Deployments Options for Neutral Russia Questions

[Edwin P.]

What factors impact upon Russian troop deployment while Russia is neutral?

Are their penalties for not deploying units along the German border?

Are their deployment restrictions for the Russian player?

While Russia is neutral can it DOW neutral Finland? If this is allowed does such an action impact the chance of Sweden, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria joining the Axis?

[pzgndr]

At present there are no restrictions on Russian deployments. No event penalties for having too many or too few troops on the border, like there are for Germans. We'll see how it goes. Having it open-ended offers a lot of strategy possibilities for Allied players to consider.

Russia cannot DOW anyone until they activate. It would be nice to see this changed eventually, but that will have to be an enhancement for later.

[Edwin P.]

Considering the pre-war situtation, I would think that Neutral Russia should be able to DOW neutral Finland, Sweden, Romania, Turkey, Iraq and Iran; alas this will have to wait until later.

That said, such actions would likely have caused other nations to align themselves with Germany for their own protection. It may also have negatively impact American war readiness due to the red scare prevelant in the US at that time.

Example: Neutral Russia attacks Finland

This may cause neighboring Sweden to join the Axis alliance and will improve German relations with Romania and Bulgaria

If Russia is successful in attacking Finland the Northern front is secured against invasion, its economic base grows and Russian troops gain valuable experience. However, diversion of troops to the Finish front will weaken its front with Germany and may cause other nations to join the Axis.

Example: Neutral Russia attacks Iran

This may cause neighboring Turkey to join the Axis alliance and will improve German relations with Romania and Bulgaria.

Allowing such actions in SC2 would open up a wider range of strategies for the Russian player to pursue, although at great risk.

---------------------------------------------

Note: If Russia were to attack Finland, the Axis player should see a pop-up on his turn that gives him 3 options if Finland has not surrendered.

1. Declare War on Russia (Finland joins Axis while Germany is drawn into an early war with Russia)

2. Send Aid to Finland (Finland does not join Axis but can reinforce and purchase units at a cost in German MPPs)

3. Ignore the attack on Finland (Finland does not join Axis and Germany can continue to prepare for war with Russia)

[ December 29, 2005, 05:32 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[Hueristic]

Nice Post. That would certainely broaden the spectrum of gameplay available. AS well as possibly never seeing USA enter the war!

[JerseyJohn]

Finland was Germany's sole wartime source of several crucial minerals, I believe one of them was nikel. It was so important to Germany that Hitler is on record as joking with his generals that, if the Allies had any brains, they'd direct everything on invading Finland and Germany would be forced to surrender.

Finland figured into the Ribentrop-Molotov Pact, along with Rumania, which explains why the USSR demanded only border regions from both.

It would have been tough for the USSR to launch a successful invasion of either Iran or Iraq, or anything else south of it's own borders either due to terrain or logistics. I think that had more to do with Stalin's not making such moves than political considerations.

Also, if he'd invaded Iran, Iraq or Turkey, it might have resulted in the Allies DoW on him. Which may or may not have resulted in the USSR joining the Axis outright. Hitler might still have invaded Russia and that would have led to an interesting hypothetical situation: the USSR at war with both the Allies and the Axis.

I agree with Hueristic, this is a good topic, Edwin.

[beginner's luck]

I think your option 2 might not be so good.

1. Declare War on Russia (Finland joins Axis while Germany is drawn into an early war with Russia)

2. Send Aid to Finland (Finland does not join Axis but can reinforce and purchase units at a cost in German MPPs)

3. Ignore the attack on Finland (Finland does not join Axis and Germany can continue to prepare for war with Russia)

IMO, all it would do is allow German player to purchase troops(in the name of finland) and start attacking Russia without giving the USSR the increase in MPP's(like they would have if German attacked them out right.). It would be to much of an advantage for the Germans.

But I do like USSR being able to attack Finland per-german fight.Atleast that would be historical.

[ December 29, 2005, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: beginner's luck ]

[Edwin P.]

On a Historical Note:

1. Russia attacked Finland after annexing the Baltic States, but failed to conquer it, though Finland was forced to give up 10% of its territory.

2. Russia invaded Iran in 1941 from the North while the British invaded from the South.

Since the turn of the century, Iran had maintained a cautious policy of courting foreign governments as third powers to balance the influence exerted by the British and Russians. By 1939 that policy had resulted in Germany surpassing Russia as Iran's major trading partner. The economic facts, coupled with rumors and suspicion surrounding the large German enclaves in Iran; and Reza Shah's open admiration of Hitler's Aryan race propaganda, provided the pretext for a joint Soviet and British invasion of Iran on the 25th of August 1941.

Junior Lieutenant Mohammed Ali Sobhani along with 35-40 other new officers loaded onto a bus in Tehran headed for Tabriz, Azerbaijan to join the 3rd Division. At one of the check points along the route, they learned of the Soviet invasion from the north. "I remember as soon as we heard we were all very happy," Sobhani recalled, "because now we would be fighting our real enemy - the Russians."

It was a short and very one sided fight as Soviet armored units rolled into Tabriz aided by advance guards of fifth columnists and infiltraitors who identified key targets and eliminated them before any significant resistance could be organized.

Hasan Javdi, former chairman of the English department at Tehran University, was a child at the time and his parent's home was near one of the German trade missions in Tabriz. He remembers a young begger woman and her child who had camped out on the street in front of his parents home for several months.

On the morning that the skies over Tabriz were filled by black airplanes with red stars , the woman appeared in an officer's uniform at the head of a column of Soviet soldiers. That story is repeated in many variations as part of the folklore of the Soviet invasion of Iran. For Lt. Sobhani and the reinforcements, it meant withdrawal to Teheran and surrender.

Source: http://www.iranian.com/History/Nov97/WWII/index.html

[ December 29, 2005, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[beginner's luck]

Awesome research of the facts of Iran and Finland. Thats one part of this forum I really like.

But as far as SC goes, dont you think that an Axis player would use option #2 as a way to get around the "rules",as gamey as it would be.

I know if I could attack russia without being worried about bringing the full russia war machine to strenght,I would do it. Maybe the beta testers of SC2 see it from another presceptive but I see it make Germany's job real easy.

[Edwin P.]

beginner's luck

I don't think that allowing Germany to purchase untis for Finland would necessarily help Germany, in fact it might even hurt it.

Why?

1. Each Finish unit purchased is one less German unit, and Finish units can't take advantage of German Tech upgrades

2. Build Limits on Finland would limit the number of units that Finland could mobilize.

3. Production time of these units.

4. The longer the war goes on the more experience the Russian troops get.

5. Its easy to bottle up troops in Finland by holding onto Leningrad.

6. The Russian army, if competantly led, may be able to quickly destroy the Finish army. If so, then all German MPPs sent to Finland are gone.

In my view Germany might give Finland enough MPPs to reinforce its units, but will never give them enough to buy new units.

As you said the beta testers might decide to test this scenario and let us know what they think.

The advantage to Russia of taking Finland out of the war early is that it will secure their Norhern front, give their troops experience, and allow them to strengthen their lines along the German border. The real problem for them is that it may also cause Sweden to join the Axis.

It should be noted allowing the German player to purchase reinforcements for Finish units recreates Finland's historical skill in holding off the Russian invaders, who were ill prepared for a winter war.

On September 1, 1939, German troops crashed across the Polish frontier in a blitzkrieg and took Poland in a matter of weeks. Stalin's troops moved into the Baltic States and eastern Poland with ease. On November 26, 1939 a border "incident" at Mainila, which even the Russians did not believe, took place.

On November 30, 1939, it was Stalin's next move. 250,000 Russian troops under the cover of a coordinated air and artillery bombardment crossed into Finland to begin one of the least publicized and most costly campaigns in the annals of military history. It would be a "walk over;" General Meretskov estimated it would take only 10 to 12 days for his 26 well equipped 14,000 man divisions to reach Helsinki. Russian propaganda had been so convincing that it was felt that the Finns would be waving flags and welcoming the Red Army with open arms. Opposing him were nine poorly equipped 11,000-man Finnish divisions.

Meretskov never suspected that his army was about to plunge into a frozen hell, the second coldest winter since 1828, and oppose Mannerheim, probably one of the greatest defensive tacticians since Robert E. Lee. So confident were the Soviets of a quick victory march to Helsinki that they came with parade bands, but without winter uniforms, without supplies for a protracted campaign and without medical services. Even more sinister was the fact that Stalin had purged most of his regular army officers two years earlier and placed most of the responsibility for the army in the hands of political commissars.

For 105 days the world held its breath and learned the word sisu, while Russians died at the incredible rate of nearly 10,000 per day and the Finns lost 250 per day. When the armistice finally came on March 13, 1940, the Finns counted 25,000 dead, 55,000 wounded, and 450,000 homeless, a terrible price for a country of only four million people. However, even the Finns did not know the devastation that they had caused the Russians until years later. All this was at the hands of an army of less than 250,000 (mostly light infantry, home guard units) with hardly any anti-tank weapons (except Molotov cocktails) and 41 operational fighter aircraft. In the words of my father-in-law, Antti Olavi Pönkänen, who fought in this war: "Our lakes are full of dead Russians."

Then on March 13, 1940, it was all over; an armistice was signed. Had the Russians mounted just one more attack, they might have carried it all the way to Helsinki, but they had lost their nerve about the same time the Finns ran out of ammunition.

Under the treaty, Russia received Finland's second largest city, Viipuri, the port of Petsamo on the Arctic Ocean, the Hanko area, all of Lake Ladoga’s shores and the entire Karelian Isthmus, the home of 12 per cent of Finland's population. Finland gave up a total of 22,000 square miles. One Russian general remarked, "We have won enough ground to bury our dead." Khrushchev wrote, "Even in these most favorable conditions it was only after great difficulty and enormous losses that we were finally able to win. A victory at such a cost was actually a moral defeat." According to Khrushchev, 1.5 million men were sent to Finland and one million of them were killed. 1000 aircraft, 2300 tanks and armored cars and an enormous amount of other war materials were lost.

Source: http://www.kaiku.com/winterwar.html

Notes on the historical reasoning behind my choices on which countries neutral Russia should be allowed to attack;

a. Finland - Historically it was attacked by Russia.

b. Sweden - as it feared being attacked by Russia to the extent that it did not aid Finland.

c. Romania - It also took some Romanian land, why not more. (Attacking Romania would likely panic Bulgaria and Turkey into joining the Axis)

d. Iran - Historically it invaded Iran (in conjunction with the UK) and Russia has always wanted a warm water port.

e. Turkey - Conquest of Turkey would give Soviet Russia direct access to the Mediterrean, and these two countries have never been friends. (Given the terrain of Turkey any neutral Russian player would be foolish to attack it.)

f. Iraq - Oil, a warm water port and a weak government. (Any Russian conquest of Iraq would end merchant shipping from Iraq to the UK and thus reduce UK production.)

[ December 29, 2005, 05:44 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[pzgndr]

There is an event for the Winter War with Finland:

Treaty of Moscow and the Soviet-Finnish Winter War – A territory event. There will be a 60% chance per turn after February 12, 1940, that USSR annexes territory from Finland following the end of their Winter War. The historical date was March 12, 1940.

This gives the Russians a few more tiles and doesn't change much else. Statistically there's a slim chance it might not happen at all by Barbarossa...

Just having the opportunity to conduct research and production for a neutral Russia and having the freedom to deploy as desired is fascinating. There may be other things we can consider later, like allowing neutral Russia to attack other neutrals like Turkey, but this is minor stuff. The important stuff is taken care of! :cool:

[beginner's luck]

I looked but didnt see the strenght of the Finland forces in SC2. I think if SC2 did allow USSR to attack while neutral than the most let Germany reinforce the units there.Again just one mans opinion.

I think Finland should atleast have a strong HQ though. In SC1 they were so weak that no way did they get represented properly.

[Edwin P.]

Originally posted by pzgndr:

Just having the opportunity to conduct research and production for a neutral Russia and having the freedom to deploy as desired is fascinating..... The important stuff is taken care of! :cool:

I agree, these three changes will have a major effect on the game vs humans.

Though I wonder if the Russian AI will vary its strategy from game to game.

Perhaps HC will give the Russian AI 3 or more pre-war strategies to select from.

[ December 29, 2005, 07:57 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[Edwin P.]

Question: If there are no penalties for not having Russian units on the German border doesn't this allow the Russia to avoid the loss of all those front line units that occurs in SC1?

And if so, doesn't this make for a much stronger Russia?

[pzgndr]

Question: If there are no penalties for not having Russian units on the German border doesn't this allow the Russia to avoid the loss of all those front line units that occurs in SC1? And if so, doesn't this make for a much stronger Russia?

Maybe. Maybe not.

There is an interesting new feature that was added not too long ago. I'm not sure if Blashy highlighted this during his AARs. Destroyed units that were in supply are repurchaseable at 60% base cost with 1/2 the production delay. Think of these as surviving unit cadres. Anyway, this helps Russia in the defense, and later Germany when they transition to the defense. And others of course.

So the strategic decision you have to make as the Allied player is whether to sacrifice units as speed bumps until mud and snow arrives, or allow the panzers to zip straight ahead toward Moscow and be allowed to hit you full force in good weather. Loss of Moscow does not mean loss of game of course, but that's 30 MPPs per turn plus all the other eastern Europe resources you've given up without a fight.

Every battle fought along the way inflicts some losses on the Axis, losses which take time and MPPs to recover. Rebuilding some Russian losses at reduced cost and production delay makes this a viable strategy. Giving ground and avoiding early losses may also be a viable strategy, and players will be free to explore this option without an artificial penalty imposed.

In fairness, I previously advocated the Russian penalties. If these are needed for play balance, we can reconsider them later. With playtesting so far, the jury is still out.

[Desert Dave]

Destroyed units that were in supply are repurchaseable at 60% base cost...

Bill has it right on,

There WILL indeed be immense differences

In how you'll have to play

The Russian Campaign.

And I DO mean... immense.

Greater open spaces there on them Steppes,

AND very many choices to make

In terms of S & T.

I would differ with his excellent account, only on this score:

I'm not so sure we have firmly established

That 60% figure... could be higher,

We'll have to see what Mr H decides.

Yet, it IS an inspired idea, and will surely

Be just one more feature that should cause

The "defensive GP" to have some sooner

Arriving reserves, which can also

Be outfit with the latest

Tech advances, thereby saving the turn

Usually required to pull back from the line

For re-fit. :cool:

[Edwin P.]

Pzgndr and Desert Dave, many thanks for the update.

Sounds better and better. You guys and HC are really thinking out of the box.

One question - sometimes I would surprise my human opponents by making an early attack on Russia if I defeated France early. By early I mean before Russia annexes the Baltic States. It would make for an exciting and most balanced game as the Russian player has few units along the German border.

Can one still attempt this in Sc2? If so will the AI sometimes execute this strategy too?

[ December 31, 2005, 11:35 AM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]