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1944, Winter – The Fat Lady is on in Five[/size]
Welcome to January, 1944. I actually finished this game a week before this post because I saw I had made a big strategic error and wanted to move on to For The Motherland. I’ve already had my fun taking over Australia and New Zealand, and I got my long-overdue revenge on the British and took India. I think I’ve squeezed out most of the fun to be had from this game, all that is left is to throw away the innards.
”Sweet, sweet, innards… *gurgle*” – Homer Simpson
The war in the west hasn’t gone at all as I expected. The Greater German Reich is in no immediate danger, but my faithful Bulgarians are imperiled. There has been a
huge problem this game with the Axis powers piling their entire ground force into areas that can supply a corps or two at best. After the Germans took Poland, I saw immediately that they were starting to redirect everybody to go through Turkey and Iraq. One of the reasons I declared war on the Soviet Union was to stop this movement. I didn’t want all of the Axis powers running out of gas in Persia and the Soviet Union just waltzing in an empty border in Europe should they decide to attack on their own. I don’t think I’ve ever seen things get this bad unless the Germans were defeated in France. Usually the German and Italian AIs are far, far better at keeping troops on all their borders and holding a line.
What surprised me is that the Germans made no progress whatsoever. The Soviet Union spent the
entire game through 1943 at peace. This means they didn’t get their full ICs over this period, while the Germans and Italians basically did. So not only have they been out-produced, but the Axis ranks are full of veterans from the campaigns in Spain and elsewhere. Supply shouldn’t be a problem for the German troops in Poland, but they don’t seem to want to attack all along the front.
Saudi Arabia has managed to conquer their peninsula with assistance, so I am hoping they will now be able to redirect their forces to Persia and help out before the Bulgarian troops now trapped in Turkey are eliminated.
In addition to the nice empire I have here, Australia and New Zealand are under my thrall. Afghanistan and the impassable Himalayan provinces make a nice buffer between me and the Soviets. At the moment their main route to try and get at me lies through the former Sinkiang territories. In the east, I only have a narrow corridor to guard as I break out of Persia on my way (hopefully) to Kazakhstan. Unlike my German friends in the west, my troops are not afraid to attack anywhere and everywhere.
”Rommel you magnificent bastard, I read your book!” – General Patton
Let us linger for a moment, shall we, on the size of the greater Cantonese empire… man, look at the size of that font!
”Size doesn’t matter” – Every man
Here are the remaining unaligned countries. Why is Germany even
trying to influence Albania? It may be a possibility to get Brazil and Argentina into the war on our side by the time things are over.
Here’s my report on Russia. They still have scads of manpower, which you would expect for a country that is new to the war, but their ICs don’t seem that high to me (for a major). It still seems like Germany should be dominating them just from having spent over 4 years with vastly superior production.
And compare Russia to the United States…
Scads of ICs, manpower a little low, but they have been fighting for years. And the Russians are dominant while the US has done little but keep hold of the Mediterranean islands. Go figure. I’m so used to playing minors that I have a hard time wrapping my head around how other players deal with such extravagance. At least in this game, with 450 ICs I’d be spamming Mountain, Marines, and DDs like nobody’s business.
I’m starting to get 3 – 4 years ahead in the Infantry-related techs I’ve been researching, so I have added Carrier and CAG techs to the mix. I doubt I will get one produced before the game ends, but we’ll see. I have also added Destroyer techs so I can build some for Convoy guarding.
20 January: The Japanese have taken Vladivostok. I have control of Sri Lanka and will send those men to Ethiopia.
16 February: The ever-shrinking Bulgarian pocket in Turkey.
13 March: Argentina joins the Axis.
20 March: I defeat Mongolia, and they become a government in exile. I see that for some reason I forgot to take note of when I defeated Sinkiang, but it happened already.
23 March: Brazil joins the Axis.
25 March: I’m about to lose a corps of Japanese volunteers in Africa. I got cocky and assumed there were either no defenders at all or they were a push over. I could have scored a victory but my reinforcements were too far away to ship over by boat.
And at this stage, I’m going to call the game. I’m not losing, per se, but the Axis powers in Europe are doing badly enough that I don’t see that I will make any decent progress any time soon. Defeating the British was enough of a grind that I am not looking forward to the same experience marching through Siberia to get the Russians. Here’s a map of the Guangxi Clique at the height of its power:
And the final situation in Europe:
[size=+1]Postmortem:[/size]
- What happens in China during the war with the Nationalists makes a HUGE difference. You have to try and get as many IC-rich provinces as you can before they surrender. In a different game as the Clique, I managed to get maybe 75% or so of Nationalist territory annexed to me, which left me at 75 ICs after the first war, as opposed to the 40 or so I was dealing with in this game. It is such an incredible difference that you may be well advised to restart if you don’t get enough loot. I’m not clear on what all the rules are for whom a fallen nation chooses to surrender to, but if they pick Japan and Japan makes them a puppet, you could be in for a world of hurt. Some IC-rich provinces that are close to the border are Changsa (3), Nanchang (4), Chongquing (4). Moving a little farther away, you have Wuhan (2), Jianli (2), and Meishan (6). With all these ICs in the other game I was able to work my way up to producing a Light Cruiser, Transport, Dual-Infantry division, and CAS all at the same time plus some other minor things before the war with the Allies started.
- You HAVE to start making a stockpile of Convoys and Escorts BEFORE you go to war with the Allies. Your losses will be horrendous, and since there is no way of reducing their costs nor speeding up their production time, trying to play catch-up once the war starts will be too late. I have no idea how to actively discourage an enemy from raiding your Convoys, but if there is a way it might be worth a shot.
- Don’t leave any ports empty if you can avoid it- put something in there even if it is a weak unit. Of course, if you haven’t followed the recommendation to build lots of Convoys, you will have a problem supplying these units.
- You have to be extremely careful to avoid putting more men in an area than you can easily supply. And since you are in a region where your whole country is at best 40% infrastructure, this means you have to be modest in your attack forces. Also, it doesn’t help to keep changing your mind on sending men back and forth from north to south across the Himalayas. Even with strategic movement it takes too long for men to get where you want them.
- There seems to be no way at all to prevent the Japanese from getting Indochina if you are Axis, unless there is a way for France to be defeated without triggering the Vichy France event. If anyone knows how to do this, let me know! Since you can’t get Indochina, you can consider Siam, but be warned since the Thais have a warship in their starting OOB. Men you try to march through Indochina will find themselves out of supply, so you can make a safe landing on the Malay Peninsula and walk north, or risk a landing closer to Bangkok if you think you have enough ships to challenge their navy.
- For some reason, being in the Axis and declaring war on somebody before the key scripted events for Germany in 1938 fire makes the German AI go nuts and start early wars. This is okay, as if they don’t get a border with Russia you can avoid war with them for a long time and pretty much deal with the Allies at your leisure. The main problem you might have is the one I ran into, where they keep funneling their troops into one area with poor supply, allowing lone enemy divisions to roll up more important territory that is now undefended.
- Don't even bother getting up to Motorized, since fuel will be such a problem. If you can, avoid making any unit that needs fuel.
- If you do well in China, it may or may not be worth using some of the available leadership to use Spies in the US to keep them from joining the Allies as long as possible.
That takes care of that I think… thanks to everyone who posted a comment, and I hope everyone who read this found something interesting.
”And that’s the end of that chapter…” – Homer Simpson