NOTE: This AAR is text heavy. If you are not prepared to read, go no further.
This is my second HoI2 AAR. My first one was Shadows of Destruction. I learned a lot writing Shadows and now I feel prepared to move forward. I am upping the difficulty/aggressiveness one notch in this game. In Shadows, I used a very armor heavy warfare style (60 armored divisions when I ended it in June 1942 as the Soviet line collapsed). In this game, I will be using a very infantry heavy warfare style as would be historical. I will try to bring armored divisions into play later in the game, but I dont anticipate fielding a truly large armored corps until 1941 at the earliest. At sea, I am going to go for a Carrier-centric doctrine similar to my German style. Diplomatically, I will be going for the Chinese first, then the Europeans. I doubt I will declare war on the Americans but rather wait for them.
In Shadows, I wrote in a conversational style. Every piece was written as if it was an actual conversation, radio broadcast, telegram, etc. I am going to be stepping away from that quite a bit. Although there will be conversations, the main perspective will be Third Person Omniscient. Each AAR piece will be the portrayal of an event or scene experienced by real or imaginary individuals as it relates to the story. It will be a much more Cinematic perspective than I used in Shadows. I will be keeping, however, the method of doing the whole AAR in-character and posting the game comments in a different color at the end. And I will be more generous with color images in this one too. The black and white style of Shadows got a little drab after a while.
Primary Objective:
Japanese conquest of all Chinese factions, European colonial possessions in Asia and Oceania, Australia, New Zealand, and Soviet Union territory from Caspian Sea to Pacific.
Secondary Objective:
Japanese conquest of West Coast of North America and Sub-Saharan Africa.
*** DISCLAIMER ***
I had this disclaimer in Shadows, but I have changed it slightly for this AAR.
History has been invariably written by the victors. In armed conflict from the dawn of civilization to today this has been undeniably true. This AAR is a story of the ahistorical success of Japanese Imperialism. As such, I will seriously portray the Imperial Japanese world view from a philosophically neutral perspective.
This will be fundamentally different from the good/evil portrayal of Japan in popular media and other AARs. It is easy to fall into this popular theme. It will also be fundamentally different from the portrayal of evil as fun, humorous, and overly simplistic. Hahahaha, I am evil. That is not me. In addition, Japan is often portrayed in a racist way which I will, of course, NOT emulate.
Instead, I will discuss in a serious manner the hypothetical lives of real people in history. These discussions will cover aspects of war modeled by the game. Such concepts include the justice of aggressive war (belligerence) and justice of comparative government philosophies (domestic sliders). These discussions will NOT include any of the subjects prohibited for discussion on the forum. Please do NOT bring such discussions into this thread as they are unwanted. And all that being said, it is fiction!
Now lets get down to business. Let the game begin!
Game Settings:
HoI2 v1.3b
Hard/Aggressive
Clarification: "East Wind, Rain" was the Japanese code for the start of the Pearl Harbor attacks