The Two Faces of The Stresa Front - Hoi4

Today in Hearts of Iron IV we are going to be exploring the two faces of Stresa Front, this faction can appear on two different countries and both will give us two wildly different experiences.
From France to Italy to Austria the Front shall encompass a large portion of Europe, all to make sure a certain someone's dreams of expansion are in check. However if need be the Front shall do what needs to be done.
Music used from:
A Hat in Time:
Hearts of Iron IV:
23/06/23.

[@BubblesZest]

It's a 2 for 1 country special today, when the idea to do this came around I couldn't resist covering the both of them. I did think about doing an aggressive Italy start so I would have a border with Germany but, playing the semi-intended way has it's benefits. Since it's usually the more balanced way to look at a path, but hey we could always do that another time y'know.

[@tomirk4404]

Finally, someone actually did it on KZbin. Thank you. I enjoyed my Italy Stresa front run but Italy and Britain both rejected when I tried as France

[@DarthFhenix55]

You know what they said "France can never have good things".

[@MARK-gp9hb]

i also tried looking for videos on a stresa front scenario for years and couldnt find any, and now i searched again and i found a couple of videos finally

[@nono_Hoi4]

Austria when protected mainly by France: Nah we will allow Germany to Anschluss us Austria when Italy is mainly protecting them: NOW we feel protected (I feel this is kinda ironic lol)

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

"The French one causes the UK to lose all their puppets." idk, coming from the French that sounds like less of a bug and more of a feature.

[@Rubanite]

I think with Ethiopia its supposed to be like that. Your supposed to play this minigame with the Ethiopian states to raise compliance to change the status of the state from 'controlled' to 'owned' (provided Ethiopia can complete 'boarding the train' before you steamroll them) but cos Mussolini is Mussolini, he sucks at it. Do agree though, the AI should just get a standard peace event but just have to deal with the government in exile.

[@guybrushthreepwood362]

The french focus is a fundamentally broken focus in 3 ways which is kind of unacceptable

[@DarthFhenix55]

But hey, at least you have Napoleon.

[@glauberglousger956]

It does allow you to get absurd numbers of building slots through puppwting shenanigans

[@mememachine6022]

Paradox really did all it could to make sure the game works as intended

[@Labargoth]

I really like the Stresa Front as an alt-history concept, but I really wish it was better in Hoi IV and actually worked. Almost as much as I want the Franco-Soviet Alliance, where the Soviets would protect Czechoslovakia and if Poland were pressured by France also Poland, which somehow didn't make it into No Step Back. You can literally go communist as Poland and return your eastern lands to the Soviet Union. So why not a path were they cave to French and Soviet pressure to return these lands to allow Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia and Poland to fight Germany?

[@DarthFhenix55]

Man, it's crazy how you can have paths that works as intended as the Greek Megali idea but then they cannot make the French stresa without exploting India.

[@quaker2636]

How incompetent are paradox devs to make a path like this that just... doesn't work? Funnily enough, this is the same case for Poland's "Protect Czechoslovakia" focus. Despite being guaranteed, the Czechs will always give in on historical focuses. Things like this make me seriously wonder if hoi4 has any QA team to speak of.

[@RandooGaming]

They don't, all they care about is pumping out a buggy dlc asap. I would wait a month for paradox to polish things, but no

[@quaker2636]

@@RandooGaming I'm very well aware of that, HoI4 has some of the most sloppily made content filled with bugs that rarely ever get patched and stay in the game for years. Paradox behave like they are a small indie studio and not a multi million company that owns some of the biggest strategy franchises. Really shows how low industry standards are nowadays.

[@VulkanStarcraft2]

May i politely request a ranking of all the Italian Paths? Great Content

[@Robyn_Bank]

austria in historical hoi4 matches be like: austria: guarrante by all majors and germany has no army nor holds any core territory. austria: *guess i will die*

[@bltsevdallarfanclub641]

You could do a The Two Faces of The "Legitamists" France Carlists and Spanish Carlists.

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

It's been over a year since By Blood Alone came out and Ethiopia is *still* broken. You can't even get reinstated once you've gotten your territory back. Paradox fix their fucking game challenge (IMPOSSIBLE).

[@romulusnuma116]

Not really surprised that France's path is as broken as it is

[@stormsand9]

If you turn historical off, but manually set all majors to their historical paths, would that maybe let Austria refuse to be annexed from the France Stresa Front?

[@BubblesZest]

Doubt Paradox thought about it that much.

[@juanon_industries7256]

Just play ahistorical, is not that crazy, the only bad thing is the russian civil war

[@stormsand9]

@@BubblesZest edit: just tested it myself, can confirm it does NOT work, Austria still gets gobbled up. While stupid, and the other things that happen in this video are jank like the forever war against Ethiopia, the british dominions breaking free, Pakistan war etc you can still go to war with Germany over Czechoslovakia but you will have Italy with you, instead of against you 2nd edit: uhh the stresa front gets ALOT weirder if you keep playing after Anchluss. you can do the focus that gurantees the soviets and they gurantee you, then during the sudeten crisis, Germany will get itself into a war with France, Italy, the Soviets, and the U.K (who leave the faction from the event, then ask to join immediately again because of our common enemy, Ethiopia lmao)

[@TheTripleAce3]

The odds are insanely low but possible.

[@declangaming24]

​@@juanon_industries7256which doesn't always happen

[@Stouzough]

Very interesting run

[@guybrushthreepwood362]

Older content is so broken and non-functional if it ever interacts with some newer content, Unfortunately for the Stesa front is an old focus in the french tree (i think from the base game iirc?) and has to interact with TfV, MtG, and BBA but the Italian tree is in the newest dlc and therefore works

[@TricaGamer]

The oldest focus trees dont get updated with new content, they are super lazy in this regard.

[@utentedigooification]

How do you do your trick of retreating in a enemy tile?

[@Mast3rch13fII7]

12:15 what's even the point of that decision if you can call in the allies anyway?

[@plconqueror5040]

FUN (ALT HISTORY) FACT. When France doesn't join allies, but Italy would do Stresa Front focus, it makes a faction and makes France the leader of this faction. It also made UK join it (France still being the leader), but it probably happened because UK went monarchist and maybe lost the faction, i dont know really. It just happened. I found out about it while playing France on alt his. Easy free ally i could kick out and conquer after defeating everyone else in the world.

[@huskyhusky6131]

@BubblesZest why did you release Algeria?

[@grassmania_yt9030]

You should’ve given all of Germany to Austria and done a reverse Anschluss

[@pannik_lucas]

To be fair it doesn't make sense that France gives Tunisia to Italy. Corsica would be so much believable due Italia Irredentia, or not?

[@matyasfukk3270]

Well italy historically had a claim on both but Corsica was more important to france I think

[@BubblesZest]

What? Expecting France to give up Corsica for an alliance isn't very believable either, it wouldn't be a trade many would accept.

[@pannik_lucas]

​@@BubblesZest I admit that I would not know which territory France valued the most. My impression derives from Corsica being part of Italia Irredenta. Tunisia? Knowing French historic wars in the Magreb, it strikes me as something out of nowhere

[@quaker2636]

It makes more sense for France to give up a colonial possession instead of a European province which would probably enrage a big part of the population, not to mention its ties to France's national mythos (Napoleon's homeland etc.)

[@nonrumor]

I don't remember the name of the french politician but before Mussolini aligned himself with germany he wanted France and Britain to strongly align with Mussolini and eventually he ended up saying that he wanted to stab Leon Blum to death

[@snopespeerreview]

isn't it better to give the amhara rulers their own states since u dont need to garrison it after doing it

[@henrygaylordswanson]

If they fix the french stressa front we know for sure someone in high places is watching your videos.

[@AngryFrenchPenguin]

could this work as an "easy" way to get "This Time It'll Stick"? or do you have to be democratic yourself?

[@RNKel1]

I think you just have to be in an alliance with a democratic Britain? Idk

[@AngryFrenchPenguin]

@@RNKel1 I'll playtest this then, I have a doubt on the conditions

[@mypetbeardedragon2186]

I got this "This time it'll Stick" as monarchist Poland. Granted it was when BBA first came out, but I didn't need to be in a faction with Britain.

[@ickymango1666]

Please do a what's the point of the anti-soviet pact

[@BubblesZest]

What's The Point has been retired, last video was entirely dedicated to this.

[@muhammadsyed5496]

Would it work on non historical?

[@BubblesZest]

Probably, but it's still a-historical so anything can happen.

[@donpollo3154]

Does anything work on non-historical?

[@Elyseon]

How did it get past beta testing? Paradox has no quality control. They don't give a shit.

[@geometry4476]

stresa front canon event

[@serb9265]

Huh, I honestly used the Stresa Front just to get Italy away from Germany, then get the Soviets to guarantee Me, so the Germans have to fight on like three fronts. Making it very easy to roll over them.