HEARTS OF IRON: The coldest winter

I decided to start by playing Soviet Russia, the head of the "com intern" (International Communism) alliance in HoI. The others are The Axis and the Allies as one would expect. I figured since Russia was so large and her population therefore also very large that it would be a good place to start for a newbie player. Once the game screen loaded and I saw to my chagrin the way the units moved about that the USSR's massive border along the nations of Romania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Finland would be very hard to defend when the computer Germans decided to follow in the footsteps of their more corporeal brethren. Now I'm not sure of the dates when this did actually happen, but I know that I had a few years anyway. In the meantime I figured I could make the border seem less porous somehow.

I was encouraged by the numerous Soviet 'Strelkovaya' Divisions I saw along the borders with Romania and Poland especially. I read in the manual that each one comprised of about 4000 men, and from the icons associated with them I could tell that they were regular infantry. They were grouped in armies of between 4 and 9 divisions each. Together I had about 60 or so divisions. That looked like a lot to me! I was drastically wrong I was to find out later. At this point I re-deployed my armies in a more even arrangement along the border and turned up the game speed to normal. I was on my way now! *sigh*

January, 1936-- In the opening month of the game I was looking pretty good. I had every intention of putting the heels to my quest for global Communism as soon as humanly possible and it seemed to me that I had the soldiers to do exactly that. Looking along my western border I saw Latvia and Estonia sitting just beyond there and saw that intel was putting them as having 1 or perhaps 2 divisions in each of their small provinces. So I brought up my tactical bomber squadrons and scheduled an attack in the Latvian province of Rezekne, and ordered them to keep up the bombing until my 15 infantry divisions arrived four days later. As the bombers attacked their positions twice a day, their organization rating (a numerical score dedicated to expressing a unit's morale and battle effectiveness) dropped from 38 to a minuscule 11. Before too long my units arrived on the scene and began combat against the enemy.

Something strange began to happen at that point however. As the battle wore on over the course of a few days, my battle strength dropped steadily and the Latvians did not budge one bit. They were out numbered 7 to 1, had no air cover or artillery and yet in three short days had eviscerated my infantry corps and sent them back across the border with half the men they left with. My highly trained military mind knew of course that these Latvians were cheating the death I had arranged for them. Was it possible that I had simply gotten a bad throw of the dice? Did they have a great general to lead them? This amazing victory would live on in the annals of Latvian history for ages, but it was ultimately a fluke. It had to be. 7 to 1! Numbers did not lie.

The numbers in Latvia the next week were slightly less daunting for the Latvians, but only in a purely academic sense being 4 to 1. Now more certain than ever I gave the order to attack, as no amount of luck would save them a second time. To my amazement, we were routed again. Now I began to wonder if my knowledge of the war was even more incomplete than I thought it was. Was there some 'Great Wall of Latvia' that I had failed to learn about from the History Channel? It certainly wasn't depicted on the map so... I was at a loss. Just to be sure I gathered another army this time of a similar size and charged the Lativan troops again, to no avail. This was no mistake, I was really missing something significant.

Like a dog that's had it's nose boxed I ran away for a time and took to reading the manual which was actually made of paper (how novel!), and tried to understand where I was going wrong. This was the first time I was really getting acquainted with the rules of HoI outside of the tutorials provided within the game. I was again amazed at the amount of detail coded into the game. While pursuing a two page treatise on something called the "Land Offensive Resolution Logic", part of a series that had entries for air and sea offensives, as well as defensive resolutions for each, I read a curious passage from a bullet list.

"snow- The attacking force receives a -50% to its offensive statistics in the event of snow fall in the attacked province."

At that point I began to seriously wonder if it could have been snowing in northern Russia in the middle of January. A quick return trip to the computer and a glance at the newly discovered "Weather Map Mode" told me that in the hills of Rezekne blizzard like conditions prevailed from October until around mid-March every year. Imagine that! Snow in Russia in January! And so close to Finland too, I thought it would be a tropical paradise! ... It's fair to say that the last time I was so embarrassed while sitting in front of my computer it involved Yahoo chat, a webcam, and a person named supasexy1980! who was a little less than clear as to their gender beforehand. I guess I shouldn't have to tell you that I then...

-RELOADED FROM SAVED GAME-

January, 1936-- In the opening month of the game I was looking pretty good, especially since I had no plans whatsoever to send the young future of the Soviet proletariat into the Latvian hillside in the dead of a winter blizzard to attack fortified positions manned by invincible fire breathing snow demons. Yay for me. Go Communism!