East Africa Italians Bug?

[Chuck?]

The East Africian Italians don't surrender with the fall of Rome. Can they be moved anywhere or should they stay in East Africa?

[Dan Neely]

I'd say that they should be disbanded. There's no way IMO that the conscipted locals would keep fighting on the side that conquered them after it collapsed. What I want to know is how rome managed to fall before Addis Abba. It's a situation so rare that I think using an event to cover the possbility would be waste.

[Chuck?]

The Allies used Overlord to land at Anzio and then took Rome. East Africa is still under Axis control.

[Raver]

Originally posted by Chuck
The Allies used Overlord to land at Anzio and then took Rome. East Africa is still under Axis control.

Yes, this game has been officially weird. Its turn 150, and most of Russia is in German hands, east africa, north africa, scandinavia are all axis controlled. Spain has been re-captured by allies, but we're losing it again, and Italy has been conquered although I'm still trying to over run all of it. I agree with Dan that an event to sort out the Italians in East Africa would be a waste - it surely wont happen too often :)

[Mark Stevens]

What a weird situation.

We've allowed the British Commonwealth and Imperial troops in Africa and the Middle East to fight on after the UK surrenders as I know that was the intention: the Middle Eastern and Indian Commands were virtually independent from the UK central government, as Churchill found to his cost when trying to order them around: he had to make a couple of potentially dangerous personal trips to Cairo to impose his will on the local commanders.

I think that in a state as centralised as Fascist Italy, the local governor in the Horn, the Duke of Aosta, would most likely have accepted surrender once the home government collapsed. So I'd agree with disbanding them. I'm just surprised that with Italy in the war, the local Commonwealth forces in the horn weren't enough to beat them anyway: especially if the Allies triggered the 'Overlord' bonus.

[Raver]

Originally posted by Mark Stevens
What a weird situation.

We've allowed the British Commonwealth and Imperial troops in Africa and the Middle East to fight on after the UK surrenders as I know that was the intention: the Middle Eastern and Indian Commands were virtually independent from the UK central government, as Churchill found to his cost when trying to order them around: he had to make a couple of potentially dangerous personal trips to Cairo to impose his will on the local commanders.

I think that in a state as centralised as Fascist Italy, the local governor in the Horn, the Duke of Aosta, would most likely have accepted surrender once the home government collapsed. So I'd agree with disbanding them. I'm just surprised that with Italy in the war, the local Commonwealth forces in the horn weren't enough to beat them anyway: especially if the Allies triggered the 'Overlord' bonus.


Well its been a funny old war really. There weren't any commonwealth units in the horn long before this stage of the game. IIRC I was beaten decisively in North Africa quite early on having lost France in 1939 along with some Brits stationed there + the Free French types. I think East Africa was reinforced through the horn, Gibraltar taken through Spain and bitter fighting in East Africa in 1940, which I ultimately lost around then too. In short, the allies were completely shut out of the Med and Africa until very recently - the horn (as well as South Africa, etc) has been a peaceful, self-governing Italian province for some time now.

Based on that, it doesn't seem right to me to expect Chuck to disband all those units in that part of the world. I technically agree with your comments on this Mark, in a general sense (if anyone else ever encounters this situation), but in this instance with no fighting down there, and minimal allied threat to the area I don't think the Italians would just lay down their arms.

Equally, though, I don't think those Italian units would be likely to march off to war in North Africa. But that's something I need to discuss with Chuck. In situations like this my philosophy is that if it doesn't completely destroy the game (which this doesn't) then you just have to shrug your shoulders and accept the odd quirk.