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What is your "Stalin Decides" choice?!

Where do you send Zhukov and Krushchev on the first turn?

Zhukov South and Take Command in the hopes of saving 12th Army and SW Army? Maybe even 9th and S Army!

Krushchev heads to eliminate the dumber of the North/Central Front commanders? Or do you play Release Marshal on Turn 1 and get rid of the deadwood that way?

Where does the first Major City garrison go - Riga, if possible? Odessa next?

Which Front do you prioritize? Does Stalin exhort until you can't afford it?

The Soviets have many possible openings - have you settled on one you like best for PBEM?

Currently, I favour:

1. Hold Moscow at all costs (easiest IMHO)
2. Major garrison Riga if possible. Odessa otherwise - never Minsk.
3. Zhukov to South. Take Command if necessary.
4. Release a Marshal ASAP to replace the biggest dunderhead either North or Central.
5. Krushchev shoots the remaining dunderhead.
6. Depending on the flow, Prioritize North or maybe Centre soon afterwards.

Thoughts?

from VR's Blog, discussing the metrics
http://www.vrdesigns.nl/

Strategies....For the Soviets it’s all about Moscow. Which is, from my point of view, puzzling. The idea of the Soviet strategy is to throw a spanner into the works of the Germans. You can, given the right circumstances, turn a German win into a Draw or a Draw into a loss. Choosing Moscow as your strategy kind of defeats this. The Germans, if they follow the ‘Support Hitler’ strategy, as most seem to be doing, will likely end up focusing on Moscow (not always but probable) by the time of Hitler’s final conference in November.

What I would like someone experienced to explain to me and us... is how the hell the Soviet can run West fast enough and survive, with only 40 APs due to not being activated over several turns in a row.

The rest - Opening moves for the Soviets - is frankly secondary at this point. We are not all Flaviusx and MichaelT here.

EDIT: I apologize for the tone. I am currently very frustrated with my PBEM experience playing the Soviets.

I actually think Leningrad is easier to hold than Moscow, and Rostov the hardest one to hold of the 3.

ORIGINAL: Drakken

What I would like someone experienced to explain to me and us... is how the hell the Soviet can run West fast enough and survive, with only 40 APs due to not being activated over several turns in a row.

The rest - Opening moves for the Soviets - is frankly secondary at this point. We are not all Flaviusx and MichaelT here.

EDIT: I apologize for the tone. I am currently very frustrated with my PBEM experience playing the Soviets.

If Zhukov "Takes Command" of a Front you get +100 Activation - that should help! Making a Front a Priority is +25, just having Zhukov there is +20, replacing a dunderhead with a New Marshal is probably another +20. Stalin's speech is always useful.

All it takes is one good roll by West/SW/12th Army to "get away".

Sure, the frontier armies (2 each in N/C/S) are guaranteed to die. Their "job" is to clog up the route with ZOCs in order to save the others. Spreading out is better than concentrating in the bushes IMHO.

Of the three armies mentioned above, one, probably two, should get away if you run your Activations right via Zhukov/Priority/Exhort/New Marshal with average luck.