u/Fresh_Criticism6531

lol, just tell me what to do. It seems nothing I ever do makes me avoid doom in this game. What I tried:

1> Ah, the "construction loop" people are talking about is a scam. I built wood, iron, construction. Utterly pointless. All these generate just debt, which I can't repay. "Debt doesn't matter" people say. Building construction is pointless because I haven't had any money to build anything in the last 20 years anyway. And I need to pay 55k interest

2> Improving SoL: another money pit. It doesn't seem to matter, because apparently once they are pissed and radical, they never de-radicalise. I might as well do nothing and wait it out.

3> Passing laws. Despite the fact that nearly each possible law change I could come up with just leads to 1 or another group starting a civil war, it doesn't seem to make any difference. The groups are barely happier. The activist political groups are pissed no matter what it seems.

4> Bankrupcy. Leads to people being even more unhappy, radicals increasing to 15M, turmoil in every possible state. Again I cannot build anything because I'm again in the red.

5> Do nothing: Already did nothing for 10 years, the debt still piles up.

6> Privatise -> Stupid capitalists won't buy trash I built like wheat farms (because some posts said I should lower the price of stuff poor people buy, which was a waste of money). Sure they will buy good productive stuff, but screw them if that's how they will deal with me.

7> High Taxes -> Another dead end. Taxes are per-capita, so high taxes largely ruins the poor. They get even more pissed. Turmoil. Lower tax revenue. I tried moving away from Wealth Tax to see if this would give support to pass Proportional Tax and tax the rich instead of the poor, but nope. No one in the country seems to care about Proportional Tax, 0% chance.

8> Positivists. Like what the hell. I only heard good stuff about this, but positivists in the game are .... fanatical despotical pro-dictatorship? They seem to hate any good change I could come up with and start a civil war. I was already used to the Liberals, Radicals, Orleanists and what not revolting. But the Positivists?

9> Disband armies: Seems to yield peanuts, unless I cut like half of it and have an army smaller than Ottomans or Egypt.

Summing up: There is no way to recover? I'm post doom?

Even if I somehow get to +20k, that's peanuts, I'll never repay the insane debt, and any kind of event or whatever issue I have, and I'm in the red again. Not to mention I can't ever build anything, or build a navy or go to war.

It seems like the only way to play France would be to avoid any debt at all.

I don't want to go back even earlier in time, because it took me forever to finally "cement napoleon", which was largely achieved by ... doing nothing, since anything I do pisses people off.

I guess I'm doomed? I wanted to cement Bonapart. I have no idea what I did wrong, I am panic building in Paris since a while to decrease unemployment and it worked, but radicals keep increasing. I started National Supremacy because the Petit Burgoise asked for it. Thought people would like me more. But there seems to be no way to make the baguette eaters happy???

So, I'm playing a soviet historical role-play game on veteral. I think my production isn't that bad. I have 150 CIC, 136 MILs, 1k.5 fighters, tons of AA, medium tanks, heavy tanks, etc. I guess I under produced guns as I have only 20 MILs on that which isn't enough to recover from my loses.

Basically the germans cut just above Zakharpatia like a knife through butter. They can't take the mountains, but just above it, they just blitz through. I start retreating the west-most tiles, but by the time they reach the next tile, that one is already in danger too. Again and again until I get huge piles of troops in a few tiles and end up with 20+ divisions surrounded.

For infantry I'm using: 9inf + support aa + support art, I have 124 of those "holding" (not really holding it turns out) the line

Tanks are a work in progress as I wanted to save army xp for doctrines. I now see this was a mistake. I wanted to avoid wasting mastery...

My only troops performing decently are the mountaineers, but they are too few to make a difference.

In the baltics, the germans basically aren't advancing at all, and in Belarus I can stabilise once they reach the Marshes. Its just Ukraine which is such a PITA.

I tried putting huge stacks of 6 infantry divisions (9x0 as the rest) to stop them, but it seems like my units are de-organized very quickly and can't even reinforce in time to prevent a defeat. I have no idea why, since I have Radio 2. That used to be enough to reinforce. There is no way to cycle units since there isn't enough time to regain org until the units behind are under attack.

I think the cause is basically their CAS destroying my units, because they put everything in the center air tile, and in the Baltics without air support they can't advance.

Anyway, I'm happy since I wanted a challenge, and I want to be forced to retreat all the way to Stalingrad. But .... I'm getting massacred and I think I won't be able to hold Stalingrad either since after deploying some barely trained divisions to stop their breakthrough, it has basically no effect. 3 such green inf divisions can't hold against just 1 german inf division! I thought I'll deploy motorised, but it just retreats even slower when its without fuel.

Any ideas on how to make an orderly retreat under CAS? I'm thinking of going back a few months and adding line AA to all infantry. Maybe recon on all troops for speed? There has gotta be a way which isn't the cheesy just put the troops behind the river and let them close in without anyone defending the border.

Many years ago when I last played, the germans couldn't advance 1 tile, so I'm really surprised... I think the CAS buff really is suiting them.

My best ideas so far are: Scorched earth (but won't this slow down my retreat? I also never used it before), more AA, maybe put the fighters on interception instead of air superiority?

There are no battle plans because I had to cancel them as the AI was frenetically moving troops into the salients...

What amazes me the most is last time I played Germany it was pretty hard to encircle the soviets. I guess I play worse than the AI /s