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Done that. But I still can't justify that kind of investment for diplo and espionage. Minor Allied countries can be easily conquered, but lack of officers and techs will cripple the country during the entire war.
Can you afford to not do it? What does the techs and officers help if you have the whole world against you?
 
(ie neglect everything in favor of research, which was prob what everyone thought they were gonna do).

Exactly what I have been doing in my current GC as Germany. I have not run into problems yet because it is only 1937. I do have some 26 research going and very little espionage. So this propaganda thread is nice and it did open up my eyes. I will do more intelligence based on this.

However is this all not too powerful? I have to try it for myself but based on the post on top this seem way overpowered.

"Switzerland will remain neutral for quite some time."

Huh? Do we really need to make an effort to keep the Swiss out of this? I mean it should be a huge diplomatic/intelligence effort from the allies to make the Swiss join. Perhaps big enough to make it not worth. Not the other way around. I mean those guys have not been in a war for how long? 16 century or so (apart the tiny civil war).

I welcome the new possibilities, and the intelligence system, but at the end we are playing a recreation of WW2 in some way. This strange new alliances sound like some fantasy scenario to me and not the GC. So far my impression of playing paradox games was, that yes you can influence things against history but it takes an effort. The further you divert the larger the effort.

That makes sense. Because things did happen the way they did for a reason. At the same time it is also true that there were many things that went one way and not the other just by a hair. Hence simulating the ability to change history is important and a great addition. But things should have the tendency to go historical IMHO.

I know there are 2 parties here. And nobody is wrong or right. Balance is all I am looking for.

I am obviously a pro historical guy. I have always been annoyed even in HOI2 how the French kept breaking trough my line when to my knowledge (correct me anyone) they did not try to cross into Germany in 1939. It also made little sense to do that anyways.

I know paradox will tweak the system, and things will get better after a few patches. May be it would be nice to have two types of GC scenarios to satisfy everyone. One that has some triggers which modify and adjust drift, at least until 1939 or even 1940. And another one that does not for those who like influencing and possibilities over history.

Regardless. I am having a great time and will try the intelligence.
 
I wonder what the PI developer team had it intended, i find it worrying that we don't any word on this.

(tough yes i see the pointlessness in it with 500 threads poping up about the same thing)
 
Credit to the OP for explaining this scheme, but its still an incredibly gamey tactic that requires player Germany to pedal furiously to achieve "merely" historical levels of dislike while AI Allies/Comintern need do nothing. In a multiplayer game or a game with the player picking any other nation it'll be massively exploitable to achieve even more rapid movement of nations into your camp.
 
A good guide for the beginning, and proof that most people don't read manuals. :D

D5.0 Alignment Drift

During the game, each Faction will compete with the others
to try to attract other countries toward their philosophy, perhaps
hoping to eventually make them part of their Faction.
This competition, and the resulting position of each country
along the triangular political spectrum, is called Alignment.
A move toward one Faction will automatically move it away
from the others.
Countries will tend to Drift in the midst of the triangular
spectrum as the result of competing Diplomatic initiatives,
as well as other factors. Those other factors include the
tendency of a country to be repelled by a neighboring major
power’s Alignment because it may feel threatened, but it
may also gravitate toward it for the same reason.
The major determining factors for Alignment Drift are
Diplomatic Actions, where good attracts and bad repels;
Proximity, in that a country may feel threatened by a powerful
neighbor; and Government Ideology (i.e. if a country’s
Government is a Democracy, it will tend to gravitate toward
the Allies). Proximity is measured not just by location, but
also by size.
A country’s choice of Foreign Minister will also affect how
quickly it drifts in a certain Ideological direction.
Threat (or Belligerence) also impacts Drift. If a country
is Threatening, then other countries not of that country’s
Ideology will fear that country and move away from it until
a “tipping point” is reached. Once that point is reached,
their increased fear from a high Threat level begins drawing
those countries towards it instead, as they’ve decided that
resistance is futile.

2 points are interesting there:

1. "other countries not of that country’s Ideology will fear that country and move away".
So in other words, a democracy, as belgium for example, shouldn't be affected when Germany increases the threat of France / UK?

2. The "tipping point".
Would love to know how it's calculated, it probably should be mentioned ingame how the Threat impacts the minors.
 
This is a good guide, but if this is how the game works I think I'll let my copy rest until the next patch is out. I had planned on doing a sort of role playing game with Germany, where I only ocassionaly directly handled research, production and diplomacy, let the computer deal with intelligence wholly, only direct the Army Group AI, and only controll politics myself. I had only gotten a couple of months in my new 1936 Germany game, but if this is what I can expect (everyone joins the allies), then I'm not sure I want to play. Why would they put in the option to use the AI for these matters, and then completely screw you over unless you did some very specific, hands-on moves?
 
Well this is what I was afraid of and concerned about.

We hear all the complaints about the game being slow, this and that, no fun to move your troops and conqour as you have to spend time with the command structure.

HOI3 is different.

There are lots of things to do and we have to re-learn it.

This should reflect the fact of why we have AI control of the military as an option. Why? So you can focus on different aspects of the game.
 
Nice, I wish I had read this before my Italian game.

Everyone hates me, I hope Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece were worth it, everyone else is against the wall.
 
Great thread!!

Gamey? This is real life. The US dehumanized the Japanese. Germany dehumanized the Slaviks. Political bait and switch tactics were standard fare for the prewar years.

edit- ...and yes, the French did invade into Germany in 39' but it was a half-hearted effort and they fell back into France after a few weeks.
 
I am obviously a pro historical guy. I have always been annoyed even in HOI2 how the French kept breaking trough my line when to my knowledge (correct me anyone) they did not try to cross into Germany in 1939. It also made little sense to do that anyways.
.

France did invade Germany from the Maginot line. The going was too easy, no one to fight, so they went home and waited for the Germans to come to them.

As far as making Denmark the bad guy, why not make Switzerland the bad guy?
 
You can use Switzerland if you want. I used Denmark because I thought it was funny. The only reason you might want a neutral Switzerland is to use them as a wall against France or for a more historical outcome.
 
I'm finding that when my spies are set to "raise threat" they are quickly eliminated. Even with 5 points on spying, I can't keep up -- I actually loose spies on net.

Anyone else have this issue?
 
I'm finding that when my spies are set to "raise threat" they are quickly eliminated. Even with 5 points on spying, I can't keep up -- I actually loose spies on net.

Anyone else have this issue?

Keep sending spies. You might be sending too many spies to too many other states or you might not be generating spies fast enough.

I turn off sending spies to all countries but my own and the one I'm targeting. When it hits 10 spies I add an additional state to send spies to. So I might start with the UK and then add France and then South Africa when they join, etc.