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You have to get Leningrad. It is unbelieveably convoluted to get the combination of HQ Build Up, Army, Corps, Ready and Reserves set up up to frontal assault for turn 7 to turn 17 taking 1 hex a turn. You need to have the precisely the right units in the assault stacks to maximize the chance of each corps' Reserves joining the battle - that's what the Inf Divs in the Pz Corps are for. I need the Second Army, all the the OKH Inf Divs, LI Corps to max the command potential. Second Army goes to AG North for 54 Admin Points. It is not what I enjoy about gaming at all, but it is gratifying each turn to see the whole Axis front 2 hexes deep leap into the attack and rout the dreaded 28=X stacks. BTW you won't take Moscow, or possibly much else if you commit the forces to do this - at least I can't. And this is against the AI. Against a human I figure Leningrad won't fall if the Soviet player is willing to commit everything.

One of these days I'm not even going to send much in the ways of going after Leningrad after Pskov falls, leave 18th to guard all those Soviets and POW use 16th and 4 Panzer to assault Moscow.  Everyone expects the Germans to 'have to' go after Leningrad.  I'll just ignore it and it all will be fine 

But you still have to threaten Leningrad to keep the Finns in the game.
In my game, Finland surrenders because the Axis does not hold Vybrog, Narva and Pskov.
With Finlad out I can now divert 3 more armies to the front.
 

Isn't this game largely about forcing the Soviet to meet HIS historical objectives?
I tend to agree that human Soviet players will not play as poorly as Historical.
By the same token, we should expect Axis players to not play as poorly as historical starting in about November 42, right?  At which point, they just have to hold on till late 1945.

I wonder if anything should be done about either of these issues (that neither the Soviet 41/42 player nor the Axis 42/43/44 player will mismanage their respective armies in these periods).  At some point, the soviets have to feel the pressure to achieve historical outcomes too, right?

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

Isn't this game largely about forcing the Soviet to meet HIS historical objectives?
I tend to agree that human Soviet players will not play as poorly as Historical.
By the same token, we should expect Axis players to not play as poorly as historical starting in about November 42, right?  At which point, they just have to hold on till late 1945.

I wonder if anything should be done about either of these issues (that neither the Soviet 41/42 player nor the Axis 42/43/44 player will mismanage their respective armies in these periods).  At some point, the soviets have to feel the pressure to achieve historical outcomes too, right?

I think the challenge, at least in my mind is that, "good play" on both sides historically probably would have resulted in the soviets doing better than they did historically.

Certainly the Germans made bad decisions too, but I think by and large they made better decisions than the soviets over the course of the war. So in the hands of two skilled human players, both with the advantage of hindsight, I'd expect the soviets to outperform history. The germans still had the potential to mount legitimate theatre offensives in 1943, a feat which I'd be surprised if a human vs human game would allow (although I could be wrong).

Only way I can see to "balance" that gameplay wise is either to tweak the victory point system and define, say, holding Berlin by Jan 1, 1945 as an axis minor victory, or to deliberately break the historical model. If you look at another game like WITP, I'd argue that they broke the historical model for gameplay reasons (Japan is much stronger in the hands of a good player there than history probably warrants).

In the case of WITE, I'm not sure what the best approach is, but I'm going to bet on tweaking the victory positions and/or a set of axis favored "normal" house rules becoming prevalent

I think that both sides made some poor moves early on, and the Ad Hoc nature of the campaign for the Germans meant that after the initial attacks all sorts of things could happen.  While I very much doubt there will be Soviet attacks as happened in summer of 1941, I also doubt there will be the same sort of dithering as happened (if Hoth goes North, have him go all out, if you want the 4th PzG to head south, don't start a major offensive against Leningrad at the same time) on the German side...
 
Both players have more information, more ability to plan, and yet the situation is (and should be) unpredictable.  Having seen only a couple of GC solo so far, I really am in no position to comment, but that doesn't stop me.
 
I see the most probably outcome for both sides to be minor victories or a draw, given hindsight and such - with the odd flash of genius allowing the table to perhaps turn at times.