Italy Surrenders Too Easy

[battlevonwar]

Yes, historical but totally terrible for game play. You figure you need 1 German Corp Per City(La Spezia, Venezia Included) or 1 Italian Armor Corp per 5 Value City and then in case of Paras and Amphibious Drops you need a string of about 20 or 25 Italian Corps throughout it's countryside by Winter of 1941. Not fun, not fun at all. . .

Italy surrendered in 1943 the minute the Allies showed it was going to happen anyway but in this game you have to defend her like she were France if the Allies make a move on her. I suggest her Morale not be diminished till a different point in the game for balance. It's just insane that you've got 1 Million men in Italy in the best Defensive Terrain in game and they are at the whim of losing 1 city and the whole thing collapses.

Meanwhile you also have 5 Italian Armor Corp in Russia forcing the surrender of half a Million Russians/Italy holding Yugoslavia and Greece? What sense does that make if the Italians were doing so well elsewhere and had literally no losses they probably would not of given in so easily. Since amphibious invasions and Paradrops are so Strategically powerful though it just happens... You are forced to rail in units to save the day at the last minute and it's just not really good in terms of a gameflow...

[AlvaroSousa]

I don't have a problem defending it in 1943. Never have.

What is on my table now is slightly lowering Allied production and raising Italian moral till USA gets in the war.

[Harrybanana]

Alvaro,

I don't think anyone has a problem with Italy surrendering easily in 1943. I think the problem is with Italy surrendering easily in 1940 or 41. I lost a game in June 1940 after the French and British simultaneously dropped airborne units into Turin and Milan on the same turn they captured Trieste with an invasion. Now I know the Rules and it was obviously stupid of me not to have units in all of these Cities. But in my defence, Italy in 1940 just doesn't have the units it needs to defend every single port and production City and, of course, I wasn't expecting the French and British to have paratroopers in May 1940. At the time Italy surrendered it controlled all of French North Africa and on the same turn it surrendered both Paris and Marseilles were captured. The only territory it had lost anywhere are the aforesaid 3 cities [edit: oops I lied. The UK also invaded with a couple other units and took a few other hexes in Italy].I have no problem with my opponent doing what he did. They were brilliant moves. But I don't think it was realistic that Italy would have surrendered because of a couple paradrops, especially when these units were out of supply with no hope of being rescued.

[battlevonwar]

What HarryBanana points out is quite correct... It would be nice if Italy fought a little harder. It is quite easy to pull a move like mentioned. It's quite easy to do it very early in the game. In reality also you need 1 German Corp, and at least 1 German Div(more if you suspect 5-6 USA/UK paras on every Italian City. About 7 or 8 German Corp cause Italians ones don't defend well enough. Libya and Sicily don't possess enough value to defend either. In my AAR vs MagicMissile from Winter of '41-42 I believe it is I have more Corp in Italy than I do on any other front aside the USSR. You can defend it, I did in that game till the bitter death but at a steep price.

I had at least 25 Land Units in Italy at one point...(4 to 5 air, 2-3 Armor/Mech) in '42... vs just the British... Only reason it held! There is no room to play around in Norway, Yugoslavia or Greece with that, nor Sicily or Libya. If you lose Italy you lose about 25%-35% of your land forces which for the Axis, whoa!

ORIGINAL: AlvaroSousa

I don't have a problem defending it in 1943. Never have.

What is on my table now is slightly lowering Allied production and raising Italian moral till USA gets in the war.

[Harrybanana]

My suggestions are:

1. Under the current Rules if the Allies capture enough production and population centers to cause the Italians to surrender the Axis get one turn to retake these centers. I suggest it should be sufficient if they put the Allied units in those Centers out of supply. Put another way, the Italians only lose morale for the capture of a production or population center if that Centre is in Allied supply at the end of an Axis turn. This would put a stop to those suicide paradrops.

2. Instead of the Italians losing morale only for the capture of the production and population centers they also lose morale for every other city and port that the Allies capture. But the amount of morale they have to lose before surrendering is significantly increased. If this were done then Italy would not surrender until a significant portion of Italy or Italian North Africa was captured.

In fact I like these ideas so much I suggest they be applied to France as well.

[topolm]

I also think that Italy is giving up very quickly. Italy should surrender only when the allies take over Rome.

[malkarma]

In WiF (at least in classic edition, dont remember the present conditions) Italy surrenders when 2 of this conditions are fulfilled:
1) Tripoli is Allied controlled
2) Rome is Allied Controlled
3) Garrison value of Allied troops in Italy is higher than the Italian one.
The garrison values in Wif are:
Arm/mech Corps: 2
Inf Corps: 1
Arm/Mech Divisions: 1
Air Units: 1
Inf divisions: 0.5

This forces the allied to commit a good amount of troops to Italy conquest or to trake objectives that can be defended by German units.
Obviously here this exact conditions would not work. But we can work aroun this.

[malkarma]

This is my proposal:
Italy will surrender when any 3 of this conditions are fullfilled:
a) Rome is Allied controlled.
b) Tripoli is Allied controlled
c) Allied Garrison value is higher than the Italian one.
d) One non Rome/Tripoli moral center is Allied controlled.
Garrison Values:
Arm/Mech Corps: 5
Large Inf/Mtn Corps: 3
Italian/Small Inf Corps: 2
Para Corps: 2
Divisions: 1
Air Units: 2

The idea is to prevent a early surrender by ninja disembarks. Obviously if Italy don´t have a proper garrison both in Italy and NA, UK will make her surrender in 1941.
There is no need to make surrender conditions easier when USA joins the war, because its troops will actually help (or make possible) to fulfill the surrender conditions.

What do you think?

[Flaviusx]

Italy is fine as is.

So far as 1941 goes, why are you not garrisoning Milan and Turin? I always do so. A single corps in each will stop airborne cheese.

[AlvaroSousa]

Just so we are all on the same page. If your defense of Italy is more like this and they are being taken out in 1941 then this is a problem. But really you should have units in all your major production cities. Put some beat up units there and rotate them out.

[AlvaroSousa]

But if your defense of Italy is this in 1940 and 1941..... then you are asking for an ass whooping of epic proportions.

[malkarma]

Being honest, I spend all 1939 and half of 1940 building small corps to cover all that I can (includin all ports in NA and Rhodes). But even that, it´s difficult to cover all to avoid a ninja disembark from Malta to one of the ports in the Adriatic. Your deffense leaves 2 ports ungarrisoned, one extremely close to Bologna, and Milan is open to a Paradrop. And the funny thing is that you did a nice investment in garrisoning.

[pzgndr]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana
I wasn't expecting the French and British to have paratroopers in May 1940.

There's something to be said for the old Third Reich game force pool limits. France had no paratroops. UK and USA don't get them until 1942.

Some ahistorical what-ifs are OK, and perhaps some variants. The obvious problem is that when ahistorical strategies are introduced into a game like this, then you get into the ripple effect of viable counter-strategies and how ahistorical those might be.

Any info on actual Italian mainland garrisons in 1941? Al's proposed defense may be fine but I doubt Italy actually had corps on all those cities. Which means those corps are not forward deployed elsewhere to help the Axis cause, which hurts the Axis and helps the Allies, and the counter counter-strategies involved, etc. Might be best to reconsider the root cause and why Allies are allowed such an early and unrealistic paratrooper threat.

[AlvaroSousa]

They had ~40% of their total force on the mainland from what I could tell.

But the simple solution is just to raise their morale.

The other thing is that if the French are building paratroopers then their defense is pretty crappy and they can be easily overrun.
Any smart Axis would garrison these cities just before their paras come out and royally screw them.

The paras are pretty weak.

As is I will just increase the morale value for them before the USA is in the war.

[kennonlightfoot]

I am of the opinion that the problems isn't with Italy but with the ease that the game has of building Landing Ships and executing invasions. During my last game I think between both sides 20 to 30 amphibious invasions were executed. Probably by end of game it will exceed 30.

The cause is a combination of factors some of which are:

Landing ships are relatively cheap. Most countries can build enough to always have it as a threat against rear areas.
Oddly, the two countries that actually used it are the most limited. UK does have enough ship transport capacity for some reason to launch a large invasion. A 163 compared to the US 235. That is only five units that can be moved at the same time. The US has lots of transport but apparently the worse Shipyard capacity. It can't build enough Landing Ship unless it doesn't build merchants. This is odd considering the US had little problem turning both out and supplying both themselves and the UK with shipping. Germany has little problem turning out enough for the kind of raiding amphibious invasions they like to use.

Cities, especially ports, don't have any inherent defensive capacity. They require the player to leave behind significant numbers of division and Corps size units to cover every possible invasion point. These aren't defenses against D-Day type invasions, these are required to prevent division size raiders from just dropping in to take a port because the normal area defenses like air and navy are just about useless for preventing them.

Amphibious forces can move in "Raider" mode making them impossible to stop until that choose an invasion point. This forces Allies to have every port bordering the Atlantic Ocean garrisoned with divisions from 1940 on. Or risk having the German drop in on a port and use it as a supply base for subs and further invasions. Many of these ports are situated so they can't be retaken even with massive counter formations.

The cost of building new navy ships is so high that there is rarely a means for the largest sea powers, US and UK, to build them. UK because of cost. US because of lack of shipyards.

As an offensive force US and UK ships are pretty much use less. In the game sea power if only really effective in Raider mode. The US and UK need it for protecting their invasions and sometimes it can actually stop one but otherwise they just use up oil.

[AlvaroSousa]

I believe the issue is this.

Landing craft have a natural cost reduction scale over time. in 1939 the cost of a landing craft is ~2x as much as 1944 due to the increased industrial output. Their cost stays static unlike units with technology. But we could still increase the cost of landing craft to make it not very cost efficient to do invasion raids.

I lean on that the Allies have slightly too much production. But the fix is increased costs of units not a reduction in their production output.

Due to the all armor strategy I lean on increasing the oil costs of the allies for these units. While they have plenty of oil if they field 20 armor units and use them constantly it should drain this based on their capacity to transfer oil overseas not their capacity to produce. Doing some research I believe I will increase the oil cost of the US and UK armored units... maybe the Soviets. Considering roughly a German tanker performed better on the field than their counter part T-34 (due to crews), Sherman (due to being a crap tank), and UK units (due to tactics and organizations). So a tiger costs 2.5x a Sherman. But it an take out 4 shermans. While it might use 2x the fuel there are still 5x the Shermans. So when you cost average it the Western Allies should be using more fuel per unit especially since they are motorized.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: AlvaroSousa

Just so we are all on the same page. If your defense of Italy is more like this and they are being taken out in 1941 then this is a problem. But really you should have units in all your major production cities. Put some beat up units there and rotate them out.

My defence in May 1940 was very similar to this except that I had also had units in the ports adjacent to Rome and Naples plus the 2 ports on the East Coast of Italy (on the Adriatic), and I didn't have units in Turin, Venice or Trieste. Of course I didn't have enough Italian units for this so I had to use Germans as well. The reason Venice and Trieste did not have units is because they are out of range of Malta and I failed to notice that my opponent had moved a fleet within range.

I admit that by using virtually the entire Italian army of 1940 along with some German units I could have prevented this. But my issue is: Why should I have to? Why should anyone have to guard so carefully against an Italian surrender due to a couple unsupported invasions and paradrops? It is one thing for Italy to surrender after the capture of these Cities if it has lost significant other territory and/or its armed forces have largely been defeated. It is, in my opinion, quite another thing for it to surrender when its entire army airforce and navy are fully intact and elsewhere victorious, just because they lose a few Cities to suicide mission units.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: AlvaroSousa

They had ~40% of their total force on the mainland from what I could tell.

But the simple solution is just to raise their morale.

The other thing is that if the French are building paratroopers then their defense is pretty crappy and they can be easily overrun.
Any smart Axis would garrison these cities just before their paras come out and royally screw them.

The paras are pretty weak.

As is I will just increase the morale value for them before the USA is in the war.

In my game the French were on the ropes. Of course, they were helped by the fact that virtually the entire UK army was in France. I had destroyed a UK Mech and think I would have gotten an armour as well. Still the French were about to surrender on the 1st June Turn (or maybe it was the 2nd). The problem is that this was 1 turn after Italy surrendered. As for letting the French build paratroopers and then occupying the Italian Cities, that is a great idea. But it requires knowledge that the French have built paratroopers and seriously, how many Axis players were defending against French paratroopers prior to my post.

[MVokt]

This reminds me of the never ending discussions we used to have within Commander Europe At War community.

I haven't had the chance of dipping into the depths of the game but early amphibious and/or airborne operations simply shouldn't be possible.

Or at least, if possible to execute, they shouldn't be that decisive. If they're the preliminary part of a bigger deployment of forces, like D-Day was, then it's Ok. But if they are isolated operations without a follow through, they shouldn't have that decisiveness.

[AlvaroSousa]

What I did was lowered the moral threshhold for the Italians to 28 so now it is even harder to KO them early.

They would need to take out a lot of urban areas now. I was dicey up north as there are 30 points or morale right in the area. With the 35 points required they need a minimal of 4 locations.

The thing is with all the early units Italy has why weren't those locations garrisoned? I always cover my cities before France falls.