Kyronea, Hermann Steiner, Cpt Rossi - Hermann Steiner and Cpt Rossi basically covered everything. No counter attack against the British because their troops are better and there is a large stack north of Mandalay. Throw in a river as well to make things even worse.
The really big problem with launching an attack is that your forces cannot be manual retreated for 24 hours. If they are forced to retreat during that time, and they could have been if they had attacked, the AI chooses the direction. Two of the three possible retreat paths are being advanced upon and those five divisions would have been lost if they retreated to these provinces. Too big a risk to take with my main Burmese army.
Haohmaru - Welcome aboard
stnylan - I am not sure I want to be able to flank the British from northern India as it requires troops to do it. I might leave the far north western part of China alone as a buffer zone between both Britain and the Soviets, when they decide to join in the fun and games. I might try and flank them through Yunnan though.
Inner Circle, Winner - Annexation is the only way to conquer a Country in my book and so it will be universally adopted as the only strategy for conquest. Winner is totally correct about the European theater as the following report shall show.
Sokraates - It is actually worse than just repairs. Aircraft also do not upgrade when airborne, and unless I want to micro manage every single squadron, they need to be grounded for their upgrades to go through as fast as possible. The only time ground troops don't repair or upgrade are during retreats so they are immune to this curse. The Dutch ghost ships would indeed be ghosts as they do not have a Country with which to wage a war
Murmurandus - Everything is just rosey right now
Mangudai - Upgrades are always a pain and the added trouble with the timezones makes it double the trouble for Japanese aircraft.
gunboat, SgtPepper20, String Theory, Maj. von Mauser - String Theory is about as close as its possible to get to being correct. The problem with trading with the Soviet Union is this:
Trades go from Capital to Capital as has already been said, which explains why this trade even needs convoys. The trade originates in the other Country and goes to Japan. It takes what the AI considers to be the shortest route. In this case, as it goes by sea, the nearest port to Moscow is either Archangalsk or Murmansk, depending on exactly how the AI works it. So trade with the Soviets has to travel from here to Tokyo via the North Sea, English Channel and everywhere else between. I am surprised anything gets to Tokyo to be honest. The reason why it does is because the Allies are not at war with the Soviets as trade between Germany and Tokyo is 0%.
This is my understanding of how it all works from both experience and other posts I have read in the past.
SgtPepper20 - Thank you and welcome
Delex - Balls or stupidity for sure
harezmi - The AI has many flaws and unescorted Transports is one of them. It does fix it sometimes though especially on higher difficulty settings.
There have been several posts about trade efficiency in the general HoI forum, none of which I can find off hand. Basically a trade route goes from capital to capital through each zone between those capitals. Note I said zone and not province. Zones can be seen on the area map mode. Each zone is checked for enemy activity, ie subs in a sea zone, and a certain percentage is lost if there are raiders or ships present. It checks each zone and adds them up resulting in a percentage reduction. This percentage is further modified by war or peace between the countries involved and the intercepting ships. The greater the distance the lower the percentage will be usually.
The 11% for the Soviet trade is because it gets ignored for a time because of the diplomatic factors. A trade between Germany and Japan is 0% as it is hit immediately. Similarly the Swedish one gets away from some attacks as it is neutral.
Percentages under 50% are not too common as a large amount are cancelled almost immediately. 50-60% is fairly common for a trade between a neutral Country and a Country at war.
Land trades are usually 100% unless they go through a neutral or hostile Country.
Just as a little note of interest. My trades with Siam are 100% and they go by sea between Bangkok and Tokyo. This tells me that the sealanes close to Japan are free of enemy interdiction and so any losses are not incurred close to home.
Again this is how I understand it and it could be slightly incorrect but is generally correct I think. If anyone knows better feel free to add anything. Trade and AI routing is a variable mess most of the time I think.
SoulStealer - Even my luck runs out sometimes
Monthly report to follow ...