Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . .

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Strategic Command Series >> Strategic Command: World War I >> MODS and Scenarios >> Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . .

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Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 3/29/2021 9:47:17 AM

stockwellpete

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I am just separating this out because it is something I feel might be improved upon in the game.

In the game Italy usually declares war on the Central Powers around May 1915, when actually it only declared war on Austria-Hungary at that time in real life. It subsequently declared war on Ottoman Turkey in August 1915, and on Germany in August 1916 (after its ally Romania had joined the Entente).

I think this declaring war on all the Central Powers at once arrangement is very distorting of what I understand about Italian participation in 1915. Basically the country was in dire financial straits, the army was poorly equipped and disorganised, and most of Italy's ruling elite (except for the king) were against further military adventures so soon after their war with Ottoman Turkey.

Yet, in the game, Italy rapidly mobilises at least 10 Corps in northern Italy and can quickly overwhelm the Austro-Hungarian defenders at Trento and on the Isonzo unless they are supported by German units. I have read some comments from players who play mostly MP who say that Italy is very weak at the start, but I assume that this is because German units are sent to fight them in 1915.

What I would like to do is slow this initial Italian mobilisation down (in 1915) a bit and I would like to change the 3 Detachments that Austria-Hungary gets when it rejects Italian demands for Trento and Trieste to something a bit stronger - maybe 1x Mountain Corps (Klagenfurt), 1x Infantry Corps (Trento) and 1x Detachment (Trieste).

I am not sure how to do these two things. I can see 3 Scripts that say A-H deploys garrisons on its borders with Italy. Is it possible to change those scripts to give A-H stronger units in two of the locations? How do I reduce the starting strength points of some of the Italian Infantry Corps when they join the war to simulate a longer mobilisation period?

Apart from this, there is the whole diplomatic question of how Italy behaves when joining the Entente. Ideally, it should just declare war on Austro-Hungary first and only later on declare war on Ottoman Turkey and Germany (linked to Romanian entrance into the war). Maybe these need to be separate DE's?

Of course, there is a possibility that Italian units come into close proximity with German units before any such new DE could fire. The mostly likely location for this is the Tyrol, I guess (I think we can assume that any German subs sent to Pola will be operating with A-H markings). I don't know what is possible with the game engine to trigger an earlier declaration of war - if, say, Italian and German units come within 2 hexes of each other? Another issue is what if French/UK units are sent to help Italy? Would this make Germany declare war on Italy before 1916?

So there are quite a few issues here. I would be interested to hear from anyone who thinks this might be usefully modded at some stage.

< Message edited by stockwellpete -- 3/29/2021 11:43:14 AM >

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 3/29/2021 10:36:18 AM

BillRunacre

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If you amend the UNIT scripts that you've found, and then make sure the script Updates when saving then you can have different unit types arrive when A-H refuses to hand over Trento and Trieste.

#UNIT= 2 [10] [0.4] [Trieste]

Change the unit type (the number 2 in bold) to 4 for a Corps or 6 for a Mountain Corps.

Italian mobilization is governed by MOBLIZATION_2 scripts. Open the file and search for #NAME= Italy->Entente

Then change either the #TRIGGER= or #MOBILIZATION= , or both, as desired.

Handling Italian-German interactions that could trigger a conflict or further Italian mobilizations is a lot more complicated. Though for the latter you could change some of the Italian UNIT scripts so that their condition position triggers require a German unit to be within x hexes of various Italian resources, with a #FAILSAFE_DATE= of when Italy and Germany did actually go to war.

The same principle could be used for a dummy DECISION script to fire when German units are within x hexes of Italian resources, or if Italy is invading Austria-Hungary, triggering an amended BELLIGERENCE script for the two countries to go to war.

You may want an extra BELLIGERENCE script set to the historical date too, just in case the one triggered by advances by Italian or AH forces doesn't fire by then.

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 3/29/2021 11:08:53 AM

stockwellpete

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Thanks for all that, Bill. Some of it might be beyond me, but hopefully I will be able to rope someone else in at some stage. I remember you saying very early on (not sure if Alpha or Beta stage) that Italy did just declare war on A-H at first, but players did not like it very much. What were the problems?

Also, is it possible to alter the German Pola sub decision so that the extra submarines that appear in the Adriatic are "Austro-Hungarian".

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 3/29/2021 12:27:14 PM

stockwellpete

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre

If you amend the UNIT scripts that you've found, and then make sure the script Updates when saving then you can have different unit types arrive when A-H refuses to hand over Trento and Trieste.

#UNIT= 2 [10] [0.4] [Trieste]

Change the unit type (the number 2 in bold) to 4 for a Corps or 6 for a Mountain Corps.

OK, I have done this OK, I think. Obviously this has strengthened A-H a bit so I will need to balance them elsewhere.

quote:

Italian mobilization is governed by MOBLIZATION_2 scripts. Open the file and search for #NAME= Italy->Entente

Then change either the #TRIGGER= or #MOBILIZATION= , or both, as desired.

I am not sure if this is what I want. It looks like any alterations here might delay Italian entry into the war. I don't really want to do that. What I would like to do is have more the Infantry Corp units not at full strength right away, so that Italy has to use more of its MPP's harvested in 1915 to get itself ready for war. Is there any way to look at what Italy usually has available when it declares war?

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 3/29/2021 7:05:00 PM

BillRunacre

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quote:

ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

Thanks for all that, Bill. Some of it might be beyond me, but hopefully I will be able to rope someone else in at some stage. I remember you saying very early on (not sure if Alpha or Beta stage) that Italy did just declare war on A-H at first, but players did not like it very much. What were the problems?

Confusion, as they could not attack the enemy's units and didn't understand why they couldn't.

quote:

Also, is it possible to alter the German Pola sub decision so that the extra submarines that appear in the Adriatic are "Austro-Hungarian".

Yes, just change the #COUNTRY_ID= 45 to #COUNTRY_ID= 8

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 3/29/2021 7:08:59 PM

BillRunacre

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quote:

ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

I am not sure if this is what I want. It looks like any alterations here might delay Italian entry into the war. I don't really want to do that. What I would like to do is have more the Infantry Corp units not at full strength right away, so that Italy has to use more of its MPP's harvested in 1915 to get itself ready for war. Is there any way to look at what Italy usually has available when it declares war?

Ah, I see, a different sort of mobilization.

Search the Unit script file for #NAME= Italy Mobilizes For War

In the following line, the number in bold denotes the strength the unit will arrive at:

#UNIT= 0 [5] [0] [Duke of Aosta]

There are quite a few of these scripts, and reducing that will make things take a bit longer for Italy to reach its full potential.

Refer to the UNIT ID REFERENCE VALUES at the top of the file to see what actual unit types you are changing.

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 3/29/2021 8:01:08 PM

stockwellpete

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Thanks for these, Bill. I will have a look tomorrow. Just tested out the change when A-H deploys garrisons on the Italian border and that worked fine - Corps in Trento, Mountain Corps in Klagenfurt and Detachment in Trieste. By way of compensation to keep the A-H balanced, I have changed some of their Infantry Corps to Colonial Corps (with weaker stats) to represent the less than enthusiastic national minorities in the A-H empire.

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 3/30/2021 11:27:11 AM

BillRunacre

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That's good to hear.

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 3/30/2021 11:40:29 AM

stockwellpete

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I am actually a bit puzzled now, Bill.

I did as you suggested and looked up . . .

Search the Unit script file for #NAME= Italy Mobilizes For War

In the following line, the number in bold denotes the strength the unit will arrive at:

#UNIT= 0 [5] [0] [Duke of Aosta]

But I could only see 2x Infantry Corps there for the Italians that were at full strength. When I went back into the game (Italy had not yet joined the war) I pressed the F3 De-Bug key and I could see 7 Italian Corps units at full strength - at Milan, Turin, Genoa, Verona, Venice, Rome and Palermo.

Then, when Italy entered the war in May 1915, it had mobilised 9x full strength Infantry Corps in northern Italy (plus 4 Detachments and 2 half-strength HQ's were moving up there), while elsewhere in Italy there were 6 other Infantry Corps mobilised along with 1 Detachment. Most were at full strength. The Build Limit for Italy is 15 Infantry Corps, so this means they were all mobilised within 2 weeks of joining the war. I was playing on Expert level (with +10% MPP for the AI).

How do I slow this down, given that I want to model Italy just fighting against Austria-Hungary in mid 1915?

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 3/31/2021 9:18:47 AM

BillRunacre

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I think the extra ones will be AI-only unit events.

If you search the file for ; ALLIED AI EVENTS - Italy it will take you to them, so these are the ones you will want to amend.

Either by changing their #FLAG= 1 to #FLAG= 0 as that means they won't fire, or by changing their #DATE= 1914/08/01 to something later (note that the date is only one trigger for their joining, Italy has to be fully mobilized too, but by changing the date you could have them receiving extra units in 1915, 1916, 1917... rather than them all deploying when Italy enters the war).

However, I would test out how it goes because one of the reasons these units are added is to give the AI the confidence to do things a human player would take for granted, e.g. no human fears a strong amphibious landing by the Central Powers in southern Italy, and turning them all off might not really be the best thing to do. Only testing can tell with that.

The #AI= field denotes the AI difficulty level, and these are explained at the top of the file.

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 3/31/2021 9:43:01 AM

stockwellpete

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OK Bill, I will experiment. Thanks.

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 4/1/2021 1:48:24 PM

stockwellpete

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Btw, what effect does deleting units from the map before the game have? Do the deleted units still appear in the army lists that can be purchased later, or are they just gone for good?

< Message edited by stockwellpete -- 4/1/2021 2:05:18 PM >

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RE: Italian declaration of war in 1915 . . . - 4/1/2021 4:34:41 PM

BillRunacre

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Yes, they can still be purchased during the game.

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