BUT if I skip the Finnish winter war altogether the Finns won't declare against me 1941, eliminating an entire front and freeing units...But 200 divs of militia sure sounds good....Arty on militia or?
No, do not skip the Winter War. Because then you will not get -10 dissent, which is worth that 200 militia divs. And why would you build any artillery brigades? Only sense of that is once you go on the offensive and get command limits in your way.
If you skip the Winter War, you will have 200 divs less. You can easily defeat Finland with 20-30 divs in a week, once Barbarossa begins. Or even dow them after the Winter War, but before Barbarossa.
There is no reason why you should have any dissent at this point in the game... After 4 years go by + MR pact it can easily be at 0. If you carry your starting + purge dissent with you all the way through to 1940 that will cost you many more IC days. As bingo mentioned, eliminating the Finnish front is very, very important.
The best strategy is to constantly keep a balance between killing dissent and building IC. During the early parts of the scen 36-38 you have an insignificant amount of base IC, so the effect of dissent is a lot less. Not to mention you will get -5 dissent from Eastern Poland, -10 from Finland, -2 and -2 from 'research investments' as you get money.
The earlier you build your factories, the better they can pay for themselves. Back in Arma-AoD i recall it took a factory 5 years to repay it's IC value (+/- modifiers).
So why should you waste IC your on killing dissent if you get the events that are going to kill it
for free? Instead use the IC on building more IC. Is 0 dissent going to give you more effective IC than building more base IC more early? ...no.
With the general strategy above I have been able to get a minimum of 600 IC and 600 divisions by June 22 1941. In Arma, in AoD, even in DH with the extended building times.
If you get 700 IC and 700 divisions by June 22 1941 with your strategy, I'd like to hear the details. Because I used exactly the same method of Finland 1st, dissent 1st a couple of years ago, and it left me to 500 & 500.
As bingo mentioned, eliminating the Finnish front is very, very important.
Finland has a roughly 25 divisions, which doesn't make the Finnish front
that very very important considering you have 600 divisions 1941, 800 1942. It might be understandable if you are playing MP and believe that Germany will ship 200 divs to Finland... but even then it is better for them to send their divs to rough terrain which is of minimal IC/MP value. Not to mention if you go with 'bring them socialism', the NAP with Germany will get cancelled, and you might face a Barbarossa in 1940. A Soviet player wants the Barbarossa as late as possible.
Plus you can always Dow Finland after the Winter War before Barbarossa.
You have to at least try. Pumping out militia from the start means that the best case senario is a long, boring superstack war with Germany. And even if you win you have no chance against the USA.
Germany cannot achieve superstacks until 42-43 if you let Barbarossa drag long, or Germany plays his cards well. Militia is more cost effective than the other units, and if you properly use HQ's and Field Marshals to attack with 24 divs per prov, and even have 12 divs reorganising at the same time to attack in waves, you will not face a long stalemate.
As I said before, the primary time to build militia is while you are on the defensive. Once the tide turns you can swift your focus to mechanized forces and aircraft.
Against the Allies you will need a huge number of forces across the world. You cannot achieve 1000 divs by 43 without building militia. Militia is ideal for defending beaches (you will need plenty of men defending the beaches), and advancing in poor terrain/infrastructure because of their extra morale. Your infantry would never advance in Africa with their superior organization to militia anyway.
Again, militia is mainly defensive. However they are just as useful on the offensive as long as the battles are fought within command limits. If you let Germany/Allies to start having 300-400 divs, then militia becomes defensive because of the command limits.
