Improving Italian Performance

[unmerged(58571)]

I have a problem with the Italian performance.
In about 9 out of 10 campaigns where both sides are AI-run, the British have full control of North Africa by the end of 1941.
In about 7 out of 10, the British have accomplished this before Germany attacks the USSR.
In about 5 out of 10 campaigns, the Italians have surrendered before Japan attacks the USA (at which point the British AI sends a few divisions as exp forces to Italy and withdraws the rest, resulting in RSI quickly gaining control of the Italian mainland with German aid).

I can only think of two things I could do to improve the Italian performance at this point, both of which are vastly ahistorical: either make them not waste any resources on attacking Greece, or improve their starting situation (better slider positions, more IC, better tech teams). Does anyone have a better idea?

 

[Fernando Torres]

Which change did you already do ?
IMVHO, bad italian performances in vanilla are due to a "completely-under-powered-UK-army-regarding-to-the-historical-facts".
In 1940, Wavell had 2 divisions in Egypt against 15-20 ITA divs. So if IG, the english have 20 divs in Africa since 40 (which can be the case with vanilla), the game is deliberatly unbalanced.
But you probably already decreased UK troops/MP, it was just a suggestion.
I could say more as soon as i'll know which modifications you already did.

 

[zeekater]

'Tell' the italian AI to put more troops on the border with Egypt, but not attacking (something like the AI for France during the phoney war).

In reality, the British *could* have removed the italians from North-Africa in 1941, even before the Afrika Korps arrived.
But the experienced British troops got transferred to other theatres (Greece) before they could finish the job.

The thing in the desert was always: the further you advance, the longer your supply routes get and the shorter the supply routes of your enemy gets.
Perhaps this isn't simulated in the game enough...

 

[Micah Goodman 2]

I Think the best way to help the Italians is to force the UK AI to build a stronger navy. The UK AI does not commit enough of its resources to building the Royal Navy so that the Brits have a Huge army in North Africa. Lock the divisions in India and unlock them piecemel so that the UK can't strip India and send troops to Egypt. This to me is the most historic way of dealing with this issue. I am currently playing the Compendium mod. I have written events that force the UK AI to build a more historic navy. This helps keep the Italians going.

 

[unmerged(58571)]

I've done my best to optimise build- and research priorities aswell as troop distribution and general behaviour for all sides, with the exception of starting historical wars and having historical allies despite most of these giving no profit.

Deliberately crippling the British AI by forcing it not to defend itself properly is not an option.

 

[Micah Goodman 2]

I don't see forcing the UK AI to build the navy they did historically as 'crippling' them, but I can see how locking the divisions in India would be bad. The only other suggestion would be to create the Afrika Korps. Several mods have done that each in different ways. I don't know specifics on that but you could ask around.

 

[Fernando Torres]

How about what i said ?

 

[unmerged(58571)]

Italy typically has a slight numerical advantage in Egypt at the outbreak of war, but the British divisions are better (more advanced and more experienced). Commonwealth forces from Canada, Australia and India will soon reinforce the British, while the Italians will divert troops to Greece.

 

[Fernando Torres]

In 1940, there were only english troops, or quite. Here is your problem. The Allied have too much troops in 1940. Italy alone can't do anything.

 

[unmerged(58571)]

Stripping the UK of manpower initially to make it unable to commit a victorious force to Egypt would also make it unable to build enough divisions to guard its own beaches against a 1939 or 1940 invasion. I suppose this could be solved by having a number of locked divisions on the British Isles, but that won't reduce the number of divisions the AI places in its production queue, so a great deal of IC would go to waste.

I suppose I will have to either make the Italian army larger (more starting manpower) or better (standing army).

Edit regarding the Royal Navy: the UK already makes it strong enough to beat all of its AI opponents.

 

[unmerged(60256)]

my 2 cents.. I was thinking you could shift production to a couple of more nav bombers and increase 'mission desirability' away from gound/diction to naval/convoy.

 

[unmerged(58571)]

The Italian AI already has a naval priority, but unfortunately there is very little one can do with the available parameters.

 

[unmerged(60256)]

how about giving Gibraltar Italian/german/netural ownership. Not historical, but might give you the game your looking for. Always nice to see a few german subs lurking in the med.

 

[unmerged(58571)]

I find control of Gibraltar to be rather irrelevant without a human opponent making an effort to wage an anti-convoy war, and a human-run Germany does not really need any help seizing control of Gibraltar. Unfortunately, the AI will keep at most one group of convoy raiders at a time, and this will regularly sit in port repairing so German convoy raiders in the Mediterranean means no German convoy raiders in the Atlantic...

I also noticed the UK starts with about 22 Vanilla-equivalent MP, not enough to last until January 2, 1936...

I wonder, does anyone know if the German-aided victory in Greece caused any boost in troop morale or public opinion in Italy that would warrant a strengthening event of some sort?

 

[unmerged(60256)]

this might help
http://www.angelfire.com/ct/ww2europe/stats.html
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-battles/ww2/greece.htm
http://www.comandosupremo.com/
http://www.lifeinitaly.com/history/world-war-2.asp

Ive read that the army was heavly mixed with milita type troops from the colonies. I could see you justifying an conscript event such as "ethiopia troops arrive in rome".