India Focus Tree, Fash/Commie

[Zulgaines]

So I just tried a game as British Raj, wanted to go fash and free myself. But after I started to really get into the tree I noticed something... the commie/fash branching of the tree is absolute garbage.

The main reason? You don't get 'Two-Nation Theory' which is basically where ALL of your manpower is at. I had been playing a lot of side nations and I realized by the time I was ready to free myself from the UK I was even more strapped for power than normal, that I could barely field an army big enough to protect my lands, let alone attack anyone while guarding myself from endless naval invasions.

I legitimately believe I'd have been better off disabling together in victory and using the generic tree.

 

[Surimi]

Like many of the together for victory trees, it's a choice between being able to break free quickly or being stronger in the long term (I believe if you start the civil war at low tension the allies can't intervene directly). Since being independent allows you to change manpower laws you're not really restricted in manpower in the medium term relative to the democratic path (free democratic India has the highest possible manpower, but will only get it later in the game and after some effort).

And yes, you would be better disabling TfV and using the generic tree. The generic tree was immensely overpowered for India and didn't remotely reflect the historical situation of the country. The TfV tree is less powerful but more flavourful and representative.

 

[Zulgaines]

I just don't see it, I can't see how going fash/commie as India could ever lead to more power gain when you have no manpower to work with due to the lack of the two nations theory focus on the other side.

I would be highly interested to hear how others went about a fash/commie India game in vanilla and did well.

 

[Surimi]

I just don't see it, I can't see how going fash/commie as India could ever lead to more power gain when you have no manpower to work with due to the lack of the two nations theory focus on the other side.

Again, break free quickly and raise conscription law.

India is stuck on volunteer conscription until it becomes free. Democratic india can't become free until quite late in the game Fascist or communist India can become free as soon as WT hits 10%.

Actually, there's a good argument about whether even democratic India should take two nation theory or whether it's better to have a harder struggle becoming free in exchange for keeping Pakistan (since India has awful industry and losing built up areas like bangladesh is kind of hard).

 

[Corner79]

I just don't see it, I can't see how going fash/commie as India could ever lead to more power gain when you have no manpower to work with due to the lack of the two nations theory focus on the other side.

I would be highly interested to hear how others went about a fash/commie India game in vanilla and did well.

When TfV first came out, i played India three times in a row, just had fun with it. Every time I broke away fascist. One time I made a mistake and did not break away in civil war before ww2 began i was forced to be an ally.

The times i did break away i learned you got to watch time and carefully and pick your national focuses carefully but steamroll fown that fascist path to get the civil war event.

I was dissappointed that the civil war gave no divisions to the British Raj and mine was dropped in half (free india). So it was an easy civil war, just wrap up a few territories and it was over. The UK was not involved either time. When the War began, and i in the axis, the biggest fight was protecting my borders from naval invasion. But after securing them, (again a fight, but fun) i was free to take my army west to Africa and South through Indonesia into Australia.

Hopefully 1.4 fixes these ghost divisions and other civil war bugs.

But overall yes a Fascist or Comunist Free India is a fun game. If he civil war has divisions for British Raj as it should, it will be tougher, but still doable

 

[Zulgaines]

I was getting 200k-300k manpower each time I boosted to the next law, the first time I did it looked like my power actually vanished right after and I had to raise again.

Is it possible I was having a bug? I never felt this strapped for manpower as any other nation so far, and I have only played the Japanese superpower, all my other games have been lesser powers or non-powers. Japan was getting 1million+ manpower every conscription law raise. I was able to take over all of Europe by myself working with those kind of numbers.

 

[Corner79]

I was getting 200k-300k manpower each time I boosted to the next law, the first time I did it looked like my power actually vanished right after and I had to raise again.

Is it possible I was having a bug? I never felt this strapped for manpower as any other nation so far, and I have only played the Japanese superpower, all my other games have been lesser powers or non-powers. Japan was getting 1million+ manpower every conscription law raise. I was able to take over all of Europe by myself working with those kind of numbers.

Manpower was strapped in the beginning but once the civil war fired and you break away you, up your conscription laws and take the focus that helps with manpower. If i remember there is one or two focuses that do that. I haven't played since is january and not since the last update, free India i mean

 

[Surimi]

I was getting 200k-300k manpower each time I boosted to the next law, the first time I did it looked like my power actually vanished right after and I had to raise again.

India with all debuffs effectively has 10% of normal manpower relative to its population.

Basically, don't think of it as a country with 350 million population. Think of it as a country with 35 million population (slightly less than Italy) and play accordingly, i.e. you have to focus on conserving your manpower and be prepared to run harsh conscription laws.

If you go the more slow democratic route, India can end up with effective manpower similar to that of the united states but again, that's late game and with India's bad industry it's quite difficult to exploit that effectively.

EDIT: I forgot, but as Corner said you can pick up a few percentage points of manpower modifier from the focus tree as well. For fascist/communist India, these will actually boost your manpower a lot and make you pretty equal to any of the European majors.

 

[Zulgaines]

Alright, I'll give it another go sometime, thanks for the feedback.

But I swear the first time I boosted my conscription law I got 0 manpower, this was after I broke away/after the civil war. Still has me scratching my head.

 

[Zulgaines]

Alright I went back into the game and did some tests with console mode. One place where I fucked up is I didn't realize there was another +pop focus I could get if I had mountain infantry researched, but that's a focus that both sides can use.

Base manpower with all focus and starting troops(11) is 560k

Limited takes you to 880k

Extensive to 2.2 million

Required to 4.8 million

Something wasn't right in my last game, I could have done a ton of work with 5 million manpower and that's just at Required Service, somehow my first conscription law increase... broke and it was skipped, then I was getting 300k boosts after that. How very odd.

With Two nations their manpower must be insane.

Oh well, problem solved, thanks for the replies guys.

 

[Alliegorical]

This may not be completely on topic, but it seems to me that hardly anyone ever plays democratic India. Why is that? It's probably the most fun allied nation IMO.

 

[Zulgaines]

I uhh, I just sorta like going fascist in my games. The generals, the themes, the uniforms, playing for the side that classically lost is also something I like.

I've only played one game as democratic now that I think about it.

 

[Surimi]

This may not be completely on topic, but it seems to me that hardly anyone ever plays democratic India. Why is that? It's probably the most fun allied nation IMO.

It's a staple for me, but it does take a long time to get going, especially if you want to go for a united India.

Often I find my biggest contribution to the actual war as democratic India is through convoy raiding. Since one of the easiest ways to become independent is to lend lease convoys to Britain I usually build a pretty decent naval manufacturing base, and once that's done India actually has some pretty cool naval ideas (super strong escorts).