Chapter 12 - The End
On April 15th, the Soviet Union has, for the first time during the war, entered into German owned territory in Poland, just South of Brzesc Litewski. This was a major milestone and a clear sign that the German war machine was broken. Their situation wasn't any better in the West either. Most of the ports on the French coast were garrisoned but there was little to no strategic reserve between them. The few German Divisions we encountered were strong but vastly outnumbered. The 2nd Canadian Mountain Division entered Paris on May 21st, meeting no resistance. (The city's defenders left earlier, trying to regain lost, empty provinces nearby.)
Then something I did not expect happened:
The winds of change! (A reminder: the French Republic went to exile in the Comintern when the French State was created.)
I suspect this is a generic thing for when a country liberates the member of another faction to grab that country. I don't remember this being a thing from way back when, but then, my memory has failed me before. On the one hand, I like this a lot! The post-war power balance could be very much shaken up by the ability to liberate your weak rivals and put them in your corner. And this also means France is a democracy again, yay us! But on the other hand, suddenly I felt a lot more concerned about the Soviet advance in Scandinavia! Lukcily, that front has basically stopped at around Tromso, the Northernmost Norwegian port, and just before Boden, the Northernmost Swedish port. The Soviets have redoubled their efforts against Finland instead, threatning Helsinki at the time of the French Liberation.
So anyway, the French Republic was liberated, back in the Allies and a puppet of the United Kingdom, but still governed by Left-Wing Radicals. On June 2nd, the rest of France was returned under Republican control, reuniting the country and cutting France off the British supply network. That was slightly worrying, with a vast number of Allied Divisions operating in a country suddenly having to provide the supplies for them on its own. I was not entirely sure how that would play out, since I'm still don't completely understand the rules of using an ally's supply network. But I most definitely was running into supply issues right away when my forces entered the Maginot Line (which was annexed by Germany when the French State was created and since France was a puppet, the provinces were occupied by Canada and the fortifications were also reduced to level one via event at some point, I believe).
By the middle of June, 1944, the Soviets were less than a hundred kilometers from Berlin while we were still in the process of liberating the rest of France. Meanwhile Greece exploited the confusion and made more advances into Yugoslavia again. The question, at this point, wasn't if Germany would be defeated but when, and by whom. And the answer to these questions were very likely to be soon, and by the Soviets.
As for the Asian theater, the British subjects were doing their best to hold the line in Burma and were mostly successful while the US landing near Shanghai was going fairly well also. It was an unnecessarily wide front in my estimation but the force ratios looked satisfactory for the moment and reinforcements were clearly on their way.
This Allied Objective thing works better than I expected to be honest.
On June 30th, Finland capitulated. Since they were not a part of the Axis, they didn't have a chance to go into Exile and with no War Goals in place, they were annexed entirely by the Soviet Union. Stalin got his wish in the end. This also revealed some straggling Axis Divisions inside Finland. They were certainly doomed. And on July 9th, Yugoslavia was defeated as well, for real this time, no reloads, and Cut down to Size was enforced. But this time since Slovenia and Croatia already existed, they couldn't be released again, so their cores remained in Yugoslavian hands. That's not really intended I suppose and could probably be done better, with an extra series of effects giving away territory to their rightful owners. (Then again, for this particular situation to work, the defeated country would need to give away cores to everyone, including neutral countries, which might be a bit of a stretch, I don't know.) But it is what it is for now. This also caused similar issues to Greece as before but with the end of the war at hand, I didn't want to mess around with it again. Berlin was surrounded by Soviet forces who were already closing in on Hamburg as well.
I think we should focus on liberating the Low Countries at this point, there's not much else we can do...
Slovakia capitulated on July 15th, and Berlin was taken the next day. And at some point, not quite sure when, the US made a landing in Nagoya, and not a small one either!
This will be over quicker than I expected!
And on August 30, 1944, Victory was achieved in Europe.
In the wake of the German and Hungarian capitulation, the balance of power in Europe has changed significantly. Hungary and Romania returned to the path of Democracy and the small Balkan states were independent. But Scandinavia has entirely been swallowed up by Socialism. Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg were yet to be fully liberated but were occupied by the Allies at least (their governments returned on the 15th of September). And I just realized at this point that Yugoslavia technically had three separate wars earlier and that caused some unforseen issues. After their capitulation in July, they had a truce with all of the Allies but were still an Axis member and also at war with the Comintern and the Allies. And for some reason Bulgaria decided it was time to start moving towards the Axis, claiming the Southern parts of Dobrogea from Romania and signing the Anti-Comintern Pact with the German Government-in-Exile in Tokyo I guess. They still had 33% Effective Neutrality so they couldn't join the sinking ship at least.
But aside from the Yugoslavian question (who capitulated again on September 7th), the war in Europe was largely over and the eyes of the World were fixed on the last standing Axis power: Japan. At the moment though, I didn't feel like I could do much other than watch. But I started gathering my forces so I could ship out once I figure out where I would ship to. But in the meantime I started adding War Goals against Japan. I wanted to add Cut Down to Size (to have them release Korea, though which version it would be, Communist or Democratic or maybe both, I didn't know), Liberate Puppets (because I don't want them to have that much influence in China) and Force Ideology (because Democracy is nice).
Seeing as how the US were doing decently on the Japanese islands, I decided to move my troops there. Pacifying their home islands would be the quickest way to end this bloody affair once and for all and I only needed two more months to add all the goals I wanted. I also finally, properly checked out the Theatres tab and saw that not only I can see what stance the AI is using on a certain front it selected but I can also change it. Unfortunately though it doesn't do anything, the AI will just switch it back to whatever it feels like. And in the case of the US in Japan and in China, it felt like Blitzing Stance was the most appropriate. Which is rather risky when you are outnumbered. I was hoping my reinforcements could help with that.
In a bit of a lucky strike, on September 25th, the UK managed to capture Bangkok, forcing the Thai government to capitulate and go into exile, trapping a large number of Japanese forces behind occupied lines. And this time around I waited until the first capitulation to add my Force Ideology War Goal so it would only take effect after the war.
Sometime during December, the US beachhead in China came under threat from a counter-attack from the North. The US was still blitzing instead of forming a proper line but now was getting overwhelmed by numbers. Unfortunately I was heavily committed to taking Tokyo at the time and couldn't give them a hand. The Japanese defense has mostly collapesed in Indochina however, where Allied forces were having a field day.
A Phyrric, but all the more important victory!
With Tokyo captured on 8th of January (and after the triggered event hitting their National Unity the following day), Japan was at 91.1% Surrender Progress but more importantly, we liberated 30k Supplies and a staggering 495 Fuel. We also pushed the majority of the Japanese home defense force to the province of Chiba, South East of the city. Almost 80 thousand soldiers surrendered there a week later. It took another month to finally break the Japanese spirit and force the Emperor to sign the armistice on February, 1945:
I mean sure, technically the United States occupied Japan but it really was Canada who made it happen...
Despite of what those events say, the above countries actually ended up completely independent and not as American puppets. I investigated a bit later and what I think happened was the game engine tries to use a default War Goal when none is in place and likely goes with Puppet against a puppet and Conquer otherwise. Since there were no War Goals against themselves, a Puppet War Goal was enforced by the USA (who was occupying the puppet master's capital, handling the automated War Goal) but my own Release Puppets War Goal against Japan was also enforced, which would mess this up. In the end I suppose my Release Puppets was stronger, despite those events popping up on the screen. And so it was that on February 13th, 1945, the World was at peace again. Yugoslavia and Germany were annexed by the Soviet Union, Slovakia became a Soviet puppet and Thailand became independent again.
There were a few anomalies though. First of all, unfortunately Japan didn't actually become democratic, they instead became Fascist. There are two different paths for the Force Ideology War Goal: if it is initiated by a Democratic country, the result is not entirely fixed, it only removes the current ruling party from the race. Japan had the Paternal Autocrat party in power and with their removal, the Fascists became the most powerful one. As a result, they recreated the Axis a few weeks later. Also, their war with China didn't end, only the one they started later, when they declared war on the UK. So they were still at war with an Allies member but had a truce with everyone in the Allies. The Chinese governments were not restored right away either. And like before, all the Allied forces were stranded in Japan. But I will completely disregard all of these as bugs and declare the game over!
The End
Conclusions
With the war over, the Status Quo has returned to some of the World but great changes occured in many places too. Western Europe was, for the most part, as you might remember. Germany was almost entirely taken over by the Soviet Union with a small enclave of Commonwealth occupied territory along the French border. The Balkans had some new independent nations and a democratic Hungary and Romania but also a large swath of Soviet land stretching down to the Mediterranean. The entirity of Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark) became Federal Socialist Republic puppets of the Soviet Union, though they kept their democratic parties (which might sound a bit odd but historically accurate, it took a few years for the Soviets to build up their communist puppet governments in Eastern Europe). Africa barely changed at all, the only difference compared to before the war was Libya gaining independence from Italy. In Asia, China was as fragmented as ever but Japan's hegemony was broken, giving way to an independent, democratic Korea (and also to Russia from their half of the Sakhalin island...) and Indochina gained self-control.
In general I was highly satisfied with how things worked out. The AI was reasonably capable. Naval landings here and there, with a historically plausible amount of failures and disasters but also several success stories (and not only the ones where I personally intervened). My ability to influence the events as a medium power felt great! I suppose the main source of bugs and issues was me using War Goals. Or abusing maybe? I don't think so honestly. I feel it's more like the mod, and the game in general, is not really prepared for them. If possible, a large overhaul, or at least severe limitations would be needed because as things stand, they are causing way too many issues. But aside from that, everything I noted down for myself to work on would be more improvements rather than fixes. I find the current state of the Historical Plausibility Project very much enjoyable!
