Here's an interesting topic, what are your thoughts on having an Italian faction in both sides?

See, I've seen people want a standalone faction for Italy in CoH3 and I also am slightly interested in seeing a full Italian faction, the problem I see with the current factions already in place would be what faction would the Italians go up against to even out the faction numbers on both sides (Y'know, not get another British Forces scenario in CoH2 where we get 3 Allied factions and only 2 Axis) and also be accurate with the on going timeline in game.

My idea is to have the Italians, well go up against the Italians.

Historically this does make sense. By the time the Allies invaded mainland Italy, only a few months after did Italy sign an armistice. So I propose we get 2 Italian Factions:

1. ISR (Italian Social Republic ) for the Axis side
2. ICA (Italian Co-belligerent Army) or simply Army of the South for the Allies side

What would make these two factions stand out and differ from one another?

(We shall take into account that the DAK (more so Panzerarmee Afrika) will have Italian Army support call ins and the British Commonwealth will have Italian Partisan connections as what was stated by the devs)

For Axis:

The ISR will work like the inverse of how the current DAK is suggested to have. The DAK in game is a mostly German force with Italian Support from what we've seen so far (and to what extent we don't know yet) so I propose the ISR be a mostly Italian force with German Support plus extras like German weapon upgrades. The Italian support call in units from the DAK could be tiered units for the ISR instead whilst the German support call ins be Germany's later tiered or special units. Think of something like the Bersagliere being maybe a tier 2/3 infantry unit and then having German Assault Grenadiers be a support call in (although arguably the majority of Bersagliere would have been on the Allies side by now). They don't have to get support from only the DAK but also from Wehrmacht units too so stuff like their Stoßtruppen. There's also upgrades for the Italian troops to perhaps field German equipment. That shtick and idea. So DAK still keeps their Italian support units and we get an Axis Italian faction.

For Allies:

The ICA will work as a mixed faction even more so than that of the DAK and previously suggested ISR. The British Commonwealth already has Italian Partisan connections so let's make them keep it as the ICA is still the Italian Army just like the ISR forces, only this time, they get Allied support and upgrades respectively and maybe a change of look/uniform (how else would the Allies tell those Italian soldiers are on their side?). Just like the ISR as well, they are a mostly Italian force with access to Allied support call ins and upgrades; it's mostly British from what I've seen but let's give them American stuff too. Make the ICA kinda like a "jack of all trades" kind of deal where they have essentially access to all of the Allied factions' arsenal. Italian troops with a Matilda tank support, an Browning HMG Italian unit, etc.

What are your thoughts on my idea I've thrown into the ring about having an Italian Faction? This doesn't go into full detail like what units would be in the faction and their playstyle and such but just the overall theming of the factions.

Thinking about it this idea kinda has a similar idea from how the Cold War mod for CoH2 (The Unthinkable War) separated the Ostheer and OKW into the The West German Bundeswehr (Ostheer) and The East German National People's Army (OKW).

I got to be frank. I'm really against an Allied Italian faction. More so for the sense giving a full fledged Italian faction to the allies would literally make the distinction of the Italian Axis pointless or moot. The whole idea of them being present is to give the Axis factionally a new element and playstyle to work with outside just the Germans. If the Italians get copy pasted or slightly altered and shoved into an Allied format. Again it just loses the luster of having distinctive and meaningful factional balance and competitor. In so far as representing the real world conflict of ww2. Italian Partisans as a side element for the allies is totally within reason and maybe some units here and there as captured/repurposed equipment. However a allied Italian faction is just counter intuitive in my eyes. Lets just prioritize and stick with getting the Italian Axis army into the game first. As that is the real momentum driver amongst the fan base and was the thing we got Relic to acknowledge we have interest on. 

robosoldier1 wrote:

I got to be frank. I'm really against an Allied Italian faction. More so for the sense giving a full fledged Italian faction to the allies would literally make the distinction of the Italian Axis pointless or moot. The whole idea of them being present is to give the Axis factionally a new element and playstyle to work with outside just the Germans. If the Italians get copy pasted or slightly altered and shoved into an Allied format. Again it just loses the luster of having distinctive and meaningful factional balance and competitor. In so far as representing the real world conflict of ww2. Italian Partisans as a side element for the allies is totally within reason and maybe some units here and there as captured/repurposed equipment. However a allied Italian faction is just counter intuitive in my eyes. Lets just prioritize and stick with getting the Italian Axis army into the game first. As that is the real momentum driver amongst the fan base and was the thing we got Relic to acknowledge we have interest on. 

You do put a good point.

I will say that the idea of the ISR being the standalone Italian faction would still apply if we were to remove their Allied counter part that being the ICA. If Relic wanted to add a pure Italian faction and just make them part of the Axis side, the idea of a faction that's themed like an inverse DAK seems to be the most sense historically based on the game's timeline and is interesting idea to mess around with.

The thought of having them go up against the ICA was primarily due to how it'd be unbalanced in terms of faction count in both sides. Another British Forces deal like I've previously said, only this time the Axis gets 3 factions and the Allies gets 2. If we were to have a new faction in the game, I'd much prefer they also come along with another faction for the opposite team to even things out, DLC or not.

The only issue with this I see is that the ICA would just be using existing units as the ICA didn't really have much domestic material, it would essentially just be an American-British faction and it wouldn't really be unique. The ISR had plenty of domestic designs which can form the basis of a faction so that idea is still solid, I don't even think an ISR faction needs any support from German units and could function on its own. Im sure if they add an axis italian they will probably re-add the soviets in so the game will remain balanced in factions.

As long as we get Italy as a faction on the Axis side I'm satisfied.

The splitting of the faction could be an event that is triggered in the campaign on the overmap. Similarly to how Total War handles event (like Realm Divide in Shogun II).

Then the ICA could be a non-playable faction that appears on the map.