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As soon as the next patch is out I will be playing the Allies. The present beta is looking pretty stable and much has been fixed.

I have some ideas of how to defend with the Soviets. It's kind of funny that despite all the Axis complaints, hardly anybody has succeeded driving Big Red yet.

Things I have noticed playing as the Axis against a good friend (and old wargaming buddy).

He didn't disband a single Russian unit. He did build up a bunch of cavalry and used them in terrain. All his crap infantry he kept shoving in my face.

This resulted in a some loss of movement (it costs movement to attack, but you can enter the combat hex for 1 mp) The end result is that it takes two turns to clear out the border crap. Which gives him enough time to shove his reinforcements in my face.

There is a loss of efficiency every time you attack. This is compounded by a rapid forward movement and much lower supply levels when I surge forward to the next line. (usually behind a river) It takes a couple more turns to clear so that I can surge forward again. Only to be in lower levels of supply. I found I had to pull the panzers back and rest them two turns just to get back up to 70-80 efficiency.

I tried using trucks, but moving from 10 to 20 efficiency burning them seemed rather wasteful.

I ended up at the end of summer north of Moscow, but a bit behind south of it. Over all a rather historical advance.

The winter seemed rather anemic for the Russians...he was unable to attack at all. But then I could only make very limited attacks. I put pretty much my entire army on HOLD as opposed to DEFEND to try and limit any retreats.

It doesnt feel like either side is OP. Both of us are not shy about turning off convoy lines to save merchant marine, and I use my twin engine bombers as naval patrol, while he aggressively attacks my subs with his carriers.


We just entered May 1942. I just cleared the line by Rostov and I am surging towards the Volga. (and his next line of Soviet armies.) I lost a Panzer corp though since the Soviet armour now has teeth, and he was able to gang up and shatter my poor panzers. I suspect that I will be able to take Stalingrad...but I am not sure where I will get the units to advance into the Caucasus. I've already split all my 3 step armies into 2 step corps. I may have to guard my flanks with Rumanians, what could go wrong?

Sounds like a fun game LiquidSky.

It's been really interesting reading the different strategies the Soviet players are using. I know what mine is. I am quite pleased there are several ways to attack and defend in this game. It is exactly what I wanted players to be able to do. Approach each front with new and challenging strategies.

If there are no disasters in the official patch release I will be playing a couple games myself to get a better feel for the overall situation.

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky
The winter seemed rather anemic for the Russians...he was unable to attack at all.

Pretty good endorsement for play balance, I would say. For the Russians, perhaps the arriving Siberian reinforcements could be set to higher strength/efficiency or something. They should be able to arrive and make some good attacks against over-extended Germans.