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Vympel wrote: So- how do I mod the event to get rid of this stupid bullshit? I remember it was done in HoI by some intrepid modders. The +30 increase to dissent is intolerable- you can't whittle that down efficiently without devoting huge IC to consumer goods, and that's just not practical when you're preparing for a coming war.

action_b = {
name = "ACTIONNAME2609B" # No need for brutality
ai_chance = 2
command = { type = dissent value = 30 }
command = { type = domestic which = defense_lobby value = -2 }
command = { type = domestic which = free_market value = -2 }

Vympel wrote:Ah good, I'll do that, my current save game is set a few days before the purges happen, if I make the modification will it "apply" to the save game?

As for the devs rationalization- pfft. Wishy-washy nonsense. I want a prepared Russia when the war comes around, not one reeling from the purges. They can kiss my ass.

I must say, I miss HoI's research system. This new one is a bit restrictive, though more intuitive, I think.

Vympel wrote:I've lost my manual (hopefully temporarily), but I find it quite intuitive- just like in my first HoI game, I left my military build-up too late (1940) and couldn't save France from being taken over by Germany in time, even though I took roughly half of Poland (I told Germany to fuck off in regards to the historical pact), I became mired in stalemate.

It also didn't help that I just threw my frontier divisions at them, with no thought for the calibre of the commanders, or whether they were appropriately equipped.

I think next time, I'll devote my production far more to building new units than to upgrading old ones- it took a long time to get all my units up to 1939 infantry standard, and it didn't help that I got 1941 infantry in 1940 either to upgrade to. I'll likely start in 1938.

Vympel wrote:GDE fix? Please explain. I'm always willing to hear about invincible Soviet troops.

EDIT: I just started a new game, rather than go back to my old save just before I declared war on Germany even though I clearly couldn't save France, I'll try and militarize quicker with larger forces to really put the pressure on and save France properly, like I used to do in HoI.

Vympel wrote:There's a 1.3b patch? All I found was 1.3a.

You know what- this explains my bizarre losses to inferior German infantry pretty well.

Vympel wrote:So- let me see if I get this- with the current 1.3a patch (and for the life of me I can't find 1.3b) the Soviets are stuffed. But there's a third party fix that changes it into what is "intended", that being the Soviets being handicapped until they get enough "preparing for war" events?

Isn't there a way to just have parity from the start? The whole thing sounds retarded.

The Soviet Union has a combat penalty in the early years to reflect the chaos, incompetence and paranoia of the purge era. It will find it more difficult to bully its neighbours and so the debacle of the Winter War against Finland may be reproduced. It only becomes more effective after the Great Patriotic War is declared and the country is fighting for survival. [Or if you wait long enough, that's not totally true. -Ed]

Vympel wrote:So short of fucking around with the events to get rid of something I don't want in the game at all (the whole purges crap which Paradox thinks it's a good idea to railroad you into repeating whether you want to or not) the best option would be to avoid 1.3b and use that modification on 1.3a to get the GDE thing back to what it was suposed to be, then, without the fucked up dates?

Edge of Darkness wrote:One of the assumptions in the above is that I will go along with the great officer purge. This option costs 10 dissent and lots and lots of officers. If I reject the purges then I will get a 30% dissent hit (note that this is an extra 100 days of dissent reduction) and 2 dove slider moves. The 2 dove moves are a bit of a crisis as this would mean that my unit builds would be at 90% cost and time (81% of list price) as opposed to 80% cost and time (64% of list price). This represents a reduction of about 21% in unit builds, which would be unacceptable. The alternative is to forgo 2 interventionism moves and do them 1940 and 1941. This would cost some ICs (about 30 IC years more on consumer goods) and force me to use diplomatic methods with the Baltic States. There is something to be said for both alternatives but I have decided to try going with the purges. The gain for me is something like a total of 90 IC years, which is enough to build an additional 20+ factories. That amounts to about 8% more IC and TC for the key years of the game.

Ground Defence Efficiency (GDE) and the Great Patriotic War (GPW)

This is without doubt the key issue for any Soviet player. At the start of the 1936 scenario I have a GDE of a mere 20%. This means that for each casualty (org or strength loss) that a foreign unit would take (GDE 80%) I can expect to take 4. Now this means that for any force of mine to fight as effectively against an enemy as a force with GDE 80% then it will have to be significantly larger. If it is N times the size then it will inflict N times as many casualties and its individual units will take casualties at 1/N times the rate. This makes it NxN better at winning. This is the square rule of combat – it means that to compensate for the 4 times penalty I only need a force that is twice as big (2x2=4). This double size force will be as effective at winning battles as the smaller force with full GDE but it will still take twice as many casualties as the full GDE force. This means that it is still not fully equivalent as I won’t really want to lose all that manpower or ICs to reinforcements. It is a good guide to the strength needed for the Winter War.

The Soviet player received a series of increases in GDE, specifically – 1 during the Winter War (12 dec 1939) and then 1 every spring (1 May) from 1940 to 1944. These would eventually bring GDE up to 0.8 but we can’t be waiting all that time. After someone has DOWed the USSR there is a GPW event which has a 10% chance of occurring every 10 days and it restores the full 0.8 GDE. (Note that the comments say it is moved to 0.7 but it is in fact moved to 0.8). This GPW event is the key issue in Soviet strategy as my units will be fighting at a severe disadvantage until it occurs. In fact some of the events will have occurred by the time of the invasion so I will already have GDE of 0.5 giving me 2.5 times the casualty rate of the enemy. Applying the same square rule as before I need a force that is 1.6 times as large. Or, looking at it the other way round, each stack of 24 Soviet infantry divisions will fight as effectively as 15 full GDE divisions.

Rather interestingly this is quite close to being a –40% combat penalty in terms of consequences. The difficulty setting (combining my penalty and AI advantage) is equivalent to only a –25% combat penalty (I get 90% strength versus AI 120% = 75% of their strength). This is quite nasty.

The strategic response to this is clear and obvious. I simply don’t want to fight until the GPW event triggers. In fact I need a defensive strategy that attempts to minimise combat until it triggers. Prior to 1.3 the chance was 100% within 30 days which made the situation fairly predictable. What I have now is the following probabilities that it has NOT triggered after the given number of days

10days 90%
20days 81%
30days 73%
40days 66%
50days 59%
100days 35%
200days 12%
300days 4.2%
360days 3.25%

As you can see there is even a small chance that it hasn’t triggered in time for the 1942 summer campaign. Basically I need a flexible defensive strategy that lets me roll with the punches until the GPW event triggers. This is going to be so unpredictable that I must plan to be able to handle no GPW for the entire 1941 campaign period until snow closes down the frontlines.

Blue Emu wrote: Now that the 1.3b patch has been released, are you [Kanitatlan, the AAR Writer -Ed] going to be re-starting this game?

The key changes include a BIG boost to the Russian Tech Teams (Nizny Tagil is now Skill 6, good for your Industrial Development; and many other teams have gained a Skill Level), and... according to the patch notes... a more aggressive German DoW vs Russia algorythm.

Under 1.3a, they often refused to attack the Soviet Union at all.

Vympel wrote:Thanks for the info- btw, what's the difference between parallel and serial runs in production?