Russia…

As I see it,

The Amur units can be used to tie up some japanese forces, retreat back to save Moscow or a split between the two. Normally I see roughly 60% come back to Moscow the rest stay to hold that front from Japan. You can aways use the retreating troops to pop into china and help retake territory there too.

Russia starts weaker than Germany and cannot stand on it’s on. If they could the game would be over before it started and Germany could never win. The main axis powers are designed to be a power of their own, whereas the allies must play together. That’s why their superior income is less of a factor because it is played via multiple nations. America need to come to help Russia. basically Russia’s job is to live as long as they can with a couple well placed counter attacks to slow the German front.

As for the NO I think it is fine as is. For Russia to move forces towards Africa they need to drastically weaken their defenses. I won’t say it never happens but IMO it’s a bad move. I’d rather let the Uk scoop up the middle east. You occasionally see Russia push back in the north or south and gain some german territory, but if they really start scooping up axis territory it’s usually over for the axis, at least on the western side of things.

I’m not a big fan of the Russian 3 IPC NO when it relates to Africa. I would hope the game to remain somewhat historically realistic, and I think that “Russian Somaliland” is just weird.

I think that the Russian units on the Pacific Map don’t end up having much of an effect, they’re just there so that Japan won’t blitz right through and take over a lot of russia land. Once in a while they will take back some Chinese territory or they just end up retreating back to the western front.

I also think that in this game russia can stand on it’s own fairly well. In the classic version if russia didn’t have help immediately they would fall and the Axis would win, but now they can last by themselves for a couple of turns, esp. if Germany doesn’t attack them T1. It also helps that there a a more territories in between Germany and Moscow.

The 3IPC bouns is way to much, it should be like 2IPC. If Russia tries to go to Afica to take over places it’s only gonna hurt them because the have to go though neutrals to get there and chances are the UK would already have taken them. But on the Western front it makes it so that once Russia starts doing good they’ll keep doing good because of their overpowering NO.

It’s a very open question imho what to do with the 18 inf 2 aa.

Reasons to pull back to Moscow include

1. The first wave can get there by R6, the next by R7.  If you can tie up Germany long enough to survive until then, the 20 extra units can be a lifesaver.
2. Just invading Korea, much less Manchuria, causes Mongolia to be permanently neutral.  This frees up Japan because those 6 Mongolians are irritating if activated.

Reasons to go forward into China include

1. It often slows down the Japs alot to kill you and this pays off in the form of more Chinese income and units.
2. Russia can get a extra inf every turn if they hold Korea and China gets an extra inf every turn Russia holds Manchuria.

I’m undecided whether stacking Amur R1 is a bad move or a good move.  At first glance, it looks like a bad move.  But consider the consequences for Japan if they attack.  The 6 Mongolians are activated.  They lose whatever they’re going to lose (around 8 inf 1 fig or more if the Japs don’t bring enough).  Much of the army that is typically used to conquer China/India is now in Amur.  And Jap air will not be in as good a position as it would be.

@Zhukov44:

I’m undecided whether stacking Amur R1 is a bad move or a good move.  At first glance, it looks like a bad move.  But consider the consequences for Japan if they attack.  The 6 Mongolians are activated.  They lose whatever they’re going to lose (around 8 inf 1 fig or more if the Japs don’t bring enough).  Much of the army that is typically used to conquer China/India is now in Amur.  And ��� air will not be in as good a position as it would be.

I don’t think I’ve been in a game yet where the Japanese player thought twice about activating Mongolia.  Those +6 Infantry don’t make up for the fact that you can now easily flank the Russian stack that might have been trying to delay progress through Siberia.

The best you can probably hope for is to squeeze a couple of extra air losses out of allowing an Amur attack J1.  Once Japan crushes your stack they pretty much get Siberia for free.  If they weren’t going for an early DoW on the Allies from Japan, then the air force has more than enough time to move back down south.  So possibly you might be able to get Japan to change its mind on when they will engage the Allies by making the Amur stack just too tempting for them to resist.  But if they ignore the temptation, then the Russia stack won’t be moving into either Manchuria or Korea for quite some time, if you have a Germany doing something like the I2/G3 attack.

I do like being able to annoy Japan by having Korea, but you often lose all that income to convoy damage anyway.  The main benefit is you also denied it to the Axis if they hold off on trying to take it back.

The best use of those Russian units is to get 3 IPC for China and allowing China to place units in Manchuria (hopefully with artillery).

Doing this creates problems for Japan as a large stack of Inf covering a growing Chinese Army is problematic.

Granted this doesn’t always work out the way you want.  However, as Russia I am always waiting for the opportunity to take Manchuria so that China can stack an army there.

I don’t particularly care for the race back to Moscow with those units, because it basically gives Japan the green light to ignore the northern Chinese front which means the DEI and India face more Japanese units.  Even worse is when you’re halfway back to Moscow and all of a sudden Japanese armor just sucked nearly 5 IPC / round of territories from you and you have to decide to stop the bleeding and make a stand or keep retreating to Moscow.

I still think that Russia should have the option in something like Round 6 to move half the 18 Inf via “train” to the Western Front, forfeit the Mongolian event and lose the other half of those Inf.

I like to bring the far east infantry back to Europe. It helps keep Moscow from falling to the Germans. If Japan breaks the Mongolian pact that’s just more Russians that can make it back to either Moscow or Caucass or China. If the infantry stay out battling Japan, Moscow will fall. Originally I thought the infantry should be used against Japan, and they will have some impact slowing down the Japanese, but that doesn’t do much good if Moscow falls. Lately with all the hype surrounding a J1 attack, there has been much debate on how to best counter it with the Russians. Russia must spare all resources that they can and regroup. The supply route for the axis to push to Moscow is a difficult obstacle to overcome, if the Russians just refuse to lose troops to the axis attacks. If you are a player who leaves infantry behind to defend territory, you are wasting good men that can be held in reserve to hit the Germans hard. With Russian counters in Bryansk and Stalingrad, the German advance is slowed greatly. Most axis players will not position large armies that can be wiped by the Russians. If the Germans attack Russia round 1, I’m not quite sure what the strategy becomes. I’ve never faced a G1, but have seen plenty of J1. Still though, with the success I’ve had with bringing back the Russians, I think that facing a G1 and j1 that I’d still bring the infantry back to fight in Europe.

I am a huge fan of the russian 3 ipc NO from africa. Forces the axis to be more aggressive.

The concept of russia grabbing africa for bonus cash is stupid, but its not something we should get rid of.  The balancing works out very well, russia has to commit precious units down there.  Iraq can’t be taken untill 2 turns after germany invades (G3 barb = R4 Iraq earliest).  Somali, torb and ethe wont be taken untill R6 (counting transport shuck or fast units to egypt).  The No really does not start paying off untill R8 or R9 where the ipc gained makes up for the loss of position and # of defenders.  Since a normal game has Germany in moscow by turn 6, this really does not become unless germany waits extra turns.

In other words, the NO makes the axis man up and attack Russia. I am not trying to play a 20 round game here, it should be over in 10.

Do I look like I want to play a 20 round global game? It is the best idea for a national objective ever. It makes sense to me, if the axis are cowards then Russia gets extra money, that is good propaganda.