Leaving out Finland is a joke.

[Fulmen]

If there still will be Finland to DoW USSR by the time Barbarossa starts and not annexed/turned into a puppet.

I've actually been wanting to do one of those timelapse videos of AI SOV vs. AI FIN in every HoI game, and then put in a timelapse of the actual wars Finland fought in WW2 for comparison, just to show how poorly each HoI game to date has portrayed Finland.

The trend with the Winter War in HoI has generally been that SOV makes it deep into Finland and then randomly accepts peace and retreats to the new border. That's not at all how the real war went: IRL they conquered less than what they gained in the peace treaty. Had they made it deep into the country, they would've just gone for annexation. In HoI4 at that point they often puppet the country which then sometimes eventually leads to annexation, which at least is more realistic, even if the most accurate in-game modelling of a "the Russians do well against the Finns" type scenario would be to simply immediately annex the country into the USSR at the conclusion of the war.

For reference, here's the historical progress of the Russians in the Winter War. I won't post timelines of the Continuation and Lapland Wars here, since that'd be several images and videos and that'd derail the thread too much, but I figured a couple of the Winter War won't hurt:



There's a few mistakes in the video (missing a lot of bombings, the islands on Lake Ladoga weren't actually lost IRL, etc.), but it's overall quite well-done:

Winter War Every Day

Watch "Winter War Every Day" on Streamable.

streamable.com

 

[Znail]

But Finland DoWing the USSR isn't going to ensure balance on that front (as Arheo mentioned), which naturally leads into the need for Finland to be given full attention.

Even if Finland doesn't do as well as historically so will it still help and be better in the game then without. It's the winter war that is harder to make right.

 

[Spartanlemur]

Even if Finland doesn't do as well as historically so will it still help and be better in the game then without. It's the winter war that is harder to make right.

Something for Finland is better than nothing, but we're being sold the major Eastern Front DLC without a huge chunk of the Eastern Front receiving proper attention.

Only once Finland has been worked on to a sufficient degree will the Eastern Front work as it ought to.

 

[TalyonUngol]

Doubt it. They've noticed that, no matter the backlash they get on here, their game will sell gloriously. Especially with meme focuses. We have to accept that we, the people wanting a WW2 GSG instead of a Meme GSG set during WW2, are the minority.

Except you don't know what a WW2 GSG would be. A WW2 GSG would be a simulator. Everything goes exactly as it was in WW2 with minor changes.

Edit: I was on my phone when I did this at work. I shouldn't have posted it in this state.


I will clarify what I meant. This game could never be a WW2 GSG which would basically be a simulator of sorts. You could change tactics, battle strategies, attacks, etc to influence the war, but everything else would happen. America was destined to join the war and Soviet Union was destined to be invaded. This wasn't gonna change. What you could have changed was things like, maybe Germany focused more on Finland and pushed for the Murmansk railroad, or focused more on the Causcaus instead of Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow. Or maybe Germany took Turkey instead and went up through there.

That would be fun, but it would also be railroading Germany, who has zero chance to win the war, to a loss at some point. Where as with Hoi4, you don't have that railroad. You have the ability to win. Yea, it's not a complete WW2 experience... and that's kind of a good thing. Butg at the same time, its also not a Meme GSG if we're considering Memes to be focus trees. Historical AI check box is there for a reason.

That being said, there could be some improvements to the historical side that would be nice to increase the fun factor. The Railroads and supply are a good way. I would also enjoy some better control over puppets/AI minors(like being able to tell them to guard a certain border, attack a certain area of a country like for example. I tell Hungaryy and Romania to mass troops on the Soviet Border and focus their attack towards the Causcaus in order to take it. And for puppets, being able to take Reichs Netherlands, give them Belgium and Luxemborg land and have them form their formable nation, for more access to troops, resistance, etc. I think that would be really cool. This would apply anywhere and make strong puppets and useful allies) , a better air system so no more of the whack-a-mole, stronger strategtic/tactical bombers so Heavy Fighters would actually be used, etc.

 

[Jurpo]

It's been said that Sweden by its reluctance to support Finland during the Moscow negotiations in autumn 1939 "let" the Winter War happen, implying that Stalin would not have gone ahead if Finland had had Sweden's backing. I'm tempted to disagree with this. Sweden had driven her military to the ground in the 1920s and it was in an abysmal state; the Swedes were one of the last European nations to begin rearming, really even just starting in 1939 or thereabouts. Meanwhile Stalin thought Finland would be a cakewalk and the Red Army would be parading in Helsinki in 2-3 weeks after the invasion had begun. I doubt the barely trained and equipped Swedish military played a major factor in his calculations. How Swedish intervention might have tied to the big players; Germany, England and France, might have been another matter. But again, he expected Finland to be occupied by the Red Army in a matter of weeks, which likely would have removed Sweden out of the war anyway.



Most likely.

I don't actually disagree with your answers about the most likely historical outcomes. But the questions were rethorical and meant to be questions that could be played out in alt history gameplay.

 

[Jurpo]

I've actually been wanting to do one of those timelapse videos of AI SOV vs. AI FIN in every HoI game, and then put in a timelapse of the actual wars Finland fought in WW2 for comparison, just to show how poorly each HoI game to date has portrayed Finland.

The trend with the Winter War in HoI has generally been that SOV makes it deep into Finland and then randomly accepts peace and retreats to the new border. That's not at all how the real war went: IRL they conquered less than what they gained in the peace treaty. Had they made it deep into the country, they would've just gone for annexation. In HoI4 at that point they often puppet the country which then sometimes eventually leads to annexation, which at least is more realistic, even if the most accurate in-game modelling of a "the Russians do well against the Finns" type scenario would be to simply immediately annex the country into the USSR at the conclusion of the war.

For reference, here's the historical progress of the Russians in the Winter War. I won't post timelines of the Continuation and Lapland Wars here, since that'd be several images and videos and that'd derail the thread too much, but I figured a couple of the Winter War won't hurt:

View attachment 725449

There's a few mistakes in the video (missing a lot of bombings, the islands on Lake Ladoga weren't actually lost IRL, etc.), but it's overall quite well-done:

Winter War Every Day

Watch "Winter War Every Day" on Streamable.

streamable.com

Agree with every word.

Perhaps even more importantly, the Soviets suffered terrible losses is manpower and material, losing several divisions to attrition as Finns pocketed them with vastly inferior manpower. Towards the end of the Winter War, Finns started to suffer terrible losses, too, and most likely could not have gone on much longer. However, the incompetence of the Soviet army and disproportionate losses were making Stalin look like a fool.

I feel that the "preparing for attack" mechanism of the Spanish Civil War would work very well here: the Soviet army should be entirely unprepared for any fighting until each part of the front has been prepared, one at a time, taking roughly 30 days each, and they should be losing political power and stability at an increasing rate while the war lasts after 60 days or so.

The Soviet divisions should be either incapable of having supply anywhere but on roads in areas that have not been prepared for offensive, while Finns would get special decisions to execute pincer attacks against Soviet troops marching on those roads. Soviet supply to anywhere north of the Karelian peninsula should be severely limited, unless the Soviet player builds those up manually before the war, of course.

 

[cac579]

Except you don't know what a WW2 GSG would be. A WW2 GSG would be a simulator. Everything goes exactly as it was in WW2 with minor changes.

Edit: I was on my phone when I did this at work. I shouldn't have posted it in this state.


I will clarify what I meant. This game could never be a WW2 GSG which would basically be a simulator of sorts. You could change tactics, battle strategies, attacks, etc to influence the war, but everything else would happen. America was destined to join the war and Soviet Union was destined to be invaded. This wasn't gonna change. What you could have changed was things like, maybe Germany focused more on Finland and pushed for the Murmansk railroad, or focused more on the Causcaus instead of Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow. Or maybe Germany took Turkey instead and went up through there.

That would be fun, but it would also be railroading Germany, who has zero chance to win the war, to a loss at some point. Where as with Hoi4, you don't have that railroad. You have the ability to win. Yea, it's not a complete WW2 experience... and that's kind of a good thing. Butg at the same time, its also not a Meme GSG if we're considering Memes to be focus trees. Historical AI check box is there for a reason.

That being said, there could be some improvements to the historical side that would be nice to increase the fun factor. The Railroads and supply are a good way. I would also enjoy some better control over puppets/AI minors(like being able to tell them to guard a certain border, attack a certain area of a country like for example. I tell Hungaryy and Romania to mass troops on the Soviet Border and focus their attack towards the Causcaus in order to take it. And for puppets, being able to take Reichs Netherlands, give them Belgium and Luxemborg land and have them form their formable nation, for more access to troops, resistance, etc. I think that would be really cool. This would apply anywhere and make strong puppets and useful allies) , a better air system so no more of the whack-a-mole, stronger strategtic/tactical bombers so Heavy Fighters would actually be used, etc.

Besides wanting to play a country during the big war, the reason why people want to stick to the ww2 in hoi4 is simply because the game is not designed around ahistorical games. For ahistorical to be fun u need a good economy, political/internal mechanics, and diplomacy system. Currently hoi4 doesn't have any of this because its base design is to have a build up to war (ww2)-- >war starts and gets fought --> war ends and u quit ur campaign.

 

[Spartanlemur]

Besides wanting to play a country during the big war, the reason why people want to stick to the ww2 in hoi4 is simply because the game is not designed around ahistorical games. For ahistorical to be fun u need a good economy, political/internal mechanics, and diplomacy system. Currently hoi4 doesn't have any of this because its base design is to have a build up to war (ww2)-- >war starts and gets fought --> war ends and u quit ur campaign.

The issue I have with alt-history is that it usually results in scenarios that are too easy if you have AI set to historical (because you end up making the side you leave weaker and the side you join stronger), or if you have AI set to ahistorical it often does crazy things and then the historical immersion is broken.

So you either get:
1. Easy game
2. Ridiculous game that isn't any fun

You can solve this by manually setting AI to specific paths, but that's tedious work that requires you to know a focus tree so you don't mess up countries it interacts with, and it's not as fun as having more dynamic reactions to events. So for that reason, I don't really play alt-history anymore.

 

[TalyonUngol]

Besides wanting to play a country during the big war, the reason why people want to stick to the ww2 in hoi4 is simply because the game is not designed around ahistorical games. For ahistorical to be fun u need a good economy, political/internal mechanics, and diplomacy system. Currently hoi4 doesn't have any of this because its base design is to have a build up to war (ww2)-- >war starts and gets fought --> war ends and u quit ur campaign.

Well in a sorts. Its designed to follow WW2 in a alt history way. I.E sometimes Japan capitulating the Chinese and sometimes not. So a lot of alt history thats memes is still set in ww2. Just different military beasts.
For example. Bulgaria going fascist is conquering the bosphurus. Its not historical but it fits nicely. Some doesn't like communist Japan. And on this nite, if you put AI on historical you wont see alt history unless the player takes in game choices to change things.

 

[TalyonUngol]

The issue I have with alt-history is that it usually results in scenarios that are too easy if you have AI set to historical (because you end up making the side you leave weaker and the side you join stronger), or if you have AI set to ahistorical it often does crazy things and then the historical immersion is broken.

So you either get:
1. Easy game
2. Ridiculous game that isn't any fun

You can solve this by manually setting AI to specific paths, but that's tedious work that requires you to know a focus tree so you don't mess up countries it interacts with, and it's not as fun as having more dynamic reactions to events. So for that reason, I don't really play alt-history anymore.

I think everyone plays alt history in some form. But i get what you mean. But there isn't any fix to the making sides weaker or stronger. Its just how it is. If Germany joins allies Italy or Soviet or Japan is tje only ones left.

 

[Lord Hoosier]

USSR must be really, REALLY good to justify the lack of Finland. And when Finland rolls around, she better mesh well with NSB Soviets and vice versa.

It cannot just be Kalmar Union memes for all the Scandinavians with slightly different paths. I doubt that will be received as warmly as BftB.

 

[Bolshevik-]

How in the world did you guys leave out Finland in a eastern front DLC. You make the excuse oh we didn't have time. Well maybe don't focus on 3 useless nations and make time for Finland. Finland was one of the most important minor nations on the eastern front and leaving them out is an absolute disgrace. I will not buy this DLC and I hope this DLC gets review bombed.

At least we get Estonia.

 

[xtfoster]

Several points to take away from this:

1) because a bunch of turkish players wanted Turanic memes in the game more than Scandinavia, Finland couldn't be included in the DLC with it's primary antagonist The Soviet Union (why was Finland ever grouped together with the Scandics in the first place!?).

No, that isn't what he said.
The Turkish Country Pack (BftB) was done before the Scandinavian Country Pack because there was more of a call for it. It probably would NEVER have been part of the "Russia" Expansion, because expansions are Mechanics heavy and Finland plus USSR (and Poland) would have been too much.

2) because a conflict, which intrinsically contains aspects important to the Soviet Union (defensive warfare, winter warfare, guerilla / ranger style warfare) is hard to do, it is better to skip it in favor of Scandi countries, for whom only one (maybe...) that aspect is even remotely important in this time period historically

You know, as much as the Finland fanatics like to claim, the Winter/Continuation Wars weren't much of the war on the eastern front. Winter War: 70k Finnish Casualties vs ~350k Soviets. Continuation War: 225k Finnish vs ~900k Soviet.
Eastern Front: Axis ~5m vs Soviet 9m

 

[batata1]

Something for Finland is better than nothing, but we're being sold the major Eastern Front DLC without a huge chunk of the Eastern Front receiving proper attention.

Only once Finland has been worked on to a sufficient degree will the Eastern Front work as it ought to.

"huge chunk"? Soviet dead in the Winter War were about 0.5% of their Eastern Front casualties. The entire campaign had fewer men involved than individual major operations like Uranus, Kursk and Bagration, or even lesser known ones like Mars.

 

[fr-rein]

"huge chunk"? Soviet dead in the Winter War were about 0.5% of their Eastern Front casualties. The entire campaign had fewer men involved than individual major operations like Uranus, Kursk and Bagration, or even lesser known ones like Mars.

You know, as much as the Finland fanatics like to claim, the Winter/Continuation Wars weren't much of the war on the eastern front. Winter War: 70k Finnish Casualties vs ~350k Soviets. Continuation War: 225k Finnish vs ~900k Soviet.
Eastern Front: Axis ~5m vs Soviet 9m

Finnish front meant half a million soviet soldiers stuck in there, about 10% of army during the Barbarossa campaign. It's not a neglegible amount of troops at all, especially equipped and trained ones.

Furthermore, Finns were instrumental in sieging Leningrad and defacto cutting off this large industrial center which had a major impact on Soviet war effort.

Finns were very important to the northern part of Barbarossa and an integral part of it. Not just auxiliaries.

Lastly, it is very cynical to pretend that Eastern Front and Barbarossa have nothing to do with Finland. It wasn't marketed as a "regional" DLC, but as a thing about Eastern Front. At least until the "formal" reveal at PDXcon.

The worst part, however, is that Finland will have to wait many years while South America, Middle East, Italy and a few other regions may get revisited, with some macabre discussions about how Brazil/Italy/Bhutan/Saudis/Ethiopia/Ryukyu/Germany/Hungary/Romania need rework first and how Finland is a small irrelevant nation compared to those - the discussion that is bound to occur. All because Finland will get robbed out of it's WWII Eastern Front context.

 

[Fulmen]

You know, as much as the Finland fanatics like to claim, the Winter/Continuation Wars weren't much of the war on the eastern front. Winter War: 70k Finnish Casualties vs ~350k Soviets. Continuation War: 225k Finnish vs ~900k Soviet.
Eastern Front: Axis ~5m vs Soviet 9m

Your casualty figures are off: some of them include all casualties, some of them only the deaths, and some of them are just plain wrong (looking at "350k Soviets" in particular here).

I have quite a bit of material on the Winter, Continuation and Lapland Wars and have done a good amount of research on those wars. I've made a post in the past where I listed the strengths and casualty figures for the Winter War according to the data I have, and I'll paste an updated version of that here. The figures involve only military personnel and certain types of vehicles. The casualties are in brackets.

Finnish Front 30.11.1939-13.3.1940

Soviet Union
1,500,000-2,000,000 men (200,000-300,000 KIA/DOW/MIA, excl. POW, 300,000-600,000 WIA, 5,000 POW, total: c. 500,000-900,000 men)
c. 6,541 tanks (3,179 were "lost" on the Karelian Isthmus alone, hundreds in other sectors, of which 2,268 to enemy action, the rest to breakdowns. Hundreds were however repaired or had parts salvaged from post-war)
c. 5,000 aircraft (1,000 lost, possibly more, c. 650-700 to enemy action)

Finland
c. 371,500 men (19,576 KIA, 3,273 MIA, of which c. 1,000 POW, 43,557 WIA, of which 1,437 DOW, total: 66,046 men)
38 tanks: 20 Renault FT-17s, used as static emplacements, many equipped only with an MG, 18 Vickers 6-tons towards the end of the war (22 lost: 16 FT-17s and 6 Vickers 6-tons).
c. 230 aircraft (64 lost, 47 to enemy action; 35 to enemy aircraft, 8 to AA)

The format is a bit messy but I hope that was comprehensible enough. I won't do strengths for the Continuation War in this post, so the casualties for that conflict should be easier to read:

Finnish Front 25.6.1941-19.9.1944

Soviet Union
c. 210,000 KIA/DOW/MIA, excluding POW
c. 550,000 WIA
64,000 POW
c. 2,792-3,000 aircraft (excluding non-combat losses)
c. 1,408 tanks, including assault guns and tank destroyers, of which several hundred were repaired or had parts salvaged from (excluding non-combat losses)

Total: c. 824,000 men

Note that the total losses of the Northern, Karelian and Leningrad Fronts, as well as those of the 7th and 14th Armies in 1941-45 were 688,145 dead or captured and 1,724,788 wounded, with 1945 making up 59,852 of the total casualties.

Finland
38,842 KIA
158,313 WIA, of which 13,260 DOW
6,912 MIA, of which 2,377-3,500 POW
215 aircraft to enemy action; 85 to enemy aircraft, 67 to AA, 23 destroyed at airfields, 18 from other enemy action, and 208 in accidents for a total of 423 aircraft
c. 50-60 tanks and assault guns

Total: 204,067 men

Regarding the Germans, looking at OKW figures the total irrecoverable losses on the Eastern Front seem to be in the ballpark of 2,500,000, with another c. 3,700,000 wounded & sick. I don't know if the WIA figure has the DOW correctly subtracted to avoid double counting in total casualties, though I doubt it is. It's also worth mentioning that minor battlefield wounds were often treated in the field and were not logged, and that this was probably rather universal across nations.

As for the Russians on the rest of the Eastern Front, Russian Military Archives have the card files from 1941-45 on over 14 million Red Army soldiers in dead alone, meaning their total casualties are likely at least around 30 million. Wikipedia, for all its inadequacies and inaccuracies, does have quite an interesting page on Soviet WW2 casualties. Here's a quote from there:

"David Glantz maintains that "the war with Nazi Germany cost the Soviet Union at least 29 million military casualties" (dead, wounded and sick) "The exact numbers can never be established, and some revisionists have attempted to put the number as high as 50 million""

Indeed the Finnish Front is dwarfed by the rest of the Eastern Front, even if you include the Winter War, which saw the Russians concentrate more tanks and aircraft against the Finns than what the Germans invaded Russia with in June 1941. Nonetheless whether you believe the high estimates or the low estimates, the amount of casualties in men and materiel the Finns caused the Russians in WW2 is massive, and should not be ignored in a game like HoI.

 

[kimidf]

USSR must be really, REALLY good to justify the lack of Finland. And when Finland rolls around, she better mesh well with NSB Soviets and vice versa.

It cannot just be Kalmar Union memes for all the Scandinavians with slightly different paths. I doubt that will be received as warmly as BftB.

He is convinced that the Soviet rework is up to the expectations of him.

The developers will surely put a very worked tree in this sense although they will surely put some meme things in the alternative history as usual in most new trees for a while


I personally with all the new mechanics is putting more new trees that they brought I do not need a Finnish tree as a stimulus, since its value in this dlc would be commercially null and instead I perfectly understand that they would be a great stimulus for a future Scandinavian dlc

 

[him_15]

Hopefully there would be some tweak for the Germany focus tree as well.

 

[kimidf]

Hopefully there would be some tweak for the Germany focus tree as well.

I think later there will be a round of major modifications for important nations such as the great powers and I think they will save it for later and it is obvious that both Japan and Germany will be the first to enter these lists due to their age.

 

[EmperorBatman999]

I mean, I guess if they plan on having the Scandinavia tree on-deck, then I'd be for them postponing Finland. However, if they aren't planning Scandinavia, either for the near future or at all, then they should have included Finland.

It is a shame that we are starting to discuss getting choosey over countries to focus on, considering the age of the game. Here was I looking forward to Iran or Brazil focus trees...