A Guide for Italy in 2025

Italy is a lot of fun to play. You can dominate the Mediterranean and build as wide or as tall as your ambitions push you.
There's a lot of "flavor" in the Italian focus trees. I enjoy Italy quite a bit in both historical and non-historical scenarios.

In the historical scenario, Italy plays a supporting role to Germany.

In real history, Mussolini's Italy was inept and ineffective. However, if played well, Italy can tip the balance and give the Axis powers the push they need for world domination.

As Italy, your primary responsibility is to control the Mediterranean theater. The most important goals for your historical campaign are to take Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. If you can capture and hold these two strategic locations, you will massively boost the Axis position.

Everything you do between the beginning of the game in 1936, and the start of the greater war in 1939 should be done with the goal of taking Gibraltar and the Suez.

Once this major goal is accomplished, you can focus on consolidating your position, building your industry and war machine, and eventually expanding.

When the German assault on Russia begins, Italy's natural role in this Barbarossa conflict is to take and hold the Baku oil fields in the Caucasus, denying Russia the vital oil this region provides.

Beyond that, you can help Germany push into Russia, and/or you can expand into sub-Saharan Africa or help Japan defeat China.

Given your supporting role in the historical scenario, I suggest not doing things that will weaken Germany. For example, you can pretty easily attack and annex Austria before Germany gets a chance to consummate the Anschluss. However, doing this tends to hobble Germany's build-up that is the foundation for a successful Axis domination.

Italy begins the game at war with Ethiopia.

This war is a ticking time bomb. If you don't complete it quickly, then Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, will take a train out of Ethiopia and form a government in exile which will create problems for the rest of the game. You need to force Ethiopia's capitulation no later than the end of March, 1936 to avoid this government in exile event.

Don't let Rasta Jesus catch the train out of Ethiopia.


The war is not difficult to win quickly, provided that you follow a specific strategy. You need to capture most of the minor victory points on the map, so that when the capital, Addis Ababa, falls, Ethiopia capitulates immediately.

You begin with two armies; one to the North, and a smaller one to the South. You also have 20+ troops outside of Ethiopia which will reinforce these two armies.

Reinforce the Northern army with the four mountaineer divisions and two of the more experienced infantry divisions. All the rest of the Italian reinforcements go to the Southern army.

The strategy is pretty simple, the main force of the Northern army just plods forward toward Addis Ababa, while your peripheral forces take all of the lesser victory point cities.

Here is the starting position for the Northern army. You pin the Ethiopian mountaineer divisions in place, and they ultimately get encircled as your main army and flanking army pass them. The flanking army's job is to take the victory points all along the Western border.



This is the starting position for the Southern Army. This army's job is to take the Southern and Eastern victory points.



Before you start, use the two airfields as bases for all of your available aircraft. (Don't train them, just fly them "green.")

Also, set your army supply to maximum motorization and max the motorization for the supply hubs as well. When the decision spawns to either push ahead with extra attack, or be methodical with greater supply, choose supply.

The fastest I've managed to take down Ethiopia is in late February. It should be relatively straight forward to capitulate them my mid-March.

Once Ethiopia has capitulated, take all of the provinces. Don't worry about resistance, you're going to get rid of Ethiopia pretty quickly. It's really not worth the effort of defending it in the upcoming war.

Once you have taken the focus trees for "The New Emperor of Ethiopia" and the "Ministry of Italian Africa" you can choose the decision to "Establish the Africa Orientale Italiana" This forms the puppet state, Italian East Africa. You can now stop thinking about Ethiopia. The East African puppet will give you troops from time to time and will not be a drain on your resources and efforts.

Italy is in a very good position when it comes to playing the spy game.

The focus, "Servizio Informazioni Militare" (which you will need to do in order to puppet Ethiopia or do other diplomacy,) creates a spy agency and gives you an extra agent.

I generally time the creation of the spy agency to coincide with having 150 political power that I can spend on the "illusive gentleman" advisor. This gives me 3 agents. As soon as I recruit my first agent, I start him/her building a spy network in England. I choose agents that have the "safe cracker" trait if they are available.

Immediately after building the agency, I perform 5 upgrades (including the Navy upgrade.) With 5 upgrades completed, I've got 4 agents at my disposal.

As soon as I get my network to 100%, I put it on "quiet network" then infiltrate the navy, and then I just continuously steal navy blueprints. England seems to focus on naval research, and I typically get quite a few good research benefits from stealing England's naval blueprints.

Not too long after Germany declares war on Russia, I start building collaboration governments in Russia. You need as many collaborations in Russia as you can get, because otherwise it's very very difficult to force them to surrender.

You can pick up an agent or two by becoming the faction spy master, which can allow you to simultaneously steal blueprints while you are building collaboration governments. (Keep Russia on quiet network, so you don't have any interruptions building back to back collaboration governments.)

The Spanish Civil War provides Italy with a unique opportunity to set itself up for an easy capture of Gibraltar once the big war kicks off.

As soon as the Spanish Civil War begins, begin justifying a war goal against Spain. (Not Nationalist Spain, just Spain.) The goal you need to choose is "conquer Granada."

Gibraltar can be very difficult to capture once the war with England begins. England has large navies which make amphibious invasion problematic, and there is no close airbase to support an airborne assault by paratroopers. Gibraltar has sea-facing fortifications that make invasion even more difficult.

However, if you own the province of Granada, you can just walk in and take it relatively easily.

As soon as you begin justifying against Spain, star planning a naval invasion of the city/port of Almeria, with a force of 10 infantry divisions based in Sardinia.

If you like you can choose to send volunteers to Nationalist Spain (don't send them to regular Spain, because you can't declare war on Spain if you have volunteers in Spain.) However, don't use your volunteers very effectively. You don't want the Nationalists to win too much before you have the opportunity to join the war.

Once the justification is done, immediately declare war on Spain and naval invade Almeria. Nationalist Spain will ask you for a non-aggression pact. I tend to grant it. This gives you a secure western border.

Push out, and try to capture as much land and victory points as possible. You need to have enough war contribution that when Spain capitulates, you can take (at least) the province of Grenada. Depending on how you do, you may end up with another province as well. (I like Bilbao, because it has steel and is on the French border.)

With the capitulation of Spain and Italy's annexation of Granada, you now have made taking Gibraltar much easier than it would be otherwise.

The big war kicks off in mid 1939.

You need to be ready for this if you want to take control over the Mediterranean.

By mid 1939, I want to have (at least) the following armies ready:

24 divisions on the French alpine border with Italy. I don't expect this army to push too far into France, but its job is to hold the line.

5 divisions in Sardinia, on the border with Corsica. Depending on how well Corsica is garrisoned, these 5 divisions could be enough to take Corsica.

6 divisions in Grenada. This army's job is to capture Gibraltar.

24 divisions in Libya on the Egyptian border. These troops will push into Egypt and take control over the Suez Canal.

22 divisions in Libya on the Tunisian border. These are typically my irregular/colonial troops. Their job is to push west through Tunisia, all the way to Casablanca.

2 divisions in Rodi and 2 divisions in the other port in Dodecaneso. These are not strictly necessary, but England will rapidly naval invade and take these two ports if they are not defended. It's good to maintain some bases in the Aegean area, and garrisoning them saves you from having to re-take them later on.

When I am pre-positioning my armies ahead of the big war, I tend not to place them directly on the borders, but rather a couple of tiles away. Positioning armies along the border makes your (future) enemy aware of them and they will beef up the border defenses in response. I move them to the border so that they will arrive just as war is declared. (Also, if you stack your armies on the border in North Africa, it will cause supply problems.)

Speaking of war declarations, be aware that Germany will not allow you to join their war against England and France, even if you are in the Axis faction with them. You will need to do your own justification and war declaration against England yourself.

As soon as the war begins, push East and West from Libya, taking all of North Africa. The French tend to put up rather weak resistance. (So you can get away with using irregular colonial troops.) The British tend to defend Egypt with a bit more competence, so pushing them out can be more challenging. I will often have a second army to help with the conquest of Egypt.



After you take the Suez, set up a defensive line to cut off enemy reinforcements from sub Saharan Africa, then keep pushing East and take Jordan and Syria. I generally build three fortifications on the southern border in case the English push hard to retake the area. There are a couple of ports that are accessible via the Red Sea. Make sure to garrison these ports because they will get naval invaded (as seen in this screen shot.)


If all goes well, very shortly after the war kicks off, you will be the ruler of the Mediterranean. It's a pretty secure position, with only a few, easily defensible access points.

Between the time you take the Mediterranean and the time that the Germans kick off their invasion of Russia, you will have about a year and a half or a bit more.

Use this time to build up your industry, build your armed forces, and get ready for the war with the Soviets.

One of the most useful things you can do during this time is get military access from Turkey. Turkey's control over the Bosporus straights means that you can't get naval access to the Black Sea without Turkey's cooperation. There is a focus tree choice that allows you to befriend Turkey. So, I generally go to war with Greece and then befriend Turkey. Once you get naval access to the Black Sea, peel off a few ships from your main fleet and dock them in a friendly port in Bulgaria (which generally joins the Axis around this time.)

With Black Sea access, you can set up for a naval invasion of Batumi.

When the Germans declare war on the Russians, you can then naval invade Batumi and expand across the Caucasus and take Baku and all of the Russians' oil. The mountains on the northern border provide a great defensive line and will allow you to hold the area against Russian counterattacks even with a much smaller force. Eventually, you can reinforce, and push north.

Italy has a pretty large and complex set of focus trees.

I generally go straight for the extra research slot before picking up the others.

Some of the more important focuses include:

Emperor of Ethiopia and Ministry of African Affairs (allows establishment of the Italian East Africa Puppet.)

The branch that deposes Mussolini and replaces him with a different leader is worthwhile. My particular favorite replacement leader is Italo Balbo. He allows for oil resources in Libya and also gives some pretty decent military buffs. That's just my personal preference, however, there's no right answer for the Italian leadership. Note that the Convene the Grand Council focus that kicks off the change in leadership can only be done when Italy is not at war, so I generally get this done right after the conclusion of the war with Spain.

The Balkan Ambition focus allows you to puppet Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia has lots of chromium, which is needed for building battleships, so I generally try to fulfill this focus before I complete the SHBB research project and start building SHBBs.

Many of Italy's best military focus options are locked behind a requirement that Italy must be at war with a major nation (Spain doesn't count.) In order to get around this obstacle, you can declare war on China. This satisfies the "major nation" requirement, and China is so far away that being at war with China has little impact on you. Generally, once I'm done with the important non-military focuses, I will declare war on China and start working on the military focuses. This gives me a head start on getting prepared for the big war.

As for what to build, I generally build a lot more civilian factories with Italy than I do with most other nations. Italy doesn't really need a massive military build up early on, so investing in civilian factories early on allows for more rapid growth later.

One of the biggest constraints you will face is lack of rubber. Most of the rubber you will need to build an airforce or submarine force will be cut off once the big war starts.

For this reason, I will generally build quite a few synthetic refineries and will also invest in the industrial technologies that maximize the output of these refineries.

Italy starts with no research facilities, so you will want to build a naval facility and the land facility relatively early on in the game. You can get a free aircraft research facility by completing the Citta dell'Aria focus, so it's not a bad idea to get this early so you can start working on radar.

All of this means that I often don't even start building military factories until the big war kicks off. However, by this time, I've got enough civilian factories that the ramp-up is pretty quick.

Italy generally is fighting in areas of low supply. Industrialized Europe is not Italy's battleground. As Italy, you will generally be fighting in Africa and Russia; two theaters which are notorious for poor supply.

Because of this, I generally use light tanks instead of medium or heavy tanks. Light tanks use less fuel and general supplies. They are fast and less affected by terrain penalties. While they lack the punch of the heavier tanks, light tanks are pretty good at breaking through enemy infantry lines and their speed helps with encirclements and overruns. Italy's Italian Tankette focus will give you a 100% research buff for light tanks, that you can use to get 1941 tech much earlier.

The Italian army focus tree gives access to Busagliere, which allow you to build bicycle troops. Bicycle troops move as fast as cavalry, but are treated as infantry for purposes of most combat buffs. They cost a significant amount of Support Equipment, but they make very good fast infantry for low supply areas because they don't consume fuel. Using 2 or 3 light tank divisions to punch through, with bicycle infantry behind to fill in the gaps and hold the ground works pretty well in lower supply areas.


For special forces, I greatly prefer paratroopers to all others. I've never needed Marines for naval invasions (regular infantry does well enough.) Likewise, the buffs that Mountain troops provide are not as useful as the tactical flexibility that paratroopers bring. Paratroopers are terrific for dropping behind the enemy lines to cut them off from supply and trap them. By the mid to end game, I generally have two full 24-division armies of paratroopers. You can use light tanks for the Airborne Armor support company to give your paratroopers some extra punch.



For the army doctrine, I generally go with Grand Battle Plan (right side.) Grand Battle Plan right gives a -10% supply use buff, and the Logistical Focus spirit of division command provides another -10% supply use buff. Combine this with field marshals with the Logistics Wizard trait and some supply companies, and you can significantly reduce your supply consumption.

First off: With your very first 25 political points, choose the decision: Abandon the London Naval Treaties. Unless you do this, your ability to build your navies will be hampered.

The Italian navy starts the game with some significant disadvantages, but also several advantages to offset these.

The disadvantages are:

No aircraft carriers. I generally choose to research carrier deck conversions immediately, followed by 1936 carriers.

No pre-existing Naval Special Projects Research facility. I start building this relatively soon, after I've constructed 4 or 5 civilian factories.

Dual purpose light batteries are not researched at the beginning of the game and require extensive research slots to complete.


The advantages are:

Italy starts with a pretty good navy. It's not initially up to the challenge of facing off against the English and French navies, but it provides a decent core upon which to construct a dominating navy.

Italy starts with Heavy Engine 3 unlocked for battleships. This means that you can construct Littorio class battleships and Super Heavy Battleships that are significantly faster than typical battleships. This allows you to create task forces with over 30km/h speed, which provides lots of good bonuses. The "Bold" trait is available on your Admiral, which adds 10% speed as well. (With this, I can get my SHBB's over 30 speed even with 3 SHBB batteries.)

The biggest advantage for the Italian navy is geography. If Italy takes Gibraltar and the Suez (which you should,) you will trap the French navy and a large part of the English navy in the Mediterranean ocean. If you take away all of the ports (a good job for paratroopers,) then these navies will have nowhere to refuel and repair and will degrade over time.

The other geographical advantage is that Italy is less susceptible than most nations to submarine raiding. Other than rubber, most of the raw materials you import can come via land routes. There are many prime places for placement of radar stations and basing naval bombers, so clearing out submarines from the Mediterranean is relatively easy. I typically don't even bother researching anti-submarine technology for my destroyers or arming my destroyers with anti-submarine weapons.

Strategically, you don't need to even face the English or French fleets until later in the game. You can easily take control of Gibraltar and the Suez without naval superiority, and you can pretty much ignore the bottled up French and English fleets until you've built up your navy (by which time, the opposing navies will be weakened from attrition.)

As Italy, here are the ships I generally build:

One or two Littorio class fast battleships. (There are two more available on an accelerated basis from a naval focus which I pick up a bit later.)

Two fast Super Heavy Battleships with Heavy Engine 3. I generally start building these as soon as I complete the SHBB research project, which is my first priority once the naval research building is completed. Having Yugoslavia as a puppet will make the chromium needed for battleship building significantly less expensive.

Four 1936 class aircraft carriers. I build 3 of them, and get another one with the "proper carriers" focus.

These are the only capital ships I build. Other than these, I build as many destroyers as I can, armed with dual purpose light batteries and torpedoes. When I get access to 1940 submarines and Anechoic Tiles, I will start to augment my submarine fleet (provided I have enough rubber.)

I don't bother building light cruisers. Destroyers loaded with dual purpose batteries have decent light attack, and are much less expensive to produce.

Note that all of my capital ships get upgraded once I get access to decent radar and the level 3 fire control module.

I use the Raiding Fleet MIO for all of my surface ships because of the increased speed and reduced visibility. I use the submarine MIO for my submarines for the reduced visibility buffs.

I generally neglect the Italian Air Force when compared with the Army and Navy.

Other than transports for paratroopers, I generally don't build any planes at all until I have researched the 1940 airplane frames, engines and weapons. In North Africa, once I capture the Suez region, there are no enemy air bases that allow them to flood the region with aircraft.

So, I just make do with my starting Airforce until sometime around 1940 or so when I begin producing improved aircraft. Initially, I focus on carrier aircraft to arm my aircraft carriers. Then, I gradually switch over to non-carrier planes.

There are some Italian focus trees that give significant bonuses to aircraft technology research, which makes researching 1940 techs in 1939 very affordable.

I typically use the Fiat Range MIO for everything. While this MIO is primarily for medium aircraft, there are enough small aircraft buffs that your small aircraft can generally have plenty of range for the theaters you will fight in. I seldom build medium aircraft. They are useful for Russia, where the distances are really large, but I typically am using my industry for other things, and Germany usually has enough aircraft to ensure air superiority in Russia.

In furtherance of the invasion of Russia, I generally naval invade the Caucuses and take the Russian oil in Baku. This is a huge blow to Russia's airpower and tanks. With a few light tank divisions and enough infantry (or bicycles) to fill the gaps, you can push the Russians up from Baku, eventually joining the German forces that are pushing through the Crimea.

I also will create collaboration governments so that Russia will capitulate without having to take quite as much ground (Russia is BIG, so this helps a lot.)

If Japan is struggling against China, I will often send some troops to the Chinese front to help the Japanese win this war. Generally, one 24-division army (bicycle troops preferred) along with 3 or 4 light tank divisions is all that is necessary to tip the balance and allow the Japanese to win.

The historical scenario follows a set path, and if you perform your role competently, you can be assured of victory (at least against the vanilla game AI.)

The non-historical scenario is quite different. In the non-historical game, you will usually end up facing off against the Russians, but you will likely be fighting them without the aid of the Germans.

Sometimes, it ends up as Italy against the World. Sometimes, you will have strong allies.

As opposed to the historical game, where Italy is better off in a supporting role, in non-historical, it pays to be much more aggressive. I will generally invade and conquer Austria as soon as possible, will conquer and annex all of Spain, and will generally take any country I can conquer without prematurely kicking off the big war.

Also, when playing the non-historical scenario, I tend to build military factories much earlier in the game. There is no assurance that you won't be dragged into a war pretty quickly, so this uncertainty makes focusing on civilian factories in the early game not viable. In the non-historical scenario, you need to pump out as many armies as you can, as quickly as possible.

Playing non-historical Italy is one of the most fun and challenging HOI4 experiences because it is so unpredictable.