Giving up Austrian territory to Italy

[MoongazerSlitherineSSL]

I never saw anyone doing it and have done it myself only once long ago, so I am wondering if it can be a reasonable strategy against an experienced opponent. Has anyone ever tried it? What are your thoughts on it?

[mdsmall]

Personally, I think it is a terrible idea. Austria-Hungary immediately loses 8000 NM and suffers immediate attrition losses across its entire army. Given that Italy starts with two weak half-strength generals, almost no tech and no artillery, they can be easily contained by detachments and a corps on Trento until Austria-Hungary can transfer more forces to hold the Isonzo line and the Trento front. Or, Germany can send a couple of corps and a general to help guard Trento for a few turns. It might be fun to experiment doing this in a SP match against the AI to see what happens, but I would never try it against a human opponent, unless I wanted to give the Entente a significant advantage.

[HalfTauter]

Hijacking this post a bit, but has anyone ever tried preemptively attacking Italy? I have been playing with that idea for some while.

Obviously it has to the Germany. And considering you can't attack really well in the mountains in the Winter and Italy joins in the Spring of 1915, the attack would have to be in Summer or Autumn 1914.

So first turns Germany transports a few corps to Italy with HQ, Austria maybe brushes up one or two corps as well. The Entente player would never be able to get the few Italian troops already present to the border in time. Well maybe he can sell a chit to operate a corps to atleast Padua or something like that.

But the North of Italy can easily be overwhelmed, tons of NM cities close to each other, and inflicts damage to Italy (obviously) but also France (once Italy is out of the game).

It is ofcourse a huge gamble because it means the Central Powers have to stop or limit any offensives in 1914, which is a crucial year for the Central Powers.

I have never tested it, might gonna try it against the AI soon.

[MoongazerSlitherineSSL]

Hijacking this post a bit, but has anyone ever tried preemptively attacking Italy? I have been playing with that idea for some while.

Obviously it has to the Germany. And considering you can't attack really well in the mountains in the Winter and Italy joins in the Spring of 1915, the attack would have to be in Summer or Autumn 1914.

So first turns Germany transports a few corps to Italy with HQ, Austria maybe brushes up one or two corps as well. The Entente player would never be able to get the few Italian troops already present to the border in time. Well maybe he can sell a chit to operate a corps to atleast Padua or something like that.

But the North of Italy can easily be overwhelmed, tons of NM cities close to each other, and inflicts damage to Italy (obviously) but also France (once Italy is out of the game).

It is ofcourse a huge gamble because it means the Central Powers have to stop or limit any offensives in 1914, which is a crucial year for the Central Powers.

I have never tested it, might gonna try it against the AI soon.

Tried it out in hotseat. Not sure this is a good idea. Surprise is out of the question, Entente player just need to move Italian troops to border in order to understand what is going on. DoWing Italy rids CP of NM boost for AH, which happens when Italy joins the war the usual way, as well as three free AH detachments (225 mpps in total). It is guaranteed that CP will take Udine and Padua (2000 NM for AH each), also surrounding Venice (but that is more prone to luck/Entente reaction). Italy also won't receive any additional mpps from the UK which they usually get through the event. The main problem is that French will immedately swarm the frontline and most NM losses for Italy can be mitigated by UK decision to send Earl of Cavan (which also will boost Italian troops). There is also more minor stuff like +5% to US mobilization, UK joining the war on the second turn, not on the fourth, if Belgium is skipped and Italian economy kicking off immediately.

[shri]

I never saw anyone doing it and have done it myself only once long ago, so I am wondering if it can be a reasonable strategy against an experienced opponent. Has anyone ever tried it? What are your thoughts on it?

Don't do it, you lose a lot of NM, like a lot. ~20% of total NM park as Austria. You lose MPP per turn from loss of those areas. You lose services of 3 probable detachments, ~225 MPP. You also temporarily lose NM for all corps, like down to 20% or so, it will climb up slowly in next 3 turns.
Russia can crack Bukhowina or even the Carpathian passes if they go all out when your NM is low.