Sensible Diplomacy

[majpalmer]

In a recent game I took out Serbia, France, and Italy late in 1915. Russia surrendered in January 1916. As I retooled for the continuation of the war against Perfidious Albion (successfully concluded in March 1918 when London fell), I set up to go after Romania.

As an experiment, I didn't invade and waited to see if Romania would intervene. After all, I think that if Germany had knocked France and, especially, Russia out of the war, the Romanians would NOT have intervened. Their actual entry was suicidal even with the Russians still fighting to the north.

I am happy to report that while the Romanians were inclined to intervene, they stayed at "10+" until the end of the game and never did come in.

The Italians, on the other hand, did intervene, despite the fact that the CP had taken Belgrade and Paris. In the end of the war on the continent in the West, half the troops in France were Italian. This, despite the fact that Italy was being overrun.

I can see that the AI rightly values France as more important to the war effort than Italy. But I doubt that Italian politicians, or the Italian general staff, would have sent their best infantry units and artillery to France as AH troops were overrunning northern Italy and capturing Venice, Milan, and Genoa. Rome fell before Marseilles.

[stockwellpete]

The Italians, on the other hand, did intervene, despite the fact that the CP had taken Belgrade and Paris. In the end of the war on the continent in the West, half the troops in France were Italian. This, despite the fact that Italy was being overrun.

I had that happen in one of my games against the AI (see my "A very strange game" thread). You would expect that as things deteriorated on the home front Italian troops would be withdrawn from France and sent back to Italy really.