Chapter 3: Preparations for War
Winter Roses are a Bittersweet Memory
December comes forth and 1936 flees - but not before our Research gains are actualized.
Here we have gained a few more areas of expertise and looking carefully it'll be noted that 50 Leadership Points are going to Research currently. That ensures being able to work on many areas of concern, like here in the Grand Battle Plan doctrines. This is an area that the Japanese excel in and thus the majority of Doctrine research will be applied in. After this screenshot, all the rest of the 1936 and earlier Research areas were selected. I think I've said it before but repeating here, each nation has their own Doctrine here to focus on but you can gain the ability to learn portions from other doctrines as well, typically in battle but thru events and such too.
Last chapter at the end I noted a timely event that would assist Japan and here we see the proof. Consumer Goods need has been lowered by more than half, affording us enough IC to put in time to 14 Factories and a few brigades to build the core of a Marine unit for my hero. Finishing in late September, obviously we won't be ready for amphibious assaults with my hero right away but then, I'm not planning on any for several months in the Chinese Conflict. (SPOILER: This unit gets pushed back a week due to decisions and events and I actually
DO use the SNLF pretty early on!)
Towards the end of December, our Mines come online and just in time for Christmas as well!
However we only have enough money for two of the three and the Tungsten mine must wait a while to be opened. Each mine requires another $2k to open and I have only around $2500 at that time. Going below $2000 leads to some panic in the population (high dissent and increased need for Consumer Goods) so the third mine will need to wait a little. As such we need to postpone any mine expansion or trading at this time.
Fortunately, as the year comes to a close we gain the next step in the Economic focus we selected at the start of the game.
Here you can see the IC improvement along with supply production and IC Efficiency boosts. However, build speeds are reduced as our manpower get redirected to helping our factories run more efficiently. We're still building several more, even with the couple that came on line in the past two months here.
The start of 1937 comes to the world and with it some decisions and events.
I would like to point out on the Diplomacy panel that the Chinese Communists ended their war with the Nationalists and even allied with them! Yet, they are still at war with their neighbor to the west, Xibei San Ma. I expect that'll be ending soon. Looking over the decisions in the second screencap, I ship out 4000 supplies to the BIS (Bank for International Settlements) for some cold, hard cash which we really need. That'll help us get the Tungsten mine online! A Short Term Investment means more IC to use and I get our spies gathering information on the various Zaibatsu Clique members under Economic Spying. This will help boost our IC by 5%. In addition, due to a full year of peace and very little need to train our military fully, the government decided to remove Specialization Training and just do simple Basic Training. (NOTE: This was done by the AI, probably due to certain criteria not being met prior). Lastly, a new puppet enters the fold, Mengjiang! This new country takes over a small part of western Manchuria and the land Japan held further west of that. As the conflict in China moves inland and westward, my new puppet will take over some of the provinces there as well.
After a full game year, I find that Japan has nearly fully embraced the Axis side as seen below:
You can see in the flavor text in the bottom we're supposedly providing benefits to Germany due to being closely enough aligned though I'll honestly say I'm not certain how accurate that is. Still, this will mean joining the Axis fold soon when the AI chooses to initiate such. Now, looking quickly to Europe, I checked out shipping losses sustained in the SCW and note that the Spanish Republic is doing pretty well on the water.
Not so well on land though...as we'll see in a couple months. Switching gears by checking on the state of the Japanese military,
we see just over 500 brigades for the Army, 41 air units, and just over 250 naval ships are available for use. Strangely, the Air Force is using more supply and fuel than the Navy! I swear, at this point everyone was just sitting at their bases and not doing a thing...*shrug* It's a mystery to me!
The new year also brings new problems with the United Kingdom annexing Egypt outright.
As well, the Soviet Union is in the midst of some purges which probably won't end well for them. Checking the Production Queue
I see Consumer Goods need going down by half and our builds have reached the resources I wanted built last year. Pretty much everything here above my Naval builds will be completed by the end of 1937.
A sad period of time in Addis Ababa as the Italian overlords there went on a rampage.
Of course the Japanese ambassador lodges a complaint against the perpetrators as our country (unofficially) assisted Abyssinia last year. This year Japan's military chooses to focus largely on the Imperial Japanese Navy, providing a boost to ship and air build speeds. Perhaps the Army revolts last year made them persona non grata when it came time to determine how the bulk of military spending would happen. Good timing here as within 3-4 months we will see some Naval units start being built. Lastly, with the addition of a new puppet to the Japanese fold, the Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Level I gets rolled out. I believe it only affects Japan, not it's associated puppets required for this event, but it's a good series of bonuses to be receiving! Wait until Level II and III happen in a few years. Once the Pacific War heats up, Japan will be gaining quite a few bonuses!
Here we can see some of those benefits as we are able to put 5 more points (now 55 Leadership) in to Research.
As well our Production is improved with the surplus IC gained and even more of the desired resources in our nation are being built upon. Navy builds are only a dozen and a half IC points away from seeing the light of day. Speaking of Naval builds, we begin a "secret program" of naval construction. I fear spies have already reported this to all the major powers but hopefully none of their leaders pay attention!
You can see the penalty and benefits with that event - again, timely in a few months from now. Oh, and we got some research items completed - note that I've not detailed each and every item on the agenda gained, just a small portion. Say, about less than 5% of all projects completed to this point have been shown in all the screenshots in this play-through. Black ICE does have dozens more research projects available so to detail each time Japan has researched something would be taking a full chapter of it's own.
Dipping further in to January and with the IJN being the favored pet of the military, we tour some of the shipyards throughout the empire. Noting that there doesn't seem to be quite enough capacity available for all the future projects coming, a couple provinces are chosen to see an improvement in all shipyard aspects - small, medium, capital, and submarine yards. I don't know why Iwo Jima was selected here but I'll take improvements where I can get them. It just means we have to protect that island fiercely!
The second picture shows the improvements, about 6 per type though the small shipyard only increases by 5 - looks like we have some pilfering of supplies needed! There's a couple other tech advances in the second screenshot, both needed in the next few months.
A few more noteworthy events here as our IC efficiency level improves slightly from a -4% to -3%. We need money as Japan still has a Tungsten mine that needs to be opened, so we sell some of our excess Chromite to fund that new mine.
The last picture shows our current Special Resource levels and another Research item popping in.
This will help our Bomber force come July!
The month of January closes and with that a peek of Japan's Production. Here we see mostly green in all resources except Energy and Fuel, though this may be due to the extra IC we've built recently. Trades are holding steady with plenty of convoy ships to handle it - on that note, in a few years I'll be mass-producing convoys and escorts as 1942 and early '43 will be very deadly for our merchant fleet. Upgrades and Reinforcement of our military units are progressing nicely and Supplies are about to hit 50k again soon. Lastly, the first naval unit is being built finally! More to come on that front.
February was fairly quiet but let's see how our Industry builds are going.
My hero's Marine unit is getting slightly delayed by a week or two, thanks to the nation's focus on the Navy. All the Industry I'm building will see activation at some point this year, with only a couple progressing a second round. In 1938 I'll look at my Industry again and see if there are any improvements needed. Typically I follow a 3/5/7/10 rule - if the Industry in a province is below that 3/5/7/10, I build it up to the next bracket, so a 1 Industry province will get 2 more built for 3 total. Over the course of this campaign, I'll try to keep building at least 3 Industry in the top of the queue, as Japan will need the units. Looking over China below:
we can see the wars are finished and some lines have been redrawn on the map. For most of my Japanese campaigns, this looks quite normal.
Wrapping up the month of February, let me go over some events and Research gained. In the first picture, it may seem silly for Japan to research something that only directly affects Halftracks which we won't be building, but look at the further research allowed. I may build Tank Destroyers for a future war in Russia, but I certainly need the Armour Plate Thickness for all the Light Armor I currently and will have later. Setting the CV budget to high ensures lots of extra RPs to be earned whenever my Research Minister provides, which is a good thing!
The next picture shows another Research improvement, allowing Police Centres to be built, which we certainly will be needing this year. Also, Manchukuo provides a Cavalary Corps consisting of half a dozen light Cavalry divisions (basically 2 low-strength brigades) and a Corps HQ to provide guidance. I'll utilize them as a scouting group, running quickly in to the enemy's rear zones. I'll be wrapping up some further Infantry Weapon Technologies soon, allowing me to improve the Standard Infantry Branch.
The third screenshot shows further research gained this turn as well how I'm doing in the Operating Doctrines area. Some aspects I won't touch just yet, like the Armor and Mobile Unit aspects, but most everything else that's green here will need to be researched when available. A quick aside - in the past I would research tech that was a year ahead, thinking the mallus wasn't quite terrible. After being informed that it was and doing testing of my own, I found indeed it was! You can research roughly 3 current or older techs for what 1 next-year tech will hit you for.
The final two pictures show further Research gains - the stolen German blueprints is an unnecessary one, however! I will have no need for Strategic bombing as Japan, at least for the next half dozen years. Most times my spies get me something good but sometimes I get a stinker like this. Fortunately, my artillery, AT, and AA brigades all get some things here as we pull a close to the curtains on February. War with China is only 4 months away and I'll be starting to get ready for it in this next section.
