org drops to the point where he's close to retreat, I'll stop for a while and attack elsewhere while he regains org, rinse and repeat. The hardest thing is to stop the Spanish 'helping' and getting in the way of your wonderful XP farm.

Using 7x of these early mot div you gain ~0.7 Army XP per day instead of ~0.5 per day with 7x your 18w infantry ... or less if you send those early tank divs.

With all that Motorised, I train Germany's one level4 Cavalry leader general. I save any XP until he has the Cav trait, I train him first because after he's got Cav trait I switch all my motorised divisions to infantry and do not field any more motorised in Spain or China.

By the time he has Cav trait, I've gained around 20-25 army XP, I let him run a bit longer until that's 30-35 XP. I then use that to switch all the motorised divisions to infantry divisions ensuring the template uses (at least slightly) more manpower. I never go backwards on the manpower I'm fielding in my Spanish divisions because the only time I'm not fighting in Spain is when I'm waiting for manpower to arrive (and manpower takes a relatively long time to arrive). In that downtime you're obviously not gaining any experience. After this first change I usually have 7x 22 width infantry divisions each with 4 support companies. I then train infantry leaders and have a lot of stop-start battles where I fight until I have 5 or 10xp and spend that increasing the size of the infantry divisions.

I stop once I have 7x 42 width, 5 support company, infantry divisions. I get there by late '36. Again, I do not fully equip these units. I often leave them with only their starting equipment (what they had as 18-width divisions). The lack of equipment has no negative impact on losses or XP gain in Spain and again the lower combat strength is helpful to prolong battles.

Once I have my 7x42 width infantry all in combat, I'm now maxing out my daily Army XP gain at 3 per day. I'm still training only infantry leaders at this point, switching leaders as desired.

Once I get to the point that I want to start training Panzer Leaders or manipulating leader trait gain in the ways you describe, I then a 40+ width tank division template, I carefully design this to ensure manpower stays roughly the same as the 42-width infantry division. This is normally done in early '37. There are several different ways to create the tank template, to manipulate it so you don't have 100% equipment. You can literally have your tank division with zero tanks or trucks and still gain the same unit, army and leader XP. I don't get that cheesy, but I don't ever take more than 50% of the tanks, and always take only PzIs to Spain (saving my PzIIs for China).

The other thing to know is, so long as you have 25% of your battalions as tanks in the tank template, it's considered a tank division (and you get Pz Leader experience gain from the unit). You can run two of these plus two infantry divisions under one panzer general for faster pz-leader trait gain. Even if you fight with only those two infantry divisions, the fact that leader also has two Pz divs, means he gains pz leader (not infantry leader) when those infantry fight.

There's still many points I've left out here otherwise my posts would be longer still. Such as how to manipulate your tank divisions so they receive less than the full compliment of tanks when changing from Inf to Tank divisions in the field, or how to maximise your leader trait gain by stopping them training a particular trait just before they get the trait, or how to manipulate where the malaise will be applied in Spain (for example, if I can, I want to delay the malaise being removed from the provence pictured above for as long as possible, and there are ways to influence this).

Min-maxing allows me to end up with 19x max-experience divisions ready by '39.

I normally go for:
6x Paratrooper 20width
4x Tank 40w
9x Infantry 40w
and lots of planes

I also have all my main generals and field marshals with at least one (in most cases two) terrain traits, trickster and infantry/panzer leader.
And most are at least level 5, some are level 4 or 6.

I also have heavily upgraded: PzIIs (I use light tank recon sometimes, esp with Para divisions and about 3-4 PzII divs throughout the early war), PzIIIs, Light SP Arty II, and planes: Bf 109, Nav bomber (range maxed) and CAS (range 3 upgrades).

With the upgrades my Light SPAII actually have more soft attack than vanilla Medium SPAI, and they're very cheap and quick to produce by converting PzIs and similar captured tanks. The lower armour is more than compensated for by my upgraded PzIIIs.

I also have enough XP to always get the bonus when doing doctrine research.

 

[Ffire]

I thought my 2 Panzer divisions would smash through once I passed through the mountains/hills and hit Madrid. Instead I got walloped by Spaniards almost on all sides. I tried to leave one Panzer unit to cover a retreat while the other would pull back a province, then wheel around and hit their western flank through the plains. But no bueno. Perhaps I should've waited for the Nationalist infantry units to follow in? But who knows what the AI had in mind, so I decided to push on as a German tank commander would.. it was too late when I realized this was a similar situation IRL Stalingrad. Armor in a urban environment surrounded by light infantry. fuckmylife. Whoever has experience smashing the Spanish Civil War please help.View attachment 650054

That's very simple

Right click twice on the empty province and the selected unit will flee

 

[blahmaster6k]

Are you saying 8 battalions is the minimum to 'not give reduced leader experience' or something else?

Yes, exactly. Read this wiki section for more info: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Commander#Experience

I personally only grind for two commanders, one to be the general for my tanks and one to be the field marshal. I don't particularly find the need for more than that in my games, just get the tank commanders as high of a level as possible. I go for Hill Fighter, Mountaineer, Adaptable, Improvisation Expert, Panzer Expert, and Fortress Buster on both. Double dipping on all the important traits is great, particularly stacking Adaptable so your tanks can fight anywhere and mostly ignore bad terrain. I don't bother making my divisions 40w and getting to veteran, I tend to just win the war once my generals are finished grinding. If you can do that, more power to you, but I don't generally feel the need to.

 

[mikwarleo]

Yes, exactly. Read this wiki section for more info: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Commander#Experience

Good to know, never shown up for me as I don't grind with divisions smaller than 9 battalions.
If we're talking min-maxing it's another (small) reason why it's not optimal to not use starting tank divs (they're 6 battalions) in Spain.

I personally only grind for two commanders, one to be the general for my tanks and one to be the field marshal. I don't particularly find the need for more than that in my games, just get the tank commanders as high of a level as possible. I go for Hill Fighter, Mountaineer, Adaptable, Improvisation Expert, Panzer Expert, and Fortress Buster on both. Double dipping on all the important traits is great, particularly stacking Adaptable so your tanks can fight anywhere and mostly ignore bad terrain. I don't bother making my divisions 40w and getting to veteran, I tend to just win the war once my generals are finished grinding. If you can do that, more power to you, but I don't generally feel the need to.

Not that it matters, but I agree, with only minor relatively insignificant points of difference. I.e. mountaineer trait ... I never bother with it and go for hill fighter and/or ranger instead. I get 'fight anywhere' but double stacking adaptable gives enough of that imho and I almost never attack mountains. Not saying you're wrong, I just don't find it useful in my play style.

Generally speaking, you can win with no grinding (as I'm sure you know). But my idea behind these long posts was not to prescribe a playstyle, rather to share these 'cheesy' min-maxing strategies in detail to maybe help some (who maybe don't know the game as well) to see the underlying mechanics and make more informed choices on their own approach.

Even having played this game since HoI1, I still learn stuff (like the above) every other day. There's so many approaches I've not tried. It reminds me ... the paradrop attack on England (usually my preferred way) is often called unrealistic and hotly debated. Most don't realise it was an actual alternative to Sealion and while many suggest it wouldn't have worked some high-level sources from the time from the time say otherwise. If you like good ww2 docos search for 'How Hitler Lost the War'... it has Adolf Galland discussing the plan and when he spoke to Hitler about it (among other things). I have a copy, and it used to be on youtube but only found this when searching for it to share a link here.

 

[blahmaster6k]

Not that it matters, but I agree, with only minor relatively insignificant points of difference. I.e. mountaineer trait ... I never bother with it and go for hill fighter and/or ranger instead. I get 'fight anywhere' but double stacking adaptable gives enough of that imho and I almost never attack mountains. Not saying you're wrong, I just don't find it useful in my play style.

Main reason for going for mountaineer and hill fighter over ranger and hill fighter is that the main goal is getting adaptable by any means necessary. Sure, ranger is a more relevant trait that will benefit you in more theaters, but there are only three forest provinces in Spain (iirc) with no guarantee that any of them will be a front line province long enough to grind out the trait, if at all, so unless the opportunity presents itself it's generally easier to just go for mountaineer. If you can get ranger too, definitely do it, it's just difficult to get it in Spain due to the randomness of the game and scarcity of forests. It's definitely good to have as many terrain traits as possible.

 

[mikwarleo]

True, I get ranger almost entirely from China... it's hard to get in Spain and with the malaise it's much easier to grind traits in Spain.

 

[Robosoldier1]

The Spanish Civil War is not normally something to win. Instead the war is used to grind army and air experience, war support through aces, leader traits, and level up the divisions. The longer the war lasts, the better it is.

well not necessarily. Assuming your not playing solely in Singleplayer. You want to deny the other main entity. Soviets. Gaining a ton of early air and army XP. While reducing your own equipment expenditure. Also preventing Spain being communist makes conquering France and securing Europe a bit easier. So having a quicker pace in order to place Spain in a more controllable environment allows to better regulate these areas and make sure you gain what you can while undercutting your future rivals preparations.

 

[blahmaster6k]

well not necessarily. Assuming your not playing solely in Singleplayer. You want to deny the other main entity. Soviets. Gaining a ton of early air and army XP. While reducing your own equipment expenditure. Also preventing Spain being communist makes conquering France and securing Europe a bit easier. So having a quicker pace in order to place Spain in a more controllable environment allows to better regulate these areas and make sure you gain what you can while undercutting your future rivals preparations.

Back in my day, the strategy for the SCW was just for the Nationalist player to retreat to the river line until the Republican AI ran out of equipment and manpower LOL. Working as intended, everyone!

 

[STABBY5]

Back in my day, the strategy for the SCW was just for the Nationalist player to retreat to the river line until the Republican AI ran out of equipment and manpower LOL. Working as intended, everyone!

That was always the longest method. Before the patch you could just push straight through them.

To avoid being encircled just play like your Spanish allies aren't even there, because they may as well not be.

 

[mursolini]

Spanish Civil War is not just about exp. In fact, I'd argue that more importantly it's about ensuring you have a friendly Spain instead of a hostile Spain you'll have to deal with when Barbarossa comes. Exp is great, but you can always get more from the China War and/or Poland if you don't get enough from Spain.

In SP, Spanish alignment doesn`t mater, since it is most efficient to just conquer it, on your way to conquering Portugal.
In MP, usually Spain is either Axis player, or similarly to SP - dead.