Reflections and suggestions on game balance and historical accuracy.

[LiveseyY]

Good day friends, I have been playing this game since 2022, during this time I have played about 6 games, almost all as Germany, but there were also games as the USSR, both in 1v1 format and team games. I am not a professional, but an average-level player, moreover I don't like metagaming, I try not to use the tactic of "hit with infantry, catch up with tanks," but to play from operations to encircle, and I emphasize, not just encircling the enemy with 2-3 divisions per direction each turn, but preparing large-scale encirclement operations. In all games I noticed a certain pattern. By the summer of '42 the Soviet player has more than 5 million on the map, and often all 6 million. All my games were played with unlocked theater of war management, and also in No Early End format. The reason for such a large number of Soviet troops was simple. By turn 8-9, the Soviets were pulling out of reserve and other theaters of war a mass of units, creating a huge density of troops in the main directions, moreover, if necessary, they would run away from, seemingly important, but still secondary sectors, for example, in almost all my games the Soviet player did not even seriously try to defend Leningrad, although in history the Soviet leadership spent an incredible amount of resources on defending the "northern capital." My comrades and I often discussed the problem of balance and logic in this game, and I would like to share our reflections. They are arranged in order of my conviction in what was stated.

1. You must play ONLY ON POINTS. If you are afraid that one of the sides will suffer a premature defeat due to a lack of one or two points, which would be a shame, since months or even years go into a game, then you can enable the "EXTENDED PLAY" mode, which will show the loser that he lost, but will allow him to continue playing. The main thing is that you do not perceive this as No Early End, any defeat is a defeat. Playing on points is necessary so that the Soviet player does not stage a sprint race to the east, avoiding battles. Comrade Stalin said fight - then fight. Moreover, playing on points forces the defense of objectives that many Soviet players do not pay attention to, for example Leningrad and Sevastopol, which gives the game logic.

2. There is an opinion that Leningrad should be worth 60 or at least 45 points, and not 30. To think that Leningrad had the same political significance as Sevastopol is very strange, Leningrad was called the cradle of the Bolshevik revolution, before the death of Russia in 1917 this city was the capital of the empire. The loss of such an important city would be a tragedy for the USSR. Moreover, it is another incentive for the Soviet to defend Leningrad, even at the cost of other victory cities.

3. You must play with locked theater of war management. This may seem strange, because it is believed that this strengthens the USSR, because it, unlike the German, can create new units and formations. I am extremely skeptical of such a position, and I will try to argue my opinion. The thing is that before the USSR begins large-scale offensive operations (late 1942-early 1943), the Soviet player is ABSOLUTELY unrestricted in building up his grouping on the map, he can empty his theaters, accumulate 6 million people on the map and his logistics system will not even creak. At the same time the German player finds himself in a stupid position: the Soviets bring new forces onto the map, and he, properly speaking, needs to do the same, but German logistics simply cannot digest such a mass of people and equipment, losses in trucks become large, many formations receive almost no supply. As a result we get a situation in which the Soviet player can strengthen his army for free, while the German is forced either to advance in conditions of an extremely oversaturated enemy front, not having sufficient forces, or also to pull forces from France and Africa, but encounter enormous logistical difficulties, as a result the combat capability of the German remains +/- the same as if he had not brought up new units. What in essence is the difference whether you have 1 infantry division with full ammunition or 2 divisions with 30% of ammunition. The argument about the Soviet creating new divisions is of course partly relevant, but only partly. If in '41 and early '42 the density of troops is lower, the Soviet will suffer greater losses, and he is unlikely to have the opportunity to crank out too many new formations, because it will be necessary to make up losses in the old ones. Moreover, by '43 if the Soviet overdoes it with creating formations he may encounter the same problem as the German - a logistical bottleneck. The further west, the worse it will be for the Soviet railway network, it will need to be repaired and troops will be undersupplied. Additionally I want to say that such a locking of theaters of war will probably provide a more logical appearance of the front, we will finally not have a neutral strip of 75 km, since due to the smaller number of troops, in many directions there will be one division per cell on the German side and 1-2 on the Soviet side.

It is worth saying that this idea also has its problems, in particular the super-mortality of German tanks in the winter of '41, which looks very stupid. The Germans of course experienced serious problems with materiel in winter, but to imagine a situation in which 90% of armored vehicles in a division that stood for a week in place in some city went out of order... It is hard to call me a Germanophile, but there is no need to make idiots out of German designers and out of German equipment an iPhone 7 that discharges in the cold in 30 minutes. To be fair, a German tank division is capable of fulfilling tasks even without having tanks, which is historical, the main striking force is motorized artillery and motorized infantry, on trucks, but still the losses in winter are somehow insane.

4. Something needs to be done about Soviet production/repair of trucks, simply the main problem of the Soviet Union right up to 1944-1945 was a wild shortage of trucks, artillery was hauled by tractors that moved at a speed of 5 km/h, in many motorized rifle brigades there were no trucks and the motorized riflemen were simply taught to... march quickly... I am serious. And in the game the Soviet by the end of '41 already has a large surplus of trucks. I understand that this depends on the number of encircled Soviet tank and motorized rifle divisions in '41, but a smart Soviet player simply will not get caught in pockets with motorized units. What exactly to do about this problem I do not know, but the fact that it exists is obvious.

I would be very glad to hear your opinion on the expressed thoughts. I love this game very much and am grateful to the developers for their titanic work, but all games by '42-'43 turn into a farce... This is very sad. Thank you for your answers!

The translation was done using ChatGPT, my English is very poor, I apologize.

[nbvqwe]

I've been playing this game since 2022 too.
The first point
That's right, about the glasses. But that's if you play it HISTORICALLY. That is, use the doctrine of "a quick Blitzkrieg and the Soviet itself will collapse like a colossus of clay under its own weight"
For example, I play German from supply, not Blitzkrieg.

Point Two
Leningrad should be worth more than the current state. Slightly smaller than Moscow.
In fact, the defense of Leningrad is quite an easy matter.

Point Three
You do not need to play with blocked theaters, but with them at 100% occupancy, and striving for this.
As for the army of 6kk, this is a minimum of 42 needed for defense, otherwise a normal German will simply erase the union. As it is, there are chances to retreat eastward in secondary directions. And on the main ones (Leningrad, Moscow) - to keep the enemy in place with meat.
Plus, a normal union has 5kk or even 5.5kk by the end of winter, and if you don't hammer at the German up to 6.5 kk, but this is almost nonsense, victories are needed for the guard. And by the end of spring, up to 6.5 kk or even almost 7 kk can be pulled out. IMHO (the translation of the word is I Have An Opinion, You Can't Dispute It)
The German got into a difficult, almost stalemate situation in 42-43, when the ratio of forces with the union was 1:2 (3.5kk German and 7kk union). IMHO
The above applies to a 100% theater support game%
About the logistics of the German. It's hard and easy at the same time. You have been given Super Hubs. Why not use it? One of them can feed a couple of Infantry armies and 1 Tank Group. They're all eating up. Yes, if the fights are hard, then there is not enough. BUT you have neighboring super hubs and transporters on them, which can replenish ammunition after the battles on your turn. IMHO
Plus, you can use pre-pumping of German warehouses, and dump everything to the front.
About the creation of new divisions in the union. They make no sense to attack with an adequate German game. Defensively, yes. An attack is a drain on manpower. The corps are important, there are 40 infantry and 14 cavalry.
There are slightly more of them than the German has moving parts. But they themselves are not mobile.
To break through a normal 1 hex defense, 6-7 pex corps are needed at least. And this is if the German is standing with infantry. And if he puts tanks or motorboats, then it's a complete ass, it's easier to bypass this direction along secondary routes.
The translation was done with the help of a translator

[Sammy5IsAlive]

Going through your points...

1) I totally agree about playing to the victory conditions as originally designed. A Soviet player who retreats a lot in 1941 gets the short term win of not only maintaining their army but getting a sizable OOB going into winter 1941 and 1942. But it comes at a long term cost - they risk giving up bonus VPs that might become significant later in the game (in particular the High Watermark victory check at the end of 1944) but more importantly they let the Axis come into the winter of 1941 with a fairly fresh OOB and with the time and space to dictate where their defensive lines will be. That makes the Soviet counter offensive much more difficult which means less Guards units forming on the Soviet side and a much healthier Axis OOB going into 1942. It all unfolds over a long period of time which is why the VP structure is important as a set of "guard rails" to encourage against the Axis player quitting prematurely as they can still get a "game win" even if they fail to take Moscow etc and win the war outright in 1941/42.

2) I can see arguments on both sides of this. It is worth remembering that the VP allocations don't just reflect the "political value" of cities but also their strategic value. Whilst Sevastopol and the Crimea may have had little value politically it did have a great deal of value strategically - the airfields in the Crimea were within range of the German oil facilities at Ploesti and the port facilities at Sevastopol gave the Soviets the potential ability to project naval power into the Black Sea. That said I think I'd agree that just in terms of game balance the Soviet player is not given enough incentive to defend Leningrad. All that said I do wonder whether if you increased the VPs for Leningrad you would just swap around the current "meta" and end up with a pattern where the Axis player doesn't push past Pskov and sends their forces elsewhere where it is easier to cause damage.

3) The problem with locked TBs is that you are locked into historical transfers that might not make sense in terms of the game situation. This is probably more a point from the Axis perspective than the Soviet one but throughout the historical war various 'elite' units were committed to heavy fighting and then withdrawn to Western Europe to refit. With locked TBs you are committed to that withdrawal even if the unit is perfectly healthy. My suggested solution is to play with open TBs but with a house rule that only units that are on the map or have previously been on the map can be moved around the TBs. So the Soviet player can't strip their TBs and the Axis player can't send all their panzers to France in winter 1941 and replace them with infantry divisions.

4) Re German tanks in winter. In terms of availability I think that the current system reflects history. None of the German fluids were designed for such low temperature - the engine oil froze as did the recoil fluid in the guns. So the tanks were struggling to move and to fire their main weapon. Many of the metal components cracked in the extreme cold. The running tracks of the German tanks were too narrow to support the weight of the vehicle on top of the snow and so even where they could be got running they got bogged down. I do think there might be an argument that the way this availability issue is dealt with in game (the vast majority of German tanks in open ground becoming damaged) could be better - at the moment the damaged AFVs have to first be returned to the transit pool and then make their way back into the active pool before being able to be redistributed back onto the map. Personally I'd prefer a mechanism where if a unit is placed in a 'protected' hex (e.g a fort 3+ or a city and out of contact with the enemy) it can repair it's own AFVs without having to send them back to the transit pool. I suspect a change of that magnitude is not on the cards though.

5) I don't really have a comment on as I don't know enough about the historical Soviet truck situation later in the war. A Soviet player can definitely run into a vehicle bottleneck if they build too many vehicle intensive unit (e.g. the mechanized corps) going into the later war. In terms of the earlier war I think there may be an inaccuracy in the way that Soviet infantry units essentially can have the same max MPs as German ones. I could see an argument for Soviet infantry MPs to be capped at 10. But that is more to do with the poor organization of the Soviet forces in the early war than to do with vehicles/trucks. Essentially the vast majority of infantry on both sides was marching on foot. If the Soviets do have an unrealistic truck surplus I'm not sure how much impact that actually has in-game. Obviously all of that is assuming that you are playing with temporary motorization disabled.

So I can see where you are coming from with a number of your points. What I disagree with is your assertion that "all" games turn to a "farce" by 1942/43. I don't think that is the case by any means.