The Japanese AARe HIP!

[Barkdreg]

Welcome to this latest bAARkdreg production.
This AAR will tell us the tale of a game played as the Japanese with the latest Historical Improvement Project for Doomsday 1.2.
The main changes of this mod are a new techtree, combat takes longer and changed economy.
I've played all the major mod's for HOI2 and like this one the best, it's also the only major mod that works with Doomsday.

The rules I'll play by:
-CVL are modded so they have increased sub and surfacedetecion
HIP only gives them 0.4, I don't like that.
-no promotion or auto-promotion, every 1ste of january I'll open the autosave and give every leader it's historical rank
-modding savegames, using console commands, writing custom events will happen. I'll try to keep them balanced and fair, some of them will actually have negative effects
-the cost of diplomacy and intellegence has been halved

Being an extremely busy student in the middle of his exams I'll only update when I have time. So patience might be a good skill if you intend to read this AAR.

Next post will show the improved techtree, the current status of Japan and other introductory stuff.

[Barkdreg]

First thing that has te be done is decide what to research.
The result of my pondering can be seen in the following screenshot together with the HIP infantry techtree.


next screen is the naval techtree. CVL and CV are merged, improved Super-heavy BB doesn't exist and subs exist in 2 varieties. Cheap short range subs and expensive longrange subs that have better stats.


this is the armour and artillery techscreen? Many new kinds of divisions are added, other divisions are removed. Also note that researching tech also increases thet stats of existing units


Now let's have a look at the Japanese Empire.

one day all this will be ours!

Having selected my research it's time to organise my forces. All forces are ordered to Japan. I decide to disband all anti-tank and AA brigades. I won't be needing them for the next few years and suplies are expensive. I also disband all my garrisons in the Pacific. These are '44 version but their strengthis capped at 20.
More manpower and less supplie usage is the result.
I also sell two 1918 heavy cruisers and one 1918 light cruiser to Thailand.
Thay already have 2CL and one DD and this will give them a wellrounded but crappy fleet.



Behold the Japanese might after the reorganisations.
Most units are nearly obsolete and neeed upgrades, other need reinforcements and most of the airforce needs both

[Barkdreg]

Next is my production.
Current budget allows me to spend 41 of my 159 IC. Next year I should get a higher budget to spend on the military.
I remove a carrier and it's CAG from the que and decide to keep the rest of the que. Notice the high cost of the DD. In HIP DD is by far the superior choice of escort. Great stats and the only ship that can reliably sink submarines. Not much later I have to move some IC from production to supply or risk running out of supplies.

Now that all the decisionmaking is done it's time to let time roll.
During january my armed forces start to arrive in Tokyo. I break one of my playing rules and promote the General Terauchi T. too Fieldmarshal.
He is now and oldgaurd logicstic wizard with skill 0 who can command 27 units. Great, less IC is needed to produce supplies.

On 18/01/36 Mengjiang occupies our province of Erenhot and the Shanxi province of Kalgan. Their capital is moved to Kalgan and they now have a whopping 2IC economy!


The 26th is a good day for Japan. We now have a tradedeal with Venezuela, 1.2supplies for 25oil. That will allow us to build a nice stockpile of the precious fluid.

Next event of note is the attempted coup one the 26th of februari. The coup is crushed and everything returns to normal. I appoint Kawarada Kakichi to chief of police. In now gain 0.06MP a day instead of 0.05.

Great!

[gunboat]

pics not working - at least for me.

edit: it works now

[Barkdreg]

indeed. Seems I'll have to look for another host.

[Jacko the Panda]

Use imageshack. It works at least. If you don't know how it works, ask me.

[Barkdreg]

fixed the screenies

[AOK. 11]

Excellent so far, with a great idea doing a HIP AAR. It will definitely inspire many, including myself, to check it out.

Good luck with this excellent AAR.

[lifeless]

nice beginning! good luck!

[anonymous4401]

Hopefully we'll get an in-depth look at HIP!

[Barkdreg]

This is the point where I restarted my game.
After some pondering I decided that I didn't need a navy the next few years. I would need a mighty army and airforce to crush those Chinese and conquer lands that should be ruled by the Emperor.

This new game went exactly as the two post above describe except:
-I cleared the production que of all ships except the two CL
the IC freed by this would be used to upgrade the army, the airforce wouldn't be upgraded yet (gotta love that do not upgrade button)
-the deal with Venezuela was made some 10 days earlier

So without further ado I present

The last 10 months of 1936, the rather unexciting year.

After squashing the revolting officers I moved all IC into consumer goods. Some 15 days later all dissent was gone. All hail the Emperor!

The next big newsitem was the Kuomintang signing a peace treaty with the commies and creating an alliance with all the Chinese warlords

More uneventful days pass by.
May 28 we discover the early marines technology.
Great news, marines rock. Just compare their stats an cost with those of '36 infantry




Building an infantry unit costs 199.5 IC, building a marine unit will cost 227.8 IC. Marines have superior stats and get better moddifiers when attacking beaches, crossing rivers and fighting in jungles. I need marines!
I order some marines to be build. The third unit will be ready for the Marco Polo Bridge incident!


July 16 I get the following economic report.

Wonderful. I know get 44IC out of 169, manpower gains dodn't seem to be changing.

Two day's later the Spanish Civil War starts.
In HIP you shouldn't bet on the Republicans winning. In AI vs. AI I've never seen Franco lose.

A few day's later I order the training of another 3 infantry units. By now the upgrading of excisting units is nearly finished so I have the spare IC to build some units, produce supplies and upgrade the few remaining out-of-date landunits.

September 24
The two '38 light cruisers are finished. I'll need more later but the need for a bigger army is more important. By now I researched the mountaineer '36 tech. China and South-East Asia consist mostly of mountains, hills and jungle. In all three terraintypes mountaineers get better boni compared to infantry. They also cost 12MP instead of 17.
Result:6 mountaineers are ordered. They will be ready for the war with the Chinese. I'll build more later.
You might be wondering why I don't order a bigger que so the 3rd or 4th mountaineer will be cheaper.
It's simple, HIP removed the gearing bonus because the AI can't use it. In stead each country get's increased or decreased building cost depending on what it build in real life.

October 8
The Basques declare independance and join the fight angainst Franco.
The Emperor and his loyal subjects don't care.


Early november the 3 infantry units I ordered are fully trained. Because of my perfect timing (AKA I'm a lucky bastard) I discover level 3 interceptors the very same day. The IC freed from building infantry goes into upgrading my interceptors. I waited so long because the upgrade to level 2 will be twice as fast when I've allready researched level 3.

November 25
I sign a treaty with the Germans.


Wonderful. I'm now at full interventionism. I start recruiting counter-intellegence spies. 17 foreign spies need removal of Japanese soil.

Time goes by. Nothing of interest happens this year.
Tune in next time for 1937, the year with a little extra action

[anonymous4401]

I didn't know the AI couldn't use gearing bonus. Of course, that makes sense, as the AI might not use queues at all.

[Barkdreg]

The AI does use the gearing bonus. The real problem is that a human player is much more adapt at gamey tactics and huge buildque's.
So while the AI will build it's units with que's that are 6long for infantry and no que for ships the humand will build 25unit que's and que it's ships.

On a related note
que or cue?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

que or cue?

queue

[stnylan]

or queue?

Excellent to see you active again sir.

[anonymous4401]

Who uses 25-Inf queues? The eternal 99-Inf queue's where it's at. :nods:

[Barkdreg]

queue?
Great. I won't be changing it in my previous posts.
If I'm not allowed to make spelling error's I shouldn't be writing.

stnylan:It's good to be back. I forgot how nice it is to create a story around your game and not just go 'through the motions'

[lifeless]

you know...marines are very good...surpasses the inf for the same about of ic, just longer build time...as inf go more advanced do they get better? nice update

[Yoy21]

*subscribed* When did they make that HIP mod?

[Spitfire_Pilot]

Hmm releasing Euskadi wont help the Republicans out. But they still might win, ive seen them win under worse condition, good update !