@oysteilo:
The way I read simon’s idea about Leningrad/Novgorod is that he would like to see a war objective for Russia that they can fight over. I totally agree with this, but I am not sure what it should be. Russia should also have war objective(s) they realistically can meet. I have mentioned this in the past and I still think this is the poorest change in BM
What about instead off
*** 3 PUs** if Russia is at war with European Axis, and there are no non-Russian Allied units in any originally Russian territory.
have these 2:
*** 2 PUs** if Russia is at war with European Axis, Russia controls Novgorod and there are no non-Russian Allied units in any originally Russian territory.
*** 2 PUs** if Russia is at war with European Axis, Russia controls Volgograd and there are no non-Russian Allied units in any originally Russian territory.
Consequences:
a) It would provide extra incentive for Russia to fight for Novgorod and Volgograd.
b) If Germany secures Novgorod, which is typically not that difficult, Russia would have 1 IPC less compared to BM 2.0.
c) In a Sea Lion game, Russia would have 1 PU more, as long as it can control Novgorod.
I guess all a),b), and c) are desirable.
A drawback would be quite a long description of those NOs. So alternatively one could drop the requirement of Russia being at war with European Axis and thus having
*** 2 PUs** if Russia controls Novgorod and there are no non-Russian Allied units in any originally Russian territory.
*** 2 PUs** if Russia controls Volgograd and there are no non-Russian Allied units in any originally Russian territory.
AND remove in setup 1 inf + 1 art from Moscow and 1 inf from Archangel.
This way, for a G3 DOW, which is quite typical in BM2.0 the net gain for Russia would be -1 IPC ( = -10 setup +4 in R1, +4 in R2, +1 in R3), so quite negligible… but G1 DOW would be for Russia -8 IPC (= -10 setup +1 in R1 +1 in R2). G2 DOW would be -5 IPC (= -10 setup +4 in R1 +1 in R2). G4 DOW would be +3 IPC (=-10 setup +13 NO). So compared to BM2.0, the Russian economy would be -8/-5/-1/+3 IPC for G1/G2/G3/G4 DOW. I believe this would be desirable as G1/G2 DOW look pretty suboptimal, compared to G3/G4 DOW.