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Nothing much changes really from what was suggested in the thread, except Germany is now even easier to beat and France could afford to build mils instead of civs earlier. Just bide your time and defend until you can field a few proper tank divisions with SPAA to counterattack. Really a few (~4) is what you need.
What would you suggest for divisions ?
My setup for infantry is 10/0 with arty, engineer & AA, and 6-8 cavalry divisons for North Africa.
What would you recommend for armor divisions ? 4/6 LA/MI ? 4/3/2 LA/MI/MA ?
As I start, I immediately go for Mil factories, 8 is just way too low, and it's a real race to get enough equipment for mid 1938.
A little unorthodox to the 20w preachers. But what about 12INF+1ART (27 width) with engineers. You will need less of them to cover borders, which saves you some support equipment (and trucks later), but requires little more artillery and of course infantry weapons (but you can have cost reduction from focus). Later add support AA.
I like that for few reasons. Like the border with Italy is 7 provinces, so you can easily fit 24 divisions (27 width) to cover the frontage full with little extra and it goes well with the default alpine divisions (you start with 4). And you can cover benelux border the same way.
I caved in to the extremists demands and let the clock tick a bit further. The efforts to find a peaceful solution to the strikes were fruitful, and the production got back on track.
Germany has been making slow progress in SU, and Finland surrendered. Yugoslavia decided to join the Axis. Trotsky survived the assasination attempt, but I don't think it will matter.
I managed to plant some misinformation, and got a number of "ghost divisions", I could use to fool the enemy with. I never actually got to use them though, and after a while they evaporated.
I wonder though if some of the german divisions seen on the map could be ghosts as well, since I assume I am not immune to false information either.
I also finally got a chance to say no to the communists.
It looks like the defences will hold in France while I build up the offensive army, and hopefully most of the german army will get stuck in Russia by then. I am a little concerned over the raw material situation, since a small effort from Japan (not at war yet) could ruin my access to rubber, tungsten and chromium. I built a small taskforce of 3 of the most modern destroyers and 3 spare cruiser, and added a naval dockyard in southern Indochina for repairs. Since I have a lot of antiquated equipment in store, would it be a good idea to start a lend-lease to China or the Guanxi clique to slow the japanese progress? Would building forts on the border to Guanxi be a good idea or a wasted effort?
I started building a template for a heavy tank division. This is as far my 20 stars have taken me. It will get extended:
An entirely new development. Great Britain has launched a massive naval invasion towards Belgium/Netherlands. I have changed 3 northernmost armies from defence to fronts and added offensive arrows, but the British are striking hard and moving fast. Maybe I should attack before preparations are ready just to be there before the party is over, and to ensure the British are not caught in a pocket. I have broken the German codes, which would give me an advantage for 30 days after I activate it.
It's too late now to help you in this game, but in my recent France runs, I've found that doing a round of "Improve Worker Conditions" and "Anti-Communist Raids" are a worthy investment in 1936.
Both offer net boosts to stability (which will benefit you the entire game), and by lowering Communist support, the Anti-Communist raids will make you less likely to suffer from those RNG Communist Influence events.
What would you suggest for divisions ?
My setup for infantry is 10/0 with arty, engineer & AA, and 6-8 cavalry divisons for North Africa.
What would you recommend for armor divisions ? 4/6 LA/MI ? 4/3/2 LA/MI/MA ?
As I start, I immediately go for Mil factories, 8 is just way too low, and it's a real race to get enough equipment for mid 1938.
Yea the infantry setup is alright. I usually send my starting light tanks down too because I dont find them effective in the home front.
For tanks I just go 40w, the Czechs and Poles will stall the Germans enough that you can safely delay counterattacking for quite a long time. Probably 11/8/2 HT2 mot/cav SPAA, cant afford to invest in fighters.
My rule of thumb is always build mils 2 years before war. I'd probably build 1-2 more civs first but that's not a big difference i think.
A little unorthodox to the 20w preachers. But what about 12INF+1ART (27 width) with engineers. You will need less of them to cover borders, which saves you some support equipment (and trucks later), but requires little more artillery and of course infantry weapons (but you can have cost reduction from focus). Later add support AA.
I like that for few reasons. Like the border with Italy is 7 provinces, so you can easily fit 24 divisions (27 width) to cover the frontage full with little extra and it goes well with the default alpine divisions (you start with 4). And you can cover benelux border the same way.
27w works fine for 80w front, a 2% penalty for overwidth is nothing. Similarly for a 160w front (being attacked from 3 sides). The problem lies in 120w front, which is perhaps the most common. You will have 5 divisions (135w) fit into a 120w front, causing a 25% overwidth penalty, effectively means your 5 divisions fight like some 135*(1-25%) ~= 101w divisions. Or you can put only 4 divisions there and hope the AI dont reshuffle extra troops in, but there's still 120-108 = 12w not utilised.
I dont disagree in principle, just that one should be aware of the downsides of awkward widths. And if you just want to role play a historical-ish division width, forget everything I've said
It looks like the defences will hold in France while I build up the offensive army, and hopefully most of the german army will get stuck in Russia by then. I am a little concerned over the raw material situation, since a small effort from Japan (not at war yet) could ruin my access to rubber, tungsten and chromium. I built a small taskforce of 3 of the most modern destroyers and 3 spare cruiser, and added a naval dockyard in southern Indochina for repairs. Since I have a lot of antiquated equipment in store, would it be a good idea to start a lend-lease to China or the Guanxi clique to slow the japanese progress? Would building forts on the border to Guanxi be a good idea or a wasted effort?
You dont have a land connection (coz Italy is at war with you) with China or the warlords so all LL will have to go by sea, and at this point of the game, the Japanese should have sunk all of their convoys, so if you want to LL them you need to send convoys first, and even if you did, they dont have the naval presence to protect the shipment being sunk (you cant protect them using your navy).
Since the SU is at war, you might just LL them then, they normally ran out of guns quite quickly.
27w works fine for 80w front, a 2% penalty for overwidth is nothing. Similarly for a 160w front (being attacked from 3 sides). The problem lies in 120w front, which is perhaps the most common. You will have 5 divisions (135w) fit into a 120w front, causing a 25% overwidth penalty, effectively means your 5 divisions fight like some 135*(1-25%) ~= 101w divisions. Or you can put only 4 divisions there and hope the AI dont reshuffle extra troops in, but there's still 120-108 = 12w not utilised.
I dont disagree in principle, just that one should be aware of the downsides of awkward widths. And if you just want to role play a historical-ish division width, forget everything I've said
I agree, but then again if you use a trickster general which France gets, you often get "tactical Withdrawal" tactic in defense which reduces width by 25%, which in case of 120 is 90 which is not perfect for 20/40w widths either. Which means for defense it's actually not bad at all and for offense you can prepare 40 widths if you desire.
There is no perfect width, just 20w happens to the most convenient/easy to work with. I agree that you have to consider many aspects of your playstyle/situation and just apply it.
But since France gets infantry cost reduction, it makes sense to have higher ratio of infantry to take advantage of it. So having less of larger INF divisions for me seems like more efficient use of the limited number of MILs.
Well, I tried again...
Since Italy isn't in the Axis yet by the time the war starts for Czechoslovaqia, I shipped a full army there as soon as the Sudeten focus started and dug in for the couple months it took to reach war. That did work very nicely, both for defense, and then the counter-attack.
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