AoD1.7 no mods - This doesn't look right

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AlanT

First Lieutenant
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Jun 20, 2010
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Playing the USSR in 1936 scenario. Got to the "Great Purge" and since I'm trying to play mostly historical I let it happen. There is a long list of "Soviet Union gears up for war" events shown when hovering over the choice to allow the purge which are, I assume, supposed to make up for the loss of ground unit organization.

Sept 4, 1939 "The Soviet Union gears up for war!" event happens with +5 organization bringing it to a miserable 28.

Not sure of date - I never declared war on Poland, but got the territory. Something about Hitler deciding somthing or other, maybe "Only Poland" or some such.

Sept 25, 1939 another "The Soviet Union gears up for war!" awarding +5 organization - but the organization DROPS by 5 back to 23. Also an ominous note about "Soviet Union gears up for war doesn't happen" which I assume to be one or perhaps the whole chain of remainin events that should increase ground unit organization.

No events related to Finland, so Feb/March 1940 timeframe I declare war on Finland, make short work of them, refuse their offer of peace and puppet the country to make it an ally.

No events to change the borders with Romania or the Baltic States occur and USSR has not attacked any of them. I seem to remember from a previous game there were something like "border adjustment" events.

My spies say Italy has 131 Infantry divisions 9 battleships and 110 smaller ships - sounds like alot of army and navy for Italy. The Red Army consists of 214 divisions of which 162 are Infantry (all at least 1936 model) and maybe half are brigaded with ENG, AT or ART.

It's now 17 DEC 1941 and Germany has not attacked the USSR, Japan has not attacked USA. Large stacks (looks like 15-17 divisions) of Ger/Rom/Hun/Bulgarian units are standing along the German-Soviet border in what used to be Poland (5 provinces) and there are 11 Hungarian divisions in its single border province with the USSR. Each Soviet border provence has a 3 division Corps, then another layer of provinces with 3+ divisions each. Along the Romania-Sovet border there are only 2-3 Romanian divisions in each border province. Up in the Fin-Norwegian border there is one province with 2-3 German divisions, one with none, and the Soviet/Finns have 3-4 divisions in each border province. After getting land doctrine and using the 1940 political table move toward standing army Soviet grund unit organization is at 29. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. What can I do about this??

Elsewhere the Italians have taken Egypt, Syria took and then lost Jordan and the Sinai, Brits now hold the province of Suez and Italy holds the western side of the canal. Italy took much of Africa but is being pushed back north and the Brits have taken most of Libya.

Japan has taken Fr Indo-Chian and is at war wih Nationalist China.

Axis has took Yugo and Greece in 1941. France, Low Counties, Denmark and Norway fell to Germany in 1940.


What I consider "issues"

- size of Italian army and navy
- lack of German attack on USSR in 1941
- lack of Japanese attack on USA (so far)
- Soviet Union ground unit organization at 29 - I wouldn't have allowed the purge had I known this

Are these situations out of the normal? Suggestions?

Did I need to declare war on Poland? Baltic states?

Should I have accepted Fin peace offer? (Part of my long range war plan was to somehow not have them threatening Karelia and Murmansk, either by puppeting or not fighting the Winter War.)
 
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The 9/1939 "Hitler decides something" was probably the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact event. Sounds like limited pact, not the historical. The second gear-up event removes 5 max org but raises max morale by 20.
There have been several quirks with MR-pact and gear-up events in 107 and earlier which should have been fixed in 108.

I can't really comment on events to get FIN/ROM provs.
 
Not sure of date - I never declared war on Poland, but got the territory. Something about Hitler deciding somthing or other, maybe "Only Poland" or some such.
Did you get the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 24 August 1939? If yes, what option did you pick? If no, did Germany annex Austria and/or Czechoslovakia?

No events related to Finland, so Feb/March 1940 timeframe I declare war on Finland, make short work of them, refuse their offer of peace and puppet the country to make it an ally.
This suggests you didn't get the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as this would've triggered the option of going to war with Finland in November 1939.

My spies say Italy has 131 Infantry divisions 9 battleships and 110 smaller ships - sounds like alot of army and navy for Italy. The Red Army consists of 214 divisions of which 162 are Infantry (all at least 1936 model) and maybe half are brigaded with ENG, AT or ART.
If you're basing it solely on your military intelligence then it's not credible. Press F12 then 'nofog' to see the real size of the Italian army.
 
Did you get the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 24 August 1939? If yes, what option did you pick? If no, did Germany annex Austria and/or Czechoslovakia?
I think got the M-R Pact, not sure , don't remember what I did. Yes, Germany annexed both.

This suggests you didn't get the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as this would've triggered the option of going to war with Finland in November 1939.
Okay.

If you're basing it solely on your military intelligence then it's not credible. Press F12 then 'nofog' to see the real size of the Italian army.
Italy has 100 divisions of which 52 are Infantry; 6 BB, 94 other ships.
 
Actually the Sov-Fin Winter war is triggered after Poland has been annexed, so long as the USSR is not at war with Japan, Germany or Finland sometime between 14 November 1939 - January 1940, apologies.
 
After getting land doctrine and using the 1940 political table move toward standing army Soviet grund unit organization is at 29. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. What can I do about this??

You can lose territory and wait till some later gear up event fire to raise your org.
Or you can wait till ~end of july and then install 108. Then the soviets will problably have only -10 org at the start of the war instead of the -20 org you suffer in 107.
 
japan does not attack usa before january 1st 1942 by the current ai and only if they are embargoed by the us...
 
i prefer the -20 org, this makes very hard with the russians in the early stages of war to hold ground and avoid pockets. you have to rely often on VoV (especially if u went inf instead of mot) what causes huge casulaties.
if you have protected most of your army, for various reasons you will be ready to turn the tides and switch to an offense in late '42.

not taking the purges should give you some persistant malus imo, not only the huge dissent (what is only means IC). say -5org -10morale would be nice. but its only imo.
 
i prefer the -20 org, this makes very hard with the russians in the early stages of war to hold ground and avoid pockets. you have to rely often on VoV (especially if u went inf instead of mot) what causes huge casulaties.
if you have protected most of your army, for various reasons you will be ready to turn the tides and switch to an offense in late '42.

not taking the purges should give you some persistant malus imo, not only the huge dissent (what is only means IC). say -5org -10morale would be nice. but its only imo.
I'm definitely with you on this. The Soviets should suffer from big penalties at least in the earliest stages of Barbarossa (especially in the case of a German AI vs USSR AI scenario), so the -20 seems appopriate to reflect their initial disorganization (and, as you say, the frequent use of VoW, which they applied almost always when pocketed IRL).
 
Okay, it's now November 1943. I never got any events for Finland, Romania or the Batlics. I initiated a war with Finland in early 1940 and puppeted the country, then left the others alone. Germany attaked me on 22 June 1942, a year late. The front is a narrow one, along the Polish demarcation line. The Rumanians are in the war on Germany's side but no attacks have come across their border.

The Germans advanced only a couple of provinces and we are now alternating attacking and defending a couple to the north (Korosten) and south (Chakassay) of Kiev. They take the provinces and try to advance forces into them, I counterattack with everything I've got and chew up their divisons a few at a time as they arrive staggered. Then I advance between 1 and 4 divisions into the province and the Germans attack them, retake the province, wash and repeat.

I discovered that if the infrastructure is very low troops do not recover their organization. So, I use scorched earth and the logistical srike mission on the first row of German held provinces.

At the begining of the game I decided Russia was not going to trade with her future enemies and broke the trade agreements. I recently signed on as Germany, sure enough, their troops were almost out of oil and there was none in the bank. This may explain why they have not been attacking.

Looking at the map with "nofog" the AI isn't much of a player. Other than a few ASW patrols I see US navy tied up at dock in New York and San Francisco. Unescorted TPs carrying troops into hot areas. A major ground force in north Africa dying from lack of supply and doing nothing. They can't invade the undefended islands of Sicily, Corsica or Malta because they have no naval support. There a a few garrison divisions on Hawaii, but no other US ground forces in the Pacific.

Japan has failed to take Hong Kong or the island of Java.

The UK and US have taken the north African coast, but Italy controls much of equitorial Africa - from the west coast to the Sudanese border along with 4 SW provinces of Egypt. If they are getting supplies it must be from convoys landing them on the Atlantic coast.

Manchukuo has built up an army of 50 divisions - 44 garrison, 5 militia.

The USSR is at a stalemate for now along a line running Grodno-Kiev-Odessa. I don't see that changing until the Allies get their act together.

Nationalist China is holding out well. I send them whatever resources they need via trade and approve the aid packages if possible.
 
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Yep. Sounds hosed to me. I am playing my first ever campaign as USSR (second attempt after an initial learning curve) and I am also noticing some rather unacceptable anomolies.

I agree that the ridiculous org of the Soviet army in 1941 is a bit unrealistic and a rather lazy way to simulate the poor showing by the Red Army IRL. But quite a bit of that poor showing was due to the Soviet philosophy (really Stalin's unrealistic expectations and refusal to accept reality) and their lack of preparation to deal with the inevitable. (And yes, I realize hindsight is always 20/20).

However, if I start the 1936 scenario and work my ass off, with the benefit of forsight that Germany will attack sometime between June 1941 and June 1942, I should have plenty of time to sufficiently address the state of affairs we find the SU facing at the beginning of the scenario, and still do a decent job of being redy to face the German juggernaut 5 to 6 years out.
 
As said there were some bugs with the recover events, you might not get all events to fire as a higher numbered event may have slept non-fired lower-numbered events thus you were not recovering all org/morale you lost with purges.
Stalin got rid of most of his experienced leaders during the purges - how do you expect an army to perform if led by non-experienced generals?
 
Even without the officer purge, the Soviet army is ridiculously unorganized and ineefectual against the Germans regardkess of any preparations made in the 5 and-a-half to six-and-a-half years period leading up to Barbrossa.

I still feel that a few more tweaks could be made to allow a human player beginning in 1936 to be better prepared and organized. I believe too much emphasis has been given to recreate historical events that were not inherently unavoidable rather than allowing the player to explore "what ifs". There is no way anyone can convince me that under different leadership the SU could not have been much better prepared for the Germans in 1941.

(And before anyone points out the obvious, I am well aware of the fact that Stalin was a ruthless crackpot...but the whole point to a game like AoD is to allow someone with a little more sense to take the reins and explore alternate possibilities.)
 
Even without the officer purge, the Soviet army is ridiculously unorganized and ineefectual against the Germans regardkess of any preparations made in the 5 and-a-half to six-and-a-half years period leading up to Barbrossa.

I still feel that a few more tweaks could be made to allow a human player beginning in 1936 to be better prepared and organized. I believe too much emphasis has been given to recreate historical events that were not inherently unavoidable rather than allowing the player to explore "what ifs". There is no way anyone can convince me that under different leadership the SU could not have been much better prepared for the Germans in 1941.

You can change your doctrine to the german one. This will increase your max org at the expense of moral. You can chose to purge, then you will not suffer the disadvantages of the purges. It is your choice and in 108 you even have the possibilty to be come a democrazy and avoid purges therefore. There are some bugs in 107 that have been solved properly. :)
 
The Red Army holding Germany west of Kiev and nowere near Leningrad is hugely better than historial. In my game I attribute this to refusing to send any oil to Germany as they have almost completely run out. I threw in some infrastructure bombing on Ploesti after the war started for good measure.