Chapter 15: Tanks, gas, and airplanes
July 2, 1915: The Sino-Japanese War begins with the delivery of 57,000 Japanese troops to Formosa.
July 5, 1915: A quick examination of the situation is promising: the Chinese only have 215 brigades.
July 12, 1915: So, of course, they mobilized. Now, I'm considerably outnumbered.
July 21, 1915: Here's a joke for you!
Q: What do 46 Dreadnoughts call the Chinese fleet?
A: Target practice.
The Chinese do have more ships than this, obviously, but it was very considerate of them to put so many in one place at one time. Very considerate indeed.
July 25, 1915: The mobilized forces on Formosa -- some five brigades -- are easily swept aside.
September 22, 1915: Tainan falls.
December 17, 1915: So does Hainan and Taipei. I land forces in Dai Nam, who is having a very tough time with Chinese troops.
January 3, 1916: So, of course, Dai Nam signs a White Peace. Cowards.
January 23, 1916: I have plenty of war score to take Formosa, but the Chinese losses have been really light so far. It'll take a battle to convince them. A battle is what they shall have! To fuel my war machine, I'll research Cheap Steel (and the bonus to gold mines.)
The good news is Bank Inspection Board increased my balance by +£600 a day. The bad news is I'm still losing almost £4000 a day. I've got a war chest of £1.63 million, so I'm hardly in danger of going bankrupt, but this war will be relatively quick (I think). A war against Russia? Less so. Much less so.
April 6, 1916: The first major battle between Japan and China is suitably epic in scale.
I'm only slightly ahead in tech (14 to 12), but I have a bigger advantage: all of their troops are recently mobilized infantry. I have experienced guards. I'm going to lose, since no amount of tech will change that equation, but I'll take a lot of them with me. My dig-in and the terrain also make this more even than it should be.
June 8, 1916: Scandinavia forms; they get Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, but Russia keeps Finland.
July 18, 1916: I throw some more troops into the battle; it might look like throwing good money after bad, but all China has is a numbers advantage; the more Chinese I kill, the easier the war will be. My tech is also getting better, while theirs is not.
July 30, 1916: With Alaska colonized, I move onto Canada.
August 28, 1916: The Russians want military access. Why not? I gather up most of my troops to try to tip the scales at the Battle of Guazhou.
September 9, 1916: I pick off a Chinese Commerce Raider who wandered away from home.
September 12, 1916: Elections are up. I try to beef up Laissez-Faire in Nagoya, but I don't think it'll mean much.
September 24, 1916: Alaska is already paying off -- Gold is found in Cordova. I must be some kind of psychic genius!
October 1, 1916: My armies could use a little more staying power; I'm going to start on the ORG series of techs.
October 3, 1916: Osaka is pretty darned liberal. That's something of a comfort, since they're the biggest state by far. A quick examination shows why: the biggest issue is Wealth Weighted Voting, and those folks will always vote pure Liberal.
October 23, 1916: The reinforcements get to China late. Check out this death toll, though.
I know something the Chinese don't: I haven't mobilized yet. (Well, the AI probably knows that.) Manpower is not much of an issue; I'll keep this going as long as they want.
October 24, 1916: The "war" election events are nasty for Japan; I want to encourage Pro Military to boost the Liberals, but the biggest Conservative party is also Pro Military. It's a problem.
November 3, 1916: Now Fairbanks discovers Gold.
November 14, 1916: A second battle goes badly; I lose 31k troops for only 7.5k Chinese. Still, they were caught apart from everyone else. I've got plenty of fight left in me, especially since I know they can't invade the Home Islands or even retake Formosa.
November 21, 1916: Ecuador is overthrown by Reactionaries.
November 24, 1916: The war is over!
Why didn't I ask for more, you ask? Mostly because I don't want a land border with Russia or the Chinese Empire. My major advantage is that you can't touch me without a powerful navy, and I'm the best game in town, baby.
December 3, 1916: The treasury has rebounded nicely; I'm now making £484 a day.
December 8, 1916: My Colonial Exposition (see last update) goes off without a hitch; 16.5 prestige.
January 17, 1917: More Army Techs. If I'm going to fight Russia (and I will), I need to improve my army.
February 22, 1917: The Conservatives won again. The Liberals made a great showing, but in the end, they lost.
As Fadi_Efendi pointed out, you're really kind of stuck if you have two Conservative parties. Instead of splitting the vote (see the 1860 USA Presidential Election for a good example), they always work in coalition, so they always win. The only thing you can do is try to increase MIL, which will force the Aristocrats to vote Liberal. That's about it.
March 6, 1917: I increase taxes on the rich to 60%; I'll stay Conservative for a bit to increase the amount I bring in in taxes.
August 8, 1917: Keep up the Cavalry techs, I say!
October 3, 1917: The NGF begins its long, sad decline with Hamburg splitting off.
October 4, 1917: Bremen joins Hamburg.
October 5, 1917: Hesse-Darmstadt would rather be an OPM instead of part of the NGF; that's a low blow.
October 15, 1917: I increase taxes on the poor to 60%.
December 1, 1917: I get an awesome new toy!
Artillery or Armor?
Now, this brings up the point asked about earlier: which is more useful, Armor or Artillery in the late game? Let's think for a moment. First, look at the stats for Armor. They've got the best base Attack value in the game and couple that with a 50% discipline bonus, which means they are great at inflicting casualties. On the minus side, the low recon value means they'll get eaten alive by forts or dug-in enemy troops. They're the same speed as Guards, which makes sense: early tanks were generally infantry support weapons.
So, in short, Armor add a lot of firepower, but are extremely vulnerable in the wrong circumstances. Let's think about Artillery now. Artillery will, unfortunately, slow down an army, but it adds tremendous attack value of its own without the vulnerability of Armor (or the discipline bonus). The big weakness of artillery is that, if you don't have a big enough screen, they'll get wiped out. That's not so good.
We have to add one more dimension: technology. There are a handful of tank inventions, and of course they'll get the universal boosts from things like Breech Loading Rifles. But there's an entire branch of Artillery Techs (who also, incidentally, get the bonuses from Breech Loaded Rifles and the like), and when teched out, Artillery and Armor have very comparable Attack values.
What does this all mean? Essentially, in comparable situations, all else being equal... I honestly have to say Artillery is better. It comes down to bang for the buck, and Artillery is just better at it, especially since they effectively double the size of an army without making it twice as vulnerable. Armor does have their place, and they excel in some situations: against an Infantry heavy army with neutral terrain and no dig-in, an army of Tanks will destroy infantry. Their speed (which increases with some later inventions) lets them take advantage of such opportunities. Don't sneeze at the Discipline bonus either -- they'll do a lot of damage. The problem is they'll also take a lot of damage in anything other than ideal conditions.
Of course, it really isn't either/or, is it? You can easily include Armor in any army and do some serious damage. I happen to think they're better separate, but you can certainly use them in conjunction with infantry and artillery if that's what you want to do.
However, you're going to see that, for most of the rest of this AAR, I'm going to have a lot of Tanks, for one very good reason: all else isn't equal. In fact, I'm never going to research a single Artillery tech. I did this partly to see what would happen if I used lots of Tanks, but mostly because I wanted to keep my army fairly cheap.
I'll start with 25 tank brigades.
March 15, 1918: Panjab wants an alliance. Jerks, wouldn't join against the Chinese, but now you want to be friends? I say yes, but I know they'll bolt at the first sign of trouble.
April 28, 1918: I've given up on the Aristocrats at this point voting fairly. Also, 1.02 million people want Weighted Wealth voting. I give it to them, hoping I won't regret it later.
July 13, 1918: We come to a (semi) hidden gem of the Military Science school.
Gas Attack is, perhaps, the one true game-breaking technology late in the game. More than Airplanes or Armor, certainly. Gas Attack is a +3 die modifier in all circumstances against an opponent without Gas Defense. If you want to call it the best invention in the entire game, I'd be hard pressed to argue.
October 21, 1918: Anhalt is now independent.
December 25, 1918: Merry Christmas, Conservatives! I'm kicking you out of power. Welcome back, Liberals.
January 17, 1919: We have Fascists revolting in Siam. I'm not worried.
February 1, 1919: I get one of those nice Armor inventions, Tank Exploits, which increases Max Speed and Attack.
June 2, 1919: France declares war on Bremen, who's gone bankrupt.
September 30, 1919: Bremen is annexed by France.
November 13, 1919: Braunschweig breaks free of the NGF. In the meantime, I get a shiny new colony in the Yukon Territory.
November 21, 1919: The AI gives me a free CB against the UK. Um... no.
December 16, 1919: We find Gold in the Yukon.
January 11, 1920: I've almost completely ignored Cultural techs, but no longer. It's time to increase my tech rate even further.
February 12, 1920: Welcome back to Vicky 2, Frankfurt am Main!
May 6, 1920: We continue on the RP train.
August 1, 1920: And we have the Gas Attack invention! Commence plans for world domination.
November 18, 1920: I'm going to take a moment to show you the research cost modifiers before showing you my actual tech I pick next; I've got a big target in mind (which rhymes with Mush-a), and I need to keep my army going.
February 28, 1921: So the Middle Class is Pro Military and Jingoistic. Great. Conservatives'll win again.
March 3, 1921: More gold in the Yukon.
August 22, 1921: I was right, sadly.
September 8, 1921: Except I'm the Emperor, and I say we stick with the Liberals. Poor fools.
January 1, 1922: With 91% literacy, I feel confident I can cut back on Education to 70%.
February 16, 1922: It's at this point in-game I remember Japan has a free CB against Russia.
May 8, 1922: We'll close this update by discussing the
other exciting new unit added at the end of the game: Airplanes.
Airplanes are the one trick pony to end all one trick ponies: they are pure Recon. Yes, they can fight from the back row, but they suck at it; they get half their normal attack value. This makes them good companions for Tanks, if you're interested in such things, as it'll help counteract their major weakness. They really shine when used separately and devoted solely to occupying territory. Just don't go overboard: an army composed entirely of Airplanes will, if you'll forgive the metaphor, crash and burn.