HoD: Questions about attacking The Chinese Empire

[Emre Yigit]

I must admit, I'm liking the general buff to the uncivs, the inability to sphere TCE, etc.

But I have a few questions:

1) Is there a successful strategy to nibble away at it? As it stands, I'm afraid to make the effort.

2) I suppose I should wait for the 1870s military techs in order not to get swamped?

3) If I do manage to annex TCE, do I get its substates as well, or do they become independent?

Advice much appreciated.

 

[maxirage]

You need to farm battlescore to win early on. Choose a good defensive position, bait them, and then reinforce. If you're an ultra-massive empire and have a tech advantage, then you could probably do a normal conquest.

If you annex it, the substrates become free.

 

[Forster]

Giving you multiple new targets, I would guess.

 

[glasszon]

If you want to do it very early on, there's an easier way:
They ally with Japan all the time, so the steps are:
1: justify war on Japan
2: Justify war on China
3: Declare war on Japan, China will get called in and be the war leader.
4: However China won't call in their substates, so it is you against Japan and China.
5: Add war goal to China that you justified earlier.
6: Don't worry about China, just go attack Japan with 30 brigades and get +50 warscore from combat.
7: Demand both the Japan and China wargoal from China, with +50 warscore China will say yes.
8: Profit, you don't even need to fight China once to get their land.

You might even be able to add and get more wargoals from China, however I haven't tried that part because my pop don't have enough Jingoism to add war goals without justifying them in advance.

 

[yodaime]

If you want to do it very early on, there's an easier way:
They ally with Japan all the time, so the steps are:
1: justify war on Japan
2: Justify war on China
3: Declare war on Japan, China will get called in and be the war leader.
4: However China won't call in their substates, so it is you against Japan and China.
5: Add war goal to China that you justified earlier.
6: Don't worry about China, just go attack Japan with 30 brigades and get +50 warscore from combat.
7: Demand both the Japan and China wargoal from China, with +50 warscore China will say yes.
8: Profit, you don't even need to fight China once to get their land.

You might even be able to add and get more wargoals from China, however I haven't tried that part because my pop don't have enough Jingoism to add war goals without justifying them in advance.

don't see the need to do that. From my experience, Chinese troops will almost never attack a stack bigger than 15 if you are civilized with decent technologies, so you can find some empty province around the coast, land there and either bait them or make a 30-36 stack with +4 or +5 attack general and go around plowing through them. When the stack weakens, you go back to starting point which you should have conquered and wait till it replenishes. In my games they pretty much never attacked me whenever my stack was 20+ or more.

 

[Jorlaan]

I prefer to use defencive battles and bait them. So far I have had 2 games in HoD where I beat down China and I do it the same each time.
My normal army comp that has worked amazing till about 1900 is 4 inf, 2 art, 1 dragoon and 1 hussar. It sounds weak but its a well rounded 24k stack I have found. Just 6 of these stacks can beat China with some planning, although 8-10 is better.
Bait them into attacking 1 army with a good defencive general, then throw in a few more and slaughter the attackers. Rinse and repeat. I took China from roughly 450 brigades to 0 mainly by doing this.

 

[cpreston5]

Generally I use northern Korea as my base for fighting China, just sit in the hills with a lot of reserves waiting behind the lines. After a few major battles you should be able to get what you want from them. Hainan is also a good location, as you can seal off access with your navy should your troops need some respite.

 

[Xenophon13]

Northern Dai Nam is a good spot too. But now that Korea is free I like it better.

 

[El Jojo]

You do not need to wait until 1870 techs. 1850 are more than enough, you can get a lot of warscore through battle, enough to make them give Zhejiang and Shanghai Province for example, then you can nibble every five years. A non-upgraded chinese army will be devastated by a 1850s western army. As said you may need to pull back on a fleet to afford a few reinforcements to your troops but that's all. 2*30k is enough to gain concession.
Landing in Tianjin and rushing Beijing is also a way to force a quick victory.

 

[yodaime]

Suzhou+Southern Zhili are what I usually go for in the first war. Those gold mines just boost your income so much you won't have to worry about money ever again.

 

[Emre Yigit]

Thanks, all!

 

[Emre Yigit]

OK, I did a version of what was suggested in post four. TCE was allied with Korea, which I declared war on. Guess what? TCE did not join the war!

I am fairly certain I can take on TCE by myself, but if they bring their substates in, I'm worried I'll be overwhelmed.

If I were to sphere the substates (those whose populations allow it) would they join on TCE's side if I straight out declared war on TCE?

 

[El Jojo]

TCE substates are just as easy to win against. As long as your main goal is to pile up warscore, their participation will only help. If you really fear the overwhelm, keep your transport fleet ready for retreating. Even if you lose a battle, as long as the losses were devastatingly on their side the battle will only give them 0.1 warscore.

Still, to answer your question, sphered substates should not join.

 

[unmerged(624310)]

My approach my have been overly cautious, but what I did was wait till they fractured since early on it looked like a substate was going to civ first.

Then I waited till TCE declared its first restore order war, soon as they did I justified up a cut down to size on them (faster than aquire state, added the territory wargoal later). I lucked out and the main state went for the strongest substate. They were winning but only just. With a big substate to distract and keep china's armies from concentrating it was easy to run around and pick off 20-30 size stacks. Took a while to flatten them. But took one state and the cutdown to size. Now they can't rebuild for most of the truce duration, war two is going to be a pushover, and the three northern substates are all lightweights anyway. If I manage to secure all of the coastal land before they get decent military research going I'll be set.

Managed to stop the restore order war from succeeding too, but only just, so the strongest substate was devastated. I may just get all of china finally!

 

[Emre Yigit]

I waited until 1873, when I had developed machine guns and one or two other useful techs.

The psychological effect of seeing 40-brigade combined Imperial and substate armies hovering around my troops notwithstanding, it was not quite as difficult as I imagined it would be. I lost one battle (I withdrew my troops to save on reinforcements) but the others had the effect of making me reflect on the disgustingly destructive nature of war. In one battle which popped up in a newspaper article, I lost 512 troops to TCE's 28,943. That ratio was extreme, but the other battles were lopsided too. Ironic, given my sig.

FWIW, I'm playing Germany.

 

[grommile]

The psychological effect of seeing 40-brigade combined Imperial and substate armies hovering around my troops notwithstanding, it was not quite as difficult as I imagined it would be. I lost one battle (I withdrew my troops to save on reinforcements) but the others had the effect of making me reflect on the disgustingly destructive nature of war. In one battle which popped up in a newspaper article, I lost 512 troops to TCE's 28,943. That ratio was extreme,

That's pretty tame for a post-1870 civ-vs-unciv conflict, though for truly ridiculous figures you need a post-1900 modern-vs-obsolete conflict (gas!).

 

[yodaime]

http://i.imgur.com/UXkziub.jpg

Just that unit I have targetted. TCE+substates+korea. Really, the substates don't really make so much difference in first war, you wanna avoid going 30vs200 anyway and just chip away on them one by on. 1950 techs are more than enough. I just waited to Japan to westernize so they drop ally with TCE, since their navy would destroy mine. 50 from battles+blockades gave me those two provinces.

20 years later I'm about to annex them. Honestly, truce is 6 years each, so cant conquer them so fast due to infamy limits. Second war I just made couple 50-60 stacks with 100 recon/engineer and 50/50 inf/arti ratio and went around farming them till China+substates has almost 0 brigades left.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

I don't think you can even sphere a sub-state in the first place.

Either way, China was able to call in my own satellite (Korea) against me, so I don't think it would work even if you could sphere them.

 

[yodaime]

I don't think you can even sphere a sub-state in the first place.

Either way, China was able to call in my own satellite (Korea) against me, so I don't think it would work even if you could sphere them.

You can Sphere all substates except Yunnan and Guanxi, since those got too big population. The ones you sphere won't attack you.

 

[Markusw7]

At least in the Beta patch playing as Japan, I able to fight China to a standstill after annexing Korea with only the organisation and Infantry military reforms