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There are still a lot of AI issues with going Italy first though.
The main being the vichy event which will fire even if you take all of france and it gives germany the historical outcome regardless of the situation.
And the enemy AI focusing troops on your border as opposed to other AI enemies which mean russia sits suiciding at your border while germany rushes berlin.
Before 1.5 you could attack France as soon as Germany invaded Poland and if you could reach Paris soon enough and racked up more combat war score than Germany, YOU could take everything when France capitulates to you instead of Germany.
You had to be fast and commit to more combat compared to Germany, and France would remain yours... ah combat is slower now. I wonder if it’s less possible.
The Vichy France event is dependent on the fall of Paris event firing, so as Italy you have to make sure Germany never takes Paris, including if you lose it and Germanu takes it from you
The Vichy France event is dependent on the fall of Paris event firing, so as Italy you have to make sure Germany never takes Paris, including if you lose it and Germanu takes it from you
I have not - I thought they said the new patch would make the Vichy event more fair for Italy rather than worse; guess not. Looking at the event files, they removed the Fall of Paris requirement for Vichy
Wait so if I attack France even before Poland gets attacked by Germany Germany could take the country once they get into the war? Trigger Vichy I mean?
Yep, it’s one of those fun things WG seems to have doubled down on instead of adjusting. Although to be fair in my latest beta play through I am pretty sure I kept Savoie, Nizza and Corsica. Sadly though Vichy still joined the Axis and territory control in Africa became less than fun.
Edit- I just played the war through anyway and I sped through to Paris while Germany was still fighting Poland and France capitulated to me, no Vichy. Same as 1.4, if you are France’s primary enemy with more score than Germany you get the whole pot as Italy.
Back to my favorite Italy first strategy, it hasn’t changed but it did get harder. It just took six restarts to get it worked out.
Win Ethiopia like normal, through the decision tree you get claims on Yugoslavia, when you attack, they bring in Czechoslovakia as ally.
You take down Yugoslavia and attack Greece, trick being to time it so world tension is below 25. (Easiest way: Just follow the decision tree straight to the War on Greece focus and time the Yugoslav invasion to overlap wars.)
Greece brings in Romania as ally.
You take down Greece then take down Romania.
(To avoid war with the Soviet Union you need to leave Bessarabia to Romania as a puppet, so the Soviets can take it from the focus. Better to take them on after they are attacked by Germany.)
Then you take down Czechoslovakia before world tension rises above 50, which if you were sparing on generating your own world tension and Asia cooperates, will happen with the Anschluss.
(Again, it is good to take everything but leave the Sudetenland to a puppeted Czechoslovakia, so Germany does. Or get a claim on you and start a war over a sliver of empire. Use rump Romanian and Czech puppets as sacrificial offerings to avoid war with Germany and the Soviets. It’s a focus thing...)
If you can pull all this off, Hungary will join your faction.
If Anschluss fires, Hungary has a border with Germany and will prefer to join the axis.
If world tension jumps over 25 before you declare war on Greece, Great Britain will guarantee Greece.
If world tension rises above 50, Czechoslovakia might join the allies, bringing Great Britain into your current war.
If this all works out and you win, you can conquer Nationalist Spain too. Allies will not guarantee fascists.
This makes taking down France easier since you can beeline a couple Celere tank divisions through Bordeaux straight to Paris.
You will take Gibraltar by land and you will have a large force in Libya to crush Egyptian resistance. This should trap much of the British navy near Malta, full air and naval pressure will take that fleet down and make it possible to control the channel.
With all those factories you should have the ability to build up the air force and full strength units, while your upgraded Celere and Alpina prepare for hitting Kent and/or Wessex.
It just takes everything you got to hit the channel and allow the first units to beachhead. Flood the breach before Germany jumps in and you can demand the British isles and France for yourself.
Before killing GB, you can attack Portugal so you can deny that awesome metal from Germany or soviets or USA if you want to take them out in future wars. Muahaha!!
They have a lot of ports, can’t defend them all with lots of troops. I just hit the two closest ones, two provinces away from each other. Two hard invasions, five units each, prepared in advance. Italy starts with five Alpina so I added some support brigades(anti tank plus one other, might have been maintenance because I am trying out how well that equipment thing works), and I added five Celere 7Mot+3LArm+Tons of support, each subgroup hitting one of the ports.
One will fall and you can side swipe the other if it is too well defended. Hit the closest airport next, and the air wings you attached to the army automatically redeploy into it.
Once the beachhead is flooded with a full 24 divisions, I set up a second invasion into Barcelona with two or three units & multiple drop spots to keep down the wait time, under a second general of course. The first invasion went so well it overran the Barcelona positions by land, so I just cancelled that invasion and sent to the front, set a front line for the second general. Normally the Barcelona front is for peeling defenders off the main front.
I like the new OOB system a lot. I micro just the few fast spearhead units and the rest of the front takes minimal tweaks. I got two of my generals organizer trait and infantry trait before France.
Edit -
As to the reason I built 7Mot+3LightArm instead of some other armored template, that was the best I could build with my starting production and templates. I won’t have medium armor tech until Sep/Oct 39.
Update, in this game Danzig or War hit in April 1939. I forgot taking Czechoslovakia bypasses some of Germany’s focus tree and speeds up the war.
I almost didn’t have units on the Polish border. When I saw Danzig or War half done, I rushed the unfinished cavalry and Celere I was building to hold that line. Dreams of sniping Poland from the Molotov/Ribbentrop were dashed.
At least I joined Anti Comintern to get Germany as a friend.
