Italian Army Seems Underpowered

[MANkoto]

Look, I know it sounds insane to say that Italy's army is actually underpowered, and that it was stronger in real-life, but stay with me. Contrary to the Italy dev diary, where it was stated that Italy would start off with binary divisions, historically, the Italian army only drew up the binary reorganization plans in 1938, only put them into effect in 1940, and some triangular divisions continued on until the end of the war. The Italian army also had 41 divisions at the start of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, in 1935, not 39, again stated in the dev diary. Finally, Italy had four battleships, though two were being upgraded at the start of 1936, so I have no idea if you're intending on reflecting that in the game.

I just wanted to know if there were any gameplay reasons for these inaccuracies, not a big deal or anything.

 

[perujuan]

Agreed! Lets not forget the Italian Air Force as well. They were modernized by the conflict started. I haven't did deep research yet, but I believe the last WWW, the Italian Air Force looked extremely weak.

 

[Anichent]

You are 100% right.

Some errors in game history get carried over from one HOI to the next, which makes sense in a way.

In my experience the devs tend to be very UK-US-Germany-Sweden focused, and the farther you go from those nations the more accuracy declines. And in general they tend to have a very negative view of Italy. It was not not "weak" it was just under-equipped, outdated, and disorganized which should mean that in game if those errors can be fixed, Italy should be strong.

Which is more than just your post. Whats in your post is right, Italy's numbers are just factually not correct as they are now.

 

[Lifthrasil]

Actually I can answer you this, because this was lively discussed about 6 months ago and I remember that

Italy has binary divisions in HOI 4 in 1936, because PDX wants to force the player to work with this handicap. The italians switched to binary in 1938 ("spent army experience") and thought it would be a smart decision. Turns out it wasn't. Since the player has total hindsight, he would NEVER switch to binary divisions and spent army experience on it. Therefore Italy ingame would not be as week as in reality.
So basically PDX forces binary in 1936 to make for a more interesting gameplay. Just like they "force" you to do the Purge in SU if you want to prevent a civil war.
It's a gameplay decision. Many people are more into historical accuracy and hate this decision. Me personally I find it cool

 

[MANkoto]

snip

But you can simply reorganize them, like you could in HoI III in five minutes, no? The only problem Italian army in HoI IV is far, far weaker than it was historically, since it starts off with not only all of its divisions understrength, but also fewer divisions than it did historically. The only way starting off with binary divisions could be fair to an Italian player is by stariting them off with and extra ~15 divisions, no 2 fewer. An easy, elegant solution was already created by the Darkest Hour team: You could take a decision in 1938 that gave you 33% more divisions, but made every division you had permanently 66% strength. Could something like this be implemented?

 

[leeuw]

Actually, the Italian divisions from 1938 were not really binary. It would be better to define them "pseudo-binary", since the planned structure of an ordinary infantry division comprises two battalions of the MVSN (a paramilitary militia) forming a "legione", i.e. a regiment. It was for the lack of equipment and organization that many divisions did not respect this structure at the beginning of WW2. Maybe, instead of starting directly in 1936 with binary division, the handicap could be starting with very outdated equipment and a negative modifier to infantry ORG.

Then, I would also note that in 1936 Italian Army already deployed an armored regiment (five battalions) based on Fiat 3000 and CV33/35 tankettes and a marine regiment, the "San Marco", which usually PDX does not include in the starting OOB.

Finally, about the fleet, we saw in the last WWW that the Regia Marina had only two battleships deployed in 1936, which should be the two "Conte di Cavour". It is right if there are the two "Littorio" battleships (Littorio and Vittorio Veneto) under costruction and the two "Duilio" battleships (Caio Duilio and Andrea Doria) under refitting.

 

[Beagá]

You are 100% right.

Some errors in game history get carried over from one HOI to the next, which makes sense in a way.

.

It´s not that easy to balance.

The realistic path for Italy would be to focus on North Africa only, yet it did the dumb war with Greece.

So do you force them to DOW Greece or not? Because if you do allow them to NOT DOW, then you must look at what UK does. Should it send a BEF knowing the AI is too dumb to retreat in time? Should it send troops to Africa because the AI knows it is dumb to win in Europe but not in North Africa...?

 

[Anichent]

It´s not that easy to balance.

The realistic path for Italy would be to focus on North Africa only, yet it did the dumb war with Greece.

So do you force them to DOW Greece or not? Because if you do allow them to NOT DOW, then you must look at what UK does. Should it send a BEF knowing the AI is too dumb to retreat in time? Should it send troops to Africa because the AI knows it is dumb to win in Europe but not in North Africa...?

I'm sorry but I sincerely have no idea what you are talking about.

I was talking about things like PDX giving countries the wrong number of divisions, the wrong leaders, the wrong parties, etc. (the things this thread is talking about) Not anything to do with AI behaviour or decisions or following a set path....

 

[zyphial]

Data is obviously limited, but in the only observer mode test I have seen screenshots from, Italy is so weak it got eaten by Greece. In Every WWW I've seen, Greece has also slapped around Italy so hard it's almost comical, and PDS has betrayed an anti-italy bias (just listen to the comments about it in WWW/Germany from Johan, DDRJake, Daniel...). While I understand tempering some nations to fit their historical performance to the simulation, I don't think that such a major player in the war should be a "handicap" ally (quoting Daniel here) nerfed so hard that it's essentially irrelevant in the war.

Italy certainly struggled and eventually lost, but they didn't get roflstomped in every conflict.

 

[Anichent]

Italy has binary divisions in HOI 4 in 1936, because PDX wants to force the player to work with this handicap.
...
So basically PDX forces binary in 1936 to make for a more interesting gameplay.

Thats an explanation for why they did not, not an answer for why it should be done. If thats why they did it, its the wrong choice. If i play Italy in 1936 and declare war on Austria I should not face a made up handicap the devs create just because.....because.

... and PDS has betrayed an anti-italy bias (just listen to the comments about it in WWW/Germany from Johan, DDRJake, Daniel...)....

That's a huge part of it. Not sure who runs the PDX PR or human resources department, but their disparaging comments towards Italians in general often crosses a line......

 

[Leckan]

Good feedback, but I think sadly it might be a bit on the late end to balance everything that is brought up here. Hopefully they have time to make some smaller changes however.

If I were you I'd make a point list where you bring up each issue very briefly and say exactly what they should do to fix it, and use citations to source everything. This is if you want a higher change to chance something with Italy, instead of just saying "hey you need to look more at Italy".

 

[Secret Master]

Why did the Italian Army think going binary was a good idea in 1938?

 

[Sun_Killer]

i think start contidtion balancing is a very fine art. Also i don´t think it is too hard to makes changes. So if there are usefull Infos sources on the topic in the thread and one of the devs reads it. It could be possibly be as easy as manipulating one setup file.

 

[GermanPower]

Italy couldn't conquer Greece. Should be self explainable. These aren't the legion of Rome.

 

[MANkoto]

Italy couldn't conquer Greece. Should be self explainable. These aren't the legion of Rome.

Why not? Greece wasn't particularly strong at the time, and the Germans did it just fine with a relatively small army. A competent Italy with a modern army should be able to take Greece, no problem.

snip

Right, thanks for the reply. I may dig for citations when I have time, but for now I'll just list things that can easily be changed, and would make everything more accurate.

• Increase division number from 39 to 41
• Remove binary divisions in favor of triangular
• Create small shortages arms shortages and add (Possibly removable, with national ideas) organization penalties to simulate the very real Italian military weakness
• Add the four battleships that were in construction or being upgraded at the start of the game (The Cavour, Cesare, Littorio, and the Vittorio Veneto)

 

[Viktor_Vertex]

Why did the Italian Army think going binary was a good idea in 1938?

They didn't read the wiki for HOI 3 to find out that their defensiveness and toughness and other stats stack

 

[FrancescoT]

Why did the Italian Army think going binary was a good idea in 1938?

Slightly misquoting Stalin: "how many divisions does the Duce have?".. in peace time having more quantity than quality divisions seemed a good idea..

IRL it started with a misunderstanding of some considerations Badoglio made after the Ethiopian War. He said that a more lighter division could have worked better (less logistic, more flexibility) in a colonial war situation with low infrastructure.. from there it went downhill very quickly when someone made the math about having 3 divisions (binary) for 2 (triangular)..

 

[FrancescoT]

Add the four battleships that were in construction or being upgraded at the start of the game (The Cavour, Cesare, Littorio, and the Vittorio Veneto)

Littorio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_battleship_Littorio) was Ordered on 10 June 1934, Laid down om 28 October 1934, Launched on 22 August 1937 and Commissioned on 6 May 1940.. which date/phase you are considering to have it in production queue on 01/01/1936 considering that we don't know how much time it takes for a battleship to be build on average in game?

 

[Secret Master]

They didn't read the wiki for HOI 3 to find out that their defensiveness and toughness and other stats stack

If only there was a guide that Mussolini could have read on the subject....

 

[GermanPower]

Italy should have beeen able to do a ton...the reality was it didn't. I guess the best answer wouldn't be cutting down on troops or what have you. But I certainly want a realistic situation where i have to bail Italy out. The issue is when Italy is competent they become a invaluable asset to the Axis. Some games that'd be nice...but I'd like to speaking strictly from Germany have to deal with things like it did historically. It's preference. I will play Italy a few times over and as a player I can make them sexy beast...but from a AI standpoint I wouldn't want them to live up every single time to what they are capable of.

My point is some flexibility is needed...maybe thats the reason for less troops/ships. In the end I an't got a clue. Italy is a tricky subject.