Recommended Gameplay

[Hanal]

I have not delved into the GC yet so before I begin, I'm wondering what the suggested preferences are for controlling countries. For example, if you select Germany, do you also select Italy or do you let the AI handle them? Same with the UK, Russia, and USA, is the gameplay better selecting only one of the allies to control, or multiple? Thanks

[doomtrader]

Personally I prefer to play as the major countries only, especially when playing on the Axis side. In single player game there is also a possibility to switch countries from AI to PBEM, however this might sometimes bring strange results.

[freeboy]

he means ai to player control

[Hanal]

What I guess I'm driving at, is that if you simply play Germany, and Italy is controlled by the AI, is there cooperative efforts between the two if allied? For example will AI Italy take it upon itself to invade Albania, or more aggressively, Yugoslavia, and I can assist with sending German forces there as well? I'm just trying to get a handle on what is the optimal setting when choosing how many countries you should control.

[Numdydar]

Italy is AI controled in my game and has not done much so far. It is sending troops to Russia. However, even though they are in the Axis and allied, you cannot attack combining Italian and German forces. Each attacks seperately which obviously causes issues as the Italians are not very strong. Also Germany cannot send any PP to Italy to help them produce. They would need to capture their own cities in order to increase their production.

It in now Oct 1940 and Italy has not attacked anyone other than France and helping in Russia. So have no idea what they will do going forward.

The othe issue is that if Germany wants to send German troops to NA, they have to capture a port in the Med. They cannot use Italy's. Also Germany would have to rely on the Italian navy for protection for the troop ships and covoys for supply. Of course, given my experiances with Sea Lion, I am not even sure if you would need protection as these ships seem to be ignored by the British navy anyway [:)].

The only way that I would be willing to put German troops in NA would be if I controled both Italy and German. That way I could make sure the Italian navy was were they needed to be to protect my AKs and convoys. To be blunt, I would not even bother putting German troops in NA at all. To much effort for too little gain imho.

But if going into NA is something that you really want to do, then I would strongly suggest playing Italy and Germany as human players at a minimum. Of course to make it really easy, you could play Greece and Yug too so you can overrun them even easier [:D]

[Hanal]

Thanks for that reply Num, it really helps...since there are some niggling issues with the game, I may forgo the GC as a major country for now and learn the game by playing some of the minor countries first until the first update is released...I think Finland would be interesting, but I'm not sure how well the game is set up to play as a minor...then again, all I really want to do for now is get used to the system since I cannot devote a great amount of gaming time per session...thanks again............

[zoot]

I set all my future allies to human control. Italian help is very much need , my Italians have captured Iraq, are bombing russia. My Itialian air force is bigger then its ground forces, and I occupy France with them. The smaller allies get int the way of german attacks, and I used them to garrison cities. Putting them under your control is the way to go. Also you get to set their research.
zoot