Presentation
Welcome folks !
After lurking the AAR section of this forum for years and enjoying all those great stories I decided to try myself to write something I hope will be entertaining.
I always loved to play japan. This little David surrounded by Goliaths who fought simultaneously the most populated country, the biggest naval power and the largest Industrial power in this world. And don’t forget that they keep a large force to guard their border with the largest military power at the time. What could go wrong?
So I found the Naval Expansion Mod made by mdlusk (more info here) and as I am a really naval oriented player I couldn’t resist to test it ! Thanks for your work man.
I actually made 3 little modification by myself in mdlusk work:
· Changed the Land doctrine tech so I can follow the unified axis doctrine path after 1946.
· Changed the vanilla economic policies effects. So they are the same than in WIF II.(I find them more balanced and realist)
· The last one is a surprise, I modded an event for the fluff !
I choose Japan because it gives more challenge that any other naval power in this game. And to add more fun and more challenge to this AAR I made some house rules! Because when you learn to play DH it’s become easy to not repeat the Japanese historical errors.
In this game I want to show that Japanese war effort is jeopardized by the two rivals that are IJA and IJN.
The house rules:
· While in war with china I’ll have to guard my border with USSR with a 25 division large Kwangtung army.
· Imperial Japan Air Force is divided between IJA and IJN. The first want his Close air support and level bomber the second one wants his carrier air groups and naval bombers and everybody need fighters!
· With a 20/20 hindsight it’s easy to say that super heavy battleships where useless and planes would be the masters over the sea. But naval leaders at this time where divided so I will! I will build at least two SHBB. But be assured I will build a shit ton of CV too.
· I want quality over quantity navy so there will be a lot of refitting. I also will not convert existing BB to carriers.
· Whenever what happen I will hit Pearl harbor the 7 December 1941
· Japan developed a little airborne force historically, some commandos for the navy and some regiment for the army. So for the fluff I will build two PAR and their transports, one for each faction.(operational before 1st January 1943)
· I will not use Tanks, motorized or mechanized division for invasions but I authorize myself to put them in the end of a victorious invasion battle to avoid the 50% loss of org.
· I will not use Gamey tactics with paras
· I’ll play in Hard/Aggressive difficulty. Very hard would be too punishing with all the drags I have on my foot. And furious IA is so dumb she just run inside traps set up by the player and makes holes in its proper lines.
If you have other ideas feel free to propose .
I ultimately don’t want to win, good stories don’t necessary end well. I want fun. I want to use a maximum of this mod features. I want to fight until death and play with all the funny stuff that comes late game (nukes, jet airplanes, modern ships, air cavalry etc.). I hope that will be an entertaining reading!
I will try to update this AAR every week at least.
Chapter index :
Book I : The Dawn
Chapter 1 : Political Changes - march 1933
Chapter 2 : Naval Inventory - Year 1933
Chapter 3 : Army Organization - 12 March to 11 November 1933
(Pardon my french ^^)
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