Is USSR a bit overpwered?

Late reply, but i think one of the reasons USSR is good against other AI is that the AI doesn't handle encirclements very well (which you'll also notice when your put the wehrmacht under AI control as an human player).

So, initially, the AI germany will advance, but eventually it will come to a grinding halt and than an attrition war (which the SU will win).

I believe someone on this forum once said it nicely: DEFEATING the SU army is not sufficient, you really need to DESTROY it.

The only way AI Russia can do what the original poster experiences is if a human UK player is inexperienced. The human UK player must be prepared to strike at the German homeland as soon as German forces are deep into Russia (but not at the point of victory). This is the only way to stop the Russian juggernaught from claiming nearly of all of Western Europe, possibly even France.

In the above please note that I say to "...strike at the German homeland...." Any thing short of this will always result in a Russian victory. By the time the Germans are deep into Russia you must be prepared for, and do as, follows:

1. Have two complete armies (25 divisions each, mostly fast).
2. Use one army to strike at Denmark and around Hamburg. The objective is to rapidly free Copenhagen and open the Baltic.
3. Once the Baltic is open invade at Stettin with your second army. This army must simultaneously free Berlin and create a UK "corridor" stretching from north-to-south to have a border to prevent westward Russian encroachment. Since this corridor can be achieved with only 3 of your five corps you use the two spares to drive into Poland and take it (do not liberate it).
4. Defeat Germany.

The above leaves you with a situation where the Russians will then only have the option to drive through Romania. Since you have let the Germans and Russians bloody each other (probably for no less than one year) the Russians will only have enough time to liberate Romania. You, however, have plently of time to conquer Italy (w/o Germany it falls very fast), Hungary and Bulgaria. Then take your sweet-assed time preparing to take out the Russians with your own version of Barbarossa, though for this latter operation I suggest jumping off as soon as your forces can form a line.

Yes, Russia is very overpowered by most definitions of overpowered, but if you have followed the evolution of hoi3 you would know that every expansion included "buffs" and rule changes to give Russia every chance to win. This was to prevent the constant littany of complaints, all valid, about the German AI's ability to absolutely steamroll Russia.

The only downside to this is that playing Russia as a human has become very dull. Just for fun I recently started a Russia game. It is October, 1939, and I am already defeating Finland and Romania. I have completed 3 CVLs (with CAGs), 4 new BBs (with good guns, but bad armor (who needs armor when you have CVLs?)), and by about March of 1940 I will own Romania and Bulgaria. Finland, Greece and Yugslavia will all be Russian puppets. When Italy tries to take Greece (and it will) the MR-Pact will freeze Germany and I will defeat Italy with ease, thus having wartime laws for the rest of the game. I doubt Germany will ever execute Barbarossa, and even if it does it is at a laughable disadvantage.

Oh, yes, Russia is very overpowered. This is an accurate portrayal of what a real-life Russia under "proper" management could accomplish, both past and present. Luckily, for the rest of the world, Russia has yet to master proper management

Forget buffing a country, buff ai germany.

Ask any hoi3 mp player and everyone will say ussr is the hardest country

In answer to the original posters question: I for one do not think the USSR is overpowered in the game (if you're trying to match historical reality) and actually find it marginally too weak in many respects when compared to actual historical achievements and technologies. I say this as a military / history professional. I won't mention the games mechanics or the historical primary sources that support this view (as I believe this may even be disallowed by the forum rules) but will state that I understand the position of the designers: this is a product that must sell and appeal to a market, and many in that market like to pursue a fascist empire and the like - making that insanely hard (or impossible), is not a sales tactic that would work. The game is fun, and I enjoy it, but it is not by any stretch of the imagination a simulation of period combat, political, or economic realities.

Best regards,

Larry Reese

Its a funny thing...many players want the game to be more historical, so that they can accomplish things that likely couldnt have happened, which then makes the game unrealistic once again... If the game were truly realistic not many would want to play. Minors would be useless, the French would be but a speed bump and the Axis nations would know its only a matter of time until overwhelming Manpower/resources/Industry crushes them. We have the ability to look back, they had no such ability otherwise History would have been much different.

In regards to the Soviet Union I would like to see the impact of lend lease have some effect. While i think the Soviets at that point were a formidable fighting force, looking at the lendlease items it appears that alot of the items were things that would effect their mobility (fuels, oils, rail etc...) and their communications (technical equipment , radios etc...). I think without such assistance they would be for lack of a better term more WW1 like, except with Armor. I think they likely wouldnt have moved as quickly and performed some of the maneuvering they did.

The Soviet Union can indeed be very formidable in HOI3...

I've played several runs of the game as a neutral, non-participant (usually Ecuador or Paraguay) on a variety of difficulty levels using a mix of default and custom victory goals.

Even though I'm finishing a PhD and I'm a statistician by extension, I haven't developed a full crunch-base to see which AI's are overpowered or broken, but I can give some solid observations here.

The comments about the US AI being idiotic is generally accurate. Unless Japan invades Hawaii or the Philippines, the US rarely becomes heavily involved in the Pacific. It is also a lot more rare to see the US become heavily involved in the ground war in Europe---and it depends in no small part upon the victory goals at play, the difficulty level chosen, and the starting scenario date.

Italy is one of the funniest countries. I can't figure out for the life of me what drives its' alliance decisions. Sometimes it moves to the axis and joins Germany right on cue. Sometimes it moves to the Comintern, which, historically, makes sense (considering Mussolini began his political career as a die-hard marxist before evolving his own brand of ultra-nationalist fascism in response to his disillusionment with socialism), and sometimes Italy moves towards the Allies from day one (but will never actually join them).

To the original topic, of the USSR, a lot of how the USSR plays out depends on two key factors: Finland and the timing of Barbarossa. If Russia and Finland continue the winter war, and Russia launches Barbarossa while or immediately after the Winter War p.2, Russia is in a weaker position and Germany pushes deeper. A smart German player can even declare a full war on Germany, and assign Japan and other far-east puppets with strategic targets in eastern Russia which will have a tremendous impact on the war. But the timing of Barbarossa is everything. Too early and Germany is unprepared. Too late and Russia is fully prepared. I have seen scenarios where both Moscow and Stalingrad fall but with the total number of victory points available inside Russia, it would take a two-front war to really bring the USSR down.

I wouldn't quite say the USSR is overpowered, however. The USSR is actually very well designed, historically. If they attack, they tend to over extend themselves if they push too far in any direction. But on the defensive, they possess incomparable might, due to industry, terrain, and philosophy. Realistically, even if the United States never assisted in the liberation of Western Europe, there's no doubt that the UK and its' allies would have launched an offensive themselves---and in almost every full scenario that ends up being the case, should the US just sit there like an armored tortoise. But the UK/Allied invasion of France, without the US, usually moves at the pace of a crawl and I don't think I've ever seen them reach Paris without US involvement. And on the occasions where the invasion is repulsed entirely (which happened a lot), I've seen the USSR storm all the way to the Spanish border with both Berlin and Paris as little more than pit-stops along the way (an outcome that happens more often than not). It might take until 1946 for Russia to move through central Europe, but it is almost inevitable with or without allied interference.

The one and only time I've seen this tide turned was when Germany actually invaded the UK successfully after the fall of France. In this scenario, which really stood out in my memory, Germany had taken the UK and Ireland by mid 1941, and spent more time consolidating the middle east before launching Barbarossa. This was the one scenario where Russia really took a beating to the Germans with no effective counter attack.

this is an interesting thread - I've been reading Robert Citano books, watching The Unknown War, and just tried to play the USSR in a game - my biggest problem is it's now 1944 and Germany never attacked - maybe I should leave the Corps back on the russian border and provoke a DOW vs. a week polish garrison and then unleash the Bear

so Citano makes a very interesting point - his point is quite simply that Germany had always had to fight fast, bold stroke campaigns. Germany has never had the manpower or resources for attrition based campaigns, and German Operational policy going back hundreds of years was attack, always attack. As such, after WWI, German Operational theory sought to refine their blitzkrieg tactics and use tanks in concentrated schwerpunkts (focal points) for their armor instead of spreading it out over the line as infantry support.
The Allies, on the other hand, having won with a static war of attrition, were prepared to do that again and didn't do much operational refinement between the two World Wars

strictly speaking, Germany COULD have had a few things go here and there - and improved it's chances - but even if they had captured Moscow in '41, so what? the Russians had already moved much of their manufacturing base to the Urals, and they still had massive reserves of manpower and tanks. They would have moved the Capital and HQ and kept fighting - once winter really kicked in I suspect they would have made almost the same push back to the lines of '42. (the Lend Lease program, from what I've been told, had little impact until around '43 or '44 at which point the war was basically decided)

And that was it - Germany was essentially lost - it didn't have enough manpower to launch a full frontal offensive in '42 so it focused on only one Front and ended up in the meatgrinder that was Stalingrad - and in '43, all it could do was a long shot at the Kursk pocket - Russia had massive material and manpower advantages even at the start of Barbarossa and was only hamstrung by some poor operational decisions, tactics, and an officer purge - they had time to improve and did and of course they had the T-34.

For me the biggest issue with the AI that I've seen is I don't see the German AI go for encirclements - I see it pushing on a broad front most of the time - that's no way to win the East Front
rb

whiskeytown said:

so Citano makes a very interesting point - his point is quite simply that Germany had always had to fight fast, bold stroke campaigns. Germany has never had the manpower or resources for attrition based campaigns, and German Operational policy going back hundreds of years was attack, always attack. As such, after WWI, German Operational theory sought to refine their blitzkrieg tactics and use tanks in concentrated schwerpunkts (focal points) for their armor instead of spreading it out over the line as infantry support.
The Allies, on the other hand, having won with a static war of attrition, were prepared to do that again and didn't do much operational refinement between the two World Wars

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It is true that Germany focused on improving it’s sturmtrooper tactics after WWI, but 90-95% of the German generals didn’t see any use for the tank and just like the Allies were preparing for another war like WWI. It were only a few, the likes of Mannstein and Guderian being the most famous, that saw the big strategic advantage the tank might give on the battlefield. Only after the battle of France, the German generals realized that the “tank” generals were right and the panzer was excepted as a new branch.. But even then the different main branches of the army, Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, Motorised, etc, kept bickering. I.e. Motorised was seen as an arm of the Infantry and they had distinctive patches on their uniform. Motorised units with an armoured division didn’t fall under this branch of the army and had different patches. The same happened with SART (Stug). Some were seen as part of the Artiullery branche, while some were part of the Panzer branch. Basically what a lot of people think Germany did between the two world wars is a myth.
The Russians in that respect were a lot further in developing an effective tank branch and tactics….til the purges in the thirties. After Tukhachevsky was purged the Soviets lost their great mind on armoured warfare. And with him most of the officers trained in armoured warfare. With Tukhachevsky gone, so were his tactis unless one wanted to be purged as well, which greatly influenced the way Soviet tanks were deployed during the Spanish civil war…to the point where it became ineffective to the say the least.

whiskeytown said:

but even if they had captured Moscow in '41, so what?

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The strategic importance of Moscow, but also Stalingrad, is often underestimated. Moscow was, and still is, the biggest and the most strategically logistical point of the USSR. All roads and railroads lead to Moscow. Deploying troops on the Soviet Western front is impossible without Moscow. And another thing that is often forgotten, is that there isn’t much after Moscow besides plains and forrest. The few cities left east of Moscow aren’t enough to support an entire front logistically. If Moscow would have fallen its very unlikely the Soviets could have continued the war! The same is true for Stalingrad considering the importance of the Wolga, which was used a massive road to transport land-lease goods.

Regardless of the strategic importance of Moscow ive always disagreed on the above premise. I dont see the Soviets as being similar to the French at that time whom collapsed quickly and then threw in the towel. regardless of the difficulty of conducting war operations i always envisioned the Soviet Union being a years long attrition like war should the Germans continue further east. I just dont see them stopping fighting unless something major happened (Stalin removed?)...

If Moscow fell to the Germans, I don't think the SU would have rebounded quickly, if at all. It still would have been no cakewalk for the Germans, but the lack of a centralized rail hub would have severely restricted the ability of the SU to mount coordinated offensives of any magnitude. My suspicion would be a long, drawn out struggle with both sides bleeding each other dry, and neither capable of sustaining any significant offensives at that distance from proper supply.

Without Lend-Lease, I suspect that the SU would have been significantly less mobile and coordinated in its late-war attacks on Germany itself. By then, the Germans were already beaten, but the Western Allies might have had a lot more time to advance before the Soviets arrived. I think post-war Europe would have looked quite different.

In my opinion, the SU is a bit overpowered in the game, but that's only because GER is more than a bit overpowered, and Paradox had to bump up the SU to make them competitive against a human GER player.

I have to say that I strongly disagree with some posters in their presentation of lend lease and Russia/USSR success. They qoute russian propaganda in down playing lend lease historical influence but don't consider that they just might be under the influence of western propaganda in over stating it(like western countries don't have propaganda).

The facts are this. Britain and France received 3 times lend lease than the Russians, by some posters logic that would mean that Britain and France could alone easily stomp Germany. Anyone with basic knowledge of history know that is well silly(and that is an understatement).

More than 85% of German war material and men was lost in the east. There is more truth in a statement that everything else in WW2 was a side show compared to that titanic struggle in the east(no matter how many private Ryans are saved or band of brothers filmed ) than stating that USSR would not win or even lose without allied lend lease.

Im not sure which post or poster you actually are referring to. For my part i stated that IMO (in my opinion...) the Soviet Army without lendlease would have lost some serious mobility and command control functions due to the type of materials they recieved. i think this would have hindered them vs the Germans, not stopped them but hindered them. And i am of the belief this would have led to a more WW1 type attrition war and even greater casualties on the Soviet side.

remember something everything cant always be determined by stats, and statistics can always be twisted to reveal what the individual wants. For example you may produce 100,000 trucks, but if you need me to produce the keys to run them for you, which of us becomes more valuable? Its a complex subject, one not easily definable in a sentence.

I was more commenting the ''tone'' of the discussion. I didn't meant you personally and I will not point fingers at any particular poster cause that usually just leads to a pointless
internet pee measuring debate.

I agree with most thing You have said especially that statistics can be interpreted in many ways Personally I believe that lend lease is pretty good represented in game terms in HOI3(we have to consider the limitations of the engine). It will be really interesting to see it in HOI4 with the new production system, You will be able to actually build those sherman tanks for your allies and send them exactly sherman tanks

I believe that lend lease is pretty good represented in game terms in HOI3

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I think its poorly represented myself and am hoping it is better represented. I can take a minor like Canada with something like 13 IC and end up with over 100 IC due to lendlease. Majors if prompted can give out way too much lendlease, and its typically in equal proportions rather then prioritized. Also there is no relevance, for example if the Soviets get IC they can build CVs instead of receiving fuels, radios, rail etc... Also the current system of lack of convoys means lack of IC shipped isnt exactly the same as if you ship a bunch of tanks and they get sunk. I hope this system gets improved.

I don't know enough about lend-lease to fully talk about it, having only read one or two other opinions on the subject

I do think that even if the Germans had taken Moscow in '41 they'd have probably lost it that winter - and of course there is the story of Stalin standing on the train platform debating whether to go or stay - (I don't know if that's true or not) - but either way, the Russian winter would have left the German Army in a terrible state and it wouldn't have surprised me to see Moscow turn into a Stalingrad or Leningrad that would have taken a hell of a lot of troops and urban fighting (if that) to take -

I understand logistics but the Russian Winter was gonna be brutal whether just in front of or just past the gates of Moscow

RB

whiskeytown said:

I understand logistics but the Russian Winter was gonna be brutal whether just in front of or just past the gates of Moscow

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Sure, the battle for Moscow would haven been a brutal one. But after the barbarossa blitz i would say the morale of the germans would be significantly higher than the russians (let alone the shock of the russians with their capital taken). Add to that, i would say resting in some destroyed city-building still beats in some barn or even out in the open with -40c. Also you could argue that even tanks would perform better in urban warfare as most of them could even start due to the cold outside moscow.

And in the end, the germans lost 100thousands of troops due to the weather, dysantry etc., if they won Moscow and lost as much troops in the process at least they had something to show for it in the end. And you could wonder if the siberian 'relief' forces would have been that effective in urban warfare.

But for arguments sake, let's say the Germans took Moscow, Leningrad would have fallen pretty quickly after that (or actually 100% starved with no relief supplies) and that's about 100% of the major infrastructure in the hands of the germans in northern Russia. I just can't see how the russians would have been able to retake that.

And with the northern flank secured, still it would be a tough cookie for the germans but the odds wouldve been better (and perhaps no encirclement in Stalingrad).

Oof said:

After Tukhachevsky was purged the Soviets lost their great mind on armoured warfare. And with him most of the officers trained in armoured warfare.

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Have you read any of the Tukhachevsky's works? I did. The man was not a great strategists. Even Paradox agrees, giving him skill level of only 2 (Kulik has skill of 3).

Taking control of Moscow has not been so important through history, several nations been in control - Sweden, Poland and France. Its maybe a morale loss for Russia but not much more and when the city been recaptured morale is back up and rising. After that its all about attrition warfare....

For some nations there seems to be more of an importance placed on Capitals and key locations then other nations. I think it comes down to the culture. Some nations its like OMG they got the capital its all over! Others its like so what? Now im just talking from a morale point of view not the impact it may have on the actually combat.

Loke said:

Taking control of Moscow has not been so important through history, several nations been in control - Sweden, Poland and France. Its maybe a morale loss for Russia but not much more and when the city been recaptured morale is back up and rising. After that its all about attrition warfare....

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But you are speaking before the Iron Horse had reached prominence. As the central rail hub connecting Russia into an integrated whole its loss would have been far more catastrophic; the loss of rolling stock alone would have been crippling.