Alright I've been playing for a while now...but I dont really consider myself a seasoned player in HOI...far from it I'd say... by the way im running HOI 3 with the SF flavour added.... My problem always seems to be the same...Playing as a major I dont seem to be able to take on other majors late in the game... I've played mostly as GER, the US and the USSR and I always start on 1936 .....In all cases I waited until very late in the game to carry out my final assault...1960ish sth.... Well, as the USSR I started early...carried out the war with the Finns and it went smooth as ever then I thought I'd go down the ahistorical route and try to anticipate the Reich's moves...so at some point before they got around to invading Poland...I declared war on the poor Poles first and reached the Reich's eastern border with ease...then I proceeded to take hungary which was allied to Poland and had foolishly sent all their stuff into Poland to help defend against me...well they lost all of it there so the Hungarian resistance in Hungary consisted of some 2-3 inf divs in Budapest. Then soon enuff followed Yugoslavia...I also managed to keep Romania out of the Axis. It was a stroll in the park for me up to that point. The Germans had cowered before my might and never initiated Barbarossa and I thought I had already won since it was almost 45...all they did was attack and annex the Baltics from Eastern Prussia which bugged me a bit but then again I had grossly neglected that sector and I didnt mind much...my other conquest were much more impressive...So I thought I'd consolidate what I've grabbed so far into a massive empire...research and build up to the max and the have a weekend park stroll to Berlin...And so I did...It took me quite a while cuz I built much of everything and reserached almost everything as well...so it must have been close to 1970 when I finally attacked Germany...and well Itally but only by proxy since they had units guarding the German border. I Had 2 Fronts of about a mil men each on the front and also had one in reserve right behind them...I sincerely thought this was going to be very very very easy...So I DoW Germany and let the glorios Red Army roll to berlin which was a couple provinces away anyway...only it didn't work out like that and I got my butt handed to me!!! And not by a small margin...I mean I got decimated down to miniature shreds... That bothered me a lot but I had also been reading around that Germany was overpowered in HOI3 anyway and so I thought that was it... So next game I play as Germany...I follow a pretty historical route with this one...Annex Austria and Czech Rep...puppet Slovakia...invade Poland then France...and it all goes down smooth. After my victory against France I'm thinking this one's gonna be great! I only deviate from the historical path to take the Baltics just to keep the Russkies from doing so...oh right, I took Britain,too...yeah they are a major I know but all they had stationed on their Isles were some 10-12 HQs ranging from Army Group to Army Corps and...!!!2-3 MEC divs along with a single ARM div!!!....just ridiculous...cut through it like a hot knife goes thru butter. Then I figure now I'm gonna be peaceful for a couple of decades....reserach everything there is to research and slowly rebuild a Grand Wehrmacht to take on the Red Bear... And thus I do, and now it's close to 1970 again and I prepare to attack the USSR...the classic 3 pronged assault tactic is to be followed 3 major Fronts on the North, Center and South with a fourth one kept behind them as reserve... So...I gloriously invade and get kicked in the butt once again by a USSR the like of which I never seen before in my life...:headbash::headbash::headbash: Same thing went down when I played as the US and tried to invade German Occupied Europe...also in the 70's...but I wont go into that now... And I wonder...is it the fact that I wait till too late in the game to attack my major enemy? I can understand how that would be a problem when playing against germany since they will carve a 1000+ IC empire out of occupied Europe and if you let them build up till very late in the game they will grow into a very tough nut to crack. But does the same apply for the USSR I wonder? Especially when I'm playing as the 1000+ IC German Reich??? Also I'm kinda wondering...is my research going way slower than the AI's or what? I mean I always play as a major power and I almost always spend all or most of my leadership(leaving some out for officers) on research and still it's very late in the game till I can say I have fully researched. I don't know next time around I might play as Greece and opt to be the Reich's lap dog and let them do all the hard work...so I can grab little pieces here and there...who knows that might just be the way...
The problem with waiting till late to attack is that the allies share tech... so by then end of the game your outclassed. You need a lot of IC to fight in the end, which you won't have unless you start fighting early. Well, that's part of it anyway! Me, I usually play as Germany and I try not to fight the east, I took a play from the french book and built heavy defenses on the Polish border. If you do that you can concentrate on the France and UK, etc., then take on the USSR when you have lots of IC and good tech, even then I need nukes to make the final showdown go my way!
