Spain question in alpha 3

italy has a chance in this. you just have to keep at it. it is your NO so just keep trying.

Problem with spain being an axis power from a historical standpoint is spain never entered the war. Also Spain just got done with a Spanish civil war. Spain did support axis economically, would make sense that spain would give warbonds to axis.

Then you have to deal with the technicality of Portugal sticking with the oldest alliance in the world, an alliance with England. +2 UK as well.

Spain and Portugal signed a non aggression treaty following the regime change in Spain. Historically neither side entered the war. Portugal traded with both sides, but the arms deals went to England.

Portugal and Spain did not want to fight… it’d be like spain having another civil war, they have a big brother little brother relationship. Both did the Age of exploration in different paths, both languages are similar, and both cultures have similarities.

These people did not enter the war for a reason, it would have made the peninsular war insignificant. Spain may as well have thrown full support behind the French and fought Portugal. Prior to that most of the conflicts between Spain and Portugal were in South America. Before that Portuguese restoration war, which made Portugal independent again.

This is all history, which frustrated Hitler because he couldn’t get the Spanish to take Gibraltar and enter the war.

At the end of the day, the Spanish just fought a civil war and typically after a war there is discontent for more war. Add to the fact that Spain initially supported France in taking Portugal, but ended up joining the Portuguese instead. It makes more sense that the two stayed out of the war for them, because they would be different sides otherwise and usually the Spanish and Portuguese don’t fight at home, because the aggressor would lose public support.
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To answer your question again. +2 uk for portugal being neutral or allies +2 to italy for being neutral or pro axis. you still have to declare war on neutrals to take them, because they would resist invasion.

It is a good question to ask why spain did not enter the war.

There is a revisionist theory and official theory that conflicts with my Portugal Spain relations theory.

Spain sent volunteers to assist axis, but from my understanding they were not ordered to join the axis. Spain refueled uboats, but that is a part of trade.

Hitler may have been wise not to have the Spanish as an axis power… because that gives the allies a place to land troops not to mention Portugal would have joined the allies if the treaty with Spain and Portugal was broken.

So from Hitler’s point of view and Spain/Portugal relations point of view. Spain being neutral made total sense.

The problem with Spain not being a true neutral is that there would be no reason for USA not to attack it and build a minor IC there.  With the Gibraltar naval base they could set up a transport shuck from Eastern USA that would be doomsday for the Axis.  Having Spain be a true neutral means that if anyone attacks it, then ALL strict neutrals flip to be pro-other side.  The big downside to just doing it is that if Turkey goes pro-axis then Germany has an easy route to the middle east and Caucasus, although some people have advocated just going for Spain anyway because the benefits are so great.  Sometimes people hit Spain or Turkey in the end stages of the game out of desperation.

I joined in and took over Italy around round 7-8 or so of a very weird game that I’m not sure how the axis won. I’m sketchy on the details before I arrived, but Germany had attacked Turkey, Spain, and Sweden all on the same turn on like G2 or G3. Turkey was for quick access to the middle east money and to open up a southern front, spain was for a land route to gibraltar. Once the axis had spain, they were able to fortify it and prevent the US from ever getting into the med. With control of the access point, Italy was able to take egy and build a minor on it after their fleet was sunk.

USSR was a beast for a very long time, especially since they managed to take Scandanavia. But all that NO money eventually started to pay off for Germany and that front quickly degenerated into just tanks vs tanks. Bands of marauding tanks/mech blitzed here and there. I joined in as Italy around this time and started churning out ground pounders in a desperate bid to hold spain and fortify the western coast so germany could go all out vs ussr. The axis never took morocco, so the US never could build a naval base there. But I giggled silently to myself as US struggled to maintain a stream of troops to the front because he could’ve walked into rio de oro at any time and built a base there.

We went to round 15 or so and the allied position became steadily worse. China and UK pac were knocked out, spain had 40 Italians on it, France/W. germany had maybe another 20, uk was poor, italy had most of africa except for the minor which uk had stacked, germany took back scandanavia/had the middle east/and were deep into ussr. I think by the time it came for the final battle in moscow, each side only had about 20 units and most of them on both sides were armor.

Did USA take South America?

Yeah they took SA for another 6ipcs and such.

Part of the problem is my playgroup likes to split it up european allies and pacific allies. You figure out how to split the US money and then go from there. And the pac/euro boards are the dividing line for units. You could request a couple units be moved from one theater to another, but it makes coordinating the ‘global’ game a pain in the butt for the allies. So I usually stick to the axis when I can or find someone who’s willing to split it up by country vs theater.