Portuguese World Conquest AAR (TFH)

[BarrosRodrigues]

Portuguese World Conquest AAR (TFH 4.02)
1936 single player historical campaign as Portugal
Vanilla HoI3 TFH 4.02 Started on 08/11/2012.
Difficulty: normal
Cheats: None whatsoever
The writing style will be strictly of gameplay. My main goal is to conquer the whole world and lose in the process.
Puppet policy: Avoid as much as possible.
Warning: Picture intensive
Link - Important notice please read before proceeding - Link

Table of contents:
Humble Beggining
The Road to War
First Blood
Baltic Wars Part I
Baltic Wars Part II
Claiming the South Part I
Claiming the South Part II
The Fall of Austria and Czechoslovakia
Majors Clash part I
Majors Clash part II
The Fall of Yugoslavia
The Downfall of a Sleeping Giant Part I
The Downfall of a Sleeping Giant Part II – WDC
The Downfall of a Sleeping Giant Part III
The Downfall of a Sleeping Giant Part IV
The Downfall of a Sleeping Giant Part V – USA Surrenders
The Rise of a Superpower Part I
The Rise of a Superpower Part II
The Rise of a Superpower Part III
The Rise of a Superpower Part IV
The Rise of a Superpower Part V
The Rise of a Superpower Part VI
The Rise of a Superpower Part VII - UK surrenders
The Final Collapse of the Allies Part I
The Final Collapse of the Allies Part II
Conquest of Argentina
Conquest of Spain
Performance of the Portuguese Navy (report)
Stab in The Back Part I
Stab in The Back Part II
Stab in the Back Part III – Germany Surrenders
Stab in the back Part IV – The End of the Axis
Conquest of the last neutral countries Part I
Conquest of the last neutral countries Part II
How should end this AAR? Please vote!
The voting ended: plan B won
Decisions
Clash of Giants Part I
Clash of Giants Part II
Clash of Giants Part III & IV
Clash of Giants Part V (end of the AAR)

Humble Beggining​

As we can see Portugal starts very humbly in 1936
IC 23/10

MP gain 1.0

Leadership 5.67

7 Infantry brigades (1918)

2 DD, 1SS and 2 TP

One soon to be disbanded tactical bomber (Portugal will only need those much later)

So to achieve its goals all the (meager) resources must be focused on expanding its army and sea transports. The 1st 41 infantry brigades were added to the build queue along with the requisition of 16 TP:

Decreasing neutrality is paramount so 10 spies must be sent to France ASAP (their mission is to increase threat):

The tech research must be highly focused on army techs (but spies will have priority until neutrality reaches 0):

Some ministers also had to be changed, here is the 1936 cabinet:

Portugal needs to choose USA as its major trading partner. The first trade must be selling 13 fuel to them. Followed religiously by ASAP(small) supplies selling or if the USA refuses Portugal will buy very small amounts of energy until the relations reach 200. At that point it is time to import all the needed raw materials to increase stockpiles:

 

[Ikarases]

My main goal is to conquer the whole world...

...and lose in the process.

 

[gokiller]

Quite some ambitions!

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

...and lose in the process.

I said "lose in the process" because at least in FTM when you conquered the world with a neutral country, in end, the game will tell you that you have lost. It is/was a kind of a joke backed up by pre-TFH endings.

Quite some ambitions!

Thanks, but I think I'm up to the challege

 

[Avindian]

This such an absolutely insane goal that I can't not follow this one.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

This such an absolutely insane goal that I can't not follow this one.

Thanks, I hope It will be worth it. I will be doing a small update very soon and start with the action ASAP.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

The Road to War

The Road to War​

With the cash flowing from the fuel being sold to the USA, Portugal can afford to improve its laws. BTW the only laws that Portugal must ignore until its neutrality reaches 0 are the conscription ones (the lost MP will be compensated by the less IC intensive division build). First one to be adopted is specialist training:

Basic Mobilization (bumps IC to 17):

Mixed Industry:

The decreasing neutrality allows Full Mobilization by 21 January of 1936:

War economy by 9, February of 1936 (this will allow 28IC:

By 17 August of 1936 the first 25 infantry brigades were ready and the last 1936 infantry tech was researched. It was time to research doctrines and Industrial efficiency:

Portugals neutrality was steadily declining (13.78):

By 2, October 1936 Portugal could declare war to any contry in the World. Who is going to go down first?

But Portugal had 2 big problems to overcame the first is the incredibly low officer ratio and the second is that none of the 16 TP are ready...

Stay tunned for the 3rd update and all feedback is welcome. Thanks for reading.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

First Blood

I need to start this update with something very important that I forgot to mention earlier: Portugal must align itself to the Axis from day one (it will be very significant down the road). Also the moment Portugal achieved 0 neutrality I switched the mission of the spies in France from increase threat to tech Stealing.

First Blood​

I went along with my plan that clearly stated that low officer ratio does not mean a thing if I'm at war with a country that can't reach my shores, does not have an army or has not mobilized yet. So I decided to wait no longer and declared war on a convenience "victim" that happened to be Switzerland; this would allow me to maximize all laws that in turn would bump IC, production efficiency, MP and would allow an early/free mobilization of Portugal Army (I choose the “puppet war goal to minimize threat increase):

Total economic Mobilisation and Service by requirement:

Heavy Industry Emphasis

Assigned all but 1 leadership point to officers:

Like I already said before a country without an army it's not dangerous and is the perfect victim. Dow and annexation of Albania (with only one barely mobilized INF brigade):

The next target had also to be very weak so I chose Ireland. Dow Ireland (using the newly built TP and an SS doing convoy raiding):

With the recent aquisition of more leadership I decided to increase tech research to 2 and the rest to officers:

Annexation of Ireland:

Dow and Annexation of Denmark:

 

[Jagdpnzr]

I look forward to seeing how you manage to pull this one off. If conquering the world was digging a hole to the center of the Earth, doing it with Portugal would be like using a fork to do the digging. Good Luck

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

I look forward to seeing how you manage to pull this one off... Good Luck

Thank you and I assure it's quite possible. It means tons of micromanagement (i.e. work) but, according to my plan, it can be done.

If conquering the world was digging a hole to the center of the Earth, doing it with Portugal would be like using a fork to do the digging.

LMAO

 

[Belgiumruler]

This looks fun, no idea of it is possible to conquer the world but this is still intresting.

 

[Avindian]

How did you get rid of your neutrality so quickly? Does Portugal start with really low neutrality?

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

How did you get rid of your neutrality so quickly? Does Portugal start with really low neutrality?

Nope, Portugal neutrality it’s quite high but not high enough for a right wing republic. It starts at 80 but as I said in update 1:
"Decreasing neutrality is paramount so 10 spies must be sent to France ASAP (their mission is to increase threat)" this coupled with the "prepare for war" decision that low IC minors have will make Portugal neutrality reach 0 by October 1936.
EDIT: I am posting all those pics and going into such detail to allow anyone interested to replicate it; it won't take long to check this.

 

[Lord Dakier]

Well you've already done a good job. In my Argentina campaign I have Ireland, Portugal and much of the Caribbbean and the whole damn South Americas.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Well you've already done a good job. In my Argentina campaign I have Ireland, Portugal and much of the Caribbbean and the whole damn South Americas.

Thank you and have fun with your Argentina campaign.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Baltic Wars Part I

Baltic Wars Part I​

At this point Portugal was short on manpower and officers but it was becoming stronger, each annexation provided more of both along with much needed IC, resources and local supplies/fuel (liberating IC for upgrades and for finishing the 1st batch of TP). So its aggressiveness must continue because time is moving against Portugal.
DOW on Norway (the Oslo attack almost failed due the timely intervention of Norway Navy, only 2 of the 3 divisions managed to reach land):

In the meantime Portugal was able to complete the 1936 infantry warfare tech and also stoled CAG tech from France:

Portuguese divisions entered Oslo and the inevitable annexation of Norway:

DOW on Lithuania (it has an inoffensive navy so it is an excellent target while Portugal battered navy DDs and TPs goes to catch more land reinforcements):

DOW on Latvia:

DOW on Estonia (after going to Lisbon for more INF divisions):

An overview of the Battle plans and the means employed (they're a bit overstretched):

By 17 of January of 1937, after the game auto-paused because my spies in France managed to steal BC armor level 3 I realized I had made my first mistake; On January 1st I forgot to appoint the ministers for the 1937 cabinet. Nothing too serious though:

Due to the frozen ground the progress was very slow but by 19 of February it was clear that the Baltic Nations would soon collapse (bringing in another 2 divisions, even if understrength surely helped). This slow progress had a bright side; it gave the Portuguese navy the break needed for repairs:

Latvia annexation:

Lithuania annexation:

Estonia annexation:

With the navy in good shape (another TP was completed and ready for action) it was time to regroup the army with the next invasion in mind.
This ends this update thanks for reading; as before all feedback is welcome.

 

[Nowhere]

is it possible on hard or very hard too?

 

[mankle30]

Great job so far!

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

is it possible on hard or very hard too?

I am convinced that it is, but I have not tried it yet

 

[Tallfellow]

Damn you're rolling down the minors quickly. Are you going to go after Finland and Sweden as well?