Having thought about it overnight, I think WerBell is my favorite Russia game so far, which is really saying something given how much I like Tomsk. Despite that, while I like WerBell's path--it has just the right amount of blursedness to make it fun and interesting, not to mention the fact that it has crazy fun stuff (and all those Metal Gear references, even if I probably missed half of them due to never having played a Metal Gear game) going on without slipping into pure insanity or terrible awfulness--I did notice a few things that just didn't work that well.
First, the idea of WerBell having to balance between collaborators, skeptical locals, and mercenaries is great. This could even be used to create interesting fail states where there' a revolution or coup against him at the regional or even superregional levels that leads to his "United States" breaking up because he allowed one of their opinions of him to get too low compared to their influence. The problem at the moment is that the implementation of the system is, well, not great. Basically, you just have to fiddle with your cabinet a little once and take a couple of focuses (I think maybe even only one) in the regional political tree, and then you're done for the rest of the game, which is a complete waste of the mechanic. Most basically, it should also be affected by your other decisions and focuses, for example whether to focus on building up a local army with only a core of mercenaries (+collaborators, locals, -mercenaries) or instead build an army almost exclusively of mercenaries (+mercenaries, -collaborators, locals) or so on and so forth. There should also be a collection of decisions or other mechanics that you can use to interact with it on an ongoing basis, for example advertising for mercenaries or expanding the local bureaucracy or rewarding collaborators or the like, with more or less constant interactions going on like the political system in other countries.
Second, the economic tree is grossly imbalanced in favor of free trade with the United States, which offers much better bonuses than industrializing Siberia. Besides interacting with the political mechanic, as mentioned above, some of the U.S. bonuses should be transferred into the Siberian tree (-consumer goods and +construction makes much more sense there as you're working on building up local industry) and the trees in general should be rebalanced. Additionally, I would suggest that some kind of investment mechanic be added, wherein you could add to your national debt/subtract from your reserves in order to build infrastructure/factories/add resources/get research bonuses/etc. Both the U.S. and domestic trees should have access to decisions like this, but with some twists or differences. For example, some of the U.S. decisions might function similarly to certain decisions in China, where you have resources added but they're sold to the Americans (Japanese) and as such you can't access them, at least for a while (this might be annulled in the superregional focus that sends away the American workers/executives, so you would get them back eventually). Or the U.S. decisions might be cheaper but lead to smaller benefits than the equivalent Siberian decisions, since the corporations you're inviting in are both providing some of their own capital (so you don't have to invest as much) but at the same time demand some of the profits in return. It might also function similarly to the "corporate conflict" in Novosibirsk or other similar mechanics in other countries, where the relative strength of mercenary/CIA interests and local/collaborator interests ends up determining which path you can take while offering some intermediate bonuses.
Third, and this is actually an idea I had while writing the above, perhaps there should also be some interactions with the Japanese as well--granted, WerBell is actually American and they would obviously be skeptical of him, but he is in a strategic location for them, there are definite business opportunities in the United States of Siberia, and it's not inconceivable that they could essentially bribe him into being semi-aligned with them, or at least not hostile. This might play into the political mechanic as a whole, so that there might actually be two factions of mercenaries just like there are two faction of Russians--one more aligned with the Japanese and the other more aligned with the United States. This could add extra (mutually exclusive) branches to his foreign policy and economic trees where he aligns with the Japanese covertly or overtly (maybe even a path where he takes covert assistance from both the Japanese and the United States, and likewise has extensive economic activity from both countries). In fact, all of the Harbin Three should have interactions around dealing with the United States and Japan, much like Italy, along with perhaps Irkutsk if it takes the super-NEP path and opens up the economy.
Fourth, some of the bonuses offered by the focuses are...unclear. In particular, the focuses that offer new ministers for the political mechanic are rather obscure, since the tooltip just tells you a name and doesn't explain what they actually do and so allow you to figure out which one works better for your overall strategy. Likewise, the foreign policy tree could be a bit clearer that it offers the ability to send mercenaries to conflict zones, which is after all one of WerBell's signature features. These tooltips could be clarified a little.
Fifth, and in relation to that last one, it would be nice if the mercenary dispatching mechanic was automatically unlocked at regional and the foreign policy tree focuses were more about buffing it by increasing your volunteer numbers and maybe increasing the benefit the target country gets if you offer them a mercenary contract as opposed to unlocking it in the first place. The foreign policy tree isn't typically a priority for Russian countries, both because it doesn't offer that much interesting storytelling in most cases and because it usually doesn't offer large bonuses or significant utility compared to domestic trees. This would be a way of allowing use of, as I said, one of the signature or marquee features of WerBell's path while generally allowing the player to focus on the more immediately useful focuses. Additionally, it would help WerBell get involved in the mid-60s wars, which otherwise he tends to miss due to having to take the focuses first (this would be less of an issue if Hüttig's wild ride was working right now and so there were African wars in the second half of the 1960s to occupy yourself with before the Iberian Wars and Arabian Wars kick off).
Sixth, it might be nice on the U.S. side if WerBell coming out on top unlocked some extra interactions with him via the CIA and even perhaps getting directly involved in his wars through advisors and so on (if he takes the open U.S. support path). Compared to other warlords, he is clearly both easier to reach (given his control of Magadan) and substantially more open to all sorts of U.S. activity that could mask CIA connections than even Petlin's Magadan, besides obviously being directly linked to the CIA himself. It's hard to come up with a Russia that's better for U.S. interests than WerBell's. The CIA could easily set up front companies to invest in Siberian businesses to strengthen him, for example, or set up companies to mask operations in Manchuria and Mongolia similar to Air America (Air Siberia?). NSA listening stations could be set up in the area, too, again possibly under some kind of front or cover story (for example, expanding Radio Free Magadan). Additionally, it might be nice if the CIA could pay for other countries to be sent WerBell mercenaries, as a way to provide assistance to one side in a war without becoming directly involved. For example, this might be a way for the U.S. to get involved in the Second South African Civil War or the Grossafrikaner Reichstaat's collapse without having to commit combat troops--they could send mercenaries to their preferred side or to fight against Hüttig instead of deploying the XVIII Airborne Corps.
Seventh, it's kind of a pity that Petlin isn't a collaborator and just sort of vanishes after the coup without even getting an event to explain where he ended up like Matkovsky does. Given his admiration of the United States, it seems just absolutely perfect narratively for him to transition from being Matkovsky's right-hand man to being WerBell's, trying to steer the latter towards his Cincinnatus path and a focus on the locals and collaborators. This could add all sorts of fun events and interactions where he tries to temper WerBell's crudity and nudge him towards more explicit guarantees of rights, opening up elections to at least some positions, and other reforms. Actually, this could be linked to the wider political mechanic that I mentioned in part 1, which could perhaps be expanded beyond just a "clash of personalities" type of mechanic to involve defining how the state will go in a political or structural sense, which could be combined with events that are shaped by your cabinet members. The events show that WerBell is...well-meaning, perhaps, but not that interested in the day-to-day mechanics of government or really running things except in a broad sense, so I would expect his cabinet ministers to have a large impact on how government works. This could also interact with some of the other mechanics mentioned above, for example having fewer mercenary or CIA ministers would restrict CIA operations, whereas having more might enable a wider range of operations.
(Can you tell that I really, really liked WerBell's Russia?)
