Fascist Finland: Coring all of Scandinavia in 1937- a guide to the strongest minor

Fascist Finland gets some of the craziest buffs any country has ever gotten, lets look at some of them.

First of all, 86+ factories by August 1937 through coring all of Scandinavia. That's really strong. Scandinavia also has every resource you need save for Oil and Rubber.

Leader trait: starts out with -15% Consumer goods factor and -33% trade and economy law costs. Pretty great for your economy, but can be later upgraded through a capstone focus to also give +15% construction speed and +1 max factory in every state. The construction speed is a HUGE boon, but the +1 max factory is even better. Considering how many states in Scandinavia have low max factory counts, all of them you can now build 1 more in.

-25% land doctrine cost. Yes that's right, -25%. You pick that up just from going down through the focus' to core and annex Scandinavia. Combine this with the military theorist and you get Permanent -35% land doctrine cost. Insane.

+30% special forces capacity multipier, +10% attack bonus for special forces, x3 50% discounts for special forces... purely from 1 focus in the fascist branch. This can stack with normal Finnish army focus to make your special forces EVEN crazier.

and finally, when you complete the "Keepers of the North" focus, every Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish general + admiral will join you, along with all their current divisions and their entire navy and airforce. Incredible.

With power like this, you could easily do things like Capitulate the Soviets in the Winter War in only 6 months using collaboration governments, or have a relaxing Navy game where you act as the Axis' primary Navy ally to fight the U.K! You just have to dismantle your faction and boom, you can join the Axis!

here's a screenshot from a Fascist Finland game where I built a giant navy to fight the Allies alongside the Axis! 180 factories for a minor in Jan 1st 1941 is pretty damn good.

So to annex Scandinavia in 1937, we need to turn Fascist. Fast. So it's time for a civil war.

Set up your construction and research however you want, just know that you're going to need to research the first level of naval invasion tech, and you want all 3 mills on guns and your 1 dockyard on convoys.
For the civil war, we will be deleting our Army at the game start to win a quick and easy war. Is it cheesy? oh yes. Does it lead you to become an OP nation by 1938? also yes, so do it.

To start the game, do not take any focus until January 17th. On January 17th, you can start your first focus, "Right-Wing Policies". Do not spend any PP you get yet. Then do "Prepare a Military Coup" and finally "A Fascist Regime". 3-4 days before "A Fascist Regime" finishes, you will have 200 PP. use that PP to first ban Communism, then Democratic parties through the decision system. Then unpause and let the civil war fire. Also, we will also not be taking any of the "Coup Preparation" decisions as they are unnesccary. Spending 150PP to buy German Equipment may be tempting, but banning Communism and Democracy early is important for your balance of power. If you still want to purchase the German equipment for 150PP, you will have to adjust accordingly for the rest of this guide knowing you spent 150 PP that I didn't.


It's nice, but hiring your silent workhorse, fascist demagogue, and banning idealogies is more important.

Now lets win this civil war!

Once the war starts, begin training 6 of your starting cavalry divisions. Deploy them at 20% training in about these 6 locations:



The goal is to rush every victory point, and into north while avoiding fighting enemy units. Avoid battle and snake around them to go capture more Victory Points and end the war swiftly. If your unit isn't near any victory points, just capture empty land as that still counts toward surrender progress.

So once your units are deployed, slow the game down and unpause, wait for your new divisions to get back up to about 80% org, then start snaking for victory points. You want to get about 4 divisions to meet up near Oulu, 1 hanging back around central finland capturing empty territory, and the right most division walking along the soviet border grabbing empty land while walking towards Northern victory points. Also, assign these units to one of your Ranger Generals so your divisions move slightly faster in Forests.


You can get your divisions to snake by shift + right clicking where you want your units to go along a path.


Once you've reached Oulu, enemy divisions will begin to appear



Delay enemy units that attack your divisions by splitting them off to a different general and spamming the Last Stand ability. Otherwise, go around them and keep capturing VP's and territory! Do not let them retake any of your VP's however. Luckily, the AI usually isn't too interested in recapturing VP's due to how few units they have.



Victory in the civil war! Now for Scandinavia!

By the way, during this time keep following the focus order and the political power choices. Trust me, you need all those picks for a reason: The balance of power.

The civil war is over, but we still have work to do. Build an intelligence agency and get 1 upgrade, Diplomatic Pressure. Continue following the focus order and PP expenditures, we have done everything in an extremely specific way, so that your Balance of Power does not go over to "Low Trust" after we become Fascist.

So we finish "Finnish Supremacy in the North" on Sep 9th. Continue to follow the focus order and the PP expenditures: I.E we need to justify a war goal on Iceland in October 1936. Also, funny thing if you own Gotterdammerung...



Austria would join our faction if we invited them! Well, if you want to really screw over Germany go ahead and invite them lol. I won't be doing that in this guide however.


Putting aside that funny thing, go ahead and ask Norway for Military Access, and a Non-agression pact. This will boost relations between both of you. Don't offer Military access to them however, I swear doing this will make them not want to join you, and I don't know why.



Just before Finnish Legion of Honor finishes, you will notice that our Balance of Power has finally stopped ticking downwards thanks to our efforts in banning communism and Democracy. This means we won't have the "Low trust" modifier which gives -10% PP gain, -5% stability, and -5% war support. Hurrah!



Now it's time to start improving relations with Sweden, then pressuring them, and then doing the same thing to Norway.

Now here comes the part in the guide where I tell you about RNG. Actually, No I won't. Everybody knows what Random Number Generation is, right? well if you don't, go read my France guide!

We need to get Sweden and Norway in our faction. Denmark is irrelevant, so let me just talk about the others first.

In order to pressure the Swedish government, you need to get +50 relations with them, so in Nov 1936, improve relations to 50 with them, and click the decision to pressure them. Also assign your spy to Sweden to conduct "Diplomatic Pressure" Once you've clicked the decision you can stop improving relations with Sweden.

Once the decision runs out, 1 of 3 events will happen.
#1. Sweden refuses you completely, and your run is screwed and you have to restart. Luckily, they don't choose this option often.
#2 Sweden joins your faction. The easiest and best outcome, No fuss, no muss- they are in your faction and that's what we want.
#3. Sweden changes their ruling party to Fascism. This is the usual outcome.


When Sweden becomes Fascist, we need to manually invite them to our faction, before they join the Axis. However, here's something to note: You can't invite them right away, you have to wait until the start of the next month This is because Sweden still has their "Neutral Foreign Policy" nationial spirit, but after the start of the next month the game will update and realise Sweden is Fascist, and they will lose their Neutral Foreign Policy. You need to watch Sweden like a hawk and keep pausing and unpausing checking to see when you can invite them, before they join the Axis on their own.

Success!

Next is Norway. Assign your spy to conduct Diplomatic Pressure on them, and we want to start improving relations with them soon, but we don't want to click the decision to pressure them until March 2nd. If you wait until March 2nd, then what will happen is that Norway finishes a focus on the day they become Fascist or join your faction, and since they become Fascist, they skip some of their worthless democratic focus' and go straight into doing more focus' that give them factories.

By the way, if you get Sweden into your faction, Norway will likely fold and become Fascist. They like you alot more when you already have Sweden on your side!

Oh, and once you have 50 PP ready to spend to pressure Norway, feel free to spend your Political power however you want. The game is almost in your hands entirely now! I reccomend a Chief of Army, and then soon after that go onto War Economy.

Now then, if Norway becomes Fascist, you can immediately invite them to your Faction. Awesome! If they just join your faction and dont become Fascist, its still good that they're in your faction, but you're actually going to get a few less factories by the time you core all of your neighbors because Democratic Norway will waste time on some democratic focus' that do nothing useful. Norway is VERY unlikely to reject you if you already have Sweden with you, but if they do, sorry- you've run into some bad luck and need to restart the run.

With Norway and Sweden in our faction, our wargoal on Iceland will soon be ready. Put your naval tech to good use and prepare a naval invasion of Iceland. Don't worry, it'll be easy since Iceland has 0 divisions. Your starting navy will be able to provide naval supremacy for the invasion from Norwegian ports.

Around this time, you will have completed "Finnish Irredentism" and now need to take a 70 day focus that isn't "Keepers of the North", so go ahead and grab whatever you want. Once you're done your 70 day focus, take Keepers of the North.

When you have the wargoal on Iceland, don't attack just yet. You have to wait until at least June 9th before you attack Iceland, because on this day Denmark completes its "Re-affirm Neutrality" focus. When you attack Iceland, because you are a Major (since you lead a faction) Denmark will surrender to you in 6 hours, making them your puppet.- then your naval invading divisions will land and cap Iceland with 0 resistance leading to a peace offering screen. Just puppet them, as soon as "Keepers of the North" finishes they will be annexed and cored by you. Also, if you own By Blood Alone, demand war reparations from them. When you annex and core Iceland, you will still get the war reparation factories out of thin air, its a bug, but a beneficial one!

There is a minor RNG element to attacking Iceland: if you declare war on them and invade immediately, Iceland will be 35/70 days done with a focus- and that could be a beneficial focus that gives them a factory, and capping them would intterupt that. Because of that, I generally advise waiting to Invade Iceland around July 7th 1937. (and I do say "could be a benficial focus" because unlike most countries, even on historical Iceland chooses to do its non-political focus' completely at random.)


There's a lot happening here.

I used a console command add_intel ice to visually show what time Iceland finishes the focus they're working on for the purpose of this guide. Here I got unlucky and Iceland was just doing a focus that gives them 50 convoys, but if you're lucky, they could have done a focus that gives them some more factories. They will finish that focus before my troops land and capitulate them. Denmark of course, surrenders to me quickly and becomes my puppet.

Finally, Keepers of the North finishes.

Screenshot a few days before the focus finishes



The focus finishes, and all of your faction members and puppets will always say yes to being annexed, cored, and have their leaders join you!


It's beautiful!


Fully cored Scandinavia, a population of 17.61 Million manpower and 89 factories. For reference, Italy on 27th Aug 1937 only has 69 factories!

By the way, the U.S "transferring territories" is just Greenland being given back to us, since the U.S gets a decision to take it over if Denmark becomes a puppet.

Also, since we control all of Scandinavia, we could actually click the decision to make the Scandinavia formable- but doing so doesn't do anything since Keepers of the North automatically cores Scandinavia as you annex your allies and puppets. Well, basically nothing, because clicking the decision and forming Scandinavia will give you on extra thing... a Claim on the Shetland islands. MEH, who cares!

On Jan 17th, start Right-Wing Policies (create a agency and get the diplomatic pressure upgrade)
Prepare a Military Coup
A Fascist Regime (before focus finishes ban Communism, then ban Democratic Parties)
Patriotic People's Movement (after this finishes hire the silent workhorse)
Academic Karelian Soviety (before this finishes, hire Fascist Demagogue)
Finnish Supremacy in the North (before this finishes, Improve Worker Conditions)
Finnish Legion of Honor (in Oct 1936 justify a wargoal on Iceland)
Tactical War gaming Department
Finnish Irredentism (begin spending PP on improving relations with Sweden and enough to click the "Pressure X government" decision. Afterwards do this with Norway, but do not click the decision to pressure Norway on until March 2nd. Trust me.)
Any 70 day focus you want to do
Keepers of the North

Do not take your first focus until Jan 17th. Save all your PP until you have 200, then Ban the Communists and then Democratic Parties.

Win the civil war by deleting army and using 6 cavalary to snake.
Get the focus which discounts advisors, hire silent workhorse then fascist demagogue, then improve conditions, do the other short 35 day focus that gives PP, then start rushing towards Finnish irredentism. after that do a random 70 day focus then keepers of the north.

justify on iceland in oct 1936, then get Sweden into your faction by nov/dec 1936 (put spy diplo pressure on Sweden.) then Pressure Norway on EXACTLY 2ND MARCH 1937..... DECLARE WAR ON ICELAND JULY 7TH

Now enjoy playing an OP minor! this is a great country to use if you want to learn how to build and use a Navy, although you don't start with alot of naval tech researched. Ah well, just research it all! Who needs modern infantry and artillery? Bah! Let the Soviets have Karjala... when My navy will ensure an invasion of the U.K!

Thank you to the creator of this mod https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3304248394 for the Pic used for this guide.

The end!

Here's a video if you don't want to read this guide: