The Winter War.

[Insigna]

It should work better.

It seems like the Soviets have an unhistorical advantage in the winter war. In reality they had hapless commanders and troops but in the game they usually crush Finland. Yet in the reality the Fins dominated the war. Events end the war when Russia occupies Helsinki but the Soviets would probably have gone for more. Also Sweden almost went to war to help the Fins so it should be in as a possible event. During WWII one of Finland’s main reasons to join the Axis was to gain German equipment. The fins should get some recourses if they join the Axis.

Also more in General it always bugged me that Germany has so much less eventual potential then the Soviets. I know they were both weak but he Soviets were far weaker until the Germans made some bad mistakes, yet in the Game the Soviets always dominate and the Germans struggle. It is too easy for the Soviets to build up and recover and not easy enough for the Germans.

 

[unmerged(21104)]

although the game is in some aspects historical ... it cant be made 100% historical or we would all know how it all was going to end ...here u have the oportunity to make dif. choices from those of the historical leaders and to get a dif. result 'changing history' acordingly ... thats why its soo cool game ...
if that is hapening it just means that the Soviets here are smarter than the historical counterpart ...

 

[unmerged(9076)]

But the game should model the initial conditions based on historical reality, and then allow for AI and player flexibility. If we end up with a ten times out of ten 'Soviets crush Finland' scenario, then something is wrong with the setup.

 

[unmerged(21104)]

im not very into the history of winter war ... but i dont believe finland had much chance vs Soviet union. Despite they managed very well IRL i dont believe if we could go back time they would have done it again.

 

[Insigna]

I think they would do well. The Fins did well on all fronts in every battle week after week.

It should be implemented in the game in a fashion such as this:
Stalin is a bad leader and is bad for his nations output. His average generals are anxious to betray him or start a coup so the player must decide to have average generals who are going to cause trouble to the player/AI or he can sack those average generals for terrible ones. Those terrible generals and the ill prepared troops invade Finland but then get beat.
The End.

 

[unmerged(21104)]

well what i was trying to say ... is ... for example ... if the fins performance was due to a bad decision on the timing of the attack like starting the attack with a bad weather forecast or something like that ... then its obviously wrong to assume they would always win ... we cant know if they would make the same decision 10 times.
Because if u think of it ... russia have alot of res compared to fins res. they couldnt stand long. IIRC they where hoping for machine guns from the allies ... etc etc
we need to face it ... they indeed fought well, not trying to make the fins worse or the russians better, ... but they probly used the russian mistakes the best way but it could as easily gone the other way ... like the russians making less/no mistakes or the fins not managing to use those mistakes made to theyr best. Like in everything there is always the raddom/luck factor.

 

[unmerged(12388)]

Winter War lasted over 100 days. There's no way bad weather during the initial soviet assault would have mattered all that time. Also in Continuation War finns regularly kicked soviet butt, be it summer or winter, so the season didn't matter either.

Also, Continuation War began with the finns on the offensive, so it's not a matter about defensive victories only. It all boiled down to sisu, smart use of terrain, better organization than the soviets and using your advantages against their weaknesses.

Given same initial settings, I'm pretty sure we'd see it again, with some slight variations.

 

[unmerged(23993)]

Finnish even started a big counterattack, in Karelia isthmus(main battle zone, best infrastructure) some days after the war started, but it failed. Also by the end of the war, all soviet invaders(except in isthmus) had been destroyed and prewar border recovered.

 

[unmerged(11610)]

The problem is that in HoI Russian had too many divisions attacking. IRL, they had about 25 divisions to counter 9 Finnish divisions. In game I usually see 40+ divisions. Finnish are crushed soon and supplies&manpower are lost. Even if Finland survive Winter War they do not have enough supplies&manpower to last continous war. In continous war Finland was much more prepared and advanced to gate of Leningrad.

IRL Finns killed Russians in ratio 1:10. In the end of Winter war Finnish lines broked and there were no means to stop Russian advance. But then peace came and Finnish survived. USSR wanted to stop war beacause UK was ready to support Finland. If Russians had continued to advance surely they have reached Helsinki in few extra months, but with how many Russians lost? I'm sure Finnish would have fighted to the end. That's what surprised Russians, they were not prepared to such resistance Finns did. There is a story that Russians were prepared to march Finland with drums and horns.

Russian tactics were very bad during war. They attacked in masses against digged Finns. No wonder Russians lost so many during the war. Also it was very cold winter and some Russian soldiers came from south and had not winter expirience.

There is a very good website about Winter war, check it out!

 

[Grosshaus]

Finland is always a problem in every WW2 game. If you go with historical performance based on Winter War you'll end up with Finnish-dominated Europe, if you compare equipments and manpower you'll see Finland fall within weeks.

Luckily this is a problem that faces full-scale global campaigns, in historical mini-scenarios HoI2 will have you don't need to worry about Finland conquering Sweden if it's boosted enough to manage against Soviets.

 

[unmerged(25612)]

Ermmhhh...

In my humble opinion the reason for this, amongst a gazillion of other things is that being at war is too cheap in the game.

In reality the Russians used very little resources in the Finnish front... One army group and some planes... not much really.. That together with poor leadership and inadequate planning brought an end to the Russian claims.

But with the current state of game, USSR will move all of its army against our porr little nation and overrun it with 20 tank division, 10 fighter divisions and a horde of bombers and fleets.

Mobilization, especially pre-Barbarossa mobilization should be much costier for Russia, both in terms of IC and prestige (Relations)...

One should not forget that Stalin was not expecting Finns to put a fight, he thought that a swift attack through the Isthmus and capturation of Helsinki would be enough. Baltic states never got this far as they agreed to give the military bases that USSR wented... And we all know the rest...

 

[unmerged(13933)]

In HOI the situation is very unhistorical. AFAIK there's an event that triggers the end of winterwar and it's the soviet occupation of Helsinki. Not only is it unhistorical but would'nt they have invaded the whole country then?

The problem here is that there's not enough provinces to simulate the historical battles! I mean the Soviet's were stuck into the Karelian isthmus for the whole war. They got near Vyborg and thats halfway acros the HOI province we see in the game. But now they grab the whole province and then it's next stop Helsinki. :wacko:

Only conclusion is that if Paradox would like to simulate the winter war better, then they should add more provinces in to the region! IMO it's almost pointless in HOI1 to play Finland.

 

[unmerged(14683)]

About the cost of being at war... It's not that high for human player, but it's huge for the AI. All the sudden all the trade deals are lost and USSR starts converting oil to rubber, 80% of units are moved, so supply use doubles... What's more, Soviets not benefit from halved CG.

Long Winter War is a disaster for AI controlled USSR.

I would also add, that implementing province stacking limits (each unit above the limit got effectiveness reduced) could really help to balance conflicts like Winter War, in Africa, Norway and so on.

 

[unmerged(20829)]

I would also add, that implementing province stacking limits (each unit above the limit got effectiveness reduced) could really help to balance conflicts like Winter War, in Africa, Norway and so on.

I agree, it should be an infrastructure related thing, low infrastructures = less troops.

 

[unmerged(12388)]

I believe in FAQ there was a mention that in HoI2 there is more provinces. But is there any addition in Finland? Devs, anyone?

 

[unmerged(15623)]

Long Winter War is a disaster for AI controlled USSR.

And to make it worse, the AI simply does not care. To heck with the economics, Finland shall be mine!

 

[unmerged(23487)]

The main problem really is in the AI's tendency to throw everything they have towards Finland.

 

[unmerged(4933)]

Only conclusion is that if Paradox would like to simulate the winter war better, then they should add more provinces in to the region! IMO it's almost pointless in HOI1 to play Finland.

This was a HUGE disappointment with me in HOI. Playing as the Finns was what I looked forward to the most with HOI but it was a total flop when I tried playing as them. I like the game as a whole, though, and I guess it's impossible for it to simulate *everything* well...

 

[unmerged(11610)]

There have to be some hardcoded stuff only for Finland to make it realistic.

I too don't want to see Finland conquering whole Europe, but I would love to see them defend as they did in Winter war and later.

 

[unmerged(24514)]

Someone here had a very good idea about infrastructure support, I would think it would make a great addition to the game, IMO if they did it right, a territory can only support X amount of units, where X is of course based on it's infrastructure, all units placed on it afterwards should take attrition damage. However, with that I would like to see the whole attrition thing from low-infrastructure provinces removed, one thing I never liked when playing HoI, was when I moved into a bad area my men would just die all over the place, and there is nothing i can do about it [unless I missed some important feature of the game, but I generally tend to shy away from conquering dirt-ball lands, so i wouldn't know hehe]

Back to the winter-war, I to was disappointed when I tried a game as Finland early on n the game, sourly disappointed really, so few territories and those that I did have were garbage. No chance at all when the Soviets come rolling across the border with a bajillion divisions, unless of course I go crazy and attack my western neighbors first so I can have possibly a decent economy actualy keep fighting those damn Russians. More territory for the Fins!