gdpsnake1979
Posts: 127
Joined: 4/2/2009
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My response:
1). The facts are clear about Greece. It was run by the Metaxis Govt which maintained a heavy pro-Allied leaning especially with Great Britain. While they strove for Neutrality, their chief foe was Italy and Musolini's desire for conquests on par with his German ally. This caused the Greco-Italian war to start on 28 Oct 1940 when Italy attacked from Albania which he took in April of 39 (Mussolini expected Bulgaria to join and it was their neutrality that allowed the bulk of Greek forces to be diverted against the Italians.) From the history of the politics, there is no way that a 'slight' axis leaning would ever have brought Greece into the Axis camp. In fact, Greek units continued to fight for the British under the Greek Government in exile in the Middle East after Greece surrendered.
It's also clear that Hitler didn't want to get involved in the Balkans at all but was forced into it when the Italian forces were pushed back well into Albania thanks to determined combat actions by Greek forces. A British expeditionary force was sent to Greece as well. Hitler had to bail Mussolini out and it began April 6 1941 in conjunction with Yugoslavia.
2). Speaking to Yugoslavia, yes, they signed the pact or more correctly, the Prime Minister signed the pact on March 25, 1941 against the will of the people and the Govt who saw several immediate resignations as a result. In fact, two days later the people and the Air Force staged a coup and overthrew the government. This created great concern in the German High Command who were already laying plans for the invasion of Greece and decided to add Yugoslavia in the plans as well.
Prior to this time, the Govt of Stojadinovik had tried to maintain neutrality by signing a treaty of friendship with France and a non-aggression treaty with Italy. The problem with Yugoslavia, as I mentioned in my early post, was internal. Croatia wanted an independent state allied with the Axis while the rest, mainly Serbia, wanted to back the Allies. Eventually the problems caused the regent, Prince Paul, to 'fire' Stojadinovik and put in Cvetkovic who made a deal with the Croatians to establish their own 'country within a country.' But this backfired with the people and made matters worse seeing rise to a third group, the communist party of Yugoslavia, which wanted alignment with the Soviets.
The fall of France in May 1940 badly weakened the pro-allied side so Prince Paul was forced to pander to the Axis to stop the communists. That worked for a year because Hitler didn't want to get involved with the Balkans and probably would have worked for the duration until Mussolini stepped into Greece. Yugoslavia tried secret negotiations with the Allies and the Soviets but were geographically isolated from them. They tried to minimize concessions to the Axis but the Greco-Italian war really forced the eventual signing of the Tripartite pact. Which of course, was overthrown two days later. The rest is history.
Based on this, Yugoslavia was never going to be successful in fully joining either side and probably would have maintained neutrality if not for the Greko-Italian war. They just sort of fell into invasion. So I submit that diplomacy would never swing Yugoslavia either way. Successful Allied diplomacy just keeps it neutral while successful Axis diplomacy would cause a partition of Yugoslavia creating Croatia and the satellite states loosely lumped together as Serbia that stays neutral unless Greece comes into the conflict whereupon "Serbia" declares for the Allies.
3). This goes back to Hubert..LOL!
4). I wholly disagree that Soviet troops would be any where near parity with German troops that early on at any level. For the Soviets to get Infantry 3 before Germany gets even 2 is ridiculous and the research needs to be set back with the Soviets at Infantry level 0 at the start without investment. The DE that improves morale is good but there weren't even enough rifles for half the troops at Stalingrad so research giving them parity or superiority is not believable until late 43 or 44. And you could make a case that wouldn't even happen without the Lend Lease program so if a player shut down the convoys to 0, then that should cause a DE preventing Research breakthroughs for the Soviets. A nice reason for players to keep the supplies flowing, I'd say.
5). I'm not convinced of bad luck. The laws of probability don't allow that kind of luck. There must be something in the AI programming because weather is bizzare too. As an Axis player, I get bad weather in Oct until next April but in multiple games, an AI Axis gets clear weather all year round on their half turn rarely seeing any A\C grounding. Also AI always gets Far east reinforcements in Dec, as a player I rarely see them until April or May. Seems the AI does better with the Soviet winter too, often it doesn't even fire off until late Jan and the results are 'nicer'. I actually played one game where the weather was clear for the Axis AI from May 41 to May of 42 with terrible weather on every player turn. I've played dozens of games both ways with many mods, there is a bias somehow creeping into it.
6). Yes I believe the Italians took Egypt but I also saw several transports from the USA enroute to the Persian Gulf so clearly the AI was responding to something. And if the purpose of the scripted units is to help Egypt beyond the already extra tanks, why do they go to Kuwait when Iraq isn't even in the picture? Why not appear as an effort to retake Cairo or more importantly for the USA, the Suez canal? And such a move should be a DE that moves Turkey even further Axis. A player has to evaluate the loss of Egypt without US help versus saving Egypt with the help but seeing Turkey go Axis.
7). Cool.
Yes, both matches were decisive but I did play on intermediate. Doesn't mean that the scripts to aid the AI are not over the top. They basically just churn out dozens of free units not available to a player. I would rather see 'help' come in a different form.
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