The Struggle For Europe - Soviet

[Marko]

Here are news from my final playtest of Struggle For Europe scenario as Soviet Union.

Settings: Hard version, Deity, Starting point May 1940, Human player Soviet Union.

May 1940:

Started preparations for war. I concentrate my main forces to defence of Minsk and Kijev.

In Western Front Germany started advance toward Paris.

[Marko]

June 1940:

I made regrouping of naval forces: bring submarines from Tallinn to Leningrad and all Black sea fleet to Sevastopol. Also build War Academys in most cities in order to produce elite units.

Paris fell. Italian army invaded to Tunis and Greece.

[Marko]

July 1940:

Rushbuild different science facilities. Main strongpoints against Germany will be Murmansk, Leningrad, Minsk, Kijev and Dnepropetrovsk. Tank armies are placed to Minsk and Kijev.

[Marko]

AUGUST 1940:

Italians attacked British Egypt.

[Marko]

SEPTEMBER 1940:

Continuing war preparations.

[Marko]

OCTOBER 1940

Continuing war preparations.

[klesh]

Marko,

Are you building up Soivet Cities with improvements etc, or are you strictly building up arms? The Soviet units must really be worthless at the start because it seems like you have quite awhile to prepare when playing as the Soviets. Could you elaborate a bit on your preparations?

[Marko]

At the beginning of the scenario Soviets have quite normal-sized tank army of T-26, BT-7 and T-28 tanks plus some T-35, T-34, KV-1 and KV-2. These tanks are no way inferior to German panzers but you can't build any more.
You need to discover Mobile Warfare II and III which allow building of T-34 and KV tanks. Usually players are able to get these technologies during winter 40/41.
1940 is roughly for building up industry and first half of 1941 for creating modern army.
When Germans attack in June 1941 you must already have strong economy and good army. If you don't you are doomed.
Germans are superior in the air, building of air defences is also very important.
So, that is what I'm doing. I plan to stall Axis offensive quite near the border.
Still no reason to underestimate Germans - people who playtested hard version lost all games as Soviets. Problem was Luftwaffe which simply destroyed Soviet tank armies. You are not able to get good fighters before 1942-43 and then Wehrmacht is already nearing to Urals.
In latest version I added fortifications to all important Soviet cities. They defend well against air attacks and must slow Germans down.
See yourself! I started just now making packages for playtesters.


[This message has been edited by Marko (edited January 31, 2001).]

[DarthVeda]

No way should the player be able to build T-34 in numbers that early.

[Marko]

Why not? Soviet Union started mass-producing T-34 already in Summer 1940.
June 22, 1941 they had 992 T-34 and 466 KV-1 tanks.

[DarthVeda]

They had some 1200 at the Invasion in 1941. But, what I think I mean is that the player shouldn't be able to have like 50 T-34 units at the start of the invasion...

[Marko]

I got 992 as number of T-34s before the invasion from two different sources: from output of factories (Factory no 183 and Kirov factory) from 1940 and first half of 1941; and sum number of T-34s in Soviet Mech Corps in June 22, 1941:

1st Mech Corps - 8 T-34 and 6 KV (total 1011 tanks)
2nd Mech Corps - 46 T-34 and 10 KV (total 489 tanks)
3rd Mech Corps - 109 T-34 and 52 KV (total 640 tanks)
4st Mech Corps - 359 T-34 and 99 KV (total 892 tanks)
5th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 1070 tanks)
6th Mech Corps - 238 T-34 and 114 KV (total 1021 tanks)
7th Mech Corps - 30 T-34 and 10 KV (total 1024 tanks)
8th Mech Corps - 100 T-34 and 71 KV (total 858 tanks)
9th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 258 tanks)
10th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 840 tanks)
11th Mech Corps - 28 T-34 and 3 KV (total 237 tanks)
12th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 793 tanks)
13th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 294 tanks)
14th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 520 tanks)
15th Mech Corps - 72 T-34 and 64 KV (total 733 tanks)
16th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 608 tanks)
17th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 36 tanks)
18th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 280 tanks)
19th Mech Corps - 2 T-34 and 6 KV (total 450 tanks)
20th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 93 tanks)
21th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 98 tanks)
22th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 and 31 KV (total 707 tanks)
23th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 431 tanks)
24th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 222 tanks)
25th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 300 tanks)
26th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 184 tanks)
27th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 358 tanks)
28th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 869 tanks)
30th Mech Corps - 0 T-34 or KV (total 1050 tanks)

You can be right that there were around 1200 T-34 because I have no data about 29th Mech Corps and some sources say that 23 and 25th Mech Corps had some T-34s. Plus Soviets had tanks in infantry divisions plus some independent tank divisions (last ones still didn't have any T-34 or KV as I remember..).

Beginning of the Soviet-German war is one of the hardest point in creating WW2 Europe Civ2 scenario where human plays for Russia. Soviets had huge armies but Germans still reached near Moscow. As AI is weak strategist the common solution has been make Soviets very weak (they can't build good weapons or prepare for war) and Axis strong.
I have tried to make The Struggle For Europe as historically accurate as possible without damaging gameplay. So the player can build T-34s before the war AND Germany reach to Moscow. Of course Axis advance is not unstoppable, good player must be able to stop it at some point. But it is very hard. Wait the release of the scenario and look yourself!


[This message has been edited by Marko (edited February 01, 2001).]