-the fascist focus tree it's as good as it can be. However, I'd like that Italy First wouldn't exclude Pact of Steel. Germany renouncing Anschluss to become a member of Pact of Rome, with Italy initially as leader it's not that crazy alternative history. Dividing Checoslovaquia between Germany, Austria and Hungary looks seductive enough for the trade.
-Italian expansionism was a very liberal-republic idea, so a democratic path could continue the focuses on Libya and AOI, as well as reclamation over yugoslavian territories with no issues imo.
-Vittorio Emanuele as leader of non-aligned Italy he's good enough when Mussolini is assasinated by the germans from the Restore the Kaiser, since he was a rather weak political figure. From the italian point of view he should be replaced by Umberto II after Mussolini's debacle in Ethiopia.
-Umberto II was very popular with italians inmigrants throughout the world. After economic reforms, a focus for repatriation (manpower) to italian mainland as well as the colonies could be a good idea. Also, a focus for improvement of relations with the nations with important italian inmigration (trade relation +100, maybe non agression pacts, pop up of volontari divisioni from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, México, South Africa, Uruguay, USA, Venezuela).
-italian colonialism tried to replicate the South African model (white minorities in control of politics and production, colonial troops, so some inmigration focuses (manpower) should apply.
-a new Stressa Front or New Entente should be form between England, France and Italy to contain Hitler. Or maybe Italy joining Little Entente. Maybe with focuses or events as trade off, some Vittoria Mutilatta compensantion, like Malta and Cyprus, the Trentino or even Corsica and Tunisia. Hell why not, as a Saboya House italians could claim Niza from the french, particularly if they have gone the monarchist route as well.
-I love the Italian-arabian colony idea. Perhaps another colony could be Irak-Jordan-Palestine, the reinstauration of Persia as puppet, an alliance with the portuguese that allows you to take their islands and colonies, maybe some intervention on India as well. Along with a french-italian monarchist axis, the restoration of bourbons in Spain, the monarchy in Greece and Turkey and alliances with Bulgaria and Romania?
-Personally I dislike the Maesse focuses on blitz. The italian theorist of war of movement was actually Graziani, but an armored army type makes no sense for italians. Superior Firepower doctrine would be better. Along Japan and Britain, Italy is more suited for specialized warfare (naval, paratroops) with a strong navy and air-force support.
-a couple of new generals would be welcome, as well as a way of getting rid of the field marshalls penalties for old school and politically connected traits. Borghese as naval invader early on would be great and one commando.

Hi Esteban, thank you for your very detailed post. Love your ideas. Replying on a few:

PoS/ItaFirst: If I understand what you mean, you'd get a PoS choice under IF that would invite Hitler over to your faction if he hasn't done Anschluss? while I like the idea I could never in good faith put acceptance in AI strategy so that would be a multiplayer thing. This mod was never meant for MP though, it's very much untested for that. Or did I get it wrong?

Monarchy: agreed that VE3 was a really poor king, the poor sod didn't even want to be one. To be perfectly honest I've been searching for ideas on how to revamp the path for a while. Unfortunately we know very little of Umberto II as a king because he only "ruled" for a month. Could you give me any sources for his popularity *during the war* in the overseas? My best idea was to put Amedeo di Savoia-Aosta in charge, but I could always reconsider. Very good input on the flavour and the rest.

Generals: the mod already gives you some more free generals compared to vanilla, I'm not happy about that in terms of balance but I'm turning a blind eye because of the flavour they add. I don't think adding more would be a good idea, as you would greatly reduce the heavy PP tax of late game for manning all your armies. As for having Borghese in the early game you can achieve early-ish it by going through the right hand path onto the Memento Audere Semper focus. You're sacrificing a lot but if that's your game, why not. Giving the MAS and Borghese earlier than that and for no noticeable penalty would be a bit too OP in my opinion.

Thanks again!

1-you've got it right and I understand what you mean. In the end, inviting Germany to a fascist factions would be the same than joining the Axis. Same goes for fascist France: they have a focus to invite Italy but not the other way around. Sounds unfair but if France goes for fascist aproach, they can always join Italy before that.
3-you're right about the generals, they are fine as they are. I can argue that a general with an invader perk like Borguese is useful when going to war with Britain in order to conquer Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus but in all honesty, the IA will put a dozen divisions in a place, making imposible to take even with an invader, then abandon that place leaving no one there :P About the field marshalls, there are ways around like promoting a general with no negative perks, so that's fine. But you would agree with me that from all mayor nations, Italy's roaster generals it's the worst by far of them all, having only half dozens commanders all of them with level 1.
2-in all honest, there's no evidence that Umberto had any political gravitation. As all royal figures at the time, he was used for public relations. The popularity overseas was not tied to a particular figure but more to a national pride that become fashion at the time. I can tell both Germany and Italy campaigned heavy before the war in countries with vast numbers of inmigrants in them, particularly americans. But they were not expatriation campaigns, more than public relations to improve with those countries. I read that when Umberto travel to Brasil, Argentina and Chile he was received like a porn star. I mean pop star xD. What happened with that popularity after the war started had much to do with the countries they were in. In USA I understand at first they were secluded and even put into camps like the japanese but as the war unfold, democratic tendencies got them asimilated and even recruited to fight against fascism. Italians inmigrants in Europe, like in Ireland and France were most part exhiled from fascist so after involving in the spanish civil war they were asimilated into resistance movements, like the nationalist independent irish. In Latin America italians and german inmigrants were involved in pro-fascist movements that had heavy influence in internal politic since there was a wave of proto-fascist nationalist movement all across the continent. The Integralist movement in Brasil and the Civic Legion in Argentina were instrumental in the coups those years (1920-1930's). I don't have informations about other countries in LATAM but I'm sure they are quite similar. LATAM nationalism was anti-british so they had no problem in expresing their support for the axis during the war, fading away as the outcome of the war become inevitable, later becoming asimilated as anti-communist supression.

about Umberto you may find this useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_II_of_Italy

anyway, a big thanks for all your work. I'm very curious to see what are you planning to do with communist, democratic and non-aligned Italy.

This mod's very cool and i just noticed you can have the mafia rise up as an entire country, this also gave me an idea, with the CNT/FAI style government, do you think you could do the same with the mafia? make it a "godfather" non aligned path if you decide to create a civil war of some kind (possibly when you add the "red" path).
[Edit]: Probably asking for a little too much, but it would be EXTREMELY cool if the mafia got their own 3D model with the whole trenchcoat and tommygun style you see in the mafia movies, this whole mafia path could also be very cool as you could reference the recent release of mafia 1's remaster!
[Edit 2]: If you need flavour text, it could just be different families pledging to the one central family for coring the other states.

Originally posted by xstasi:

Hi Esteban, thank you for your very detailed post. Love your ideas. Replying on a few:

PoS/ItaFirst: If I understand what you mean, you'd get a PoS choice under IF that would invite Hitler over to your faction if he hasn't done Anschluss? while I like the idea I could never in good faith put acceptance in AI strategy so that would be a multiplayer thing. This mod was never meant for MP though, it's very much untested for that. Or did I get it wrong?

Monarchy: agreed that VE3 was a really poor king, the poor sod didn't even want to be one. To be perfectly honest I've been searching for ideas on how to revamp the path for a while. Unfortunately we know very little of Umberto II as a king because he only "ruled" for a month. Could you give me any sources for his popularity *during the war* in the overseas? My best idea was to put Amedeo di Savoia-Aosta in charge, but I could always reconsider. Very good input on the flavour and the rest.

Generals: the mod already gives you some more free generals compared to vanilla, I'm not happy about that in terms of balance but I'm turning a blind eye because of the flavour they add. I don't think adding more would be a good idea, as you would greatly reduce the heavy PP tax of late game for manning all your armies. As for having Borghese in the early game you can achieve early-ish it by going through the right hand path onto the Memento Audere Semper focus. You're sacrificing a lot but if that's your game, why not. Giving the MAS and Borghese earlier than that and for no noticeable penalty would be a bit too OP in my opinion.

Thanks again!

I think you shouldn't bother yourself too much with general's rebalancing, generals don't win a war, but they do tend to help quite a lot supply wise.

@Jack

Originally posted by Jack:

you can have the mafia rise up as an entire country [...] make it a "godfather" non aligned path if you decide to create a civil war of some kind (possibly when you add the "red" path).

While I had a lot of fun creating it, the Mafia Syndicate was never meant to be a playable nation - or to be long-lived at all. In all my mental scenarios the player - unless very VERY distracted and inexperienced - would steamroll them. I mean: we are still talking about gangsters rebelling in desperation against a world-power-level army. You pressure them out of hiding and then slaughter them, a truly fascist resolution if I ever heard one.

It is represented as a country because that is how the game models armed conflict (I experimented with the civil war mechanic before going this path, but it was just inadequate), but other than the flavour that you have while fighting it with the army names (families) and leaders (mafia bosses), I don't think it's worth adding much more depth. Certainly not playable elements such as decisions and focus trees.

Originally posted by Jack:

[Edit]: Probably asking for a little too much, but it would be EXTREMELY cool if the mafia got their own 3D model with the whole trenchcoat and tommygun style you see in the mafia movies, this whole mafia path could also be very cool as you could reference the recent release of mafia 1's remaster!

Agreed 200% on the cool factor, but I am just bad at 3D art :) would be otherwise happy to add that. If you know someone who can do the models, it can be arranged.

Thanks for your input!

Originally posted by xstasi:

@Jack

Originally posted by Jack:

you can have the mafia rise up as an entire country [...] make it a "godfather" non aligned path if you decide to create a civil war of some kind (possibly when you add the "red" path).

While I had a lot of fun creating it, the Mafia Syndicate was never meant to be a playable nation - or to be long-lived at all. In all my mental scenarios the player - unless very VERY distracted and inexperienced - would steamroll them. I mean: we are still talking about gangsters rebelling in desperation against a world-power-level army. You pressure them out of hiding and then slaughter them, a truly fascist resolution if I ever heard one.

It is represented as a country because that is how the game models armed conflict (I experimented with the civil war mechanic before going this path, but it was just inadequate), but other than the flavour that you have while fighting it with the army names (families) and leaders (mafia bosses), I don't think it's worth adding much more depth. Certainly not playable elements such as decisions and focus trees.

Originally posted by Jack:

[Edit]: Probably asking for a little too much, but it would be EXTREMELY cool if the mafia got their own 3D model with the whole trenchcoat and tommygun style you see in the mafia movies, this whole mafia path could also be very cool as you could reference the recent release of mafia 1's remaster!

Agreed 200% on the cool factor, but I am just bad at 3D art :) would be otherwise happy to add that. If you know someone who can do the models, it can be arranged.

Thanks for your input!

I understand, but i meant more as the "unthinkable" path some countries have, such as america going red or spanish going anarchist, that sorta thing, maybe with the board of mafia you could have the board become just as corrupt if you decide to leave the decisions and do nothing (much like the Strikes! national spirit decision)

As a suggestion that won't take months to implement, it could be a nice Quality of life improvement if you could bypass infrastructure focuses if you already own 10 infra.

Originally posted by xstasi:

@Jack

Originally posted by Jack:

you can have the mafia rise up as an entire country [...] make it a "godfather" non aligned path if you decide to create a civil war of some kind (possibly when you add the "red" path).

While I had a lot of fun creating it, the Mafia Syndicate was never meant to be a playable nation - or to be long-lived at all. In all my mental scenarios the player - unless very VERY distracted and inexperienced - would steamroll them. I mean: we are still talking about gangsters rebelling in desperation against a world-power-level army. You pressure them out of hiding and then slaughter them, a truly fascist resolution if I ever heard one.

It is represented as a country because that is how the game models armed conflict (I experimented with the civil war mechanic before going this path, but it was just inadequate), but other than the flavour that you have while fighting it with the army names (families) and leaders (mafia bosses), I don't think it's worth adding much more depth. Certainly not playable elements such as decisions and focus trees.

Originally posted by Jack:

[Edit]: Probably asking for a little too much, but it would be EXTREMELY cool if the mafia got their own 3D model with the whole trenchcoat and tommygun style you see in the mafia movies, this whole mafia path could also be very cool as you could reference the recent release of mafia 1's remaster!

Agreed 200% on the cool factor, but I am just bad at 3D art :) would be otherwise happy to add that. If you know someone who can do the models, it can be arranged.

Thanks for your input!

Another thing, playability shouldn't stop detail, i'd understand not working on such a huge bit of detail for such a small country, but maybe once you're done with the entire focus tree and decisions, maybe then you could try and get into that bit of detail, i've played HOI4 for a long time now and i've seen that basically anything can happen with the AI, and even more so when a player is involved, good luck on finishing the focus tree and i hope you'll consider adding such small detail to really bring the focus together, after all, that's why countries such as nepal and tibet are playable.

@Jack

Originally posted by Jack:

i hope you'll consider adding such small detail to really bring the focus together, after all, that's why countries such as nepal and tibet are playable.

Well they are playable but surely don't have a lot of depth :) although maybe a more accurate analog could be Tannu Tuva or Austria: countries that will stop existing very early in most games. The Mafia syndicate is not expected to last more than a few of in-game weeks - if they do the player is screwing up royally.

From a purely fun standpoint you are right that it would be pretty cool if the crime lords had their own "dignity" as a real nation, maybe having a whole storyline of their own, but let's say that for now it's very very very very low on the priorities ;)

Originally posted by Jack:

As a suggestion that won't take months to implement, it could be a nice Quality of life improvement if you could bypass infrastructure focuses if you already own 10 infra.

Done! Should be in the latest update :)

to add onto the mafia debate: playing with the reistance mechanic and maybe some spy stuff could be more interessting than just have them spawn as a country you just annex again. I mean, there's already a smaller event chain but having them rise up at all to such an extreme, and let's be fair, taking control of entire sicily is a bit extreme for what basically are just some gansters like you said yourself, seems to be a bit weird to me. I mean, I get that you want to potray some sort of armed conflict but having it basically be a full on revolution is just to much imo. then again, besides being low on your priority list, it just isn't all too necessary as the current system works fine.

@Dr.Arcade

Originally posted by Dr.Arcade:

playing with the reistance mechanic and maybe some spy stuff could be more interessting than just have them spawn as a country you just annex again.

I started working on the mafia storyline before 1.9 came out and I promised myself that I would reconsider the implementation once it was released, which I did. My impression is that the espionage mechanics are more suited for the infiltrating party than the infiltree.

To put it in context: it would have been a nice addition (unless it's there already?) to have espionage missions in the USA to negotiate with Italo-American gangsters to ease the invasion of Sicily - which would also be historically accurate, as the American invasion of Sicily was pretty much bloodless thanks to the collaboration of the mafia through Lucky Luciano.

But all of this would make sense for an USA mod, doing that in a mod that only makes sense if you play Italy would be quite out of scope.

Originally posted by Dr.Arcade:

I mean, there's already a smaller event chain but having them rise up at all to such an extreme, and let's be fair, taking control of entire sicily is a bit extreme for what basically are just some gansters like you said yourself, seems to be a bit weird to me. I mean, I get that you want to potray some sort of armed conflict but having it basically be a full on revolution is just to much imo.

Historically speaking Mussolini claimed to have defeated the mafia, while what he did was just a facade which forced the mob to just keep a low profile, but there was no real damage as proven by the fact that it's still there in 2020.

The mod plays with the idea: what if Mussolini REALLY wanted to defeat it? what the mafia does best is infiltrate and stay hidden, so in the story line a plan is developed to force it out of hiding. Using state-run crime the mafia faces an actual existential threat, and that is why they have no choice but to react with all-out war, giving the army a chance to capture and slaughter the criminals.

That is the reasoning behind the story line as it was implemented, with armed conflict and everything. Hope that clarifies it a bit.

Thanks for joining in :)

Originally posted by xstasi:

@Jack

Originally posted by Jack:

i hope you'll consider adding such small detail to really bring the focus together, after all, that's why countries such as nepal and tibet are playable.

Well they are playable but surely don't have a lot of depth :) although maybe a more accurate analog could be Tannu Tuva or Austria: countries that will stop existing very early in most games. The Mafia syndicate is not expected to last more than a few of in-game weeks - if they do the player is screwing up royally.

From a purely fun standpoint you are right that it would be pretty cool if the crime lords had their own "dignity" as a real nation, maybe having a whole storyline of their own, but let's say that for now it's very very very very low on the priorities ;)

Originally posted by Jack:

As a suggestion that won't take months to implement, it could be a nice Quality of life improvement if you could bypass infrastructure focuses if you already own 10 infra.

Done! Should be in the latest update :)

Nice, thanks for that, hope the mod goes well, and if you need any ideas for italy i would be glad to help, i think it would be cool for the coming commie path to go into a spanish civil war style with the fascists, the reds and the southern monarchists (wanting to reinstate either the two sicilies or vittorio, whatever you'd like to do).
As long as it's not the mess of la resistance's civil war, that's really annoying more than anything else.

Divide Lubiana from slovenia and it with Dalmatia, Savoy, Corse, Malta, Ticino and all Italian states to create a new formable called Italian Empire, with a Darker green, and with italianization focus, change dubronik name too into Ragusa, is its historical Italian name