Italy invading Spain results in massive IC drop

[ZenTex]

Since I'm itching to try out hoi4, but cannot purchase it yet (Internet issues) I decided to give hoi3 another shot, playing with Italy for the first time.

The situation is as follows: 1941,Axis, North Africa is mine, the Brits have been kicked out of the Med, and Republican Spain has won the civil war. Obviously I want those swines gone and make use of the Spanish IC as well.
The problem is that as soon I set foot in Spain my available Ic drops. Before I had 170 available IC which drops to 127 when I start invading. After winning even with the strictest occupation laws I get no more than 154.

I have more than enough resources and convoys and the situation doesn't improve within a few months.
I'm assuming it's a bug, but how to fix it?

Edit: vanilla, TFH

 

[Raviollius]

Check if you're being strategically bombed by the UK.

 

[ZenTex]

No bombings either. I'm talking about 40+ IC lost instantly as soon as I set foot in Spain. No unrest either, nothing that has any impact on IC at all.
Reloaded my most recent save (1 year back in game time) and the same thing happened.

It seems my only option is to find out how much IC I'm losing out on and mod my save game accordingly. (just need to find out how)

 

[Nick U]

Please state who you are at war with and are you in the Axis faction and if so, who else is in the Axis faction. Also where did all your extra IC come from? Italy starts with 64 base IC which could be raised to around 110 effective IC tops by 1941 (without invading another country).

I don't think invading Spain was the direct cause of the lost IC, but it may be some event that fired as the result of you invading.

Were you receiving Lend-Lease from Germany and it was withdrawn when you declared on Spain. Possibly because Spain was in the Axis?

Were you receiving Lend-Lease from Japan via the Gibraltar Staits/Suez Canal which were then closed to the IC convoy when you declared war on Spain. Possibly because you weren't actually at war with the Allies until you declared on Spain.

Did the amount of Consumer Goods required shoot up as the result of your declaration, which you misread as a decrease in overall IC.

Was a law or a minister changed at about the same time, which effected IC. Note that laws can be repealed to a lower level at the end of a war without your say. Perhaps the war with France had just come to an end reverting your laws to peacetime levels and you declared on Spain to keep the war effects without realising you had already lost the laws - they need to be manually re-enacted. But if you are only at war with Spain but nobody else your IC to enemy IC ratio might be too low to allow the return to wartime laws.

Note also that Spain (along with UK) is one of the few countries that maintain Strategic Bombers and will start bombing your industry the moment you declare on them, but it shouldn't have had that much effect.

 

[DABegley]

I am at May 1942 in my second straight Italy campaign game and invaded Republican Spain both times with no adverse consequences IC wise. Of course I invaded while neutral and before Germany invaded France.

As a comparison for IC level, starting in 1936 I spent a good 70 IC continuously for 2 years building IC. By 1942 I have annexed Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Turkey, Greece, Spain and Iraq. I have also conquered and occupied Vichy France (Europe and Africa). All of North Africa, Gibraltar and the UK Middle East are over-run. At that point I have about 270 effective IC and 160 base IC, those are approximate numbers I do not have the specific ones with me. So if you had 170 IC in 1941 before invading Spain you have to have annexed a pile of countries, built a pile of IC or are getting a ton of Lend-lease. If it is lend-lease that could easily be blocked or withdrawn as Nick U said. If it is not lend-lease and you really have that much IC to use the only thing I can come up with is resource shortage. Check you Base IC before and after the invasion to make sure a bug did not mess with you. If the base IC is the same and the effective drops you may be running out of Oil or rare metals or something. Check your stockpiles.

 

[ZenTex]

Thanks for the suggestions, but I found the cause.

For some reason some of my provinces lost al their ic, as if they had been bombed,except they hadn't. im sure of that, I haven't been stratbombed during this game and no bomber would have the range to reach those cities and nothing showed up as having been bombed on the air overview map. Also, the ic didn't gradually decrease, it was gone in an instant. No event fired either AFAIK.

Also I'm talking effective ic here, not Base ic. Yes, I did build some factories, but not too many. I haven't invaded a ton of countries either, the goal of this game was to try to keep it historic, annex Albania, invade Greece, and from there on just kick the Brits out of North Africa and help prevent the Germans getting steamroller by Russia, which is a lost cause as initially Germany failed to capture Norway due to them sending their entire army to Norway. I've helped them with that, but now German command thought it wise to send 50 divisions to capture Yemen and just let them starve there despite having captured it and with sufficient transports available to get them out again.
When Russia attacks I won't be able to save the Germans, unless the Russians come by sea.

 

[Kovax]

Did you have some occupied land where Germany forced a capitulation? When a country surrenders, a lot of their IC is randomly "damaged", and needs to rebuild over the next few weeks. If it happened to your own IC in Italy proper, then I have no clue how that could happen without someone bombing it or changing control (such as occupying, then being driven off).

 

[Nick U]

If you have only taken Albania and Greece, 127 effective IC is about right. Albania has no IC, Greece starts with 15 base IC of which you would have got about 9 after annexing. So as I asked earlier, where did all your IC come from?

Please answer:
1. Are you in the Axis faction?
2. Who are you at war with?
3. Were you at peace (however briefly) prior to Declaring on Spain?
4. Have you been getting Lend-Lease from anyone?
5. What is the dissent level?

 

[Kovax]

If the IC is showing up as damaged, that's something you should be able to spot. If you had a random political event (+8% IC for 3 months), and it ended, that could also account for it.

 

[ZenTex]

If you have only taken Albania and Greece, 127 effective IC is about right. Albania has no IC, Greece starts with 15 base IC of which you would have got about 9 after annexing. So as I asked earlier, where did all your IC come from?

Please answer:
1. Are you in the Axis faction?
2. Who are you at war with?
3. Were you at peace (however briefly) prior to Declaring on Spain?
4. Have you been getting Lend-Lease from anyone?
5. What is the dissent level?

Like I said, I found out that multiple provinces had their factories damaged. How it happened is still a mystery as some of these provinces were out of reach for any bombers, plus loading an old save resulted in exactly the same happening with exactly the same amount of ic lost. ( invasion dates differed by a few months)

Anyway

1: yes
2: the usual allied nations.
3: I've been at war since 1940 after Germany call to arms.
4: no LL given or taken
5: no dissent


How I got the extra IC: (at the time of the incident)
Albania and Greece, some British holdings in Africa and Gibraltar. Oslo, where I forced a Norwegian surrender since the Germans were getting nowhere, plus I built some ic as well, some 12 factories I think.
All occupied territories under max laws (military occupation)
A positive +ic event may have been in force, but I think not.

 

[Nick U]

Ok your original IC figures seem right, I calculate that you have got around 94 base IC which translates to about 170 effective IC after all modifiers (Ministers, Total Economic Mobilisation law and level 6 in the Industrial Production tech). After taking Spain you should end up with an additional 42 Effective IC. Namely about 212 but some of it will be damaged and it will take time to recover.

You seem quite certain that your IC is getting damaged after you start a war with Spain, so let's examine that. You are losing 43 effective IC that equates to 24 base IC, ie 24 factories are getting 'browned' out. That could be spread around as little as 3 provinces.

It would help immensly at this point if you had actually listed which provinces are getting their IC 'browned' out. But I would have thought that most of Italy is in range of Spain's strategic bombers (1000 Km range in 1942) flying from say Mallorca, not to mention British strategic bombers flying from Malta.

I have noticed in the past (playing Germany) that Spanish strategic bombers can sneak in, bomb and get out without the popup message firing. I've seen this happen with British strategic bombers too but only with less common targets (ie not Leipzig, Dortmund or Hannover). So I suspect it is to do with the target, perhaps no AA in the province? The point is, if the message isn't popping up, it is extremely difficult to notice the raid occuring. That definitely is an issue under some circumstances I've yet to identify.

One thing to check is the National Unity to see if it is being modified by Strategic Bombing - or go to the Politics dialog and check the Strategic Warfare figures on the bottom right. But both these have to be done during the same month the bombing happens.

What I don't understand is why the IC doesn't regen after the conquest of Spain, unless it is the British doing the bombing? BTW I've never seen the British using Malta before, but I have seen them use Corsica as a Strategic Bombing base after taking it with a seaborne invasion.

So I guess the next questions are. What specific provinces are being bombed? What islands in the Med do the British still hold? If you can run the game again from the save point can you check whether you are suffering from the effects of Strategic bombing (loss of National Unity) and at the same time try stationing Interceptors over the affected provinces.

 

[ZenTex]

I did some more checking and the strategic bombing might have been the cause as all the cities that had lost ic were in the north, just about in range for a strategic bomber to reach?
This time around the lost ic did slowly repair, maybe I had my sliders messed up the 1st time.
What is still strange is how the ic lost was exactly the same amount and occurred almost immediately. Also I had fighters on intercept duty over a large area covering the route to at least one of the bombed cities and they didn't look like they ever were in an engagement and it still doesn't explain the lack of bombings in airplane map mode.
But then, having bought this game at launch and dusting it off about once a year still, nothing surprises me any more.

In revenge I'm bombing the Soviets around the clock with my 4 bomber wings now. Not that it's doing any good, the Germans never got more than 1 province in Soviet territory and have been out of manpower even before starting barbarossa. But then my goal never was to win, just having fun and see if I can help the incredibly incompetent German AI. Still I'm inclined to take control of Germany for a day and disband those 50 starving divisions stuck in Yemen.