How to generate Army XP as Tsarist Russia before Barbarossa?

[eastcoastceojam]

I'm working on my first attempt as Tsarist Russia, and I'm surprised how crummy it's Military Advisors are after the Civil War. I have only one advisor that gives Army XP- a Specialist giving a puny 0.06 daily XP. No Soviet generals defected during the war, and I have no one that can be promoted to an Advisor.

I was hoping to send volunteers to generate some XP and level up some rookie generals, but Tsarist Russia is unable to send volunteers, even at 100% World Tension.

I have a decent chunk of Army XP from the Civil War, but I will only have enough to research a single Doctrine tech after I spend some XP to fix division templates and build 1940 tank.

So I'm looking for ideas to get as much Army XP as possible before the Axis invades me in a few years. Here's a few things I thought of:

• Send an Attaché to China (already done)
• Hire the crummy Army Drill Specialist (working on it)
• Send China a chunk of Artillery and Infantry Equipment one-time, as well as some Support Equipment in monthly Lend-Lease.
• Train 24 Cavalry divisions and exercise them non-stop. This will limit the attrition to just Infantry Equipment.
• Work toward the Military Reorganization focus, which gives 50 Army XP.
• Justify a wargoal and attack Mongolia and Tannu Tuva. As landlocked communist nations, I don't think they will get guaranteed by the Allies. I could then grind some XP against them for a while, but I'm worried they might join China or Japan's faction once at war. The Comintern was deleted at the end of the Civil War, so they aren't in a faction right now.

Let me know what you think- thanks in advance!

 

[jacekgk]

I think, it is hard to do more Tsarist Russia lost almost all good advisors from Soviets. In my runs I get lot of XP before russian civil war by attacking Turkey and Romania (I like to cut Germany from romanian oil fields as quickly as I can). I don't remember, if I took some advisors before RSW, but probably not - I think I wanna keep as many PP as I could.
Attacking Mongolia and Tannu Tuva is good idea - they shouldn't join China, but be careful, because via focus they could create own faction. In one of my games Tannu Tuva made alliance with Paraguay Via Romanovs focus tree You get some free war goals, but realistically - probably You could use only these for Finland and Baltic States. they shouldn't get guarantees, neither join faction. It will be not a lot, but something
About volunteers - I'm not sure, but I think, that if You put Romanovs on the throne, You get access to sending volunteers as well via one of the focuses or national spirits

 

[eastcoastceojam]

About volunteers - I'm not sure, but I think, that if You put Romanovs on the throne, You get access to sending volunteers as well via one of the focuses or national spirits

The only place where I see volunteers mentioned is in the focus where you flip fascist. For roleplay reasons, I was wanting to keep the Tsar in power instead.

The focus that restores the Tsar lets you join factions, but it doesn't say anything about volunteers, so I assume that's a feature limited to the fascist sub-tree.

I hope you're right, and the Tsar can also send volunteers, but it's going to be a while before I can work my way down to the Zemsky Sobor focus.

 

[jacekgk]

I see - maybe I was wrong with this, it is possible that I confused the paths

 

[eastcoastceojam]

UPDATE: It's been 546 days since my earlier screenshot, and I've managed to earn the following XP amounts. Other than a single army spirit, I haven't yet spent any XP.

These numbers are the result of the following:

• Exercising 60+ Infantry divisions from Green to Regular status
• Exercising 1,100 planes to Regular status
• Military Attache to China
• Hiring the Army Drill Specialist in early spring 1938
• Lend-lease to China. I sent them 30k Infantry kits, 1000+ Artillery, and 250 Interwar Fighters. And I've always had a monthly trickle of Support Equipment to keep the lend-lease active.

Here's what all that earned me:

• 74 Army XP (includes 35 XP I spent on the "Professional Officer Corps" Spirit, which is not visible in the screenshot)
• 93 Air XP
• 223 Naval XP (thanks to my non-stop exercising of most of my fleet)

This works out to the following XP/day:

• 0.136 Army XP
• 0.408 Naval XP
• 0.170 Air XP

Other than the Naval XP, this seems very modest, so I'm wondering if I did something wrong. If you have any ideas that could help, please comment below. Thanks!

 

[Goodfontana]

Best advice I can give you is to adapt your strategy to the circumstances of the country you are playing instead of the other way around. As Tsarist Russia (or fascist for that matter) you are going to severely lack army xp compared to most countries, and on top of that, you will need to recruit new generals if you want to level them up and make them work as advisors for army bonuses because you only get Field Marshalls by default because reasons.

Take advantage of the fact that you have plenty of air advisors, and go for a full air build. Lucky for you air is all that really matters currently in the game way above division templates, equipment and tanks (lol).

If you have an infantry wall (starting template will do, maybe add a couple support companies of your choosing), rush fighter 2 (you can start researching them in 37 if you want to), upgrade them and mass produce them (35 mills on them in SP is enough to decimate Axis airforce) and add a healthy amount of CAS, you will stop the Axis at the border with no issues, farm all the xp you may want just defending (and help lvl up your new generals) and then make whatever template you want to push them back when you are ready and they have no more airforce.

This of course doesn't apply if for some reason you drag the civil war on for too long. With proper planning and micro you can end it very quick. Practice it a few times and the sooner you get it done, the easier it will be to defeat Axis.