Russia

maybe make a NO to not attack germany??

@Flashman:

One problem game designers have to deal with is the difference between a country during peacetime and on a war footing.

Neutral countries of course have small defence forces; but these don’t increase every turn as the nation spends money; they have reached the maximum level the country can reasonably afford to spend on maintaining and upgrading defence.

Likewise, every major power should have limits on military spending in peacetime viz:

A limit on income spent per year.  This will be considerably less than the wartime total.

A maximum peacetime establishment in units, probably divided by army, navy, air force.  They can upgrade say a destroyer to a cruiser, but not increase total units (or “tonnage”?)

A maximum number of units maintained in wartime, determined by IPC levels; i.e. a country cannot withdraw to defend its capital with a huge force unless it controls a considerable “hinterland” income to support these forces.

So, how to reflect the fact that the Soviets had a relatively low output of units while restraining them from just attacking first turn to wind their economy up to maximum?  What is their incentive NOT to attack, when they know (unlike Stalin) that the Germans will attack them eventually in any case?

I dunno. I’m trying to multi-task but from somewhere “stack limit” is echoing in my skull after reading this.

What about forcing them to disperse their forces while at peace?  You know garrisoned in their home towns not mobilized at the borders….

#503

good idea. how bout this every TT has to have 2+ men.

Or you simply place most of their modern troops (artillery, mech if they have any, tanks) in Moscow, at 3-4 territories from the border. And then, they cannot physically attack Germany before turn 3. Even more if you divide their numerous infantry in many places. And if you do not give them a lot of tanks, then they would be foolish to attack, because Germany should have, by then, crush France and push a good part of its army in Poland to defend.

Why not just have an NO that kicks in only if Germany (or Italy) attacks first, while never kicking in for the entire game if the USSR attacks first.  Thus, the USSR would be foolish to attack first if they don’t expect to take a capital right away, however it doesn’t take the option off the table.

Just for further clarification, it would be like if the US could attack Japan before being attacked itself and before US4, but if it does so, it never gets the 40 IPC NO, thus making it foolish to attack first. (although I don’t expect a USSR NO to be as significant as 40 IPCs, maybe 10 at most)

I bet it will having some sort of variation of a custom Europe map I got off of the internet a few years ago.  Basically it was just before Germany invaded Russia and on the first turn, every territory that Germany hit, they got the first round of combat done freely.  Meaning that Russia could not fire back on the first set of dice rolls and would lose them as old fashioned bombards.  As for this new Europe map, I assume Russia is not at all strategically or tactically set up to start a war with Germany where as Germany is set up to probably go either east to Moscow or west to Paris.  If you went east to Moscow then you would keep France in the game longer and vice versa.  I just bet Russia is really weak and spread out and will use those beginning turns as a crucial build time to be ready for war.  The bigger question is, do you go for broke on pumping out armor and aircraft or do you begin the steel curtain by mass producing infantry?

I like Germany having the option of attacking France or Russia first.

@BasileII:

Or you simply place most of their modern troops (artillery, mech if they have any, tanks) in Moscow, at 3-4 territories from the border. And then, they cannot physically attack Germany before turn 3. Even more if you divide their numerous infantry in many places. And if you do not give them a lot of tanks, then they would be foolish to attack, because Germany should have, by then, crush France and push a good part of its army in Poland to defend.

Relax all you guys. This is it. No rules needed.

(Also, not having a factory at the border + a peacetime income, like US, is key to making this balanced and historical.)

@thomashawk:

@BasileII:

Or you simply place most of their modern troops (artillery, mech if they have any, tanks) in Moscow, at 3-4 territories from the border. And then, they cannot physically attack Germany before turn 3. Even more if you divide their numerous infantry in many places. And if you do not give them a lot of tanks, then they would be foolish to attack, because Germany should have, by then, crush France and push a good part of its army in Poland to defend.

Relax all you guys. This is it. No rules needed.

(Also, not having a factory at the border + a peacetime income, like US, is key to making this balanced and historical.)

That would only prevent a full scale invasion by the Soviet Union.  It would not prevent small territory swaps for IPCs where you send a ftr and inf against one inf.  Declarations of War would be pointless if there isn’t some national objective tied to it.  The fact that USSR and Germany are at peace from the start should be represented by something more than just that the USSR lacks the capability for a full scale attack.

@Brain:

I like Germany having the option of attacking France or Russia first.

Agree totally.

Not getting into which is the better strategy, the German player should have both options available to him.

#507

You always have the choice. Each should have advantage and disadvantage. Some have bigger disadvantages, others less.

My understanding is that the game begins with the invasion of France already underway.  It would be folly for Germany to break this off unfinished to attack Russia. 
Perhaps Larry decided that a 1939 scenario giving Germany the option to go East or West just couldn’t work.

The idea of Soviet units all fighting at 1 to represent the lack of leadership is interesting; but I repeat that the main reason the Germans did so well at first was that Russian units were deployed for attack; i.e. the air force was distributed amongst front line formations and was destroyed on the ground.

And, again, that the lack of rail movement cripples the scenario.  Germany and Russia moved their units overwhelmingly by rail, while the other powers relied largely on naval transport.  Unless Germany build a huge transport fleet in the Baltic (which it cannot afford), or builds a second invasion army in Berlin (which it cannot afford) it cannot deal effectively with the two front war unless Russia is either crippled politically by a one-way Hitler-Stalin pact, or pincered by a huge Japanese invasion of Siberia, which most of us regard as unrealistic.

I would also like to see the economic effects of the Pact represented; e.g. Germany gets X IPCs from Russia every turn until they are at war.  This might help an earlier scenario work, but the problem of Russia being kept at bay while Germany goes West remains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov–Ribbentrop_Pact

If Russia is eliminated early, then Germany would have only one front to contend with.

@Brain:

If Russia is eliminated early, then Germany would have only one front to contend with.

And if Russia holds off a German offensive because Germany does not have French IPCs and has to defend from both the French and British, then Germany is f***ed.

People, we can all agree that Canada just destroyed Russia

@dakgoalie38:

@Brain:

If Russia is eliminated early, then Germany would have only one front to contend with.

And if Russia holds off a German offensive because Germany does not have French IPCs and has to defend from both the French and British, then Germany is f***ed.

Hmmm. Let me see if I can fill in the blanks. Yes, that could be a drawback.

@Flashman:

The idea of Soviet units all fighting at 1 to represent the lack of leadership is interesting; but I repeat that the main reason the Germans did so well at first was that Russian units were deployed for attack; i.e. the air force was distributed amongst front line formations and was destroyed on the ground.

That’s actually more of a debate among historians than a historic fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_offensive_plans_controversy

Man, without Wikipedia I wouldn’t even know who won this war!

@Gwlachmai:

Man, without Wikipedia I wouldn’t even know who won this war!

Even this is debatable.  The allies won from a military standpoint.  The Soviet Union and US tied in standings after the war.  And some may say there are no winners in war, in which case Switzerland was the clear winner.