Any tips on how to build/play finnland?

[German Economy]

Tried it a few rounds and i feel kinda stuck, i have no idea what happened there historically but i feel like i never reach a point where i can reliably get manpower.
What exactly is their goal? They have insane generals to start with but i feel i cant put them to use.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Depends on what your objective here is I guess. Easiest way is to defend the river NW of Leningrad with the 2 tiles (3 18w infantry per tile will hold it), have a couple of infantry per tile between the lakes and ignore the entire north, then make sure you have a division on each of your ports. That will prevent you from capitulating so then you just wait til Germany joins in. Just make sure you get lvl 2-3 forts per defensive position

If you are going for No-one Crosses the Finnish Line, You will be getting 1 12w infantry per tile all along your border, 2 per tile covering your northern port and the tile below it, 2 per tile guarding the river NW of leningrad, and you can ignore a large part of the land north of Leningrad and just defend 2 lake chokepoints there and it wont lose you the achievement. You will also need to defend AAland and I believe a couple of coastal towns near the river defense point. You will need to get extensive conscription as soon as the war kicks off so you can upgrade your line divisions into 18w, and you will leave the port guards as 12w. It is likely you will have to actively cycle units out of combat when their org is getting low. Again, you will need lvl 3+ forts, maybe even lvl 4 or 5 to hold. When you manage to get more units out the situation will stabilise

Also there is a guide on how to get the Scandinavian Empire as brown Finland before the WInter War starts in which case you can have lvl 5+ forts, and 2-3 18w infantry per tiles while still covering every port and coastal town in Scandinavia. This is by far the easiest way to do it. The gist of it is you do the decisions to pressure them all into joining your faction, do the annex focus, declare war on the ones that refused to join you, then justify on Iceland and take that out as well.

[HappySack]

Finland is one of my most favourite nations to play and your goal is to curb-stomp the Soviets and form Greater Finland, whether you want to join the Axis or turn on the Germans or do nothing after that is up to you.

Regardless, you need to rush down the Political Unity focus so you can hire the Fascist guy that gives you manpower, then you also need to ban fascism so support for it doesn't prevent you from doing some other focuses, maybe it's me but The Finnish Swedish Peoples Party and Align the Agrarian League are great focuses to get better advisors.

Depending on what leader you want to keep you also need to ban Democracy and Communism, but as a new player you should only ban Communism to prepare for when the first guy resigns so you get the better second choice (who will later die) Note: you can also choose to get Mannerheim as your leader but you have to be at war and if you ever let him retire then you won't ever be able to have him again.

From here on, you just go down your military focuses to get Motti tactics and the buffs to your army to be able to survive and for sure you need to set your laws to War Economy and Service by Requirement as soon as the Winter War begins.

Your starting 6 infantry template decked out with enough support companies like Winter Logistics and Long-range Ski Patrol is a total killing machine during the winter but you have to be mindful of when to add these since they cost a bit of manpower so add them when you can afford them once you're at war.


And lastly, Fascist Finland is completely overpowered along with Non-aligned Sweden because you can annex all the other Nordics without needing to declare war so you can unite them all for their cores.

[German Economy]

Originally posted by HappySack:

Finland is one of my most favourite nations to play and your goal is to curb-stomp the Soviets and form Greater Finland, whether you want to join the Axis or turn on the Germans or do nothing after that is up to you...
.

Been trying it out and at the least it went much better then first, got crushed at some point still tho, but i do realize the weather makes a huge difference here, like even much weaker templates can at least hold much longer then i thought.

Do you have any tips on for example the non historic mode? I usually play with a friend and we often let ai play randomly, so the usual tree doesnt work consistently.
Also is there a way to see the politicians beforehand? Like the other options depending on what direction i go with politics?

I mostly play fascist factions because i feel its more fun and easier to handle, no elections and stuff which confuse me.