Hearts of Iron III/Italy

Playing Italy
Italy is the weakest of the Major powers in Hearts of Iron 3, with a Base Industrial Capacity (IC) of about 60. Do not let this put you off playing them, as they're great fun to play and see a lot of action throughout the game. They also start the game at war with Ethiopia, even in 1936. This lets players learn the combat part of this game from any of the set starting points. Picking Italy would appear at first glance to be at odds with the starting page advice on this very wiki, but to start with, it does not fall into the list of countries not to play, furthermore the point is made that playing Germany isn't a bad idea because they pick fights with weaker countries... as Italy you start off at war with Ethiopia and can easily end up fighting Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece and Turkey. All of these are significantly weaker nations (none of them start with half of the Base IC of Italy), giving you a fun and varied game each time you try this nation.