I'm very much enjoying this mod and really appreciate the folks who put it together. I'm wondering if my experience is typical, or if a choice somewhere along the way made things unusual for me. I'll give more details, but my general questions:
- How does AUS normally go about getting a free hand to rebuild the empire? Van Diemen mentioned the Treaty of Rome, but I didn't see it by spring '39.
- Does Yugoslavia declining to basically hand their country over to AUS after HUN falls always lead to war with Italy and Romania unless you've waited until the guarantees run out in 1940?
- Are there actions AUS takes that prevent the "End of Czechoslovakia" from firing? For some reason it didn't seem to happen in my game.
The details: Playing AUS, I received an invitation to a meeting in either '37 or '38 with Mussolini. I attended, but he declined to make any deals with me about AUS giving up claims to Italian territory in exchange for a somewhat free hand to start rebuilding the old Austro-Hungarian empire. Maybe this led to things working a bit differently than they normally do?
By 1939 I was itching to get some action going. I had experimented with starting wars with either Hungary or Yugoslavia prior to this, but either of these courses of action led to different versions of the Balkan chain of war declarations. This would have been OK if the Italians weren't part of the chain, but I definitely couldn't fight Italy and anyone else at the same time.
I declined the Anschluss (obviously) and joined the Axis with Germany, so I had my blank check for action from them in March '39. I decided to move things along by editing out the independence guarantees given to HUN and YUG. Hungary fell to my armies quickly. Yugoslavia declined to just give me most of the old Habsburg lands, so I defeated them as well. As I've already mentioned, when I tried this a couple of times without editing out the guarantees to YUG I ended up at war with Italy and Romania in my couple of run-throughs.
Germany had sent a number of troops to HUN and YUG, but they arrived too late to do anything in either campaign. The French decided to take advantage of the German distraction and DOWed Germany in spring '39. Unfortunately for them they didn't do anything offensive. By the time the GER and AUS forces arrived at the French border, they were quite doomed. But just for good measure Bulgaria and Romania also joined the Axis and sent expeditionary forces. During the early stages of the conflict in France, Italy joined the Axis. Strangely, despite the presence of exactly 1 French division in the south of France, the Italians never crossed the border. After a few weeks of relatively easy fighting the Vichy event fired and Axis forces turned east.
For some reason Czechoslovakia was still in existence in summer '39. I checked the event files, found an End of CZE event for situations where HUN has fallen to AUS, and manually fired it for Germany.
The Soviets declined the M-R Pact, but that didn't stop the Axis from invading and annexing Poland in Sept '39. An event fired that gave the Germans a couple of provinces I had taken.
During the Poland campaign I noticed a note saying that the UK had bombed Plymouth.
Sure enough, in fall 1939 the Germans have invaded Britain and have pushed about half-way up to Scotland. I assume something was put into the GER AI files to allow this to happen?
Now it's early October '39 and the USSR just eliminated the non-aggression pact they had with AUS. Considering that Germany has more divisions than them and the Axis also includes Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the less significant Bulgaria and Romania, I think the Russians would be wise to be looking for assurances rather than eliminating them right now.
- How does AUS normally go about getting a free hand to rebuild the empire? Van Diemen mentioned the Treaty of Rome, but I didn't see it by spring '39.
- Does Yugoslavia declining to basically hand their country over to AUS after HUN falls always lead to war with Italy and Romania unless you've waited until the guarantees run out in 1940?
- Are there actions AUS takes that prevent the "End of Czechoslovakia" from firing? For some reason it didn't seem to happen in my game.
The details: Playing AUS, I received an invitation to a meeting in either '37 or '38 with Mussolini. I attended, but he declined to make any deals with me about AUS giving up claims to Italian territory in exchange for a somewhat free hand to start rebuilding the old Austro-Hungarian empire. Maybe this led to things working a bit differently than they normally do?
By 1939 I was itching to get some action going. I had experimented with starting wars with either Hungary or Yugoslavia prior to this, but either of these courses of action led to different versions of the Balkan chain of war declarations. This would have been OK if the Italians weren't part of the chain, but I definitely couldn't fight Italy and anyone else at the same time.
I declined the Anschluss (obviously) and joined the Axis with Germany, so I had my blank check for action from them in March '39. I decided to move things along by editing out the independence guarantees given to HUN and YUG. Hungary fell to my armies quickly. Yugoslavia declined to just give me most of the old Habsburg lands, so I defeated them as well. As I've already mentioned, when I tried this a couple of times without editing out the guarantees to YUG I ended up at war with Italy and Romania in my couple of run-throughs.
Germany had sent a number of troops to HUN and YUG, but they arrived too late to do anything in either campaign. The French decided to take advantage of the German distraction and DOWed Germany in spring '39. Unfortunately for them they didn't do anything offensive. By the time the GER and AUS forces arrived at the French border, they were quite doomed. But just for good measure Bulgaria and Romania also joined the Axis and sent expeditionary forces. During the early stages of the conflict in France, Italy joined the Axis. Strangely, despite the presence of exactly 1 French division in the south of France, the Italians never crossed the border. After a few weeks of relatively easy fighting the Vichy event fired and Axis forces turned east.
For some reason Czechoslovakia was still in existence in summer '39. I checked the event files, found an End of CZE event for situations where HUN has fallen to AUS, and manually fired it for Germany.
The Soviets declined the M-R Pact, but that didn't stop the Axis from invading and annexing Poland in Sept '39. An event fired that gave the Germans a couple of provinces I had taken.
During the Poland campaign I noticed a note saying that the UK had bombed Plymouth.
Sure enough, in fall 1939 the Germans have invaded Britain and have pushed about half-way up to Scotland. I assume something was put into the GER AI files to allow this to happen?Now it's early October '39 and the USSR just eliminated the non-aggression pact they had with AUS. Considering that Germany has more divisions than them and the Axis also includes Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the less significant Bulgaria and Romania, I think the Russians would be wise to be looking for assurances rather than eliminating them right now.
