Finland

[unmerged(59964)]

All I can say is wow. Wow as in how bad the mod has made finland.

To begin with, with all the economic burdens that you need to research out of, it makes it nearly impossible to build and upgrade your army, defences and airforce. Let alone research the multiple techs you need to upgrade anything.
All this I can understand and deal with but you would think that Id be able to produce some more.

The thing that really force me off the edge is the winter war. The way its setup leaves you pretty much no chance against the russians and is pointless. With around 15 divisions(13 inf+1 mtn+HQ) with about 3 artillery brigades, 2 aa brigades, 2 engineers and 1 anti tank bridage my line is stretched thinly to say the least.

The fact that I have to defend the entire line is absurd, because most of the finnish-russian border is impassable with very few roads connecting the two countries. This allowed very small finnish brigades to hold off and ambush entire russian divisions. This and that the fins knew their terrain extremely well and this further aided them in the hit and run tactics. In one ambush an entire russian t-26 column was destroyed as was its infantry with the fins taking minor casualties. So maybe if you could implement a way to limit how many divisions can enter/attack a province at once would be great. Especially in other territories such as cities and mountains.

On another note......air power. I understand that with say....8 inter-war tac bombers you can destroy an enemy division thats in retreat across open territory. However, I want to know how 2 interwar tac bombers can destroy my infantry div with no brigades thats dugin-14 and in a frozen forest. The finnish forest are notorious for their size and denseness. So isnt there like a foresnt modifier? If there is I think it should be upped. (Side note: Fins had an air force of around 120 useable aircraft+ more aa batteries

I know I might sound like someone who is just mad or whining cuz I got pooned. But I recently did a lot of research on the winter war and when I tried it in the game I got beat in like a month. Whereas historically finland won nearly every battle due to their tactics(knowledge of terrain+knowing how to best use their eqp.) and terrain. Please think over some of these things for the next upgrade. I love the mod but theres always room for improvement

Btw, a finnish force managed to surround and decimate 4 russian divisions in the war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War <- check it out, alot of interesting info

 

[unmerged(24102)]

The CORE folks will probably give you a deeper answer, but here is some of my thoughts.

Much of the problem is that this game is designed to handle fights all over the world. The Winter War as I see it was an exception to the rule. It is rather hard to simulate the Winter War if you with the same engine will be able to simulate other battles.

Stalin started the war with to few units in front and underestimated finish resistance and the impact of weather and terrain (there is a lot to discuss around this, I just took these arguments as an example). You fins on the other hand mobilized fast and did extraordinary good on the defence. When the Russians realized they had to commit more it took time gather the needed forces, but the military outcome in the end seems inevitable.

My experience in HoI is that the Russian AI commits more divisions to the attack then Stalin did historically (OK there was a lot of divisions in the region historically, but the attacks were not coordinated enough and the divisions arrived to much in column allowing the fins to take them out one at a time. The Russians didn’t get enough local superiority). If the AI doesen’t have enough divisions it often doesn’t attack. On the other hand do you with 15 divisions at start have a lot more than Mannerheim had. It wouldn't make the game/war more realistic if you could produce more divisions. Maybe the outcome thou.

Maybe CORE can tweak terrain, infra or something to delay the Russians but I believe it is hard to stop the Russian AI from using to many divisions at start. The AI is perhaps smarter then Stalin and knows that you have to do more than just kick the door open to make the fins yield…

 

[HistoryMan]

In global terms, Finland *IS* weak. Regular HoI 2 lets it "punch above its weight" in IC / troop terms. The scale of the game just doesn't reflect the nature of how the Winter War was actually fought, and there really isn't much you can do about that.

However, the events and the general outcome of the Winter War usually work out reasonably accurate, though the USSR probabaly doesn't suffer as many losses.

Tim

 

[JRShield]

Known issue, rescourse redistribution is yet to be done. I think there are plans on introducing it to the first Doomsday version, but I'm not sure on that.

 

[unmerged(52434)]

In global terms, Finland *IS* weak. Regular HoI 2 lets it "punch above its weight" in IC / troop terms. The scale of the game just doesn't reflect the nature of how the Winter War was actually fought, and there really isn't much you can do about that.

However, the events and the general outcome of the Winter War usually work out reasonably accurate, though the USSR probabaly doesn't suffer as many losses.

Tim

In WW2 Finland did fight very efficently in both Winter and Continuation War. The finnish forces fought better than for example Romanian forces.

I think events only gives some lines how war SHOULD go, but usually AI goes after Central Finland and leaves Karelia alone. After this Finland usually crumbles and Soviets conquer whole finland, which after End of Winter War evet launches and Finland gives Viipuri and Sortavala to Soviets. In reality Soviets commited much of their forces to Karelia and no so much to central finland.

I have asked many times from many other mod teams to make more accurate and event richer Finland, but this far nobody has showed much interest to this issue.

Maybe things could be maked more realistic by weakening Soviet forces if they choose Finland. After Winter War soviet union gets event where they can choose to update their forces after Winter War fiasko.

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

Finland is always a problem area for HOI. If Finland performs properly in the Winter War it is usually way too strong in the Continuation War phase. Plus you get into the AI/human issues for both FIN/SOV and there are even more problems. Historically the FIN did wonderful at defending what they considered to be FIN territory but didn't do much else. There really isn't a good way to model this in game with the tools we have.

mm

 

[JRCCrow]

Yes, the only bummer to large scale games like this is the fact that you can not simualte real battlefield tactics which inevitably decide the course or at tleast greatly effect the outcome. I believe the best attempt is the leadership and unit experiance. Better than nothing. The only way you could get around that would be like with the game Close combat where yo ubreak into a tactical map and duke it out. But then you are micromanaging a bit and campaigns would take forever. I often thought about it and wondered how many people would atually playa game like that. Could be fun but only for those of us who have no life (myself included )

 

[Jusas]

Well, here's an idea. Give Finland a little bit of edge over the Russians in the form of an event that for example, gives bonuses (surprise for example). These bonuses could last until spring arrives (which is when the Finns would have been in real trouble if SU had pushed on).

 

[unmerged(24102)]

If Core is going to try and improve the Winter war performance I think dec152000 is on to something. Today Finland has the possibility to produce too many divisions that perform less than they historically did.

Perhaps the most accurate tweek in gameplay would be to give Finland an technological edge over Soviet (like more modern divisions or something) but very limited resources (IC, manpower and so on). The result I was hoping to achieve is a small army that performs good in the early Winter war but in the Continuation war much of the gap is closed by the Russians. The small army then makes it impossible to fight unless the Soviet forces are tied up in Barbarossa and a large conquest is hampered by the small force.

For both sides during both wars the middle and Northern part of Finland offered little action. Since both sides used a very small number of roads as axis of advance gains were scarce. Should infra be further decreased to avoid what Mogr describes in AI behaviour?

I find the map a little bit badly planned when IIRC you as Soviet can attack one FIN province from three directions in the middle. But that is nothing fore CORE to change I suppose.

The hardest thing to simulate might be the political limitations. As I understood it (am not sure if my soures are correct) Finland did fear that a to aggressive continuation war would have upset the US, especially if Finland would have cut the Murmansk railroad.

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

Some good comments here. I encourage you all to sign up at the CORE website:

www.terranova.dk

We're just much more available there, so the discussion will be more productive.

mm

 

[unmerged(49243)]

I was just thinking of some possibilities how the situation might be improved... All of the ideas might not be possible, but nevertheless:

- Make some of the border provinces into marsh terrain. This would be both realistic (a large portion of the terrain really is marsh; there's also a hell a lot of lakes), and make it harder for the invader. Maybe even make Kajaani a mountain to make it harder to invade (despite it really being a mix of very dense pine forests and marhes/swamps)?
- add forts (I suggested this in the CORE forum thread)
- Maybe make the winterization techs give better boosts
- Is it possible to worsen the penalties of an attacker in cold conditions?
- Make SU research its doctrines only after the Winter War (to show how they started improving their army after the war)
- Increase Finnish leaders' skills, and make more of them defensive leaders
- Would decreasing infrastructure on the Soviet side of the border help?
- Is it possible to make Finland's AI ignore the SU provinces that aren't their cores, like they did? This would save valuable manpower and reinforcement IC.
- A molotov cocktail brigade Well, maybe not...

The end justifies the means, doesn't it... If doing something slightly unrealistic (eg. making a dense forest into a mountain) causes a realistic effect, isn't it better than having a realistic thing causing an unrealistic effect?

It's a shame that the morale (ie. the willingness and fighting spirit etc of the troops; not org gain rate) isn't really simulated in this game.

 

[unmerged(24102)]

I’m not a CORE member but my opinion is that one should be careful with “the end justifies the means” solutions. And I believe, even thou I am a big fan of Finland and your military achievements during WWII, that tweaking CORE to better handle the Finish wars should not hamper the simulation of others more ‘significant’ for the WWII.

In other words – we must have the Molotov-cocktailbrigade…

Hi,

Some good comments here. I encourage you all to sign up at the CORE website:

www.terranova.dk

We're just much more available there, so the discussion will be more productive.

mm

I take that as a complement, even if it wasn’t addressed to me…
Have started to read your discussions on Terranova, but you are so full of knowledge, so one can’t be anything but humble at start. (Pardon my Swenglish)