Italy Strategy - Help please

[Superfl0yd]

Hi All,

Sorry for the long question. I'm still pretty new to the game and learning, and still not very good, and lots I don't understand, so any help is always appreciated. I love them game so much and really want to get better!

I'm playing as Italy and have read up on the best strategies to use. Virtually everything I read says to declare war on Yugoslavia and Greece at the same time. This makes sense to me and seems like a very sound plan, since I would like to go to war and conquer these countries before they get garantees from everyone. I finish the National Focus: Claims on Yugoslavia and then immediately start the justify war goal on them (and also immediately start the Albanian Occupation focus). The justify war goal will take 130 days. Then, as I read, I justify at the same time a war goal with Greece. This will take 335 days. How can I possibly declare war on both at the same time if there is such a big time difference between the two justifications? Do I wait until the justify on Greece finishes before declaring on Yugoslavia, so that I can do them at the same time? Won't France, and U.K and everyone just pile on top of me by that time if I wait so long to go to war? This has already happened to me on a previous playthrough when I attacked Greece. That time, I didn't use the same strategy of wanting to declare on both at the same. I had taken Yugoslavia, and next I declared on Greece, and everyone just wrecked me. However, I feel like the same thing would happen here if I have to wait so long to go to war and fight with both?

Am I missing something? Any help will be HUGELY appreciated!

Thanks!

[T-Bone Biggins]

First thing I do as Italy is research paratroopers along with the other basics, but key part is paratroopers and support weapons. While waiting on research try to get ~10 transport planes built with your factories. As soon as possible you change your mountaineers into paratrooper divisions, this is faster than disbanding and training fresh paratroopers. Make the template so you can have 10 divisions, be aware there is a special forces limit so in order to have that many divisions they will only have a few. As soon as possible you paradrop all 10 divisions around various cities in France that don't have any troops around them. Paris will usually have a few so pick stuff like Orleans, the port towns west of the Italy-France border, the various cities worth 5-15 capture points scattered everywhere.

This is easy especially if you put all your normal infantry divisions on the French border, they will pile their army mostly on that border so you can paradrop in from the rear. You might need to try this without ironman mode a few times so you can get a feel for the game and figure which spots will have no troops. After doing it twice it comes naturally to you, and you can instantly take over all of France and it's various overseas holdings. There will likely be an exiled French government in a few places. Your next step is to do the same exact thing to the UK, but with a twist. You need ground forces to take UK as early as possible so use strategic movement to quickly redeploy planes and troops to that north-east port and airbase. The plan here is to use your fighters to make a window to drop paratroopers, but this time focus all of them on the SE ports that are empty in the UK. Then use your navy to provide cover in that narrow strip of water to the SE ports your paratroopers your troops took and simply transport them across the sea. Do not do a naval invasion because those can take months to "plan" and you can't spare that time to wait, you need to immediately attack UK before it gets stronger.

At this point the "allies" will form and declare war, you will have enough time to take UK without an interference from them. Remember between all this you have to do the whole political war declarations and timing those, etc. The problem comes after you take the UK. Sometimes that is it, you have everything France and UK had across the world. Other times one or both stay in exile. At that point I had to take over Canada to destroy the UK in exile, but since you have French and UK factories and resources you have all the oil rubber etc. you would ever need and enough factories to make an army larger than German or the US. Just by owning that land you will be in good shape. I would suggest against fighting across central and southern africa for the various off-shoot and exiled pieces of land, the terrain is rough jungle that favors supremely weaker and smaller forces to the point of stalling you out completely.

[Superfl0yd]

Originally posted by T-Bone Biggins:

First thing I do as Italy is research paratroopers along with the other basics, but key part is paratroopers and support weapons. While waiting on research try to get ~10 transport planes built with your factories. As soon as possible you change your mountaineers into paratrooper divisions, this is faster than disbanding and training fresh paratroopers. Make the template so you can have 10 divisions, be aware there is a special forces limit so in order to have that many divisions they will only have a few. As soon as possible you paradrop all 10 divisions around various cities in France that don't have any troops around them. Paris will usually have a few so pick stuff like Orleans, the port towns west of the Italy-France border, the various cities worth 5-15 capture points scattered everywhere.

This is easy especially if you put all your normal infantry divisions on the French border, they will pile their army mostly on that border so you can paradrop in from the rear. You might need to try this without ironman mode a few times so you can get a feel for the game and figure which spots will have no troops. After doing it twice it comes naturally to you, and you can instantly take over all of France and it's various overseas holdings. There will likely be an exiled French government in a few places. Your next step is to do the same exact thing to the UK, but with a twist. You need ground forces to take UK as early as possible so use strategic movement to quickly redeploy planes and troops to that north-east port and airbase. The plan here is to use your fighters to make a window to drop paratroopers, but this time focus all of them on the SE ports that are empty in the UK. Then use your navy to provide cover in that narrow strip of water to the SE ports your paratroopers your troops took and simply transport them across the sea. Do not do a naval invasion because those can take months to "plan" and you can't spare that time to wait, you need to immediately attack UK before it gets stronger.

At this point the "allies" will form and declare war, you will have enough time to take UK without an interference from them. Remember between all this you have to do the whole political war declarations and timing those, etc. The problem comes after you take the UK. Sometimes that is it, you have everything France and UK had across the world. Other times one or both stay in exile. At that point I had to take over Canada to destroy the UK in exile, but since you have French and UK factories and resources you have all the oil rubber etc. you would ever need and enough factories to make an army larger than German or the US. Just by owning that land you will be in good shape. I would suggest against fighting across central and southern africa for the various off-shoot and exiled pieces of land, the terrain is rough jungle that favors supremely weaker and smaller forces to the point of stalling you out completely.

Ok thank you! This sounds like a really good and fun strategy. I will definitely try it. I have a few follow up questions if you don't mind, cuz I still struggle with a lot of the mechanics of the game. I don't understand this part you mentioned about the training paratroopers and the special forces cap:

"As soon as possible you change your mountaineers into paratrooper divisions, this is faster than disbanding and training fresh paratroopers. Make the template so you can have 10 divisions, be aware there is a special forces limit so in order to have that many divisions they will only have a few."

I understand there is a special forces cap so I can't add any paratroopers divisions to the field in addition to the mountaineers that are already fielded. So by changing the template, it will change the mountaineer divisions already in the field into paratroopers? Also, what do you mean by "make the template so you can have 10 divisions"? Do you mean edit the template to be 10 battalions of paratroopers?

Thanks again so much for your help and your patience with this. I would still like to know also about that Yugoslavia and Greece at the same time strategy and if/how it could work. I appreciate all hep and guidance very much!

[T-Bone Biggins]

Originally posted by Superfl0yd:

I understand there is a special forces cap so I can't add any paratroopers divisions to the field in addition to the mountaineers that are already fielded. So by changing the template, it will change the mountaineer divisions already in the field into paratroopers? Also, what do you mean by "make the template so you can have 10 divisions"? Do you mean edit the template to be 10 battalions of paratroopers?

Thanks again so much for your help and your patience with this. I would still like to know also about that Yugoslavia and Greece at the same time strategy and if/how it could work. I appreciate all hep and guidance very much!

You can re-train existing divisions to another template. I don't have the exact menu-button sequence to find it but if you look it's there. It will requisition equipment immediately out of your stockpiles and you will likely lose troop experience, especially if you go from a small division template to a larger template and green troops are added to fill out the ranks.

[Superfl0yd]

Thank you guys for the tips greatly appreciated!

[Superfl0yd]

Originally posted by T-Bone Biggins:

First thing I do as Italy is research paratroopers along with the other basics, but key part is paratroopers and support weapons. While waiting on research try to get ~10 transport planes built with your factories. As soon as possible you change your mountaineers into paratrooper divisions, this is faster than disbanding and training fresh paratroopers. Make the template so you can have 10 divisions, be aware there is a special forces limit so in order to have that many divisions they will only have a few. As soon as possible you paradrop all 10 divisions around various cities in France that don't have any troops around them. Paris will usually have a few so pick stuff like Orleans, the port towns west of the Italy-France border, the various cities worth 5-15 capture points scattered everywhere.

This is easy especially if you put all your normal infantry divisions on the French border, they will pile their army mostly on that border so you can paradrop in from the rear. You might need to try this without ironman mode a few times so you can get a feel for the game and figure which spots will have no troops. After doing it twice it comes naturally to you, and you can instantly take over all of France and it's various overseas holdings. There will likely be an exiled French government in a few places. Your next step is to do the same exact thing to the UK, but with a twist. You need ground forces to take UK as early as possible so use strategic movement to quickly redeploy planes and troops to that north-east port and airbase. The plan here is to use your fighters to make a window to drop paratroopers, but this time focus all of them on the SE ports that are empty in the UK. Then use your navy to provide cover in that narrow strip of water to the SE ports your paratroopers your troops took and simply transport them across the sea. Do not do a naval invasion because those can take months to "plan" and you can't spare that time to wait, you need to immediately attack UK before it gets stronger.

At this point the "allies" will form and declare war, you will have enough time to take UK without an interference from them. Remember between all this you have to do the whole political war declarations and timing those, etc. The problem comes after you take the UK. Sometimes that is it, you have everything France and UK had across the world. Other times one or both stay in exile. At that point I had to take over Canada to destroy the UK in exile, but since you have French and UK factories and resources you have all the oil rubber etc. you would ever need and enough factories to make an army larger than German or the US. Just by owning that land you will be in good shape. I would suggest against fighting across central and southern africa for the various off-shoot and exiled pieces of land, the terrain is rough jungle that favors supremely weaker and smaller forces to the point of stalling you out completely.

Hi again,

I started a new game and am going to try the strategy you suggested, since it sounds really good and really fun. I was just wondering if and hoping that you could give a couple more tips on this one? Sorry to bother you again, but I need all the help I can get.

So basically I was just wondering if you could give me a bit of general guidance on the timing of everything, like for example, at what point do I justify and then declare on France and also the U.K (I'm assuming you don't wait for the focus to give you the justification on France) compared to how far along I am on my researches and the training of the paratrooper divisions... I struggle on the timing of everything a lot. And was also hoping you could give me a sense on what National focuses you concentrate on in this type of strategy.

Thanks for all your time and help!

Edit: typos

[andersrlarsen]

the strategy that T-bone mentioned at first post is a good strat, but there is a even better way.

- first is to start justifying on france as soon as you get enough political power. this is normaly in february 36, and justification will take roughly 250 days.
- keep fighting in ethiopia untill you kill all their troops, and get most army xp as possible. i usually try to keep war going untill early july. (in 1.7 there has been made some adjustments with world tensions, and in rare cases; if finishing war early, and spain ciwil war start same month, AND you justifying on france, world tension will will get high enough for uk and france to form allianse before you finish off france). ending war in early july, will prevent this to happen. but also more battle , means to gain more xp and traits for your generals.
- the mountaineers should be changed to normal infantry, and instead make a new template with 1 - single - paratroop brigade. this will allow you to make 24 paratoop divisions (default). this allow you to paratroop on any victory points you want in france. once you learn which VP's to paradrop on, you will beat france quite simple (3 days, but peace deal happen 7 days after war is declared)
- in peace deal, annex almost all of france. create a puppet in southwestern part of france, 3-4 provinces. start building military factories in these provinces to lower autonomy (annex france will allow you to take french fleet).
- directly AFTER war with france, start justifying on belgium. they will get guarantees from UK.
the paratroopers can change template to normal infantry, and then build new and more paratroopers (special force cap is determined by how many brigades you have in total, 5% from default, so changing template from 1 brigade to a template with say 10 brigades --> more special forces).
- train up 48 paratroop divisions for invasion of UK. use these to paradrop all over southern UK (in every province. use air map-mode to see where to drop), except for London. you dont want to take london, just encircle it.
- send 1 infantry division (6 brigades, with full equipment) to different parts of the world. use annexed french territories to prepare naval invasion on australia, new zealand, south africa, malaysia and canada. 1 division to each country is usualy enough, but could send 2 for canada isnt a bad idea. also send 1 division for province inside Raj, and 3 divisions at raj eastern border. land in each country, either at a port or start building a new port when landing, then let them attack you. the idea is to give them enough warscore so that you can annex them in peace deal.
- also send some small fleet to each of these invasions. use 2 ships in each fleet, and 1 fleet each sea province your invasions need to pass. this is enough to get naval superiority and allow you to excecute invasions.

- when justification on belgium is finished, declare war. execute naval invasions, paradroping, and attack on belgium. also start justifying on holland. you should ALWAYS justify on 1 country, while at war with UK. the reason is to take advantage on short justification time, and low cost. countries; holland, luxemburg, austria, yugoslavia, chech (join axis before, but dont call in germany or hungary), poland, bulgaria, lithuania, greece, latvia, estonia, swizz, and romania. as you understand, you should take pretty much all of europe!
- use paratroopers to take over uk, but encircle london. the overwhelming numbers should be enough to defeat uk, but you could send over some infantry divisions if you want to.
- keep london encircled untill you taken over all the countries mentioned above (note that in 1.7, hungary will join axis after annexing france). then take london.
- in peace deal, annex ALL countries, with exception of UK mainland, which shuld be puppeted. build military factories to lower autonomy, and annex them. this will give you both the french and uk fleet, meaning that you can completely ignore building ships the entire game (unless you decided to start killing their ships during their war. -_- ).
- before finishing war with uk, finish or start justification on; iraq, liberia, ireland, spain and portugal. decare war on all of them, and annex them when you defeat them. start justifying on soviet when you are finished.
- after this, you should control;
all of africa + iraq,
all of oceania + raj and southern asia,
all of europe, except germany, hungary and scandinavia.
canada + provinces in south america/caribia.

in roughly 1939...

- if these wars take too long, germany will sign molotov-rippentop treaty. this will give soviet control of eastern poland (yes, even if you controll it). this isnt a big thing, but prevents you from attacking soviet untill germany cancel peace deal. if so, go after usa instead. i like to give usa some time to build up, since it is quite easy to defeat them in 1939, and instead attack them after dealing with japan (which will declare war on you for malasya, in around 1940-41).
- you need to join axis to prevent germany from declaring war on you over sudetenland.
- when declaring war on soviet, also call in germany. lend-leas captured equipment, that you dont need, to germany.
- in peace treaty, start by ghost puppeting soviet, then annex all coastal provinces. if germany cant puppet, or get access to soviet territorry, you will be able to annex all of soviet.

edit;
note that if you want tot annex dutch east indies, you also have to make sure they get warparticipant so you can annex them in peace deal.
i would instead suggest to satelite them in peace treaty, and then take advantage of their wast manpower pool.

[Superfl0yd]

@ andersrlarsen: wow thank you so much for this! I can't tell you how much I appreciate the time you took to give me all this detail. I can't thank you enough. Gonna try this and see if I can pull it off! lol

I'm sorry, I know I'm annoying, but I hope I could ask you a couple of follow up questions on a couple of things I'm not completely clear on:

You said:

- the paratroopers can change template to normal infantry, and then build new and more paratroopers (special force cap is determined by how many brigades you have in total, 5% from default, so changing template from 1 brigade to a template with say 10 brigades --> more special forces). - train up 48 paratroop divisions for invasion of UK.

Question: You mean the division template of single paratroppers brigade I created at the start should be edited to be normal infantry? Then, how can train 48 paratroop divisions of 10 brigades each? Do I create a new template (I assume yes)? And won't that be way higher than what the cap limit is? I still don't completely understand how special forces cap works :(....

You said:

then let them attack you. the idea is to give them enough warscore so that you can annex them in peace deal.

Question: I don't fully understand this part? Let them attack me to give them more warscore so that I can annex?

You said:

- in peace deal, annex almost all of france. create a puppet in southwestern part of france, 3-4 provinces. start building military factories in these provinces to lower autonomy (annex france will allow you to take french fleet).

- in peace deal, annex ALL countries, with exception of UK mainland, which shuld be puppeted. build military factories to lower autonomy, and annex them. this will give you both the french and uk fleet, meaning that you can completely ignore building ships the entire game

Question: Just to be clear for me, I can only build factories in the countries/provinces I have annexed, right? Not the puppeted ones? I can't go back to annex more or other provinces/countries after the peace deal is done, right?

Anyway, thanks again so much for any and all help. I know I have a lot of questions, but there are a lot of the game mechanics I still can't wrap my head around. I feel so dumb sometimes...

Edit: sorry, couple more questions:

- what does your infantry division of 6 brigades with full equipment look like? Do you have any artillery or support divisions in there, etc...? Or are you using the default template already there?

When you say: land in each country, either at a port or start building a new port when landing

- I don't understand.. how do I build a port in a country I just landed in?

What are the main National focuses you take through all this, and also what main researches?

Again, I am sorry for all the annoying questions, and I know all of these questions are probably obvious to you guys out there, but I get confused. I love this game and I refuse to give up on it no matter how many times it kicks my butt. I want to ask and learn as much as I can.

Thanks!

[andersrlarsen]

using that strat, you basicly need 3 templates;
- 7 inf + 2 art (eng support)
- 1 - single - paratroop brigade
- 5 inf (eng support)
(- 7 mot + 13 m.arm for use against soviet, usa and germany)

5 inf template is used as garrison divisions. after finishing off uk and the allies, you shift most of them into the 7-2 template.
7-2 template is a general good template for use against most countries, at least up to 1940. after 1940, you should have managed to get 1941 medium tanks and created the 40 width armor template.
a single brigade paratrooper is actualy very weak by itself, but if large enough numbers, they will defeat uk.

so to answer your questions;
when i say change template, its to select the divisions and simply shift their template to a different one. this is done with a button directly below the picture of that amy general (after selecting divisions).
the reason for doing this, is because special forces cap is determined by fielded brigades, and are limited to 5% of total numbers of brigades.
so if you have 100 divisions, of a template with 10 brigades, means a total of 1000 brigades --> you can field 50 special forces brigades.
what i usualy does, is creating 2 aditional templates;
- 1 single inf brigade
- 25 inf brigades
build around 50 divisions with the single brigade template, deploy, (pause game), then change them into the 25 inf template (which means a total of 1250 brigades), then change them into paratroop template (still 1 single paratroop brigade). voila - you have 50 paratroopers (may need a litlle bit more equipment and some training, to be ready for battle). this is why i suggest to use time, and gain as much xp from ethiopia war as you can, since you will need that xp to create template. (also note that you should NOT send divisions to spain civil war until after defeating france, because that may cause world tension that may cause france to join allies before defeated).

warscore is determined by 3 factors;
- occupied territory
- bombings
- loss of manpower (yeah, seem strange that you gain warscore by killing your men, but that is how it works)
if using the 7-2 template, which is a good all-round template against all small countries and in early game, you will inflict lots of manpower casualities by using only a single division. if entrenced (dig-in) and supplied (need a port), the division will inflict more manpower loss to the attacker than the defender. as for the uk dominions/puppets, many of them may not even be able to defeat the single division. but instead get loss of manpower -->warscore.
in peace deal, you will only be able to annex countries that has recived warscore.
so if defeating uk, and not involving the uk dominions/puppets, will mean that you cannot annex them (you can satelite raj and malaysia since they are puppets, but not annex them)

if you puppet a country, you can lower autonomy by constructing on their territory. when autonomy reach 0, you can annex them by spending 300 PP.
integrated puppets will give 65% of military factories to master, which is why you gain more by building military factories.
---- NOTE ---- this may require a DLC. dont remember which however.
annexing countries peacefully, will give you control of their forces. land, air and sea. and since uk + france + italy navy = roughly 5-600 ships, that basicly means you dont need to build any more ships....

as soon as you land in a country (naval invasion) either decide to take a port that isnt defended, or land on a province (preferably that is far from any ports/airfield/victory points) and then start counstructing a port in the occupied territory. and - yes, you can build a port in the occupied territory.

as for focuses;
stay on the left side down to libyan refineries. also need to take triumph in africa after defeating ethiopia, and army primacy for the 2 land doctrine boost.
after peace deal with uk (and annexing most of europe), you will be able to simply bypass focuses on yugo, bulgaria and albania. simply because you already annexed them. -->saving you some focus time that can be better spent elsewhere (even just stop focuses to gain PP)

[Superfl0yd]

Thank you so much!! You have no idea how much I appreciate the time you took to write this up for me. You are very kind and helpful :) I know I keep repeating myself, but I don't know how else to thank you :)) .....

....and now your going to hate me lol.. just to make sure:13 m.arm? m.arm is medium tanks right?

[glythe]

Depending on which DLC packs you own this is a much more simple super Italy tutorial. (D&D required).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ANABwFSHwM

[Superfl0yd]

Originally posted by glythe:

Depending on which DLC packs you own this is a much more simple super Italy tutorial. (D&D required).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ANABwFSHwM

Thank you so much! I’m getting spoiled here lol. You guys are very kind and helpful, sincerely appreciated! Yes I have all dlc packs except for Man the guns.

Thank you!!

[Superfl0yd]

Hi andersrlarsen

Hopefully you catch this question I have for you. Sorry to bother again.

For this strategy you said:

- in peace deal, annex almost all of france. create a puppet in southwestern part of france, 3-4 provinces. start building military factories in these provinces to lower autonomy (annex france will allow you to take french fleet).

Which part of France are you referring to exactly? Which provinces? Do you mean the African provinces that France had? Because in the peace deal I did not see an option to puppet any of the states/provinces in the main state of France...

Thanks!

[andersrlarsen]

in peace treaty, select the option "select all", but deselect these provinces before you click end turn; midi pyrenees, aquitain, limousine and poitou.
in round 2 you select puppet, which will make these 4 provinces your french puppet.

[Superfl0yd]

Originally posted by andersrlarsen:

in peace treaty, select the option "select all", but deselect these provinces before you click end turn; midi pyrenees, aquitain, limousine and poitou.
in round 2 you select puppet, which will make these 4 provinces your french puppet.

Thank you so much! Never spoke to anyone so helpful as you on Steam! :)))