Slitherine

I think it would be sensible to limit the tech levels allowed by the Italians.

I am playing a PPeM game at the moment where I used all available Italian pp's to research focusing on General (Organization to begin with) and Infantry (Fixed defences to begin with). I am now at the stage in the game where the Italian Infantry are the most technologicaly advanced of all Infantry on the battlefield. They are maxed out on Fixed defences and Artillery and have only 2 tech levels to go to max out on anti-tank on general they are maxed out on organisation and radar with just 2 production levels to go.

The result is that they are stronger in '43 than the german troops and are allot stronger than anything the Allies can field - although this is great for my game as I am advancing on Perm at the moment (with teched up German Panzers leading the charge followed by Italian Infantry) I do feel that this is somehow a little wrong - is there anyway of limiting the amount of tech levels the Italians can reach in the different areas?

Please note that although I am at the gates of Perm this game is by no means over - I am facing strong threats in the center towards Moscow and in the South near Rostov and the Crimea (which I never captured). I am also under pressure from Americans in Africa around Tobruk with Tripoli and Tunisia already fallen, as well as, my offensive in Persia is now in retreat to cover the Iraqi oil fields. I still hold Europe but I can see a build up of forces happening in the UK which could be problematic soon. My opponant has also for some reason invaded Portugal which has tied up some of his forces currently.

If you check out the research trees, you'll see that every nation has the same maximum limits, meaning that if it ever gets to that point, all the armies will be equally good at killing. That's what makes the game interesting (albeit ahistorical). By emphasizing a couple of areas, you can achieve much better than historical levels of capabilities for some units.
Since I doubt you can code the type of limits you're asking about into the game, if you want to go for a "realistic" tech tree, probably the best thing I can think of is not allowing any tech to go to level two before every tech is at level one (and so forth).

Jyri

If the Italians are doing that well that they can max out tech, you arent killing enough Italians to force them to buy units.

I am the Italians and its my opponents who dont kill enough of them.

I find that if I dont commit Italians to much combat until mid '42 they become very usefull. I also always begin research on Fixed defences first of all infantry techs to help them not to die so fast. If they have to enter combat they usualy act as a mop up force or move behind german units.

When they are sufficiently teched up German production never needs to produce another infantry corps (which helps there man power) - German production concetrates on Air and Armour and Italians provide the Infantry - this way I never suffer from any manpower issues. This strategy of course is heavily dependant on taking either the Iraqi oilfields or taking south Russian fields.

I have yet to lose using this strategy (admitidly I have only used this 3 times now) - with Oil I feel Axis are unstoppable. If limits could be set on research as tickable options this could help balance the game out.