Republican Spain

Republican Spain is a challenging regional power to play, challenged early in the game during the Spanish Civil War.

Technology

Republican Spain has the following starting techs in 1936; cavalry level 2-3, militia level 3, infantry level 2, light armor/armored car/anti-tank/anti-air all level 1, artillery level 2, destroyer level 2-3, light cruiser level 2, submarine level 1, heavy cruiser level 2, battleship level 1, agriculture and supply production level 4, infantry warfare/mass assault/assault concentration and people's army all level 2. Republican Spain also has some air technology boasting the ability to construct interceptors, tactical and strategic bombers and transport planes. Consider carefully where you set your focus for your leadership is limited. The Spanish terrain is plains, desert, hills and some mountain ranges giving plenty room for different army compositions.

Distribution of leadership

Republican Spain starts with 7.21(Base 2.51, Base Value +3.50, Massive Education Investment +20%) leadership in 1936. At the game outset, splitting leadership between espionage and research will help ensure the nation has enough internal spies to protect from threats and perform actions like supporting the ruling party. Raising National Unity should be avoided, as the civil war will give you a huge boost in this area. Once accomplished, leadership can be put into research.

Diplomacy

Alliances

Allies - This has a few nice advantages, including the promise of an early war with Portugal, and some really great lease options. The British also help provide dominance over the med. sea against the Italians.

Axis - Many people prefer to play Axis as Republican Spain instead of Nationalist Spain so that they can start in 1936 and also retain more technology than Nationalist Spain. The biggest drawback of aligning with the Axis is it seriously reduces your options in terms of conquest. You are mostly forced to fight in Africa.

Comintern - The Comintern has a delayed entrance into WWII which allows Spain longer to prepare. After joining the war there is not a whole lot of assistance the other communist countries are able to offer, as they are so distant. USSR also does not generally have as nice leases as the other factions. It does however permit going to war with Alliance and Axis factions while still being somewhat sheltered in the long term by the Soviets.

Unaligned - Being neutral has the advantage that you are not caught up in other peoples wars. There is no leasing options, and you need to work harder to get wars, but they are usually under your terms and conditions. You can also go to war with whomever you please, and peace is also an option, unlike faction wars which take much longer and don't stop until a faction is eliminated.

Decisions and Events

Only decision is the neutrality lowering decision and the only event is the civil war.

Politics

Ministers

Below are the starting ministers for Republican Spain.

Position	Minister	Type	Party
Head of State	Niceto Alcalá-Zamora	Weary Stiff Neck	Social Conservative
Head of Government	Manuel Portela Valladares	Naive Optimist	Social Conservative
Foreign Minister	Joaquín Urzaiz Cadaval	Apologetic Clerk	Market Liberal
Armament Minister	José Mendizábal y Bonilla	Infantry Proponent	Social Conservative
Minister of Security	Manuel Portela Valladares	Silent Lawyer	Social Conservative
Head of Intelligence	Juan Hernández Sarabia	Technical Specialist	Market Liberal
Chief of Staff	José Miaja Menant	School of Mass Combat	Social Conservative
Chief of the Army	Nicolás Molero Lobo	Static Defense Doctrine	Social Conservative
Chief of the Navy	Antonio Azarola Gresillón	Indirect Approach Doctrine	Social Liberal
Chief of the Air Force	Miguel Nuñez de Prado	Naval Aviation Doctrine	Social Liberal

Many of these Ministers should be replaced immediately if you wish to survive the Spanish Civil War.

• First, replace the Foreign Minister with Manuel Azaña Díaz (Iron Fisted Brute, Social Liberal) as he brings with him a 10% Ruling Party support which will assist your spies in getting you those better laws.
• Next, replace your Armament Minister with Juan Negrín López (Administrative Genius, Left-Wing Radical) as he brings with him a 10% boost to IC which is a boost Spain sorely needs.
• Replace your Minister of Security with Santiago Casere Quiroga (Prince of Terror, Social Democrat) as he has a 15% boost to Ruling Party Support.
• Do not change out your Head of Intelligence as he has a 5% bonus to espionage, which can help your internal spies do whatever you assign them to do (which should be counter-espionage (level 2) and ruling party support (level 3)).
• Replace your Chief of Staff with Manuel Estrada Manchón (School of Psychology, Social Liberal) as he his 10% bonus to organization regain rate will be very effective in the wars to come. Gustavo Durán Martínez (School of Psychology, Left-Wing Radical) has the same effect.
• Replace your Chief of the Army with either Manuel Azaña Díaz (Guns and Butter Doctrine, Social Liberal) or Toribio Martínez Cabrera (Guns and Butter Doctrine, Social Liberal) as they both decrease supply consumption by 10%, a great thing in a war. I suggest Díaz as Cabrera has a face for radio.
• Your Chief of Navy is up to you. Republican Spain will not initially be fighting a Naval War.
• The same can be said for Chief of the Air Force, as Republican Spain can't really fight an Air War. Just don't pick Ignacio Hidalgo de Cisneros (Air Superiority Doctrine, Left-Wing Radical).

Laws

As a Social Democracy, Republican Spain starts off with the worst possible laws when it comes to War Preparation. The starting laws of Republican Spain are:

Law Type	Enacted Law
Civil Laws	Open Society
Conscription Laws	Volunteer Army
Economic Laws	Full Civilian Economy
Education Investment Laws	Massive Education Investment
Industrial Policy Laws	Consumer Product Orientation
Press Laws	Free Press
Training Laws	Basic Training

If you are playing Their Finest Hour, the first thing to do, politically, is activate the "Prepare For War" decision. This will lower your Neutrality by 0.2 per day. As your Neutrality decreases, you will have the option to enact better laws. Some of those laws require high enough support of the ruling party. Make sure that, aside from raising your National Unity from its pitiful starting 49.996%, have your internal spies Support your Ruling Party. If you have any fellow human players attempting to team up with you, have them also support your ruling party.

Political Parties

Below is an example of the starting political conditions of Republican Spain. The starting party organization is consistent from game to game, however, the party popularity is not. The table below is representative of a typical starting political atmosphere. While the starting popularities will be different from what you experience, they will be similar.

Another example of the starting political party popularity of Republican Spain, January 1, 1936.

In-Game Party	Historical Party	Affiliation	Starting Popularity	Starting Organization
Falange Tradicionalista	Spanish Traditionalist Phalanx of the Assemblies of the National Syndicalist Offensive	National Socialist	0%	0.00
Falange	Spanish Traditionalist Phalanx of the Assemblies of the National Syndicalist Offensive	Fascist	4%	0.00
Communion Tradicionalista	Spanish Carlism Movement	Paternal Autocrat	11%	11.60
Confederacion de Derechas Autonomas	Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups	Social Conservative	29%	25.50
Union Republicana	Republican Union Party	Market Liberal	2%	0.00
Izquierda Republicana	Republican Left	Social Liberal	14%	13.90
Partido Socialista Obrero Español	Spanish Socialist Workers' Party	Social Democrat	29%	27.90
Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo	National Confederation of Labor	Left-Wing Radical	5%	13.90
Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista	Worker's Party of Marxist Unification	Leninist	6%	6.90
Partido Comunista de España	Communist Party of Spain	Stalinist	0%	0.00

Intelligence

After getting 10 home spies working in lowering neutrality, you can switch attention to foreign affairs. Investment can be made to boost the intelligence network in Portugal, increasing it's threat so you can unite the peninsula, forming Iberia (The Stone Raft, as put by Nobel writer José Saramago), and getting even more colonies. Alternatively, if you feel strong enough, you can opt for Italy first.

Economy

Trading

Focus your trade on those nations which will be in your future faction, thus weakening all enemy nations.

Industrial Production

Your base Industrial Capacity(IC) is 44. IC construction is not advised, as Rep. Spain lacks both initial IC, construction practical and the ressources. The player is better off by taking foreign countries industry and resources.

Military

Army

Republican Spain starts with six mountain brigades, ten cavalry brigades, 43 infantry brigades, two light armor brigades and one militia brigade.

Navy

The Spanish navy consists of two battleships, four destroyers, five light cruisers, two submarines and four transports with two heavy cruisers in current production.

Air Force

The air force boast three interceptors, three tactical bombers and two strategic bombers.

War

General Strategy

Brief, abstract strategic considerations for players to consider. For example, in the style of Sun Tzu's five constant factors:

• National Unity: Starts really low (50%), but the Spanish Civil War event will unite the people to drive out the fascists, giving you 100% National Unity.
• Weather: Nothing too remarkable, relatively temperate Mediterranean climate
• Terrain: The Pyrenees are a fearsome natural barrier, which will protect Spain in the even of a German invasion, after the fall of France. Several rivers cross Spain, most notably Ebro, which passes near Zaragoza.
• Leadership: Limited, for a regional power, but with proper laws and technology rationing, it's adequate for immediate needs. Still, along with manpower, it is Rep. Spain's second major problem
• Logistics: Infra is around 60/80% in most of Spain, with a few select areas near 100%, the north of the country, around La Coruña, has worse infrastructure levels, and N.Africa's colonies also have poor infrastructure.

War with Nationalist Spain

When war breaks out Republican Spain has solid control over the central and eastern areas. The Nationalists take halve your army away(in my last case they took exactly half my infantry but both my light armor brigades and no air or naval units, my army was concentrated on Madrid.) and you won't be getting any of those units back when you win, so: fight!

Nationalist Spain tends to start with a strong force in the north and weaker forces in the south primarily near Gibraltar. Once the war starts it is advisable to rescue friendly troops caught behind enemy lines, and clean out your backfield in southern Spain while the enemy slowly works to occupy your undefended territory. The VP's are not critical to defend (your national unity is high enough that you only need to keep one VP to prevent surrender), the war should be fairly quick so whatever loss you take in IC, leadership and manpower will be temporary. Madrid is where most of your troops will be supplied from, if you lose Madrid there will be a period of supply issues, and a large amount of resource stockpiles will be lost. Other than this one reasonably important, but not critical province the Spanish turf should be seen as expendable in return for gains in defeating the enemy army.

Fleet wars should be avoided as you are more or less fighting yourself, naval losses are expensive and there are no critical assets outside of the Iberian peninsula.

Gaming the System

Although the highlight of playing as Republican Spain, one can choose not to have the civil war at all, or choose to start it at a later date, likely when one has better technology or conquered Portugal. When the event pops up that states Spanish Civil War at the top, insteading of selecting the single option at the bottom, one can click-and-hold the event popup from the top and drag the popup to the bottom of the screen. Then one can drag the popup back up and activate the war when one pleases, if at all. The drawback to this is that national unity will take a long time to raise, which makes entering WW2 an even greater risk than after the civil war and reduced manpower.

Another extremely gamey potential way to ease the civil war comes at the cost of a weaker Spain in the end. A large disadvantage in the civil war is that 55% of your army is transferred to Nationalist Spain, and that the countries willing to send you support divisions are less likely to aid you than Nationalist Spain theirs. In addition, Thus, the smaller your army, the smaller the amount of troops opposing you. If you have troops ready to deploy, they are not transferred to Nationalist control on the civil war's start. This results in an overwhelming advantage in your favour and a quick end to the war. In addition, the army is able to be rebuilt exactly how you wish, without having to spend significant periods of time reorganizing to your liking.

A third gamey tactic is to spam a large amount of headquarters units at the start of the civil war. These units can then be used to take undefended territories from Nationalist Spain and to force Nationalist Spain's units to wait out their attack delay when advancing though Republican territory.

A fourth gamey tactic is to send forces to all the Spanish victory points, and if lucky, they will still be there and occupy the points. Thus, this would end the Spanish Civil War quickly with a lack of losses.

See also

• Republican Spain ministers
• Republican Spain military leaders
• Republican Spain provinces