First time playing Japan...

[Dr Nobody]

Hy,

after hundreds of hours with Russia, Germany and Italy, i will try my first game with Japan. Do you have any tips for me? i´ve seen that China with help from UdSSR have an massiv amount of troops....and i have +- no tanks in 1936 and only round about 40 inf divs...

Thank you

 

[Meglok]

Hy,

after hundreds of hours with Russia, Germany and Italy, i will try my first game with Japan. Do you have any tips for me? i´ve seen that China with help from UdSSR have an massiv amount of troops....and i have +- no tanks in 1936 and only round about 40 inf divs...

Thank you

read this thread

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...y-useless-as-an-island-hopping-japan.1014007/

 

[Dalwin]

The hardest part about Japan is their feeble economy. China is easy to conquer. Even the Island campaign is not so hard against the AI. In MP, Japan can be brutally difficult. Even with house rules that don't let the American's build up their Pacific defenses during peace time, Japan only has about 6-8 months to make progress before the Americans shut them down and start driving them back.

I enjoy MP Japan but I feel like my role is to be a distraction so the Allies commit assets to crushing that me that would have been better used elsewhere.

There are a lot of standard practices to which I find Japan to be the exception. For example, I quickly upgrade to infantry equipment 2 and 3 with other majors, but with Japan I stay on tier 1. They simply have a gerater need for the steel elsewhere. Certain support companies I will forego as Japan because the aluminum is badly needed for aircraft.

 

[War Emblem]

You will get two phases as Japan - your war with China, then however long you want to wait till you attack the Allies. The longer you wait, the more stuff you'll be able to build up - but the worse the war will go for Germany and Italy. And of course just like history you might attack early because you find you need the resources of SE Asia. If you go Mass Assault you will get TONS of MP with Japan. Like over 5 million. Build a lot of Oil Refineries so you aren't dependent on oil trades. Make sure you have lots of convoys. Put your CV into Fleets of 3 or 4 CV. In my opinion, Japan is a lot of fun to play because it has a lot of options.

 

[henzington]

Puppet China then invade Alaska to the west coast and conquer the USA after that the world is your oyster.

 

[The-False-Being26]

I would bother to build tanks. You really don't need them in Asia. For fast moving units go motorized Japan's economy is feeble and tanks are just to pruduction heavy.

 

[Misaka_Complex]

Switch to mass firepower doctrine, mass some marines and you gotta be everywhere at once. After you take China you gotta take DEI, India Australia and all the islands in that region. Also don't forget to take Singapore it really hurts UK when you do that.

 

[donagel]

Random tips:
-In Single Player, even if you are trying to go historical and not have a war with teeh SU, keep an eye on barbarossa. If it starts to go south, you need to join the war and attack. This means that once China falls, have at least 2-3 (24) armies on the border after Jan. 1941 as you might need to act quickly to prevent a german collaspe.
-Even though you will go to war early, you still need to build CIC (IMHO). Otherwise you will not have enough for trade.
-I feel more prepared when I always had one carrier being produced. The naval war with the west will be alot easier if you have 3 carrier fleets..I mean, it will likely be easy against the AI anyway, but 3 allows you to have two in the east pacific, and one in the indian ocean so you can beat the AI navy and then keep beating them down as they build and send more (in odd, ineffective drips and drops).
-With the Expert AI mod, The US likes to invade the Marshall and Gilbert Island and Guadalcanal, once the axis has it. This also means that his fleets with be in the the Marshall/Gilbert Islands zones so you should be prepared. Oddly, many times germany takes guadalcanal.

 

[Misaka_Complex]

Random tips:
-In Single Player, even if you are trying to go historical and not have a war with teeh SU, keep an eye on barbarossa. If it starts to go south, you need to join the war and attack. This means that once China falls, have at least 2-3 (24) armies on the border after Jan. 1941 as you might need to act quickly to prevent a german collaspe.

Idk why people push the Soviets from the east, the supply in Siberia is awful you might as well allocate like 40 divisions to the German Eastern front and help Italy take Suez with some marines when WW2 breaks out, that makes quite a huge difference and puts a lot of pressure on the Royal Navy.

 

[dave1233]

Idk why people push the Soviets from the east, the supply in Siberia is awful you might as well allocate like 40 divisions to the German Eastern front and help Italy take Suez with some marines when WW2 breaks out, that makes quite a huge difference and puts a lot of pressure on the Royal Navy.

quite a bit of aluminum there which japan needs badly. Also, there are a few accessible vps which are useful for pushing the SU closer to surrendering

 

[indignanthedgehog]

The hardest part about Japan is their feeble economy. China is easy to conquer. Even the Island campaign is not so hard against the AI. In MP, Japan can be brutally difficult. Even with house rules that don't let the American's build up their Pacific defenses during peace time, Japan only has about 6-8 months to make progress before the Americans shut them down and start driving them back.

I enjoy MP Japan but I feel like my role is to be a distraction so the Allies commit assets to crushing that me that would have been better used elsewhere.

There are a lot of standard practices to which I find Japan to be the exception. For example, I quickly upgrade to infantry equipment 2 and 3 with other majors, but with Japan I stay on tier 1. They simply have a gerater need for the steel elsewhere. Certain support companies I will forego as Japan because the aluminum is badly needed for aircraft.

I find my role as Japan tends to be keeper of rubber for the Axis in MP (and annoy-er of British shipping). My number one rule, it don't join the war against the soviets unless they pull most of their troops to the west. And If they do, don't bother with Sibera, just punch through the underbelly in far-west China. Only push up as far as the resources in the east.

 

[Meglok]

The hardest part about Japan is their feeble economy. China is easy to conquer. Even the Island campaign is not so hard against the AI. In MP, Japan can be brutally difficult. Even with house rules that don't let the American's build up their Pacific defenses during peace time, Japan only has about 6-8 months to make progress before the Americans shut them down and start driving them back.

I enjoy MP Japan but I feel like my role is to be a distraction so the Allies commit assets to crushing that me that would have been better used elsewhere.

There are a lot of standard practices to which I find Japan to be the exception. For example, I quickly upgrade to infantry equipment 2 and 3 with other majors, but with Japan I stay on tier 1. They simply have a gerater need for the steel elsewhere. Certain support companies I will forego as Japan because the aluminum is badly needed for aircraft.

Agree about economy and managing resources. You have to be very careful in what you add to a template because the Navy and air force have has first priority to resources. Hospitals, logistics, and maintenance are really not possible due to lack of aluminum and rubber. Rifles 2 and 3 take steel needed for ships. And unfortunately steel and aluminum is in Russia while oil and rubber are in SE Asia. Getting to the point that Russia and refineries are looking better than going against Allies first.

Specialized units are important. Marines are a must and mountaineers extremely useful.

Engineers are a MUST in almost every division to allow fast movement and better attack. Recon is useful in attack divisions.

Make 15 LARM regiments and add 1 to 15 INF divisions to use vs China. Easily affordable with a few MIC, you will make up the production time with a faster China kill. You will cut thru China like a hot knife thru butter, China has no piercing. Then add them to 5 motor divisions for use elsewhere in Asia, these will be speedy overrun units.

Artillery is optional in China, just not enough steel. Rifles are not. Make sure you have at least 10 factories making rifles. You and your puppets need them.

Be sure to grab the Manchuko steel, 40 steel for 1 CIC. Lend Lease rifles to them to slow autonomy.

Go farm xp in Spain. You need it to build templates for China. You can use the base 12 INF as your standard, you need a 20w marine/eng and a least a 6 w mountain/eng to pin the PRC. Your strategist won't be enough by summer 1937 and you can't afford to train for xp.

Pull all your garrisons in from the islands, no one is attacking you there in 1936. In SP same goes for Russian border, in MP it depends on the house rules. Use some of them to create marine and mountain, train them to Trained 0% only (eqp attrition), keep 10 to reinforce your invasions. You might be able to field some new divisions but it won't be many. You start in a big rifle deficit that takes time to dig out of.

Attack Shanxi and capitulate, THEN attack China. This makes the defense of the PRC problematic, or you can just pin the PRC while you rout China. The PRC will surrender when China does.

Use your Marines to invade either at Quingdao or Shanghai. Shore bombardment, air superiority, token ground support, and use your Fortress Buster general. Make sure you grab a port! Send your 2 starting motor Divisions and a few cav rampaging behind the river line, China will either have to run south or rip units from elsewhere to chase. Micro micro micro your invasion. Don't let the ai bungle it. With the new rules China struggles to put a rifle in each soldier's hand.

If China digs in behind another river after you invade, use your Marines and a couple of tank reinforced INF divs to crack it. The Chinese just crumble against a tank, they struggle to reach 1.0 piercing.

Peace Conference: Take the coast of China and PRC except at Guangzhou and puppet the rest to Reorg China. This allows RChi to have a huge manpower base (3.5 mil and easily boostable) and decent IC. They will make divisions and you can use puppet templates to build infantry from their manpower with a 10 INF/ENG template to garrison everywhere plus be used as fodder. Your building and lend lease will keep autonomy down enough.

Even with China conquered you don't have enough CIC, MIC, or NIC. You are going to be juggling infrastructure, base/fort, and IC construction all game. Your decisions in 1936-7 can come back to haunt you.

Afterwards you have to decide where you are going. You control who you attack in SP, choose wisely. In SP Germany is likely to need help vs Russia in 1.3.3, but that means you need to be building refineries in case you are cut off from oil and rubber. Even against the ai it is difficult to go in both directions. If the USA ai actually did anything Japan would be very stressed. In MP expect to be pressured, embargoed, and attacked as soon as the Allies can afford to. They will not wait while you play in the Urals Mts.

 

[donagel]

Idk why people push the Soviets from the east, the supply in Siberia is awful you might as well allocate like 40 divisions to the German Eastern front and help Italy take Suez with some marines when WW2 breaks out, that makes quite a huge difference and puts a lot of pressure on the Royal Navy.

Game-wise, you are correct in saying that would be the most effective.

Fun/historical wise, Japan never would have sent 40 division to the east front. Suez yes, but only affer slogging through the RAJ and ensuring naval control of Indian Ocean/ Red Sea. Call it a "house rule" if you like.

 

[redrum68]

So probably depends whether you are playing SP or MP and how historical (what limitations or house rules) you are going for. The following will primarily be geared towards SP historical AI focuses and semi-historical gameplay (no wars outside of national focuses til Germany declares war on Poland, no early attacks on the US, must join Axis).

General Tips
- Resources: Severe lack of aluminum and also lacks steel/oil. Need to try to minimize the use of these resources to avoid having to trade CICs. You'll probably have to trade some CICs for aluminum once you start building planes.
- Weak economy: Focus on building cheap equipment early on (infantry weapons, artillery, support, etc) as you can't afford tanks/planes yet.
- Advanced military: You have much better starting equipment than all other Asian nations so go to war early to get more factories and resources.

Flow
1. Declare war on China ASAP (140 days into the game) by taking NFs: Chinese Border Incident then War with China.
2. Production: Focus primarily on artillery with a few on infantry weapons and support equipment (ignore planes/tanks/mot) until later as your initial economy is weak.
3. Construction: Build military factories (pretty much all game)
4. Crush China with primarily your initial forces while adding in artillery as you can and raising additional divisions with any extra infantry weapons. In the peace conference, take most or all of their land as you need any factories and resources you can get (can puppet some of the useless areas).
5. Declare war on Netherlands by taking NFs: Reinforce the Soviet Border then Southern Expansion.
6. Conquer all of the dutch islands and join the Axis if you can to bring Germany into the war to take out the Netherlands. In the peace conference, take all of the dutch islands for the vast resources and let Germany have the Netherlands.
7. Now you at least have a decent economic foundation and can focus on building up forces til Germany declares war on Poland mid 1939.
8. Land forces: My preference is to continue focusing on divisions of infantry/artillery (firepower), cav (speed/suppression), and add in some mot (speed).
9. Air forces: You need planes with long range as air regions in Asia are huge so my preference is long range fighters. You can't afford making lots of different types so pick 1 or 2 and stick to it.
10. Naval forces: I tend to go for destroyers since they are on the cheaper side in terms of resources and you need to save steel for land troops. You also start with a decent number of capital ships.
11. Prepare parallel invasions on British Malaysia, British Raj, Australia, and Pacific islands so you can quickly capitulate all of them once WWII starts in 1939.
12. After they all capitulate, you now have a pretty strong economic base and just need to keep driving at getting more aluminum, oil, and steel.
13. From here you have lots of options, at a minimum you'll need to prepare defend against the US in the Pacific as they often enter the war early since we've driven up world tension and also prepare war against the Soviet Union. While doing that you can choose to go all out war against the US if they join the war early or continue to push east into the Middle East and Africa.

Hope that helps. Feedback welcome as I've only played Japan once so far.

 

[Misaka_Complex]

If you are playing SP or MP without house rules I think its best to rush Southern expansion and take the DEI while joining Axis at the start of the game and call Germany to take the Netherlands. Then choose the Puppet China option since the AI has a tendency to accept this even if they take an aggressive stance during the Marco Polo bridge event. From there all you really need in China is the steel from the Guang XI Clique so ignore the other warlords and just invade them. All you really need from there is probably aluminum which you will trade with either Germany or Italy and from there prepare for WW2. As you build up you are going to eventually need more steel but what you get from China and Guang Xi should be enough until WW2 starts, then you can go take Suez, Gibraltar with marines and extend your navy to the English Channel and AI Germany or Italy should be able to launch Sea Lion as long as they have Naval Supremacy in the English Channel. Also take a bite from Australia and the Raj so their lands would be accessible in the peace conference that follows.

 

[War Emblem]

Some of this advice looks good on paper but is simply impractical for many players. Parallel invasions of Australia, India, Malaysia and multiple Pacific Islands? You know how many ships you need to put on convoy escort for that while fighting other naval combat fleets? Just go take Suez and push to the English channel! You are talking about a front of tens of thousands of miles! For one thing this type of play is completely unhistorical which goes against the whole 'immersion' argument I hear so much about. Just look at the historical Battle of the Coral Sea - the Japanese are widely criticized by historians for this effort because even though they sunk a USN CV and tactically won the battle they lost the strategic battle because the IJN CV involved were unable to participate in the decisive Battle of Midway shortly thereafter. The point being - if the Coral Sea Battle was important enough to merit the use of some CV, the Japanese should have used ALL their CV to ensure a decisive victory. The worst thing you can do is commit CV piecemeal (which the AI has not learned yet).

Now maybe you don't care about playing a game rooted in historical strategy and that's fine everyone has their own play preferences but the above described tactics still are simply beyond the scope of control for many players. Unless you are RTS expert you will be unable to manage a front tens of thousands of miles wide with the current game controls. Further - it makes no sense for Japan to even try and go into Europe. If Europe falls you're better off playing a new game unless you want to manage the nightmare of troops in Egypt and the Marshall Islands, defending your homeland from US invasion, and if Europe has fallen then the Soviets are going to be justifying soon. Some of these suggestions sound like they come from Downfall with Steiner just swinging around and enveloping the whole Soviet army. They just aren't realistic. I'm not saying some people can't use them who excel at RTS games and don't mind the nightmare of micro-management that is required but they are certainly not acceptable or even worth trying for most players.

Also things like attacking the USA early and forcing a German war with the Netherlands early are exploits which rip all the historical elements out of the game. Again, play how you wish but if you resort to such tactics its a bit disingenuous to later come on these forums and complain the AI 'sucks' or the game is too easy. If you just want to 'win' put the game on easy and roll over everything, pat yourself on the back and move on to the next thing.

 

[donagel]

Japan is easily my favorite nation. My best experiences with Japan are when I wait until late 37 or even into 38 to attack China. This:

• Gives you time to update your forces and redesign your divisions
• Build up some Industry: CIC (for trade) then MIC then NIC.
• Lets China build or focus on increasing Industry.(more for you to take, more resources to fight)
• Prolongs the China war as they will have more forces ( I actually only use battle planner to represent the Imperial Army's independence)
• Builds pressure to either finish china or attack south while still at war due to shortages (caused by industry build up)
• Puts you under the time crunch to worry about Russia while still wanting to take the RAJ. As I said, if Germany starts to fail, you need to bail them out. Plus, historically Japan wanted the resources of Siberia.
• Makes you actually care about the US suddenly declaring war. (Sadly, there is still no reason to DoW them)

In short, makes it more real (at least to me) To be fair, I still almost always win, but it can put you on the edge for a while.

 

[redrum68]

Some of this advice looks good on paper but is simply impractical for many players. Parallel invasions of Australia, India, Malaysia and multiple Pacific Islands? You know how many ships you need to put on convoy escort for that while fighting other naval combat fleets? Just go take Suez and push to the English channel! You are talking about a front of tens of thousands of miles! For one thing this type of play is completely unhistorical which goes against the whole 'immersion' argument I hear so much about. Just look at the historical Battle of the Coral Sea - the Japanese are widely criticized by historians for this effort because even though they sunk a USN CV and tactically won the battle they lost the strategic battle because the IJN CV involved were unable to participate in the decisive Battle of Midway shortly thereafter. The point being - if the Coral Sea Battle was important enough to merit the use of some CV, the Japanese should have used ALL their CV to ensure a decisive victory. The worst thing you can do is commit CV piecemeal (which the AI has not learned yet).

Now maybe you don't care about playing a game rooted in historical strategy and that's fine everyone has their own play preferences but the above described tactics still are simply beyond the scope of control for many players. Unless you are RTS expert you will be unable to manage a front tens of thousands of miles wide with the current game controls. Further - it makes no sense for Japan to even try and go into Europe. If Europe falls you're better off playing a new game unless you want to manage the nightmare of troops in Egypt and the Marshall Islands, defending your homeland from US invasion, and if Europe has fallen then the Soviets are going to be justifying soon. Some of these suggestions sound like they come from Downfall with Steiner just swinging around and enveloping the whole Soviet army. They just aren't realistic. I'm not saying some people can't use them who excel at RTS games and don't mind the nightmare of micro-management that is required but they are certainly not acceptable or even worth trying for most players.

Also things like attacking the USA early and forcing a German war with the Netherlands early are exploits which rip all the historical elements out of the game. Again, play how you wish but if you resort to such tactics its a bit disingenuous to later come on these forums and complain the AI 'sucks' or the game is too easy. If you just want to 'win' put the game on easy and roll over everything, pat yourself on the back and move on to the next thing.

If you don't want to invade them all at once then just do it piecemeal and in order of priority (Malaysia, India, Australia, Pacific Islands) while leaving troops to just defend the other fronts. Until the USA joins the war none of the Pacific nations have any kind of real navy in comparison to Japan so you can split your fleet into 2-3 groups without risking anything. If Japan became a real power and crushed China and took the Dutch Islands then they most likely would have continued into Malaysia or India. What do you think they would have done 'historically' if they were more successful? The Battle of Coral Sea was in '42 against primarily the USA so I'm not sure how that is really relevant until they join the war in which case you do need to be much more careful with your navy.

I'm definitely not a RTS expert (play mostly turn based strategy games) but when playing SP tend to play pretty slowly and pause often. If you play on speed 3 or higher than I agree with you that all of the fronts would be insane to manage and you'd need to be a RTS expert.

You are free to play the game more historically if you want. I provided the bounds to my advice (SP historical AI focuses and semi-historical gameplay, no wars outside of national focuses til Germany declares war on Poland, no early attacks on the US, must join Axis). You can definitely take that much further and wait to attack China in '37 then build up and wait around for Pearl Harbor.

 

[billcorr]

quite a bit of aluminum there which japan needs badly.

Good point about aluminum.

The game designers did a fine job illustrating the aluminum shortages suffered by Japan in WW2. In an attempt to meet the demand for aluminum, Japan accomplished the following in WW2:

1. Developed methods to extract aluminum from Manchurian and Korean shale and clay (instead of more efficient bauxite). Although industrially inefficient, these methods produced tons of aluminum for the Japanese war effort.
2. Established bauxite mines in mainland China's Shandong province.
3. Built aluminum smelters in Taiwan (Formosa), taking advantage of the hydroelectric power on the island.
4. Ramped up bauxite mining operations on the island of Palau.
5. Conquered the bauxite-rich Dutch East Indies island of Bintan (just south of Singapore -- the map erroneously depicts Bintan as a Commonwealth possession, bug report submitted ).
6. Seized and exploited the bauxite mines in Malaya.
7. Lowered the purity of aluminum produced near the war's end.
8. As far as I know, Japan did not accomplish the following: high volume production of wooden airframes a la the de Havilland Mosquito and other wood planes of the era.

HoI4's theme of "Japan suffered from a shortage of aluminum" is accurate.

When Japan comes up for its turn for a dedicated DLC, perhaps Japan's real-world attempts to mitigate its aluminum shortages can be reflected in the new content.

 

[Misaka_Complex]

The game designers did a fine job illustrating the aluminum shortages suffered by Japan in WW2. In an attempt to meet the demand for aluminum, Japan accomplished the following in WW2:

This makes me think that there should be a national focus for Japan to generate some aluminum via some of the methods you mentioned above.