Best route for the Soviet Union?

[The Witch-King]

Originally posted by 17028


As for Germany treating the Russian territories better, that's arguable. I think the Cossacks saw themselves as being liberated, but in a lot of places the Germans mass executed or displaced a lot of people, just as the Soviets did.

We all know what the sonderkommandos did in Russia.
I think what JPesterfield meant was that in the game you can as a German perhaps choose to not maltreat and terrorize the population, contrary to what was done in reality.

Many people in the Soviet Union saw the German invaders as liberators from Stalin's oppressive system, and rallied to support the Germans (many religious Ukrainians even saw the Wehrmacht crosses on the tanks as true evidence of the war being a holy crusade against the atheist government). The Germans effectively threw away most of this big advantage by generally treating the population even worse than the Soviet government.
As a German player, I would certainly not want to repeat this behaviour (and not just for 'practical' reasons...), and this should have a noticeable effect on partisan activity and German recruitment in Russia.

 

[The Witch-King]

Regarding an early Russian attack on Germany, I think the most noticable effect of it would be to drive the Germans into the arms of Britain and France. Not good for Russia.
The western allies will be more friendly to Hitler the more afraid they are of the communists. So Russia would be playing right into the hands of the nazis. Better to try and get your foes to fight each other while you think about annexing Persia, Manchuria or some other useful territories.
Build up inner strength, while working hard with diplomacy to sow dissent between Germany, France and Britain. I think I would spend some resources on funding communist coups in some European countries, too. Like Turkey and Sweden, perhaps

 

[Winkelried]

Originally posted by The Witch-King
Regarding an early Russian attack on Germany, I think the most noticable effect of it would be to drive the Germans into the arms of Britain and France. Not good for Russia.
The western allies will be more friendly to Hitler the more afraid they are of the communists. So Russia would be playing right into the hands of the nazis. Better to try and get your foes to fight each other while you think about annexing Persia, Manchuria or some other useful territories.
Build up inner strength, while working hard with diplomacy to sow dissent between Germany, France and Britain. I think I would spend some resources on funding communist coups in some European countries, too. Like Turkey and Sweden, perhaps

It seems that this was indeed Stalin's approach. Let the nazis and the democracies fight against each other and then attack the victor of that struggle.

I guess Barbarossa must have been quite a surprise for Stalin even if he didn't trust the Germans.