German Territories While Germany is just as ambitious now as he ever was, most of his ambitions have turned inward at the moment - he's gained quite a bit of territory, and now that the world has reached a moment of stability where nobody is currently actually at war with him and what he would prefer to do is focus on getting it all organized and such. His Boss has outlined an ambitious plan requiring a massive restructuring of society - the sheer numbers of people, cities, factories, organizations, roads, rails, etc. that need to be created, destroyed, moved, or otherwise managed is staggering. There's enough work to be done to keep Germany busy for decades, honestly.
What this means for any given territory with Germany's new realm greatly depends on the nation. Nazis are, of course, racists, so the specifics are a matter of demographics. You may wish to discuss with me individually about exactly what's going on with your particular nation, but for the western parts of Europe it's more that their people are being indoctrinated into becoming Nazis while the eastern nations are having their people replaced by German and other north and western European immigrants. This distinction probably translates into the difference between a change of opinions and a personality shift for the nation in question.
In the unlikely event that we get someone who is a German territory outside of Europe, these nations aren't something that Germany is so focused upon at the moment - he'd like to get Europe sorted out first. So he'd simply try to maintain these territories and of course use them to strengthen and enrich his European base.
Anyways, talk to me about it and we'll discuss!
Allies and Enemies With so much to be done within the German Empire, he's not actually interested in getting into any more wars (right now) so he'd actually like to try and establish world peace, if that's possible. But he recognizes that while the wars have stopped, the intrigue has not. And he knows that it's very likely that another war is on the horizon. And in spite of the fact that he pretends that the Axis are all friends, he somehow doubts that it will be as simple as the Axis teaming up against America just because he's the one who wasn't Axis.
In fact if he has the choice, he would prefer that war to be everyone else against Japan (and that is both a compliment and an insult). To that end, expect to see him starting to quietly begin commenting on just how ambitious and dangerous Japan is, and perhaps we'd better be keeping an eye on him... However, he's also extremely opportunistic and will happily strengthen his alliance with any of the others, including America, to ensure victory against whoever would rather betray him. Because he knows that someone will betray him - he's watching all of you! So he'd also not try to push his agenda against Japan so hard as to alienate Japan - frankly, he's not sure who is going to be teaming up with who against who and until it becomes clearer to him exactly who his 'real friends' are he's not going to be closing any doors.
Territories of Other Empires Given just how suspicious he is of the other empires, Germany is keeping his eye out for any of their territories who might want to quietly get on his good side. If he thinks that he can trust them, anyways - he has little patience for anyone he feels wouldn't be reliable. What exactly he'll do with such a territory depends. See, ideally, he finds some way of weakening another one of the empires in some way without them having any idea that he was involved at all. But if he ends up going to war with someone, it would be nice to have a territory or two already on his side.
Why would someone want to get on Germany's good side? Well, he is the most powerful of all the empires, so whatever it is that you want is something that he could probably get for you. Whether or not he's willing to is another question, but he's capable and he doesn't break every promise that he makes, so what more do you need to know?
Independent Nations These countries are a real mixed bag for Germany. And of them that he considers to be weak and unimportant will not get the time of day from him, except for perhaps a courtesy hello so that he doesn't appear to be too horrible. But a few select countries he feels very much the opposite about - he'd like to complete his Nordic collection, especially, though he'd prefer to do so using more diplomatic means instead of going to war. That's nicer, after all, and he wants to be nice to them. As for the rest, he feels somewhere in between. Let me know if you'd like to know his opinion about a specific country.
Romantic Entanglements Deep, deep down, Germany craves having a strong bond with someone - and not necessarily a romantic one (though that would be nice). To a degree he believes that he has one with Italy, but then again he's also not completely confident that this isn't a relationship based upon fear. Does Italy genuinely like him or is it more that Italy is afraid to not be on his side?
But that's the real problem here: trust. Especially with so many world powers eyeing each other, how can he be sure that anyone he gets close to won't stab him in the back? Or even that this wasn't the other person's purpose from the beginning? For this reason, he doesn't currently have any romantic partners, and he greets anyone attempting to establish that sort of relationship with him with a huge amount of suspicion. Which isn't to say that it's impossible and there is no hope so don't try, but to say that he's a challenge would be putting it mildly.
And he definitely doesn't confuse physical affection for an emotional bond - just because you seduce the man doesn't mean that he'll fall in love.
Post by Northern Italy on Jan 6, 2017 4:01:51 GMT -7
These two have very interesting relations that could send shock waves through Europe. With the war over, Germany quite simply has come out as the main winner, parts of Scandinavia, most of Western Europe, Yugoslavia, Eastern Europe and parts of West and Central are all under direct control of the German Reich and have thus made Germany a super power. Italy on the other hand practically has nothing. The Italian Empire only has control of the whole Horn of Africa, Libya,Tunisia, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Greece, Monaco Savoy and Nice... Tiny compared to the gains of Germany, so Italy is completely surrounded by his obviously stronger ally.
Italy can't say he's too happy with the way the spoils were shared out, he would want all of Yugoslavia, Corsica and all of German North Africa touching the Mediterranean. Whether Germany's boss is willing to appease Italy's boss is still uncertain thus far for the Italian government but they realize the peril they are in. One wrong move and Italy could easily become a German Occupied Territory. Thus Italy is willing to bend to Germany's every decision, opinion or move to ensure survival and hates Germany for it and wishes for the Reich to crumble so he can become Europe's power.
Yet, Italy still considers Germany as his best if not only friend. He recognizes that his fate is directly tied to Germany's and he does not trust the other empires more that his stronger neighbor. Although he is one of the world empires Italy is not doing so well... The Italian Empire has been at war for 10 straight years (1935, Ethiopia- 1945, End of the war) and is suffering for it economically as the Italian economy is simply not strong enough to cope... Italy needs German assistance, economically, militarily, resource wise and diplomatically.
Italy is quite happy to follow Germany as long as he doesn't demand too much from him.
In terms of romance while Italy does see Germany as a potential partner, Germany to him doesn't seem interested in that sort of thing so Italy doesn't mention any of that and just sees them as allies. However, should he see Germany interested then his attitude would probably change to a more passive and trusting relationship with Germany then the currently guarded, suspicious, "Italian dagger at the ready to back stab" relationship.
Germany has mixed feelings about giving Italy more territory, mostly because he has mixed feelings about him in general. This isn't because of anything that Italy has done, but because the war has ended. During the war everyone in the Axis had a very good reason to work together and the chance that there would be any backstabbing is very small. Now that most of their enemies have been crushed, it's painfully clear that the world has been left with a handful of very ambitious nations, who are not going to suddenly stop being ambitious just because that particular fight has finished. And it's now at the point where it would be difficult for anyone to expand further without attacking an ally.
Now, Italy may be the smallest and weakest of the empires, but that doesn't mean that Germany doesn't see a possible threat there. After all, though Italy himself probably wouldn't stand much of a chance if there was a fight between just the two of them, if Italy were to team up with someone else against him that could be a problem. Especially given his location - Italy is practically right next door to the heart of the German Empire. Because of this, it's very important to Germany to decide just how much he trusts Italy, and not just because Italy wants territory that is currently in his hands. If he can't trust him, he may even start toying with the idea that he should attack Italy before Italy has a chance to get an outside alliance, so that he can quickly defeat him one to one and therefore eliminate the possible threat. On the other hand, he doesn't want to do that - he wants to be able to trust him.
Now, when it comes to territory, if Italy is going to be a steady ally then it would be a good move for Germany to give him the territory that he wants - he actually has a very low interest in most of the areas that Italy wants, it would relieve him the burden of having to maintain it himself, and it would make Italy a stronger and more effective ally. But if Italy can't be trusted, then the last thing that he would want to do is to make Italy stronger - it just gives Italy a bigger knife to stab him in the back with.
And as far as romance is concerned, Italy probably out of anyone would have the easiest time getting that out of Germany - if they can resolve this trust thing. Germany's lack of interest in this regard recently can be mostly chalked up to the fact that he takes war very seriously and there's been a lot of war going on. He gets rather intense about it, as I'm sure you can imagine, and especially since defeating Russia was more difficult than he thought it would be that has been pretty consuming for his thoughts. That doesn't tend to blend well with being romantic. However, now that the war is over and things are calming down, it would be less off-the-table. I will note though that he's not likely to show the first interest - even Nazi Germany is a huge pessimist and operates under the assumption that any romantic advance of his would be rejected, so why try? And even though Italy has indicated interest in the past (he thinks? You Italians and your cultural norms are... confusing for the German) he'd need to see that again in order to be assured that the war didn't change anything.
So my overall point here is that these two pretty desperately need to have a chat about all of this - so shall we have a thread? I figure that the peace conference in Moscow would be a good opportunity, so we could start a new thread that would be around the same time as the 'party'. Though this is something that Germany would want to handle privately - if they might argue about things he wouldn't want to do it where the others might see it and decide that their alliance is fragile and easily broken. Another possibility is that they discussed it sometime and somewhere before the conference.
Post by Northern Italy on Jan 7, 2017 6:00:29 GMT -7
Ironically, Italy will probably be worse off, if Germany gives him the territories. It just gives Italy more trouble in reality, like financing the territory with money that he doesn't have plus dealing with the resistance in these new lands. So while it seems like a good idea Italy probably would do better without the land... The thing is he wants it anyway! Like Bismark said:
'The Italians have such a great appetite, and such bad teeth.
Romantically it seems like, none of them will make the first move until either Italy is drunk, or Germany has the courage to make the first move... Or is drunk as well, but I'm pretty sure Germany's Boss wouldn't like that too much, Italy's boss doesn't like it either, but Italy keeps it quiet in any case. XD
I don't think they should talk with each other at the peace conference, mostly due to the fact that if there is arguing the cracks in the Axis will be revealed to the world. Plus, Italy is not in the best of moods to talk after the negotiations, if there is to be a meeting between the two of them, it should probably be before the peace conference, Italy wants to know if Germany will support any of his land claims on German Occupied Territory, to act as mediator with Britain to secure the Horn of Africa in complete Italian possession and a deal to possibly partition Turkey and the oil rich Arabian peninsula for themselves without notifying Japan. (Because Japan is a threat in Italy's eyes and resource poor, so controlling that Arabian oil will simply be excellent for a trade embargo and to assist with Italy's own resource problem)
Not wanting to look like an insignificant part of the Axis war effort, he chooses to have the talks with Germany in beautiful and Italian occupied Monaco (he would have had it in Greece, but Athens is... well trashed, thanks to the Italian army, navy and air force being a little too trigger happy).
Well, also ironically, Germany is usually a very good judge of people and situations, but because Italy has this weird thing where he actually likes Germany that skews his judgement in a way that he's not used to. As a result he sees Italy as being more capable than he actually is, and he factors that into things. Which is why he keeps trusting Italy to handle things and then gets surprised when it gets flubbed up. Then again, that's also partly because Germany's list of people that he trusts even on the level of Italy is very short, so he runs out of trusted people to delegate things to. Which I suppose isn't the stupidest thing to do if it's more important for it to be done by someone who won't betray Germany than it is for it to be done well...
And, hmm, note to self: Alcohol...
Monaco before the conference it is! Would you like to start it? I've got kind of a full plate right now - not so much that a new thread is a problem, but it might take awhile to get it up if you leave it up to me.
