Finnish Presidents

[Lord Finnish]

Hi can anyone tell me how to elect correctly Kyösti Kallio and Risto Ryti as presidents?

When the elections come in '36 (or 37) i always click the button which takes Kallio as prime minister, because that is only choise if you want him to be in goverment, but he will never be president by that.
Should i try Keep current goverment and wait for some kind of event to take him as president? Or the other choice of changing goverment? i don't know.

And, usually in my games Kallio dies in '42, even in real world he died in '40, i could remember that he died shortly after Winter War.

I want him as pres. becasue i like to play historical as possible

 

[Comrade Kalle]

not an answer to your question, but anyway, I think it's very funny that mr. Svinhufvud (?) is an "pig-headed isolationist" xD
Svinhufvud (though old spelling) means pighead in swedish

 

[unmerged(51925)]

you could go into your save file and put him in the president spot

 

[Fulmen]

I'm new and just started playing, but I already noticed a flaw in the timeline.

Once again, Finland is not getting enough research in her history (typical to foreigners).

The Winter War started on the 30th of November, 1939 and not the 18th like it does in the game.

Also, the 1932 non-aggression pact between Finland and the USSR was renewed on the 7th of April, 1934 and it would have ended in 1945. It's also erronous to claim that the USSR denounced the pact as the pact stated that you could not just denounce it and then attack.

Oh and the USSR attacked Finland without declaring war, both in the Winter War and the Continuation War.

I think it's like that in the game because you can't attack without declaring war. Maybe they should have made it possible if you were the USSR, hehe.
However being able to do so would add more realism to the game and an element of surprise.

In the 1940 treaty of Moscow Finland was forced to cede not only most of Finnish Karelia (as stated in the game - South-Eastern Finland), but also Salla and Kalastajasaarento (the Finnish side of the island on the tip of Finland's right arm) and rent Hanko to the USSR for 30 years.

In 1941 the legal 1920 Treaty of Tartu (Tarton rauha) borders were restored.

In the 1944 Treaty of Moscow Finland was forced to cede Karelia, Salla, whole Petsamo and rent Porkkala to the USSR for 50 years.

In the 1947 Treaty of Paris the area of Jäniskoski was ceded to the USSR in exchange for the ability to keep some of the German equipment the Finnish army had.

A strange thing about these illegal treaties and the unfair treaty of 1947 is that the Paris treaty states Finland's bordersto be those that they were according to the Treaty of Moscow (1940), however Petsamo remained to be occupied by Soviets to this day. Along with the other areas of whole Finland.

By the way i'm quite disappointed that the 'provinces' are not according to historical province/nation borders in East Karelia, Kolla Peninsula, Ingria, Finnmark and the Törne Valley. Also the names of the provinces on the Russian side could be the Finnish or Karelian names, seeing as the Russians were a small minority in those particular areas.

Otherwise it's a nice game. I've still got a lot to do and learn.

P.S Why is the 'head' of Finland so small in the game map?

EDIT: All aid from foreign countries to the Finnish during the Winter War was volunteerary or unofficial unlike the game states about the Swedish. In fact,
Sweden turned her back on Finland when Finland asked for help as well as many countries stopped aid going through their country into Finland (namely Germany, Russia and Italy if I remember correctly).

The most helpful aid came from Sweden, but about 25 000 Hungarian volunteers had volunteered to Finland, but only a few hundred (or over a thousand, can't remember for sure) made it to Finland in time, if at all. Many volunteers also lived in so drastically different environments than what Finnish winter was (and the 1939-1940 winter was one of the coldest in the century) that they could not be accepted to Finland as training would be impossible or take way too long.

 

[Lord Finnish]

P.S Why is the 'head' of Finland so small in the game map?

I agree to that. I think Finland should look more realistic.

 

[Fulmen]

I agree to that. I think Finland should look more realistic.

Indeed.

I noticed more erronous claims once the Winter War ended in my game. Here I will correct their mistakes and I hope they will be corrected in the next patch, along with everything else way non-historical in the information boxes.

The Winter War was a defensive victory for the Finnish, and a catastrophe for the Soviets. The Soviets themselves knew that it in fact was a loss for them rather than a victory.

Stalin did not want just Finnish Karelia like the game states, he wanted to conquer whole Finland. Maybe even continue from there to Scandinavia. After Sweden turned their back on Finland newspapers wrote "Sweden might have to regret their decision", but Finland held the Russians back.

Also in the game the Winter War ends in February, in reality it ended on the 13th of March, 1940 because the Finnish thought it was too dangerous to continue the war and wait for the British and French expeditionary forces to arrive. Yes, Britain and France had plans for sending an expeditionary force to aid the Finns, but could not do so in time because Sweden and Norway refused to let them trespass. Going through the Arctic Sea and landing into Finland from her right arm, Petsamo would have taken too long and not to mention, it was occupied by Soviet forces.

Oh I forgot to mention in my last post, the outer islands of the Gulf of Finland were also forced to be ceded to the USSR.

I am very disappointed by the lack of research in Finland's history, although I'm not surprised. While the Winter War was a MAJOR factor in the course of the rest of WWII, it is largely forgotten or unknown.

I'm eager to see how much of the info about the Continuation War in the game is actually true...

P.S After eastern parts of Salla and Kuusamo, and the Finnish part of Kalastajasaarento are forced to be ceded to the USSR, they still appear to be Finnish on the map. Except for Kalastajasaarento in 1944, as it's supposed to be part of the Petsamo province in the game. Jäniskoski also appears to be Finnish after 1947.

If there's ever another Hearts of Iron game, for the love of God, make the borders more accurate.

 

[unmerged(39421)]

Yeah, well. The game is not really about Finland, it's on a lot larger scale with emphasis on larger nations and schemes. More accurate events, borders, provinces and islands in Finland would have no real effect on anything, and if they were in, a lot more would have to be in. You could try a mod with more events and other stuff (for Finland too) like Stony Road or SMEP, or learn to mod them yourself. Overall I think Finland is very well presented in the game, considering the game includes all the nations in the world at the time and several that didn't.

I do hate it when after Barbarossa Finland just gets Karelia and all else I've conquered goes back to the Soviets. I guess I could mod that but there isn't a whole lot to do as Finland after the continuation war anyway, unless you go dictatorship.

 

[Fulmen]

Funny how I was expecting someone to answer like that.

You're right, but Finland could still have gotten more researched facts than false information. After all, it did play a major part on how the rest of WWII would be played out. Especially in the European theater. Even by simply going to Wikipedia and searching for the words "Finland", "Winter War", "Continuation War" and "Lappland War" you can learn a lot. I'm not saying everything on Wikipedia about Finland is entirely accurate, but it's a lot more accurate than what I've read in this game.

Hmm. I read about someone's game as Finland and he and most of the other Axis (by the way, Finland in our history became part of the Axis in 1944, before that during the Continuation War Finland was co-belligerent with Germany) conquered Moscow and he himself controlled Stalingrad and other major areas of the Soviet Union while Germany had met with Japan on the Asian side of Russia. So I'm guessing the "Bitter Peace" doesn't always happen? Oh and Karelia actually is over half the size of Finland (legal Treaty of Tartu borders) but I'm guessing you mean the Karelian Isthmus, Ladoga (Laatokka) Karelia and Border-Karelia. In other words, the provinces of Sortavala and Viipuri (in reality they and a small fraction of inner-Finland form Viipuri's province).

Just curious, is there a Lappland War (1944-45) for Finland in the game where the Soviets force Finland to drive their waffenbrüder (brothers in arms) out of Finland with force?

Historically the Germans were respecting the terms of the peace treaty and were retreating from Finland according to timetable and often with mutual understanding on both sides. But as the Soviets found out Finland wasn't waging a real full-blown war against the Germans (although there were very few armed conflicts) like the Soviets had insisted, they pressurized the Finns to fight the Germans out. Also the Finnish were more willing to do so after the failed operation Tanne Ost and the Germans' mining of the coast. Waging war against the Germans was complicated by the fact that the Soviets forced the Finnish to demobilize most of their army.

The Lappland War has been called "the childrens' crusade", because according to Moscow's truce (1944 - the final peace was confirmed in the unfair Treaty of Paris, 1947) Finland had to demobilize most of her army and to place it under peace circumstances. Because of this, the youngest age classes had to be used. Also from what I've read, many of the Germans in Lappland at the time were also young and had little or no combat experience. They often thought of the war as frustrating and senseless and wished to be home. Many of them surrendered to the Finns more easily due to these facts.

P.S Soviet casualties during the Winter War were extremely high (according to the leader of the Soviet Union after Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, there were at least a million Soviet losses) but due to decades of lies the Soviets told, the exact number is uncertain and speculations vary greatly. The official number today is 126 875 Soviets dead or missing, 264 908 wounded and 3 100 were captured.

Finnish losses were 26 662 dead, 39 886 wounded and 1 000 captured.

EDIT: I just found out that there are more campaigns by scrolling down in the new game screen. I told you I was new, lol.

For the Finnish Continuation War it says that we Finnish are seeking revenge for the Winter War that we lost. Nope, we got a defensive victory in it's most important meaning. It also claims that it was 3 years of peace between the Winter War and the Continuation War. Maybe the developers can't count.

Let me demonstrate:

Winter War begins on the 30th of November and ends on the 13th of March. In February 1940, Hermann Göring told the Finnish that it's better to seek for peace with the Soviet Union as it's possible to get back what is theirs (Finland's ceded territories) later, referring to the later German invasion of the USSR. This was one of the reasons the Finns started seeking for peace.

The Continuation War begins on the 25th of June, 1941 (not 22nd like in the game), however Soviets start bombing Finland for the first time after the peace of 1940 (the USSR shot down the Finnish air liner "Kaleva" during the peace, but it was done with bullets from their aircraft, not bombs. The USSR also salvaged post letters etc. from the wreckage with a submarine after the plane was downed into the Gulf of Finland) on the 22nd of June.

Is that 3 years of peace? I don't think so. That's barely over a year. Maybe the developers should go to school again. They should have a historian from each of the nations (or almost) in the development team when they're making these Grand Strategy games based on WWII.

I had Romanians in Lappland when I was playing the Continuation War. Amusing but it gives you the feeling that the nations are really helping each other out. lol

 

[Mierin]

I think you might be a little oversensitive about the issue. Id suspect you can make the same analysis about every other country represented in the game and find similar discrepancies.

Declared wars and undeclared wars are handled the same by the game. Since you can attack the same round that you declare, you essentially catch the enemy surprised (not dug in and at peacetime deployments).

Sure the Finns did a great job defending against a vastly superior force in the Winter War, but calling it a true victory is a stretch considering the outcome was lost territory.

As for map shape, look around the poles in general, all the polar states are misshapen. I suspect this is a combination of map distortion and projection issues. Not to mention that global map is someone 'stylized' to begin with.

At the end of the day, the world model needs to be kept as simple as possible to avoid catastrophic failures. Each additional war scripted in has to be accounted for across the board to prevent the chain reactions that we see when the human player goes ahistorical.

 

[Fulmen]

Perhaps. I haven't played the other countries yet, so I don't know. I'm just saying what flaws i've noticed about Finland and am disappointed since usually people don't know anything or know very little about Finland's history in WWII despite it's important role in the war. This especially shows in games, movies etc. About 80% of the time (95% on English Wikipedia) when I look at foreign maps about Finland in WWII, her borders are drawn wrong as non-Finnish often don't know which areas of Finland were ceded at which particular times and that the ceded territories were annexed as part of Finland again in 1941. A common foreign depiction of pre-WWII Finland is her having Finnish Karelia but not the other ceded territories. Or Petsamo and not the other ceded territories. That's because they're the most common subjects of discussion (especially Karelia) in the ceded territories issue.

It wouldn't be the end of the world if Paradox would just change the dates of the wars to their historical starting and ending dates, would it?

In both wars, the Finns fought for their independence and without decisive battles like the Tali-Ihantala battle in the Continuation War, Finland as an independent state would not exist. At least not until the Soviet Union had collapsed. In both wars, we scored a huge defensive victory, but not a victory in the traditional sense. The Soviet Union did not score a victory at all. The USSR's goal was to completely conquer Finland. Did she meet that goal? No. When the Continuation War ended, all Russian forces on the Finnish front were annihilated. There were virtually none left as they were all obliterated in the Finnish defence. So had war continued, we could have marched and retook Viipuri and part of the rest of Finnish Karelia. Stalin deemed Finland a too tough piece to handle, so he agreed for peace and lowered the unjustified war preparations (the Soviets started the war and we had to pay for it) etc. that Finland had to pay. Although Stalin attempted to take Finland again in 1947-48 but this plan was ultimately a failure since the Soviets believed that conquering Finland would be so expensive that it wouldn't be worth it. This was because of the weapon stashes being hid in the countryside.

So like I said, we didn't get Greater Finland (yet), lost territories that still have not been returned (but they will before the year 2050) and Soviet pressure for decades to come, but it was still a victory albeit not in the traditional sense. Also Finland was the only country on the Axis side after the war not to be occupied.

Yeah I noticed the map isn't exactly high-quality, but come on, the in-game 'head' of Finland is 1/4 of it's real size. It looks like northern Finland is going along the old Swedish province borders, but only extended more north and having another arm, Petsamo. Looks really stupid and unrealistic if you ask me.

More on-topic: When I started the Doomsday campaign as Finland (I was more like checking it out though) I had Kyösti Kallio alive in 1945 and he was available as one of the ministers! Of course I'm glad he's there, but isn't it a bit strange as he really died on the 19th of December, 1940?

By the way sorry for typing such long posts. Hope it doesn't bother you because I can't help myself from doing it.