Lithuania

[xwormwood]

In 1939 there is a pop up which informs the Axis player after the Fall of Poland that the Area near Wilno was given to Lithuania (i could have sworne that the messages said Latvia, but I may be wrong).

Question: shouldn't this give the Axis some Diplo points with Lithuania? Handing over territories should be rewarded with a bit of influence, right?

Add-on question: why should the Axis player do such a thing once he used the DE to ignore the Hitler-Stalin pact?
This pop feels like a story not ready to be told. No DE, just an action. No matter how the Axis player has planned his campaign. In my eyes this should become a DE.

[BillRunacre]

It does say Lithuania. [:)]

It was all agreed in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that Lithuania could take the territory. I didn't have this as a separate DE because there isn't really a reason for Germany to do it, because:

a) no one will ever invest sufficient Diplomacy in Lithuania to make it join their side
b) if the USSR occupies Lithuania then it gets the area around Wilno too, which means Germany has another city to conquer.

So there are two reasons not to transfer the territory, but none for doing so that would be tangible in game terms.

But as it was historically transferred, it's a bit difficult to introduce a DE. In fact, it was the USSR that transferred the territory in return for Lithuania allowing Soviet bases on her soil. We don't have a way to replicate this directly in game, so it would be a hard Soviet DE to replicate too.

Like you I have wondered about whether or not the territory should transfer if the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact isn't honored.

But as the scripts behind the partition of Poland and transfer of Wilno are already very complicated, the work involved in working it all out in accordance with the various plausible paths events could take would outweigh the benefit.

[xwormwood]

Hi Bill.

With a) you might be right - but nevertheless, why not adding like 5, 10 or 20 diplo points? Would look more plausible instead of zero points, at least while the pop up informs the player that the Germans let go of conquered territories.

So forget about the DE, just let rain down some tiny, sweet little diplo points upon the diplo chart.

[BillRunacre]

An interesting thing about doing this is that Lithuania would have to move in different directions depending on who holds Wilno when the transfer is made. Pro-Soviet, or pro-Axis.