The Italians

[Larry]

Comments noted

[Flashman]

There are many benefits to having Italy. A 3 vs 3 split seems much fairer and balances out.

You can say that Mussolini was dependent on Germany, but by the same token where would Britain have been in 1942 without American aid?

3 vs 3 balances out nicely as:

Germany vs USSR for dominance of Eastern Europe
Italy vs UK for dominance in the Mediterranean
Japan vs USA for contol of the Pacific

If Italy plays before Britain it will get an opportunity to damage the RN to give it's own fleet a fighting chance.

As for IPC income, I would recommend giving Italy control of all Axis minors and Vichy territory to bring them up to scratch. They might then have something like this:

Italy 6
Sicily 1
Sardinia 1
Libya 1 (can place native infantry here)
Rhodes 0 (important naval base)
Southern Europe 3 (Alb/Yug/Gre) Can place Croats, Bosnians?
Balkans 3 (Hun/Rom/Bul) can place Romanian infantry

Finland 2
This might seem better as part of German territory, but it would add an interesting dimension to the eastern front (place Finnish infantry)

Vichy France 3 (assuming Germany occupies northern France)
Algeria/Tunisia 2
Morocco 1
French West Africa 1 (Dakar)
Madagascar 1

Italy should not be able to raise French troops, and those units starting in Vichy territories might be distinguished as French. In this case these forces would not be able to move outside Vichy territory, but would defend themselves against Allied attacks.

Using the traditional Spring 1942 start date the following would be Allied occupied:

Italian East Africa 1 (included French Somalia) Can place native infantry if liberated
Syria/Lebanon 1
French Equatorial Africa 1
French Polynesia 0
New Caledonia 0

Indochina 2 (occupied by Japan)

This would give Italy a reasonable income, though leaving it the weakest of the six powers, but with potential to expand into Africa and the Middle East, freeing Germany for the Eastern Front.
The extra turn gives the Axis some respite against the three Allies moving in succession against Germany.

[Imperious leader]

Good ideas. The main thing is 3 vs. 3 makes for yet another influence to make the game more than 2 players. I tired of the game becoming 1 guy playing 3 nations. Id rather have both strong and weak players to bring into the element of independant thought and strategy. IN the real war nations had their own agenda and view of the situation and those decisions have their part in the original game because it became a focal point of "diplomacy" to convince your partners of the winning plan, but also to allow them to do as they wish.

Im 2 player games its totally lost and 3 nations are basically played as ONE only in 3 segments.

Its an art of the game that was lost since the CD-rom version came out and has been lost ever since. ON the good side some people still prefer to view and play the game with no less than 4 players and thats the way it should be.

My hats off to them!

[templeton]

I think China is more of a viable player than Italy... in many ways Italy was the junior partner of Germany, and in terms of scales of production etc, was really a minor country.

The only way to make it a valid 3rd player would be to make it Italy and the Eastern European Axis - but then this is not historical, as the minor axis nations were under German leadership.

Even in Africa, after 1942 the Germans were very much running the show.


Just seems easier to have the European Axis and the Japanese... who were outnumbered by the three major Allied powers.



But seperate Italian pieces would be cool - I use the old Axis and Allies parts (as my Germans came in Green), so they make nice Italians.

[Flashman]

But China was not an industrial power, so would just be plain boring to play.
Buy all infantry...
Buy all infantry...
Buy all infantry...

I repeat, the UK was very dependant on the US so why can't we have Italy as a "junior" partner of Germany?

The Italians did have a reasonable war economy with a fine fleet, some good aircraft and artillery but rather obsolete tanks. With better leadership (for example Mussolini did not believe that Aircraft Carriers were worth building) they might have done a lot better.
After all the USA didn't have much of an army in 1941 and after Pearl Harbour had to build up their forces before becoming a superpower. You cannot say for certain Italy couldn't have done the same on a smaller scale.

[Imperious leader]

Italy was a modern power, It had Air, land ,and sea forces. Plus Italy includes all of Germanys Minor axis buddys... Bulgaria, hungary, romania.

China is totally unorganized mess...

Nothing in China had any effect on Japans ability to win or lose its bid for empire. China was a shell game of sorts because they really just never got anything going in the war.

Plus Italy was a focal point for the allied effort. China was like 560 divisions
( thats what they called it... but hardly a real division in this case) against 30 japanese divisions and the Japanese cut thru them like butter. The only thing stopping Japan was it was not worth the economic effort to exploit the whole of china because most of the industrial centers were allready occupied by Japan... and the result was something similiar to what the Romans did with the Saxons at Hadrians wall....namely to just keep out the rif raf out of their yard.

The same reasoning would have been applied to any Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union. Only the coastal areas had any value. Their was not way the Japanese would have gone to the trouble of "occuping" the eastern half of the Soviet Union because its just undeveloped wilderness and too cold.

Eastern and central northern China is very similiar to this as well.

[Flashman]

You were doing so well 'till you mentioned the Saxons at Hadrian's wall.

Saxons that far north. Gloucester in Cumbria.

Dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[Imperious leader]

Yea yea..