If we don't get an Italy rework in Barbarossa I'm gonna be mad

[pro.gamer.69]

Devil is as usual in the details. Italy in the south was not allowed to have an army by the Allies and was under occupation. The Social Republic in the North had the same issues. In the end they were not that different from occupied Norway, France or later occupied zones of Germany.

Or Denmark who was under occupation by Germany, even if their King held nominal power. They had partisans. Were they in a civil war? No, they were occupied by Germany.

Yes they had partisans, but so had Norway and even Germany, but there wasn't a civil war in these countries. Yugoslavia and USSR had a much greater degree of partisnas, yet we do not consider them as being in civil war.

When you really look closer to the details, both in history, and especially in game, the so called Italian civil war was more like the south of Italy being under Allied occupation and the north under German occupation, Both installing their puppet leaders from the old political elite like in the rest of occupied Europe.

I know wikipedia is wikipedia, but it says there were over 500k Italians fighting on the side of the Allies (excluding Italian POWs), and that they lost 45k men. The Italian Social Republic fielded and lost similar numbers of men. At that point I could care less if they were actual divisions/armies or not.

 

[Krey_Lollipop]

My main issue with Italy is that I find the generic tree more fun*, at least for some play-styles.

Like when I want to create a custom scenario using the game-rules. Italy is always gonna be Italy no matter what. But the Soviet Union isn't much better, so I'm glad they're getting revisited at least.

Game-rules are a bit half-baked in general though I feel. There are endless possibilities for what you could do with them, yet I can't say I use them on a regular basis. Could be a catch-22 I suppose.

* I am a bit biased though as I've been playing primarily as minors since I got the game in like 2016/2017.

 

[Geffito]

My main issue with Italy is that I find the generic tree more fun*, at least for some play-styles.

Like when I want to create a custom scenario using the game-rules. Italy is always gonna be Italy no matter what. But the Soviet Union isn't much better, so I'm glad they're getting revisited at least.

Game-rules are a bit half-baked in general though I feel. There are endless possibilities for what you could do with them, yet I can't say I use them on a regular basis. Could be a catch-22 I suppose.

* I am a bit biased though as I've been playing primarily as minors since I got the game in like 2016/2017.

Expect for the extra manpower national focus, there is nothing better about the generic tree, in fact its way worse because industrial stuff take far longer and you get less mils

 

[ThaHoward]

I know wikipedia is wikipedia, but it says there were over 500k Italians fighting on the side of the Allies (excluding Italian POWs), and that they lost 45k men. The Italian Social Republic fielded and lost similar numbers of men. At that point I could care less if they were actual divisions/armies or not.

And how many Soviet partians lost their lives? Even Norway had foreign Waffen SS and other SS units composed of Norwegians to combat Norwegian partisans. Wouldn't classify it as a conventional civil war.

In terms of Hoi4, my opinion (!), is that Hoi3 did it well with one of their start dates with Italy being occupied by both sides.

Hoi4 could make both sides either occupied through event, or puppets or collobaration governments of their occupiers. With the Italian Social Republic not having cores.

 

[Krey_Lollipop]

Expect for the extra manpower national focus, there is nothing better about the generic tree, in fact its way worse because industrial stuff take far longer and you get less mils

Depends on what you're looking for in a focus tree. The Italian one is objectively stronger (not necessarily a good thing) and has flavour, but in terms of choice I like the generic better. Being able to pick ideology is a game-changer (though Italy can also flip, just not via the focus tree).

 

[currylambchop]

They should have included updated Italian tree in La Resistance.

 

[desphorin]

a new focus tree for italy would be better then new focuses for portugal, turkey and mexico combined

Please only speak for yourself.

 

[Federkiel]

They already stated that ITA does not get an overhaul of their focus tree. When looking at the JAP one overhaul - my sadness gets a little reduced.

Still, i believe that it's inevitable to give them a few more generals even if they are as bad as the ones it starts with. ITA has fewer land commanders than just so many minors which did not even play any role in the war while Italy was a major with a fairly huge army.

Adding a few more commanders would not take away any selling proposition of a more dedicated DLC as there is just so much stuff to be covered still - alternate history branches, naval and tank designers, mutliple states of war (co-belligerent ITA) and more flavor stuff in general.

 

[FoxtrotCharlie]

Wait, so the Esercito Cobelligerante Italiano didn't really exist and didn't field over 250,000 troops? And it didn't include regular Italian army formations like the 44th Infantry Division Cremona?

Those are honest questions, because I can't read Italian. In English language sources, though, I see records and references to Italian regular army units that fought alongside the Allies. That doesn't sound like "not allowed to have an army and under occupation" and sounds a lot more like "we're in a faction with the Allies, but we're in bad shape since half our country is occupied by the Germans."

But what I'm reading could be wrong.

And how many Soviet partians lost their lives? Even Norway had foreign Waffen SS and other SS units composed of Norwegians to combat Norwegian partisans. Wouldn't classify it as a conventional civil war.

In terms of Hoi4, my opinion (!), is that Hoi3 did it well with one of their start dates with Italy being occupied by both sides.

Hoi4 could make both sides either occupied through event, or puppets or collobaration governments of their occupiers. With the Italian Social Republic not having cores.

Both sides of Italy were under occupation, but both also had active regular military formations cooperating with the bulk of the respective allied forces. In Italy the 1943-1945 period is still considered as a civil war because there were two parallel governments (one lead by the king, the royalists and the antifascists and the other one by Mussolini and the remaining fascists). These two governments still had influence over the territory they controlled and they fought each other. So technically Italy was wholly under occupation but both remaining sides were still administrating their territories and fielded a number of troops high enough to make both sides appear as the legitimate italian nation. In the german-occupied zone partisans formations were present while in the south were not. At the same time the administration in the Social Republic sector was way more autonomous than the one in the south as the fascist administration was already present before the war and not much had to be changed to keep a regular administration running.
For sake of gameplay, if fascist Italy was to capitulate, it would be nice to give a series of decisions to Hitler's Germany on how to handle its ally's surrender, allowing to prepare the Operation Achse and occupy Italy from the north. At the same time, as Italy comes closer to capitulations and low war support, the Allies might be getting a series of decisions to sign a separate peace with Italy and take it out of the conflict earlier, maybe even bringing it on its side. This "war of decisions" might influence the final outcome of Italy's capitulation, bringing it out of the war earlier and even making it ready for the german invasion or leaving a messy surrender (as it had been historically) allowing the german troops to invade it, suppress the spontaneous and disorganized resistance put up by italian forces and setup the collaborationist government by freeing Mussolini from his captivity.

 

[MR2]

WADR to the OP, but by the title, I assumed this was another rant post - and here it's still going on... <shrug>

Meanwhile, I've started playing the Forza Italia! mod. It's like someone poured hot fudge all over my HOI4 ice cream sundae! (or should I say gelato?)

 

[Chary_]

Already confirmed not coming and I'm happy to wait. What they are providing so far looks great, and the Soviet tree we are all expecting is a more than welcome addition.

I will however add one thing about the necessity of the Italian rework, the current tree is way too short and it ruins the other trees. The real reason the Balkan trees all feel too slow is the Italian ai will be able to get their war with Greece + Yugoslavia before other trees let you do much of anything. In my last attempt to get the Balkan Federation Italy actually annexed Greece before the Anschluss-- I mean it's a little ridiculous.

 

[Iskulya]

I'm surprised that the devs said they were surprised that people expected Italy. Germany came in WTT and that DLC was about Asia. This June will mark the game becoming half a decade old. It is quite disappointing, to put it mildly, that no Italian content is on the horizon.

On the other hand, now there is no no excuse for them not giving us an absolutely massive Soviet tree that provides fully fleshed out, stalinist, right, and left oppositions path alongside the meme fantasy revived White Russia(which well could be it's own focus tree separate of the Soviet One, kind of like how Nationalist and Republican Spain each have their own separate focus tree) and satisfying everyone, at least to the extent that people around here can be satisfied(which it should be said, is impossible!).

Given that the Polish content is free. I'm expecting great and massive things from this Soviet rework... it had better be their biggest and best yet, especially since it's been well over a year since the last big DLC. Fingers crossed.

Yeah, a tiny bit bitter about Italy, but I've come to expect disappointment given the utterly glacial pace of this game's development. Paradox really ought to give the team more manpower and resources to speed things along a bit. Still, it's good to see ambitious changes are coming with the new logistics system. Some people handwave it away as nothing big, but the HOI series has never seen anything like this before. If they can pull it off and have the AI work with it reasonably well, that will be a decent feat.

 

[coffeelingfine]

Gonna be honest but I'm not a super big fan of massive elaborate focus trees. I'm content with Italy's as it is now, simple but sweet.

Way more interested in reworked mechanics such as supply. That has me more hyped than new focus trees

 

[Blinho]

What the hell more are you expecting from Italy? With the current focus tree you can easily do a WC. Italy have far more chances of doing "something" in the game that they did in real WWII were they were slightly more than a troublemaker for their german allies. Germany had to get Italy off the hook many times with catastrophic consecuences, for example the invasion of greece and the balkans in spring of 1941 delayed Operation Barbarossa a couple of months. We will never know, but it's possible that germany could defeat the soviets by reaching Moscow in late july or early august instead of late october.

So, from my humble point of view, an overhaul to Italy wouldn't be bad, but we do need a new soviet focus tree. Yes, we need it, because USSR absorbed a BIG chunk of Germany's war effort.

 

[Federkiel]

What the hell more are you expecting from Italy? With the current focus tree you can easily do a WC. Italy have far more chances of doing "something" in the game that they did in real WWII were they were slightly more than a troublemaker for their german allies. Germany had to get Italy off the hook many times with catastrophic consecuences, for example the invasion of greece and the balkans in spring of 1941 delayed Operation Barbarossa a couple of months. We will never know, but it's possible that germany could defeat the soviets by reaching Moscow in late july or early august instead of late october.

So, from my humble point of view, an overhaul to Italy wouldn't be bad, but we do need a new soviet focus tree. Yes, we need it, because USSR absorbed a BIG chunk of Germany's war effort.

I won't disagree to your core point - which i believe to be absolutely true: SOV needs a rework and has a top priority to get one.

What i - and probably a few other players - object to is the fact that over almost five years of HoI 4, we got workovers to countries which had little or even nothing to do with WW2. These workovers are to the most extensive degree - overshadowing the work spent on countries which do actually matter in WW2.

Italy still has no real designers for ships and tanks while neutral minors have received them. Those minors also have immersive and elaborate alternate histories - while Italy has basically none.

Poland for example is about to get a gigantic work over for the second time - while Italy is as bland as it was some four and a half years ago. This makes absolutely no sense. Personally, i see a bloated amount of dev time invested in the wrong place - or as i should better say - in the wrong priority.

Please don't get that wrong. Like every other country Poland shall get a good focus tree - but what for when other - and more important ww2 matters get fully neglected for the whole time...

 

[sekelsenmat]

What the hell more are you expecting from Italy? With the current focus tree you can easily do a WC. Italy have far more chances of doing "something" in the game that they did in real WWII were they were slightly more than a troublemaker for their german allies. Germany had to get Italy off the hook many times with catastrophic consecuences, for example the invasion of greece and the balkans in spring of 1941 delayed Operation Barbarossa a couple of months. We will never know, but it's possible that germany could defeat the soviets by reaching Moscow in late july or early august instead of late october.

I agree that the italian tree is powerful right now, unhistorically so even due to armor/fighter tech bonuses. About conquering Moscow this would have made no difference at all, remember that Napoleon took Moscow and it made no difference for him. The main soviet tank factory was in Chelyabinsk, the main plane factory in Samara... not to mention that the allies would have lend-leased enough free stuff for the Soviets to keep fighting. I guess trying to cut off the oil from Baku was the right call, since the industry was clearly out of reach.

 

[Blinho]

I agree that the italian tree is powerful right now, unhistorically so even due to armor/fighter tech bonuses. About conquering Moscow this would have made no difference at all, remember that Napoleon took Moscow and it made no difference for him. The main soviet tank factory was in Chelyabinsk, the main plane factory in Samara... not to mention that the allies would have lend-leased enough free stuff for the Soviets to keep fighting. I guess trying to cut off the oil from Baku was the right call, since the industry was clearly out of reach.

I see what you mean about Moscow and it makes sense too, what an interesting debate! I reckon too that cutting off oil from baku could be a lethal strike, but one of the biggest problems of operation Blau was that the supply lines were too overextended and reaching Bakú could had end in a disaster. We should keep in mind that oil can be lend-leased too, maybe USA could keep supplying it to the USSR after the loss of caucasian oil. Again we will never know, we can only imagine and enjoy the debate

I won't disagree to your core point - which i believe to be absolutely true: SOV needs a rework and has a top priority to get one.

What i - and probably a few other players - object to is the fact that over almost five years of HoI 4, we got workovers to countries which had little or even nothing to do with WW2. These workovers are to the most extensive degree - overshadowing the work spent on countries which do actually matter in WW2.

Italy still has no real designers for ships and tanks while neutral minors have received them. Those minors also have immersive and elaborate alternate histories - while Italy has basically none.

Poland for example is about to get a gigantic work over for the second time - while Italy is as bland as it was some four and a half years ago. This makes absolutely no sense. Personally, i see a bloated amount of dev time invested in the wrong place - or as i should better say - in the wrong priority.

Please don't get that wrong. Like every other country Poland shall get a good focus tree - but what for when other - and more important ww2 matters get fully neglected for the whole time...

I agre with you too in you point of view, it's true that having Mexico or Portugal with full richness focus trees while Italy and USSR lack a decent one is quite disturbing , i've talked about that many times with some friends, but this is how it happened and now it's past; so in the moment that we dont have a decent focus tree for Italy and USSR, in my opinion is absolutely imperative to get a soviet one before. I can agree too that maybe some dev time could have been invested in reinforcing other major's focus tree, believe me when i'm say that sometimes i've thought "C'mon guys, what's next? a Switzerland focus tree?".

But, as i've said past is past and now i can only max hype about the new soviet focus tree having seen the ones made for irrelevant minors!

P.S. Sorry about my english, i'm quite rusty