German Alliance with the USSR. What should I expect?

[commonJoe886]

I shy away from most META strategies as being overly cartoonish. Unfortunately, playing historical-SP Germany without 40w everything and 200+ mil's on fighters/tanks has inexorably led to me being powned by the Reds'. As Germany without most META, I'm stuck with the same "How do I limit this to one front at a time?" requirement that Germany historically faced. The three grand strategies I've tried so far are:

- Molotov-Ribbentrop. This is no solution. It's just a ticking countdown to Soviet betrayal.
- Early (38-39) blitz on the West, trying to sweep-the-tables. Culminating in the capitulation of the UK, before Soviet intransigence. Then shift everything East. This is doable, but without META can be as close-run-a-thing as Waterloo was.
- Buildup as long as possible. Play nice with the West while throwing all resources East.

I've saved making the Faustian bargain with Stalin for last. I'm aiming for an early incarnation of the Cold War.
So, what can I expect from this Berlin-Moscow Axis?

 

[mursolini]

Why are you having problem defeating SU without "meta strategies"(tm) ?

If you don't spend your MIC on tanks and planes, where is your production going?

 

[Paul.Ketcham]

Technically the Moscow-Berlin Axis tilts the other fascist powers away from you and towards joining the Allies, but in my experience the other factors involved still tend to push fascist powers into the Axis anyways. Even with no fascist allies, Germany and the USSR have enough land power to overrun basically any land army in Europe, and thus you can focus mostly on naval buildup (with Romania and the USSR, oil isn't much of a problem either). All you really need to focus on with your mils is airpower (mainly fighters). Japan also has no reason to attack you (the fascist path has no option to do so whatsoever), so you still get their indirect support, and if Italy is neutral they'll pick a fight with the Allies over Yugoslavia or Greece sooner or later.

I would agree with the previous, however, since you don't really need overwhelming numbers or 40-widths to invade the USSR (arguably, besides tanks, 40-widths are actually bad for invading the USSR because of the combination of numbers (you won't be able to cover the whole front as easily, particularly as it gets wider from breakthroughs north and south), and more importantly logistics (supply kills any invasion of the USSR sooner or later). Fighting Britain and the USSR at the same time can be annoying, but defending the West doesn't take that many troops if France is dead (and almost none, if Britain is dead). Moreover, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is an incredibly-useful tool for Germany, as it gives you breathing room to take out France and pull your troops back east without any real risk of an attack; its actually worse for the Soviets than for Germany (since the USSR can easily push into Poland and overwhelm Germany in 1939 if they're busy with France, which I assume is the problem you ran into).

If you're having trouble with the Soviets, let themselves grind on a defensive line for a few months before attacking. They'll attack so long as they have theoretical superiority, but between air power and a good defensive line, you should be able to hold out reliably even if the Soviets have double your army and mil industry (the AI is really, really dumb about smashing into defensive lines). Alternatively, releasing Ukraine and Belarus from Poland and pushing East first means you get cores pretty deep into Russia, and you can hold a basic defensive line in the West instead of attacking there (which means Russia suffers Great Purge penalties during your attack too).

 

[DystopianAlphaOmega]

Britain will get an event which allows them to invite independent European and Asian democracies with 30 or more factories to the faction (there won’t be many - Sweden and maybe Belgium/Netherlands would be the most likely candidates). If the US turned fascist or communist, they get the option to become democratic again, join the UK’s faction, and lose the Great Depression.

Although the wiki is a bit out of date, so not sure if it’s been changed at all.

 

[Vin55]

Just Sea line england only build cas and fightes plus a 20wth infantry with full support, you can win without a single tank then. CAS is the key to victory against a major if you whant to push early. Tanks are against ai only there to end you suffering of 8 divisons per tile.

 

[kettyo]

Probably too easy to play it and so kinda boring as the Allies without the USSR are too weak and you can overrun everything you want in continental Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Playing against them might be more interesting but they'll never do it by default settings, you have to specifically tell the German AI to do it.

 

[Vlad123]

The strategy is always this:
1) bring Poland down.
2) bring France down
3) do sea lion (without the USA they will capitulate and WW2 will end)
4) knock out Denmark and Norway. (Optional)
5) declares war on the USSR

 

[Crispin]

Is there a way to get a hold of more options for the ai to choose? As I don't see the option to make Germany and Soviet ai go allied. A mod? Or perhaps modding it myself? Playing against both those giants would be a lot of fun.