@oysteilo:
My 2 cents regarding Russia and BM
I think the new no middle east/africa rule for russia is the poorest change in BM. Everyone agrees that this has no historic interest, but if you look for it you will probably find many other things with little historic relevance in this game. So for me this is no big deal. What this change does is, it reduces playabliity for Russia. There is no incentive for Russia to take these territories, better to leave them for UK. I also think it was kind of fun to defend these territories for the allies after Russia captured some of them. Secondlly, after Russia loose most of its territories this was a good way to keep Russia at around 20 IPC. Now, you might only get 2 from sz 80 if Russia decleres war on Japan. Russia is REALLY stripped from money in the later rounds. The second change affecting Russia is also not so good I think from a playability standpoint. In the original version Russia could put fast moving units into china, no incentive for that anymore either. This way you can make J1 hard, especially if you buy 3 mechs for volgograd R1. The new objective discourage R1 DOW on Japan. Does this change enhance playability for Russia? I don’t think so. Then the new China rules is a way to compensate for this as Japan must occupy every territory with a land unit. I don’t think this does much for playability either way for Japan or China (or the allies). So all in all I think BM has stripped Russia from the few options they had and reduced it just to buy infantry and buckle up against Germany. Of course this is more historic correct but it becomes predictable and somewhat boring after a few games. Of course you reward UK hugely in the new version and also USA and you are somewhat compensated here. But don’t get me wrong, it is really impressive work from you guys! I just wanted to share my opinion regarding BM and Russia. I am not presenting any fixes, just a mild criticism!
We didn’t remove it strictly because it wasn’t historical, it also generated cheesy situations such as the Italians camping out there for the sole purpose of delaying Russia from acquiring the African territories. I found it fun as well because there was strategy to it. However, instead of fighting for the African territories, Russia should fight Germany in order to keep its original territories and its income up, which was not possible in vanilla. I’d trade African shenanigans for actual Eastern front back and forth gameplay any day, and it is a choice because if Russia sends 4 units to Africa their ability to put up a fight against Germany is significantly hampered.
On your point regarding China and Japan, look at it this way: it was a no brainer in vanilla for Russia to be involved in China and in the Eastern territories bordering Korea. The new objective creates a drawback so players need to think about what they want to do and what their plan is before going through with it. And believe it or not, I think it’s probably still better for the Allies if Russia declares war against Japan early, so I think Russia is faced with a lot more real options in BM than in vanilla.
Playability for China and Japan has increased with the garrison rule. China can plan for US air strikes to stack a certain territory in its overall strategy instead of the being simply pushed back by Japan, and Japan needs to think if it really wants to capture a territory, since they’ll need to sacrifice an inf to do sosince it can’t retreat without giving China and inf.
So yeah in vanilla Russia had one best strategy: buy inf, take African territories and Iraq and help Allies out against Japan. In BM, it depends a lot more on the situation and what your overall game plan is. I’ve played a lot of BM and I don’t know what the best strategy is yet, and I highly doubt someone can find one that can address most situations in BM.
Criticism is always welcome when its goal is to improve the mod, I don’t take it personally. So no need for anyone to be shy.
