Japan: How long does it take you take China? And how do you deal with rebels?

[21oliver]

As Nat China after conquering the chinese states my economy and industry were pretty much booming. At one point i had gotten up to 140% officers, i was already queuing up tons of naval builds and had my infantry and artillery up to date, so if we thought Japan often had problems before while invading China, it likely will be ugly now imo.

[Big Nev]

[QUOTE=Alex_brunius;13894140]I usually don't defeat china until 1941. Why should I?


Because by sometime in 1941 your empire can stretch from Cairo to Wellington.

Portal has it right. DoW the minors sequentially. Although I don’t know how he manages to do all that by the end of 37. It’s easy enough if you don’t sacrifice Manchuko but it takes the Chinas longer than that to get themselves where you want them. April 1938 to mop them up & DoW the Clique. I got to the 250 battles milestone part way through Nat China. Can’t say it made a huge difference, maybe I should have just had an extra couple of infantry divisions instead of that 6th TAC bomber. I use ALL my air force, not just TACs & CAGs continually to assist my ground troops with ground attack or intervention orders.

By the end of 1938, I’d taken all of China, Auz, NZ, Siam and all the other non-aligned in the region. My effective IC is now 280. But I cheated. I built 6 factories.

And I’m now at war with...

Tibet.

And it’s going to take my mountaineers ages to wheedle them out.

So long in fact that I think I’ll have time to finish four battle ships, six CVs, 6 escort carriers, 30 or so CAGs, some more transport planes and shit loads of ground troops for my simultaneous push through Malaya, Indo-China, Dutch East Indies, Burma, India and on to the Middle East.

MY question is…

Do I wait for Germany to kick-off in Europe or… do I start the war with the Allies myself?

This will put Germany at a disadvantage, but how big & how significant. Bearing I mind that I’ve refused to join the Axis so they’ve not had any related bonuses.

But, on the plus side, at least the USA hasn’t joined the Allies… yet.

Oh, last thing, rebels.

In HoI III, I always got my para’s experience playing whack-a-mole, but it’s not so easy in FtM. So I’m re-thinking that too. I think light armour is probably the best. They are the fastest ground units I’ve got at 10kph but maybe it’s a waste because the FtM rebels are soooo weedy. And I use (single) INF or MIL as garrison units on resource spots. I don’t like GAR as they are just tooo slloooww.

[Portal]

Portal has it right. DoW the minors sequentially. Although I don’t know how he manages to do all that by the end of 37. It’s easy enough if you don’t sacrifice Manchuko but it takes the Chinas longer than that to get themselves where you want them. April 1938 to mop them up & DoW the Clique. I got to the 250 battles milestone part way through Nat China. Can’t say it made a huge difference, maybe I should have just had an extra couple of infantry divisions instead of that 6th TAC bomber. I use ALL my air force, not just TACs & CAGs continually to assist my ground troops with ground attack or intervention orders.

I meant I can beat NatChi and the minors I automatically go to war with by using the Marco Polo event by late 37. From there it's reorganizing my OOB's, and Yunnan, Guanxi and such are easy cake. By early or mid 38, declare war on Australia and New Zealand. The U.K won't bat an eyelid, and you can annex them because they aren't in a faction. From there, your transports can use the Rebase mission to essentially l33t h4x all the way to Libya, where you can go and declare war and conquer Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, and hell, you could probably take out the Balkans too. Just annex everything unaligned your transports can reach.

Whenever you're done, join Germany against the Allies. Stroll into Hong Kong, land in Singapore, advance from Persia into India, Advance from Tibet into Bhutan and Nepal and India, occupy French Indochina, dance through Burma. It should be easy enough to use MAR's to grab all the coastal VP's, drop in some LARM to race through whilst transferring your MAR to other targets, and then mop up anything left with good ole INF. Hell, you could have all of Asia and Africa if you bothered, with the only limiting factor being absolutely shit supply.

You could probably use Rebase to drop in some corps in Wilhelmshaven, then sinking the RN with the IJN, before using Conquer on Britain. Eh, from there, there shouldn't be many Allies left.

And then it's a ridiculously wide front to fight the USSR on, and then war on the USA. It's ridiculous how gamey you can get with Japan.

[Ilhador]

What about puppeting CHina, that's not resolve the rebels problem?

[Portal]

What about puppeting CHina, that's not resolve the rebels problem?

And sacrifice all that manpower and resources? You crazy?

[weezee]

Just curious: how long should it take me to take China? I know, there are no "hard" answers, but give me a soft one, then. I've been retreating into Korea and allowing the Chinese to retake Manchuko, and then retaking it. I really like this game play - it tends to prolong the war and really give the war in China a wholesale feel. And I get all Manchuko's resources!

The thing is, it's taking me until early to mid- 1939 to take all of get China to fall. That's basically over a year of fighting, which may not seem like a long time, but it's 1939 and I feel as if time is flying by!

I usually try to end the war by the end of 1938, which provides a significant boost to my economy allowing me to build more naval units to counter allies later in the war. It really depends on what you are trying to achieve if Pacific is your goal then taking out China early is crucial to your success against the US.

[Surgünoglu]

In earlier versions I usually defeated China within a year. I don't know where I'm "supposed" to be, because war with China is terrific for the economy, but it's the end of 1937 in the 3.06 beta and I've annexed Shanxi, Communist China, and am pushing toward Guangxi from Hainan, control a vast portion of the Shanghai-Nanjing area, and am pushing to round out my Shanxi-Hebei holdings and unite the two northern armies in Shandong-Qingdao.

The annexations of CommChi and Shanxi by themselves have helped with my IC. I definitely want to start lowering the revolt risk in NatChi, but that's why I'll try not to drag the war on artificially--I need to decide if I'll annex the new-and-expanded Xibei San Ma, for example, or puppet as I've done in the past--and why I've consolidated all the Garrisons in Manchuria and moved them along with my troops. I've also been building Inf, Mtn, and Mar as soon as I could and have also recruited 2xGarr,1xMP units for placement in major Chinese cities, especially ports. I'm also a very sparing player who's trying to recall all the strategies he's read for Japan.

[Khorney]

And sacrifice all that manpower and resources? You crazy?

yeah, but then you have an unstoppable land force you can just point at enemies to zerg rush. its more efficient, as you lose out on resources and stuff with occupation on non core provinces

[Portal]

yeah, but then you have an unstoppable land force you can just point at enemies to zerg rush. its more efficient, as you lose out on resources and stuff with occupation on non core provinces

The AI is stupid. That just wouldn't work. It's units wouldn't be up to date with techs. And I doubt the AI could intervene anywhere useful overseas.

[mnplastic]

Been playing around with Japan in 3.06 and I am getting the impression that tactics and outcomes in Asia are going to change somewhat. The new map changes everything and all 7 chinese factions WILL declare war on you immediately now as soon as Marco Polo fires. Nat China AI appears to have no problem getting up to date on tech and up to and over 100% in officers either now. Not sure if 3.06 is going to fix the Marco Polo event so that Japan still attacks if Shanxi is conquered though. Once the diplomacy issues are fixed in the new beta release, I think Asia is going to be a lot of fun to play.

I did a test run with 3.06b on VH level. You are right about all China factions joining together and making a big difference. Warlords had tons of units. Due to IC build up I did not build a single division before the war.

I practcally sent every single division to China. With big difficulties I took Shanxi and attacked communist capital but then communist mountain divisions came and kicked my ass very badly. 2 their division could defeat my 4 divisions in mountains and hills.

By that time I made Shanghai invasion with Mongol Army and 3 more divisons including motorised division. I took Nanjing quickly but then Chinese hordes came and the offensive stalled.

I began suffering supply problems but manual landings of some spare divisions helped a bit as the creation of Chinese puppet in north. It became stall mate until I completed a corps of mountain divisions which I sent to Guanxi. The defeat of Guanxi changed the situation a lot as China lost probably a quarter of its army.

Mountain divisions were the only ones who could really fight in Southern China due to much better specialisation and speed. I have invaded then Yunnan and puppeted it. Yunnan gave me 2 armies in the Northern and Eastern China. As many its divisions had no leaders I put Japanese leaders in charge.

General offensive was resumed. Nat China fell in April 1938 and the last warlond fell in November 1938. I puppeted all warlords except Guanxi. I will use two Yunnan armies to hunt Chinese partisans.

[Easo]

NatChi AI will have up to date land army, made of inf, art and mil. And i mean up to date. Yet, you can forget that it will go on conquering spree in your glorious name. Check the LUA file of it. You dont need to know how to code to see that. Meaning, it wont build or research navy, ever. It may build some planes only. So, if in 3.06 you take everything, make puppet NatChi (for better effect, use Korea strategy), it will get all cores and will be REALY huge. It will sit on SU borders and do nothing, unless you are at war with them. So, when USA comes banging at your doors, they wont help you
TL;DR;
Dont puppet.

[Big Nev]

yeah, but then you have an unstoppable land force you can just point at enemies to zerg rush. its more efficient, as you lose out on resources and stuff with occupation on non core provinces

I don’t understand this.

No, I’ve played a lot of Star Craft. What I mean is…

When you puppet, you get control of their army? That’s not the way it works with Manchuko, which was the whole point of the sacrifice & re-conquer strategy.

And what’s this puppet crap anyway.

This is the Japanese Empire we’re talking about. Children of The Sun Goddess. Divinely appointed guardians of Asia.

We’re supposed to be in charge