First of all, thank you for the answers. Reading your Germany AAR in these forums a couple of years ago is what sparked my interest in HoI, even though I didn't start playing until last week.
Consumer Goods will go down by a lot when you are in state of war, because the population will not need products anymore and the industry will begin focusing on military production.
Indeed, once war broke out my CG needs dropped like a rock. I also noticed a substantial decrease before the war started, when the Agadir Crisis event kicked in. I've done some more research and apparently CG are tied to neutrality.
If your borders are long and your army is not enough, you should be able to lose ground but in exchange you should be able to defend key positions, such as cities or rivers. Unless you want to go on the offensive early on.
Would you say that building forts in the parts of your frontier not covered by rivers is a good idea? They are a bit pricy but then again I'm not going to spend anything on my navy.
I've found that going on the offensive as A-H against the Russians is suicidal, many of the attacks involve river crossings and I haven't got enough divisions to push to the next decent defensive line, the Dnepr. I'm quite pleased though that the AI in this game isn't totally brain-dead, for they actually keep launching brutal attacks in the parts of my front not anchored behind riverlines. On a semi-related note... are marines worth it for a land power? I've read that a MAR + MAR + ENG is pretty good for river crossings.
Finally, one last question: I have one army made mostly of mountaineer divisions, which has performed well in the Balkans against Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. However, I've read that artillery support brigades suffer crippling maluses when fighting in mountains, as well as slowing down my infantry. Is MTN + MTN + ART a bad division composition?