How to possibly save the Soviets. (stjeand as Axis)

[sveint]

Советский Союз

There is a minority who disagrees, but the Soviet Union is currently far too weak in WarPlan. (Those who disagree as deluding themselves in my opinion, just because you lost once as the Axis doesn't mean anything. I play many, many games and see all sorts of skill levels. Overall the Soviets are far weaker than they should be).

So what can be done to save them? Or at least minimize the damage and prevent a collapse until the Western Allies can help.

I'll be writing this AAR purely from the Soviet perspective. I'll be using what to me seems to be the best strategy for a chance at survival. I've tried many other strategies and most of them (like disbanding the airforce) have some merit and some drawbacks. The strategy I'm using here will be based on what has worked best for me.

That said, it is primordial that the Western Allies do their part. There are three things they must do (if possible and not countered by the Axis player).
-Before the outbreak of war, conquer Persia (+5 production)
-At outbreak of war, UK sends MAX lend lease each turn
-When the US joins the war, they send MAX lend lease each turn

[sveint]

Tech - It's best to be boring with Soviet techs. Invest in the techs we need and use and nothing else.

[sveint]

Starting units

Air force, we are keeping it and we are allowing it to upgrade.

Armies, we only have two: 50th in Leningrad, garrisoned and set to hold at all costs. 14th, starts in Murmansk, is railed to hex 186,67 to hold this vital rail line west of Vitebsk.

Armor, all are set to do not upgrade/reinforce. These are our strategic reserves. The full strength armor starts at 30%, great. The other two at 25% but will be filled with 30%+ recruits at a later date. They are limited to 5 moves until late 42 and so must be used sparingly or they will just get surrounded.

Mechanized, all disbanded. Far too expensive and ineffective at 5 moves and 20% experience.

Cavalry, disbanded.

[sveint]

Rifle corps

Until war breaks out, this is what we are stuck with. At 30% experience they are functional but weak. At 20% they are useless, mere speedbumps.

Port garrison - each port gets a 20% corps, garrisoned, and set to do not upgrade. The exception is Sevastopol which starts with a weak corp that will be reinforced to just under 30% experience.

20% exp units - garbage, they will be the first line of defense, that is speedbumps.

Understrength corps - a few corps start understrength and will fill with 30% reinforcements. They are marginally more useful and will begin forming our second line of defense.

Builds

On turn 1 we build 14 anti-tank large corps.

[Flaviusx]

All in on rifle corps, interesting concept. You could actually go even further with this by disbanding the bombers.

I'd keep the cavalry, they are useful in Finland. Good luck, I am doubting that even this will work, but it is worth trying.

[Harrybanana]

Will you be allowing some or all of your rifle corps to upgrade as you gain tech levels?

Like Flaviusx I don't think this will work; but very interested to see it.

[sveint]

It's "working" for me in a couple of random games. But working means the Soviets don't get overrun, not that they are doing great. We'll see how it goes. Maybe we'll just get an other piece of evidence pointing to Soviet weakness.

[ncc1701e]

Who is your opponent please?

[sveint]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

Will you be allowing some or all of your rifle corps to upgrade as you gain tech levels?

Like Flaviusx I don't think this will work; but very interested to see it.

I usually do, but I'll try something different. I'll set all 20% xp units to no upgrades.

[sveint]

November 10, 1939

We get our inital batch of large corps. Every turn we are building a large corps (occasionally two).

I'm now setting Reinforce to 10, so slowly we will starting to reinforce/upgrade.
As production increases, Reinforce will be increased, always saving at least 120 production for one corps per turn.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: sveint

November 10, 1939

We get our inital batch of large corps. Every turn we are building a large corps (occasionally two).

I'm now setting Reinforce to 10, so slowly we will starting to reinforce/upgrade.
As production increases, Reinforce will be increased, always saving at least 120 production for one corps per turn.

Exactly what I do. Except I "garrison" all of them. Since garrisoning returns 17 PP it means that on turns when I am getting a new corps I only need to have at least 103 production saved. I also don't upgrade them at all. So the end result is that I spend 103 PP on each of my 30% corps and you spend 144 PP (assuming you upgrade all of them to 1941). So the main difference between us is that I will end up with about 40% more of the 30% corps than you, but mine will all be garrisoned and 39 level and yours will be ungarrisoned and 41 level.

[sveint]

In one of several other games I'm playing the Axis player is clearly fairly new. And yet, despite the Soviets not getting any units surrounded, they are struggling in 1942. Let's not mention the games where I play the Axis - I always have to try something strange for the game to be interesting at all. Even 1942 Barbarossa seems to work fine now (althought not ideal).

Balance at the moment just seems cartoonishly bad.

[Flaviusx]

Mission accomplished.

This was why the Russians got beat with the nerf sticks hard, after all. To make a 42 Barbarossa possible.

Unfortunately, in doing so it broke the game for the 1941 Barbarossa that virtually everybody else is trying to do.

I hear Battlevonwar has a super secret neato strategy, though. So it's all good.

The game should never have been balanced around the 42 Barbarossa which in fact should be a bad idea. Otherwise the game is being designed for an Axis autowin: they overrun the British in 41 and then go after the Soviets in 42 and really, what is even the point of playing the Allies in this situation? If the Axis can do this, they can do anything they want. The developer made a bad call here and flatly refuses to unwind it. PBEM is a dead letter now.

[ncc1701e]

The big question is: if we come back to 35% exp for Russian, is the new garrison rule not too heavy then?

[sveint]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

The big question is: if we come back to 35% exp for Russian, is the new garrison rule not too heavy then?

The garrison rule mostly helps France. I don't garrison much as the Soviets, it's just begging to get your units pocketed.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Mission accomplished.

This was why the Russians got beat with the nerf sticks hard, after all. To make a 42 Barbarossa possible.

Unfortunately, in doing so it broke the game for the 1941 Barbarossa that virtually everybody else is trying to do.

I hear Battlevonwar has a super secret neato strategy, though. So it's all good.

The game should never have been balanced around the 42 Barbarossa which in fact should be a bad idea. Otherwise the game is being designed for an Axis autowin: they overrun the British in 41 and then go after the Soviets in 42 and really, what is even the point of playing the Allies in this situation? If the Axis can do this, they can do anything they want. The developer made a bad call here and flatly refuses to unwind it. PBEM is a dead letter now.

If you read my AAR with Stjeand, the Axis don't even have to overrun Britain to win with a 42 Barbarossa. They can just spend 41 building a massive army (including 25+ armour/mechanized). True I won this game as the Allies (barely) but this is only because Stjeand got screwed when in the middle of our game all of the German Infantry he had garrisoned now cost double to ungarrison and also because the units he isolated in Leningrad were still getting supply when they should not have. He also made mistakes in leaving the Netherlands too open for invasion and not retreating soon enough in Russia. None of these will be repeated in future games.

[sveint]

I have a different take, a subtle bias I see in every wargame: Germany is far far overrated, Western Allies slightly so and the Soviets are extremely underrated.

Might as well add that usually the Japanese navy is slightly overrated, Italy is underrated, and China is just massively underrated.

Any objective analysis of WW2 will understand how important the Soviets and the Chinese were to Allied victory (the US was extremely important too, but that is usually not forgotten about).

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: sveint

I have a different take, a subtle bias I see in every wargame: Germany is far far overrated, Western Allies slightly so and the Soviets are extremely underrated.

Might as well add that usually the Japanese navy is slightly overrated, Italy is underrated, and China is just massively underrated.

Any objective analysis of WW2 will understand how important the Soviets and the Chinese were to Allied victory (the US was extremely important too, but that is usually not forgotten about).

I am not sure if this is true with "every" wargame, but generally I agree with you. Germany in particular, IMHO, is generally overrated. Part of this is because of the still lingering myth in the superiority of the German Wehrmacht. Certain German units were clearly superior to most Allied units. But the bulk of the German Army (your average infantry division for example) was no better than their Allied counterparts (the average British Division for example). Yet in Warplan all German units have a base 70% experience compared to 50% maximum for all other nations. So in effect they are 40% better. That is a huge difference.

Another reason is that most Wargamers seem to want the Axis to stand an equal chance to win the War rather than just an equal chance to win the game. But the fact is that historically, the Axis did not stand an equal chance to win the War. Indeed it was only through luck and Allied blundering that the Axis were able to do as well as they did. Put another way, if WWII was refought with each side knowing what we know now (which essentially is what we are doing as wargamers) the Axis would probably lose the War in 1944 or earlier. But since this is unpalatable to most gamers, game designers have to either make the Axis stronger and the Allies weaker (or both) to not only enable the Axis to survive until 1945 or later, but to even give them a chance to win the war.

[sveint]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

the Axis would probably lose the War in 1944

More likely they'd get bogged down in France for a year or two.

[ncc1701e]

Any updates?