ORIGINAL: Marcinos1985
I don't have to imagine anymore, that's exactly what happens in this game. Soviet morale consistently falls to around 50%, while German may skyrocket even to 120%. And that's all because small countries in distant Pacific give up each turn. First Philippines, then New Guinea, then Solomons, now DEI. Malayas and Burma still to take. I can't imagine that Ivan or other Nikita sitting in the trenches in 05.1942 could care less though [:)] I believe it's an engine case (country goes down, appropriate side takes a hit), but I don't know if this could be tuned somehow. Morale boost for Axis is understandable, a dip for UK or US maybe, but for USSR - in my opinion - less so.
Interesting as this tactic was used on a smaller scale with SC-WW1 concerning the infamous 'Montenegro Gambit'.
1st turn..Luxembourg surrenders>following turn CP buff. 2nd turn, Montenegro surrenders (chit selling on turn one to operate 3 or more German corps next to Montenegrin capital> new CP buff for 3rd turn.
Mean while..Central Powers go all out on Russia and Serbia with these two buffs on hand...and demolish Russia while they are trying to receive their 2nd and third turn units that are mobilizing to the board. Also, because of the 2nd and 3rd turn surrender buffs..All of Russian Poloand is cut off by uber 120+ morale CP forces.
Now..all of this has been fixed in the last patches for SC-WW1...and thanks much for that!
However...I was involved in 2 major tests to figure out how to fix this after it came to our attention on the forum over there. A few of us secret squirrels knew about the possibility to take out Montenegro on the second turn after about the first month SC-WW1 came out. But, nobody that I know realized just how big the buffs..especially chained, could be. The usual was..take Luxembourg..that helps further the push west into Belgium and France. This we knew..and didn't mind as this was a cool design feature. It took someone though..to put two and two together, and go for a bigger prize using these back to back buffs...Russia!
While all these tests and huge discussions were going on, I heard from a couple of people via pm off forum, that this stratagem of knocking off one smallish country at a time, e.g. New Guinea, then Solomons, etc, etc or some combination, consecutively, and not at the same time..was the trick.
So..its possible that a WaW expert brought that over to SC-WW1, where it was used to great effect as I described above...and turned a gambit like taking Montenegro on the second turn of the match, into an exploit...where it was unleashed on unsuspecting players for months.
There's my 3 cents. I like the surrender buff, but as Marcinos pointed out..why would the loss of lets say The Solomon Islands affect the Soviet Union at all, especially with the Axis beating down their doors up into the first winter of 1941, the same time as the Japanese start their rampage? [:D]
