England tells Italy to go to war Again!

[tigercub]

As the game stands the Allies control when the Italians come into the war.
Why in Blue blazers is this needed, seems crazy to me!
i just stopped my game ....because 1 or more of 4 bases did not have a units and Italy declares war (i am Told )! in 1939
If early in the game the Allies were to leave any
of the following locations empty then Italy will
swing towards the Axis: Gibraltar, Malta, Cairo
and Tunis.
love the game but thats nuts!

Tigercub

[YohanTM2]

Is your concern that you are not prepared as Italy and CW is gaming you by jumping on Italy early with the help of the French fleet? I can see this being an issue. Perhaps the change would be that instead of forcing the war Italy now has a casus bellum and may declare war at its option on any later turn?

[tigercub]

declare war should be an Option only!

[Leadwieght]

+1

[Leadwieght]

Hi Tigercub,
The game you and I are in just now (with Italy doing a DoW in late 1939) seems to have been an extreme case. I had not actually taken troops out the the various Med locations, so I'm not sure why Italy's mobilization jumped up so quickly. Maybe in response to the scouting of the Italian coast by the RN and French fleet ? I don't know.

Despite my "+1" just now, I could see serious drawbacks to allowing the Italians TOTAL freedom as to when they declare war after their mobilization level hits 100. A clever Axis player could hold off on the Italian DoW until Barbarossa and build up such a large military that the Italians would be virtually impossible to defeat in the Med and could even send serious reinforcements to the Ostfront. Not sure what Britain could do about that.

Maybe a compromise mechanism where Italian NM dips a bit during every turn that their Mobilization level is at 100 and they have NOT declared war. IMO, that has some historical plausibility--If Il Duce pumped out the bellicose rhetoric, dragged thousands of paisans into the army, diverted economic resources to the military, etc. for MONTHS with no action, enthusiasm (i.e. NM) for his regime might have waned.

Alternatively the penalty imposed on the Allies for making a preemptive attack on Italy could be lowered steadily every turn that the Italian mobilization level is at 100 and Italy has not declared war.

Just some thoughts

[BillRunacre]

Hi

I've just reviewed the scripts and abandoning positions in the Med will not suffice to make Italy enter the war in 1939, the effect is moderate rather than earth shattering.

Leadwieght might be right about the Allied fleets scouting out the Italian coastline triggering it, but only if they were doing so over a number of turns. They would have to have repeatedly ended the turn near Naples, Genoa or Rome.

Anything else will have had a different cause.

[tigercub]

Leadwieght was all over the place with his ships must have been the trigger,but the last thing i wanted was to go to war in 39 with them.
An option could be trigged to go to war before June 40 but after that point there is a trigger!

Tigercub

[tigercub]

it was the 3rd turn Bill


Tigercub

[BillRunacre]

Thanks for the explanation. I'll think about this some more because it does seem a little quick in your game.

[tigercub]

Game 2 for us and the Same thing has happend end of turn 3 Italy is at war. Clearly something has to change!!

[sPzAbt653]

Clearly something has to change!!

Stop playing against Humans ! [;)]

[vonik]

Historically Italy went in war at the last moment when France was already beaten hoping for some quick and easy grabs (and even then they were wrong) .
They wouldn't have done it in any other circumstances .
An early DOW is catastrophic for Italy and indirectly for Germany too so it simply shouldn't be allowed .
The only reasonable automatic trigger is Paris captured or perhaps several German units 1 hex from Paris .
Everything else should be a pop up like Greece if one wanted to give a crazy option to Italy .

[Hubert Cater]

In the past there were a lot of gamey maneuvers by the Allies whereby they would abandon their Mediterranean defensive positions and throw everything into France throwing off game balance or even positioning themselves to try and capture Rome without any type of reaction by the Italians prior to Italian entry and so on.

Over time we recognized that there were a lot of action/reaction types of strategies that needed to be recognized and accounted for in order to ensure a smooth game experience and these included these types of actions in the Med as well as quite a few others such as Axis manouevers along the Eastern Front, i.e. the Germans throwing everything towards the UK and not attempting to garrison the Eastern Front sufficiently to deter Soviet interests etc.

The goal was never to have other countries dictate war entry, but at the same time, the actions by other countries definitely needed to have an effect as otherwise balance was clearly shown to be thrown off. One benefit of increased Italian mobilization, especially early on, is that this also increases their MPP collection and that can be a long term bonus for the Italians... however entering too early, could be as highlighted here, an issue if it potentially allows the French and UK navies to gang up on the Italians so early in the war.

Sounds like Bill is already thinking about this part and I just wanted to provide some context as to how we got here in the first place.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

[BillRunacre]

ORIGINAL: tigercub

Game 2 for us and the Same thing has happend end of turn 3 Italy is at war. Clearly something has to change!!

Did one of you position Allied naval units along the Italian coast again, or might there be another cause in your game?

[Guderian1940]

it appears that scouting the Italian fleet does cause Italy to come in early. Happened in my games. Nov. 39.

[tigercub]

yes this is what is happening (Allied naval units along the Italian coast again)

Tigercub

[tigercub]

So as it stands the Allied player can bring Italy into the war at will!

Tigercub

[BillRunacre]

It's on my radar now. [;)]

[YohanTM2]

As I mentioned in another thread my thoughts are these actions do not trigger war but give Italy a Casus Bellum to declare war in any future turn at their discretion. Puts the Axis in the driver's seat if Allies get nasty

[wie201]

"House rules" tend to be unpopular, but situations like this are why I try to play opponents who, like me, prefer to play it more as a simulation (or learning experience) than a "game." For example in one of my HTH games I added the Royal Navy to the force mix that attacked the Italian Navy, and did not simply "sacrifice" the French Navy. My opponent, for his part, did not reinforce or upgrade units far behind enemy lines.

Programmers can spend forever on trying to eliminate any possibility of a "gamey" or "unhistoric" move, and gamers will still find a away around it. All they can do is their best at limiting opportunities.