During Operation Typhoon and the "great panic" of October 16th there were plans in place for Stalin to abandon Moscow. And at 9am that day Stalin had a meeting in which in apparently declared the government should leave Moscow that day and that he would follow the next day. It was his ministers that often held up Stalins resolve as at the suggestion Mikoyan stated why should he leave today if Stalin is leaving tomorrow. But it wasn't in the realms of madness for Stalin to think of leaving, the Germans were mere kilometres away and Moscow was in disarray.
@@Azachor It isn't strictly true. On the night before the German invasion Stalin went to his dacha in Kuntsevo where he apparently watched films, drank and dined until the early hours. He was asleep when the invasion started but was woken by a phone call from Zhukov then was back in Moscow by 4am. Molotov wasn't handed the declaration of war until 5am. On the 29th June he did retreat back Kuntsevo where he did not receive calls for a full 24 hours, as he was broken, before Molotov and others convinced him to come back. Then on 3rd July he made he first speech to the Soviet people. He had realised after the invasion that he had made several serious errors concerning his relationship with Hitler. Even when the evidence was spoken or placed in front of him he never believed the Germans would invade until they actually crossed the border.
@@typhusfever2262, he returned on his dacha because of Minsk massacre btw. "Lenin left us a great legacy, and we, his heirs, have fucked it all up…" - his words after he learned that Soviet Western front is basically destroyed.
I think this could be not so bad :) Start of the game was correct - he took Turkey and Romania, so he made Axis little weaker. But the rest of decisions probably was effect of pure panic.
Yeah I don't see an end date for LTs. You have to give the templates some love and pamper the divisions a bit but you need a _fast_ breakthrough, nothing beats LT / Mot divisions.
@@pcgaming7680 I know. That's why you use them carefully and try not to engage in direct combat. And you can add some SPGs for additional breakthrough.
I love light tanks on Germany to overrun soviet forts and infantry. I use them like heavy motorized, I rush L3s then give them Engine 5s along with Guderian's advisor bonus for 10% speed, plus the designer bonus. You can make them faster than motorized with the right stacks.
This is hilarious, your beating the Germans the way the Soviets actually did; fierce defending and then implementing 'deep battle' (soviet strategy for encirclement).
Just a little correction,it was not a "strategy for encirclment", in fact it gave more importance to overrunning enemy divisions than to encircle them.(sorry if something doesn't have any sense,english is not my native language)
GOD!! I'm laughing so hard on this. I love Bittersteel reactions to the almost infinite HORRIBLE decisions. It reminds myself when I started playing. I was constantly doing s$%t and when it blew up in my face, I was like " why did you do that, THE FORTS ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE RIVER".
I'm absolutely convinced that Bitt3rSteel was smart enough to see that this "disaster save" was set up. And then tried his best to make it look like he would do it with as if he has the level of intelligence that the sender thinks he has. I don't want to think of any other scenario.
I came here as I was going to comment that. This has to be on purpose. Taking Romania and Turkey is not hard, but you need at least some skill. No one who takes both is that bad that doesn’t know how to guard the border or defend before the capital. It just doesn’t happen!
@@detroitdave9512 I used to do that when I first started the game XD ''Our army might be battered and sloppy, Our Navy might be getting along with Atlantis and her people, Our air force might be non-existent. But, ladies and gentlemen, WE GOT THE NUKES!''
I just realised: the player wasn't the one who built the forts on the wrong side of the river. When you do the Stalin line national focus, it spawns those forts.
What's funny, is that fort set up might become meta after No Step Back drops due to river supply. Need both banks of a river to get the supply from rivers.
@@miguelrodriguezcimino1674 The scariest part was, at the absolute worst moment in Stalingrad, the literal only piece of land the Russians still held on the opposite bank of the Volga was the docks to send even more men into the city to fight. It was THAT close.
I learned so much from this and it became applicable far sooner than I expected. I somehow missed a naval invasion for much longer than I should have and applied lessons on hastily built defenses and judicious use of small army Last Stand orders. My Command points laster longer enough for me to shift my army. Thanks!
Man, I wish I still had my save games from my first time playing the game. I believe my first game was as the US ( Before Waking the Tiger was out) I remember playing and getting kind of bored. Then I finally got a focus that gave a free puppet war goal on Venezuela. I struggled so much with naval invading. I also didn't understand division templates at all. I had another game like the Soviet Union. Where I invaded Iran. But didn't know anything about infantry templates or supply. I was sending my entire army into Iran. I lost close to 1M troops. I think I might've learned to pull back some Inf. But still.
I always wonder if these saves are sent by veteran players or someone who just bought the game and has no idea how to play bc that's what it looks like
But if he had no idea at all, I doubt he would have taken Romania and Turkey. It sort of looks like he was trying to set up defenses, but started with the rear rather than the front line, and not expecting a German attack just yet. (Of course, it's definitely possible it was a set-up by a veteran player.)
Interesting to see you changing your tune on light tanks. I'd never recommend them over mediums, but a couple of divisions of them upgraded for maximum speed is just nasty for exploiting the break throughs that Medium tanks do. I tend not to go for the huge meme pockets like most people and instead use the light tanks to quickly snip off small pockets of 3-4 all over the show. It adds up quickly.
I absolutely do not prefer lights, but given the circumstances, it wasn't feasible to shift into heavies or mediums in time to get to Berlin first....so we improvised!
@@Bitt3rSteel If you have the industry, light tanks can be useful in support of mediums/heavies. let the harder units punch through and then the lights run rampant cutting behind hostile lines. the problem: generally you dont have the factories to support multiple tank groups and against the ai mediums will generally be able to do all the work adequately.
@@trinalgalaxy5943 I never really felt the need to use medium or heavies against the AI. Especially as Germany. You dont have tungsten, so just go for Light Tanks. They do insane Dmg after you broke the infantry army which is quick with cas and air. Your Speed is insane. You can go close to 20 kmh per hour on the right terrain
i like small pockets too, but when your center and southern army groups are getting held up but your northern army just smashed their lines you can bet there's nothing more satisfying than encircling 70% of the theater. But on light tanks, having about 2 division per army to hold on reserves and breakthrough an enemy army on its last legs are a great way to end a conflict easily
To be fair, the Idea that your scientists calculate the free neutron density in enriched Uranium during the fission process but with an Abacus, because you never gave them computers ... That is worth it just for the meme.
Hey Bitt3r. Since you tend to wonder how many casualties the enemy took after you close an encircledment. Below the game date and world tensiom box on the upper right part of the screen, below it, to the right of the "Theather box", in this videos case where it says "Soviet Theather 1" there is a symbol that when hovered over it should say "Combat Log" when you press it a new box appears telling you casualties taken in battle by you and ai per hour, and in the other tabs it gives you more details on equipment lost and captured.
it's historical! the red army had something like 30 divisions in the east to defend against japan, and only after those units arrived to the west did the course of the war change course!
speaking of the USSR, No Step Back is kinda scaring me about the USSR and baltics, hopefully it won't become a situation like the mexico tree where each game hell breaks loose because th ai becomes extremely unstable. atleast hopefully it won't be this way in historical.
@@beastdeas7250 tfw I let democratic mexico into the allies only for them to start waging hell on none aligned/democratic central america while fighting 2 civil wars
Bitt3er basically turned into Stalin here. Utter confusing and depression at the start, sending commanders of to die (last stand) to hold the line. Attacking at the cost of lives aaand "I shouldnt be liberating these workers" is just icing on the cake.
With level seven forts already built you should have just tried to hold Kiev. That was a decent number of factories that i don't think you needed to give up. Sure, forts degrade while river lines don't, but a level 7 fort is very imposing, and you do have the option to retreat across the river if they do manage to take it.
Bro, I REFUSE to believe that this wasn’t set up, there is no way any player who knows what the game is even about plans on just giving up Moscow without some sort of memey reason
That actually looks like a very historical Soviet Union, having their army in a complete disarray and keeping the troops on the Japanese border until late 1941 excepting an attack
Unless the player that sent this in is completely new I do not see how this is realistic as to how someone would play, how do you even do this? I have no idea. Entertaining video nevertheless, thank you for the upload.
You could also use nothing but light SP artillery units as an armoured unit if you want a cheap but efficient armoured division. Use 14 motorized with 4 light SP artillery and they will shred any enemy infantry and create encirclements with ease. I once built these divisions with Japan and destroyed the entire Chinese army with only 63k casualties. Chinese casualties were around 1.10 million.
This was brilliant to watch. I really need a micromanaging tutorial for managing frontlines in this way, from tips like forming an army with one division for holdng to the exact buttons to press to deploy troops te the right places. Whenever i micromanage armies on a front, they often unexpectedly start moving to inexplicably far-away tiles. My actual USSR got attacked and i was so preoccupied with getting other things ready, I didn't notice my armies were still exercising. I'm going to have to watch this video again a few times to try to save that shitshow.
I refuse to believe that this save isn't fake, at very least he played normally at the beginning, but trolled before sending the game to you. No human would think that this defensive lane would make any sense, other mistakes are stupid but understandable, but this one is the sole reason why I will never believe in this save's legitimacy
The dude might be an ethiopian general Losing a fight with an enemy you outnumber 30 to 1 and holding a defensive line 500 kms back of the front line is straight from their playbook
1:56 personally, the weak spot in my deniper defense line is the area around Kiev, specifically the province to the north of Kiev (south of Chernigov).
What maintenance units help you steal enemy equipment. I used them, but never new this feature 😱 15:38 so much stuff you don't know about this game, even though you played it so often
Have you ever tried the Tank division challenge? After watching ISP do it I tried it and it was awesome, I just built up the Light Tank division and got out 66 before Germany came and we inflicted massive casualties than rolled over them.
@@Bitt3rSteel Light Tank Divisions only Russia. He put everything into the Light Tanks, Motorised, Fighter's and supports. The Germans tried to push and it was absolutely disgusting . I had to build Refineries for fuel obviously but it was fun.
I bet there has to be even more frustrating disaster saves that even Bitt3rSteel can't withstand them. Those of course is not shown in TH-cam because he doesn't want to lose maybe?
I mean, he knows more than me when i started, i just didnt build forts or defensive lines in general, but he knows that a good defense has something to do with rivers xD
Wow. I needed 10 attempts to replicate this. Hint: 14w infantry divisions holds the line just fine, equipment is lesser problem then. Also not sure, if AA in infantry was needed, I wasn't able to produce enough AA until the war was over :)
I've never been in a situation so dire that I needed to merge divisions that beaten up just so they could get back to the fight; but I usually do merge 20 width divisions into 40s when shifting from defense to offense. It's way faster than waiting for the reinforcements.
Too bad they accidentally introduce a new bug when you can't exactly puppet a defeated nation in another faction who are technically on the same side with you. Case 1: Poland, the Soviets can't puppet them anymore..... Maybe India too if i'm already have Afghanistan and Iran. I still remember my old French Entente w/out Allies game when i freed capitulated India from Japan and then puppeted them for myself afterwards.
I have been watching a few of these and most have been pretty good scenarios, but this one is just "help me! I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas!"
You do know that if you have divisions that are encircled that you don't think you can break out, you can disband them and get 20% of their manpower and equipment, meaning there's no point in letting the units fall unless you need army XP or need to force the enemy to waste time. Which is essentially trading manpower and equipment for time and army XP which isn't a good trade off in my opinion if you already have enough of them.
You know how people are naturally talented at stuff? Yeah, some people are naturally talented at being terrible at something, like the footstool that made that defensive line.
I'm starting to wonder how much screw up I can make in a campaign then send it, just to see if I can get BitterSteel to go "ah screw it, this is impossible!" while not going to ridiculous lengths
it's nice to see bittersteel pretend like the situation is so dire when it literally isnt. the ai is so bad it can't even deal with such an underplayed ussr.
Do you have any advice for field marshall frontlines? I see you're using them, but I'm always paranoid because it stretches some armies but not others and it sometimes sends whole armies to a single province even when that army's frontline is wider.
If you use the shift key when drawing the line, it will simply fill the front as beat I can with whatever units it has available. That way it won't sent armies to separate areas
@@Bitt3rSteel Oh god as soon as I read that, I had to boot up the game and try it out immediately. Normally I'd assign a frontline for each army and it would look like hell. And that's with >500 hours in the game. You're a lifesaver and I'm eternally grateful. I've been pissed off about this since WtT first released.
hi bitt3r i am 6 months late but the dneipr and the stalin line are the same. the river kyiv is on is called the dniepr and the river stalingrad is on is called the don. the river east of it is the volga
There was time where I had a civil war with literally all the ideologies and had to fall back into Kiev Moscow and the land behind the Amur river in the far east
Yikes....The first game, had me in a deadlock with super axis (composed of the entirety of europe sans England). Didn't know how to use tanks, so it was just full defense, it cost me 10 million people...but I did end up killing over 40 million axis people, only "won" because england/usa naval invaded, and didn't get much resistance....
I'm relieved. I thought I was bad at HOI4, clearly there's worse.
Nothing like the ineptitude of others to make yourself feel better
@@michaelhibbard654 i dont fucking care for them
@@balijaa Based and redpilled
yep sure is
@@michaelhibbard654 I mean its a fact
I would love to see the Russian generals trying to assure Stalin that giving up Moscow and holding the Far East is the best thing to do
Close to the Anime Cat Girls
no, that was the only option...
@Richard Wilson nuke it
During Operation Typhoon and the "great panic" of October 16th there were plans in place for Stalin to abandon Moscow. And at 9am that day Stalin had a meeting in which in apparently declared the government should leave Moscow that day and that he would follow the next day. It was his ministers that often held up Stalins resolve as at the suggestion Mikoyan stated why should he leave today if Stalin is leaving tomorrow.
But it wasn't in the realms of madness for Stalin to think of leaving, the Germans were mere kilometres away and Moscow was in disarray.
seems more like a thing Stalin would order and nobody wanted to oppose hin. Hitler attacking? Must be a ploy of trotzky!
This has to be the most disappointed Bitt3r has ever gotten at a disaster save.
you can feel the frustration
The anger just radiates off him
To me this save has been made up to be frustrated by the author xD
Bittl3r
you could say he was bitter
1:02 "Why is your army here?" Dumbledore said softly
Hahahahaha you got quite a laugh of me
I DONT KNOW WHY i put my army there its probably because I gave up then
@@turtle9294 Wait, are you seriously the master mind behind this monstrosity of a savegame?
@@victorconway444 yes
@@victorconway444 i have pics of the email and everything if you need proof
I half heartedly expected you to swear directly to this guy lmao
"This will be costly but glorious, the soviet union has the manpower to spare" Probably the exact words Stalin had with his generals back then.
It was actually pretty fucking bad lmaooo. Got caught completely off guard.
@Richard Wilson is this true? Can you tell me more?
@@Azachor It isn't strictly true. On the night before the German invasion Stalin went to his dacha in Kuntsevo where he apparently watched films, drank and dined until the early hours. He was asleep when the invasion started but was woken by a phone call from Zhukov then was back in Moscow by 4am. Molotov wasn't handed the declaration of war until 5am.
On the 29th June he did retreat back Kuntsevo where he did not receive calls for a full 24 hours, as he was broken, before Molotov and others convinced him to come back. Then on 3rd July he made he first speech to the Soviet people.
He had realised after the invasion that he had made several serious errors concerning his relationship with Hitler. Even when the evidence was spoken or placed in front of him he never believed the Germans would invade until they actually crossed the border.
@@typhusfever2262 thank you
@@typhusfever2262, he returned on his dacha because of Minsk massacre btw.
"Lenin left us a great legacy, and we, his heirs, have fucked it all up…" - his words after he learned that Soviet Western front is basically destroyed.
TBH this looks like somebody's first or second game.
Or a faked game
I think this could be not so bad :) Start of the game was correct - he took Turkey and Romania, so he made Axis little weaker. But the rest of decisions probably was effect of pure panic.
Nobody is this stupid only this guy
researching nukes def seems like a new player thing. Nukes would seem like a game winner to a newbie
@@GTADonut It is a game winner
Bitter opened this save and went "damn, you live like this?"
Light tanks on a wide front is amazing, if you can mass enough of them you can completely overrun the entire enemy army
Nyoooom!
- Speedy boi
Yeah I don't see an end date for LTs. You have to give the templates some love and pamper the divisions a bit but you need a _fast_ breakthrough, nothing beats LT / Mot divisions.
@@Pow3llMorgan infantry with support at and aa will easily pierce them
@@pcgaming7680 I know. That's why you use them carefully and try not to engage in direct combat.
And you can add some SPGs for additional breakthrough.
I love light tanks on Germany to overrun soviet forts and infantry. I use them like heavy motorized, I rush L3s then give them Engine 5s along with Guderian's advisor bonus for 10% speed, plus the designer bonus. You can make them faster than motorized with the right stacks.
This is hilarious, your beating the Germans the way the Soviets actually did; fierce defending and then implementing 'deep battle' (soviet strategy for encirclement).
Racist
@@-red-5089 ?
@@-red-5089 yes!
Just a little correction,it was not a "strategy for encirclment", in fact it gave more importance to overrunning enemy divisions than to encircle them.(sorry if something doesn't have any sense,english is not my native language)
a lot less cannibalism though
GOD!! I'm laughing so hard on this. I love Bittersteel reactions to the almost infinite HORRIBLE decisions. It reminds myself when I started playing. I was constantly doing s$%t and when it blew up in my face, I was like " why did you do that, THE FORTS ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE RIVER".
Don’t blaspheme
@@mitchelreimer6934 For God's sake, why do you think that policing the internet is your job?
so am i and im the person who sent the game i love the criticism expecially because im so ass at the game
@@turtle9294 good. Bitter is great at teaching newcomers. Take all advice you can.
@@lascerdas I have 200 hours in the game i was tired af when i was playing this and honestly forgot i sent it to him. He's a great teacher for sure
I'm absolutely convinced that Bitt3rSteel was smart enough to see that this "disaster save" was set up. And then tried his best to make it look like he would do it with as if he has the level of intelligence that the sender thinks he has.
I don't want to think of any other scenario.
This got to be deliberate disaster save to test BitterSteels skills
I came here as I was going to comment that. This has to be on purpose. Taking Romania and Turkey is not hard, but you need at least some skill. No one who takes both is that bad that doesn’t know how to guard the border or defend before the capital. It just doesn’t happen!
@@mfapinheiro I think the Nuclear research without any computing tech is the most atrocious.
@@mfapinheiro heh
@@detroitdave9512 I used to do that when I first started the game XD
''Our army might be battered and sloppy, Our Navy might be getting along with Atlantis and her people, Our air force might be non-existent. But, ladies and gentlemen, WE GOT THE NUKES!''
@@Kronosfobi The North Korean strategy.
This is the second disaster save that gives me strong feeling of being fucked up on purpose.
What’s the first?
To his defense. The majority of the forts are (mis)placed by the fokus-tree.
I just realised: the player wasn't the one who built the forts on the wrong side of the river. When you do the Stalin line national focus, it spawns those forts.
Yes, but it spawns those forts instantly, the forts in the que indicates that he built them
What's funny, is that fort set up might become meta after No Step Back drops due to river supply. Need both banks of a river to get the supply from rivers.
That's what real world Stalingrad was like, with the Volga at the soviet's back.
@@miguelrodriguezcimino1674 The scariest part was, at the absolute worst moment in Stalingrad, the literal only piece of land the Russians still held on the opposite bank of the Volga was the docks to send even more men into the city to fight.
It was THAT close.
It still isn't.
River supply is next to useless, always better to take the time to build railways, and they build very quickly which is a surprise.
"man this save was so terrible it's almost unwinnable" **stops the German advance better than USSR in OTL**
I learned so much from this and it became applicable far sooner than I expected. I somehow missed a naval invasion for much longer than I should have and applied lessons on hastily built defenses and judicious use of small army Last Stand orders. My Command points laster longer enough for me to shift my army. Thanks!
"I shouldn't be liberating these workers" Biting satire of Stalin right there.
I can feel the frustration in this one
the soviets love the color red so much they made their whole stockpile that color
Bruh 😂
Man, I wish I still had my save games from my first time playing the game. I believe my first game was as the US ( Before Waking the Tiger was out) I remember playing and getting kind of bored. Then I finally got a focus that gave a free puppet war goal on Venezuela. I struggled so much with naval invading. I also didn't understand division templates at all.
I had another game like the Soviet Union. Where I invaded Iran. But didn't know anything about infantry templates or supply. I was sending my entire army into Iran. I lost close to 1M troops. I think I might've learned to pull back some Inf. But still.
I always wonder if these saves are sent by veteran players or someone who just bought the game and has no idea how to play bc that's what it looks like
But if he had no idea at all, I doubt he would have taken Romania and Turkey. It sort of looks like he was trying to set up defenses, but started with the rear rather than the front line, and not expecting a German attack just yet. (Of course, it's definitely possible it was a set-up by a veteran player.)
@@danieltemelkovski9828 thats true
This save is 100% troll 🤣
Interesting to see you changing your tune on light tanks. I'd never recommend them over mediums, but a couple of divisions of them upgraded for maximum speed is just nasty for exploiting the break throughs that Medium tanks do. I tend not to go for the huge meme pockets like most people and instead use the light tanks to quickly snip off small pockets of 3-4 all over the show. It adds up quickly.
I absolutely do not prefer lights, but given the circumstances, it wasn't feasible to shift into heavies or mediums in time to get to Berlin first....so we improvised!
@@Bitt3rSteel If you have the industry, light tanks can be useful in support of mediums/heavies. let the harder units punch through and then the lights run rampant cutting behind hostile lines. the problem: generally you dont have the factories to support multiple tank groups and against the ai mediums will generally be able to do all the work adequately.
@@trinalgalaxy5943 I never really felt the need to use medium or heavies against the AI. Especially as Germany. You dont have tungsten, so just go for Light Tanks. They do insane Dmg after you broke the infantry army which is quick with cas and air. Your Speed is insane. You can go close to 20 kmh per hour on the right terrain
@@trinalgalaxy5943
Mediums can run rampant behind the lines too.
Especially Med-3's, which can be almost as fast as rapid-deploying Infantry 😆
i like small pockets too, but when your center and southern army groups are getting held up but your northern army just smashed their lines you can bet there's nothing more satisfying than encircling 70% of the theater. But on light tanks, having about 2 division per army to hold on reserves and breakthrough an enemy army on its last legs are a great way to end a conflict easily
Well done, what an achievment and triumph! That was alot of fun to watch!
What was this guy thinking? Holy hell, he really is a crazy turtle.
To be fair, the Idea that your scientists calculate the free neutron density in enriched Uranium during the fission process but with an Abacus, because you never gave them computers ... That is worth it just for the meme.
Hey Bitt3r. Since you tend to wonder how many casualties the enemy took after you close an encircledment. Below the game date and world tensiom box on the upper right part of the screen, below it, to the right of the "Theather box", in this videos case where it says "Soviet Theather 1" there is a symbol that when hovered over it should say "Combat Log" when you press it a new box appears telling you casualties taken in battle by you and ai per hour, and in the other tabs it gives you more details on equipment lost and captured.
it's historical! the red army had something like 30 divisions in the east to defend against japan, and only after those units arrived to the west did the course of the war change course!
Not really though, that is mostly a myth
actualy, they made new divisions on the far east, so garrison remained there during the whole war.
@@mapoch9000 hence why they steamrolled Manchuria
@@elseggs6504 hence Japan did not attack the Soviets, despite the fact that they had plans and an army there
@@mapoch9000 them being shredded in the border conflicts before sure did make them think twice about their northern expansion.
speaking of the USSR, No Step Back is kinda scaring me about the USSR and baltics, hopefully it won't become a situation like the mexico tree where each game hell breaks loose because th ai becomes extremely unstable.
atleast hopefully it won't be this way in historical.
You don't like Atheist People's republic of Mexico 🙄 getting destroyed by Guatemala
@@beastdeas7250 tfw I let democratic mexico into the allies only for them to start waging hell on none aligned/democratic central america while fighting 2 civil wars
NSB is a buff for Germany. USSR civ then snowball into mils meta is destroyed
@@3dcomrade devs said that end game Russia during Barbarossa was significantly buffed
@@dobi2236 if Axis team are unable to exploit the given time that is
So glad TH-cam waited until the end of my lunch break to recommend this. Eurgh.
Now you have something to look forward to!
@@Bitt3rSteel Indeed! Well done. I've never seen so much misery and pleasure in the same video before!
Bitt3er basically turned into Stalin here. Utter confusing and depression at the start, sending commanders of to die (last stand) to hold the line. Attacking at the cost of lives aaand "I shouldnt be liberating these workers" is just icing on the cake.
I feel like Bitter lost some braincells
With level seven forts already built you should have just tried to hold Kiev. That was a decent number of factories that i don't think you needed to give up. Sure, forts degrade while river lines don't, but a level 7 fort is very imposing, and you do have the option to retreat across the river if they do manage to take it.
Nah, it can be attacked from too many sides, and if it falls, there is no entrenchment in the fallback position
Bro, I REFUSE to believe that this wasn’t set up, there is no way any player who knows what the game is even about plans on just giving up Moscow without some sort of memey reason
That actually looks like a very historical Soviet Union, having their army in a complete disarray and keeping the troops on the Japanese border until late 1941 excepting an attack
my man really rp'd as soviet high command in 1941
Has 1.2k fighters-stops producing them as its "not worth it"
Is 10k light tanks in deficit-keeps production to "fill out the losses"
Man the old Soviet tree was Disgusting. I'm super glad they updated it.
35:20 You can pinpoint the exact moment in time his pants get all sticky
And mine
«Why are you on service by requirement?»
Trollolololololo
This one is sabotaged
Probably
must be
Unless the player that sent this in is completely new I do not see how this is realistic as to how someone would play, how do you even do this? I have no idea.
Entertaining video nevertheless, thank you for the upload.
You could also use nothing but light SP artillery units as an armoured unit if you want a cheap but efficient armoured division. Use 14 motorized with 4 light SP artillery and they will shred any enemy infantry and create encirclements with ease. I once built these divisions with Japan and destroyed the entire Chinese army with only 63k casualties. Chinese casualties were around 1.10 million.
This was brilliant to watch. I really need a micromanaging tutorial for managing frontlines in this way, from tips like forming an army with one division for holdng to the exact buttons to press to deploy troops te the right places. Whenever i micromanage armies on a front, they often unexpectedly start moving to inexplicably far-away tiles. My actual USSR got attacked and i was so preoccupied with getting other things ready, I didn't notice my armies were still exercising. I'm going to have to watch this video again a few times to try to save that shitshow.
This seems like the accurate Soviet experience
I can see pain in this video
I refuse to believe that this save isn't fake, at very least he played normally at the beginning, but trolled before sending the game to you. No human would think that this defensive lane would make any sense, other mistakes are stupid but understandable, but this one is the sole reason why I will never believe in this save's legitimacy
If it wasn’t for the fact the line was behind the capital I would have believed it.
So I am with you there.
The dude might be an ethiopian general
Losing a fight with an enemy you outnumber 30 to 1 and holding a defensive line 500 kms back of the front line is straight from their playbook
I feel like this is a troll game from the person who sent this in. The forts built are a dead giveaway
I had no idea you could consolidate divisions like that! Thank you!
stalin in 1936 be like: "we will give every infantry man 3 howitzers"
when you're two minutes into the video and Bittersteel is already sounding like Gordon Ramsay
This game was intentionally messed up but you did a good job with the save.
Either the first or second game for the player or this one was made as a joke. There is no way this would happen otherwise.
bro the second i saw the troop placement i started laughing i dont even know how he thought japan was gonna attack him
Thanks for uploading the save :D
Spread the suffering
1:56 personally, the weak spot in my deniper defense line is the area around Kiev, specifically the province to the north of Kiev (south of Chernigov).
Imagine spending hours preparing for barborossa only to relealise you built forts on the wrong side of the river...
This guy conquered Turkey at the start of the game and then went afk
This might have been painful and soul destroying for you, but this was wonderful entertainment. This is probably my favourite hoi4 video I've seen.
What maintenance units help you steal enemy equipment. I used them, but never new this feature 😱 15:38 so much stuff you don't know about this game, even though you played it so often
This had to be sabotaged.... I just can't imagine these choices
Have you ever tried the Tank division challenge?
After watching ISP do it I tried it and it was awesome, I just built up the Light Tank division and got out 66 before Germany came and we inflicted massive casualties than rolled over them.
Sounds hilarious, knowing ISP...what was the challenge?
@@Bitt3rSteel Light Tank Divisions only Russia.
He put everything into the Light Tanks, Motorised, Fighter's and supports.
The Germans tried to push and it was absolutely disgusting .
I had to build Refineries for fuel obviously but it was fun.
"Pathetic."
-Bitt3rSteel
Best thing about no step back is you dont forget about doctrines anymore.
Hey bitter
Can you include a link to the save game in the description? That would be great
Ah the first days of the learning curve in hearts of iron. now after 4000 hours I can smack down.
Lol.. this was a lovely comedy! :D
"I shouldn't be liberating these workers" That's a Stalin moment right there
I bet there has to be even more frustrating disaster saves that even Bitt3rSteel can't withstand them. Those of course is not shown in TH-cam because he doesn't want to lose maybe?
I mean, he knows more than me when i started, i just didnt build forts or defensive lines in general, but he knows that a good defense has something to do with rivers xD
Wow. I needed 10 attempts to replicate this. Hint: 14w infantry divisions holds the line just fine, equipment is lesser problem then. Also not sure, if AA in infantry was needed, I wasn't able to produce enough AA until the war was over :)
The day I've learnt that you can merge divisions
800 hours of playtime and i just learnt this.
I've never been in a situation so dire that I needed to merge divisions that beaten up just so they could get back to the fight; but I usually do merge 20 width divisions into 40s when shifting from defense to offense. It's way faster than waiting for the reinforcements.
@Content what drugs are you on comrade
Too bad they accidentally introduce a new bug when you can't exactly puppet a defeated nation in another faction who are technically on the same side with you.
Case 1: Poland, the Soviets can't puppet them anymore.....
Maybe India too if i'm already have Afghanistan and Iran. I still remember my old French Entente w/out Allies game when i freed capitulated India from Japan and then puppeted them for myself afterwards.
You know its over when Bittersteel gets the support artillery.
The beginning was Bittersweet Steel lol 😂
I heard that Daniel reference, "I really want off Mr Bones' Wild Ride..."
im surprised as to why you didnt try to hold kiev since it already had level 7 forts on it
I have been watching a few of these and most have been pretty good scenarios, but this one is just "help me! I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas!"
You do know that if you have divisions that are encircled that you don't think you can break out, you can disband them and get 20% of their manpower and equipment, meaning there's no point in letting the units fall unless you need army XP or need to force the enemy to waste time. Which is essentially trading manpower and equipment for time and army XP which isn't a good trade off in my opinion if you already have enough of them.
The equipment is lost, some MP is returned to the pool. But Russia has all the men she needs. I wanted to buy more time to redeploy instead
You know how people are naturally talented at stuff? Yeah, some people are naturally talented at being terrible at something, like the footstool that made that defensive line.
What's amazing to me is that this cursed save still turned out better than the actual war.
I'm starting to wonder how much screw up I can make in a campaign then send it, just to see if I can get BitterSteel to go "ah screw it, this is impossible!" while not going to ridiculous lengths
28:09 that’s going to change the power of balance
1:03-2:34 Look how they massacred my boy. Why? Just why? 😟
I'm trying so hard to understand the thought process behind that fallback line. This has to be intentionally bad.
it's nice to see bittersteel pretend like the situation is so dire when it literally isnt. the ai is so bad it can't even deal with such an underplayed ussr.
I've only played hoi4 for a week or so in total and this even hurt my eyes and brain
Do you have any advice for field marshall frontlines? I see you're using them, but I'm always paranoid because it stretches some armies but not others and it sometimes sends whole armies to a single province even when that army's frontline is wider.
If you use the shift key when drawing the line, it will simply fill the front as beat I can with whatever units it has available. That way it won't sent armies to separate areas
@@Bitt3rSteel Oh god as soon as I read that, I had to boot up the game and try it out immediately. Normally I'd assign a frontline for each army and it would look like hell. And that's with >500 hours in the game.
You're a lifesaver and I'm eternally grateful. I've been pissed off about this since WtT first released.
"Time to grind her into dust."
I don't think Bitter thought about what they said.
22:58 That is not the river Volga, its the River Don, The Volga is a little further East
hi bitt3r i am 6 months late but the dneipr and the stalin line are the same. the river kyiv is on is called the dniepr and the river stalingrad is on is called the don. the river east of it is the volga
Was the stalin line defending kyiv or the other side of the dnieper though? because kyiv is on the wrong side of the dnieper im pretty sure
This is what happens when you introduce HoI4 to your younger brother
"I think you have no equipment"
AHH a historic soviet game
There was time where I had a civil war with literally all the ideologies and had to fall back into Kiev Moscow and the land behind the Amur river in the far east
I dont think thats possible
Yikes....The first game, had me in a deadlock with super axis (composed of the entirety of europe sans England). Didn't know how to use tanks, so it was just full defense, it cost me 10 million people...but I did end up killing over 40 million axis people, only "won" because england/usa naval invaded, and didn't get much resistance....
you can really tell the previous guy just played hoi4 for the first time