Noob question about USSR

[Jeffrey89]

Hi everyone I'm kind of new to the game, having 3 games only yet I got a problem here.
I had campaigns as ROC, then Germany and just finished my UK game. Everytime the Soviets got absolutely crushed and had no chance to fight back.
Everytime Germany starts the war on USSR probably around May-June 1941, and by mid 1942 USSR has lost all of leningrad moscow stalingrad and baku
The reason behind this is probably because the soviets got no army stationed around the border --- they have sth like 2 or 3 divisions and everything else is in urals, siberia, novosibirks, you name it. When the war starts they dont redeploy and instead they march. Consequently they are steamrolled all the way until bitter peace fires.

Is it just me or everyone else is experiencing the same thing??

 

[Quiller]

with core I usually play Germany... In my opinion USSR is reasonably strong, but 'maybe' then should be about 5% stronger...

 

[jhhowell]

I only have a small sample size (one, since my second game is as USSR ) with CORE 0.61, but I don't see what you described.

In my USA game, the Germans did better than historical but only slightly. They captured Leningrad, and briefly took Moscow in summer '42 before the Soviets took it back. Never went farther than Rostov on the Ukraine/Caucasus front, so Stalingrad was never threatened. The German defensive AI turned out to still be too weak in the west - only sent a single reserve division to help Italy, and had nothing guarding the Alps or Bavaria. Still, way better than 0.60. I particularly thought the eastern front was working well. All I could see was province ownership, but both sides were pulling off rather large and impressive pockets.

 

[Jeffrey89]

in my brit game, the germans roflstomped all the way to novosibirks already, if I didnt land on southern france right after they take over vichy, they would have reached the pacific.
How about the divisions that the russians make? in my games they went for a uber air force which is even larger than mine(brit) and the USA, however 80% up are reserves in the army, which also contributed to there utter defeat imo.

 

[jhhowell]

How about the divisions that the russians make? in my games they went for a uber air force which is even larger than mine(brit) and the USA, however 80% up are reserves in the army, which also contributed to there utter defeat imo.

That part is normal and historically correct. You'll notice that the name for a Soviet Res division is "Strelkovaya" while the name for a Soviet Inf division is "Gvardeyska" (i.e. Guards). I can speak from my USSR game that it's perfectly feasible to grind the Germans down with mostly Res. Judging from the AI builds I see, I'm using way too much Inf, the AI seems to use about a 10:1 Res:Inf ratio, I think I have more like 4:1... If you're looking for pure gameplay effectiveness rather than trying to work within the realm of the historically plausible, then sure, the USSR should be like the other major powers and go all Inf for their infantry. But that's not how the AI is set up.

Looks like I have two data points, not one - I'd forgotten about my hands-off test game to see if 0.61 made AoD/CORE worth getting back into. That Nov. '42 save has the Soviets in very comfortable position, holding Leningrad and Moscow, with the line west of Rostov in the Ukraine, and Finland annexed.

In the USA game the Soviets had 356 divisions facing the Germans, in the Costa Rica hands-off game they had 383 divisions. My expectations for how those games would turn out if the US/UK were in AI hands would be stalemate on the eastern front in the USA game (well, let's say at a save point before the invasion of Italy), and eventual Soviet victory in the Costa Rica game.

Massive Red Air Force may be a good strategy - I've seen very little of the Luftwaffe in my USSR game. Maybe the German AI holds most/all of their fighters in the west to pummel strategic bombing missions by the US/UK. I've certainly wished I had way more bomber wings in that game, and the ones I have have been very effective. But this presumes the Soviets already have adequate land units in place with plenty more building.

Unfortunately I really don't know what to tell you about the weak USSRs you're seeing... If you're fully patched (AoD 1.08, CORE 0.61) with no player modifications and no bizarre ahistorical shenanigans, the USSR should be pretty solid. It looks like there is a 1% chance for the AI to decline each stage of the Purges, though even that probably wouldn't mess it up enough to be the pushover you describe.

 

[Tegetthoff]

From hands-off games played as a developer, I can tell you that the USSR wins roughly 9 games out of 10 in 0.61. That´s AI on AI. A competent German player still should win easily enough.

The biggest and as far as we have seen apparently unsolvable problem with the SOV AI is that it sends one or two dozen divisions on a death march from Vladivostok to Moscow and back. When you load up as SOV you will always see those divisions trecking across Siberia.

If you are seeing significantly different behaviour on several games, check your game settings. They should be Normal/Normal.