If you're like me you fired up your first HoI3 GC with the intent of building some IC, researching some foundational tech, and then annexing Austria and Poland at the end of your 3 year establishment period. Thus starts World War 2.
Or not. Doing this rote strategy in HoI3 will surely land you in hot water as every country joins the Allies (even Japan!) and you find yourself facing sure doom by 1946 or earlier. Dog pile on Germany. Or Italy. Or whoever you happen to be. Several forum posts would have you believe the game is broken and a historical outcome (or even a reasonable ahistorical outcome) is not possible. This is simply not true.
Success lies in mastering the espionage game. "Pah," you say. "Pah! Everyone knows espionage in Hearts of Iron 2 was a tacked on pile of useless features that never really worked." Indeed. In HoI3, however, this is not the case. Not only does espionage work, it is an indispensible part of any young tyrant's toolkit.
Let's start by identifying some key concepts:
Threat - The old Paradox "badboy" concept seems to have migrated into threat. Threat is accumulated like badboy, but isn't entirely the same. Or rather: its mechanics are now more visible. Countries accumulate threat by declaring war or through some events (like the Anschluss). When the Threat of a faction's member states is high enough the opposing factions will gear up for war.
Neutrality - Neutrality is like the opposite of threat. It's a barrier to entry. Neutrality is a measure of how uncommitted your country is to war. The higher your neutrality, the less likely you are to declare war. Countries with high neutrality are also harder to recruit into alliances, but note that any country that drifts into perfect alignment with an alliance's founding state can be recruited even if very neutral.
Countries feel threatened by other countries that are aggressive. The effects of threat seem to be muted by distance. Germany engaging an unaligned Poland would build more threat toward France than it does toward the United States.
Each state has a position on the diplomacy grid. Every day states "drift" toward one of the three corners of the grid representing the ideologies of the major factions. There are two major drift components you CANNOT control:
1. A country's geographical position. The closer a country is to a faction member the more it will drift toward that faction.
2. A country's ruling ideology. I have never seen this change, although perhaps it is possible. All country's begin with a predisposition to drift toward the Axis, Allies, or Commintern.
If you had a game where no faction ever declared war or used diplomacy you would see each faction drift to a corner based primarily on these factors. Such drift would probably not give you a perfectly historical outcome, but it might be close as democracies and republics would align with the blue corner, socialist states would move toward the red corner, and the paternalists toward the black corner.
THREAT, however, changes the story. If a state perceives one of the factions as being a threat it will be pulled away from that corner. If a certain faction is really freaking threatening -- like Germany after annexing Poland -- states will be "pushed" away from that corner.
This is why states seem to flock to the Allied banner. A noobish Axis player starts abusing the world early, scaring everyone to flee under the protective folds of Churchill's rain cloak. Ahem.
THUS:
You must learn to manipulate the appearance of your enemies to neutralize the effect threat has on pushing favorable states into the arms of your enemies. You have two goals:
1. Keep potential enemies neutral as long as possible. For Axis players this means keeping the United States out of the war.
2. Keep potential allies moving toward your factional corner so you can more easily recruit them.
A country cannot join a faction unless it is either nearly perfectly aligned with that faction on the graph (full drift to their corner) or they are moderately close and they feel more threatened than they are neutral.
The naive method of controlling an enemy state is to apply direct political pressure to the forehead. The "influence" option enables you to push a target state toward your corner. On the downside this option costs 2 diplomats every day. If you want to influence 4 states that's 8 diplomats. Or 8 research projects that aren't getting done.
Influence is very inefficient and CHANCES ARE it will NOT be successful by itself. A Germany post-Poland is likely somewhere around 40 threat or more and influencing another state at this point MIGHT slow its drift to a crawl, but all those other states are going to be running toward the blue corner right fast.
The key lies in that age old solution to damn well everything: PROPAGANDA. Yes, it's time to make our enemy look like the bad guy.
If you look on the espionage screen you will notice a mission called "INCREASE THREAT." This has the effect of raising another state's badboy rating over time. You can have a total of 10 active spys in another state and with all of them working they can raise the badboy of a target fairly quickly. There are, however, a couple of mitigating factors:
- A country's threat is evaluated on a state-by-state basis. A mission to raise the threat of the UK will raise it at different rates for every state. So the UK may appear more threatening to Denmark than it does the US.
- This effect is based on distance. The US is less threatened by European states than by, say, Mexico. At least this seems to be the case.
- Large countries or perhaps countries with better counter-espionage don't raise threat as quickly. I'm not sure what the actual factor is, but raising the threat of Denmark will be faster than the UK or France even with 10 spies in each.
Now you have two strategies to pick from and both should be used together for maximum impact.
STRATEGY 1: The Grand Propaganda Campaign - Raise the threat in every member state of an enemy faction. As Germany, insert spies into the UK and France and have them raise threat. This will make the Allies look SCARY to other nations and they will begin to slow their move toward the blue corner. If you do this early in 1936 you can greatly slow the rate at which the Allies recruit new members.
Combine this with influencing key countries. For a more historical outcome influence Japan, America, and Switzerland. This will cause Japan to quickly becomes recruitable and will greatly slow the rate America enters the war. Switzerland will remain neutral for quite some time.
When the faction gains a new member, insert spies there as well. This will have the effect of weaking the alliance's ability to recruit even as they get stronger. They get new members, but you make their threat increase more quickly pushing other states away. Neat!
STRATEGY 2: The Shill - Pick any unaligned country (a state that isn't a member of a faction) and raise their threat using your spies. I like to pick on Denmark. Make the Danes the enemies of all the world through your propaganda. Because they are small the threat will build quickly. If you do this in 1936 its possible for Denmark to have 60+ threat by 1939 which is more than if they had declared war multiple times! People will HATE them. Why do this?
Other countries are more easily recruited and diplomatically manipulated if the amount they are threatened is GREATER than their neutrality. By setting up Denmark as the worlds evil empire through your efficient propaganda machine, you make neutral countries more pliable and less neutral. This will let you recruit countries that aren't fully aligned with you on the political graph.
Be aware, though, that pushing a third party's threat up too high could trigger an ahistorical war where some state becomes so threatened they decide to shut down your shill.
Also note that raising the threat of a country that is not in a faction will not change other states drift. States drift in response to faction member threat so unaligned countries won't impact the graph.
So how does all this play out in reality? Try this.
- As Germany influence America, Japan, and Switzerland. This will require a 6 leadership investment in diplomacy.
- Invest about 4 points in espionage. This will generate MAD amounts of spies.
- Change your spy send priorities so they go to the UK, France, and Denmark.
- Set the spy missions in those states to "Raise Threat."
- Work on your normal game: tech & gearing up. Don't reoccupy the rhineland until you're ready for Anchluss since you want the threat you are building in the Allied states to take root. If you annex Austria early you create threat from the Axis that will neutralize your efforts.
- Japan and Italy should become recruitable fairly quickly.
- Check the political graph in 1938. You'll see America fairly far from the Allies and other states in the middle.
You can use this for ahistorical evil as well, like recruiting National China into the Axis instead of Japan.
There may be specific mechanics I have slightly wrong, but this covers the general gist of using espionage to offset your expansionism.
Note that you can also put spies in your own country at work lowering your neutrality. This will let you declare war earlier. If you lower your neutrality while raising the threat of the country you want to attack, democratic states can go on the offensive early in the game.
Or not. Doing this rote strategy in HoI3 will surely land you in hot water as every country joins the Allies (even Japan!) and you find yourself facing sure doom by 1946 or earlier. Dog pile on Germany. Or Italy. Or whoever you happen to be. Several forum posts would have you believe the game is broken and a historical outcome (or even a reasonable ahistorical outcome) is not possible. This is simply not true.
Success lies in mastering the espionage game. "Pah," you say. "Pah! Everyone knows espionage in Hearts of Iron 2 was a tacked on pile of useless features that never really worked." Indeed. In HoI3, however, this is not the case. Not only does espionage work, it is an indispensible part of any young tyrant's toolkit.
Let's start by identifying some key concepts:
Threat - The old Paradox "badboy" concept seems to have migrated into threat. Threat is accumulated like badboy, but isn't entirely the same. Or rather: its mechanics are now more visible. Countries accumulate threat by declaring war or through some events (like the Anschluss). When the Threat of a faction's member states is high enough the opposing factions will gear up for war.
Neutrality - Neutrality is like the opposite of threat. It's a barrier to entry. Neutrality is a measure of how uncommitted your country is to war. The higher your neutrality, the less likely you are to declare war. Countries with high neutrality are also harder to recruit into alliances, but note that any country that drifts into perfect alignment with an alliance's founding state can be recruited even if very neutral.
Countries feel threatened by other countries that are aggressive. The effects of threat seem to be muted by distance. Germany engaging an unaligned Poland would build more threat toward France than it does toward the United States.
Each state has a position on the diplomacy grid. Every day states "drift" toward one of the three corners of the grid representing the ideologies of the major factions. There are two major drift components you CANNOT control:
1. A country's geographical position. The closer a country is to a faction member the more it will drift toward that faction.
2. A country's ruling ideology. I have never seen this change, although perhaps it is possible. All country's begin with a predisposition to drift toward the Axis, Allies, or Commintern.
If you had a game where no faction ever declared war or used diplomacy you would see each faction drift to a corner based primarily on these factors. Such drift would probably not give you a perfectly historical outcome, but it might be close as democracies and republics would align with the blue corner, socialist states would move toward the red corner, and the paternalists toward the black corner.
THREAT, however, changes the story. If a state perceives one of the factions as being a threat it will be pulled away from that corner. If a certain faction is really freaking threatening -- like Germany after annexing Poland -- states will be "pushed" away from that corner.
This is why states seem to flock to the Allied banner. A noobish Axis player starts abusing the world early, scaring everyone to flee under the protective folds of Churchill's rain cloak. Ahem.
THUS:
You must learn to manipulate the appearance of your enemies to neutralize the effect threat has on pushing favorable states into the arms of your enemies. You have two goals:
1. Keep potential enemies neutral as long as possible. For Axis players this means keeping the United States out of the war.
2. Keep potential allies moving toward your factional corner so you can more easily recruit them.
A country cannot join a faction unless it is either nearly perfectly aligned with that faction on the graph (full drift to their corner) or they are moderately close and they feel more threatened than they are neutral.
The naive method of controlling an enemy state is to apply direct political pressure to the forehead. The "influence" option enables you to push a target state toward your corner. On the downside this option costs 2 diplomats every day. If you want to influence 4 states that's 8 diplomats. Or 8 research projects that aren't getting done.
Influence is very inefficient and CHANCES ARE it will NOT be successful by itself. A Germany post-Poland is likely somewhere around 40 threat or more and influencing another state at this point MIGHT slow its drift to a crawl, but all those other states are going to be running toward the blue corner right fast.
The key lies in that age old solution to damn well everything: PROPAGANDA. Yes, it's time to make our enemy look like the bad guy.
If you look on the espionage screen you will notice a mission called "INCREASE THREAT." This has the effect of raising another state's badboy rating over time. You can have a total of 10 active spys in another state and with all of them working they can raise the badboy of a target fairly quickly. There are, however, a couple of mitigating factors:
- A country's threat is evaluated on a state-by-state basis. A mission to raise the threat of the UK will raise it at different rates for every state. So the UK may appear more threatening to Denmark than it does the US.
- This effect is based on distance. The US is less threatened by European states than by, say, Mexico. At least this seems to be the case.
- Large countries or perhaps countries with better counter-espionage don't raise threat as quickly. I'm not sure what the actual factor is, but raising the threat of Denmark will be faster than the UK or France even with 10 spies in each.
Now you have two strategies to pick from and both should be used together for maximum impact.
STRATEGY 1: The Grand Propaganda Campaign - Raise the threat in every member state of an enemy faction. As Germany, insert spies into the UK and France and have them raise threat. This will make the Allies look SCARY to other nations and they will begin to slow their move toward the blue corner. If you do this early in 1936 you can greatly slow the rate at which the Allies recruit new members.
Combine this with influencing key countries. For a more historical outcome influence Japan, America, and Switzerland. This will cause Japan to quickly becomes recruitable and will greatly slow the rate America enters the war. Switzerland will remain neutral for quite some time.
When the faction gains a new member, insert spies there as well. This will have the effect of weaking the alliance's ability to recruit even as they get stronger. They get new members, but you make their threat increase more quickly pushing other states away. Neat!
STRATEGY 2: The Shill - Pick any unaligned country (a state that isn't a member of a faction) and raise their threat using your spies. I like to pick on Denmark. Make the Danes the enemies of all the world through your propaganda. Because they are small the threat will build quickly. If you do this in 1936 its possible for Denmark to have 60+ threat by 1939 which is more than if they had declared war multiple times! People will HATE them. Why do this?
Other countries are more easily recruited and diplomatically manipulated if the amount they are threatened is GREATER than their neutrality. By setting up Denmark as the worlds evil empire through your efficient propaganda machine, you make neutral countries more pliable and less neutral. This will let you recruit countries that aren't fully aligned with you on the political graph.
Be aware, though, that pushing a third party's threat up too high could trigger an ahistorical war where some state becomes so threatened they decide to shut down your shill.
Also note that raising the threat of a country that is not in a faction will not change other states drift. States drift in response to faction member threat so unaligned countries won't impact the graph.
So how does all this play out in reality? Try this.
- As Germany influence America, Japan, and Switzerland. This will require a 6 leadership investment in diplomacy.
- Invest about 4 points in espionage. This will generate MAD amounts of spies.
- Change your spy send priorities so they go to the UK, France, and Denmark.
- Set the spy missions in those states to "Raise Threat."
- Work on your normal game: tech & gearing up. Don't reoccupy the rhineland until you're ready for Anchluss since you want the threat you are building in the Allied states to take root. If you annex Austria early you create threat from the Axis that will neutralize your efforts.
- Japan and Italy should become recruitable fairly quickly.
- Check the political graph in 1938. You'll see America fairly far from the Allies and other states in the middle.
You can use this for ahistorical evil as well, like recruiting National China into the Axis instead of Japan.
There may be specific mechanics I have slightly wrong, but this covers the general gist of using espionage to offset your expansionism.
Note that you can also put spies in your own country at work lowering your neutrality. This will let you declare war earlier. If you lower your neutrality while raising the threat of the country you want to attack, democratic states can go on the offensive early in the game.
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