Hi Rocoteh,
It has been a long time since I posted here. I have been busy with the typical things; work, life etc. But the lure of Civ3 and specifically this scenario brought me back a few weeks ago. I downloaded v1.9 and started a game as the Soviet Union playing on Diety. It is now turn 5, 1941 and I did not take detailed notes, but here are some of my observations to this point.
The SU is pretty pitiful at the start, the best offensive unit being the T-26 light tank and the airforce is a joke, plus absolutely no artillery! So my first orders of business were raising a worker force to modernize the rails and connect my cities. This may lead to an unrealistic mobility for forces in Civ3, but from a gaming point of view that mobility is a force multiplier wayyyy to important to ignore. I also concentrated on building up SU industrial base, while trying to make nice with every other country.
I did nab Warsaw from under the nose of the Germans, just could not resist. This of coure led to war with the Anglo-French allies. Since I had the war going I sent an expedition down to take out some of Persia, but my progress was very slow using only the airforces, T-26s and the Mech units.
After peace was restored I set my sights on Turkey, but with the massive fortifications, I had to build up my artillery (1/2 reg, 1/2heavy) before the attack. If the idea was to forstall any early moves against Turkey, it worked!! However, Turkey did finally fall to me in early 1940. Late in 1940 after stealing a developing tech as fast as possible, I had built up a modest force of T34/76 and KV-1s plus arty and the existing airforce. With the wonders producing militia units by the horde I decided on a pre-emptive strike on Finland in very early 1941. I took out Finland in one crushing turn and then braced for the Germano-Italian counterattack. The AI did find some holes in my defenses but I lost no cities and was able to re-orient my armour and arty to blunt their attack.
Now I have dished out a little pounding to the germans, I am making peace so I can build a bigger airforce (the Pe-2 and and then the Sturmoviks are now here!!!). Meanwhile I am going to try and take out the Nordic countries which Germany has mysteriously left completely alone. The Axis is busily trying to conquer the Greeks, so hopefully they will be distracted until I am ready to launch a full-scale offensive into Germany, probably in mid-late 1941.
More soon and thanks again for the great scenario. I am seriously looking forward to the giant version 2.0 and 2.1 that I have been reading about.