What to do as Canada?

[kunadam]

I would like to play as Canada and contribute meaningfully to the Allied war effort.
I do not want to do anything strange, like conquering South America or the like. Just play the good ally.

Canada has a good set of ministers (bonus IC and the like).
It has 8+ leadership, so I can clear my country from spies, train enough officers to pack some units (but not enough to staff many land divisions, or research would suffer). Then I can still devote 6-8 leadership to research, which translates to up to date industry and up to date in one other field (tac+int / destroyer / inf).

I tried to build a navy. But by the time I got to carriers US was happily controlling the Pacifics and the UK handled the German fleet.

Even with up to date agriculture I have like 300 manpower by 1939. Which would translate to fewer than 10 inf regiment. Not much of an army.

I can build airplanes. Mostly Tac+Int. By 1939 I had like 8 int and 4 TAC (maybe a bit more). But they were shredded by the Luftwaffe. Is airforce any good in this game (most of my experience is from HoI2, where airforca was great, my my limited experience with HoI3 tells me it is not here).

Or should I just build IC and lend lease them? Not much of a fun game, but might shorten the war.

 

[ragupasta]

If I was Canada being the good ally, I would either lend lease but as you said it's boring. Or I would build a navy based on DD's and either convoy raid, or send them to the med to play with the Italian fleets. A CL or 2 in those fleets would be enough to do some hit and run gurella style action. Would be fun.

 

[marxianTJ]

Well the thing I've found with this game, is that planes are lackluster until you get into the 1942 tech branch - and then they are (in high concentrations) *amazing*

I've watched TAC wings shatter divisions.

Anyhow..

So, Canada.

They aren't a good candidate for carriers simply because, to be effective, you need all the boat, navy doctrine, and air research from 3 different air related tech trees - which is a *lot* of crap to research.

However, Canada ended up with one of the largest navies in WW2 (after the French fleet was sunk by the British). What sort of ships you go for is up to you. With research as it is, going light cruiser/heavy cruiser is really viable (heavy cruiser for a bit of oomph + shore bombardment). But if you wanted a fancier navy you could probably afford a few BCs or BBs, it just depends on what you want. If you don't have a great deal of experience getting battleships to nations that ought not to have them, then at least for the first few attempts I'd stick to LC/CA or all DD (1to1 transport to DD ratio).

A light cruiser + CA/BC/BB or a DD + BB fleet would be great for Canada - a navy is wholly necessary, but the different ship types open you up to different strategic capabilities. Another interesting point to be made here, is that, particularly in the case of lighter ships (Lightcruisers or DDs whatever you pick - you won't be able to get both unless you forgo capital ships) you can buy production licenses for them typically. You could buy them from your allies as well - the British, French, and eventually the Americans should have pretty up-to-date DD/LC techs so it should be a pretty easy way to assuage some of the drain on your leadership if you can manage to secure a sufficient number of these production licenses and make some good ones earlier than normal.

From there, you have to sort out what sort of an army you're going to build. I'd opt for an elite force of infantry - a few MTN divisions some MAR divisions, PARA, and a few vanilla infantry to back them up. Because of your leadership situation, if you're going to build tanks or mot/cav/mech troops I would buy production licenses for such things rather than bother to research them - because you're simply not going to be able to make a tank that's comparable to the tanks fielded by majors without massively sacrificing either your industrial techs or your naval techs (which are somewhat essential, since without the naval techs you can't safely transport the troops you'll spend your IC on).

Depending on your ambitions for Canada, you can also try to get a bigger army through production licenses and tech stealing (from France and UK). For your Air Force, you're basically only going to have enough to research one kind of craft - I'd pry go with INT just for their general purpose nature (I mean you can actually bomb with them too - just won't be doing tons of damage). If you can manage to secure the money, you could buy production licenses for the planes and get pretty decent ones (you'll have to sell a lot of supplies and fuel) until your theories (particularly combat experience) get a little higher, to make it economically viable.


I'd still build IC as Canada for a bit regardless. You'll have to wait on the tech - so just build air bases until it finishes. Building even a simple DD only fleet will absorb a lot of your IC for quite some time.


Once you've got Canada ready for war, if you join the allies I'd send everything I had to France. The French AI will still likely lose the war no matter what sort of help you'll give them, but you'll be able to sex up some of your generals with more desirable traits, get some EXP on your divisions, and get that all important land combat experience, and maybe work in a little convoy raiding (with the home fleet nearby you should be pretty OK). IRL the Canadians actually made a landing into France *after* they had surrendered, because apparently somebody had forgot to inform them of France's surrender, so they accidentally landed in France and successfully liberated 1 small coastal town before being informed of the situation and quickly departing. If you want to really lame it up, you could also race to Europe and get yourself mixed up in some fights for easy EXP. A few Maginot crossings

Make sure you can get whatever troops you have in France *out* of France again if they fall on their own sword.

Once you've dealt with the battle for France, likely losing, but hey, maybe things can work out. Africa would be your next likely target. Particularly Somalia and Ethiopia. With the right kinds of elite infantry, or maybe even PARAs these should go down *very* quickly, and the red sea fleet of Italy shouldn't be able to contest you no matter what sort of a rust-bucket fleet you've built lol.

Now Canada has some real punching power An Imperial power!

After that you can likely focus on Africa for a good long while - get yourself Libya, maybe Vichy Africa, Syria, etc. You could also mess around in Norway (MTN troops) to get some more elite divisions and generals, and distract Germany.

Also Persia may go Axis (particularly if Italy goes ham in Africa) which opens up the possibility to puppet them...

Then you'll be all set to invade Italy Italy makes the best landing choice for Canada because you'll never have many divisions, *but* with an elite and experienced force of MTN brigades, and marines for your flanks + stock infantry + maybe PARAs (you could use your new bases in Libya) you'd be able to get quite the foothold in Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily. Maybe even Crete. Even if the USSR completely screws the pooch and loses, you should be able to hold out here for a pretty long while. The Italian navy is formidable, but you have the British fleet to help you in most cases so it shouldn't be too worrisome, plus the majority of the AI Axis' forces will be in the USSR, so resistance may end up being fairly light!

Once you've set up the West to your satisfaction - it'll be time to go to Asia.

See all those Yellow colored Islands? Time to paint them RED! The Japanese fleet is formidable, so you may want to wait until you see lots of US fleets scurrying around the pacific before you make your move unless you've managed to construct a glorious battle fleet. Then just Island hop your way for imperial glory, until you get in range of the biggest yellow colored Islands. Namely Taiwan, Hokkaido, Toyohara, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Force concentrations on these islands should be fairly low (most of Japan's army is typically locked up in mainland Asia, various islands, and sometimes Australia by this point). Also it's incredibly hard to cross the straits, so you should be able to get in and lock down the islands before the more substantial forces on the big island can respond. Then you just bide your time until you can get 15-20 divisions to to mainland Japan, and then you truly are a world power .


Depending on if you'd like to be really ahistorical and gamey, you could also look at knocking over a few Caribbean nations (once the US goes Allies), Portugal, Persia, Siam, and basically any other smallerish nations with a coast line. If the USSR doesn't collapse you may also be able to sneak attack Bulgaria and *maybe* Romania if you were EXTREMELY lucky once the Axis starts to collapse - ensuring Canadian sponsored "Democracy" in the Balkans.

 

[kunadam]

Thank you!

The DD+CL navy seems doable. Having a navy + infantry already requires licenses, as I need to research doctrines at least. But indeed, why not try some small, but elite army?

But first I will try the TAC+Int strategy, as I already have a save game with that setup. Just rip some divisions here and there.

 

[21oliver]

Check out my signature link for a recent Canada set-up...

 

[marxianTJ]

Having tested my theories just now. A small elite army is very doable.

We hung out in France for the sitting party, and once the French front got a little chaotic we "slipped out" in the night and transported ourselves to British East Africa. Djibouti would've been handier - but I couldn't take the risk that it'd go Vichy on me and muddle my supply lines.

I had several divisions of Marines, Mountaineers, and a few Infantry divisions, built with Specialist Training + 140% officer ratio (as elite as it gets). 1 CA + 4 DD + 3 TP fleet, and another 4 DD/4TP fleet (it's CA was in production) stationed in East Africa (my entire military). When Italy declared war on France, we quickly invaded, by sea, Eritrea and Somalia, careful to avoid allied territory so as not to give up our spoils. Then, using a licensed transport plane we landed Air Borne troops in Addis Aba, turning Ethiopia into our puppet (eat that Mussolini) (mountain troops from East Africa also moved in quickly).

With East Africa now firmly under Canadian Control, the Canadian military pulled out for Libya, We were easily able to secure *every* Italian port by way of marine and MTN based naval invasions - the CA's ate some damage, but no ships were ever lost thanks to the Royal Navy interceding on our behalf several times.

Having secured the entirety of Northern Libya, we moved to Sardinia in 1941. Using 2 separate Para drops, and simultaneous naval invasions of both ports we were able to remove all the Italians from Sardinia.

From there, after a nice hiking trip and wine tasting session in Sardinia, we moved to capture those two little Italian Islands by Turkey - the invasions were simple matters because the Italians didn't even bother garrisoning them!

Now I have to decide what sort of silliness to do next, or if I should wait a year or so to build more troops for operation conquer Sicily. I'm building some really crappy GAR divisions to send down to Libya and East Africa to guard against attempts at invasion to free up my forces for more invasions


Here was my research progression:

Education, Industrial Efficiency, Industrial Production, Agriculture, Supply Production, Radios.

1 Pt constantly going into Infantry of some sort (small arms etc).

2 Pts constantly going into destroyers (after the initial industry techs were up to speed)

1 Pt constantly going into CAs

4 Pts in Land Doctrines
And my last point in Destroyer Doctrines (the CAs are just there for shore bombardment and bullet shielding). The land doctrines I chose were pretty straight forward: Mass Assault, Infantry warfare (essential for vanilla infantry), Special Forces, and Integrated Support Doctrine (same techs but for special forces). Then, whenever one doctrine was ahead, I'd throw some research into Operational Level whatever it is in human wave that decreases your attack delay lol. It was more than sufficient to outclass every Italian force we've had to deal with (except this one time when German tanks showed up - that was unpleasant - but everybody got out! lol We just ran off right back into our boats and forgot about the whole incident).

 

[SirArthur]

I truly and honestly do not understand the thread starter. Why would you build aircraft carriers as Canada in the first place ? Reminds me of a guy I once knew, who thought EU3 was terrible, because in his first game, he selected Granada, got kicked by Castille hard and then complained all day.

 

[marxianTJ]

It doesn't hurt to dream! lol.

 

[Kovax]

Personally, I'd go with either DD or CL, not both. They require different doctrines and use different techs, but share a lot of the same functions, strengths, and weaknesses. Either I'd go mainly for DD and assist the UK with sub-hunting in the Atlantic, or go with CL for greater range and staying power and use them in the Med versus Italy. Adding CA, BC, or even BB as a secondary ship type in place of the other escort type (note that DD and BB share a doctrine tree, and CL and CA share Practicals) might give you a lot more flexibility in the long haul, if that's not spreading your research budget too thin.

TAC without clear air superiority is a problem. You need INT or FTR first, then you can safely run TAC, NAV, or CAS. Being a level or two behind in bomber techs isn't the end of the world (Ground Attack doctrine in the CAS tree and Medium Bomb tech is all you need to keep them effective versus ground targets), as long as your fighters and pilot training doctrines for them are fairly up to date and can keep enemy planes from hitting your bombers. You can use FTR or even INT as bombers to a reasonable degree, but TAC or CAS do not work at all in an air combat role.

In essence, you can do for the Allies with Canada what you can do for the Axis with Hungary: pick ONE specialty field, along with basic infantry, and become competitive in those, then push them to their fullest extent to support the major countries in your alliance. Diversifying too much will leave you mediocre at everything, rather than good at one thing and contributing effectively.

 

[SirArthur]

It doesn't hurt to dream! lol.

True. As in all Paradox games, you can do crazy things, if you know what you are doing. But I don't think canada can pull the carrier thing. It would require a lot of leadership for all those CAGs, CLs, doctrines and so on. Also some leadership in any ground tech would be very useful.

Unless you can conquer the US on some magic way (or to an extend all nations on the nothern continent with sufficient leadership) , there is not much Canada can do about leadership. Some crazy move could be garantueeing National China and then stay neutral in the war or send some troops for help. Japan usually has too much troops in China, conquering the island could be possible in 1938. That would solve some manpower issues, but not the leadership problem. And it would not end the war with Japan, unless you puppet them. Then there would be ressources, but again no manpower and no leadership. Also licencing from Jap might help.

 

[SirArthur]

Personally, I'd go with either DD or CL, not both.

I thought about the CL + CA for Canada. Poor mans navy for sure. But I`m not sure if this it, what he had in mind. Probably the most fun step as Canada would be building a paratrooper army. High manpower per unit, infantry research, high IC. But the potential is just awesome.

 

[21oliver]

I thought about the CL + CA for Canada.

Thats what I just did in the tutorial in my signature. I researched CA's and PL'd CL's...same practical so you can begin cranking them out eventually.

 

[kunadam]

I truly and honestly do not understand the thread starter. Why would you build aircraft carriers as Canada in the first place ? Reminds me of a guy I once knew, who thought EU3 was terrible, because in his first game, he selected Granada, got kicked by Castille hard and then complained all day.

As marxianTJ said I dreamed. Sounded a good idea. But then it did not turned out as expected.
And in the OP I already said that it was not a good idea.

 

[kunadam]

Here was my research progression:

Education, Industrial Efficiency, Industrial Production, Agriculture, Supply Production, Radios.

1 Pt constantly going into Infantry of some sort (small arms etc).

2 Pts constantly going into destroyers (after the initial industry techs were up to speed)

1 Pt constantly going into CAs

4 Pts in Land Doctrines
And my last point in Destroyer Doctrines

If I add them up these are way more than 8. Industry easily requires constantly 2 slots, but even with only 1, this is 10 Leadeership. Canada only have 8.
Does some conquering in East Africa give that much more?

 

[SirArthur]

Oversea won't give you leadership. For a good leadership gain, you need provinces with leadership on the same continent and with a land connection to your capital.

So UK is stuck with its leadership for good, SU can reach leadership over 70.

 

[kunadam]

So Canada is stuck with its 8 or so leadership.

 

[marxianTJ]

You can get more as you conquer the choice bits of Africa

You'll also get your industry stuff up to date - we're not trying to research ahead here lol. It's not terribly challenging as long as you can work your leadership tech. Some stuff will be slightly behind, and if anything letting the ships get out of date isn't a terrible loss - once you've got enough ships to block for your transports, it's NBD how marginally better they are. I left my heavy cruisers at 1936 - haven't lost any yet, and haven't had to abort a landing.

You can get to ~11 leadership if you get the choice bits of Africa.

I also successfully managed to capture *all* of Vichy France's ports, and resource bearing provinces (I let the UK have the rest!) Syria, Corsica, and Sicily. So, world power? lol

Unfortunately, contrary to most games where Italy is lightly garrisoned (relative to other places), it seems taking sciliy has drawn a *lot* of attention from the AI, so there are oodles of divisions hanging out in Italy, so my plan to take Southern Italy doesn't look to be viable. Oh well, I still got way more than I thought possible lol. I also sent 1 extra division of marines to help Norway (by making sure the German invaders didn't have any ports HEH!).


My force composition is roughly:

2, 2xGAR divisions
4. 3xMTN divisions
4. 3xMAR divisions
5-9, 3xINF divisions
3. 3xPARA divisions

Air force: 1 wing of interceptors, 2 Transport planes (ran out of money didn't wanna buy a third!)

Navy: 10 Destroyers (including that first one you get), 8 Transports, 2 1936 level CA's, and 1 landing craft.

I'm *really* low on MP, so I'm just building tons of convoys and escorts for the time being, and some IC since I have nothing else to invest in lol.

 

[SirArthur]

So Canada is stuck with its 8 or so leadership.

In my opinion yes, however marxian seems to have another opinion on the topic. Of course I never tried it and I never got any significant leadership from oversea provinces as another nation so I just checked my files. And I would really like an explaination, because

overseas = {
    local_manpower_modifier = -0.75        #75% penalty on manpower.
    local_leadership_modifier = -0.9    #75% on leadership.
}

non_core = {
    local_manpower_modifier = -0.75
    local_leadership_modifier = -0.80
    local_ic = -0.50
    local_resources = -0.5
}

seems pretty final for me. I guess his leadership is from tech, leaders and so on.

 

[marxianTJ]

Yeah you get a Conservative minister that grants +5%, consistently teching education can net a *decent* increase (I always feel so conflicted researching it at first since the increase is only marginal, but hey leadership is leadership).
I should also note that I've not actually annexed anything - excepting Ethiopia (which is a puppet - since I don't have the force to actually occupy large tracts of land). Collaboration government gives me 30% of the available leadership, and a smidgen of the MP in these occupied territories - which is all I really want lol.
We'll see what the game decides to do with Vichy France once it finally fully collapses - if it hands it back to France I'll be nerfed by quite a bit since I have every resource bearing province in Western Africa - of which there are several lol.

 

[Kovax]

In my opinion yes, however marxian seems to have another opinion on the topic. Of course I never tried it and I never got any significant leadership from oversea provinces as another nation so I just checked my files. And I would really like an explaination, because

overseas = {
    local_manpower_modifier = -0.75        #75% penalty on manpower.
    local_leadership_modifier = -0.9    #75% on leadership.
}

non_core = {
    local_manpower_modifier = -0.75
    local_leadership_modifier = -0.80
    local_ic = -0.50
    local_resources = -0.5
}

seems pretty final for me. I guess his leadership is from tech, leaders and so on.

It looks to me like the overseas penalty leaves you with only 10% of any captured leadership (although the comment, probably unchanged from its original value before the expansions, implies 25%), and then the non-core penalty leaves you with 20% of that remaining 10%, which comes out to a huge 2% of whatever Leadership you manage to capture. That means, if you manage to annex either GER or the UK with their 30-ish Leadership, you'd only get to use 0.6 of it.