Albania

Tirana

Non-Aligned, Despotic

Neutral

Albania is a micro power in Southern Europe. Historically, it was attacked and militarily occupied by Italy from 1939-1943. It is led by King Zog I. It only exists in the 1936 start.

Albania is in the lower Balkans Region, which is part of Southern Europe. It is made up of 1 state, but if you have the Battle for Bospurus DLC it will have 2 states: Albania and Northern Epirus. To the north and east they border Yugoslavia and Greece to the south. They are not landlocked, with a large border on the Adriatic Sea. Its most important area is the border with Greece, which is used as an attack point for Italy when invading Greece. Albania is mostly (over 70%) made up of rugged mountains and hills all over. The coasts have small plains and beaches. There are small lagoons and wetlands as well.

It will end up annexed by Italy (or another player-controlled country) unless controlled by a stubborn player.

Historical background[edit]

Albania was a new nation formed after the First Balkan War. It was previously part of the Ottoman Empire. It's most notable leader was Ahmet Muhtar Zogolli, better known as King Zog. His title was, at first, Prime Minister, then President, and finally King. He ruled for 17 years. The Italian invasion and subsequent annexation of Albania ended his rule. Albania and Ethiopia would end up being the only countries Italy would manage to defeat by itself.

Albania only had an army equipped with obsolete weapons and a tiny navy that was composed of 2 old German gunboats and 4 Italian torpedo boats. Its quick defeat was no surprise, yet the Italians had some trouble with such a small army.

When the Italians surrendered in 1943, the Germans took over control of Albania for a brief period, it's status similar to Slovakia, a client state of Nazi Germany.

National focus[edit]

Generic national focus tree.

Main article: Generic national focus tree

Albania, lacking a unique national focus tree, uses the generic national focus tree instead.

The generic focus tree has 5 main branches:

Army Effort gives army experience and research bonuses to army research.
Aviation Effort gives air experience, builds air bases, and research bonuses to air research.
Naval Effort gives navy experience, builds naval dockyards, and research bonuses to navy research.
Industrial Effort builds civilian and military factories (usually even if building slots are already full)and grants extra research slots.
Political Effort gives the country choices on which political path they will take.

Technology[edit]

Albania begins with the following researched:

Basic Equipment
Support Equipment
Recon Company I

Politics[edit]

Diplomacy[edit]

Albania is a mostly isolated country, with all diplomacy values revolving around "Different Ideology", "Same Ideology" and "Same Ruling Party". The only exception is Italy, which starts with a -25 opinion because Italy claims Albanian provinces. They have a land border with Greece and Yugoslavia. They have a coast and therefore are not land-locked. Greece also has a claim on Northern Epirus if you have the new DLC.

Albania does not have any alliances to begin with. It is guaranteed by Italy.

Ideology[edit]

House of Zogu

Can force government of another country to adopt the same ideology.
Can puppet a country.
Generate war goal tension limit: +50%
Lend-lease tension limit: +40%
Send volunteers tension limit: +40%
Guarantee tension limit: +40%
Join faction tension limit: +40%
Ideology drift defense: -30%

Political parties[edit]

King Zog of the non-aligned House of Zogu leads completely unopposed in the 1936 scenario, holding 100% popularity. Albania no longer exists in the 1939 scenario, having been annexed by the Kingdom of Italy earlier that year.

Political Party	Ideology	Popularity	Party Leader	Country Name	Is Ruling?
House of Zogu	Non-Aligned	100%	King Zog	Albania	Yes
Pavarur	Democratic	0%	Generic	Republic of Albania	No
Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë	Communist	0%	Enver Hoxha	Socialist Republic of Albania	No
Partia Fashiste e Shqipërisë	Fascist	0%	Generic	Greater Albania	No

Staff and Designers[edit]

**Political Advisors**
Advisor	Type	Effect	Cost ()
Fiqri Dine	War Industrialist	Military Factory Construction Speed: +10 % Naval Dockyard Construction Speed: +10 %	150
Mehmet Shehu	Communist Revolutionary	Daily Communism Support: +0.10 Gain Event Communism On The Rise	150
Mustafa Merlika-Kruja	Fascist Demagogue	Daily Fascist Support: +0.10 Gets event Fascism on the Rise.	150
Jocelyn Percy	Prince of Terror	Effect of partisans on us: -25 % Foreign subversive activities efficiency: -30 %	150
Enver Hoxha	Democratic Reformer	Daily Democracy Support: +0.10 Gain Event Move Towards Democracy	150
Midhat Frashëri	Popular Figurehead	National unity: +15 %	150

Economy[edit]

Laws[edit]

Conscription Law	Economy Law	Trade Law
Volunteer Only 1.5% Recruitable population	Civilian Economy 35% Consumer Goods factories –30% Factory construction speed +30% Factory (type) conversion cost -40% Fuel Gain per Oil -25% Fuel Capacity	Export Focus 50% Resources to market +5% Research speed +10% Factory/Dockyard output +10% Construction speed +20% Civilian intelligence to others +10% Navy intelligence to others

Industry

1 Military Factories	0 Naval Dockyard	2 Civilian Factories

Resources

Oil	Rubber	Steel	Aluminium	Tungsten	Chromium
0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	1(3)	0(0)	1(3)

*These numbers represent the available resources for production at start of the game. In the bracket are the complete numbers including those lost for trading.

Military[edit]

Manpower totals 15.07K, with 5.57K Free Manpower.

Army
	Type	No.
	Infantry	1
	Total divisions	1

The single Albanian division isn't fully equipped and has a recon company.

Strategies and Guides[edit]

Though Albania is in a better situation than Austria (another nation under threat of annexation), the improvement of survivability is very thin. With a very small population and unlikely event to expand, it's clear that interventionist branch of liberty ethos is completely inadequate at best and a burden at worst.

The best option to improve your army performance against Italy is to build coastal forts and just in case land forts (should Italy naval invade around the port). But even then Italy can simply go through Yugoslavia, and there's very little Albania can do unless it went to the nationalism branch.

So the best survival strategy is to turn fascist and try to join Germany before Italy either attacks or joins the Axis first. Once the Anschluss is done, both of them have a direct land border, so the war will probably end with Italy utterly defeated, thereby removing your only active threat. It is unlikely that you will be able to claim many italian provinces though.

After that, if you're feeling lucky and world tension is still low, maybe try and declare war on Yugoslawia or Greece. The rest of the Axis will do most of the heavy lifting, but with this being a land war you should be able to actually get some war score to make claims. Although it does have the potential to rope you into a war with the allies, so keep that in mind.

Alternatively you can leave the Axis and build your army. Being a fascist nation allows your to go high on industry and conscription laws even in peacetime, while the national foci provide massive manpower boosts. In the meantime change your government to democratic (or communist) and watch Europe plunge into war (a war the Axis will now be in a worse starting position for, due to the losses of the German-Italian war), then at an opportune moment join the Allies (or Comintern) and take what you can get.

Countries

Europe

Albania Austria Belgium Bulgaria Czechoslovakia Denmark Estonia Finland German Reich Greece Hungary Ireland Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Norway Poland Portugal Nationalist Spain Republican Spain Soviet Union Sweden Switzerland Turkey Yugoslavia

North America

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