HEARTS OF IRON: If at first...

1938- it took about a year and a half to repair my dissent rating. During this long stretch my Industrial Capacity increased slowly with the decrease in dissent and also as the provinces I had unknowingly knocked out of commission with the "increase industries" command started to come back on line. As the extra points trickled in I began to crank up my weapons research in an effort to gain the ability to create mechanized infantry with the speed to keep up with Hitler's blitz and avoid getting encircled.

Also in that stretch Comrade Stalin continued his scourge of the officer corps. I received two more message boxes with accompanying yes/no choices to make. Now understanding the effects of dissent and what exactly the cost of allowing my enemies to thrive was, I found myself with a very different feeling on the subject this time. The designers were going to make me pay to be merciful here. Now everyone agrees that what the man did was terrible, wrong for the country and in the end wrong militarily, but if I didn't cut out these malcontents while could I wouldn't be able to wage any war at all and that meant certain defeat for International Communism. So was Stalin right? No, but what I realized at this point was that what he did was right for him. The fact that he had to go to such lengths to maintain power probably tells us that he was most likely not the best choice for communist dictator, but the USSR was stuck with him and so was I. With conflicting feelings I found myself opting to start weeding out the badnicks and keep my IC increases humming along.

With the folk of the USSR back on the team I was able to start producing supplies in quantities that would allow us some fighting and whatnot. I began wondering where my next battles would be as 1939 arrived. Germany made the decision for me easy, it was to be Poland.

Winter 1939- Earlier in the year I had opted out of a German agreement that would have given me about a third of Poland, but would take away the land I had sundered in Lithuania. I was already half a demon myself so I wasn't about to make any deals with the Nazis. After that in March the blitz began in earnest in Poland. I attacked simultaneously from the east, between us Poland was crushed by the time fall arrived. I had a few more provinces than the German pact would have allowed me, held onto Lithuania and had not made an enemy of Germany in the meantime either. All good. Then I waited for the eventual German advance.

To my surprise, the German units abandoned their new border, leaving only one or two divisions here and there to look after their new Polish citizens. I was annoyed to see that units of the former Lithuanian army were hiding out across the Lithuanian border in what was now German-occupied Poland. This at the very least showed me that even if Germany was tolerating Russian expansion now they wouldn't be doing it in the future.

The trouble is that memories are short and mine is even shorter and during the balance of that year I became... bored. I was churning out mechanized divisions at a good rate and felt the deep seated need to enlighten some of the other border countries, much as I had done in the Lativian area. I clearly didn't want to stray into Germany at this point even if the border was nearly naked as letting them tire themselves on their western advance and being entrenched when when returned seemed a wiser course of action. So who gets to join the club next?, I wondered.

1940- The rump-end of Turkey was looking delicious (heh heh) so I sent fifteen divisions under my best commanders down there to get them into line. It looked like a cakewalk from the border. I should have started wondering at my new strategy when my regular infantry took three months to make the journey. I wasn't about to send my blitz-beating units down there and I suppose if you don't put your infantry in trucks, they're walking. Imagine walking four hundred miles. Go ahead. Doesn't seem like a great time to you either, eh? What kind jerk must I be? For what they had to face when they got there it was a wasted trip anyway.

As my men snailed their way to the south I noticed German units piling up at my border again, slowly at first and faster as my units winded down to the Turkish out lands. They got there late in the fighting season nearly September, but there was no snow or other atmospheric factors this close to the equator so I began the attack immediately. Now that far down on the European map much of the terrain is sandy desert or rocky badlands, which makes the governable parcels of land much larger and the provinces there equally so. You can imagine my surprise that moments after I gave the order to crush the enemy I learned that my infantry would not see combat for two and a half weeks. They were at the border! How much closer do you have to be?? It looked as though I had some time to kill before I would see any action there, so I returned my attention to the Russian-German border in Poland.

What I saw there was worrying. I had ten or so units to deploy, so I did and even after than I could see I was completely out-gunned. My average army size was around 11 or 12 divisions at many places along the divide. The German advance was averaging about 18 or 20 divisions, with a few spots climbing as high as 40 divisions with tanks and planes everywhere. They were not so weakened as I hoped they would be by the fierce fighting in France I suppose. Historically there wasn't much fighting at all, but I was guessing that the computer France would prove a better opponent. At that point my Turkish expedition was meeting with much more resistance that I thought there would be. The Turkish defenders all jumped out from behind the sand dunes at the same time and created a wearying slog where I was hoping for a decisive march to victory. Just about the time I was wishing I had never gone to Turkey the Germans invaded.

1941- The battle was in question only for a short period of time. It was as if the Germans had an army from the future; employing advanced armor, artillery, and tactical bombers in every engagement in addition to the vaunted blitzkrieg. I brought my own fighters and bombers to bear in the heaviest conflict, but they were turned away by the power of the German Luftwaffe. After only a few attempts, my entire air corps was down to about 20% effectiveness. In the flanking conflicts in the north and south I had only regular infantry to defend with and the blitz attacks quickly had my Strelkovaya units on the run. The defeats began to pile up. It was over for me in Russia.

I may have been able to run to Moscow and gather together the remnants for a counterattack, but it didn't seem to me at the time that it would bear fruit. I turned off the messages, zoomed the map view out and let the game run at maximum speed. The German advance did peter out a little bit after Moscow, the immense Soviet interior either too large or too empty for them to take. What they did do was engage my units wherever they ran to, reducing my army to about 35% of it's pre-invasion size. Not a happy ending, da?

I was pretty sure that I wouldn't prevail in HoI's second world war seeing as the game was so complex, but I was secretly hoping I would give Germany more of a fight. No matter. I have recently gotten my mitts on a copy of Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday so I will rise again from the ruins. Will I go for the USSR again? Probably not. Perhaps I'll play a small out of the way country with a more easily defended border. Someplace like Venezuela.