A couple of observations on declaring war

[Tisifoni]

First if you try to speed through the quieter 'phoney war periods' and check the skip voluntary unit loss and skip the declaration of war it is quite easy to 'overshoot' and realise you've missed the month that you intended to declare war.

Second, on my last 'run' for the first time as the Soviets I only took Bessarabia, Karelia and one of the Baltics. The option to take the other two Baltics never came up. I'm not insisting that it must, but it would be interesting to know why ?

Did I make a mistake by going for Estonia first, rather than going Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, in that order.

I did think as the Soviets I might be able to declare war on Lithuania and Latvia, and didn't check the 'skip declaration of war' option, but it wasn't an option to do so.

[MarkDey]

I've done the same thing (not declaring war when I meant to because I check those boxes out of habit.) Terribly frustrating, but not a flaw with the game.

As for the Baltic States, you should be able to declare war on them as Russia if both the West and Soviet factions are at war. And assuming that you didn't check the box to skip the declare war phase. The option to annex Latvia and Lithuania should appear if an Area Seized marker is pulled from the diplomacy cup. It's entirely possible that not all of the areas are annexed by Russia before diplomacy ends.

[Tisifoni]

The option to claim an area only came up three times on that run; Bessarabia, Karelia and Estonia, then . . .

Had another run and this time ; Bessarabia, Karelia, and then . . .

And why no option for the USSR to declare war if those options don't happen before Barbarossa ?

But there are advantages to fighting on a narrower front.

[Tisifoni]

Each time I try the general war 1939 - 194 . . .

The event pool runs out and doesn't replenish and the Soviets only get to grab 2, maybe 3 of the 5 (Bessarabia, Karelia, Baltics).
Tend to end up with an eastern war on a narrow front, with no Mediterranean / Balkan theatre.

[MarkDey]

Did you know that you can spend production to add markers back into the diplomacy cup? That’s typically what an allied player will do to help the Soviets gain multiple ceded areas.

[RobertBr]

The event pool runs out and doesn't replenish and the Soviets only get to grab 2, maybe 3 of the 5 (Bessarabia, Karelia, Baltics).
Tend to end up with an eastern war on a narrow front, with no Mediterranean / Balkan theatre.

Why don't the Axis invade the Balkans and open up that theatre?