My Fight Volume II - Yet another HPP USAAR

[mnplastic]

I have noticed there are a couple of vassal which could created. What are they?

Hmm... I thought the Great Depression would lower the USA economy to below 50IC - my wild guess I assume it is the biggest economy at the moment with 182IC in the world?

As regards to Leadership. I think it is interesting and good idea but I think while you can re-allocate scientist and officers but losing cities would result in the lower pool of new talented recruits. I believe older scientists also have the trait "old guard". Besides it is not easy to re-allocate research facilities at easy especially when cities and facilities could be captured almost immediately by amphibious landing or by paratroopers landing, or just simply by surrounding and cutting the escape roads.

I think something in between could be good. Like leaving small amount of leadership in cities and using constant of off the map leadership.

Btw, do you get leadership from the conquering? I guess the USA had a big benefit from capturing German and Japan research facilities and scientists.

[Slan]

It looks like this will be a useful tutorial AAR. Clearly playing as the USA you are somewhat limited by your isolationist stance, so I am interested to see how you go about moving things in the direction you want.

Yeah, me too. I don't really have a definite strategy yet, I think I'll make things up along the way.

I have noticed there are a couple of vassal which could created. What are they?

The name of the decision might be a bit confusing, those are not countries that can be released as vassals (that's still handled via the Politics interface) but puppets that can be released as independent countries. Liberia and the Philippines start as US puppets and I have the option of releasing them to be independent but as I explained above, I have no intention of doing so. It wouldn't really help me in the slightest.

Hmm... I thought the Great Depression would lower the USA economy to below 50IC - my wild guess I assume it is the biggest economy at the moment with 182IC in the world?

Well, it does halve my starting IC of like a bajillion and about 55 of that 182 is spent on Consumer Goods. But I still have over 100 IC to spend as I like although almost all of it goes to the starting productions. I guess I will spend a lot on upgrading too, once I get some more room to maneuver.
In comparission, Germany starts with much less base IC, but they have almost full control over what they are spending it on. Their Consumer Goods Demand is much, much lower.

As regards to Leadership. I think it is interesting and good idea but I think while you can re-allocate scientist and officers but losing cities would result in the lower pool of new talented recruits. I believe older scientists also have the trait "old guard". Besides it is not easy to re-allocate research facilities at easy especially when cities and facilities could be captured almost immediately by amphibious landing or by paratroopers landing, or just simply by surrounding and cutting the escape roads.

The game's time period is too short to really make use of new talented scientists. Most of the people still remembered for their roles were already at least in their 30s by the time the war started. Facilities are important, sure, but they are supposed to be represented by practical, not the Leadership itself. (You can't reassign a Nuclear facility to research tank guns instead.) Unfortunatelly those can't really be changed via events though. You can capture laboratories and other facilities but people will find their way out. It is possible to cut off the escape route of an entire Division, but you can't easily surround individuals. See below.

I think something in between could be good. Like leaving small amount of leadership in cities and using constant of off the map leadership.

Btw, do you get leadership from the conquering? I guess the USA had a big benefit from capturing German and Japan research facilities and scientists.

Capturing scientists almost exclusively happened after the war, which is out of the scope of the mod. Or more precisely, the growing in power from a Great Power to a Superpower models the brain drain effects. (A Supwerpower starts with 30 Leadership, but it has quite steep entry requriements.)

[Cybvep]

I think something in between could be good. Like leaving small amount of leadership in cities and using constant of off the map leadership.

Btw, do you get leadership from the conquering? I guess the USA had a big benefit from capturing German and Japan research facilities and scientists.

Your LP is now based on IC, army size etc.

You have a point about those research facilities. ATM there is a modifier which gives you LP penalties when you lose territory - it's called "Lost Potential". While it does treat every CORE province equally, i.e. a desert one with 0 IC and 2 infra is just as important as Moscow, it has one neat effect - it prompts the player to defend their national territory, even if it is not economically important. Therefore, while the mechanics is not really realistic, the results are much more realistic, because sensible strategies are promoted. Countries rarely just gave their territory away, even if they had little economic interest in it. Also, there is sth which HOI3 cannot represent ATM, i.e. the value of land. In HOI3, you cannot find new resources (and the resources themselves are not as important as IRL) and the limited "supported" timeline (when the game still functions properly, i.e. is relatively balanced and fun) results in the situation when you don't have to care about distant future (country development, maximisation of human capital etc.) while IRL the world didn't end in 1948 . Therefore, we need some abstract mechanics to nudge the player in the right direction.

That's why I hope that even if HPP reintroduces some province-based LP, "Lost Potential" effects will not be deleted

[mnplastic]

Thanks guys for replying in detail

[H.Appleby]

If custom avatars ever return I am so calling your "Roosevelt astride America"
In celebration of my 100th post:



FRIST POST!!1!11!

[Slan]

Chapter II
The Second New Deal

Actually, I have no idea why I called the second Chapter a 'Second' New Deal. Anyway, unlike in Volume I, I won't be able to start IC-whoring for a little while. The ships I'm still building and this Great Depression together have a rather big strain on my economy as it is, I can't afford any new projects (the 2.5 IC I have above production, supplies and consumer goods goes towards upgrade, providing 6.34%). On the other hand, if I can manage to keep a money buffer of at least 100, I will be able to continue the decision-driven New Deal every three months or so, which has a chance of giving up to two factories. I might get lucky, but it's not guaranteed. After all, no economy-stimulating program can be foolproof!

And since I won't really have anything urgent to do for a long time, I let the game play while I'm writing and watching bass-solos on youtube

Of course it doesn't take too long for storaging problems to start showing:

Even with the insane industrial capacity of the United States, it won't be possible to hoard immense amounts of surplus resources.

This is not really a problem, my resource output is still in the positive and I have huge stockpiles anyway, but that's only the first round. The secound round hit in early March, bringing my Oil, Energy and Metal input into the negative. But not to worry, it will go away soon enough. Anyway, with two Destroyers already finished, my IC that I can allocate to upgrades increased to over 16! Excellent! By June, I'll have another 16 from finishing a Heavy Cruiser and a Submarine Flotilla. In other news, Spain held elections in March. We'll come back to that later.

You might remember me mentioning the Naval Treaties. The second one was just held in London, in late March, and the result was fairly historical:

France and the UK signed the treaty, Japan and Italy didn't. In fact, they abandoned the older ones as well.

I chose to sign the Treaty mainly because leaving wouldn't have any advantages for me. The -3 Neutrality wouldn't last long with my Monroe Doctrine combined with the Neutrality effect. Gaining 50 relations with the Allies doesn't really matter either, but whatever.

Other than that, the usual stuff was happening: Germany reoccupied the Rheinland, George V of the British Empire died of old age to be succeeded by his first born son as Edward VIII. You know. I also got an investment opportunity:

Since I have 3000 money, of course I can spare 500 for 7.5% Research Efficiency!

These little events come into play if you have lots of money and you can't really do anything with it. They represent private initiatives you can invest into for some long-term advantages. There are like a dozen of them, all with different bonuses and only one can be in effect at a time, so you might want to turn down the one you get first so there's room for another, more beneficial one. For me, the Resarch Efficiency bonus was absolutely worth it. If for nothing else, it reminded me that I should switch on the pause and the popup when a research project is done...

It looks like this AAR will have a lot more screenies than the first Volume did. There's a lot more stuff going on in the SF version...

As you can see, May was a rather busey month. France held elections, bringing the Social Liberal party, the ARV into power. (They might have been in power to begin with, I don't know.) In the HPP, political party names now start with the initials of the party's ideology, so in the Diplomacy screen when you check a country, you will know which party is in power even if you don't speak Spanish for example or don't know all the party name abbreviations of the '30s of the whole World by heart. I for one wouldn't know (or care) which ideology Paradox connected the ARV to, so it's a nice little addition. (I probably think that because I introduced this change exactly for my own convinence )

In Greece, things are a bit more chaotic. Insert historical lesson about the Ottoman Empire, the Greek War of Independence, the First Balkan War, the Greek Constitutional Monarchy and the Metaxas Regime here. If you want to. We won't, this is regular!

Meanwhile in Asia, Japan formed a puppet in Inner Mongolia called Mengkukuo (which sounds a bit too much like Manchukuo if you ask me). Of course the Republic of China wasn't all that happy about this, but they are still rather occupied by their Civil War trying to purge the Communists.

My techs are going ahead nicely. Being behind schedule has the strange benefit of being able to research lots of similar techs in quick succession, bringing your theories through the roof. Which is rather unrealistic, which is why we will do a complete overhaul of the practical/theory system in the FtM version. But that's a topic for a different thread. Suffice it to say that I will be up-to-date in Infantry techs in no time.

Edward VIII's reign wasn't long-lived, he abdicated in June to marry a divorced American woman. If the CIA existed at the time, I'm sure there would have been conspiracy theories that it was all planned out. Well, actually I'm pretty sure there are some involving the Abwehr, too Anyway, this will make it much less likely that the UK accepts (or offers) a peaceful solution to the war once France goes down. But it's still possible.

Interestingly enough, Spain is rather quiet. I thought their Civil War is supposed to trigger soon after their Election, but that was three months ago. What takes you so long?! At least Italy is done in Ethiopia by mid-June. That might seem like a long time to solve that front, but in the HPP they have historical amounts of troops there, causing all kinds of supply problems. Like they should.

Once I get below about 50000 Energy, my storaging problems start to get solved, bringing me into the positive in production again. Actually, the problem with this concept is that the AI is still not very good at detecting when it's low on resources because of too low input or because of too high stockpiles. I'll have to fix that soon I guess... But for now the important part is that I produce like 50 Energy a day (while I was losing like 200 a day before).

Olympic Games are held in Berlin in August, 1936. A nice, but pretty much irrelevant event. The only interesting thing about it is that if no majors are at war with eachother at the time, then similar games may be held in 1940 and 1944 too. I remember one of the openings a few years back in which the Olympic Torch was brought into the stadium by some athlete, and I think he cut ribbons for every game held since the restarting of the events in 1896 and he fell after the one in 1936 and only got up at 1948. Very symbolic.

By the way, did you notice that the auto-sliders in production are pretty much mandatory in HoI3 because of peacetime manpower rotation? You are continuously losing men due to that (people leaving the military I guess), causing the reinforcement need to jump back and forth all the time. It becomes very frustrating after a while to manually readjust the sliders every day. I prefer the Prioritize Production option because I like my stuff to be produced ASAP.

In September, my CAGs are finished, which is a huge relief for my Industry. Those little buggers are rather expensive! Well, actually they are the cheapest of the Aircraft, but still, they cost more than the Carrier itself! On the other hand, a with the current 10% discount from practical they take about 200 days to produce, while a Carrier takes over two years. That has two major consequences. First, you can build your Carriers and your CAGs independently. That might be good because CAGs tend to get beaten after a while and it is nice to have some replacements. (Although the AI would probably not use them even if it had any, so this is kind of an exploit.) And second, you can upgrade and repair your CAGs much faster because the engine takes the base cost and build time as a base for calculating repair and upgrade cost and time. In vanilla, CAGs share the same production time as Carriers but with a very low cost, making them very cheap but very slow to upgrade and repair. In the HPP they are more balanced in this respect.

With the Carriers finished in early October, I start my Applied Nuclear Program with five Nuclear Research Labs in a row. Now if you are not familiar with the HPP, you might be wondering, how on Earth can I even start building these. In the HPP, you can build a Nuclear Research Lab already with the first tech, Atomic Research. In fact, you can't go forward with the Nuclear Research tech unless you already have at least a level 1 Nuclear Research Lab somewhere. Isotope Separation, the third tech, requires a level 2 Nuclear Research Lab, etc. The downside is that it costs 75 IC and takes 260 days for the first level. But it will speed up considerably after that. Point is I want to be ready when I get to the action. Rocket Test Sites work similarly and I would prefer to have one of those too, but that's another 30 IC and I can't afford that yet. (I have this strange perversion that I never start a production that I can't fully finance...)

The Reich proposed the Anti-Comintern Pact in October, and the Kingdom of Italy and Hungary signed that proposal immediately. Japan followed suit the next day and so did Yugoslavia.

But still there's no Spanish Civil War. Theoretically that war can be averted, but that would require a very high National Unity, which Spain doesn't have. And in the end it really did happen, although only in November.

The first signs of trouble in Europe.

This event is broken down into a somewhat longer chain of events in the current version of the HPP. First, there's the election. Then once that's done, an event will happen sooner or later (unless, as I said above, Spain has extraordinaly high National Unity), which triggers several revolts accross the country. The main reason for this is to lure the AI's armies away from the Portugese border, where they are always stationed. A week later the maintenance country (GOD) will fire a decision to kick off the actual Civil War. That works similarly to the vanilla event, with a few little twists. First of all, the Nationalists get practically all of the Army (and Navy and Air Force). This is not completely realistic (the Navy mostly sided with the Republicans for example), but since we can't split the troops based on unit types, that's the best we can do. The Republicans will have a decision that will give them tons of Militias, representing the popular support of the government. They usually still don't have enough forces to establish a proper front line and the chances depend very much on the starting positioning of the units, but all in all it is a relatively good model. Sometimes it lasts a bit too long though, when one side is forced back into a single city and they hold out there for years, under siege. That's rather lame, not climactic at all. Anyway, here's another screenshot:

Spain at the start of the Civil War.

And with that I finish this second Chapter. With the change in style, I guess Volume II will be a lot longer than Volume I was... Hope you don't mind

[H.Appleby]

Awww, no IC whoring? Waaah. This saddens me.

[Surt]

The resource roller-coaster really gets a problem when the trade AI is used, mass cancellations of trade follows from the false negative balance.
Also the replacements are irritating, but pre-war I usually just set it to some low value and lock it, then it evens somewhat out over time.
Same with upgrades, all nations apparently starts with a huge backlog but the need by new research is pretty predictable and can also be evened out somewhat.
When war starts its pretty luring to set to auto again

[TheBromgrev]

Maybe Churchill will become PM instead of Chamberlain? That would make for a much more interesting game, especially as the US

I noticed a few parts in your narrative where the use of strikeout would be good for its comedic effect, and since it's not obvious how to do that using the forum's interface I'll do the community some good and let everyone know how to do it. You know that the code to underline or bold is a single letter inside a pair of square brackets right? Well, instead of using an I, B, or U, put an S there instead

[Surt]

Hi Slan, did you consider saving the pictures in .jpg or at least use best compression in .png, the pics are around 2MB each now! (0.5MB with best png and 58KB with a good quality .jpg. good I read this on my ADSL and not on my 3G netbook $$$).

[Slan]

Awww, no IC whoring? Waaah. This saddens me.

Not yet

The resource roller-coaster really gets a problem when the trade AI is used, mass cancellations of trade follows from the false negative balance.
Also the replacements are irritating, but pre-war I usually just set it to some low value and lock it, then it evens somewhat out over time.
Same with upgrades, all nations apparently starts with a huge backlog but the need by new research is pretty predictable and can also be evened out somewhat.
When war starts its pretty luring to set to auto again

I'll fix that AI when I get there Also note that in the most recent versions the AI can (and in a lot of cases does) have a limit on how much it wants to spend on upgrades at the start, so the USSR won't spend all of their limited IC on upgrades for the first years, they will start to build IC right away!

Maybe Churchill will become PM instead of Chamberlain? That would make for a much more interesting game, especially as the US

I noticed a few parts in your narrative where the use of strikeout would be good for its comedic effect, and since it's not obvious how to do that using the forum's interface I'll do the community some good and let everyone know how to do it. You know that the code to underline or bold is a single letter inside a pair of square brackets right? Well, instead of using an I, B, or U, put an S there instead

No, I didn't know that, thank you!

Hi Slan, did you consider saving the pictures in .jpg or at least use best compression in .png, the pics are around 2MB each now! (0.5MB with best png and 58KB with a good quality .jpg. good I read this on my ADSL and not on my 3G netbook $$$).

Wait, what?! OMG you are right! How could that be?! Oh, I see... The pictures are perfectly alright on my end (about 300KB each, and I'm using png instead of jpg because I'm that badass ), but I set Imageshack to re-size them from their original size (1024x768) to the default size there (800x600) and that somehow makes them larger. Sure, why not?!... I'll have to upload all of my images again... But thanks for pointing it out!

[KyrionMyrthar]

Also, after the war unite north america with the Canschluss!

I laughed.

Subscribing.

[Slan]

Subscribing.

Welcome aboard

On a sidenote, I re-uploaded the pictures for this AAR too now, so they won't be 2-3 MBs per picture any longer. Sorry for the inconvinience, I wasn't aware of the problem until recently!

[Avindian]

How close is HPP to being ready for FTM?

[Slan]

Not really. For details and updates, check this thread

[Slan]

Chapter III
Nothing Important Happened Today

We left last time at the start of the Spanish Civil War. They sure took their time, it's already December, 1936! You might have noticed on the screenshot in Chapter II that the Republican capital is in Valencia instead of Madrid and the Nationalist capital is in Valladolid instead of Burgos and it was actually supposed to be in La Coruna! The reason for this is that both Madrid and Burgos are very close to the starting frontline and losing your capital has much more severe consequences in Hearts of Iron III than it should: you use every single bit of stockpiled resources you have like they were stored in the Royal Swimmingpool and with the relocation of your main supply dump, the supply network also needs days if not weeks to adapt. In a war that can mean total defeat. To acoid that, we moved the starting capitals of both participants out of the way. Unfortunatelly La Coruna was taken by Republican forces right away, which might cause some problems to the Nationalists and not only because of the above but also because they are supposed to get their foreign reinforcements through the port in La Coruna so not having access to that port will have long-term consequences. Then again, it shouldn't be too hard to take it back I guess.

So, as I explained last time (I did, din't I?), the Nationalists get almost the entire Army, but the Republicans get a lot of free Militia units. There are some nasty side-effects to this method that are not immediately obvious. The new Militia units are all gained in provinces still controlled by the Republicans, but the original Army might be rather disorganised, spread out all over the country. They often start deep behind enemy lines, which might prove fatal. Also because of the usually low number of troops in total, neither side has enough units to form a consistent front. Unfortunatelly the AI is not really prepared for such situations and it will wander deep into enemy territory if it meets no opposition, which can and usually does result in units getting lost due to being cut-off.

Nationalist forces managed to take La Coruna in late January, allowing Germany and Italy to send some troops at last. Or at least some material help, the actual troops will arrive when they arrive. Still there's no sign of Soviet intervention! Maybe they are too busy reducint their Officer Corps from low to ridiculous.

Could this cause the quick downfall of the Republicans?

Meanwhile in the States, Presidential Elections were held:

Well, technically they were held in last November, but you know, with all the recounting by hand and stuff...

The election didn't bring any surprises, the Democrats have won, but it reshuffled my cabinet a bit, so I had to put back my chosen ministers in place. Or at least I would have, but for some reasons some of my candidates disappeared! Or were they never even available? Am I so absentminded?... Oh, well.

In Asia, things started to heat up in March already. Japan started to Mobilize, while China was still engulfed in a Civil War. But they got the memo and stopped fighting on the 28th of March after the Xi'an Incident, returning to Status Quo. Things remained quiet there for a while, but a month later bullets started to fly and the Marco Polo Bridge Incident escalated to a full war.

What's in China stays in China. For now.

If you observe the screenshot a little closer, it might seem a little strange. First, the Marco Polo Incident happens in April, three months too early. That is because Japan felt ready by then, they saw no need to wait any longer. The decision becomes available as early as January. Second, there are two additional events, not only the decision. When the Incident happens, China has the option to cooperate, trying to avoid war. That hurts their internal political standing, but in the given circumstances, that might be the lesser evil (or it may not, see below). On the other hand, if they weren't able to defeat the Commies yet, time probably won't save them, so they have the option to openly oppose the Japanese aggression. In both cases there's a possibility for the Incident to escalate. It's random, but the chance is much lower if both sides cooperate and much higher if both sides act aggressively.

The third strange thing is that even though Shanxi no longer even shares a border with Japan (or any Japanese holdings) and Beijing, where the Incident happened is no longer in Shanxi territory, they are the target of the DoW, not the Republic of China. The reason for this is purely gameplay based: to get both sides of China involved in the war right away (which is required to avoid exploits), it is necessary to have both of them guarantee Shanxi and for Japan to DoW them instead of China. This way Japan only needs to DoW one country (so there's no insane amounts of threat generated), both the Republic and the People's Republic of China are involved right away and they don't need to be allied for that. The only real downside is that this method requires Shanxi to exist in order to even start the incident, which might not be the case if a RoC player finishes them off beforehand. I'll come up with a better solution but until then it will have to do.

As for the Chinese Civil War, it is suspended for now, but it might restart if the circumstances are right. There are multiple way for that to happen. First, there's an event in '40 that allows the Commies to turn on Chiang (the Fourth Army Incident). Then once the war is over, either side can decide to restart hostilities, and when that happens, a part of the Republican Chinese army will side with Mao and the remaining Warlords can also pick sides. When this happens, the chances will heavily depend on the popular support of Communism in the Republic of China, which is why it might hurt more to let the Japs advance peacefully and thus avoid the war: it will bring a lot of support to the Communists.

The other decisions you saw on the screenshot are part of the redesigned manpower system. There are two alternative paths for maintaining an army: you can either have a Standing Army with professionals or a Drafted Army with reserves and conscription. A country with a Drafted Army may decide to call in the reserves when at war, which will generate a LOT of manpower in a relatively short amount of time. A country with a Standing Army may invest into getting more professionals, which that takes a lot more time but can also be done during peacetime. The US has a Drafted Army.

What Oil's in the USA stays in the USA. Well, at least some of it...

This Incident hurt American-Japanese relations somewhat, reducing the Oil-trade between the two countries. That's also an interesting concept I need
to talk about. The United States and Japan were very important trading partners in the early '30s. I can't remember the actual numbers and I can't
bother looking them up right now, but Japan was relient on American oil to the point where the Oil Embargo in '40 almost crippled their Fleets,
leading to the attack on Pearl Harbour. In HoI3 though there's no reason for the USA to give any oil in the first place, so the Imperial Japanese Navy is crippled right from the start. To help simulate the historical trade, there's a couple of Strategic Effects that increase Oil production in Japan and decrease it in the USA while increasing money production in the USA and decreasing it in Japan. The method is quite crude because the modifiers can only be percentages, not absolute values, but it works for now. The amount depends on the relations between the two, and they have dropped to 75 recently. (Starts at 100 if I remember correctly.) It's not that bad for them, but if they start shuffling around their Navy too much, they will feel the effects soon enough.

The Second Sino-Japanese War starts slowly but it will gain momentum soon enough. Also note the presence of the Great Wall, represented by level 1-2 forts!

Despite of what I said earlier, I couldn't restrain myself and researched the Firepower Focus Concept. That will make my Infantry Regiments more formidable! Awesome! And in May, 1937, Argentina signed the Anti-Comintern Pact. That's not enough for me to make a move against them, but if they actually join the Axis, that will have consequences! Unfortunatelly I don't think they will. Anyway, I'll continue with the Firepower Concept with Infantry Firepower Concentration.

The tech starts with some points already invested into it because I'm continuing with the same doctrine path I pursued before.

In June, 1937, the first level of my Nuclear Research Lab was finished. I wanted to place it in the middle of nowhere. I chose Phoenix, Arizona. I'll put the rest of them there, too, since the highest level is what counts, not the total amount. The good part is that this one single level was worth 6 points of practical (which will be heavily nerfed in the FtM version!), so now the second level will cost me 44 IC instead of 75. Time to start that Rocket Test Site in Houston, Texas! Which still leaves about 30 IC to spend on more IC.

Not the most ambitious IC-whoring, I admit, but it's a start!




Will this desperate attempt to form a defensive line save China?

By mid-July, China was losing a lot of land in the North and Shanxi was already defeated. They felt it's time to forge a Unified Front against Japanese Aggression, and they did. Xibei San Ma and the Guangxi and Yunnan Clieques all joined the Front and entered into an official Alliance with the Republic of China. As part of the agreement, the Yunnan Clique also relinquished most of their territory to directly be administered by the Kuomintang. As a repsonse, I tried to intervene in the conflict, attempting to mediate between the two warring sides. Japan was willing to cooperate but China wasn't. (Again, they could lose more in the long run because of the spread of Communism.) This improved my relations with Japan a bit so they get more oil again... Not exactly what I wanted to achieve... Meanwhile there was a major revolt in Xinjiang but that probably won't have any far-reaching consequences anyway.

By the end of the year, the Spanish Civil War is already decided although not ended (the Republicans still hold out in Valencia because of how the Surrender mechanic works) and the Second Sino-Japanese War is still raging on. Japan made a lot of progress from the North but there's no sign of a landing anywhere. They reached Nanjing but didn't take the city yet. As for me, I have my second level of Nuclear Research Lab

[misterbean]

that's both the good and the bad of playing the USA: you have plenty of time watching other nations have fun killing each other. glad to see that in HPP you can act to save your interests (SE Asia being foremost among them)

[SSmith]

I have actually seen Argentina join the Axis at least once, so maybe there's hope! Your Japanese also seem to be doing well if they are threatening Nanjing in the first year and it would be good for this AAR if they can get the upper hand against China. Any progress with the Great Depression yet? I am guessing not...

[Slan]

Chapter IV
We are almost there!

It's Christmas, 1937, and I'm still very far away from doing basically anything to effect the game. I do have some long-term goals though, like my nuclear project or my rocket research and I also started to build some factories. They will take quite a while to build though. Still, time is what I have the most of (a close second would be IC I guess ), so it's not that big of an issue. Japan is on the outskirts of Nanjing and the Spanish government is still under siege in Valencia. But not for long. On the second of January, the city was taken and the Kingdom of Spain was restored under King Javier I, with Sanjurjo Sacanell as Head of Government. Franco never got into power. (I had a screenshot of this but the dog ate it.)

This was the point where I couldn't take it anymore and I added the small changes to the Production Slider AI I made for my Hitler's Gamble AAR: it won't prioritize Supplies over Production while prioritizing Upgrades or Reinforcements. This way I can use these settings to keep my IC in good use without burning too much on useless supply stockpiles unintentionally because of how supply need is calculated. This change will be added to the FtM version, too.

In January, 1938, Germany started to mobilize. In hindsight, I presume this is a prelude for the Anschluss of Austria, which could quite easily end in a war. Although in this case it probably won't. Italy, the main reason why the nazi coup in Austria and thus the first attempt for the Anschluss failed in 1933, is now the informal ally of Germany after signing the Anti-Comintern Pact. This ended the Italian guarantee of Austria and without major backup, they are very unlikely to resist. The French reaction was quick and decisive: they mobilized too. I have a feeling that this move will hurt French economy a lot. Anyway, this didn't stop the wheels of history and Austria was annexed peacefully by Germany in two days.

France didn't intervene.

But back to my long-term plans. I don't know yet when I will get involved in the global conflict, but I'm quite sure that it will take very long. For the time being I'm going to focus on research of new, better equipment and I won't build any new units (not even ships) until the '40s. Thanks to my dedication, by late January, I reached a high enough level of Infantry technologies that I could start developing Motorised Infantry, which in turn is a prerequisit for Motorised Support Brigades, which in turn is needed for my Operational Doctrine: Superior Firepower.

Meanwhile in Asia. The US considers the Republic of China to be the highest threat against them. I can't say I understand why though.

Japan still couldn't manage to take Nanjing, but the Chinese can't push them back either. No sign of any amphibious landings so far.

While we are waiting for stuff to happen, let me elaborate a bit more on my long-term strategy. The USA starts the game as a Great Power already, but there's one more level of awesomeness: the Superpower. To get there, I need to have at least 350 IC (I have 241 from the 333 base), 500 Brigades (I have 94), 125 Divisions (I have 26) as well as 20 Air Wings and 50 Ships (I meet the last two requirements already). I'll need to train some more troops to achieve that goal, but with the insane levels of Industrial power I will have by 1940, that won't take long.

The Recognition of Manchukuo.

In 1938, Japan formally asked Germany to recognise the puppet state they had in Manchuria since the Mukden incident in 1931. Germany, feeling that Japan was winning the conflict in China decided to go along and recognised the state as a legitimate one. This will most likely help them consolidate their alliance later on. Unless China gets itself together, which is not very likely, because Nanjing, their capital was lost. That will cause them a lot of supply issues. Meanwhile Xinjiang is getting beaten by Xibei San Ma and the Social Liberal French Government had collapsed, allowing a new, Social Democrat cabinet to form.

The Nanjing-Massacre is the first potential step towards breaking the isolationist stance of the United States.

This event reduces my Neutrality by 5 points, from 100 to 95. The Monroe Doctrine and the Neutrality modifier together increase it by 0.05 per day, which I can counter with spies, reducing it to only 0.02 per day. This means that my Neutrality would be at 100 in 250 days again. Gearing up for War reduces Neutrality by another 5 points, but I still won't be able to do that for over a year. So this is pretty much a wasted opportunity right now. Technically I could cheat and not click on the button for a year and a half but I won't do that. The 15 points relations reduction didn't do any good either, we still have 115. Well played, Japan, well played indeed. But I will get you one day!

A few weeks later China took Nanjing back. Nice! Meanwhile Japan and the USSR engaged in a border-incident near Chankufeng Lake. Despite being commited in China already, Japan came out of this conflict as the winner, which didn't help Soviet pride in the slightest. They returned to status quo in a few days.

April brought a giant leap on the path of Nuclear Research, allowing the study of Isotope Separation to be started. It will take over a year, but I'm sure it will be worth the effort in the long run!

Then in May, Japan formed yet another puppet regime in Asia, now based around Nanjing, under the leadership of Wang Jingwei.

Whether this will help or hinder Japanese advance remains to be seen.

Well, if nothing else, it might have helped them convince Germany that they were the right choice in Asia: the Empire of Japan joined the Axis on June 16, 1938. On July 3rd, European leaders met in Munich to discuss Hitler's demand of the Sudetenland. Surprisingly enough, Czechoslovakia gave in without a fuss. They didn't even complain. They might have a considerable German-supporting population I guess.

Remember how I said that the Xinjiang War won't be an interesting conflict? Well...

...I was wrong.

Now, don't be fooled by the screenshot though. I'm not actually sure if this is WAD or not, but this doesn't really mean that the RoC and the USSR are at war now, only that the conflict between Xinjiang and Xibei San Ma didn't end with returning to Status Quo, it will drag on until one of them is completely defeated. The fun part is that this side-quest might take away enough Chinese forces from the main plot against Japan to really hurt the war effort. We'll see.

The End of Czechoslovakia. For now.

Hitler couldn't be satisfied by only the Sudetenland. They went for the rest of Czechoslovakia in February, 1939. As a result, the UK deemed necessary to guarantee the independence of Poland, the next suspected victim of the Reich. Winter The war is coming. And Italy attacked Albania, just for fun. Later on Hungary joined the Axis, followed by the Kingdom of Italy a bit later.

By April, I really started to feel restricted by the amount of Leadership I had, even though I was spending every single point on research. Which is good, and perfectly WAD! I don't want to be able to research everything up-to-date even as the USA! Unfortunatelly I didn't really prioritize in my plans. I'm not sure I will be able to use balanced units for example. Questin is, what will I neglect? There are tons of modern, breakthrough technologies and I want them all! Radars, radios, nuclear stuff, rockets, tanks, aircraft, carriers... Still, I will need to drop some of the less important stuff. So, here are the things I will focus on:

• Nuclear research, rocket science, jet engines, radars. I want these modern fields covered as much as possible, because it is awesome! And what else could be the goal in a US game than to be awesome?
• Medium and Heavy Tanks. They are tough, which is good. They also have heavy firepower, which is very good. They eat a lot, which will be a problem, especially for overseas invasions (and I will basically do only those), but I'll deal with that when I get there.
• Proper Infantry weapons. You can't go anywhere without them.
• For support, I will use (Self-Propelled) Rocket Artillery. Because it is awesome. Again, the higher supply consumption will be dealt with when the need arises. (And it will...)
• Doctrines and Training for the above.
• Fighters, Light Bombers and Carrier Air Groups. They use the same techs, which is very good, and I will use these a lot. The Light Bomber is the most questionable of the three because of the low operational range. Again, I'll deal with it when I get there. I won't use any more Medium Bombers than I start with though. (Which is 3 Wings.)
• I will build my Navy around Aircraft Carriers escorted by Heavy Cruisers. I may have hinted at that earlier on but now I'm completely decided. I won't build anything else. (I start with 16 Submarine Flotillas, that ought to be enough for anything and I also have 15 Battleships plus tons of Transports and escorts. I don't need to build anything else.)
• I will research rockets, but I probably own't use them. Their operational range is still way too low, they are very far from ICBMs.
• I'll try to keep up with the other important industrial techs as well.

And I think that's it.

In June, 1939, Yugoslavia joined the Axis. That might be fun! What they don't know is the soft-coded coup that happens if they do. (Soft-coded, because it will only happen if the circumstances are right, but they almost always are.) Unfortunatelly the event fired too early to have a historical effect: Germany let the issue drop because they were not yet prepared for a major war which might have been the result of a DoW. Yugoslavia can still offer to join the Axis again, even with the new government. (Historically they were ready to negotiate with Hitler, but he was already decided by then, taking the coup as a personal insult.)

The fall of Communism in China. For a time at least.

Japanese advance was held up for a time in China, but in the end the internal conflicts took their toll. The Chinese Communist Party was defeated in July, 1939, and reulctently joined forces with the Kuomintang. Realizing the threat, the warlords in Xinjiang decided it's time to join the Unified Front. Too little too late, I'm afraid.

Hitler couldn't sit on his bottom any longer. On 23th of August, 1939, he sent an ultimatum to Poland for Danzig to be returned. The ultimatum was rejected. The War in Europe has started.

Danzig or War. War, please.

[misterbean]

I remember a pre-WWII saying: "only a fool gets involved in Chinese politics." Now I see why. the unpredictability of HPP is by far the best feature of the mod for me.
BTW, has anyone ever seen the Poles give in in HOI3? I had that once in HOI2, playing as Germany. I got Danzig without having to go to war over it.