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If you can't attack China without bringing the Allies into the war against you, then you've probally lost the game.

This is because you won't be able to hold Yunnan/Thailand against the Indian/British and Nat. Chinese forces. This you can know with fair certainty.
You cannot defeat China in a couple of months allowing redeployments. This you can know with fair certainty.
Ignoring your previous conquests and attacking from a single/duel front against China for a quick capitualation wasted the purpose of attacking early and allows British/Indian and Chinese forces to link up; fronts will be large, fronts will be bolstered, and the enemy will have high numbers to 'plug the gap' and 'make the breakthroughs'. This you can know with fair certainty.

Because those pieces of knowledge effectively cut off your defensive, and aggresive-defensive stratergies, you've put yourself inside a paper bag.


Attacking Yunnan wasn't the best move here. However the gamble will pay off if you can conquer China before getting embroiled with the Allies, since that large front allong Yunnan/Guangxi can be 'fortified' with a whole tonne of binary infantry divs which the Chinese will take a few weeks to push back, while you can press that attack from the north and a futher coastal landing.

You might wish to have a breif look at your threat to other nearby nations, if the Soviets get threatened to much you might end up with the Allies DOW, creating threat, which threatens the soviets a little bit, which tips them over the edge, they also declare war on you. Not always common chain of events in world conquest type games, but the way threat mechanics appear to work you can end up with a 'stick the breaks that camels back' sparking off a cluster of DOWs if your unlucky leaving all the big regional powers as they are is making this a game influencing aspect rather than minor speed bumps...
 
18th September

The GI IX Corps was ordered to guard southern Yunan in an extention of the Guanxi lines. The Cav I Corps rode northwards to take up positions on the Xiebi border. The Marine Corps are ordered to Hanan to rendevous with the fleet. Approximately another infantry corps and cavalry corps will be needed in Yunan.

The three supporting GI divisions in the Marine Corps are left behind to form the GI X Corps with two additional divisions being shipped in from the home islands.

Intelligence from the front lines in Guanxi vindicates our strategy of capturing Yunanese mountains, as pressure on our forces is greatly reduced when Chinese divisions decide to man the border to the west.

29th September

GI X Corps and the Cav II Corps land in Guanxi and make their way into Yunan.

Schwerpunkt increases to level 3.

14th October

Two divisions had all their organisation values destroyed due to supply shortages in Guanxi. We are uncertain on the ideal response to this.


23rd October

The Soviet Union is mobilising.

1st December

Due to the supply situation we decided to spread the GI X Corps thinly on the Yunanese-Nationalist border. The Xiebi punch is the key in this region, not over-running western China.

Vichy France appears to be an easy target to allow us to link up Siam with Yunan and Guanxi. It will mean war with the Axis, but that has no real threat to Japan as we can easily control the waters in between, especially with the allies blocking the route with the RN.

6th December

Italy enforced conquer on Greece.

The Shanghai army was aboard the transports of the main fleet off the coast of Vichy French Indo-China. The defeats Italy is suffering in Ethophia and Libya convinced Japanese command that war with Vichy France, despite its German guarantee was a safe decision to make.

We declared war on Vichy France!

Objective set to declare Vichy French Indochine.

The assorted forces of the Shanghai Army.

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Our first action is to capture the port of Haiphong with two marine divisions and to prevent one of the enemy infanty divisons from moving into Guanxi by amphibious assaulting it with one of our Panzer divisions.

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Haiphong is undefended and is captured by 11pm. The panzer assault was cancelled in favour of landing supporting divisions into Haiphong. Both marine divisons are ordered to attack Hanoi immediately. We were disappointed to learn that Haiphong was only a level four port as it could of had some answers for our supply shortages.

8th December

The GI XI Corps reboards the fleet and sets sail southwards to capture Saigon and deal with an errant enemy division which is advancing in a line towards Bangkok.

9th December

A check on the diplomatic situation gives war with Vichy France and Germany. It appears we are safe from the wider-axis for the time being and we doubt that the Kriegsmarine will ever get past Great Britain, never mind to the seas of south east asia.

16th December

The United Kingdom enforced conquer on Ethophia.

18th December

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We surrounded the defending enemy division at the Shanxi border and eliminated it.

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One division and HQ lands at Saigon. The rest of the GI XI Corps are pushing in from the Siamese border after stopping a vichy division from entering Siam.

22nd December

Marine divisions land at Cam Ranh and Qang Ngai. All ports in Vichy IndoChina are now captured. The defeat of the remaining defenders will now be a formality as their supplies run out.

Portugal has joined the Axis.

1st January 1941

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The situation in IndoChina

4th January

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The USA had the undeclared war!

Japanese diplomats kindly reminded the Americans that we too, are at war with the Germans.

12th January

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Developments in Vichy French IndoChina

Germany declared a limited war against Yugoslavia.

Japanese high command decided to reduce the scale of our Guanxi garrision by two corps. The South China Army Groups now number 460,000 men which is still judged to be too high. Out of Yunan, the GI X Corps is withdrawn after the impact of its arrival on the local supply situation. With three corps marching towards ports, we will have to open up two new fronts in eastern China in the event of war. Qingdao and Shanghai.

11th Feburary

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The conquest of Vichy French Indochina is completed.

23rd Feburary

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An interesting side effect of our diplomacy. Our DOW on Portugal was followed later by one on Vichy France and hence, Germany. Germany invited Portugal to the Axis and now we're witnessing Portugals attempt to capture southern Africa.

27th Feburary

Factory production finishes. 20 factories are deployed in three locations.

A new carrier with CAGs was ordered to keep practicals reasonably fresh. 7.65 IC for 17 months

In addition, a mountain corps of 4mtn divisions was ordered. These units will take 166 days to complete, or after Barbarossa starts. Which is good, as we don't want to increase our threat levels until the Soviets consider themselves engaged in a fight to the death.

10th March

Germany enforced conquer on Yugoslavia.

12th March

USA decided unlimited National Emergency!

18th March

Both CAGs completed training and joined the IJN Amagi at Tokyo bay.

30th March

To reflect the growing uneasiness with American militancy towards Germany and the move away from isolationism, the full spectrum of Light Cruiser technologies were ordered to be developed, including ASW and radar.

7th May

As ICs came online from the new factories we kept struggling with how to spend the extra money. Eventually, another carrier and a whole marine corps were ordered, in addition to the present carrier and mountain divisions, 50 convoys (5) and a heavy upgrade program.

Our economy has topped out from the factory building program. We now have 195 ICs to command.

23rd May

A highly strategic research project completes, coal to oil conversion. When surveying our resources, we noted we have black soil +10% manpower from our new indochinese holdings in addition to the Japanese resource of dockyard facilities.

30th May

Supply shortages now only exist in one province in Guanxi.

8th June

Research changes. Infantry 1942 tech ordered. Small fuel tanks for the CAGs were ordered along with CAS pilot training and NAV Pilot training. Assault concentration to give +org to our artillary. Aircraft carrier engines as I'm determined to ensure that the current generation of outdated carriers do not continue to get reproduced. Our carrier tech is at '34 AA, '36 engines, '38 armor and '34 hangars, so you can see the driving imperative of at least giving them modern ranges.

The Shanghai Army consists of 226k soldiers in five corps. This is enough men to capture a very large part of central China, when fueled from its own independent Shanghai port.

16th June

The Shanghai Army is aboard the boats of the main fleet and sitting lazily outside of Shanghai. Here is an OOB recap before we declare war.

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In the north guarding the lands of Shanxi and formerly communist China is the first army of the North China Army Groups.

This army is merely expected to hold its ground. It is not an issue if it is forced to concede a small amount of ground which may occur at the start of hostilities due to the sheer size of Chinese forces on the border. But this is true across all our fronts.

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In the South at Guanxi-Yunan are the South China Army Groups with the South China ARmy, Second Army and the Yunan Army. The Yunan Army contains two cavalry corps waiting to strike at Xiebi if the Nationalists reduce their border forces. We will be unable to hold the eastern flank at Guanxi, however these units will be the first recalled to defend Shanghai.

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In the east the Shanghai army waits to strike.

We have 1100 manpower, I believe we finally have the strength to subdue china as our war economy will also out-produce theirs for the first time in a Japanese-Chinese war. We have a whole corps of mountain divisions due to complete training in August.

All we wait for now is the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

25th July

Germany annexed Norway

2nd August

Still no sign of Barbarossa, Eva Braun must have Hitlers balls or something. We decide to press on regardless.

Japan declared war on nationalist China!

We declared war at the beginning of night to ensure that any great Chinese offensive will have to wait till after we've captured Shanghai (giving us ~10 hours to win the battle for the port) and they've been forced to march troops east.

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The nighttime battle of Shanghai opens at 86% towards victory.

3rd August

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We are victorious in the battle of Shanghai. The Chinese immediately retreated when our infantry divisions landed in the surrounding provinces.

Rather then land straight into Shanghai, our supporting corps were ordered to land along the Chinese coast to greatly expand the scale of our bulkhead before the nationalists arrive.

The first landing forces are given orders to attack the enemy capital at Nanjking. We were pleased to note that Shanghai is a level 10 port.

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The Chinese were determined to make their superior numbers count in Shanxi and launched a small offensive. We responded by bringing in the bombers and marching in a reinforcing division from a neighbouring province. The battle is at -62%.

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A second corps has landed at the beaches in the Shanghai offensive.

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Widespread panic on the Shanxi frontier as the Chinese generals realise their mistakes.

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Similar scenes are repeated across the Guanxi front.

Another corps begins disgorging out of the vast fleet we have placed off Shanghai. This time this corps will be heading to the provinces south of Shanghai.

After these soldiers landed we decided to keep one corps in reserve and landed it at Shanghai. The Marines boarded the fleet and sailed back to Susaki to rendevzous with stage 2 of our plans.

4th August

Chinese troops began abandoning Xiebi-Yunan, which brought about a smile on the face of the cavalry corps commander. We will have to wait for them to retreat out of support range before beginning the stab into the heart of Xiebi.

The defending force from Shanghai was surrounded and killed by faster japanese forces.

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Three CAG groups were ordered to begin ground attackins into Nanjing to scout enemy positions for us. They have one HQ in the province and two militia divisions in nearby provinces.

6th August

The nationalists made some gains in the southeast of Guanxi. This was an area we're simply unable to supply the divisions required to defend.

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State of the Shanghai front.

---

Threat levels have been superceded against many powers by the very high German threat levels. The only major we are considered the primary threat to is the Americans, at 98.

The nationalists are 10% towards surrender, they have 24 VPs. We have a mountain corps due to complete in a week and the cavalry are gearing up to lance the heart of Xiebi. I consider the general situation to be positive regardless of the balance of power at Shanxi and Guanxi.

I'll probably update again later today, only updated just now as I had ~20 shots in my screenshots folder.

@ PJ Fallon - Thanks :D It's even bigger now.

@ Yamamoto - It appears our gambles are paying off, although the Soviet situation is dynamite as the Germans failed to start barbarossa.
 
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I am curious to know how your supply situation is going now.

Also what kind of resource stockpiles have you?
 
I am curious to know how your supply situation is going now.

Also what kind of resource stockpiles have you?


92,958 Energy, -200 per day
44,369 metal, -136 per day
23,657 rares, -56 per day
3445 oil, +2 per day
13,042 supply, +84 per day
7,097 fuel, -91 per day
48 cash, +0 per day
195 ICs
62 spare convoys
Black soil and Dockyard facilities

Unit supply, we have 7 units out of supply five located in Guanxi central-east and two are the cavalry units waiting near Xiebi.

Our resource situation is relatively benign because of a side-effect of the very hard modifier suppressing ICs and hence, resource consumption for the opening 3-4 years.
 
7th August

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The division at the northern tip of the Shanghai front is prevented from crossing onto the Shangdong pensulia by two chinese militia divisions at Ganyu. We are reinforcing the attack with another infantry division to hopefully cross the river. We will be landing at Qingdao when the fleet returns to the Chinese coast from the home islands, perhaps within 24 hours - so the success of this attack is not important but we do wish to begin waging a war of attrition.

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The advance towards Nanjing is slowed down on the southern approach by an enemy militia division. It has no defensive bonus from rivers etc so we expect it to be defeated shortly, battle commences at 46% to victory.

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The battle of Nanjing begins. The Chinese militia division has four brigades, courtsey of our CAG scouts who are performing ground attacks into the capital.

8th August

Another infantry division joins the battle of Nanjing as a reserve.

The marine corps and a support corps arrive at Qingdao. The two marine divisions lead the assault into Qingdao. 68% towards victory.

The purpose of the Qingdao attack is to establish a defensive position to take the brunt of the Chinese counter-attack from the Shanxi front. The quantity of enemy divisons moving on the Shanghai front is terrifying.

We lost two more provinces at the eastern fringe of Guanxi. Guilian looks deeply threatened, with enemy divisions in 7 surrounding provinces, Japanese units in two surrounding provinces.

Nanjing is now 78% towards victory.

11th August

The southern approach to Nanjing is cleared as the blocking division retreats. We should be able to bring more units to bear at Nanjing soon, but it may be unncessary with combat at 82%.

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We are victorious at Nanjing.

12th August

At the battle of Ganyu, the southern edge of the Shangdong pensulia with Qingdao, our progress accelerates to 77% with very little organisation damage suffered and the defending enemy division nearly destroyed for organisation. This suggests our forces are much stronger then the present Chinese ones.

We won the battle of Qingdao.

The Chinese try to attack us at Yushe in Shanxi, this is the province next to Shijazshong where they had previously attempted to assault. A quick counter-attack and the Chinese abandon their attack plans, we abandon the counter-attack.

Japanese forces enter Nanjing. General update on the state of the Shanghai front.

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The nationalists are 20% towards surrender.

We are victorious at Ganyu.

We have captured immense stockpiles at Nanjing. We now have 99,999 energy; 99,999 metal; 51,004 rares; 11,169 oil.

We also control all of the ports into China now so Xiebi aside, the nationalists cannot trade any deficits they may have.

14th August

Nationalist divisions have abandoned the northern section of Xiebi's border into Shanxi. We respond by attacking with 3 divisions of cavalry into Uxin Ju, a hilly province guarded by one infantry division. It will provide vital information on the relative strengths of our cavalry versus Xiebi's divisions before the advance out of Yunan begins. This advance is being delayed by the slow movement of nationalist troops, itself simply a factor of the sheer size of provinces in the region.

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Barbarossa begins.

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Portugal failed in Africa.

15th August

The mountain corps finishes training and begins organising its affairs on the home islands. Its position in the training barracks were replaced by a corps of hopeful cavalry men.

We won the battle of Uxin Ju! None of our cavalry forces took any organisation damage, despite the hilly terrain. We began to suspect that the nationalist divisions in Xiebi had serious supply problems as none of them have managed to move out of southern Xiebi/Yunan in two weeks.

The carriers set sail south to support the Guanxi line. We sent the IJN Amagi to join them and show us the power of our new carrier.

The Soviet Union had "For the Motherland!". It is worth noting that Finland, Romania and Hungary are all Axis states, and between them and axis Italy they control the entire of the balkans.

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The nationalists are attacking us at Jiexi in Guanxi east. They are 81% towards victory and it appears they will rout the eastern-most division of our Guanxi line.

More factories will only cost 3.5 IC and 258 days. Another 10 were added to the bottom of the production queue for when we have no priority construction projects. This is a good choice because I want to produce a large wave of light cruisers, more factories means more light cruisers.

16th August

Advances by the nationalists in Guanxi. We remain unconcerned as the mountain corps will be able to chew through the entire flank of the nationalist forces here when they are ready. The nationalists are only occupying more hills/mountains driving them further into our specialists favourite fighting ground and they're capturing worthless provinces.

18th August

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Noting the lack of fuel on the front, the three panzer divisions on Shangdong were withdrawn.

19th August

seven CAGs begin attacking the Nationalist flanking manovure at Guanxi.

The advance into the heart of Xiebi has begun.

The battle of Dainkog pits four cavalry divisions against one enemy infantry division at 47% towards victory.

The battle of Darlag pits 2 cavalry against 1 infantry and 1 cavalry division. This is 19% towards victory.

The trigger for this advance is a western offensive into Yunan (i.e. our supply lines) by the nationalists. We are moving one square division north to hold the line amongst the binaries in the area.

On the Shanxi-Xiebi frontier, the three cavalry divisions that captured Uxin Ju attack Shizuishan. It is defended by two enemy divisions with a fort. However one the divisions is the recently defeated force from Uxin Ju and is on near-routing levels of organisation at the opening of hostilities. 19% towards victory.

There's 11 battles raging across the various fronts right now. Four in Yunan, one in Shanxi and six in Shanghai.

A check on the Soviet-German front showed Germany has made no progress. We don't see germany surviving beyond mid '43 if this situation continues. It is not really possible to invade the Soviet Union from the east so we're apphrenshive about a quick Soviet victory in Europe.

20th August

We won all three battles on the Yunan-Xiebi border.

21st August

A binary division of cavalry at Juilong on Yunan-China border was attacked and quickly routed. A square division is a few provinces away so should be able to close down this new whole in our frontier.

A panzer and one of the garrisoning GI divisions launch an attack into Haixfang on the Shanxi border. 81% towards victory against an enemy infantry division. The panzers could serve well at Shanxi due to our big expansion of Humhuang port.

Shizuishan combat advances to 60% towards victory. Our cavalry has taken no org losses despite the big bonuses for the defenders from terrain and forts. We estimate the defending division to be at 20% org. These combats on Xiebi-Shanxi are important and are featured in the reports because they allow us to shut down the size of the Shanxi frontier. By taking Uxin Ju a two province front was reduced to 1. If we take Shizuishan, Liangzhen and Otog Qianali, we can reduce the size of the front by another province.

Supply shortages are turning our Yunan-Xiebi attack into a farce. The cavalry are advancing at 1.6kmph. Supply shortages are beginning to bite in Shanghai frontier as it has to supply the Qingdao offensive as well now.

Both China and Japan have areas we are winning and losing in. However Japan is winning where it counts most.

25th August

We have occupied Shizuishan and begin attacking into Liangzhen with two supporting infantry divisions, bringing the power against this province to the level of a whole corps.

26th August

General overview of the fronts.

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27th August

The mountain corps boards the transport fleet and sets sail for northern china. We are unable to supply southern china adequately so there was perceived to be no gain in sending more divisions there.

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The central section of out Shanghai line is heavily outnumbered by Chinese divisions and will be split within a few months, this was decided as the point for the Mountain corps to attack forward through.

28th August

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The mountain corps begins landing at the beaches of eastern China to march inland to prevent the enemy breakthrough in central-Shanghai front. These divisions have approximately 60% of maximum org values.

29th August

Another marine corps was ordered and given priority over the factory production.

We are being defeated at the southern section of the Shanghai front because of supply shortages reducing the effectiveness of our units. Defeats in bad areas are making our positions untenable in good areas too, so we're forced to pull back more units then we'd like. However the whole front is riding on how long the mountain divisions take to march inland and how well they will perform once they reach there. The Chinese are pressing in on Nanjing.

31st August

I have to recognise that we will be defeated in the areas south of Shanghai. Whilst I have identified a line I would like to hold in a bay 2 provinces south of the port, we will force the Chinese to drive us back to the port. They must be made to expend their strength fighting us, if we allow them to pen us in at no cost they will easily win the war. In the north, the Qingdao-Shanxi region will be joined shortly to create a continous front from Xiebi, east to Jinan then south to the border with Nanchang.

10wuxe8.jpg


Here you can get a feel for the war, the units in the east are the reinforcing mountain corps. You can see we are being battered aside by the sheer power of the Chinese armies. Hopefully when the front settles down we will have a favourable position. We have two panzer divisions in reserve. If they are deployed they will be broken into four divisions of LT-Mot 6,000 men. This is my safety on the Shanghai front but for now they sit off the coast aboard the navy to avoid stressing Shanghai supplies. We don't want to over-react and send in the units just yet as they may weaken our current fighting divisions due to supply, best to watch the current forces give the chinese, and recieve, a mauling.

2nd September

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We're forced with withdraw in large parts of southern-shanghai front as around half the divisions have lost their organisation, the remaining half will be used to avoid any divisions being wiped out on the march back towards a defendable position.

It was painful to be pushed back here, we were at the gates of Wuhan and Nanchang.

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Victory is not considered possible. I will need a large bomber force and special forces only to beat the Chinese. Where we created binary divisions to ease supply problems in Yunan, they are smashed. If we peace now we only lose some land in eastern Guanxi with no IC value.

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We offered peace to the Nationalists, they accepted.

3rd September

Invasion port-mortem.

Key notes
- The Yunan front was unable to defend itself from a Chinese push westwards. In three key areas our defences were pushed back, threatening two entire corps with being cut off northwards.

- These two cavalry corps in the north, one was set to binary divisions to defend the northern frontier whilst the other cavalry division was in theory, to force a quick surrender of Xiebi. However due to supplies, they were moving at 1.6kmph. This completely destroyed our entire Yunan strategy, in addition nationalist forces seemed to be suffering similar supply and they were slow to leave Xiebi-Yunan, despite having early orders to do so. This cost us a lot of time from our attack.

- At Guanxi we were being pushed back when one chinese division attacked one of ours, despite the terrain modifiers hilly/mountainous. However every attempt by us to attack failed miserably with 5-15% progress and our organisation value falling frighteningly fast.

- At Shanxi, we enjoyed the biggest successes of the war pushing slowly into Xiebis eastern frontier, holding our lines and managing to take 4-5 provinces off the nationalists.

- At Shanghai I think we were too ambitious with normal infantry. It is clear that we cannot supply a bigger army, yet we were being smashed by enemy numbers. In every province where we were supply strapped, the effect of the negative supply modifier was strong enough to make a japanese division weaker then a chinese division. This was mainly responsible for the southern Shanghai line collapse.

- In central shanghai we were unable to hold our positions due to our forces being too spread out further south. Our pre-war vision of cavalry being able to encircle the Chinese divisions was shattered by the sheer quantity and quality of soldiers China was able to confront us with after our initial advance. We were left in little doubt that in a long war, this entire Shanghai offensive would of been pushed back into the port.

*Lessons learned
Cavalry are not strong enough versus Chinese divisions. As a purely encircling force, we already have enough with two entire cavalry corps so the further corps of cavalry in production was cancelled.

We need special forces and serious airpower. Our standard infantry cannot be deployed in the numbers needed to defeat the Chinese, so we need to deploy special forces only.

Actions taken
20 carrier air groups were ordered to be the airforce in China. This came at a cost of 70ICs for 17 months.

10 airbases were ordered to allow a distributed positioning of air assets over the front. This came at a cost of 14 ICs for 126 days.

We will have to build two armies of special forces. These will be built closer to the time they are needed to reduce upgrade costs, but two armies are 500,000 men or 10 corps.

I expect our 'shopping list' to be completed late '45 as a rough guide.

The alternative is to create a great power economy, which we can supply with advanced technologies and our empire. At the moment we have many conquests which are not being effectively leveraged towards powering ICs.
 
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This is ... the 4th peace with the chinese?

Third or fourth. Blame it on my EU3 gaming history.

Each peace we held advantage but didn't want to risk the impending defeats, so it was reasonable for both sides. Everytime China has gained a small amount of land however. I've hatched a new grand strategy to deal with this "china problem", in next update :)
 
Dear Chiang,

We really really really mean it this time. Sorry with sugar on top.

signed,

The Emperor
 
Seems like you should have had an advantage, unless you were starting with no Mountain divisions at all. Most of China's VPs are weighted in the west, so a diversion attack to pull their troops east should have worked in concert with Mountain divisions coming from the west.
 
Seems like you should have had an advantage, unless you were starting with no Mountain divisions at all. Most of China's VPs are weighted in the west, so a diversion attack to pull their troops east should have worked in concert with Mountain divisions coming from the west.

Yes, I should of won imo and to be honest I felt a lot of shock when I saw the offensive crumble. It is largely because of a tech advantage is much smaller then the 40% diff modifier. Japanese-Chinese divisions are at near parity with Chinese ones holding advantage if the supply modifier occurs during a battle. We had 3 mountain divisions at the start of 37 and made a further 5 at the start of the last war. I had these mountain divisions in the south where the mountains of Guanxi meets the nationalist south so I could push into the heart of the Nat VP region. The problem was despite being a mountain division, they could not dislodge a Chinese infantry division in the mountains one on one - hope that example illustrates the up hill battle I was fighting in the last war and people can see why I chose to peace. In my eyes, I've already lost this game as I should of successfully won in 38 to be able to carry out world conquest. I'm going to play through to see if I can invade China finally in '45 with special forces and a silly amount of airpower :) If I can pull that off then we can concede a soft-defeat with Japan not achieving objectives but having a very nice empire and big economy. If not I will restart a japanese aar and do it properly.



These posts have more that 20 images. Please fix them.

Technical issue, everytime I press edit post I do not get an option to edit the post. It just takes me to a random place in the page. If you want to edit them, feel free but I cannot. I trust your discretion on the selection of which images to delete. Both posts have 22 images so you will only need to delete two.

Dear Chiang,

We really really really mean it this time. Sorry with sugar on top.

signed,

The Emperor

:D
 
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18th September

The Great Power Economy.

We chose the development of a great power economy over the production of forces for a '45 war.

The reasoning for this is that in the event of a war with a faction, all our gains in either siberia or the colonies, will be resource rich but IC poor regions. We cannot beat either faction with our present ICs and even if we assume military success, we will not be able to then - as we would lack the final ICs needed to power a push past the urals or into GB itself.

Therefore all our gains will be largely pointless, Japan already has the resources to fuel a reasonably large economy. (-50, -60,-30 a day for energy, metal, rares @ 195 ICs with massive stockpiles).

What we need is a situation where capturing India for example, would power our economy on to defeat the entire of the allies. This requires a much larger raw IC base then we currently have.

China does have a raw IC base of around 50 according to spy reports. This is equivalent to 1 year of factory production and we would need close to 3-4 years of production to capture these 50ICs.

For us, it makes more sense to utilise our colonies to allow a production of 300ICs. This would then only need 1-2 years of production to capture the 50ICs of China. Our economy would be substantially larger by the end of this process compared to the preparing for war now situation and more importantly, it would not be over-stretched - we will have the slack to attack a faction.

Production:
The CAGs and marines will still be produced but at a much later date, relegated to the bottom of the production queue.

Two carriers and CAGs will go ahead still as before, this is 30ICs. After this, we are now building 37 factories at 3.51 ICs and 256 days.

Salient features of the research agenda:
Carrier engines for longer range (hit USA)
Light cruiser development - ideal escort ship
Two CAG related doctorines (nav,cas pilot)
Small fuel tanks, increase range of CAGs
1942 infantry
Supply production+organisation+transportation
Industrial efficency and production


Our resource techs are already highly developed and will be pursued when new options become feasible.

The world:
State of the eastern front

v7awk0.jpg


Finland is 99% towards surrender.

7th October

The Soviet Union annexed Finland.

8th October

The light cruiser tech advances a level, but is considered too outdated to even produce a practical development model. Tech is researching '38.

15th October

Small warship radar is developed.

31st October

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Expand the undeclared war!

1st November

The leading Romanian divisions of the Axis have reached the Crimea. German divisions are now menacing Estonia.

4th November

We stopped aligning towards the Soviet Union out of fear it would be able to access our Dockyards and Black soil resources. We are unable to align towards the allies as we are considered at war with them, due to the NZ government in exile.

7th November

The USSR had the great patriotic war.

1st December

Afghanistan is mobilising. It is not a member of a faction and is most threatened by the UK.

18th December

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The USA joined the allies!

20th December

The USA had day of infamy!

They claimed to of been attacked, we had to check that it wasn't us. They are only at war with the Axis.

1st Feburary 1942

Axis advance through Soviet Russia is presently an oblique through the Ukraine and the baltic states and Belarus. Will be interesting to see if they can break the Soviets in the summer months.

7th Feburary

2u3waq1.jpg


The Americans have landed in the Netherlands!

26th Feburary

The USA liberated the Netherlands.

2nd April

The Netherlands is slowly shrinking back into Axis Europe.

18th May

The factory wave finishes. We now order another 30 factories at 3.05 ICs apiece and 220 days development.

27th May

The Imperial Japanese economy passes 200 ICs.

25th June

A marine division completes training.

27th June

pw3ew.jpg


The Americans are invading Portugal. We ensured we had a conquest wargoal to increase our diplomatic arguments for the retention of Portugese holdings.

23rd July

The Japanese economy has now reached 250 ICs with 1500 manpower.

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The dutch have been driven into the nordsee by the duetsch again.

6th August

The USA enforced conquer on Portugal. It is now a government in exile.

The Americans began a landing between Italy and Vichy France and we started to panic, if they perform annexations on Italy or Vichy we will be finished. Ideally, Europe needs to fall to the Soviets who are defending admirably. taking back the extreme east of the baltic states and pushing the Romanians out of the Crimea.

We began re-aligning towards the SU with the intention of providing strategic resources, we want to give them every edge against the Americans later on.

5th September

We deployed two new aircraft carriers the IJN Hiryu and IHN Soryu and a marine division.

We gained the Grand Fleet modifier.

Eighteen of the CAGs ordered for China are now in production.

21st September

The soviets pushed through Latvia and the Romanians are being pushed out of the Ukraine.

5th October

The American landings in Vichy are now reduced to 2 provinces at Nice-Cannes.

9th November

American Vichy expands to 9 provinces and they attack Cosrica. Sardinia is British controlled, as is the extreme east of the Libyan desert.

8th December

CAGs completed for the carriers. A marine corps is ordered to soak up the ICs freed.

20th December

Final factory wave completes. Two more marine corps and a mountain corps were ordered.

2nd January 1943

Germany had defence!

The Soviet Union decided on the dissolution of the third international!

19th January

149u39.jpg


The American pocket at Vichy doubles in size.

Our first airbase is developed.

29th January

Vichy France is 90% towards surrender with American forces at Vichy.

30th January

The soviets have crossed into Romania and are at the Hungarian border.

1st Feburary

Our new economy tops out at 300ICs. We have 42k energy, 50k metals and 28k rares left in stockpiles.

19th Feburary

Our shortage of energy is quite acute, it may become necessary to develop a large nuclear program. Coal processing technologies are under development for '44 tech level. -260 energy per day.

27th Feburary

Italy decided on eight million baynets.

1st March

The UK had the end of the beginning.

4th March

We're strugglig to find a trading partner for energy, suggesting a global shortage as other states will trade in other commodities.

11th March

We enforced conquer on Vichy France. We gained 7 ICs from this change of political status.

15th March

Vichy France is a government in exile as we see the domination of southern france by the Americans.

17th March

We have now ringed China with 10 new airfields.

26th March

The Soviet Union annexed Romania

1st June

Resources ran out, game over.




Hey guys,

I played through to 1943 with IC investments so I could produce the scale of armies I now needed to fight the nationalists. Unfortunately the economy collapsed as resources were very quickly destroyed by the 317 ICs economy. I think the window for world conquest has now been closed on us as our rivals are too strong and mistakes compounded year on year as I was unable to finish the job in China.

This AAR is now closed and I will try again from '36 with Japan, just going to read a few AARs from other players to get a better understanding of China, most of my HOI3 experience is with Italy. I have learnt much more about HOI3 from this then I would of done so from any successful game so blackdown will come back fighting :)

Campaign ended.
Japan has failed.


Setting music

Colonel Blackdown stood tensely at the window of his private office, gazing down several stories at the latest recruits destined for the Chinese fronts of the Imperial Japanese Army. He sighed at the futility of it, these boys will be sent to die in a foreign land for a cause that has already failed.

Economic production has greatly fallen across the Empire and censors were failing to keep the stories of empty, increasingly derelic factories under control. Large segments of the population were starving and struggling to exist day to day, the daily travails of the recruits families will be hidden from them as letters from homeare increasingly marked out with black pens but even the lack of promised new equipment and aeroplanes could not be hidden forever.

Blackdown turned his back on the window and the life he was leaving behind as he walked to the center of the room. He nodded to General Kami and kneeled on the mat in front of him.

"I did my best" the colonel whispered gently, as he reached out to pick up his ceremonial dagger.

"...we know"

In a flash of steel, General Kami swung his sword towards his friend.
 
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Technical issue, everytime I press edit post I do not get an option to edit the post. It just takes me to a random place in the page. If you want to edit them, feel free but I cannot. I trust your discretion on the selection of which images to delete. Both posts have 22 images so you will only need to delete two.

I've had the same problem. Just scroll the page (usually up) and you'll see the edit text box did pop up, although the browser didn't center you on it.
 
I did say you'd put yourself in a paper bag.

If anything, this is one of the best examples of how not to go about trying to conduct the war in Asia. Wrong type of units, poor strategic possitioning and failure in operation.

The reason your encirclement technique failed was because if you 'push' China, like the Soviets, back but without taking out divisions as you do so, all you do is improve the troop density, and thus allow your enemy to maximise their frontage. Indeed, by your encirclement you minimised your troop density, while maximising Chiang's. If you'rd have pulled back in the north-west, then created a troop concentration and tried to pocket north, or pocket south with the coast invasions, China would have fallen.

Taking out Yunnan like you did was risky beyond belief and it is only that the AI is so dumb that the Allies didn't jump on you in a pre-emptive move to push out of Burma into Guangxi and boom take out 1/3rd to half your army. In a hypotheical MP game, you've just made a coup de grace on the Japanese player completly eliminating their possibilities for the game. To be frank with the opened strategies there wasn't a hell of a lot of long term plan for a stepping stone conquest.


Having said all that, this is the AI and going for ANZAC might be a smart move, since it get's them before joining the Allies or otherwise starting to become a bother (although Auz will be full of rebels), so to taking Thailand/Siam since it gives you early stepping stone. Those were the best bits of your strategy in my opinion.
 
I did say you'd put yourself in a paper bag.

If anything, this is one of the best examples of how not to go about trying to conduct the war in Asia. Wrong type of units, poor strategic possitioning and failure in operation.

The reason your encirclement technique failed was because if you 'push' China, like the Soviets, back but without taking out divisions as you do so, all you do is improve the troop density, and thus allow your enemy to maximise their frontage. Indeed, by your encirclement you minimised your troop density, while maximising Chiang's. If you'rd have pulled back in the north-west, then created a troop concentration and tried to pocket north, or pocket south with the coast invasions, China would have fallen.

Taking out Yunnan like you did was risky beyond belief and it is only that the AI is so dumb that the Allies didn't jump on you in a pre-emptive move to push out of Burma into Guangxi and boom take out 1/3rd to half your army. In a hypotheical MP game, you've just made a coup de grace on the Japanese player completly eliminating their possibilities for the game. To be frank with the opened strategies there wasn't a hell of a lot of long term plan for a stepping stone conquest.


Having said all that, this is the AI and going for ANZAC might be a smart move, since it get's them before joining the Allies or otherwise starting to become a bother (although Auz will be full of rebels), so to taking Thailand/Siam since it gives you early stepping stone. Those were the best bits of your strategy in my opinion.

Indeed, if I could rename the AAR it will be "Blackdown's folly" :D

Interesting idea on creating a pocket in the north. May implement that with a qingdao -> Xiebi push to cut down the armies of Shanxi. You're definitely right on the troop concentration problem, along with supply this is what was causing failures. Do you have any advice on the actual creation of a pocket on the China front? I often find that I run out of troops to cover my rear whilst encircling. I think giving the nationalists Shanxi armies forced the first peace as they then had too many troops to push through.

My pushing tactics can work in Europe because org is high enough to ensure that units lose substantial strength/numbers in engagements. In China the battle is simply over organisation levels so you cannot wage a war of attrition over MP very well.

For the new AAR I'm thinking of staying out of any non-chinese expansion until I am done in China. The little empire I created had no ICs and almost no resources either, was more of a troop drain then a help although the war with portugal fueled a war economy during peace with China...again something I want to avoid.

One thing I definitely noticed was the nationalist AI upgraded all militia into infantry during peace periods.

I hope my mistakes stand as a lesson to anyone else attempting Japan with this style and hopefully improves the quality of the next AAR :)