Hey gang. It's been *checks notes* 4 years???
Picked up Call of War again recently for a laugh, and the game has certainly changed a lot in the 4 years I've been gone. After an easy dub in Road to War and a brutal defeat in a WaW map, I returned to an old friend of mine: Historical World War. Ahh, memories.
But: with goods and rare mats being gone, and war bonds being in, it's high time to revisit a truly ancient thread. Way back when, I took a look at every single country in HWW during the 1.0 days and tried to make an argument over what countries could be playable under the present meta. CoW today looks absolutely nothing like the CoW from 5 years ago - and now, I think I'm long overdue for a revisit on the topic. So let's go.
The criteria of what makes for a playable nation depends entirely on what version of the game we talk about. So this is an updated version of a truly ancient post made fresh for the most recent iteration of COW. For the purposes of this post I'm establishing 3 flavors of playable, each with their own set of criteria. These sections are:
- Playable
- You have at least 3 cities
- You produce at least 6,000 of each resource per day, assuming max morale and no industry.
- You start with anything that isn't a militia or basic infantry
- A playable nation, in a vacuum, could be picked up by a casual and played just fine with no modifications.
- Almost Playable
- You have at least 2 cities
- You produce at least 3,000 of each resource per day, assuming max morale and no industry.
- You start with anything that isn't a militia
- Almost playable nations, in a vacuum, could still pull off some impressive invasions and conquests, but are held back by some other limitation, usually economic.
- Technically Playable (or as I like to call it, the single-city zone)
- You produce every resource in some capacity
- You have more than 3 provinces
- You have at least 1 city (the bar is on the floor)
- Technically Playable nations produce the stuff you need to succeed, technically, but with only one city it's gonna be an uphill battle. These nations usually receive a (weak) starting buff to their military power in All Countries, All In, and are most likely to be immediately made inactive, even by an experienced player.
With our guidelines out of the way, let's get rolling. If things are inaccurate feel free to post corrections - I haven't played in actual years.
-4 Cities-
There are, ironically, 3 countries with 4 cities.
Greece is Playable[/b].
- You have 2 food cities and then 1 oil and steel city, for a minimum production of 6000 of each resource, at max morale. Your least produced resource is Oil at 8250 per day, just behind Steel's 9000.
- You have a wealth of provinces generating cash and manpower, enough to sustain an early-game war effort in combatting Yugoslavia or Bulgaria.
- You start with at least 1 aircraft, and at least 1 armored vehicle, as well as at least 1 naval vessel.
Iraq is
Playable - albeit just barely.
- You have 2 steel cities and then 1 oil and food city, for a minimum production of 6000 of each resource at max morale. Food and Oil are tied for least produced per day, at 9000.
- You have almost perfect terrain for tank and armored car combat, which is great given your abundance of steel.
- However, you only just barely manage to scrape by the minimum military requirement - you have 1 armored car.
Portugal is
Almost Playable.
- This seems like kind of an odd distinction on the surface - you start with 4 cities, but unfortunately not a single one of these is in food. You have more than enough oil to surpass 6000 per day, you have just barely enough steel to hit 6000 per day, but food falls well short of this metric, just barely squeaking by 3000 per day from your local provinces. And this is ONLY at max morale!
- Logistics is going to suck spectacularly since your territory is spread across the entire map, like the Netherlands but worse.
- You handily pass the military requirement, fielding naval vessels, aircraft, and I believe even a light tank.
-3 Cities-
Once again, somewhat ironically, there's actually 4 countries with 3 cities.
- Columbia
- Bolivia
- Finland
- New Zealand
Columbia is
Playable.- You have one city for each resource, automatically hitting the minimum 6000 per day threshold. Your least produced resource is food, at 7500, with oil being your most produced at a whopping 12000.
- If memory serves, you start with a destroyer.
Bolivia is
Playable.- You have two cities for food production and one for steel. Now, that would disqualify you from being playable, except you have an ace in the hole: 4 local provinces producing 1500 oil each, allowing you to clutch the minimum resource requirements.
- You have at least 1 armored car.
Finland is
Playable.- Once again you have at least one city for each resource and a wealth of provinces with which to generate the good stuff.
- You have an absolutely MASSIVE standing army for your size, by far the largest of the 3-4 city nations, including cars, planes, and even some precious light tanks.
New Zealand is
Almost Playable.
- You have 2 oil cities, for some reason, and 1 food city, but unlike Bolivia your local provinces don't produce enough steel to account for the deficit, at only 3750 steel per day.
- Being an island, you'll need a good navy, which is going to be absurdly difficult with only 3750 daily steel. At least you have an airplane.
We are now exiting the playable zone, since all countries hereafter can't meet the minimum 3 city requirement. Still, I think some interesting cases can be made for a couple of countries in particular.
-2 Cities-
There are 5 countries with 2 cities.
- Cuba
- Denmark
- Saudi Arabia
- Belgium
- Norway
Cuba is
Not Playable.
- For some godforsaken reason, Cuba has only steel cities and a singular food province. Disqualified.
Denmark is
Technically Playable.
- Despite the fact that you have 2 whole cities, you only have a singular oil province, providing 1500 oil - you can't even scrape together 3000, barring you from the coveted almost.
- That being said, you also have a freakishly large army for your size, with a medium tank(!!!!!) and even cruisers at your disposal.
- You also have more than 3 provinces. So there's that.
Saudi Arabia is
Almost Playable.
- Of all the 2 city countries, you generate the most wealth, by having the most provinces and also having the most resource provinces, which influence cashflow. So, lucky you! Every resource requirement is met.
- You have an absolutely miniscule army for your size. This wouldn't be such a big deal if you had the Pan-Asian doctrine, but for some reason, you don't, even though I would argue that it makes more sense for your actual combat playstyle. You do have an infantry division in there somewhere though, so it technically makes the cut to Almost.
Belgium is
Technically Playable.
- Your steel production is completely shot compared to your oil and food. You only have one core steel province.
- You certainly have more than 3 provinces, though. The Congo alone counts for 25 of your 30 provinces.
Norway is
Almost Playable.
- 2 Steel Cities, 2 provinces producing food and 2 for oil, all producing 1500 apiece, meaning minimum resource production for all resources is 3,000 - exactly the requirement.
- Like Finland, you start with a surprisingly large and diverse army for how small your nation actually is. You have a navy, air force, and even an armored vehicle - though, be warned, most of your army is militia based.
-1 City-
Already, none of these nations hit the first two rungs of playable, and there's so many that I'm going to rapid fire through them. If you're expecting detailed explanations, I also hit the character limit, so too bad:
- None of the Central American nations are playable because all of them are only 3 provinces. Similarly, neither Haiti nor the Dominican Republic are playable - Haiti for only having 3 provinces, but Dominican Rep. for not producing any oil.
- Uruguay doesn't make the cut for playable, but Ecuador, Paraguay, and Chile are all technically playable.
- Liberia, Oman, and Yemen are all not playable. Each miss at least 1 resource of the three.
- Interestingly, Slovakia is technically playable for possessing 5 provinces, but Hungary isn't.
- Free City of Danzig and Luxembourg both aren't playable.
- Switzerland, Bulgaria, and Ireland are all technically playable, but would completely suck to play the long game with.
- Latvia and Lithuania are both playable, but not Estonia. Latvia is the wealthiest of the three.
- Bhutan and Nepal are both not playable. Tannu Tuva and Com. China are.
- Afghanistan, Siam, and Chile are the 3 wealthiest single-city nations due to possessing the highest number of resource generating provinces. Each of them, given one more city, would be Almost Playable instead of technically. Afghanistan generates the most money of the 3.
To be clear: I don't think any of these countries will be made playable in generic Historic World War, nor do I think they should. This is more of an interesting thought exercise for the next All Countries, All In event, whenever that is, and just a way for me to get back into writing for the forum. Even if nobody reads this I had a great time scrounging this together. Cheers!
