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1942, Winter – Java Campaign[/size]
” Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York” – William Shakespeare
So with winter, 1942 arriving, things are a bit glum for the Clique. The war in the west started with initial promise but quickly reached a stalemate. In the east, I don’t have enough naval power to conquer a lot of islands yet. In both cases, map quirks have proven to be very frustrating.
Up in the Himalayas, Japan finally gave me some expeditionary forces. So many in fact that it would appear they basically abandoned over half their army to my care. I would be thrilled right now if it wasn’t for the fact that all of these men are out of supply. As an added curiosity, most of these units are actually HQs. This will make this the first game I’ve ever received an HQ in this manner. If only the Clique could have had these men back at the start of 1940 when the strategic advantage was on our side…
”With a hundred such men, we could change the world” – Old Anarchist, Slackers
Speaking of HQs, I have a phenomenal amount of manpower (for a minor): 635. I’m almost tempted to start spamming HQs of my own just to get these guys into the field, since I haven’t been able to spare any ICs to make my own troops. I can imagine defending Taiwan or Lhasa with stacks of HQs…
”What is that?”
“My typewriter, sir”
“Leave it behind, you won’t need it” – Captain John Miller & Technician 5th Class Upham
I’m coming to a strategic crossroads… the US have been trading islands with Japan. This has been getting threatening enough to me that I decided I needed to help with retaking Taiwan and not waiting to see if Japan would do it. Now I have to decide if I should dilute my puny forces even further to either help garrison these islands or help Japan recapture more of them. In the short-term, I will likely focus on my fighting in Java and see if I feel ready to move on the Aussies.
The troops I’ve been granted are giving me a new dilemma. I had hoped that the Japanese and their puppets would hold the west line relatively stable so I could focus all my vast mental powers on my attacks on the Pacific islands. Now I will have to greatly slow down my gameplay so I can pay attention to what may or may not be happening in areas very far apart from each other. Life is so much simpler when your active front fits on one screen! With this bit of a rant over, the story continues…
6 January: Troops fresh from Taiwan make landings near Jakarta to begin my conquest of Java and relieve the men in Sumatra. I will leave behind at least one corps in Taiwan to defend the island. The Himalayas are now a mess with all the troops the Japanese have given me, it will take a while to sort that place out.
I’m again getting confused with how I am supposed to understand the supply picture: I’m green on my supply counter on the top, but I have troops all over the place that are out of supply.
19 January: I’ve taken Jakarta- now to quickly sweep through Java while the Dutch are in disarray. I can’t help but notice the Dutch troops in Oosthaven have suddenly turned British.
I also happen to notice the Americans have landed in Portuguese Timor with a special guest star.
The Japanese used to hold Guam, now they have not only lost Guam, but Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. I’m starting to get nervous, and I’m wondering if I need to start sending garrisons of my own to beef up the other islands the Japanese hold, but I won’t be able to supply them.
I finally realize how the Dutch got stuck on that island- there are more strait connections that were non-obvious to me! They must be sitting there since they lost supply from Oosthaven. This is kind of not cool; it would be nice to have markings on the main map that show you these kinds of links so you don’t get surprised.
In my production queue, I see that another round of my Guilin – Haikou infrastructure link is almost done, so I move it up to the top of my queue. Building this up has been weird. Going from 30% to 40% had a reasonable completion time- I forget what it was, but it was 6 months or less. Then, the date to go from 40% to 50% jumped up to over a year to finish! Needless to say, that was pretty discouraging.
I also notice that I have another special guest star in my new ranks…
22 January: My supply routes to Java are taking hits. Speaking of which, the Dutch defenders are fleeing before me.
”Kneel before Zod!” – General Zod
23 January: Panama joins the Allies. Dutch Spies are trying to lower my national unity, luckily my own are doing a better job of raising it. I’m up to 67%, despite the lost Convoys. Maybe I have a shot at hitting Heavy Industry this year.
30 January: I’m seeing US aircraft flying around all over, I have no idea where they go or where they land afterwards.
6 February: The US drops in Paratroopers to reinforce the British garrison at Oosthaven. This happens here days before I launch my own attack to eliminate them. Now I have to work twice as hard to clean out that pocket. While I’m not too thrilled to see those guys there, I do think it is cool that the AI Roosevelt would do that. It’s also pretty sweet that it happened right in front of me.
8 February: The Japanese are getting dangerously close to being pushed out of Burma. I am trying to redirect some of the troops I was given back down to that front, but it will take them an age to get there and Rangoon will probably be lost by then.
11 February: I totally abandon Singapore and the Malay Peninsula to send those men to retake Oosthaven. I just don’t have the troops to both attack and defend.
13 February: I attack Oosthaven, typically, the Allies just happen to send more troops there at the last moment before I can attack.
This is an incredible annoyance, since if I had known about that strait earlier I would have avoided all this when I first visited the area.
16 February: I send a warship out on Convoy Raiding duty- maybe I can get these guys out of supply. If I can’t, this attack looks like it won’t go well.
2 March: The US has given over those paratroops as an expeditionary force for the UK. The UK has also sent air reinforcements over here. Typically that means my advances are soon to be over. I have both my warships out looking for supply Convoys, and have only sunk one so far.
5 March: Make that two…
7 March: I now own all of Java, and am still trying to wear down Oosthaven. I have to hope that meddling with the resupply of the city has some sort of affect. My raiders might be far more effective if they just camped right outside of Oosthaven instead of sailing laps around Java.
8 March: Lhasa has been at -98% attack for the last three months. If only my men up here could get supply, I could help them out.
”Bond, James Bond” – James Bond
12 March: I take Oosthaven for the second time. Now to decide if these troops should head for Borneo or Australia. I would love to start hitting the Aussies, but I think I may be better off going for Borneo to push back the Allied naval bases farther away. Now that I don’t need to patrol for enemy Convoys, I gather up all my warships to rejoin the main fleet. I will leave one corps to guard Java and Oosthaven while the rest of my troops in the area head for Borneo. I realize that I have to wait and schedule my invasion for the beginning of April, as I have no spare Convoys whatsoever, so I will not be able to extend supply to a new island. In the islands NE of Sumatra, I send some troops to finally clean out these Dutch soldiers that have been out of supply for months on end… time to eliminate them and avoid any kind of surprise.
”My favorite kind of surprise – mild!” – Ned Flanders
29 March: Another one of my key pipeline provinces gets another level of infrastructure, and it is nine months (nine months!) before another level will be built up there.
30 March: I make some slider adjustments as neither diplomacy nor officer recruitment will be an issue for quite some time.
1 April: Another round of Convoys completes, so I now have enough to run supply to Borneo. The attack may now commence, but you’ll have to wait to see it.