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It will be interesting to see how the German AI reacts. Back in Semper Fi, Germany attacked me early in 1940 when most of my active army was down in Romania/ Bulgaria, as my threat had gone up rather high.
 
as an experienced player (with hoi2) i say its just gamey and in fact it will make a much easier victory against germany

Well that is good to know, I may have to tweak the difficulty or reform my aggressive ways just to make a good war between me and Germany.

It will be interesting to see how the German AI reacts. Back in Semper Fi, Germany attacked me early in 1940 when most of my active army was down in Romania/ Bulgaria, as my threat had gone up rather high.

Germany is being incredibly passive despite my insanely high threat. It could have something to do with having over half a million men sitting on their border... Only a small portion of my army is actually doing all the puppeting.
 
This has to be my favorite HOI AAR yet, finally an aar that isnt super serious roleplaying without screenshots(sorry everyone), but rather meme filled gameplay. I love the simple humor and your silly aim at making everything кириллица (Cyrillic).

Keep em coming!
 
Well that is good to know, I may have to tweak the difficulty or reform my aggressive ways just to make a good war between me and Germany.


I very much doubt you'll get that since you've taken away much of what Germany usually uses for it's attack on Russia, ie Balkan forces and resources. The game is really just programmed with the player being Germany in mind. Playing other Axis countries usually results in them getting way too far when compared to historical context and it's even worse when you're playing a country without or any other faction. The game just doesn't handle the increadible threat of USSR in your game at all, it's too fixed on watching Germany.
 
This has to be my favorite HOI AAR yet, finally an aar that isnt super serious roleplaying without screenshots(sorry everyone), but rather meme filled gameplay. I love the simple humor and your silly aim at making everything кириллица (Cyrillic).

Keep em coming!

Thanks! that was exactly my goal for this AAR, all the stuffy historical roleplaying makes my brain melt. You have inspired me to continue my overall goal of puppeting and tomfoolery regardless of the horrifying consequences.

I very much doubt you'll get that since you've taken away much of what Germany usually uses for it's attack on Russia, ie Balkan forces and resources. The game is really just programmed with the player being Germany in mind. Playing other Axis countries usually results in them getting way too far when compared to historical context and it's even worse when you're playing a country without or any other faction. The game just doesn't handle the increadible threat of USSR in your game at all, it's too fixed on watching Germany.

Well that makes sense, I guess instead of trying to make things realistic I will just have to make them weirder. But I think I will still bump up the difficulty just to make things a bit less of a cakewalk.
 
Master of Puppets

The war against Swedish neutrality continues. As our landing in Stockholm is undertaken a smallish force plunges down from the north.

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Sweden has an army that some people would describe as "cute". Russia describes it as surprisingly killable.

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The attack on Stockholm begins on December 24th, Merry Christmas Sweden!
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The garrison was quickly defeated but another enemy unit that was moving out of the city was forced to defend after the first division broke, only after crushing them did we secure the city.
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On Janurary 4th, just as we marched into Sweden's capital we received news that Persia has surrendered.
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Our oil production has now reached unmanageable levels. We are building a pipeline to an arctic island to dump the excess.

Greece's Second Worst Nightmare (their first is a balanced budget)


A single war against such a weak country like Sweden was not a good place for the Russians to be. So we declared war on Greece, the last of the Balkan states.

The doomstacks are ready. Are you ready Greece?
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Note that I will be attacking those mountain positions with the infantry first, the tanks will only be let off their chains when the Greeks are running.

We declare war on February 11th. We consider this war as a favour for Greece, they are not very good at capitalism so we are going to save them from it. By forcing a much better system. How can Greece get into crushing debt when their economy does not use real money? παρακαλώ Greece!
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After some light fighting our tanks achieve a stunning breakthrough, Heinz Guderian would be proud.

Yes this is a Yugoslavian invasion of a Greek island. By the power of Marx that is beautiful.
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Back in Sweden things went almost according to plan. We rapidly expanded the beachhead around Stockholm, and our northern army rushed along the coast unopposed. But the Swedish fleet was sneaking around sinking convoys and beating up our crummy bunch of leaking rust buckets. To add insult to injury the single unit of Swedish naval bombers damaged my fleet even more when they hid in port.

Poor little Red Banner fleet
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We dutifully kept count of lost convoys to make sure the Swedes pay us back after we puppet them and can start pillaging their economy.
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The extent of our advance on January 25th. Note the pitiful showing by Germany in Norway. Their inability to beat this country will continue; turning from embarrassing farce, into depressing, game ruining failure.
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Our armor division you see moving through central Sweden will reach Goteborg, the new Swedish capital. There is a single good infantry division sitting in there, the tanks slam into them, and the battle does not look like its going well. We retreat back two provinces and wait for reinforcements.

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The Swedes give chase. Oh baby you just made the biggest mistake of your life.

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We counterattack their counterattack and begin grinding them up, its a crushing victory. Tanks. Good unit.

The city falls and so does Sweden, welcome to gang! Our troops will take position on the Norwegian border and the Denmark crossing to defend our new puppet against German aggression.
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Greece also falls. Guess they are going to need another bailout.
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Hoping for a nice military quagmire, we declared war on Afghanistan. Mountain troops are sent from the Sinkiang border and Persia also lends a helping hand.
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The Great Paradigm Shift


Moscow, late April, 1940

Deep inside the Kremlin Stalin and the rest of his cabinet were meeting. The oak paneled walls were now covered in expensive paintings, and workers had just installed new crystal chandeliers. Stalin was surrounded by what he described as "phat lewt". He was sitting on a throne, with is feet propped on another throne, three crowns teetered from the top of his head. He was still smoking his old pipe, but he was smoking the ground up constitutions of Russia's latest conquests. Cases of royal jewelry, gold bars, barrels of oil, Swedish tungsten and fur surrounded his thrones.
Molotov began to speak, "Sir, we have made considerable progress pursuing a policy of aggressive expansion." He gestured at the mounds of stolen riches.
"But", He continued, "This is about to end, we have picked all the low hanging fruit. There are no more neighboring countries to attack, unless we wish to go to war with the major factions."
Stalin did not look concerned, he nodded to the Chief of Staff Boris Shaposhnikov.
Boris cleared his throat, "We have anticipated this problem, and at the request of Stalin prepared a bold new operation. We call it Operation Conquistador."
The room was full of mummers, Stalin calmly puffed his pipe.
Boris continued, "Comrades," a smile growing across his face. "We are going to Spain."
 
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Guess Who's Back?

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State of the (Soviet) Union: After the surrender of Greece and Sweden in mid March we were at a crossroads. Attacking Germany and Japan seemed like the only option until Conquistador was envisioned. In preparation for war with Germany I spent the better part of April and March fixing up the OOBs, basically one giant OCDfest, but we all know how satisfying a rational OOB is. I have been building massive amount of armor, infantry and light aircraft, also infrastructure and I'm considering building airfields on the border.Both Japan and Germany have been surprisingly passive, France has still not fallen and I have played deep into 1940 (Although I had to go back in time, DAMN YOU SCREENSHOT LIMITS). The current plan is to assault Germany when either: A) They begin to properly invade France or B) It is 1941 and the weather clears up, so April/May.
On the Japan front I am finally confident in the number and disposition of troops. I am hoping Japan does not get dragged in immediately, just so I won't have to split my small air force (the air force is getting a lot better).

At this time there was only one war going on in Afghanistan and the Soviet high command were thrilled at the stunning lack of progress. The highest awards were to be lavished upon the officers in charge of this glorious unproductive "struggle", but it was discovered that was no commanding officer, or any officers at all. The entire invasion was fought by leaderless mobs of drunken privates who promptly got lost and started pillaging whatever they could find in that lousy country. Eventually they will find Kabul...


Realizing that this game is going to be a lot more than just stomping Europe I have begun to focus on the much neglected navy. I like carriers and light cruisers, so that what I'm teching toward, now with over 30 leadership I can sustain this. I will build crappy low tech stuff just to get the practicals warmed up. Hopefully in 3-4 years I will have a decent navy.
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13 months to build the worst light cruisers imaginable... oh lawdy.

Operation Conquistador


There are three important things that leaders in war must always consider. Logistics, logistics, logistics. In our many previous wars the victims were always on land right beside us. Things were easy enough for our dysfunctional supply system to actually make itself look good. Now things are about to change. We are going to begin projecting power across the seas and oceans of the world. Russia is not in a particularly good position for such maritime adventures, but we will persevere, innovate and overcome these challenges. Spain and also Portugal are the ideal launch point for our later conquests, and now that we hold Greece we can finally reach the Iberian Peninsula.

Pictures are not very helpful (also I neglected to take them) so I will describe the preparations. Most of the fleet was sitting in the far east, they were immediately rebased to Athens. The transports, battleships (3) and gaggles of light and heavy cruisers can comfortably reach Spain from that city, although the destroyers and subs will have to wait for a secure port.

The land units chosen were the entire South Eastern Front, renamed Mediterranean Front. It is a fearsome force. They singlehandley subjugated Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece. They had the fullest, most organized OOB that we could provide, with some of the best generals and prioritized reinforcement and upgrades. It was a thoroughly pampered force, receiving properly filtered vodka, bread that was not infested with maggots and their wives were all hotter. I usually like to have a shock army like this in every game that is a cut above the rest.

Just as we were lamenting the lack of transports look what popped up in the deployment queue.
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Stage Uno:

The First stage of Conquistador begins on May 14th, 1940. When our fleets were in position declaration of war was sent via blowing up the Spanish embassy in Moscow.The targets for the the initial landings are Barcelona and Valencia, my two mechanized units were sent to Valencia for a mad dash to Madrid, while the bulk of the infantry were sent to Barcelona. We expected the majority of the Spanish army to be in the North of the country guarding the Franco-Spanish border.

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The beachheads and their objectives, note how few troops are in the first wave landing all your troops before a port is secure will burn through supply, immobilize your army and result in their annaliation better to land a few guys beside ports, capture them with land battles, then transport the main army once the ports are yours.
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The two cities fall very quickly.

Those stars in the center are mountain provinces and are very important to hold as they will protect my axis of advance and connection between the two landings.

With the landings complete we send the fleet to clog up the straits, to protect our convoys and kill Spain's.
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Our progress by June 1st, the landings are complete, I have moved 3 squadrons of close air support, interceptors and one squadron of tac bombers to the country. Our armor has rushed to Madrid but are temporarily cut off. Our mountain troops are trying to hold the center, but they will be smashed. Fighting continues around Barcelona, but Spain does not have enough manpower to keep their troops at full strength, even after 2 weeks of war many divisions are still at 50%, we can push in that northern sector as fast as we can march.

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Our light division begins a merry jaunt across the south of the country, gunning for (hopefully)unguarded VPs.
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Looks like the Swedes want to join in on the fun, that was the same naval bomber that had savaged our fleet months ago.
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The northern front is just a giant confusing mess, I'm not even going to try and make sense of it, but we were winning!
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Our tanks are already feeling up the suburbs of Madrid, they will wait for the infantry to make the assault.
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The battle for the capital begins on June 13th, most of our planes cannot reach the city, and things don't look to good.

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As the assault on Madrid flounders (can be seen sitting at 32) three enemy divisions attack our corridor to the city. Only one worn down division is available, in response we begin shifting troops from the Barcelona front to the center, in the meantime things get dicey.

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Slowly but surely we gain the upper hand in Madrid. Days of vicious street fighting, indiscriminate bombings, tanks crushing people, petrol bombs burning tanks and burning tanks wildly driving into crowded orphanages, ware down the Spainish garrisons. One by one they limp out of the city, until brave Russian soldiers capture their capitol buildings and drunkenly raze them to the ground. On June 19th the city officially falls.

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It was a great battle.

Immediatly after the fall of Madrid, the corridor to the city is broken by determined counter attacks.
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Well I must cut this update short, going to see The Avengers, AWWWW YEAH. I'll continue later tonight.
 
oh wow, finally some resistance. I love the opening pic too, basically this aar in a nutshell. Too bad about the missing pics.
So will you be attacking the us or is that a reveal that is going to shock us later?
 
I've been trying a hyper-aggressive '36 USSR recently because of this. My biggest mistake was to Puppet Poland in about '38, while controlling the Balkans and Scandinavia. I got Danzig or War, and its now a bit of a micromanagement hell. I'll probably beat back the Germans and the Italians, but having to deal with them in a one front war is tricky. This has been a pretty good read, keep up the good work!
 
The Fall of Spain

House Keeping

Before we return to the war in Spain here are a few other important things going on in the world.

It turns out those dastardly Swedes are two-timing us. Allowing the Germans transit rights so they can beat up Sweden's fellow Scandinavian neighbors. Nothing I can do about that grrrrrrr. On a more positive note, our tank division is better than the German one. 6-6 to 5-5, where is your German engineering now?
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Kabal falls, Afghanistan becomes a willing puppet. If only things were this easy for NATO...
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More and more capitalist countries come crawling for glorious Russian products!
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Haiti gives transit rights. I wonder what we are going to be doing with that?
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THOSE FOOLS!


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We are about bring some heavy metal to the fight.
Speaking of metal, here is some music to go alone with the demise of Spain.

The Rain in Spain: Mostly Bombs
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The situation after Madrid, our two tank divisions are let off their chains and go charging north for VPs (the big Xs). Other infantry units will blow past the Spanish and rush toward cities. Seville in the south has become their new capital, 4 divisions are sent in that direction. Honestly I have no respect the actual Spanish army, Russia does not bother with fighting the enemy until it is damn well ready to. We wage a war of maneuver not attrition.

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Tanks on a road trip


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We also push south

The Spanish assault against our corridor to Madrid becomes a pocket and we start beating them around Romanian style.

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There is still resistance, but the Spanish cannot stem the red tide.

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We snag the far, far away VP on the northern coast, then swing back east.

The whole situation on July 10th, the center has be largely pacified. Although trouble is brewing north of Madrid around the side-by-side VPs.
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It turns out we chased most of the Spanish army to that dual VP location, and have only tank division available to deal with them. Other infantry are mopping up, guarding cities or charging for Seville and other VPs.

Basically the whole stumping Spanish army just wandering around.
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We're not retreating, we're just advancing in another direction!

The three objectives and their hapless defenders
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The surrounded tanks smash into a Spanish HQ, and just keep on attacking stuff until more reinforcements come, god I love armored divisions.

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We attack stuff real good, the Spanish in this sector are basically broken and we sweep in and capture all the VPs without much trouble, now its all on Seville.

By late July divisions are still slowly trickling south. While we are waiting for more firepower to blast through Seville's defenses the Spanish attack from the north of the city and try to cut off our reinforcements. Attacks all along the route to the city tie up our second armor division, they will miss the main event. The Spanish also attack from the city and start thrashing our disappointingly weak mountain troops. I guess I should have left them in the mountains...
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Things are kinda messy down here.

By August 5th we finally muscle through desperate Spanish attacks, their aggression had badly weakened the city's garrisons. We launch a beautiful assault with fresh divisions and the city falls faster than the value of the Spanish bond market.

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Oh I forgot to mention we are now at war with Portugal, they have even better naval bases that we can use to spread Communism and violence.
War was declared July 21st. It going to be nice and long (hopefully)
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A day after Seville falls and we march into a final VP, Spain joins the Comintern. It was August 11th.
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The war had lasted nearly three months, cost thousands of lives, resulted in the utter destruction of the Spanish navy and merchant marine, their manpower will never recover. We now have an entirely indefensible position if France falls and we go to war with Italy and Germany. We could never support an army there with the Axis navies running all over the Baltic and Mediterranean.
Oh well, it's all worth it just see see Cyrillic over Spain. And now we have a gateway to the world, no country is safe. History, common sense, sportsmanship can all bite our collectively red and gold asses. Russia is going to stomp all over the place and no one can stop us.
 
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good job in spain. for portugal you will need to take their VP in africa(nova lisboa i think), so better keep an eye at your navy.

oh, and its not really cyrillic. shame on you, paradox!
 
I've been trying a hyper-aggressive '36 USSR recently because of this. My biggest mistake was to Puppet Poland in about '38, while controlling the Balkans and Scandinavia. I got Danzig or War, and its now a bit of a micromanagement hell. I'll probably beat back the Germans and the Italians, but having to deal with them in a one front war is tricky. This has been a pretty good read, keep up the good work!

Happy to see I'm inspiring people :) Russia is really the perfect country for crazy go nuts aggression.


good job in spain. for portugal you will need to take their VP in africa(nova lisboa i think), so better keep an eye at your navy.
oh, and its not really cyrillic. shame on you, paradox!

Yeah its Cyrillicesque font, but still looks sexy :p and I do have a task force forming to take out the Portuguese VPs.



Also does anybody know what exactly the US or UK will do if I start puppeting all the countries they gave guarantees to? Do they just get a free optional casus belli, lower neutrality, and higher threat from me, or do they auto declare war? I don't really feel like going toe to toe with the US navy until I actually have a navy.