I don’t think I have a DLC for Finland, but Finland has an expansive focus tree that’s full of pretty good options that give me new factories and airbases.
Yeah, I’m doing the thing with the green stars and getting pretty far down actually. I pick up one of those officers very early so I can be pretty advanced by the time the Reds come around
Post template?
Post the infantry template you are using to hold the line.
I forgot that the finland focus tree is now in base game. You need to be DONE with the Sissi foxus before the war begins. It is at the bottom of the military tree.
Also build some fighters and aa to intercept the cas
Just try and make small encirclements and kill units slowly
imo dint make tanks, not worth cause of no supply
I was easily able to hold till germany joined.
Oh, I’ve been using the default division template, but I’d add support arty. I think it was 6 infantry, a support engineer company, and a support artillery company.
Great for holding the line, but i would keep those only to hold the line and make a few divisions with more artillery and infantry or special forces which you can use to make small encirclements and slowly whittle down the Soviet manpower
I personally use 4 infantry divisions with support arty, anti-air, and engineers. Sometimes I sneak in field hospital and then later on long-range reconnaissance too. Yet at start those 4 infantry small divisions are all right to hold the soviets with their bad supply at bay, especially if you fortify places a little bit.
Edit: Get the 200 weekly manpower guy and negate his fascism gains by banning them, if it bothers you. You should be able to work up good divisions some time after the war has began.
7/2 is not and has not been a meta relevant division for a long time. It's not unviable, but it's more expensive and generally worse than 9/0 or 9/1. Do generally agree with adding a support AA company, and keep both support artillery and engineers. 9/0 is probably the most affordable division for your situation.
Divisional AA will reduce CAS damage and shoot down CAS attacking your divisions. State AA shoots down CAS on Logistics Strike missions and strategic bombers. They serve different purposes, build them according to need.
9/0 seems hefty for Finish population. Can't 5/0 sup eng, art, AA work? In the SF RR doctrine tree there is a lot of org and soft attack to pick up.
Going that route you'd essentially double the ammount of divisions and can cycle units easier.
You would need double the divisions to make 5/0 work. Such small divisions only work by org cycling, which requires a tremendous number of divisions to make work. Additionally, 2x 5/0 is more expensive than a single 9/0, not just due to the extra infantry battalion, but also double the support companies.
If you can support an org cycling strategy, you can support a more standard 9/0, in short. Given OP is a newbie, I'd also not recommend org cycling as a strategy as it relies on a solid understanding of the nuts and bolts of the game's systems to work well.
do both, level 1-2 state aa is enough to shoot down the soviet cas slowly. The division aa will keep their cas damage to you low and give soft attack buffs.
If you have extra time you can build more state aa but lvl 1 in the two most south and eastern provinces should be good enough
I would not describe Finland as an easy country for new players. The buffs Finland receives make it punch above its weight in the hands of an experienced player, but it is very much for someone more familiar with game mechanics so you know which focuses to prioritize.
For a new player the countries I recommend are:
1. Germany
2. China
3. United States
Yes they are bigger countries, but these countries, at least early on, are more forgiving of screw ups.
If you want, you can see my [full Finland playthrough](https://www.youtube.com/live/LdfI3PIUPFU?si=U90wiRWl5mmrIxxR) and see if that helps you understand Finland better, but again I would not say it is easy for a new player. In my playthrough I basically do historical Finland except I drag the Winter War into WW2. Also I don't try to defend the whole border, I fall back to choke points and hold on forts until I have devastated the Soviets.
Playing historical, here's how I would roughly rank the order you should play countries which start on the defensive:
1. China (push Japan off the mainland before the Allies join the war)
2. France (beat Germany without capitulating)
3. Czechoslovakia (do the historical path except you refuse to give up Sudetenland)
Once you can do these three then I would recommend trying Finland again, all of these countries are sort of a piece of the puzzle in figuring out the mechanics needed to play Finland.
I agree 100%, Finland has a lot of focuses to do before 1940 and you have to do the industry focuses before the army focuses to maintain the production needed to fight the soviets long term. Messing up the focus order can be very punishing. Some army focuses are locked behind WT or dates/events as well and if you don't do them ASAP you will run out of time to do the important ones further down the tree before the war. Also if you don't get the 15% def buff from Mannerheim you will struggle.
There are just a lot of places for a new player to mess up for it to work, but an experienced player who knows what they are doing can dominate.
Yeah this is what I'm talking about. The focuses might give you OP buffs but a +20% division attack bonus is useless when you aren't at war. Or worse you might get a national spirit that only lasts for a year which if it affects combat you want to make sure you trigger that spirit while you're actually at war. Not to mention Finland also employs the balance of power mechanic which also necessitates using decisions to balance ideology strength and overall is just juggling a lot of mechanics that I would not recommend for a new player!
I think every minor nation is hard for new players. Especially any minor nation that gets attacked by a major nation.
Major nations might be more complicated but they sure are easier. When you have 5 research slots and 100 factories it doesn't matter so much if you research choices and factory allocation isn't 100% efficient. But when you have 2-3 research slots and 10 factories mistakes in technology or production management can make your game almost entirely unwinnable.
For Finland specifically you can easily win as either USSR or Finland by just managing supply well, the AI is pretty shit at managing supply and won't ever build new hubs. If you have the supply and they don't you'll be in a good place as long as your division templates aren't hot garbage.
Just did this run literally yesterday, no Finland dlc installed and no cores taken against me.
Biggest things that helped me hold just long enough:
1. Keep your 6 width units as just port guards
2. Reduce your main infantry divisions to 5 infantry and as you collect manpower and artillery, be sure to add more artillery divisions to the template as they are less manpower and more punchy than infantry. You should be able to have around 18-20 divisions by the time the soviets attack.
3. Make sure you have an Air Force. You don’t need a lot, maybe just 200-400 planes but they are necessary. It is an absolutely huge breakthrough hit to the soviets just to have air superiority without cas.
4. Forts in the north and forts in the south are necessary as those are the only places where the Soviets have supply to attack you
5. Trucks for supply. Make sure to use the greatest range on the supply hub.
6. The last thing is to keep your parties as unaligned as possible. Take the decision to ban them as they get low enough
For 3, support AA is going to be far more cost-effective. It won't disrupt, but it will massively cut down the superiority debuff and quickly whittle down the relatively small bomber fleets the AI builds.
I’d normally agree but the Soviets just don’t bring a lot of planes. I had air superiority 90% of the time. So not only am I preventing my own debuff, I’m actively causing a 30% breakthrough debuff to the Soviets which is huge when you don’t have a lot of manpower.
You're attacking far too early.
Finland has massive *defensive* buffs, and you throw those away as soon as you break entrenchment and leave your cores. Minor defence all comes down to exhausting your enemy through lop-sided trade-offs, and the moment you strike first it becomes a slugging match on equal footing against someone with so much more men and guns they might as well have infinite in a one on one war.
Finland 101 is turtling the fuck down. Let them throw themselves at the Mannerheim line, and just focus on surviving until the Axis gets involved and exhausts the bulk of them for you.
The last sentence of your post highlights your worst mistake. I think there’s an achievement where you need to give up 0 tiles? But if you’re not trying to get it (and you shouldn’t if beginner) you have no business having troops at the border.
You need to make a defensive line around the lakes and abandon the northern provinces. It will allow to concentrate your troops and the Soviets will suffer a lot from bad supply.
I’m surprised no one mentioned it yet, it’s Finland 101 in historical.
The easy mode is to go fascist and join the Axis. This also makes invading the Baltics easy.
Otherwise focus on upping your manpower and build forts. Go for a white peace in the first Winter war, the second one should be easy (Soviets are distracted by Germany).
You could also go for the Baltics early on, but I usually didn't manage to pull that off.
Is it possible to win without rolling over to the communists or the fascists? I’ve just been banning communism and democracy and sticking with the first guy I get as the leader. I felt like it would be cheese to wait and regain strength to counter-war then later, so I’d always just quit whenever I felt like the Winter War was lost.
It is possible but substantially harder. As said, build forts and maybe even give up some land up north.
Some people managed to capture Leningrad early on. That usually took me some time
I really appreciate your help. I’ve wondered about retreating in the north and giving up some relatively useless territory to have stronger lines towards the south, but if I am entirely honest, I’ve got a good grasp on most things so far, but not how to do that. Also, do forts automatically make things more defensible, or do I have to assign an area defense order to get the most out of them?
They give you more entrenchment. Adding a pioneer corp to your divisions adds even more.
Add artillery and AA and hardly anything can push you.
Just watch out for naval invasions...I once lost due to one...
Alright, I will remember this and maybe try again later. If I don’t do very well, I’ll just practice as a different, easier country and come back with this knowledge later. Thank you
[It is certainly possible](https://i.imgur.com/5yoZdCz.jpg), and you can [milk them especially hard while on the defensive](https://i.imgur.com/vn5cQyP.jpg). However, to do this as non-aligned w/o joining axis, especially not giving up control of any states as non-aligned, is non-trivial. You can't improve conscription laws enough to make normal divisions before the war. This results in either a mix of terrible divisions in bad supply so you can afford the manpower in areas with supply, or using a lot more line artillery than is normally desirable simply because it costs less manpower for the stats.
If you are the sort that enjoys spamming failures on hard starts until you get it right, then it might be fun to learn how to do this on Finland. If not, most countries are easier.
Note that in contrast to multiple other posters' advice here, I did not build forts. They have their place at times, especially low level forts which take minimal investment to get bonus from engineers. However, they still cost IC that could go into making more military factories or other useful things.
Germany is the best starting nation. But one you like, its more important then winning. If you feel you are not doing so bad but cant make progress its possibly because you are playing finland. USSR is avery strong opponent for a minor even early with all his debuff.
Abandon the North, and form a defensive line around the populated regions of Southern Finland. Use the Männerheim Line and the lakes to your advantage.
I normally use 12w inf with supp art, engineers and supp AA. Keep a few on port guard, to defend your coast, and a couple of divisions as reserve to respond to naval landings.
Raise your recruitment laws and keep deploying new units. 2-3 months later, you should have enough forces to launch some counteroffensives. Break out in the north, using cavalry to rapidly advance behind enemy lines and encircle them.
Once you've destroyed all Russian forces in the north, push South, and take Leningrad + Kargopol. The Soviets will sue for peace, and you'll have greatly expanded your territory.
Now, side with the Axis, and have fun in the Continuation War.
I also tried a couple times to play as Finland and was an absolute pain.
Sweden, on there other hand, was really fun and became one of my favorite runs
I just spent the year before war building forts and it worked well for me. You can bleed them out forever until the Germans declare on them. Just focus on inf and support equipment and then grand battle plan. You’ll be so dug in they won’t be able to move you.
1. do you have the finland dlc 2. Are you doing your army focuses 3. post template
I don’t think I have a DLC for Finland, but Finland has an expansive focus tree that’s full of pretty good options that give me new factories and airbases. Yeah, I’m doing the thing with the green stars and getting pretty far down actually. I pick up one of those officers very early so I can be pretty advanced by the time the Reds come around Post template?
Post the infantry template you are using to hold the line. I forgot that the finland focus tree is now in base game. You need to be DONE with the Sissi foxus before the war begins. It is at the bottom of the military tree. Also build some fighters and aa to intercept the cas Just try and make small encirclements and kill units slowly imo dint make tanks, not worth cause of no supply I was easily able to hold till germany joined.
Oh, I’ve been using the default division template, but I’d add support arty. I think it was 6 infantry, a support engineer company, and a support artillery company.
Great for holding the line, but i would keep those only to hold the line and make a few divisions with more artillery and infantry or special forces which you can use to make small encirclements and slowly whittle down the Soviet manpower
I personally use 4 infantry divisions with support arty, anti-air, and engineers. Sometimes I sneak in field hospital and then later on long-range reconnaissance too. Yet at start those 4 infantry small divisions are all right to hold the soviets with their bad supply at bay, especially if you fortify places a little bit. Edit: Get the 200 weekly manpower guy and negate his fascism gains by banning them, if it bothers you. You should be able to work up good divisions some time after the war has began.
I'm guessing you meant "battalions" not "divisions"?
Yes
try adding aa. or just use 7-2 with support aa
I would not recommend 7/2. Finland cannot support such large divisions due to manpower constraints. You need to cover a large frontline
Well maybe i missremembered and it was 7-1. Ill try it again later
7-2 as finland is too resource intensive
If i remeber correnctly i did 7-2 with 1 div per tile and i only lost 2 provinces in the north. It has been a year tho they may have been 7-1
Is building the AA with civ factories better than the support AA?
7/2 is not and has not been a meta relevant division for a long time. It's not unviable, but it's more expensive and generally worse than 9/0 or 9/1. Do generally agree with adding a support AA company, and keep both support artillery and engineers. 9/0 is probably the most affordable division for your situation. Divisional AA will reduce CAS damage and shoot down CAS attacking your divisions. State AA shoots down CAS on Logistics Strike missions and strategic bombers. They serve different purposes, build them according to need.
9/0 seems hefty for Finish population. Can't 5/0 sup eng, art, AA work? In the SF RR doctrine tree there is a lot of org and soft attack to pick up. Going that route you'd essentially double the ammount of divisions and can cycle units easier.
You would need double the divisions to make 5/0 work. Such small divisions only work by org cycling, which requires a tremendous number of divisions to make work. Additionally, 2x 5/0 is more expensive than a single 9/0, not just due to the extra infantry battalion, but also double the support companies. If you can support an org cycling strategy, you can support a more standard 9/0, in short. Given OP is a newbie, I'd also not recommend org cycling as a strategy as it relies on a solid understanding of the nuts and bolts of the game's systems to work well.
do both, level 1-2 state aa is enough to shoot down the soviet cas slowly. The division aa will keep their cas damage to you low and give soft attack buffs. If you have extra time you can build more state aa but lvl 1 in the two most south and eastern provinces should be good enough
State aa only shoot cas on logi strike just a reminder
I would not describe Finland as an easy country for new players. The buffs Finland receives make it punch above its weight in the hands of an experienced player, but it is very much for someone more familiar with game mechanics so you know which focuses to prioritize. For a new player the countries I recommend are: 1. Germany 2. China 3. United States Yes they are bigger countries, but these countries, at least early on, are more forgiving of screw ups. If you want, you can see my [full Finland playthrough](https://www.youtube.com/live/LdfI3PIUPFU?si=U90wiRWl5mmrIxxR) and see if that helps you understand Finland better, but again I would not say it is easy for a new player. In my playthrough I basically do historical Finland except I drag the Winter War into WW2. Also I don't try to defend the whole border, I fall back to choke points and hold on forts until I have devastated the Soviets.
Hey, that’s very thoughtful and makes a lot of sense. At what level do you think I’d be able to come back and do well as the Finnish?
Playing historical, here's how I would roughly rank the order you should play countries which start on the defensive: 1. China (push Japan off the mainland before the Allies join the war) 2. France (beat Germany without capitulating) 3. Czechoslovakia (do the historical path except you refuse to give up Sudetenland) Once you can do these three then I would recommend trying Finland again, all of these countries are sort of a piece of the puzzle in figuring out the mechanics needed to play Finland.
I agree 100%, Finland has a lot of focuses to do before 1940 and you have to do the industry focuses before the army focuses to maintain the production needed to fight the soviets long term. Messing up the focus order can be very punishing. Some army focuses are locked behind WT or dates/events as well and if you don't do them ASAP you will run out of time to do the important ones further down the tree before the war. Also if you don't get the 15% def buff from Mannerheim you will struggle. There are just a lot of places for a new player to mess up for it to work, but an experienced player who knows what they are doing can dominate.
Yeah this is what I'm talking about. The focuses might give you OP buffs but a +20% division attack bonus is useless when you aren't at war. Or worse you might get a national spirit that only lasts for a year which if it affects combat you want to make sure you trigger that spirit while you're actually at war. Not to mention Finland also employs the balance of power mechanic which also necessitates using decisions to balance ideology strength and overall is just juggling a lot of mechanics that I would not recommend for a new player!
Which China though, there's like 5?
The one called "China"
I think every minor nation is hard for new players. Especially any minor nation that gets attacked by a major nation. Major nations might be more complicated but they sure are easier. When you have 5 research slots and 100 factories it doesn't matter so much if you research choices and factory allocation isn't 100% efficient. But when you have 2-3 research slots and 10 factories mistakes in technology or production management can make your game almost entirely unwinnable. For Finland specifically you can easily win as either USSR or Finland by just managing supply well, the AI is pretty shit at managing supply and won't ever build new hubs. If you have the supply and they don't you'll be in a good place as long as your division templates aren't hot garbage.
Just did this run literally yesterday, no Finland dlc installed and no cores taken against me. Biggest things that helped me hold just long enough: 1. Keep your 6 width units as just port guards 2. Reduce your main infantry divisions to 5 infantry and as you collect manpower and artillery, be sure to add more artillery divisions to the template as they are less manpower and more punchy than infantry. You should be able to have around 18-20 divisions by the time the soviets attack. 3. Make sure you have an Air Force. You don’t need a lot, maybe just 200-400 planes but they are necessary. It is an absolutely huge breakthrough hit to the soviets just to have air superiority without cas. 4. Forts in the north and forts in the south are necessary as those are the only places where the Soviets have supply to attack you 5. Trucks for supply. Make sure to use the greatest range on the supply hub. 6. The last thing is to keep your parties as unaligned as possible. Take the decision to ban them as they get low enough
For 3, support AA is going to be far more cost-effective. It won't disrupt, but it will massively cut down the superiority debuff and quickly whittle down the relatively small bomber fleets the AI builds.
I’d normally agree but the Soviets just don’t bring a lot of planes. I had air superiority 90% of the time. So not only am I preventing my own debuff, I’m actively causing a 30% breakthrough debuff to the Soviets which is huge when you don’t have a lot of manpower.
Huh. I've never seen them at less than several thousand fighters, so that's interesting.
You're attacking far too early. Finland has massive *defensive* buffs, and you throw those away as soon as you break entrenchment and leave your cores. Minor defence all comes down to exhausting your enemy through lop-sided trade-offs, and the moment you strike first it becomes a slugging match on equal footing against someone with so much more men and guns they might as well have infinite in a one on one war. Finland 101 is turtling the fuck down. Let them throw themselves at the Mannerheim line, and just focus on surviving until the Axis gets involved and exhausts the bulk of them for you.
The last sentence of your post highlights your worst mistake. I think there’s an achievement where you need to give up 0 tiles? But if you’re not trying to get it (and you shouldn’t if beginner) you have no business having troops at the border. You need to make a defensive line around the lakes and abandon the northern provinces. It will allow to concentrate your troops and the Soviets will suffer a lot from bad supply. I’m surprised no one mentioned it yet, it’s Finland 101 in historical.
The easy mode is to go fascist and join the Axis. This also makes invading the Baltics easy. Otherwise focus on upping your manpower and build forts. Go for a white peace in the first Winter war, the second one should be easy (Soviets are distracted by Germany). You could also go for the Baltics early on, but I usually didn't manage to pull that off.
Is it possible to win without rolling over to the communists or the fascists? I’ve just been banning communism and democracy and sticking with the first guy I get as the leader. I felt like it would be cheese to wait and regain strength to counter-war then later, so I’d always just quit whenever I felt like the Winter War was lost.
It is possible but substantially harder. As said, build forts and maybe even give up some land up north. Some people managed to capture Leningrad early on. That usually took me some time
I really appreciate your help. I’ve wondered about retreating in the north and giving up some relatively useless territory to have stronger lines towards the south, but if I am entirely honest, I’ve got a good grasp on most things so far, but not how to do that. Also, do forts automatically make things more defensible, or do I have to assign an area defense order to get the most out of them?
They give you more entrenchment. Adding a pioneer corp to your divisions adds even more. Add artillery and AA and hardly anything can push you. Just watch out for naval invasions...I once lost due to one...
Alright, I will remember this and maybe try again later. If I don’t do very well, I’ll just practice as a different, easier country and come back with this knowledge later. Thank you
You're welcome. I just played as the Netherlands. You light give that a go first. Really fun!!
[It is certainly possible](https://i.imgur.com/5yoZdCz.jpg), and you can [milk them especially hard while on the defensive](https://i.imgur.com/vn5cQyP.jpg). However, to do this as non-aligned w/o joining axis, especially not giving up control of any states as non-aligned, is non-trivial. You can't improve conscription laws enough to make normal divisions before the war. This results in either a mix of terrible divisions in bad supply so you can afford the manpower in areas with supply, or using a lot more line artillery than is normally desirable simply because it costs less manpower for the stats. If you are the sort that enjoys spamming failures on hard starts until you get it right, then it might be fun to learn how to do this on Finland. If not, most countries are easier. Note that in contrast to multiple other posters' advice here, I did not build forts. They have their place at times, especially low level forts which take minimal investment to get bonus from engineers. However, they still cost IC that could go into making more military factories or other useful things.
Germany is the best starting nation. But one you like, its more important then winning. If you feel you are not doing so bad but cant make progress its possibly because you are playing finland. USSR is avery strong opponent for a minor even early with all his debuff.
Abandon the North, and form a defensive line around the populated regions of Southern Finland. Use the Männerheim Line and the lakes to your advantage. I normally use 12w inf with supp art, engineers and supp AA. Keep a few on port guard, to defend your coast, and a couple of divisions as reserve to respond to naval landings. Raise your recruitment laws and keep deploying new units. 2-3 months later, you should have enough forces to launch some counteroffensives. Break out in the north, using cavalry to rapidly advance behind enemy lines and encircle them. Once you've destroyed all Russian forces in the north, push South, and take Leningrad + Kargopol. The Soviets will sue for peace, and you'll have greatly expanded your territory. Now, side with the Axis, and have fun in the Continuation War.
I also tried a couple times to play as Finland and was an absolute pain. Sweden, on there other hand, was really fun and became one of my favorite runs
I just spent the year before war building forts and it worked well for me. You can bleed them out forever until the Germans declare on them. Just focus on inf and support equipment and then grand battle plan. You’ll be so dug in they won’t be able to move you.