Maximum army size and how/why the invasion of the soviet union is unrealistic (for history buffs) TL;DR included!

[☢ ☣ Dtokz ツ +++]

TL;DR: opinion on why the wehrmacht failed and i'm looking for a modding partner(s) to help me create a solution, summary is down below.

So let me quickly talk about the eastern front to help explain my perspective/opinions.
Germany lost in the east due to the ability of the red army to rebuild their divisions and fill weak spots on the front with fresh troops and also a parrallel to this is the Wehrmachts inability to do so. Russia was able to do this by taking up a strategy of bleeding out the wehrmacht untill it was a ghost in which they succeeded in.
(in hoi4 it's not such a good strategy which ill come back to.)
So basically whenever the germans knocked out a russian divison they'd simlpy replace it on the front, the german losses were much harder to replace as german production was much lower that the soviets in 1941 to counter this germany had to destroy more divisons than the russians could replace. well in this game the russians can't replace those divisons.. Why? well because to produce the guns for a divison is actually very expensive especially if your army is very large aswell as this germany is able to keep their divisons at nearly full strength throughout its conquest of the soviet union aswell as never really being slowed down by weather.
(debatable but ill talk about it in comments if anyone wants to make a point.)

So in this game what the russians do is they build up a massive army of around 5-700 divisions and a ♥♥♥♥ german AI will usually lose but players will easily beat this through blitzkreig strategy. the reason it's so easy for a player to do and so difficult for the wehrmacht irl is because as u invade the soviets they loose their ability to produce while u gain the ability to reinforce which is unrealistic as the further ur army gets from germany the more difficult it should be to reinforce your army. Also russian production never really fell during the german invasion russia pretty much consistantly produced 20,000 tanks per year throughout the war

So what russia needs is the ability to constantly replace its losses while germany has a burden of supply. Now you might ask why doesn't this happen in the game? well essentially what the game has done is it's taken away the assets of a low quality army, replacement divisons are costly to build if you have 4-800 divisons on a front you wont ever be in a surplus of guns.
the vanilla game chooses to overcome this by giving the soviets the ability to prepare an army for 4 years or so while germany is fighting.
This opinion may be uneducated but i think guns should be the one thing you almost always have excess of allowing you to reap the full advantages of a low quality army, with this said infantry offensive ability should be reduced and speed reduced.

So to SUMMARIZE:

Germany's production should be hindered untill 1942.
Soviet production should not fall during barborossa.
Guns should be cheaper to allow low quality defenses and to create a drain on manpower.
German army resupply should be hindered perhaps force germany to build infrastructure as they advance to resupply?
German production could be hindered perhaps with inadequit levels of resources or perhaps create an artificial boost that germany can't use untill a certain time or manpower level or control of certain province etc. tonnes of ideas....


I have my own ideas on how to do this but i'd rather brain storm.
Now i want to make a mod for this but i can't do it alone if this easy invasion of the soviets bothers anyone else then we should team up to make this mod.

[☢ ☣ Dtokz ツ +++]

bump

[Bigdan99]

Keep in mind that you can produce older versions of infantry equipment, and it is cheaper to produce thus you can make a lot more in a shorter amount of time.

[☢ ☣ Dtokz ツ +++]

Yeah true

[mareo2]

The problem is that the game dont represent the ludicrous difference in production quality betwen Germany and Soviet Union. Look at good videos of a well educated player of World of Tanks comparing the manufacture of their tanks and even a 10 years old kid can understand how the Red outproduced the Nazi. German belive in quality over quantity, expensive and overenginered. Russia belive in quantity over quality, cheap and simple. The soviet made things that unskilled workers could produce and sent things that could have made a german worker die from shame due to never be able to pass a quality test. A crack in the armor? No time for fix, send it to the frontline. Time for correct design flaws? Dont stop the production for that, Mother Russia is being invaded. The thing I find missing in this game is to represent this things by be able to lower the production cost of weapons with the customize option by for example lower reliability of the vehicle. Going far than that, to be able to raise reliabilty by for example using a less powerful weapon or increase speed by lower armor. The only way I can see this happening is with a MOD.

Watch the video, from The Tank Museum channel, "Top Five Tanks - The Mighty Jingles"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5fEsNwHSDs

[☢ ☣ Dtokz ツ +++]

I'd like to create national focuses where you can choose high quality, average or low quality but it's not a 1 man job to include everything I want to add to the mod i'm making.

[mareo2]

Originally posted by ☢ ☣ Koersive + + + ツ:

I'd like to create national focuses where you can choose high quality, average or low quality but it's not a 1 man job to include everything I want to add to the mod i'm making.

The Russian interest on "quantity over quality" can be represented with a National Spirit modifier at no cost in PP and time. A less optimal alternative is to create Design Companies that lower the production cost. For example, in the vanilla game Japan have the Sasebo Naval Arsenal that give penalties to the stats of the warships but lower the production cost of carriers, capital ships, screen and submarines by a -25%. Sweden have Marinvenrkstaderna, UK John Brown & Company and USA Norfolk Naval Yard. You can try to ad to the game similar Design Companies for tanks and infantry equipment for the Soviet Union and force the AI to take them. Ideally, doing both and make them stack.

[☢ ☣ Dtokz ツ +++]

Actually i think the idea about using company's is absolutely genius my friend.

[BrigadierBill]

Originally posted by mareo2:

...The thing I find missing in this game is to represent this things by be able to lower the production cost of weapons with the customize option by for example lower reliability of the vehicle. Going far than that, to be able to raise reliabilty by for example using a less powerful weapon or increase speed by lower armor. The only way I can see this happening is with a MOD.

I've always thought that sort of thing should be a design choice you pick when designing ships, aircraft, or tanks; you should be able to emphasize what aspects of the vehicle you want to prioritize; for tanks, this might be cost, firepower, armor, and reliability. Aircraft might have cost, range, speed, and firepower, and ships would have (depending on the ship) cost, deck size, main guns, torpedoes, AA, ASW, armor, and speed.

That way, you could notice differences between comparable-tech vehicles like US and Japanese fighters having longer range than British and German, for instance, or British and German tanks being undergunned at the start of the war compared to Russian or French tanks, and design changes between the reliable but lighter German Panzer III and IV mediums versus the unreliable but powerful and armored Panthers.

Right now, the closest you can get to this is the vehicle designers, but often you don't have many choices between these (other than aircraft, where each designer only affects 2 aircraft types anyways) and they're dependent on your political power.

Originally posted by mareo2:

A less optimal alternative is to create Design Companies that lower the production cost. For example, in the vanilla game Japan have the Sasebo Naval Arsenal that give penalties to the stats of the warships but lower the production cost of carriers, capital ships, screen and submarines by a -25%. Sweden have Marinvenrkstaderna, UK John Brown & Company and USA Norfolk Naval Yard. You can try to ad to the game similar Design Companies for tanks and infantry equipment for the Soviet Union and force the AI to take them. Ideally, doing both and make them stack.

I also like the idea of implementing this idea with design companies being available for selection for each vehicle type, rather than being your nation's sole choice for vehicle traits.

[☢ ☣ Dtokz ツ +++]

My concern is it could be abused i.e spam tank production then switch to a quality method. perhaps a large political power cost could solve it?