Do you have to invade Italy?

[Devast8or]

As title suggests, if you play the campaign game from 1943 do you have to invade Italy or can you go for France landing in 1943? I'm on the fence trying to figure out if I should buy this or the East game? The East game is on sale right now.

[Omat]

Hello

Technically it is possible to invade (northern) Frave 1943. But you must be fast. If you land and you have bad waether (autum, winter) it will be very likely a failure.

To land southern France without taken corsica and sardinia will be also quite risky. You wont have air support and the axis can generate a high interdiction lvl at sea.

Omat

[Baelfiin]

You don't have to invade Italy, but there a lot of reasons (victory points, airbases etc.) that you should.

[carlkay58]

A few reasons to invade mainland Italy:

1) Italian surrender - always nice to knock out one of your opponents.

2) Tie up more Axis units above and beyond the garrison requirements.

3) Airbases within strategic bombing range of Ploesti which puts a real crimp in the Axis oil and fuel production. Without fuel the planes don't fly and the tanks don't move.

4) VPs.

[Devast8or]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm aware of the reasons of why to invade Italy, I was just curious if it was possible not to follow history but try something different and be able to pull it off.
One other thing is how would the AI react if you choose not to follow history, would it adapt and punish you or sit there and look confused?

[NotOneStepBack]

I tried it in beta, went from sardinia to corsica to southern france, and it did work. Your mileage may vary in this version.

[Baelfiin]

ORIGINAL: NotOneStepBack

I tried it in beta, went from sardinia to corsica to southern france, and it did work. Your mileage may vary in this version.

It could be done as long as you can maintain air cover. It would be fun to try to stop as the germans 8)