Switzerland goes Nazi, 1936 (1.1)

[seattle]

Difficulty: normal
Version: 1.1
Start: 1936
Country: Switzerland

Goal: Align with the Axis and try to tip the scale into their favour.

1936
Diplomacy: constantly aligning towards axis (refreshing the mission every 90 days)
Production: 2x mountaineers (consisting of 2 mountain, 1 arty)
Research: Industrial, infantry and anti-aircraft techs
Intel: Focus on domestic spies, lower neutrality (to be able to eventually join the axis)

1937
Production: anti-aircraft (cause I expect to get battered by allied bombers sooner or later)
Rest pretty much the same. Increased effort in diplomacy (the more dipl. influence you have, the higher the effect of the actions).

1938
Researching interceptors.
My neutrality is 79. To join the axis I need 9 more points deducted (difference between highest threat and neutrality).
I'm pretty much where I want to be. I'm guarding the French border and not knowing when the war will start doesn't bother me at all.
I'm not planning to join right away. Once Germany marches into Poland I will mobilze my army (consisting of reserve units only).

Once they show an effort to invade France I will try to join the Axis and do my part. By then I should have sufficient air defences.
I plan on buying the production license for a couple of interceptors from Germany once I'm allied with them.

It's October 1938 now. Poland is already allied with Britain, Italy with Germany. Austria and Bohemia are annexed.

-----------------------------

Couple of observations:
On my way towards running out of coal, the a.i. wouldn't stop converting coal into fuel. No fuel was even consumed.
I couldn't trade for coal with any country but the Netherlands (only for 1.0 energy). I had no influence over the coal shortage. Pretty frustrating.
Even worse:
Once I had run out of coal, nothing happened. I lost no IC! -10 coal each day and no drawback. Serious bug.

Will keep you updated...

 

[seattle]

1939
January

Italy annexed Albania, Germany annexed Memel. Molotow-Ribbentrop pact signed. Now it can happen any moment!

Another bug:
I wanted to grant Germany transit rights -> impossible
Then I tried to get transit rights from Germany -> very likely
WTF????
They accepted. Why would they reject the right to march through my country? Especially because it would enable them to outflank France...
Why would they let my troops march through Germany then????

Did some lazy Swede mix those two options up?

Another design flaw:
Switzerland's counters are way too dark. I can barely see the amount of crosses on HQs.

 

[Akaki]

About those transit right - maybe it's like in HoI2 - if the Germans have mil. acces to a coutry, they can't DOW them, and it's AI which is probably rather silly and wouldn't cancel it. So "impossible" is to avoid gamey player defence from german DOW?

 

[seattle]

I hope that's not true. I'd much rather have it be a simple mix-up. Even if WAD, why would Germany let me march through their country, we were not that close...

1939
May 5th

Germany invades Poland. Now I don't have to worry about my neutrality anymore, that seems to be low enough. Only obstacle remaining: I'm still not close enough to the Axis.
I need to be no more than 50 points away, currently I'm at 144 (compared with about 260 towards the allies). I'm stepping an average of 6.5 points each day towards the Axis. Should be right on time for the invasion of France. That'll be a walk in the park.

Production switched to infantry, to support a future Barbarossa where they'll really need my help.


Update:
June, the sh*t has finally hit the fan

On June 2nd Germany had crushed Poland. Finland joined the Allies, just to be embargoed by Germany and Italy (not at war with Finland). Should be interesting if Russia decides to invade Finland! Out of nowhere, Britain embargoed me. Maybe I got to close to the Axis. Pretty f***ing cool, I say!

 

[stnylan]

Interesting choice to go Axis with

 

[Myth]

This looks pretty interesting. An early invasion of Poland, any Allied response to that? This will be an interesting stress test of the diplomacy system, given how Switzerland always remains neutral and all.

 

[seattle]

I offered an alliance to Germany which was rejected soundly (impossible). Can't join the Axis yet. I'm even drifting away from them for now due to the high threat they pose (-7.7 points each day). Oh boy, that'll be tough.

Allied reaction... well, let's see...

Italy is getting starched in Northern Africa from both sides. However:
Italy is going Julius Caesar, straight up Donkey Konging the Gauls. Look at this picture:

Eat that, froghumpers!

 

[seattle]

1939
August

Italy continues to pistolwhip France, however suffering from a counter offensive which gives France some time to breathe. Is the tide going to turn?

I'm sitting right in the yellow spot I marked on the map. See the province on the bottom left. Unfortunately nobody told Paradox that Brilon has the highest percentage of forest in all of Germany. In HoI3 it's plains...

 

[Pwn*Star]

Awesome move from the Italians I guess you could say that the french AI never saw that coming

 

[MastahCheef117]

This just really made me want to get HoI3 today at my neighborly Wal Mart

 

[seattle]

1939
October

Australia, Finland Sweden and Norway have already joined the Allies.
Northern Africa is under total Allied control. France pushed Italy back quite a bit. Grim times ahead for the Axis?
Not so fast, the German Empire strikes back:

By frontal attacking the Maginot, the weakened French defences are caught by surprise. A pocket in Colmar is quickly destroyed.
Simultaneously the Kriegsmarine executes the invasion of Finland.

 

[Myth]

My goodness, the Axis AI is pretty active.

 

[Nikolai]

If that is usual Italian behaviour(I saw it in the demo too), some tweaking probably are in order. Finland in the Allied camp? Weird. Norway joining in is not surprising, we were drifing towards joining the Allied side at the time of the historical German DoW.

 

[unmerged(83496)]

Italy must have shattered some reserve divisions which hadn't built up their strength yet. I wonder how long the low countries can stay aloof from the war...

 

[seattle]

1940
January

France just got Vichyed, Italy lost all the conquered territory. They are twice f*cked because they also lost Northern Africa and Sardinia. All the bravery for nothing. All quiet on the western front.
Germany annexed and then puppeted Finland, wise decision.

Battleground Finland has opened. Due to the German failure to first secure Denmark, Allied troops swarm in.
Britain takes a small island west of Finland, Australia (!) lands near Helsinki and Sweden invades from the nort-west.

Switzerland is meanwhile stuck a good distance away from joining the Axis. Will keep trying though.

 

[MastahCheef117]

Keep going!

So is this like an ongoing AAR, you take pictures and post as you go along? So it's like updates all day? W00T!

 

[Txini]

Is Germany the one invading Sweden I suppose, but I'm not sure puppeting Finland with front open was clever by the AI, they'll need to create an army to be able to defend from invaders like Australia

 

[seattle]

@Mastah
I plan on updating it while I play. Woot, woot!
@Txini
Nope, Sweden invading Finland

1940
May

Finland was reconquered (note: not liberated) by the Allies, being Sweden and Australia! Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!
Italy DoW'ed Greece, only to be blitzed out of Albania.
Romania was castrated by Hungary, Russia and Bulgaria via event.

My ongoing efforts to join my long lost brother, Albert Hiller:

 

[Txini]

See Finland is now governed from Berlin, at least they are leaded by Fines in Exile, also see Nationalist Spain won the Civil War, how it was? Long War, Short War...

 

[Nikolai]

Italy lost all their conquered land in France? You mean PI didn't fix such an important flaw in the HoI series so far?