I just finished up a game as Italy on normal / furious. Part of my strategy was to rebuild the pathetic starting Italian fleet into one fleet of 30 modern ships, a fleet of transports and a small fleet of modern subs to protect myself in the Mediterranean. I started off with a fleet of 2 carrier I's and upgraded to 4-6 carrier IV's and V's. The second half of my strategy was to conquer the lesser European nations pre WW II to boost Italy's strength. And after learning my lesson in a previous game, I completely abandoned the African provinces I had owned (well left them undefended at least) until later on in the war when I had the luxury of going after them again. So read on for all the details of my game and there's a bit about the German's vs. the Soviets in there too.
At the start of the game I took Ethopia and Albania (I believe that is the name of that tiny two province country that Italy always annex's when controlled by the AI), then DoW Republican Spain since it's independence wasn't guaranteed by any nation (for the extra IC and raw materials).
Then I joined the Axis and DoW Yugoslavia, who's independence was previously guaranteed by Germany which is why I joined the Axis. The nice part about it is that Yugoslavia has it's independence guaranteed by Romania, Greece and Turkey; so all these minor countries declare war on you giving Italy free access to all that much needed IC and raw materials. My strategy with this conflict was to leave a few provinces of Romania and Turkey unconquered to provide a barrier between myself and the Soviet Union.
So now I've got this huge land empire, about 110-120 IC (which allows max research teams), plenty of raw materials and 1/3 of the naval choke points into the Mediterranean under my control and all before the Allies declare war on the Axis. A pretty nice start for Italy if I do say so myself ^_^
I got a bit bored waiting around for the allies so I declared war on them around 1938 or 39 I believe? So I grabbed Gibraltar right away and moved my forces through France, capturing it all before the completely inept German AI of my game captured a single province. So I reinforce all the coast line provinces with militia and garrison a few infantry divisions in adjacent zones in case I'm faced with any serious naval landings from the Allies that my militia can't handle and plenty of interceptor cover to prevent Allied bombing attempts. After taking over mainland France, I used my above fleets to ferry my troops from France down to the Suez Canal area (on the Turkey, Israel, Iraq side) landed the majority of my army down there and quickly took the Suez Canal. I had sunk maybe 10-20 allied ships with my fleet but I don't think I'd taken on the top of the line ships that the UK owns.
I seemed to have skipped over my discussion on the Soviet Union, which is the reason I originally decided to write up this post. After starting the war between the Axis and the Allies. I had taken over France (while playing as Italy) without the help of the AI controlled Germany. All Germany did in my game was take over Poland then when the Soviets declared war not too long after Germany took over Poland the entire Germany army just disintegrated under the Soviet assault. I've never seen Germany collapse so fast, they had taken a few provinces and it looked like they were winning for a bit, but within the year the whole Germany Army just evaporated. So that's my anecdote about Germany vs. the Soviets to prove that Germany does win 100% of the time as some previous posters implied.
So as dirty as it made me feel for doing it, I ended up cheating to get the Soviets to accept my peace offering. The way I figured, Germany getting obliterated by the Soviets was completely out of my hands and there was no way in hell that I could fight them off as Italy with so little manpower AND hold on to all the other provinces I had captured, Italy vs. the world just isn't feasible (and probably not possible unless you're a HOI god).
So I wrapped my game up as Italy and chalked it up as a success having taken over France, Spain, Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. That's basically the end of my long drawn out story, I thought it was a great game and really enjoyed it =D
At the start of the game I took Ethopia and Albania (I believe that is the name of that tiny two province country that Italy always annex's when controlled by the AI), then DoW Republican Spain since it's independence wasn't guaranteed by any nation (for the extra IC and raw materials).
Then I joined the Axis and DoW Yugoslavia, who's independence was previously guaranteed by Germany which is why I joined the Axis. The nice part about it is that Yugoslavia has it's independence guaranteed by Romania, Greece and Turkey; so all these minor countries declare war on you giving Italy free access to all that much needed IC and raw materials. My strategy with this conflict was to leave a few provinces of Romania and Turkey unconquered to provide a barrier between myself and the Soviet Union.
So now I've got this huge land empire, about 110-120 IC (which allows max research teams), plenty of raw materials and 1/3 of the naval choke points into the Mediterranean under my control and all before the Allies declare war on the Axis. A pretty nice start for Italy if I do say so myself ^_^
I got a bit bored waiting around for the allies so I declared war on them around 1938 or 39 I believe? So I grabbed Gibraltar right away and moved my forces through France, capturing it all before the completely inept German AI of my game captured a single province. So I reinforce all the coast line provinces with militia and garrison a few infantry divisions in adjacent zones in case I'm faced with any serious naval landings from the Allies that my militia can't handle and plenty of interceptor cover to prevent Allied bombing attempts. After taking over mainland France, I used my above fleets to ferry my troops from France down to the Suez Canal area (on the Turkey, Israel, Iraq side) landed the majority of my army down there and quickly took the Suez Canal. I had sunk maybe 10-20 allied ships with my fleet but I don't think I'd taken on the top of the line ships that the UK owns.
I seemed to have skipped over my discussion on the Soviet Union, which is the reason I originally decided to write up this post. After starting the war between the Axis and the Allies. I had taken over France (while playing as Italy) without the help of the AI controlled Germany. All Germany did in my game was take over Poland then when the Soviets declared war not too long after Germany took over Poland the entire Germany army just disintegrated under the Soviet assault. I've never seen Germany collapse so fast, they had taken a few provinces and it looked like they were winning for a bit, but within the year the whole Germany Army just evaporated. So that's my anecdote about Germany vs. the Soviets to prove that Germany does win 100% of the time as some previous posters implied.
So as dirty as it made me feel for doing it, I ended up cheating to get the Soviets to accept my peace offering. The way I figured, Germany getting obliterated by the Soviets was completely out of my hands and there was no way in hell that I could fight them off as Italy with so little manpower AND hold on to all the other provinces I had captured, Italy vs. the world just isn't feasible (and probably not possible unless you're a HOI god).
So I wrapped my game up as Italy and chalked it up as a success having taken over France, Spain, Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. That's basically the end of my long drawn out story, I thought it was a great game and really enjoyed it =D