Puppet in revolt

[markkur]

Thought I'd put this here since most will probably not be following my glorious Turkey AAR. I ran into a nasty surprise.

To date, I thought If I made a nation my Puppet they would HAVE-TO follow my lead. Well, apparently I was quite mistaken because I have Greece as my Puppet and it seems...since I was Neutral and they were Neutral, Italy decided to attack them anyway, my puppet or no. Ofc, that led to "my Greece" being at war with Germany too and Germany is the total focus of my efforts; I'm waiting for Barbarossa and trying to assist in the war and ofc was also counting on Greece to assist me if needed.

Just wondering if anyone else has had this unfortunate situation develop in their games. It really is a crappy outcome.

Now, I'm interested to see what follows. I joined the Axis to stop the rot but now what happens if I defend my Puppet against Italy? Or maybe I cannot?

 

[marxianTJ]

Italy will always deliver its ultimatum to Greece UNLESS Greece is a member of the Axis or already at war with Italy. So if you'd joined the Axis earlier (which would probably result in Germany's demise) it wouldn't have happened. Thankfully, if you have *some* land army, you may be able to prevent the krauts getting in because they'll have to cross a strait! That could be pretty interesting if you manage to hold out all that time lol. Or you could trigger WW2 early by joining an alliance - it'd be interesting to see what the AI did with that lol.

Now on the bright side, it's entirely possible to defend the Greeks *until* Germany shows up lol. If you're also at war with the Italians as a result - you may be able to sue them for peace, the game often does wonky things with peace arrangements - for example as Ethiopia it's possible to sue Italy for peace on day one and have them accept! lol.

The worst problem I encounter with puppets all revolve around Japan - never puppet Japan, only sadness and pain lies down that road, because for some reason it will cause many of your other puppets to declare war on you randomly lol.

 

[markkur]

The worst problem I encounter with puppets all revolve around Japan - never puppet Japan, only sadness and pain lies down that road, because for some reason it will cause many of your other puppets to declare war on you randomly lol.

That's more bizarre than my present fun, I can sorta see why Italy ran it's script I guess but what you describe sounds much worse. Were you playing the US?

When I go back in, now that I'm in the Axis I'll trying tagging to GER and ITA and seeing if I can have them do Peace, if they'll do it then maybe I can then go into Greece and accept. However, I seriously doubt that's going to work.

Since Germany is over 6 months away from war in the east, I will keep an eye on them and if I start seeing large numbers of troops beginning to head south?...I'm DOWing the SU. and getting one of those "don't do that again, we'll take charge from now on" Might as well make a getting-crazy game...more interesting.

 

[marxianTJ]

Yeah lol may as well. Poor old Turkey

The japan problem I've had occur multiple times as the USSR - any regimes you set up in Europe will start randomly attacking you once you release Japan as a puppet - or sometimes you end up randomly at war with the Allies lol. It simply never works the way you would want it to .

 

[Oof]

I bet that if you had conquered Greece, Turkey wouldn't have DOWed. The Italians AFAIK can only DOW Greece. As soon as Greece doesnt excist.......
I'm pretty sure the situation, at war with Italy, is hopeless. Sooner or later the Germans will join in and countries like Bulgaria and Rumania will join the Axis at some point. When that happens the Germans got a land route to Turkey, if they didnt already cause any DOW on Yugoslavia will also give them a land route.

My advice is to reload your game just before you puppeted Greece and conquer them instead.

 

[markkur]

Oof, I know that I can back up three years not sure if I can get much closer. I usually have plenty of saves but not this time.

To recap what's happened
Playing as Turkey
1. I chose to remain neutral
2. I took Bulgaria
3. Made Greece my Puppet
4. The Brits landed in Albania
5. Italy DOW'd Greece
>>>My puppet Greece now at war with the Axis
>>>Turkey joined the Axis- Greece shows right behind my Turkey in the Axis list as it should by default.

* tagging ITA = Italy cannot make peace with Greece "both countries are in a faction."

* tagging GER = Same message "both countries are in a faction" HOWEVER Germany can send a expeditionary force.

Situation
- Germany is months away from Barbarossa.
- Germany currently has transit rights with Yugoslavia.
- Romania needs to be at 50 to join the Axis and atm sits at 135.
- Hungary is already in.

It seems my game hangs on Yugoslavia, since I doubt Germany will move massive troops only having transit rights. But Germany has already cancelled the rights once. (that's when I joined the Axis) Maybe now that I'm in and Germany has a split-personality with Greece...things will be AOK. I can call Greece to Arms elsewhere, i.e. I can tag the UK captured Albanian provinces.

So, maybe everything will work out. But if Germany cancels the transit rights from Yugo and goes to war with them I'll DOW the SU and let the cards play how they will.

 

[Oof]

Strange. If you join a faction your puppets also join and if at war they get a truce.

 

[markkur]

Yeah lol may as well. Poor old Turkey

Sssh. None of that. We are powerful and supreme in...eh...ur...hmm...we are supreme in Turkey!

Actually I was surprised to see my land-forces are nearly as large as Italy's. The world quakes! or maybe just Persia. We are the best of chums.

 

[markkur]

Strange. If you join a faction your puppets also join and if at war they get a truce.

NO Truce, Tagging to Greece still shows at war with the Axis.

 

[Oof]

That's why it's strange, no truce. You could try to tag as ITA and GRE and offer a truce.

 

[markkur]

That's why it's strange, no truce. You could try to tag as ITA and GRE and offer a truce.

Well I tired Greece first and no go. and then l tried...

* tagging ITA = Italy cannot make peace with Greece "both countries are in a faction."

* tagging GER = Same message "both countries are in a faction" HOWEVER Germany can send a expeditionary force

 

[marxianTJ]

really really strange lol.

As long as you can hold off Italy (possible - hell they did it IRL for the most part for over a year) - I wager that Germany may not be able to DOW Greece by virtue of that fact that it's now defacto in the Axis and it's not possible to DOW members of your own faction lol. Should investigate that - you may be safe regardless! lol.

If that's the case it opens up the opportunity to capture Italy itself without German interference lol!

 

[markkur]

Here are a couple of screens to better show things.

 

[Oof]

Well I tired Greece first and no go. and then l tried...

It should happen automatically, but apparently this event is so hardcoded that no truce fires.

 

[markkur]

Yeah, seems so. Really I should have known better. With all that I've read about the scripting and the odd things that can happen by not letting the events run their course before going off-center...it's my own fault.

Although I did assume Puppet had a tad more clout; in fact, Greece did not attack, I simply didn't consider that Italy would do as instructed. My biggest blunder was not "keeping" the save just before that war. Had I not deleted that one, it would not be that big of a deal to go back. Oil-well, lesson learned...again.

 

[markkur]

Ok...thought it log on and tell what I found out with a play-thru regarding my "Axis + Allied" Puppet Greece.

* The UK had already taken Albania from Italy.
* Yugoslavia was within days or a week or two tops, of joining the Axis; the German A.I. even "correctly" influenced Yugo to speed it up. Three days later Germany declared war on Yugoslavia.
* Germany conquered Yugoslavia.
* While German units pulled back from the Greek border and re-orged (I guess) Greece hopped across the border and claimed 4 provinces before fleeing back.
* Germany went back in to the empty "now Greek-held lands" and reclaimed them for Germany.
* Meanwhile, German troops entered Albania and about 7 Brit HQs and a single MOT division fled into Greece.
* Germany began building-up MASSIVE forces along the border that could have easily crushed the single Greek divisions facing them. This also proved true (to a lesser extant) along the Greek/Albanian border except for one instance; there was one empty province but no German unit crossed to take it.
* About this time I declared war on GB hoping that might change things for the better but all it did was tell me that I would not be able to declare war on the SU. So you know what would happen now.
* After a few days, a single Italian MOT crossed and laid claim to that lone Greek province. Until that single unit showed, the UK units stood at the border and German troops did nothing. The MOT unit easily beat the 7 HQs and the 1 MOT w/o supplies.

Conclusion, as far as I could tell, Germany would never attack " a Greek unit" even though they did nab "vacant" land. Italy appeared to be doing the same. So peace or war, were m/l half-working. Like I said it was even possible for Germany to send expeditionary forces to Greece.

Anyway, reloading and declaring war on the SU while Yugoslavia is looking so Axis and hoping it joins this time.

 

[markkur]

Putting another tidbit here.

I had an idea that maybe I could prevent Germany from attacking Yugoslavia. Since I was in the Axis I hoped the A.I. would recognize my wanting Yugo left alone, by my "guaranteeing Yugo's independence." Germany did not follow the rote-route of "cancel transit agreement and then declare war" but...about a month later it happened anyway. In the end I gained a month.

 

[Wave]

Putting another tidbit here.

I had an idea that maybe I could prevent Germany from attacking Yugoslavia. Since I was in the Axis I hoped the A.I. would recognize my wanting Yugo left alone, by my "guaranteeing Yugo's independence." Germany did not follow the rote-route of "cancel transit agreement and then declare war" but...about a month later it happened anyway. In the end I gained a month.

These are interesting ideas but it seems that you can't really force the AI go very far out from their historical route..
Just out of curiosity, I think I'll go do some test games and guarantee everything as USA or something and see if the AI majors still execute their plans like normally.

 

[marxianTJ]

That would be really interesting if guarantees would alter AI behavior - I don't know if they will or not though - I know a Soviet guarantee of Poland and Czechoslovakia has no effect on Germany's AI. And it's a fairly common "gamey" tactic to gaurantee Nationalist China as various nations to get yourself on a war footing in 1937 by getting a free DoW on Japan.

I'd assume they have no impact on "decision" based DoWs, but maybe the AI is less prone to attack when they have non-decision based Dows... Like all the times I've seen varios South American countries join the Axis, Allies, and Comintern, but yet not fight each other (due to the US guarantee perhaps?).

 

[markkur]

Just out of curiosity, I think I'll go do some test games and guarantee everything as USA or something and see if the AI majors still execute their plans like normally.

Might be fun, maybe as a major you can have an impact. As Turkey I didn't stand a chance. However I was surprised that Germany did attack with my Guarantee in the mix but then again, I was more surprised that the whole fiasco started in the first place...especially that there was no way to make peace for my puppet after I joined the Axis.