Even with the monstruous penalties to the KMT, winning the war against Japan is not noticably harder

[BaronNoir]

Despite the horrendous maluses of the KMT armies in 1937, winning against Japan (which should have been a tall order) is not much harder in Tiger than in Vanilla. Providing you garrison each port, the Japanese AI will never be able to perform any kind of flanking attack and will take 10 to 1 casualties attacking frontally...

 

[noobermenschen]

Despite the horrendous maluses of the KMT armies in 1937, winning against Japan (which should have been a tall order) is not much harder in Tiger than in Vanilla. Providing you garrison each port, the Japanese AI will never be able to perform any kind of flanking attack and will take 10 to 1 casualties attacking frontally...

You might want to doublecheck that last. Playing as Ethiopia I am watching Italy take two and a half to three times my casualties, much less than in 1.42. Equipment losses are also a lot less lopsided. Digging in on mountain provinces still gives you an advantage, but not as great as before.

 

[UltimaGecko]

As Manchukuo versus the various Chinas, I'm encountering a giant block in the northern mountains. I can attack with 8 divisions versus 2 and still not break through (despite, usually, making the other side take more casualties until the battle turns against me).

The soft attack debuffs and defensive buffs are making every battle a slog that needs at least 4:1 superiority.

The screenshot here is under relatively poor attacking conditions just to probe the defense level:

Japanese units are getting almost 1200 defense (although this is a veteran unit). 600-900 is more typical. Japan also has air superiority.

The defense is also calculated multiplicatively and not additively. So it's 300 * 1.75 * 1.15 * 1.25 * 1.15 * 1.275 = 1110 and not 300 + 225 + 45 + 75 + 45 + 82.5 = 772.5.


Most of my divisions are laden with artillery (7:2 or 8:1, both with artillery and engineer support, some with AT support as well) but they still can't push through the Chinese pure-infantry without 4:1 numerical superiority. The soft attack nerf has murdered the crap out of offensive warfare. I'm better off setting up defensive front and goading the AI into attack by shuffling units off the line a bit, but that's dumb.

 

[BaronNoir]

It's not even clever min-maxing or micro management or exploits of gameplay : it's big ''dumb'' 16 battalions infantry divisions taking being attacked non stop by the Japanese, to no avail

 

[Sawedoff]

Just gave up on my Japan playthrough after Germany plunging into civil war again. I could make no progress into China whatsoever. Some massive hit to offensive warfare. 3 months ago I defeated the Axis, Comintern, and Allies with Japan. After cornflakes, I can't make it out of Hebei.

 

[TheGeographyBacca]

Have you guys considered the modifier " Marco Polo Bridge Incident " modifier of Japan?

 

[Lord of Beer]

The amount of skill required to win as Japan has definitely been increased, with the nerfs to arty and special forces plus the better competence of the AI. One of the key things is to use as much arty as possible (like 2 infantry / 12 artillery divisions) and light tank 3, and then get rid of your national spirit maluses from Marco Polo as quickly as possible.

 

[Goshawk]

If Nationalist China is AI controlled, Nationalist China will suicide attack cross river against Japanese tanks. And if Japan is a human player, after they hold back the first wave of attack, they could simply steamroll China by keep attacking those divisions to stop them from regaining any organisation.

 

[BaronNoir]

Second game : by may 1939, Japan expelled from the Mainland.

2.5 million casualties for Japan, KMT 110K. (Yes, my approach boil downs to turtle and let the ennemy bled itself to death, but it work)

 

[SchwarzKatze]

Second game : by may 1939, Japan expelled from the Mainland.

2.5 million casualties for Japan, KMT 110K. (Yes, my approach boil downs to turtle and let the ennemy bled itself to death, but it work)

I'm not delighted to find that the AI still suicides against prepared defenses. Build level 3 forts in Beijing and watch their army melting down. The only challenge is to rotate the troops, which is actually less of a challenge now, since units remain in combat even while retreating.

An important trick IMO is to exploit the uneven quality of enemy divisions. I think the AI can't properly assess the power disparity between the regular IJA divisions (Hohei Shidan) and garrisons (Kichi Shubirentai) and puppet troops. Usually they will be interlaced along the line, and there will be weak spots without regular divisions.

 

[BaronNoir]

Without sounding cheap or cheating, I merely dig in and wait till the KMT maluses are gone. Then it's sit and wait tlme till I invade Japan.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

Spam bycicles as Japan.
Spam 10 width as China.
Not much changes

 

[Quintus of Mund]

Just had a go at this as JAP. Is it normal Soviets would send 15 divs of volunteers to China? Think 7 of them were for Nat China. Does this sound right?

 

[DominusNovus]

Without sounding cheap or cheating, I merely dig in and wait till the KMT maluses are gone. Then it's sit and wait tlme till I invade Japan.

Yeah. At the moment, its very easy to get rid of those penalties: rush to Subjugate the Warlords. Hopefully, at least 2 will refuse, giving you a chance to bloody your army, while you take the Army Reform path. From there, you can detour to take out the ChiComs, too, before they get troublesome (you really want to make sure that any rivals in China join any other factions and screw up any peace treaties). By the time Japan attacks, you should be mostly up to speed.

 

[BaronNoir]

Yeah. At the moment, its very easy to get rid of those penalties: rush to Subjugate the Warlords. Hopefully, at least 2 will refuse, giving you a chance to bloody your army, while you take the Army Reform path. From there, you can detour to take out the ChiComs, too, before they get troublesome (you really want to make sure that any rivals in China join any other factions and screw up any peace treaties). By the time Japan attacks, you should be mostly up to speed.

Actually, I rush without any issue whatsoever those two warlords (usually Yunnan and Shanxi-yes I reload till I get those) and communist China. It's settled in three months.

 

[Jorge Firebomb]

Just had a go at this as JAP. Is it normal Soviets would send 15 divs of volunteers to China? Think 7 of them were for Nat China. Does this sound right?

I played as Nationalist China and got a lot of volunteers from the USSR. Just every now and then he would send more, presumably after building more units to up his volunteer limit or after I built more units and raised his limit, I probably had at least a dozen of those guys running around eventually. They weren't terribly useful as there was no real way to coordinate attacks with them, but some of their mountaineers did help hold Beijing so it wasn't all bad. I also got a good number of USSR planes on my side, which was pretty useful. This despite Communist China being in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, but I suppose it was more because I was fighting against Fascists than any other reason.

Something I am kind of disappointed with is that nobody ever sent an attache to me, or at least I never got a notification about any. Does the AI use them, or does it just complain about your attaches with capitulated nations?

 

[Liquid Ghost]

As a long time CHI player, I've been having a harder time fighting against JAP. I had to retreat, I suffered breakthroughs on the line and one succesful naval navsion on the Shandong peninsula - it happened while I was paying attention to the Beijing area. I welcome the extra challenge WtT brings.

 

[ThuderLizard2]

Despite the horrendous maluses of the KMT armies in 1937, winning against Japan (which should have been a tall order) is not much harder in Tiger than in Vanilla. Providing you garrison each port, the Japanese AI will never be able to perform any kind of flanking attack and will take 10 to 1 casualties attacking frontally...

Same experience with my China game.

 

[Goshawk]

I don't feel like Japan is a real threat even at the start of the war. And their naval invasions seems to be never successful.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

To be fair, naval invasion seems to have improved slightly. The AI now knows how to do pincer attacks against ports, but with the massive terrain penalties and the soft attack nerf, a measly 4-battalion garrison can hold more than a week against such attack.