By Blood Alone: the ethiopian's eternal war

[Lowelheim]

Hi all,

I'm playing as Italy and I tried almost everything (except the commies path) to end the war with Ethiopia and avoid that eventually it drags me into an early war with allied forces.

To keep garrison I need tons of equipment and no matter how much partisan's suppression I can bring on the table, garrison's template, agents with the proper build, the war never ends.

Is there a good strategy to achieve the end of this war?

Kind regards.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Your initial forces should be sufficient, I will try to help with some basic information. If you are still struggling with it then you either need to practice more as it will help you against the other countries as well, or I can give you some cheesy tactics to win XD

Air Force:

IMO this is the most important part of the game, you can win this war easily through CAS alone (close air support). Just move all your bombers into your airfields and set them to cas and logistic strike over Ethiopia, then you can battleplan your soldiers and let the ai win for you. Even if you cant push all the way to their capital they will run out of manpower and equipment just from all the damage your cas is doing. You can put your fighters over there on air superiority as well which will give some bonuses to your ground troops but its mostly the damage that your cas does that will win for you. Just be aware that they can only attack the enemy troops while your infantry are fighting them, but if you set them to logistic strike as well then if they cant find a battle to join they will start killing enemy trains and trucks to ruin their supply and weaken them. The other major way of attacking is with artillery on your infantry or with tanks. Close air support surpasses artillery and controlling the skies lets you deny the enemy the chance to use their own close air support so only invest in artillery if you already rule the skies. Tanks are rather expensive compared to artillery or planes but excel at performing encirclements or pushing for supply depots, you can use mechanized for this as well which are faster but less powerful. Either way you should get planes first, you can never have too many planes.

Supply:

The second most important part of the game, when your troops are in red supply they get huge debuffs and can only restore about 20% of their organisation, they also cannot get any new soldiers or equipment to replace what they lose in battle. Keep your troops in good supply areas and only venture into bad supply areas when you are making a big push to the next supply hub or you are attempting to encircle and destroy an enemy division. After you reach a new supply hub hold still and connect it to your supply network with rails. It takes about a week for the supply hub to become active as well. If you feel confident you can try to push for more supply hubs or encircle some enemies if an opportunity presents itself but just be aware that you risk being pushed back or encircled yourself, its safer to wait.

Maneuver:

When you attack an enemy infantry division your soft attack is pitted against their defense. If you have more soft attack then their organisation will begin to gradually deplete and if it gets to zero they retreat back a tile (or get destroyed completely if they are encircled). If you have a lot more SA then there will be lines coming out of the combat bubble and their organisation will deplete fast and they will suffer a lot more casualties. If you don't have more sa than their defense then their org will deplete extremely slowly compared to yours and they will suffer less casualties than you, its still possible to push through eventually but most likely they will keep pulling low org units out and replacing them with full org units and you will never get anywhere. Click on the combat bubbles to and mouse over the attack and defense stats of the fighting units to find out what their attack is and if something is modifying it like bad terrain or supply. Always try to attack a tile from multiple directions and be aware that there is a limit to how many units can fight in a battle at once, and it can take a while for the units to "reinforce" into the battle and start fighting. If you want to eliminate enemy units then you will likely want to perform "pinning attacks" on the units you want to kill to hold them still while other units move to take the tiles around them or the tiles leading to the next supply hub, you will take casualties during this because your units that are pinning the enemy will likely be taking many casualties but if it lets you encircle and destroy some units or take a new supply hub it may be worth it. If you are failing in your push dont stubbornly keep attacking you will just waste equipment and manpower, pull back to a good supply area, recover your org and unit strength, make more planes, build up planning, maybe even add some artillery to your infantry (9 infantry and 1 artillery or 14 infantry with 4 artillery are good for pushing and cheaper than tanks) then try again.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Also if you want to cheese it then just let them take two ports and then encircle one of the ports. Kill the units in the port without taking it by making your units cancel their attack after the enemy units die, then wait for them to move more troops into the port and repeat. This used to work better in no step back but the ai doesnt seem to move units into encircled ports now unless they think they have an excess of units on their battle lines, its worth a try though. You can also encircle a low supply area and let the enemy move units into the low supply area, then cut them off, encircle them and kill them, then move back to your starting position and let them move more units into the bad supply area and do it again. When they dont have enough units left to cover their line completely you can just encircle the remaining units and finish them off.

[Kinski]

If you bring all the units that are still in Italy and Libya to Ethiopia, create battle plans for the extra attack bonus and use all available planes to support your ground troops then this war is very easy. Just give the order to attack and everytime your troops make a breakthrough take over by micro managing them and try to push vorward to empty territory without enemy divisions to create opportunities for encirclements.

[PB0_Corse66]

I'm running into a similar issue, well not about the war itself but after it..

War is easily winnable even without moving all your forces from Italy, but after it.. how do you handle the HUGE amount of material needed to fight against the rebels?
How do you handle it because most of my factories / manpower is used by this and not preparing anything else

[Dank Williams]

I wasn't able to do it in my one Italy game with Colonial Police policy, over 60 compliance, all electric built and discrediting Hailie Sellasie a bunch of times. Idk where to see his legitamacy but just saying, dude is legit.

[Lowelheim]

Originally posted by Kiri:

Your initial forces should be sufficient, I will try to help with some basic information. If you are still struggling with it then you either need to practice more as it will help you against the other countries as well, or I can give you some cheesy tactics to win XD

Air Force:

IMO this is the most important part of the game, you can win this war easily through CAS alone (close air support). Just move all your bombers into your airfields and set them to cas and logistic strike over Ethiopia, then you can battleplan your soldiers and let the ai win for you. Even if you cant push all the way to their capital they will run out of manpower and equipment just from all the damage your cas is doing. You can put your fighters over there on air superiority as well which will give some bonuses to your ground troops but its mostly the damage that your cas does that will win for you. Just be aware that they can only attack the enemy troops while your infantry are fighting them, but if you set them to logistic strike as well then if they cant find a battle to join they will start killing enemy trains and trucks to ruin their supply and weaken them. The other major way of attacking is with artillery on your infantry or with tanks. Close air support surpasses artillery and controlling the skies lets you deny the enemy the chance to use their own close air support so only invest in artillery if you already rule the skies. Tanks are rather expensive compared to artillery or planes but excel at performing encirclements or pushing for supply depots, you can use mechanized for this as well which are faster but less powerful. Either way you should get planes first, you can never have too many planes.

Supply:

The second most important part of the game, when your troops are in red supply they get huge debuffs and can only restore about 20% of their organisation, they also cannot get any new soldiers or equipment to replace what they lose in battle. Keep your troops in good supply areas and only venture into bad supply areas when you are making a big push to the next supply hub or you are attempting to encircle and destroy an enemy division. After you reach a new supply hub hold still and connect it to your supply network with rails. It takes about a week for the supply hub to become active as well. If you feel confident you can try to push for more supply hubs or encircle some enemies if an opportunity presents itself but just be aware that you risk being pushed back or encircled yourself, its safer to wait.

Maneuver:

When you attack an enemy infantry division your soft attack is pitted against their defense. If you have more soft attack then their organisation will begin to gradually deplete and if it gets to zero they retreat back a tile (or get destroyed completely if they are encircled). If you have a lot more SA then there will be lines coming out of the combat bubble and their organisation will deplete fast and they will suffer a lot more casualties. If you don't have more sa than their defense then their org will deplete extremely slowly compared to yours and they will suffer less casualties than you, its still possible to push through eventually but most likely they will keep pulling low org units out and replacing them with full org units and you will never get anywhere. Click on the combat bubbles to and mouse over the attack and defense stats of the fighting units to find out what their attack is and if something is modifying it like bad terrain or supply. Always try to attack a tile from multiple directions and be aware that there is a limit to how many units can fight in a battle at once, and it can take a while for the units to "reinforce" into the battle and start fighting. If you want to eliminate enemy units then you will likely want to perform "pinning attacks" on the units you want to kill to hold them still while other units move to take the tiles around them or the tiles leading to the next supply hub, you will take casualties during this because your units that are pinning the enemy will likely be taking many casualties but if it lets you encircle and destroy some units or take a new supply hub it may be worth it. If you are failing in your push dont stubbornly keep attacking you will just waste equipment and manpower, pull back to a good supply area, recover your org and unit strength, make more planes, build up planning, maybe even add some artillery to your infantry (9 infantry and 1 artillery or 14 infantry with 4 artillery are good for pushing and cheaper than tanks) then try again.

Hi mate, thanks of course for your answer, but I probably did not explain what's my problem correctly. My bad, english is not my first language, please forgive me.

I have no issue to win the war itself on the ground, I basically win within few weeks and unlock "Solid Progress".

My problem's dealing with the aftermath of this war, the endless rebellion and the pacrification obtanable increasing the compliance.

I tried everything but it seems that the restistance in Ethiopia is one thousands time the one you deal within France.

That's imho is absurd.

I just wondering if there is a combo of events or something you did if you achieve the success that I can use to deal with endless war. Because the war itself is carried over, and even if I go down to the "Anglo Italian Agreements", that theorically drop the exiled governament of Selassie, well in realty the war still rages on with the resistance event if the whole territory is well under my control.

This little fact leave Selassie and Ethiopia to join the allies and drag you in the global conflict even I'm sticked to other plans in order to avoid this accordingly to my strategy.

I hope this time I explained a little better.

[Zorelnam]

i had the same experience with the after effects of the war, i tried playing as Ethiopia like 6 times and every single time italy curb stomped me in like 1-2 months max, so you know, if the AI can win then anyone can.
So basically, long story short, in order to prevent the event that triggers the endless war with ethiopia you have to succeed in the two original missions that mussolini gives you to take the north and the south of ethiopia in 150 days i believe and then capitulate them in 180 days, if you do that you avoid the endless war completely.
However if you want to do the "monarchist" or "communist" path you necessarily need to fail those missions and there is no other way to get them, in my opinion this was simply an oversight or its bugged or something

[Kinski]

Originally posted by Zorelnam:

i had the same experience with the after effects of the war, i tried playing as Ethiopia like 6 times and every single time italy curb stomped me in like 1-2 months max, so you know, if the AI can win then anyone can.
So basically, long story short, in order to prevent the event that triggers the endless war with ethiopia you have to succeed in the two original missions that mussolini gives you to take the north and the south of ethiopia in 150 days i believe and then capitulate them in 180 days, if you do that you avoid the endless war completely.
However if you want to do the "monarchist" or "communist" path you necessarily need to fail those missions and there is no other way to get them, in my opinion this was simply an oversight or its bugged or something

That's not true. Today I played communist Italy for the achievement and won the war against Ethiopia first.
Later in the focus tree you have the option to give your colonies a referendum to choose if they want to become free or to become Italian citizens. (You get cores on them).
Ethiopia and it's neighbours joined me while only Libya left.

[altomcorp]

Just started a new game with with new expansion. Beat Ethiopia quickly, Finished all the mission in time. Government still went into exile in England so still at war with them. My question, I get the best results for Benito, but I wanted to Monarchy. Is that no longer possible?

[glythe]

Go watch Feedback Gaming's video if you still have not figured it out.

[PB0_Corse66]

Well.. I did played it, win the war quickly and thus succeeding all missions (take north, south, capture the capital).. Then I also went to Monarchy successfully.. It's just a bit harder to go in that direction but it's still possible (you need to play with the grand council of Italy).

That said... I still can't manage Ethiopia AFTER I win the war.. too much attrition / cost from the rebels.. if anyone has a valid strategy on how to handle that part.. (which is the point of the OP as well) I take it ;)

[mr.badluck]

AFAIK, it is bugged ATM - Ethiopia has to much legitymicy and you wont be able to integrate it territory because of that.

In basic you need to conquer it in max 69 days (minimum days for ethiopia focus tree to prepare goverment in exile).

[taffmasterlang]

Originally posted by altomcorp:

Just started a new game with with new expansion. Beat Ethiopia quickly, Finished all the mission in time. Government still went into exile in England so still at war with them. My question, I get the best results for Benito, but I wanted to Monarchy. Is that no longer possible?

It still worked for me, just spend enough PP in the balance of power to shift it from Duce to the council and you can still oust Mussolini, i think it might just be slower and more expensive that way.

[Zorelnam]

Originally posted by taffmasterlang:

Originally posted by altomcorp:

Just started a new game with with new expansion. Beat Ethiopia quickly, Finished all the mission in time. Government still went into exile in England so still at war with them. My question, I get the best results for Benito, but I wanted to Monarchy. Is that no longer possible?

It still worked for me, just spend enough PP in the balance of power to shift it from Duce to the council and you can still oust Mussolini, i think it might just be slower and more expensive that way.

this is extremely useful, i didn't know about this, thank you