Soviet union to powerful

[Warcrimes]

They are able to do leadership purge to early and its effects last to short even in 1939 and 104 divions on their border i cant kill them.

[ck00021]

I always thought the SU played well was ridiculously strong in MP. They even have the ability to bring all the eastern states, baltic, finland, turkey into comintern with so much ease. I agree an event driven trigger to push the purge back might work well?

[Sauron]

I haven't played the Soviet Union yet, but having looked at the event code, the purge's effects are essentially gone by the time it enters the war.

[Warcrimes]

Originally posted by ck00021:

I always thought the SU played well was ridiculously strong in MP. They even have the ability to bring all the eastern states, baltic, finland, turkey into comintern with so much ease. I agree an event driven trigger to push the purge back might work well?

I beliveve making it further down the line of focuses would work.

[GOT_NO_SKILLZ]

1. Historically, the Soviets had the largest army and largest tank force (with arguably better tanks than the Germans) at the start of WW2. Even after taking ~25 million casualties (military and civilian) and having its most economically developed portions of the country laid to waste, the Soviet Union ended 1945 with the world's most powerful and experienced army and, if not for the US nuclear deterrent, was pretty much poised to take over all of Europe.

2. Players have the advantage of historical knowledge to correct for the deficiencies in judgment made by the real-world historical leadership. So yeah, it shouldn't be surprising that the SU ends up "overpowered".

3. If you are playing SP as Germany against a Soviet AI, and you can't pull off Barbarossa....you're doing it wrong.

- How many armor divisions do you have? I use at least 10, backed up by motorized infantry to exploit breakthroughs.

- Did you rush research to deploy medium tanks? Medium tanks are essential to overwhelming large stacks of infantry (or anything else, for that matter).

-In terms of operational planning, use at least 2 main armored thrusts. Encircle as much of their front-line forces as possible, then eliminate the giant pockets with infantry when attritional losses start to set in. Meanwhile, one armored thrust pushes to Moscow, and the 2nd expands the southern breach towards Stalingrad. If you've properly cut off most of their forces in the central and southern fronts, they won't have the divisions to re-establish a defensive line fast enough.

[Bomber]

SP or MP? SP, no! ussr is way to easy in SP, you always just overrun them. MP, yes totally overpowerd!

[gazomierz]

Just to be clear.

1) Soviets did have huge army as well as lots of planes and tanks. But... Most of planes were obsolete. Tanks were quite good but.. Basic tank of Red Army, T-26, was in no way better than german constructions, especially as they were improved a lot using experience and insight gained in Poland, NL, Belgium and France. Same is true for BT-2/5/7 and T-28 and others used by that time. In their ~22k tanks Soviets had about 500 KW-1 and short of 2000 T-34, those were superior. But those tanks had a lot of problems, they were very prone to mechanical breakdowns. Generally speaking about 35% of their machine park was ready for action. If we talk about planes situation was even worse. Not to mention serious lack of trained and competent officers and NCOs. Soviet industry was evacuated before it could be laid to waste, at least most of it. Anyways, they wouldn't be able to hold against German offensive if not for land-lease. Look at divisions that were formed to reinforce defense of Moscow. 650 men and only 220 rifles. Truly mighty fighting force. Land lease came in crucial moment and it saved Soviets. But yeah, by end of war Red Army was most powerfull army in the world, in terms of manpower as well as tech, but it wasn't before '44 that they started to achieve that. Luckily A-bomb worked as a detterent, otherwise we'd all be speaking russian before 1950 came.

3) In game terms every nation is OP as long as player is leading it. If not, then nope, they're not OP. Not more than Germany which can conquer France right off the bat or Japan being ready to strike US in '36. Game is full of nonsense like this atm. And imho it's due to national focuses, it's nice idea but mechanic itself really needs improvement. It's just too easy to abuse focuses as it is now. USA has best tree imho, as lots of things are locked behind tensions or other mechanics. All trees should get reworked to be more like that.

If as Germany you can't beat 104 Soviet divisions you're doing smth wrong, much like GOT_NO_SKILLZ said. And just like he said, use encirclements, isolate their forces and try to eradicate them where possible. His advice is sound.

One thing I would add is don't be afraid of loosing battles, as long as it serves winning the war. Use you low priority forces (like inf divisions or smth) to hold enemy forces in place while you encircle with you mobile divisions.

You could also try different strategy. Bring Japan to the war and use their land in Asia to stage an invasion. You don't need much to achieve superiority over Red Army there, especially with help from Japan. Soviets will most probably pull back lots of troops from Europe leaving open-ish way to their VPs so be ready to explot that with couple of med tanks and motorized divisions.

[Warcrimes]

Originally posted by gazomierz:

Just to be clear.

1) Soviets did have huge army as well as lots of planes and tanks. But... Most of planes were obsolete. Tanks were quite good but.. Basic tank of Red Army, T-26, was in no way better than german constructions, especially as they were improved a lot using experience and insight gained in Poland, NL, Belgium and France. Same is true for BT-2/5/7 and T-28 and others used by that time. In their ~22k tanks Soviets had about 500 KW-1 and short of 2000 T-34, those were superior. But those tanks had a lot of problems, they were very prone to mechanical breakdowns. Generally speaking about 35% of their machine park was ready for action. If we talk about planes situation was even worse. Not to mention serious lack of trained and competent officers and NCOs. Soviet industry was evacuated before it could be laid to waste, at least most of it. Anyways, they wouldn't be able to hold against German offensive if not for land-lease. Look at divisions that were formed to reinforce defense of Moscow. 650 men and only 220 rifles. Truly mighty fighting force. Land lease came in crucial moment and it saved Soviets. But yeah, by end of war Red Army was most powerfull army in the world, in terms of manpower as well as tech, but it wasn't before '44 that they started to achieve that. Luckily A-bomb worked as a detterent, otherwise we'd all be speaking russian before 1950 came.

3) In game terms every nation is OP as long as player is leading it. If not, then nope, they're not OP. Not more than Germany which can conquer France right off the bat or Japan being ready to strike US in '36. Game is full of nonsense like this atm. And imho it's due to national focuses, it's nice idea but mechanic itself really needs improvement. It's just too easy to abuse focuses as it is now. USA has best tree imho, as lots of things are locked behind tensions or other mechanics. All trees should get reworked to be more like that.

If as Germany you can't beat 104 Soviet divisions you're doing smth wrong, much like GOT_NO_SKILLZ said. And just like he said, use encirclements, isolate their forces and try to eradicate them where possible. His advice is sound.

One thing I would add is don't be afraid of loosing battles, as long as it serves winning the war. Use you low priority forces (like inf divisions or smth) to hold enemy forces in place while you encircle with you mobile divisions.

You could also try different strategy. Bring Japan to the war and use their land in Asia to stage an invasion. You don't need much to achieve superiority over Red Army there, especially with help from Japan. Soviets will most probably pull back lots of troops from Europe leaving open-ish way to their VPs so be ready to explot that with couple of med tanks and motorized divisions.

No i have 104 divions with like 6 armored and many motorized.

[Wolff]

Let the AI control all your infantry divisions. Use your tanks and mechanized divisions your self to break through their lines. When their infantry retreat make sure to occupy the hex before they arrive so you can overrun their units. With speed encirclement is key here, to destroy as many units as possible...

[skelly]

Operation Barbarossa failed simply due to German overconfidence and the strategic errors they made. If Hitler didn't obsess over capturing Stalingrad, and instead had it encircled without sieging the city, the Germans could've cut off the Soviet Union from large amounts of oil in the Caucasus.

HOI3 was a bit more realistic as the Russian AI would almost always lose, as they lost the Caucasus or simply failed to defend Moscow.

[Warcrimes]

Originally posted by ~Waffle Bandit~:

Operation Barbarossa failed simply due to German overconfidence and the strategic errors they made. If Hitler didn't obsess over capturing Stalingrad, and instead had it encircled without sieging the city, the Germans could've cut off the Soviet Union from large amounts of oil in the Caucasus.

HOI3 was a bit more realistic as the Russian AI would almost always lose, as they lost the Caucasus or simply failed to defend Moscow.

I have been doing control of seperatre tank divisons but to no avail while the ai which surely has less factories can keep their divions supplied whilst i run out of supplies.

[Bomber]

Originally posted by Warcrimes:

I have been doing control of seperatre tank divisons but to no avail while the ai which surely has less factories can keep their divions supplied whilst i run out of supplies.

How are you running out of supplies? Usually at the time you attack ussr, you produce so many tanks that you can reinforce your frontline losses and still constantly train at least 10 new divisions (depending on what template you use).

[Warcrimes]

Originally posted by Bomber:

Originally posted by Warcrimes:

I have been doing control of seperatre tank divisons but to no avail while the ai which surely has less factories can keep their divions supplied whilst i run out of supplies.

How are you running out of supplies? Usually at the time you attack ussr, you produce so many tanks that you can reinforce your frontline losses and still constantly train at least 10 new divisions (depending on what template you use).

No not tanks infantry equipement.

[Phoenix VII]

The AI severely under-produces armor so the only way you can lose to any AI country is if you don't give your infantry divisions artillery and/or produce very little armor (6 armored divisions isn't enough, you should have several dozen organized into tank armies that can quickly create large encirclements, I was using 96 armored divisions in my Italy game).

As long as Italy can field approx. 130 divisions at the start of WWII when in real life it only had 73 at the start of the war, Italy will hold the crown as far as OP countries go.

[Glenn]

1 thing just encircle and destroy their troops it works perfect in n o time they have no divisions left to spare.. even as poland i managed to kill them

[JohnnyRebBaron]

Guys I'm currently playing as Italy first time I ever tried that in a HOI game, I control 90% of the continent of Africa killed all of the british and french forces. at the same time I helped my Axis partners mainly Germany conquer France before May 1940. I conquered southern france by myself so Vichy part of France never came to be. I got Yugoslavi and Greec before Barbarossa ever kicked off. Sent 9 med tank divisions and 31 mtn divisions from France to fight the Russians mainly in the central and southern fronts. I let the AI do what they had to with Germany and used my armor to encircle the russians on the front line. and let mtn div destroy the pockets with the help of the Germans I wasnt totally happy with th German AI as I had to do most of the encircling but it worked it was actuallu easier than HOI3.