No-one crosses the finnish line is impossible

[No I think Not]

You cant get extensive conscription until the soviets declare and you dont have enough manpower to field enough divisions to guard the border, and even in you do youll just get naval invaded and die. Is there a legit strategy for it because I can't see how your supposed to be able to win, let alone keep all your cores.

[HappySack]

I've played Finland a lot (but I could care less about achievements), the biggest issue you have is manpower to spam as many divisions as you can, also getting lots of civs to make forts in areas where you can't do Motti Tactics is also important to be able to hold them.

Be sure to do the focuses for National Unity to hire Elias Simojoki ASAP then afterwards go down the political focuses for more recruitable pop %, the first leader you have is not so useful so replace him with the second one who will kick the bucket later but with him you can ban fascism and communism to increase public support which will be useful for all the bonuses you get.

With the second leader you can use his discounts to immediately go into Service by Requirement and War Economy which will really power-up your forces as you can add in artillery, winter logistics, and long-range patrols to make them super strong.

It's tough but not impossible but that stupid island to the west is a concern.

[No I think Not]

Originally posted by HappySack:

I've played Finland a lot (but I could care less about achievements), the biggest issue you have is manpower to spam as many divisions as you can, also getting lots of civs to make forts in areas where you can't do Motti Tactics is also important to be able to hold them.

Be sure to do the focuses for National Unity to hire Elias Simojoki ASAP then afterwards go down the political focuses for more recruitable pop %, the first leader you have is not so useful so replace him with the second one who will kick the bucket later but with him you can ban fascism and communism to increase public support which will be useful for all the bonuses you get.

With the second leader you can use his discounts to immediately go into Service by Requirement and War Economy which will really power-up your forces as you can add in winter logistics and long-rang patrols to make them super strong.

It's tough but not impossible but that stupid island to the west is a concern.

If you don't care for achievements, then you've more than likely never run into the problem because you can do all the usual stuff to make defending easier (camp the lakes, consolidate the line as small as possible). The issue is that the achievement fails if you loose a single "core state" Which in theory isnt that bad, if it didnt lie. In actuallity if you loose even one tile the achievement is marked as failed. If you get naval invaded and you arnt guarding your entire coast and even one single division lands. Fail. I unironically think its the hardest achievement in the game and Ive successfully done the 1939 poland survival challenege.

[|H|H| Fr3ddi3]

I did it last month and I can very much assure you I lost tiles, I just did not lose control of any states.

I cannot write a full in depth guide but what I can tell you is I built max forts and AA in the southern front, in the eastern front I did not build AA and while I did build forts ... the supply status up there is awful enough that I was able to prioritise some places more than others.

Forget any kind of combat width goal you think you should have, Finland does not have the manpower but it does get stupidly high bonuses from Sisu to the extent that it allows your divisions to punch far above their weight.

The bulk of my forces in fact were just 6w, engineers and support artillery. I placed support AA in some of the southern divisions since there would be enemy air coverage but in the north the enemy do not have airfields and their tanks get ruined by lack of supply. I had 2 to 3 divisions in each tile to the east, had 12 on the lenningrad front. A reserve of around 12 divisions that I could deploy to the field where I needed them most once the war broke out.

For coastal defence it was quiet simple, 2 divisions in each port, and rushed 2 onto the island as soon as the war kicked off. I also built naval and land forts for all these locations, the goal was quiet simple, the enemy would be allowed to land but they would not be allowed a supply line and they would be bogged down and surrounded by ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2w cav divisions while I let the attrition slowly kick them in the ass then all the while I moved in my penal divisions to actually clear them out. You are right in the assumption that manpower was a problem, it was, but the important point here is that I had the 'divisons' deployed ... it did not really matter how much manpower was actually in them at the time because I was going to immediately change my conscription law and trusted that the manpower would be shared around all my under strength divisions which it was. 30% manpower is better than nothing at all. at the end of the day and as I said, the goal was to let poor supply lines and attrition do most of the work.

I lost tiles, suffered periodic invasions but I never lost port or a state and more to the point, as the manpower trickled in I was able to steadily bolster the frontlines further and begin offensive actions with a view to shortening the front line.

The Northern soviet port, cutting the neck to that peninsula and then bringing almost the entire force down south. I'm not gonna say it was easy but I would also say I did not have to work too hard to do it. I was pushing towards Moscow by the time Germany decided to show up.

Edit: forgot to mention there is a Fascist Political guy who gives 200 manpower a month, get him in office early and ban fascism to counteract the drift.

[No I think Not]

Originally posted by |H|H| Fr3ddi3:

I did it last month and I can very much assure you I lost tiles, I just did not lose control of any states.

I cannot write a full in depth guide but what I can tell you is I built max forts and AA in the southern front, in the eastern front I did not build AA and while I did build forts ... the supply status up there is awful enough that I was able to prioritise some places more than others.

Forget any kind of combat width goal you think you should have, Finland does not have the manpower but it does get stupidly high bonuses from Sisu to the extent that it allows your divisions to punch far above their weight.

The bulk of my forces in fact were just 6w, engineers and support artillery. I placed support AA in some of the southern divisions since there would be enemy air coverage but in the north the enemy do not have airfields and their tanks get ruined by lack of supply. I had 2 to 3 divisions in each tile to the east, had 12 on the lenningrad front. A reserve of around 12 divisions that I could deploy to the field where I needed them most once the war broke out.

For coastal defence it was quiet simple, 2 divisions in each port, and rushed 2 onto the island as soon as the war kicked off. I also built naval and land forts for all these locations, the goal was quiet simple, the enemy would be allowed to land but they would not be allowed a supply line and they would be bogged down and surrounded by ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2w cav divisions while I let the attrition slowly kick them in the ass then all the while I moved in my penal divisions to actually clear them out. You are right in the assumption that manpower was a problem, it was, but the important point here is that I had the 'divisons' deployed ... it did not really matter how much manpower was actually in them at the time because I was going to immediately change my conscription law and trusted that the manpower would be shared around all my under strength divisions which it was. 30% manpower is better than nothing at all. at the end of the day and as I said, the goal was to let poor supply lines and attrition do most of the work.

I lost tiles, suffered periodic invasions but I never lost port or a state and more to the point, as the manpower trickled in I was able to steadily bolster the frontlines further and begin offensive actions with a view to shortening the front line.

The Northern soviet port, cutting the neck to that peninsula and then bringing almost the entire force down south. I'm not gonna say it was easy but I would also say I did not have to work too hard to do it. I was pushing towards Moscow by the time Germany decided to show up.

Edit: forgot to mention there is a Fascist Political guy who gives 200 manpower a month, get him in office early and ban fascism to counteract the drift.

Either they changed it recently, or Im missing something because it was marked as failed even when I still controled 50%+ of the state.

[HappySack]

Just did it, took forever since you have to wait for so long along with the constant auto-saving

Motti tactics are the biggest reason to be able to hold the borders at the start, forts are also crucial for the northern and southern areas to make sure you don't lose them and I don't think I ever lost a tile on those fronts, naval invasions are obviously the most dangerous thing and the stupid island really needs more defenses otherwise you have to transfer divisions to it mid-combat which may get intercepted if you don't have subs or whatever else to distract the enemy navy
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3408984388

Once Germany goes in then you're home free since you would have done so much damage the USSR collapses
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3408984498

Out of boredom I ate up the Baltics and forgot to delay annexing one of them so the UK guranteed the other but at least my subs have something to do while I go afk
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3408984581

Didn't catch the pop-up in time but it's there in the achivement progress, I'm going to reset my achievements back to 0 in a few days after this post
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3408984706

[Rebel]

I have the achievement and it was easy. Just use small 12width divisions for most of your frontline, and especially 6width divisions up north where there's no supply for the Soviets. Use your decision to build a supply hub with 300% speed up north in Petsamo when you have 15 civ factories to build with. You don't need big divisions.

[FB||dominatorius.lv]

Originally posted by Rebel:

I have the achievement and it was easy. Just use small 12width divisions for most of your frontline, and especially 6width divisions up north where there's no supply for the Soviets. Use your decision to build a supply hub with 300% speed up north in Petsamo when you have 15 civ factories to build with. You don't need big divisions.

make an uncut video showcasing how

[No I think Not]

So I found out what was causing me to fail; seems like theres something buggy with the state of petsamo that causes the achieve to fail for me if one of its tiles is taken. The rest behave as expected. I actually just comepleted the achieve a day or so ago and I can attest to most of the advice given here. I would however add 2 more things: first of all, I would recommend using mountaineers for your 6 width divisions so you can further buff them with the commando military command. Second, I would advise going down the naval line to get dockyards and produce a small fleet of submarines which will block invasions in the baltic for at least 6-12 months long enough for you to get your manpower situation sorted.

[theboringyoutuber]

I have the badge just be fascist i think it supposed to be unaligned but i still got it