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How about this: should Italy keep their fleet in the med, or move some to the Atlantic to threaten the UK?
Italy can do well with a good German player. A good German/Italian team can be very fun.
Unless Italy sails it's fleet to Germany before war breaks out it won't be able to sail past Gibraltar (and it's painful to sail around africa (lose about 25 strength points)).
If Italy can secure Suez they are fairly safe and they can really help Germany tie down France.
But the Italian player really needs to be a team player as they will rarely gain much for good territory.
- Mithel
Unless Italy sails it's fleet to Germany before war breaks out it won't be able to sail past Gibraltar (and it's painful to sail around africa (lose about 25 strength points)).
If Italy can secure Suez they are fairly safe and they can really help Germany tie down France.
But the Italian player really needs to be a team player as they will rarely gain much for good territory.
- Mithel
As italy, you start with already a decent number of divisions. Problem is tech and IC.
So, in 1st 2 years (all 36 and 37) concentrate on reserach and conquer yugo and greece alone and develope IC ONLY in countries which are low in IC. Don't build any unit. Conquering yugo and greece will increase WE only of 5-6% (tested by myself). And try to reserach better ratio oil/coal otherwise you may find yourself low on resources once your industry is bigger.
Conquer Ethiopia but don't annex it so you keep having the low CG.
This would bring you in 'january '38 with a decent reseacrh for infantry and some IC.
From this on, slower research and increase build and add units.
1) Don't join Axis untill you are ready to join war (which is around '39 for Italy IMO). In most MP games i saw, Italy is screwed cause they join Axis too fast and when Germany enters war Italy isn't ready.
Italy's best advantage is that they can choose when entering the war (unless you decide to attack turkey). So at first go only on research since none can DOW you, no matter how weak you can be. Ad plan your enter in war when you're ready.
2) Your main front is, at start, Africa. Ask help to germany or Japan if needed, But conquer North Afrika. This is quite easy cause UK alone can't defend expecially if Germany borrows you some tanks. Conquer Africa (and suez) and mediteraean sea becomes your lake.
3) Do NOT try to conquer Malta: it's useless and you would lose too much manpower in the attempt
4) Do NOT attack Gibraltar unless UK players leave it undefended or with only one unit. Even with 1 unit it will be an hard match and do only if you have Spain under control and Germany providing you units.
The advantage to take Gbraltar is that basically, you can move all your units elsewhere since med is yours.
However, i think it's simply not worth. Even when Gibraltar is yours, nothing stops USA to land in ethiopia and take back suez which is hard to defend to US tanks.
5) Leave Ethiopia on his own. Leave there only militia. If you are fast enough to conquer north africa you may keep ethiopia. But Ethiopia is worthless.
6) Avoid direct battle against UK fleet, expecially if they have uberstack or many units in same sea spots. Your fleet must be used as deterrent and unload troops in mediterranean. Attack only when UK player moves small fleets. Move your fleet always all together.
7) Defend all beaches of italy with infantry, 2-4 each. And build few mech or light tanks to keep as reserve. Reember that UK player can land in Rome even if they have lost afrika.
If you do this, and german player helps you a bit, you should have north afrika secured and a decent army. From now on, my opinion is that Italy has just to help German player as he wants.
The best would be if Italy keeps defence of france and balkans letting all better german divisions to concentrate on SU.
Conquering Turkey is also good for IC, however do that only once afrika is secured and WE already at 100%. Otherwise to get 15 IC you give 80/100 IC to your enemies for lower CG.
So, in 1st 2 years (all 36 and 37) concentrate on reserach and conquer yugo and greece alone and develope IC ONLY in countries which are low in IC. Don't build any unit. Conquering yugo and greece will increase WE only of 5-6% (tested by myself). And try to reserach better ratio oil/coal otherwise you may find yourself low on resources once your industry is bigger.
Conquer Ethiopia but don't annex it so you keep having the low CG.
This would bring you in 'january '38 with a decent reseacrh for infantry and some IC.
From this on, slower research and increase build and add units.
1) Don't join Axis untill you are ready to join war (which is around '39 for Italy IMO). In most MP games i saw, Italy is screwed cause they join Axis too fast and when Germany enters war Italy isn't ready.
Italy's best advantage is that they can choose when entering the war (unless you decide to attack turkey). So at first go only on research since none can DOW you, no matter how weak you can be. Ad plan your enter in war when you're ready.
2) Your main front is, at start, Africa. Ask help to germany or Japan if needed, But conquer North Afrika. This is quite easy cause UK alone can't defend expecially if Germany borrows you some tanks. Conquer Africa (and suez) and mediteraean sea becomes your lake.
3) Do NOT try to conquer Malta: it's useless and you would lose too much manpower in the attempt
4) Do NOT attack Gibraltar unless UK players leave it undefended or with only one unit. Even with 1 unit it will be an hard match and do only if you have Spain under control and Germany providing you units.
The advantage to take Gbraltar is that basically, you can move all your units elsewhere since med is yours.
However, i think it's simply not worth. Even when Gibraltar is yours, nothing stops USA to land in ethiopia and take back suez which is hard to defend to US tanks.
5) Leave Ethiopia on his own. Leave there only militia. If you are fast enough to conquer north africa you may keep ethiopia. But Ethiopia is worthless.
6) Avoid direct battle against UK fleet, expecially if they have uberstack or many units in same sea spots. Your fleet must be used as deterrent and unload troops in mediterranean. Attack only when UK player moves small fleets. Move your fleet always all together.
7) Defend all beaches of italy with infantry, 2-4 each. And build few mech or light tanks to keep as reserve. Reember that UK player can land in Rome even if they have lost afrika.
If you do this, and german player helps you a bit, you should have north afrika secured and a decent army. From now on, my opinion is that Italy has just to help German player as he wants.
The best would be if Italy keeps defence of france and balkans letting all better german divisions to concentrate on SU.
Conquering Turkey is also good for IC, however do that only once afrika is secured and WE already at 100%. Otherwise to get 15 IC you give 80/100 IC to your enemies for lower CG.
Italy should take Albania immediately. The way the game is set there is no army to defend Albania so it's trivial to just land and take it and the resources are HUGE (for Italy).
I'd encourage taking Malta if you can, it is fairly easy if you can "starve" him out (cut off the brit convoys), then you can deny the allies any decent bases in the Med to use aircraft from.
- Mithel
I'd encourage taking Malta if you can, it is fairly easy if you can "starve" him out (cut off the brit convoys), then you can deny the allies any decent bases in the Med to use aircraft from.
- Mithel
Well, resources in MP aren't an issue since Japan usually can help Italy with some and also, trading can make you fine till you resreach better plants.
If you declare war to albany, you get 4% dissent which is around -6 IC for you. ALso, you rise WE of US of about 2-3% this means USA gets 20 new IC. So IMO it's not worth for the IC of albany. Better go on yugoslavia then, better resources and IC for the same price.
Taking Malta would be nice but how? I never managed to cut malta out of supply. And it risks to be very expensive in terms of manpower. And if you take Malta, UK can still invade everything in med from gibraltar without any problem. So what's the advantage?
Resources for Italy are serious if you don't have a human Japan player (or is non-cooperative or you don't take Suez). But yes, if Germany shares the industry techs (conversion) then resources become far less of a problem.
The dissent you gain from declarations of war seems poorly documented (i.e. later on it seems you only gain zero or 1% dissent for each DoW). Perhaps it depends on the government type of the nation you DoW against?
That's an excellent point about keeping the USA war entry down. But as Italy I'd sure hate to give up the resources of Albania. And what do you do about the event to take Albania in 1939? If I'm not mistaken if you don't take it then your dissent will go up anyway. Hence, might as well take the hit in 1936.
- Mithel
The dissent you gain from declarations of war seems poorly documented (i.e. later on it seems you only gain zero or 1% dissent for each DoW). Perhaps it depends on the government type of the nation you DoW against?
That's an excellent point about keeping the USA war entry down. But as Italy I'd sure hate to give up the resources of Albania. And what do you do about the event to take Albania in 1939? If I'm not mistaken if you don't take it then your dissent will go up anyway. Hence, might as well take the hit in 1936.
- Mithel
Even with a human Japan your resources are shit.
Usually you can run at full steam until Jul/Aug 36, but the last months are a 80 IC drag if you dont grab Yug/Gre/Alb/Bul.
Usually you can run at full steam until Jul/Aug 36, but the last months are a 80 IC drag if you dont grab Yug/Gre/Alb/Bul.
Well, in MP just with some rubber and oil from Japan you are fine. Surely you must reserach plants for better oil/coal ratio for the war.
Without Japan, i tested several times in SP and with trading you can still fill all your IC till war happens. For that time, you must have better plants reseached.
For dissent, i think you get 4% till don't join axis, then you get 1 % but not sure.
In the '39 there's the event but if you "press zorg for annexation" and he accepts, you get albany for free without dissent (and i think their IC are counted as national ones).
In the game, i think we should look the overall picture: if to get 10 more ic you give US 40 new ones, you are weakining yourself instead of enforcing, cause your enemy is getting stronger than you. That's why IMO it's not worth going on albany (but is worth to get greece and yugo).
I just played USA tonight in MP, and my WE did not go up at all even though Italy took Albania and Yugoslavia.
SP strategies.
In SP you don't have human players drying up the world oil/rubber markets.
You can't also possible hope to compete with Germany's capacity to trade coal.
Italy actually doesn't change warentry a lot for the allies unless they are axis and/or go and grab democratic countries like Turkey.
Originally posted by Riso
SP strategies.
In SP you don't have human players drying up the world oil/rubber markets.
You can't also possible hope to compete with Germany's capacity to trade coal.
Italy actually doesn't change warentry a lot for the allies unless they are axis and/or go and grab democratic countries like Turkey.
I play only MP, testing only tactics in SP. In MP you usually find Japan helping, at least in a conventional game (axis vs allies).
So let's say that taking albany is worth only if Japan doesn't help and world trade flooded by other human.
That's strange. I tested 2 times in SP, and WE rised for the attack of yugo and for the attack of albany.
Unless Big has started another game yesterday, it might have been SU dowing Finland thereby lowering his precious WE.
Well, I havent had Japan sending me 700coal/day yet.
Well, I havent had Japan sending me 700coal/day yet.
Well, surely you don't ask coal to Japan
Some Oil or rubber, together with some you can get from world market can make Italy live quiet and prosperous till better plants are researched.
US/UK players usually dry up the markets for oil and rubber.
You show me trading with Italy's limited resources without conquest.
Btw, Japan can send 350 spare coal a day, but I assure you that a 16:1 conversion stinks, Japan would have a resource problem as well, and it isnt close to what I need.
You show me trading with Italy's limited resources without conquest.
Btw, Japan can send 350 spare coal a day, but I assure you that a 16:1 conversion stinks, Japan would have a resource problem as well, and it isnt close to what I need.
If you ally with Germany and attack (anyone) WE goes up. If you attack democracies. WE goes up. Attack a non-democracy as a neutral (which Italy is) - no WE
btw - are you guys attacking New York or something? Albany? The name of the country is Albania.
Iraq... mmmmm....
When I was Italy, I amphibiously landed in Persia and took it all over. Whats to gain, you ask? A vantage point from which to attack Iraq when war with the allies begins. Iraq's oil helped me as Italy immensely, the only downside to this is the Soviet Union on the borders of Persia. Thankfully, the SU player was so occupied with Germany that he ignored me. An alternate attack on Iraq is taking over the French area south of Turkey, with Damascus and all. This is a poorer area to assault Iraq with, though, for you have to have a long march through a low infrastructure province or two before you get to the main Iraqi targets. The upside is that you don't have to worry about the Soviets on your border.
When I was Italy, I amphibiously landed in Persia and took it all over. Whats to gain, you ask? A vantage point from which to attack Iraq when war with the allies begins. Iraq's oil helped me as Italy immensely, the only downside to this is the Soviet Union on the borders of Persia. Thankfully, the SU player was so occupied with Germany that he ignored me. An alternate attack on Iraq is taking over the French area south of Turkey, with Damascus and all. This is a poorer area to assault Iraq with, though, for you have to have a long march through a low infrastructure province or two before you get to the main Iraqi targets. The upside is that you don't have to worry about the Soviets on your border.