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Crusader Kings III Available Now!
The realm rejoices as Paradox Interactive announces the launch of Crusader Kings III, the latest entry in the publisher’s grand strategy role-playing game franchise. Advisors may now jockey for positions of influence and adversaries should save their schemes for another day, because on this day Crusader Kings III can be purchased on Steam, the Paradox Store, and other major online retailers.
Again good progress against the Dutch. Hope the Germans don't do something daft like appoint a puppet government. All your good work will go straight down the drain.
The Britsh do seem to have finally done something, taking the island of Madeira. The Aristos must have their port, what?
I do wonder whether peace with Britain is possible and what they'd give up for it?
On a slightly different note, the Germans produced decent subs, pocket battleships and had plans for an aircraft carrier. The Italians had some good cruisers. I wonder, if they would consent to have them made in Portugal under license?
The Britsh do seem to have finally done something, taking the island of Madeira. The Aristos must have their port, what?
I do wonder whether peace with Britain is possible and what they'd give up for it?
On a slightly different note, the Germans produced decent subs, pocket battleships and had plans for an aircraft carrier. The Italians had some good cruisers. I wonder, if they would consent to have them made in Portugal under license?
nicely done
i was just playing a singleplayer game as Germany, I brought Portugal into the axis and the ai astounded me by combining their colonies in south Africa along with annexing south Africa, Belgian Congo, and every major coastal province up to Casablanca. To be honest i was quite amazed that a ai like the Portuguese could do this but after following this for so long it is possible =]
i was just playing a singleplayer game as Germany, I brought Portugal into the axis and the ai astounded me by combining their colonies in south Africa along with annexing south Africa, Belgian Congo, and every major coastal province up to Casablanca. To be honest i was quite amazed that a ai like the Portuguese could do this but after following this for so long it is possible =]
Welcome, TheBromgrev! I think you capture, so to speak, how important this stuff -- the rares -- is. What mod do you play to adjust for the resource distribution?
You may be right! Lots of time to spend on S. Africa still, though. It's a long, involved campaign.
Thanks, Reis91! Welcome! I appreciate the comparison to Viking tactics -- I think you're right.
Might the Dutch surrender to you?
I don't recall if that's possible or not. I think not. I think they surrender to the Alliance Leader.
The game is actually set up to require total victory, unlike the other Paradox games. I don't like that personally -- I think a negotiated peace WAS possible in real life, and should be possible here. But peace isn't possible in HOI 3. As for the German items, that's essentially what I've been doing -- if I wanted to build a pocket battleship, I would license the Graf Spee/Deutschland class and would build my own.
It's getting close! But India still looms -- I can't claim to have conquered Asia without that. And then there's the Middle East, and the rest of Africa. Still a whole world to conquer!
You know, I contemplated adding a screenshot recently to show the mess in China, but decided it wouldn't be easy to explain. Basically, yes -- still stuck in China. Not anything dramatic going on.
Thanks! Wow, that sounds like an interesting game. I'd love to have seen the setup the AI was using. Did they build more units in Angola and Mozambique, I assume, rather than sending them to Asia? All in all, considering what I've done with what I've had, I think I could have subdued S. Africa pretty quickly if I'd concentrated my forces there. But then I'm not sure how well I could still have done against Asia.
Thanks, everybody! Another update coming later this week. Stay tuned!
Rensslaer
Well, Japan itself was resource-starved, just like the UK. For Japan, it had three possible targets to get its resources from: China, Siberia, and Southeast Asia. Japan started with China first, then had a few border skirmishes with the Soviets, which resulted in Japan's defeat and the signing of the Soviet-Japanese NAP. The main problem Japan had was a lack of heavy weapons capable of damaging Soviet tanks. Japan then turned its attention south in order to take the weakly defended European colonies, which was also the world's sole source of natural rubber.
As far as resource distribution goes, I mod and use the HPP. I haven't added Soviet rares in the far east yet, but I did give China 60 rares in the southern mountains, and Manchukuo oil, rares, and more coal. A lot of balance was done to the UK as well, which forces the UK to rely on its colonies for resources. We basically shifted a lot of rares, oil, and metal out of the home islands to the colonies.
I am contemplating playing a game (likely an AAR) where Italy would be one of the Allies from 1937 or so onward. Would this, or another mod you're aware of, improve such a game, and if so, how?
I am currently preparing an update for Imperio, so I hope to have it ready sometime early this weekend!
Rensslaer
I didn't say it wouldn't be a short AAR!
It's actually an interesting historical what-if question, which I would just want to take a look at.
Rensslaer
Not sure if Italy in the allies would be something. However, Id like to see a Italy that did what they almost did IRL, namely declaring war on Germany when they tried to annex Austria (in 1934 or something I think, forcing Hitler to postpone the annexation by about 4 years)
That's exactly what I was thinking about -- a Locarno Treaty sort of thing against Germany, but one which works. In real life the Allies backed off and weren't willing to challenge Germany, so Mussolini ended up deciding his chances were better on the other side.
Rensslaer
An Italy on the allied side would be interesting. Might unravel over Ehiopia. Italy would eye Vichy France's African territories like ripe plums about to fall.
That's a question several people have asked in the HPP subforum, but we haven't done anything with it yet. It's certainly do-able though. I could add Austrian cores to South Tyrol, then create a response-event for Italy for the Anschluss to make it decide whether to press Germany to abandon its claims on South Tyrol or not. What the response would be, I don't know; probably a big threat increase and a huge relations loss. If you have any input, feel free to let us know in the subforum.
As far as improving your game, it depends on what you want to improve, as the three big active mods each have their own specialty. August Storm is mainly focused on multiplayer, and uses some HPP events and my Wang Jingwei nation. I haven't tried AS yet, so I can't offer more. Same with ICE, I haven't tried it since last year, when it had scripted invasions and broke if you chose the wrong event option. I hear it's been updated heavily since, but I honestly don't know what the changes are.
The HPP offers a completely reworked tech tree, much smarter AI, tweaked diplomacy (no more Axis Australia or Comintern Japan), changed Chinese theater borders, accurate naval and air OOBs, naval armor and weapons slow ships down, and alternative choices for the various pre-war events, with each alternative being fully supported. Czechoslovakia can, and sometimes does, fight back after losing the Sudetenland; Cybvep's AAR (see below) shows what happens. There are also 3 options for a negotiated peace between Germany and the UK. The first is if you beat France quick enough, the UK will get scared and offer a truce. The second is when Rudolf Hess flees to Scotland, in which the UK has a choice to either accept his offer or arrest him. The final option is if Operation Valkyrie succeeds, then the new German government might offer a truce to the UK. The AI will normally choose the historical option, but might not always do so. Oh, and some of the HPP surrender events, notably Vichy, and other features will make it into the next official patch. The Chinese guarantees on Shanxi in 2.03c came from the HPP.
There's an AS AAR that just came out, but isn't far enough to get an idea of what the mod does. There's an ICE video AAR here you can take a look at. There are three active HPP AARs, including mine. The other two are Cybvep's Germany AAR (using an older version of the mod), and Sir Humphrey's Japan AAR.
I'm interested in what you plan to do next. Africa doesn't offer you much, but getting rid of South Africa will let you divert forces elsewhere. India has IC and MP, but will likely be much better defended and harder to get to. Do you have plans to increase your navy? You can probably get some light cruisers licensed from Italy or Germany, which are the heaviest ships you can license (I think, it's been ages since I've played vanilla).
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By mid-April, 1940, the South African defenders – and they were defending now, giving little mind to offensive moves except at sea, where their cruisers still stalked and occasionally hit a transport or two – had been corralled into two enclaves in the north, plus the retreating frontier in the south.
A South African division was trapped at Oshakati, deep into Angola itself. There was small hope of rescue for them because the “relief force” was itself at risk of being completely surrounded, and was already encircled on three sides. Portuguese units were pushing in on them, trying to drive them out of the Namibian capital at Windhoek. These additional flanking attacks had stopped their pursuit to the north, where they had first caused a Portuguese division to give up and retreat.
To the far north, in northern Nigeria, work was progressing with the goal of surrounding the sole British division there, huddled in the interior of the country. Scouting units were moving across the countryside, capturing territory as they moved.
Oshakati fell a few days later – the first surrender of a South African division in the war. The two divisions near Windhoek began to withdraw to the east, toward British-held Bechuanaland (Botswana), lest they suffer the same fate.
Further south, the Portuguese enclave north of Capetown had expanded, somewhat, but was struggling to achieve the same success as the more developed operations further north. More troops were being landed, but here the South African Navy was being more than a nuisance, causing real damage to Portuguese transports trying to land reinforcements.
One minor defeat at Al-Ais could not change the course of events, though. Even the units here – South African militia, mostly – were weak and/or untrained. Not equipped for the same sort of accomplishments Portuguese militia had achieved mere months earlier.
By the end of April, General Cabral’s two small divisions (the Portuguese divisions of this time mostly consisting of only two brigades) had shifted east, and were were pressing south on a wide front against a division of Portuguese militia at Lambert’s Bay, guarding the approach to Capetown.
By May 2nd, they had dislodged the citizens’ militia, and sent them fleeing south. Pursuit followed. Panic began, in the capital, as most of the real strength of the South African Army was still occupied too far away to be of assistance. It hardly mattered how strong the presence of the Navy if the Portuguese already had enough strength in the south to mount such an offensive.
In mid-May, Gen. Freieria had crossed into British territory, in Bechuanaland, and was hooking north to cut off the two South African divisions. Other units were in close pursuit to the west, having taken Windhoek, and driving after.
To the south, yet another South African division had already been surrounded, having retreated from further north, but finding nowhere to escape. Attempts to break through to them from Karasburg were being mounted by a valiant militia division, but was a hopeless attempt against sa Silva’s 1st Cavalry.
Meanwhile, contact had been made with Portuguese units to the south, so that supply flowed through to support the drive on Capetown. Gen. Cabral’s 6th Infantry was pressing an attack upon the garrison there – the garrison supported by the bloodied militia – by the end of May.
At Al-Ais, the breakthrough attempt had failed on the 30th, and sa Silva had turned against the Citizen Guards trapped at Pomona. While the South African resistance was spirited at first, the lack of training and discipline among these citizen soldiers was quickly taken advantage of, and they failed to hold critical defense points.
In the first week of June, as Portuguese troops moved to the outskirts of Capetown, the situation in Mozambique remained relatively unchanged from April – the colonial capital and other major provinces were occupied by the South Africans, but with news of serious defeats from Africa’s other coast, not to mention general depressive news from the rest of the world, the spirit of South African ebullience had left them.
They refused to advance further, expecting anyday to be called away to defend their homeland. In fact, some wondered if they’d been forgotten about – the moment to make such a recall order seeming long past.
A momentary glance around the world before we leave off until the next update…
Look at those sharks inhabiting the water off the very coasts of the British home islands! I was surprised to find the Royal Navy not very much in evidence, and both an Italian and a German submarine unit cruising in British home waters!
In addition to their first move at Madeira, the British seem to have gained a foothold in formerly Danish Iceland. What they will do from there is unclear, especially since they appear to be outnumbered. The British Empire is in decline, seemingly helpless.
A South African division was trapped at Oshakati, deep into Angola itself. There was small hope of rescue for them because the “relief force” was itself at risk of being completely surrounded, and was already encircled on three sides. Portuguese units were pushing in on them, trying to drive them out of the Namibian capital at Windhoek. These additional flanking attacks had stopped their pursuit to the north, where they had first caused a Portuguese division to give up and retreat.
To the far north, in northern Nigeria, work was progressing with the goal of surrounding the sole British division there, huddled in the interior of the country. Scouting units were moving across the countryside, capturing territory as they moved.
Oshakati fell a few days later – the first surrender of a South African division in the war. The two divisions near Windhoek began to withdraw to the east, toward British-held Bechuanaland (Botswana), lest they suffer the same fate.
Further south, the Portuguese enclave north of Capetown had expanded, somewhat, but was struggling to achieve the same success as the more developed operations further north. More troops were being landed, but here the South African Navy was being more than a nuisance, causing real damage to Portuguese transports trying to land reinforcements.
One minor defeat at Al-Ais could not change the course of events, though. Even the units here – South African militia, mostly – were weak and/or untrained. Not equipped for the same sort of accomplishments Portuguese militia had achieved mere months earlier.
By the end of April, General Cabral’s two small divisions (the Portuguese divisions of this time mostly consisting of only two brigades) had shifted east, and were were pressing south on a wide front against a division of Portuguese militia at Lambert’s Bay, guarding the approach to Capetown.
By May 2nd, they had dislodged the citizens’ militia, and sent them fleeing south. Pursuit followed. Panic began, in the capital, as most of the real strength of the South African Army was still occupied too far away to be of assistance. It hardly mattered how strong the presence of the Navy if the Portuguese already had enough strength in the south to mount such an offensive.
In mid-May, Gen. Freieria had crossed into British territory, in Bechuanaland, and was hooking north to cut off the two South African divisions. Other units were in close pursuit to the west, having taken Windhoek, and driving after.
To the south, yet another South African division had already been surrounded, having retreated from further north, but finding nowhere to escape. Attempts to break through to them from Karasburg were being mounted by a valiant militia division, but was a hopeless attempt against sa Silva’s 1st Cavalry.
Meanwhile, contact had been made with Portuguese units to the south, so that supply flowed through to support the drive on Capetown. Gen. Cabral’s 6th Infantry was pressing an attack upon the garrison there – the garrison supported by the bloodied militia – by the end of May.
At Al-Ais, the breakthrough attempt had failed on the 30th, and sa Silva had turned against the Citizen Guards trapped at Pomona. While the South African resistance was spirited at first, the lack of training and discipline among these citizen soldiers was quickly taken advantage of, and they failed to hold critical defense points.
In the first week of June, as Portuguese troops moved to the outskirts of Capetown, the situation in Mozambique remained relatively unchanged from April – the colonial capital and other major provinces were occupied by the South Africans, but with news of serious defeats from Africa’s other coast, not to mention general depressive news from the rest of the world, the spirit of South African ebullience had left them.
They refused to advance further, expecting anyday to be called away to defend their homeland. In fact, some wondered if they’d been forgotten about – the moment to make such a recall order seeming long past.
A momentary glance around the world before we leave off until the next update…
Look at those sharks inhabiting the water off the very coasts of the British home islands! I was surprised to find the Royal Navy not very much in evidence, and both an Italian and a German submarine unit cruising in British home waters!
In addition to their first move at Madeira, the British seem to have gained a foothold in formerly Danish Iceland. What they will do from there is unclear, especially since they appear to be outnumbered. The British Empire is in decline, seemingly helpless.
You've got the South Africans on the run. It seems only a matter of time before you'll be able to annex them. Then all of British east africa.
You were overunning the Dutch East Indies, so you should get all of that on the Dutch surrender. Australia and New Zealand are then open to attack.
Excellent mobility compounded by a very inept British ai.
You were overunning the Dutch East Indies, so you should get all of that on the Dutch surrender. Australia and New Zealand are then open to attack.
Excellent mobility compounded by a very inept British ai.
I didn't think you'd be able to pull it off, but it seems you have South Africa on the ropes. I certainly didn't see that coming, many months ago. Here, let me have a bite of this tasty pie over here - hmm, tastes humbly.
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STOP! COOKIE TIME