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Propaganda and You: A Strategy Guide

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Torqual said:
Invite every country you can to the axis. Keep on industrialization of germany. Get more axis member. Wait till 1948 win the game without an shot fired :).
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That's maybe look awkward but that's a damn great feature to allow the game ending like this. That's not an expected feature for a wargame but bring light to the power of spies and diplomats in peace/war time. I'm glad to play an open ended game like this.
 
DarthJames said:
That's the broken bit of the game right there. The influence the diplomats have is greater than any other single factor in the USA's alignment.

That's absurd. It's the gameplay abstraction of a few German diplomats going 'lol join axis' and the US president saying ':wacko: ok'. And if that looks ridiculously overpowered to you consider it in a multiplayer context - I bet three or four players working together could force influence someone into their alliance with impunity.

Drift as a whole needs to be greatly reduced with some kind of (if not already present) diminishing returns the closer you get to each faction), but in addition the effect from diplomats needs to be greatly reduced. You should be able to influence a nation's internal drift, your diplomats should not be able to do bloody jedi mind tricks with their government.


e: In a sentence: Foreign diplomats should not be able to influence a nation's ideology more than their own government.
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If Hitler had not declared after Pearl Harbor the 'Germany first' strat ??
 
The AI uses parts of this strategy, but in an inefficient and piecemeal fasion. I've already had Italy exert Influence on Switzerland, while Germany and England engaged in a lengthy diplomatic tug-of-war for the Netherlands and in a three way duel, along with the SU, for Canada. Meanwhile, playing another country, I was free to indulge in whatever unhistorical manipulations I felt like trying. Playing as Hungary, I was able to draw Argentina and Turkey into the Axis, and was starting to work on pulling the US a little farther from the Allied "clutches" before peace was completely tossed out the window.

I believe the effect of Influence is proportional to the Leadership points of the countries involved, so it will have relatively less impact on a larger country, but can easily sway smaller states.
 
The "facing sure doom by 1946" comment in the OP strikes me as... bizarre, to say the least.
Are you talking about VH or something? It's impossible to lose on Normal. You'd even have the time to mount an invasion of the US.
However, I do agree that even a small application of diplomacy + espionage is sufficient to gather some allies (if you decide that you need them, if only because you can't be bothered to watch partisan activity).

Torqual: Indeed, you can "win" (by VP score) just by trade/diplomacy, although I don't think you'd have the luxury with another country than Germany.
 
It seems that patch 1.2 has outdated a good portion of the advice here. In particular, increasing threat on the UK and France, for example, seems to have very little effect now. Moreover, it isn't as needed as it had been -- the Allies won't have the whole world joining them in 1.2. I did a Germany game increasing threat for 4 years, and the UK threat was still of negligible impact.
 
bbasgen said:
It seems that patch 1.2 has outdated a good portion of the advice here. In particular, increasing threat on the UK and France, for example, seems to have very little effect now. Moreover, it isn't as needed as it had been -- the Allies won't have the whole world joining them in 1.2. I did a Germany game increasing threat for 4 years, and the UK threat was still of negligible impact.
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I have noticed this too. No one joins the allies unless they are influenced.
 
Hrm... I never do spies but after reading this I think I will.
 
great guide, you might include something about trying to get America into the Axis, I usually start towards that day 1 and about 50-60% of the time I can get the January 1, 1940 German Bund Election thing going...game is pretty sweet with USA rolling with the austrian corporal
 
I'm currently in October 1938 and have been employing the espionage and diplomacy systems to good effect. Germany's historical allies are drifting towards my corner nicely, with Japan and Italy firmly there though not in the Axis yet, and Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania all heading there quickly, along with Portugal and Turkey who are looking like they're keen to join the party.

I've managed to get the United States to lean towards the Axis and they're still drifting my way. They're a long way off, but I'm satisfied that come 1940 when I intend to start the war I should be able to keep them neutral until I've secured mastery in Europe.

I've been impressed with the AI's use of the system too, Spanish Civil War ended in Republican victory in 1937, and in August 1938 Republican Spain joined the allies. Allies are currently made up of Britain, France, Belgium, South Africa and Spain. The Spanish inclusion in the allies, along with my efforts against France and Britain mean the allies are the most threatening faction in the game (Japan is the most threatening nation, but they're not scaring anyone out of my corner thankfully).

My main concern now is that Sweden, Finland and Switerland are drifting towards the allies. Sweden and Switerland I intend to start pulling back towards more to maintain their neutrality, while I'm going to leave Finland for now as they won't impact on my sphere of operations much.

I've definately enjoyed using the two systems in tandem, and while I'll agree they probably need some balancing out, it's nothing that I'm going to lose sleep over.
 
I like the fact that the game has useful espionage and diplomacy options such as these. I believe, however, it may be a little too powerful in its current form; it just seems a bit unrealistic to think of all the countries that can become allies in the game when there is no way that would ever happen in reality. I know that beggars can't be choosers, but just my thoughts at this time.
 
Great guide, but there is one very important tool for influencing other nations: Trade.

In my current game as Germany (1936) I am currently in early 1938 and have drawn the US half way to the Axis without using a single diplomat.

Firstly I built up my spys in Britain and France and set them to increase threat, then I turned my attention to the US

I started by buying 20 crude oil from them, and then ensuring I built up a large stockpile of supplies. The US soon came knocking wanting to trade.... And I made sure I could accept every trade they offered (usually for supplies but occasionally for fuel). I constantly check the US's drift and if the Allies start to close the gap in influence points (mouse over the round flag icons on the triangle to see the details) I simply weigh in and buy something (such as oil, steel or rare materials).

This has kept the US moving constantly (if slowly) towards the Axis. Basically what I'm doing is making myself as Germany more useful to the US than the Allies are. As I said, early 38, the US is half way to the Axis, my relationship with them is at 200 and is at least double their relationship with either Britain or France.

I use a combination of diplomatic influence and the trade strategy on the other European countries (swapping my inflience constantly to the country moving towards the Allies the quickest) and keeping 4 out of 6 diplomacy points to continuously influence my target countries (first Austria and the Czechs and then shifting my influence to Poland after Anschluss). In the case of Poland I'm simply trying to keep them out of the Allies as long as possible since I'm pretty sure they'll end up in the Allied camp as soon as I annex Czecheslovakia.
 
Jester points out exactly what I'm talking about, there is no way the United States would have allied with Germany in World War II. Of course the argument can be made that the player should avoid trying to influence the US to the Axis, which obviously will proclude them from going there, but it seems strange that this would even be possible. Perhaps an option for some players to balance these tactics to make them slightly closer to reality could be a possibility at some point.
 
That's not neccessarilly true, Tex.

As has been pointed out, each nation has (as far as I know) a pre-defined government type - democracy, facist or communist. No matter how much you influence them, once your threat to them becomes too high they will join the faction that suits their philosophy.

For example, in my previous (aborted) game, I had influenced Poland almost 80% of the way to the Axis "corner," but on my annexing Czecheslovakia, they immediately joined the allies because my threat level to them had naturally gone through the roof.

I have seen (but not had time to read) a couple of threads that mentioned the US joining the Axis, and to be fair, this should be a possibility.... If a very, very remote one. In just the same way, if playing as Germany, ignoring the US should produce a very slight possibility that the US will perceive the Axis as a threat and join the Allies early. The system isn't broken as such, but may need a slight tweak to make bigger nations such as the US who start the game unaligned drift slower and react less to diplomatic efforts on the part of the player or the AI.

Pre-war the US was determined to remain neutral, and if the influences from Europe had been different (such as the if the Germans had indeed used propoganda to successfully raise the perceived threat to world order the Britain and France represented), and had Hitler not been so monumentally stupid in declaring war on the US after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, there is a strong possibility that the US wouldn't have entered the European war as early as they did.

Personally getting the US to join the Axis in my game isn't one of my aims..... What I'm trying to do is "suck up" to the US to keep them out of the Allies for as long as possible!
 
Well said Jester. I especially agree "the system isn't broken as such, but may need a slight tweak to make bigger nations such as the US who start the game unaligned drift slower and react less to diplomatic efforts on the part of the player or the AI."

I think you make a good point about the US wanting to remain neutral and I agree that it is a nice aspect of the game that you can try to delay the US entry into the war. I'm just not so sure about the ability of the game to have the US actually join Germany and Japan to fight against Great Britain.
 
It's really a wise thing to set spies first to counterespionage mission to max them out in the target country before switching to threat duty. Domestic spies can be wiped out in a few months. Resetting to CE mission once in a half year keeps the opposition low.

And a beneficial side-effect of luring the US closer as Germany is gaining discount on resources.
 
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The espionage and diplomacy system does enhance the sandbox aspect of HOI3 over the historical simulation aspect of it. I'm discovering it in my game, I'm holding off firing the First Vienna Award event as the Allies are aggressively pulling Western Europe into their sphere (though Portugal is running from Spain into the Axis corner). In the last month I've had the Netherlands join the allies, and Switerland and Sweden have been edging that way. So to negate this aggressive Allied recruitment strategy I'm now targetting my resources on trading/influencing/promoting own party within Sweden and Switerland.

It definately makes the diplomatic and espionage screens two of the more interesting ones in the pre-war years.
 
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