(Nation Strategy)-USSR

[thecivinator58]

USSR- how I play it
The first thing you must realize when playing the USSR is this, you have a pathetic (and ahistorically small, I might add) military. You have no bombers of any kind, your fighters are ill-numbered and outdated and your navy is outdated and small. Your tanks are also outdated. However, by it's sheer size, mother Russia can absorb a lot. Without the Siberian factories ingame, you must build a factory in nearly every city. Of coarse, this will wreck your fragile economy, but it must be done. When war is declared again Poland, don't charge in. Wait for the Germans to take Warsaw, then move units up to the river near Brest-Litovsk. When you fight Finland, be defense. Don't waste any units, you will need them. You should have more units by the time Germany attacks you, perhaps the first IL-2, T-34, and KV-1, but you can't stop them. hold the river near Brest Litovsk for as long as possible, and then fall back to Minsk. disregard Pinsk, it cannot do anything in any reasonable time, and taking it will take the Germans a turn or 2, which you can use to dig in around Minsk. At this point, the German AI will either bum rush Minsk, or head for the Baltics. You may or may not be able to hold Minsk, so be prepared to retreat, but don't exit prematurely, either. If the Germans take Minsk and/or Riga, they generally stop. Also, on the air and sea war, try to harass German convoys with you Baltic fleet. Your I-16s WILL get crushed by the BF-109s, and I'm talking 1-20 damage, when they air sweep. However, when you air sweep, the damage is comparable. So try to control the air with what little you have, harass. With the Germans bogged down, and (hopefully) more LaGG-3s, IL-2s, T-34s, and KV-1s, you can begin to counter attack. take ground slowly, carefully. I've noticed that the Germans tend not to upgrade anything, so while you may have IS-2s and T-34-85s, they will still have the basic Panzer IIs, IIIs, and IVs. Basically, it gets easy if you can stop the first German attack.
Anyone else like to comment?

 

[fdregal5912]

Well in general I agree with this strategy, however is not the same for the European Scenario as for the Earth Scenario.

In the case of the Earth Scenario 1936, I have conquered whole Finland before the deadline, with 4 heavy bombers div, and 4 médium bombers, fortunately with the double turn promotion. Afterward I build up almost all the posible units, in particular infantry and artyllery (I don't know why USSR was only posible to build howitzers and not field gun, a bug maybe?) and left 10 to 15 units for T-34, LAGGs whenever I will be able to get to.

I have to say that Germans never took Warsaw just sorrounded the city but for the beginning of 1941 Warsaw still was standing, and France of course was giving a hard time to the Germans in Europe. China was giving a beating to Japan big time so the war was not rolling as expected. No, it was not an alternate history. Scripts were allowed.

I have fun, but I decided to cut out right there because I knew I will win easily, even with such inferiority in troops quality, and turns were taken forever.

In the European scenario is a lot better balance and the mentioned strategy will secure an easy victory as well. I don't know, maybe for my taste I would prefer to make easier to take the smaller cities. Without artyllery you can forget it, because aviation only will take down only around 33% of the defense points.

 

[Gedemon]

I never build a lot of factories when playing USSR, never enough gold, so I just use them in the most productive cities to boost them, and build barracks in all others. I can get an infantry from those every 15-30 turns, could seem long, but multiplied by the number of small cities, it pays at the end...

 

[fdregal5912]

Good point, I would say that playing alone with the USSR advantages, you have to use mainly infantry, attack germans troops mainly infantry as you will have a good amount of resources to replenish those troops. In particular big units suffers huge losses in materiel what obligates Germans to halt the attack. Despite that the investment in fighters are mandatory.

I use to build factories and specilized factories as deep as possible inside the USSR, usually I specialize one or two cities in tanks, heavy bombers, and fighters, the rest is all infantry or artillery.

 

[thecivinator58]

I never build a lot of factories when playing USSR, never enough gold, so I just use them in the most productive cities to boost them, and build barracks in all others. I can get an infantry from those every 15-30 turns, could seem long, but multiplied by the number of small cities, it pays at the end...

As I said, building all those factories will kill your economy, but you need the production. By ~1943 most of your cities will have factories, which will allow you to spam infantry at the Germans (which is what happened IRL, more or less), and combined with the fact your tanks and aircraft are constantly getting better, while the German's are not, it's hard not to win.