Ethiopia engineered to lose?

[Henchman Dave]

I don't know if this is just a git gud moment or something but I stack my soldiers north and they lose the front they're defending before the first 35 days end in time for my first focus. 3 divisions of those infantry lose even with the counter-attack bonuses against just one italian unit traipsing through the country willy-nilly. There is no sufficient industry to even think about building fortresses, and the free fort focus requires that you hold northern Ethiopia (the part that i lose in under 35 days with even a stacked army) for over half a year because of the prerequisite focuses before you can get any meaningful defenses. I know there aren't gonna be many experienced answers out yet since the DLC is less than an hour old right now, but man this is nasty

EDIT: This is literally the counterpart faction in a $20 dlc. Squashed before july, even if I'm slamming every single military focus I can get my hands on

[M82]

The idea is to stall for as long as you can to get the allies on your side or otherwise wait for Italy to fight against them (and troops to be drawn away) to counter attack

[Mr Warden]

This worked for me to survive few months "HoI4: The Empire of Ethiopia stands DEFIANT!" but it is 100% not a way to play new ethiopia as you have events and decisions that punish you even more for giving away most of your country and running away to mountains. I formed line and started reinforcing loosing sides, but then I got hit with Retake your land! decision failure and capitulated. It seems it is way more complex to play Ethiopia so it means someone will 100% find some kind of cheese very soon.

[Bored Peon]

A few years ago people had the Ethiopia challenge. If you did it right you could hold out against the Italians. In order to do so you had to give up the majority of your territory. It would TOTALLY disrupt the game because the Italian focus tree would get stuck because it did not win.

Then some updates were made and it was made nearly impossible to hold out.

Seems hey did something to bring it back?

[Henchman Dave]

The problem is they're selling the new national focuses to me as if I have some sort of chance at putting them on the backfoot, they have a whole slew of early-game focuses that give you an attack bonus, the problem is the italians have more divisions than me AND they never stop attacking. NEVER. I haven't had a chance to make any decision to attack except for right after retreating, and then org is too crushed to allow anything. Why is the option for countering available so early on, why is it my only option other than weenie out and become an exile government, and why is it seemingly impossible?

[Henchman Dave]

I used to do the cheese strategy, but if it's going to punish me for losing land now, something that is happening anyways, then i don't know what the point is. Did they just give Ethiopia a giant middle finger or something? if you're supposed to use wit and cunning to hold out against them then i'm just not seeing it I guess. Outgunned, out-teched, somehow outmanned too, illusion of home-field advantage, Aussa exists as a roadblock but capitulates anyways so what's the point, 3 divs of my infantry fold like crying napkins against one of their weenie greenhorn divisions, I have every single soldier up there, part of the focuses seem to be encouraging me to hold, I am at a loss lol. I regret buying this dlc if I can't even stand my ground and push back, it is lousy and not fun to think the only way to win is by fleeing the country and coming back in SEVERAL years when world war 2 starts.