Is AI Soviet victory possible?

[Donkey Kong]

Germany has too much manpower and industry. Germany was massively buffed a couple of years ago, with the introduction of Mefo bills.

Balance was fine before Waking The Tiger. Now Germany can take 8 million casualties and still have 300 divisions at full strength.

 

[Donkey Kong]

And the Sowjets have 3 big advantages against the Axis:

1. Manpower is about 12 or 15:1 against the Axis
2. They have more Troops but with old equipment

Not correct. Germany can fight on despite losing millions.

The SU doesnt have more troops either, especially when you factor in axis members.

 

[PurpulaPhoenixum53]

Germany has too much manpower and industry.

Now Germany can take 8 million casualties and still have 300 divisions at full strength.

These are the two most annoying things in the game. Germany should not be able to sustain 8 million casualties and walk it off with 300-500 divisions in the field. Germany needs to be either weakened a bit, or the Soviets massively strengthened. The current issue is with the Soviet AI not producing enough divisions to cover all the fronts. Not to mention that at any given point the AI will still have troops on garrison orders, even if there isn't a threat of a naval assualt. Effectively the AI doesn't commit all their troops to the fight, and massively overproduces divisions to the point its ridiculous.

 

[Iskulya]

The Allies have won, or have had a tendency towards winning in the absence of active player intervention in every single historical game I've played since 1.9.

While the German AI is substantially improved, it still has some notable weaknesses and the most notable of these is in handling a two front war. It just is completely clueless about how to distribute forces. I've noticed specifically that when the Allies invade Europe, the German response is usually extremely tepid and they mostly ignore it and leave most of their troops concentrated in the east.

In one game Sweden almost single handedly capitulated Germany because they landed troops near Hannover and even after the bulk of the country was occupied the Germans didn't send more than a dozen divisions to counter it.

I think the game is easy enough playing the Allies as it is already. Hopefully the DLC with Italy includes some decent improvements for Italy, because the advantages for the Allies will only continue to mount as we get focus trees for countries like Brazil.

Not gonna lie, Bulgaria is pretty freaking overpowered in BFTB. You can get something like 10-15 free civilian factories(and slots to accomodate them!) for political power. I'm actually ok with this just for the reason stated above. The Allies will continue to get stronger over new DLCs unless some fundamental balance issues are tweaked directly.

The AI for the Soviets seems remarkably bad tbh. In many ahistorical games I've actually seen them lose wars to Poland's faction.. somehow. They just repeatedly suicide attack until they are out of equipment and then are driven back. I'm hoping the Soviet rework will include nerfs and challenges for the Soviets to deal with, but also an improved AI for them and a new logistics system to provide an additional obstacle to the Germans.

I'd like to see a balance for historical or Stalinist Soviet Union where it's incredibly easy to break through their lines or push them back in the opening months of the war, and where logistical bottlenecks rather than the Red Army will be the biggest obstacle, buying time for them to get their shit together so to speak.

 

[shachazhul]

Now Germany can take 8 million casualties and still have 300 divisions at full strength.

It has nothing to do with Germany specifically, they just research the MW doctrine and get +5% recruitable population, which is HUGE of course. And I always see Soviets change conscription to Service by requirement - but why? They immediately get production debuffs for the rest of the game, not to mention that they don't actually use this massive manpower pool to make enough of decent divisions.

 

[Hoi Neuling]

Ballance of Germany is fully correct. And the other Countrys are done historically too with Manpower, Equipment etc.

The only thing is that the AI is not R & D the newest things which she is needing to equip her troops with or upgrading her Planes / Ships / Tanks etc. That you can only correct by Mods which get adjusted to the newest Game-Version atm. or playing Big Mods like the UMC-Mods. The Devs are working on it every Version but only a big refit / rework like they are doing now for the Airforce, Army and Economy etc. will get the farvored effect.

To come back to Question: Yes it is possible, the AI get the Chance about End 1942 / Beginning 1943 like historical. There the Soviet AI will get an Boost and the Axis have Problems to win then more Areas. That belongs to the historical things Stalin has done before: the great cleanup, get an threaty-contract with Germany etc. etc. etc. After Germany and the other Axis Staates raid the Sowjet Border and get so many Parts of Russia that the logistics break down and Stalin get his reserve as well as Production in Position then the Axis will making rollbacks.

And the other thing is that the Commonwealth and free World Troops open 2 more Fronts, which reduces your Troops and the other Troops on the Sowjet Border about 40 or 50 %. That´s the Trigger Time that the Allies and Cominterns will go back to Attacks and not only full Defense.

Good thats for the Game and how it works: The Problem there is, that the AI still have Problems with some Features there and so the Devs have decided to go make an big rework / refit etc. there in R & D (Army, Airforce, Doctrines, Economy etc.) and the Productions. How it will be looking we see after the Devs show us her Dev Dirays and new Vids.

But an Good example why the Allies and Cominterns needed so long to get an full functionaly War-Industry is that the economic Crisses and the Consequences from Stalin get solved first fully about 1941 / 1942.

I have seen a good Movie yesterday Evening, which get called AK-47 Kalasnikov or so. In that Movie you can see that the Sowjets have had a big Problem to get new Equipment for her Troops (like Planes, Tanks, Guns and most of all Rifles in all Terms). Not before 1943 they get new Equipment and a Production-Boost in Military Equipment. They had high flying Bombers which couldn´t shoot down and very good precission (yes Göring was not amuesd from that), some good medium Tanks as Prototypes and so on but 90 % of the Sowjet Troops were underpowerd (old Tanks, Guns, Rifles etc.) which had to be refited with more modern equipment.

Stalin had killed his good Personal or get them in the Goulags where they died, that´s the reason why the Sowjets fight so long with old Equipment. After you have seen that Movie on Amazon Prime and other Movies / Documentations we can talk again why the Sowjets needed so long to get the Offensive back.

Oh one more thing: If someone disagree there, have no clue about History and long Economy Effects. The second one we get again a feeling for about the World Corna Crisses.

 

[Gort11]

Not correct. Germany can fight on despite losing millions.

The SU doesnt have more troops either, especially when you factor in axis members.

This is very true. The Axis in general is massively overpowered compared to reality, due to the balance goals the devs went for:

1. Make minors much more powerful than they were in reality - since Germany gets Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary on its side, it has a lot of ahistorically-powerful minor countries backing it up
2. Make sure France always loses, and quick - they achieved this by giving France a laughable amount of military factories compared to reality. As a result Germany can't lose or even take significant losses taking France.
3. Make the USA a lot weaker than in reality, and Japan and Italy a lot stronger. The Axis often exceeds the industrial capacity of the USA, and by a lot, which is ridiculous compared to reality.
4. The USSR should lose if the Allies don't save it. In reality the turning point was at Moscow in the winter of 1941, before the USA entered the war, and before lend lease could have much of an effect on the outcome.

Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers has some good numbers on the relative industrial strengths of the countries in WW2:

Country	% of Total Warmaking Potential
United States	41.7%​
Germany	14.4%​
USSR	14.0%​
UK	10.2%​
France	4.2%​
Japan	3.5%​
Italy	2.5%​
Seven Powers (total)	(90.5%)​

Warmaking potential is based on numerous economic factors such as population, national income, steel, coal and automobile production, modernity and automation of factories, managerial practice, per capita productivity of workers, and so on.

 

[Morbus Bubbonicus]

From my experience, no.
SOV simply cannot compete with Axis in terms of industry bonuses. It is not even comparable, because every Axis nation can outproduce USSR just with half of bonuses to research and production. SOV national focus tree is grossly outdated and wacky to the point of generic tree is more powerful

 

[Me_]

Another interesting observation: Monarchism for AI Portugal is a sure way to Fascist Portugal and Brazil. They always trigger civil war at an unopportune time and lose to the fascists, while either leaving Brazil Fascist (weird that the Portuguese focus makes Brazil 80% fascist - maybe monarchists and non-aligned should be separate?) or triggering a doomed civil war in Brazil.

 

[pheonicia]

I've seen the Soviets hold out against Germany, japan, and china for years before usually turning around and defeating germany (though I've never seen them beat japan, just stalemate because they can't invade the home islands).

 

[Fanstar1]

I understand what they're trying to do but the Soviets are weak to the point where it's sort of ridiculous. It doesn't matter if you're playing historical or non historical. I HAVE SEEN THEM LOSE TO POLAND many times. This is not acceptable.

1. Their air force gets slaughtered every game
2. They build nothing but the earlier infantry equipment which puts them at a huge disadvantage
3. They don't build anywhere near enough divisions to stop Germany

The Soviet Union was a juggernaut. They should be able to put up a fight without a player controlled UK or USA invading. You can crank up their advantages all the way and they still lose. You can lend lease them the entire game and they still lose. They aren't even able to push back if there is a second front. Germany will still capitulate them eventually provided you don't kill Germany first. They 100% need some kind of buff. I'm fine with Germany being more powerful . Just not to extent they are now.

When I look at AI Soviet's industry, it is clear that their industry prioritizations are all wrong. They build a 50/50 mix of mils and civs from the start of the game, rather than building just civs until a certain point. This is why AI Soviets have nowhere near the equipment and factories needed to contest the Axis.

 

[Garth_Vader]

Is this a version specific issue? I don't have laR or BFTB, and am running 1.9.3, and I have never seen AI Germany make any progress against the Soviets. Without my intervention as another Axis member I have never seen AI Germany even take Kiev.