Noob Assist

[unmerged(280755)]

Decided to just go balls to the wall here and set the make my life harder scale on Very High and the AI unfriendliness to FURIOUS because I just wanted to know if there was a considerable difference. To be honest, I don't really have a control game to compare it to, but this is besides the point and part of the problem at the same time, so it's a wash.

I can figure out how to balance Italy's resources (or lack thereof) later; (micromanagement and manipulation of the market seems to be working so far, or at least it has the potential to do so)

But something really terrible happened to Neo-Romano around 1937 or so. Libya began to flash in and out of supply, and this was aggressively molesting the organization of the amassed armies I had stationed there. I didn't know why this was happening and it frustrated me. My TC was fine and my armies were not migrating in droves (something that seems to make the Italian supply/industrial base have a heart attack). I proceeded to test and see if laying off Ethiopia and Somalia would help focus supplies to one area but it had absolutely no effect. Then I went into what I believe was the convoy management section of the production tab and adjusted some stuff even though I really didn't know what I was adjusting. This still didn't work. So I saved/quit the game and went on to other business.

When I came back Libya wasn't celebrating Christmas. I don't know why everything suddenly went all roses and rainbows but my supplies grew unsteadily and I was able to handle my raw material problem with the help of German trade. This was great until Germany annexed Austria and suddenly decided to hate me. After the fact, the relations between me and Germany trickled upward very slowly and it made me smile. WWII began and then the game crashed.

I reloaded my last save and Libya was still stabilized but when Germany annexed Austria and hated me again, there was no trickle!

Basically, why was Libya going in and out of supply and suddenly stop doing so? What is all this business with German relations on the subject of Italy?

Any other tips in respect to economics of Italy would be amazing though not necessary.

 

[marxianTJ]

Well, my thoughts on the Italy + German situation. The Italians were very unsure about Hitler, especially after Anschluss. They weren't as good of friends as we're often led to believe, and only joined the war after it looked like Hitler was going to rick-roll everybody. I know the game designers have tried to implement this uneasiness and prevent the Italians from always joining the axis (in all incarnations of the Hoi games). With a furious AI it would only exacerbate this problem. But it's still most likely that Mussolini will, in the end, join the axis or stay neutral. I've not played Italy in DH yet, and I'm not entirely familiar with the new supply set up to comment there.

If you're really interested in Italian history, from this period, Count Ciano (Mussolini's son-in-law) the foreign minister of Italy and veteran of the Ethiopia campaign, wrote several fairly interesting memoirs prior to his being executed by Hitler for treason. They are fairly candid about Italian distrust of a bellicose Germany. If they take Austria, it's just as easy for them to claim Italian territories - especially if they want to go back to the 1st reich (Holy Roman Empire) which claimed all of Italy. Note that Austria was close to Italy politically and diplomatically as well. Nobody likes to have their friends annexed.

My only theory as to the supplies is that perhaps you didn't have enough convoy ships built to pass over all of the ports continually. But that's just a theory and from somebody who hasn't played through the situation in question. I also recall that in the original hoi2 (and its expansions) no matter what you did occasionally ports would lock up or empty of resources and you would temporarily see things go in and out of supply - but the effects were barely noticeable, just a side effect of a massive sea faring empire.

 

[unmerged(174159)]

AFAIK the supply issue is simply that you don't have enough convoys to send a convoy to all the ports that require it - and due to the tenuous state of Italian supply and production, it tends to happen cyclically - certain amounts of supplies to ports A B and C suddenly all being called on for the same day - bang!

 

[unmerged(280755)]

Thanks guys.