@TG:
I dunno, even if Japan did invade Russia, they would have eventually ended up overextending themselves like the Germans (only this time, the time to Moscow is much, much further). It would only be a matter of time before the Russian struck back - en force.
with what force?
the one occupied with the Germans?
Also w.r.t. the whole “accuracy/balance” debate, I think that A&A does not a bad job of getting both together. Each nation has its strengths and weaknesses based loosely on WWII history, with similar field/naval placements etc.
And i agree that although historical accuracy is nice, what is the point of playing against an equal opponant if you know which one of you is going to lose (or win) the game every time? For example Mr. Ghoul, if you and i were to play game X - perfectly balanced, i believe that it would be around a 60/40 - 40/60 split for us as to who would win (giving us a bit of a window) as i think that we are fairly comparitive in our abilities etc. At the same time, if every time we played we knew that there was a 90/10 or so, it would take some of the fun out, no?
Nothing you didn’t already know, but we need to find another way of making things more “historically accurate” while maintaining balance.