More Vichy Weirdness?

[DABegley]

I am on my second Italy campaign game (FTM) after not wanting to spend many hours defeating Russia after Germany ran out of manpower only to have all the spoils go to Germany in the Bitter peace, that and wanting a second chance after messing up various France options.

This time I did the same general course rampaging through the Balkans and annexing Republican Spain and Turkey (the Turkey annexation was probably a bad idea but oh well, I couldn't resist). Germany declared war on France and I sat it out waiting for France to fall. I waited, and waited, and waited. It took Germany from September 1940 to May 1942 to beat France. Then following Kovax's advice to join the Axis after Vichy forms then declare on Vichy, I over-ran Vichy and conquered her, then the strangeness happened. I lost about 10 provinces to Germany along the northern border, OK I figured there must be some occupied province rule or acquire territory war goal that kicked. No biggie. However, some provinces remained under Vichy control with Vichy units in them, some with no units, and I was listed as still at war with Vichy. I can choose a war goal on Vichy but cannot occupy the provinces but I could attack the units and I did. So all the Vichy units are dead but I cannot occupy the provinces, what is up with that? I can move through them, set up camp on them, whatever but I cannot occupy them.

Also was that an inordinately long time for Germany to deal with France? Actually there were a few months where I thought France would win as she liberated Belgium and advanced into Germany but eventually all the troops Germany had sent into Norway and Sweden came back and the tide turned.

 

[marxianTJ]

The troops in Norway is the answer to the problem. They likely had ungodly amounts of troops stuck somewhere in Norway or Sweden if Sweden granted rights of passage. IIRC does Norway have a VP in Narvik in FTM? That may be part of the problem for Germany.

My *guess* would be that you were in the Axis, DoW'd Vichy, and then Vichy freaked out and joined the Axis, and since you're now at war with somebody in your own faction weirdness has ensued lol.

 

[DABegley]

Sweden was conquered and Norway was annexed. I figured the Norway/Sweden mess was the reason they took so long but not being in the faction I did not have knowledge of what was going on. I will check if Vichy is in the Axis which would be really weird as I would be at war with them and in the same faction thus allied with them at the same time.

Barbarossa will be a mess as Germany has 0 manpower so I will have to give a ton of help or she will collapse. I can do it as I have a pile of armor and 1250 manpower but it will be annoying.

 

[Kovax]

That definitely sounds like another "Germany goes belly up early" game. Normally, Germany sends more troops into Norway than makes sense (via Narvik, from which it's next to impossible to reach Oslo) to sit and starve in the central mountains, but in some games it goes insanely overboard and sends most of its army. I've even seen one game where GER sent well over 100 divisions, leaving a grand total of ONE actual combat division and a ridiculous number of HQs to guard the entire Soviet border, and not much more than that to protect its conquests in the occupied French and Benelux territories. Meanwhile, those waves of armored and motorized divisions gradually starved in the snow-capped mountains for well over a year in spite of nearly no Norwegian resistance, leaving Germany completely out of Manpower and practically devoid of troops on the Eastern Front....and then they launched Barbarossa on schedule. Game over.

HOI4 seems to be following quite nicely in HOI3's footsteps.

 

[DABegley]

Marxian, yep Vichy is in the Axis. Good call. So I am at war and allied with her at the same time. That brings up the question of how do handle this situation. Was it a good idea to clear out her troops? Because of the AI mess I am willing to rock back a month or so to before I killed all her units. I normally do not do that but the game really should not allow someone at war with the Axis to join the Axis and even after they join should have let me know they had joined so I know not to waste time and manpower clearing the troops out. If I do not kill the Vichy troops will they attack my units? I assume they cannot occupy turf just like I can't. Is there any way to end this war? I have the vast majority of Vichy territory conquered, only about 10 or so isolated provinces in Europe and Africa are Vichy, so I really can't gain anything worthwhile from them.

Kovax. I believe you are right, Germany is in trouble but not as bad as your example. I have put enough time in that I am willing to throw 5-6 hours more at it this weekend just to see what happens but the question is, what is the best way for an Italian player to proceed? The Germans sent a bunch of troops into Norway and Sweden but had enough on the French front to stalemate out the French and when Sweden fell it appears they brought most of them back and stomped France at that point. Now that I am an Axis country and can see into German turf it appears they have about 20-30 Divisions in Norway/Sweden, 20 or so in France and the rest on the Soviet border. It is summer 1942 and the Germans appear to have a small advantage in troop numbers on the border. I have a good 20 divisions on the Turkish/Soviet border, 15 over-running Egypt, another 10 advancing through the Middle east, 20 in Spain and 35 or so moving from France to Romania to set up for Barbarossa. When I am done redeploying I could have 75-80 facing the Soviets and about 1400 manpower in the bank. With that much available power I can make sure Germany wins her war but what is the best approach to that? Spending oodles of manpower, resources and time only to have Germany take all the spoils is not my idea of a good time. Any suggestions on how to maximize Italian profits from a Soviet campaign? Thanks.

 

[marxianTJ]

I wouldn't worry about vichy's units they very rarely do anything worthwhile. You could also use the console to clean up the mess by way of: ` key and typing: surrender VIC ITA (surrender + TAG + TAG - with the first tag being the one surrendering to the second tag). That should likely put them out of the game permanently and give you their territory - along with a partisan revolt risk chance that I wouldn't say is unreasonable given the situation. You may also have to deal with underground resistance built by the Vichy AI possibly, but I'm not 100% on that - they may just be removed from the game altogether. I would leave the save you had PRIOR to DoWing Vichy because the bit of strangeness with them may result in something bad happening later (Germany declares war on you once it's at peace with all other factions - which may never happen of course but it might if you intend to World-Conquest).

Another option would be to go into the save file itself and remove vichy from the Axis and then use the console command to have them surrender - at which point they would be gone forever. The way you would do that would be to go to wherever your save files for hoi3 are located with FTM - if you're not sure you can just make a new save with a distinct name and then use window's search feature to find the file and then select "open file location" and you'll track down the save folder that way. Once you find the save file open it with a text editor (notepad or wordpad are easiest) and then cntrl + f or do a word search for the word Axis. Eventually you'll find the part of the save file (near the end of the file usually IIRC) that has the list of countries in the Axis - just delete Vichy's line there, save and close the file, and that should mean when you boot up the save again Vichy will be neutral again - then you can force them to surrender via console - which I would say is pretty reasonable if you've occupied all of Southern France.


As far as how to perpetrate the war itself. Germany may already be totally screwed, but you never know it may pan out.

The way you'd want to go is to push up through the caucus since you've already taken Turkey - which for future reference usually results in the German AI committing suicide ( you can actually claim the caucus for yourself. But be careful not to go too far - once you've pushed through most of the area - maybe a bit south of Stalingrad or all the way to Stalingrad, make sure you have 2-3+ divisions per tile facing the Soviets, and then any remaining divisions that you have should be strategically redeployed to Germany and turned over to the German AI OR deposited behind German lines for anti-partisan duty.

Some people have better luck getting the German AI to work alongside them without it causing a disaster, but in general I've found it's a lot easier just to give them at least 1 full army worth of troops as expeditionary forces and let them use them how they see fit once I get the bits of the USSR I want for myself, and use any other forces I've got to Garrison the Atlantic Coast, Poland, and the Western USSR myself. Then all you have to do is make sure the Germans actually set a wargoal against the USSR (otherwise your caucus and any other claims will be all that will be enforced and the USSR will get everything else back - sometimes the German AI forgets to do this).

 

[DABegley]

Marxian

I think I will just keep on rolling and ignore the Vichy. So, why go no further than Stalingrad? I assume that also means do not go through Romania (my vassal) into the Ukraine? In my previous game I rolled through Southern Ukraine and the Caucasus in an attempt to save Germany but retired to start a new game. Germany had sent a bunch of troops to India through Persia, axis member, and had over-run the whole sub-continent. I intend to try and do that myself before she gets a shot. So what bad things happen if you go north of Stalingrad other than wasting troops in turf you won't get?

 

[marxianTJ]

The main problem that will occur is that if Italian and German lines happen to meet Germany will not actively defend the Italian portion of the line. So, if you or the Germans have some sort of break down at the or near the point where your lines meet the German AI will collapse completely and fail to defend its (or your) flank completely.

I've been able to (as various Axis non-Germans) get myself quite a lot of Soviet territory, but the problem always arises where either the Germans fall back and I have to rapidly find troops to sure up their (and my) flanks, or I'll get pushed back in a few tiles and Germany will fail to defend its own flank and lead to lots of divisions getting needlessly encircled. I've also seen situations where at the very point of the line meeting Germany will sometimes not even move divisions there at all and so I'm stuck covering their territory for them and that's just annoying lol.

It mainly just really screws up the AI when it doesn't own all of the front (hence why I just force it to accept expeditionary forces and wash my hands of it altogether - + on the bright side it preserves my MP pool lol).

Going for India isn't really useful - you'd be better served just building an invasion force and taking out the British Home Islands and taking out Africa (since it's hardly defended at all).

Mainly because 1. With India your convoy route is longer, meaning you'll have to build more convoys to get the job done (as they'll be sunk). Your overland route is even worse because it's over a huge stretch of very low infra tiles. But with Africa you can drop supplies in through Mare Nostrum and then transport them rapidly along the coast (and in select tiles as needed). Plus it's handy to hold Africa because you *can* feasibly then take/hold Spain and not have to worry about any allied invasion along the Atlantic except those emanating from Brazil or the UK's home islands. Also if you take South Africa and the Suez you can sink nearly every UK convoy on the planet with complete impunity because their naval forces won't be able to reach the cape once you've pushed them out of South Africa.

 

[DABegley]

Thanks. I already own Spain and Gibraltar so no worries there. I will see how the Germans do and try to go through the Caucasus only. I think there is no hope unless I commit a ton of troops to help Germany in the Ukraine but will see how it goes. If I have to intervene I will just have to be very careful. I have two carriers deploying next month so I can compete in the Indian Ocean once I take Suez and move on to South Africa with safer supply lines once East Africa is all mine. Thanks.

 

[marxianTJ]

It is possible to take the UK's home islands as well of course - but I prefer to starve them out first for the hilarity of conquering the UK with hordes of militia + it feels more "realistic" to do so at least to me