Sammy5IsAlive
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Beethoven1
Sure, you can play with a general vague house rule like "Soviets can't transfer troops from the south in an unrealistic way," but the problem with that is there is no clear or obvious dividing line between what is and is not realistic.
Is it realistic to send 1 division from the south to the north? Seems hard to argue that would not be, after all, it is just 1 division.
What about 5?
10?
20?
But at the same time, if a Soviet player does that, can you really blame them for playing unrealistically/ahistorically, given that Germany can also achieve unrealistic/ahistorical progress in the south on turn 1 (e.g. Rovno pocket, getting to the Romanian border, etc) as well as on the next few subsequent turns? The fact that Axis can do these things on turn 1 is part of what causes the issue (which could partly be fixed even by minor changes to the scenario in the editor like e.g. making the Panzers in the south start with 40 MP rather than 50 or something).
What about, on the other hand, if Soviets don't transfer any troops from the south, but simply send 0 reinforcement units to the south until late 1941 and send 100% of their reinforcements to the north/center? In this case, you'll have a light defense of the south, and the effect will end up being close to the same as with full abandonment. And in that case, who is to say how many reserves going to the north/center is realistic? Is the Soviet player exploiting if they send 100% of their reserves to the north/center? 90%? 80%? 60%?
It would be better, ideally, if the game incentivized the Soviets to behave in a historical/reasonable fashion by giving them somewhat more of a reason to defend the south (as well as some ability to do so without getting blown away in the first few turns more than historical, and ending up losing Kiev/Odessa/ etc substantially earlier than historical even if they put in their best effort to defend it reasonably).
Drawing on my own experience with modding HOI4 for multiplayer, I found that giving players incentives is the key to game balance. In any game, players who are attempting to win will respond to a greater or lesser degree to incentives that help them to win.
I think all this is fair. The way I see it at the moment is that (making the assumption that the players are of broadly similar standard) the 'abandon the South' strategy essentially prevents either side from getting a 'Winter 1941/42' auto victory. I think that it may well make it very difficult if not impossible for the Axis player to hit the later 750+ autovictory checks assuming that the Soviet player does not make a big blunder that leads to their 5M+ army getting trashed in big pockets.
But my suspicion is that with evenly matched players the strategy also makes it very difficult for the Soviet player to slow their opponent down enough to prevent them from hitting the 525/575 sudden loss marks.
So really it comes down to whether by avoiding the historical heavy losses in 1941 the Soviet player is able to put themselves in a position in 1943/1944 where their army is so large that the Axis player is unable to do anything to resist. From the later game AARs we have at the moment it seems to me that whilst a large Soviet army will stop the Axis from moving forwards with any real effect, a well managed and maintained Axis Army can make it very difficult for even a large Soviet army to get momentum going.
So potentially where we are at is a situation where the cautious Soviet player retreats in the South and builds up a larger army than historically, the cautious Axis player takes less risks and does just enough to avoid the sudden loss thresholds but preserves their army and then you get a 'cat and mouse' game through 1943/44 where the Soviet player starts from an advantageous position in terms of territory compared to historical but a disadvantageous one in terms of the strength of the Axis army.
So I guess the 'incentive' for both sides depends on the attitude of the player towards the game and what they are trying to achieve. If you are a Soviet player and think that you have a significant skill advantage over your opponent you can only leverage that advantage in terms of gaining victory in the first couple of years if you contest the South. Similarly if you are an Axis player faced with the 'run-away strategy' by an opponent you feel you are better than you will likely be faced with a situation in mid 1942 where you have a strong army that you can either continue to preserve in the hope of winning 'on points' or risk in ambitious offensives in the South in the hope of outmaneuvering your opponent to the extent that their losses snowball and the large army that they start 1942 with gets dislocated and worn down.
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RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in che... - 
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