Level 3: Penetrating Attack – attack most of Baltic States, Belorussia, Ukraine, Karelia, Archangel, West Russia, and Caucasus, with the idea of holding the border territories and trading Leningrad/Stalingrad.
- Level 4: Maximum Attack – attack all of Soviet Union west of Moscow, and expect to hold it for at least one full turn.
In my opinion, Level 4 should be impossible from our starting setup without amazing luck or a German bid. It is not fun for the Russian player to immediately lose everything west of Moscow and be unable to take any of it back on R1. It is also unrealistic – it took Hitler five months to make it from Poland to the gates of Moscow, which probably represents at least two game turns. Because it is not fun and not realistic for Germany to immediately conquer everything west of Moscow, that should not be allowed to happen in our setup. Do you agree?
If you agree, then there are some major problems with your v3 and v4 setups. First, if you put 4 infantry in Finland, then Germany can easily use the Finnish infantry plus 2-3 planes to conquer Karelia on G1, or at least wipe out all but one of the starting Russian infantry there. Similarly, Germany can easily use the Italy / Southern Europe infantry plus 2-3 planes to conquer Caucasus on G1. Combined with the lack of starting Russian infantry in Archangel and West Russia, this means that Russia literally has nothing left that can counter-attack in Baltic States, Belorussia, or Ukraine. Germany does not have to worry about leaving tanks exposed on the “front line”, because Germany has already wiped out a whole second row of territories beyond the front line. It’s all dead. Russia loses all its starting units west of Moscow, and therefore basically loses its whole first turn. All Russia can do is build infantry and move reinforcements forward from central Asia. Russia cannot even afford to re-take the Caucasus, because whatever Russia puts in the Caucasus will get hit (and killed) again on G2 at a profit for Germany.
Despite all this, with enough starting income and enough Russian starting infantry in Moscow / Novsibirsk / Vologda / Evenki / Kazakh, I think it will usually be possible for Russia to hold Moscow and eventually launch a counter-attack on R3 or R4, which is part of what you want. But I still don’t think this is fun for Russia! Russia should get to do something in the opening other than just sit around and wait for its recruiting to start making a difference. It is one thing for Germany to have the advantage in Eastern Europe in the opening; it’s another to give all of Russia west of Moscow to Germany without a real fight. Conquering Archangel / West Russia / Caucasus will be much more fun for Germany (and more fair to Russia) if Germany has to earn those territories by attacking wisely over 2 turns, instead of just using a standard opening move that will work 95%+ of the time.
Adding more infantry to Moscow or a tank to Evenki does not really fix this problem, because the units are too far away from the front line. It helps make sure Moscow will hold, but it does nothing to help Russia counter-attack eastern Europe.
You say you want to allow a single counter TT on R1, which I assume means that on R1, Russia should be able to successfully counter-attack one territory that Germany took on G1. Which territory did you have in mind? With the map as you have it now, I do not see any such territories.
East Asian Mainland
I do not want to disturb the Yakut / Vologda setup…I think it works very nicely. 3 inf, 1 art, 1 AAA gives Yakut a solid backstop. If combined with the Buryatia + SFE forces, Russia winds up with 7 inf, 1 art, 1 AAA, which is enough to absorb a medium-sized Japanese attack or to go on the offense against a small Japanese garrison. This can be the new “standard move,” and if Russia wants to bring the Siberia Guard home more quickly, the 3 inf, 1 art in Yakut can go to Europe, while the 4 inf, 1 AAA stay in place in Yakut as a small deterrent to force Japan to bring in significant forces to take Siberia. If Russia wants to go heavy in the Pacific, it can bring in the Vologda forces to wind up with 8 inf, 1 art, 1 tnk, 1 AAA, which is a serious threat to Japanese interests in east Asia. One or both of the Vologda units (inf, tnk) could also go to China, instead. I think this all works well as-is and I do not want to disturb it.
You suggest increasing the starting Japanese forces, and I am not totally opposed to the idea. Maybe they need +1 tank or something. I do not want to increase them too much, because the point is to give China a chance to hold and even grow if Japan does not invest in crushing them. The point is not to just rewind the 1942 battles by two turns and have them all come out exactly as scripted. If Japan needs more starting forces (and it might), then I would like to put them in Tokyo, not in Manchuria. That way Japan can choose to ship the forces to China, or leave them in Tokyo for defense, or send them to Australia, Hawaii, Alaska, etc – it is Japan’s choice how to use those troops.
I reviewed your game where Japan was eliminated on turn 4, and I think you got very unlucky in Hawaii (on low luck, you had only 1% chance to lose the land battle as Japan with your 3 inf, 1 art vs. 1 inf, 1 ftr), and then after that you mis-handled the Japanese forces. You lost all of your transports on turns 1 and 2, but you still kept buying land forces for Tokyo, and then you had no way to ship those forces off of Tokyo to the front lines. After you lost the remnants of your fleet in your second attack on the Hawaiian sea zone, the Allies effectively had naval superiority across the entire Pacific Ocean, but you continued to build destroyers and transports as if the Japanese sea zone was safe, and the Allies were able to sink those new Japanese boats at a profit. Finally, when America was getting ready to invade Japan, you continued to build some boats and tanks, and you put 3 units into your Manchurian factory, instead of max-placing infantry in Tokyo to force the Allies into a longer, less profitable military buildup.
I think it is fine to put one starting airplane each on Caroline Islands, Wake, and Midway if you want to. I think the islands are already somewhat useful as a place to do emergency landings of aircraft that started out on carriers (and as a place to land “surplus” planes if you want to fly them over from Los Angeles / Tokyo in excess of the number of carriers you have in position), but I can see where adding starting aircraft would be a fun way to get those islands into even more regular use.
I am strongly opposed to the direction you are taking the US Pacific fleets. We keep adding more and more ships to San Francisco, while leaving Hawaii basically the same. In your v4, America has only 32 IPCs in Pearl Harbor, out of 170 IPCs total in the Pacific. This means that even if Japan sinks everything in Pearl Harbor, it does not “cripple” US naval power, even temporarily. We need to make a decision about whether attacking the San Francisco fleet on J1 should be (a) impossible, (b) possible but reckless, © an interesting anti-American opening option, or (d) the standard move. I think (d) is a bad idea because it means lots more putting pieces onto the starting setup only to take them off the board again before you get your first turn. Just like it is not fun for Russia to lose everything west of Moscow before R1, it is not fun for USA to lose everything west of Mexico before USA-1. I am fine with (a), (b), or © as long as the US will have a reasonable US-1 counter-attack. I like the idea of forcing America to respond to a strong anti-American opening by Japan by diverting fighters from Eastern US and spending 30+ IPCs in the Pacific on US-1 – this way Japan can choose to indirectly support Germany by forcing the USA to focus in the Pacific in the early game instead of allowing the US to proceed with Operation Torch.
Thai air force vs. Indian BB
This is fine; I like the way it works.
