Ok so, we have seen some action from Japan during the WWW video with Daniel, but there hasn't been a topic as of yet on how Japan is supposed to deal with the US. In HOI3 it was an inevitable fact that the US would sooner or later come and attack Japan, so you had to make preparations and glitch your way through the game or use unrealistically good Yamatos to be able to take out the US. We know that historically Japan could never have beaten the US, or even the UK; the former having 10:1 times as many factories and the latter 3:1.
Basically, Japan crawled into a corner by continuing to expand into south Vietnam to take resources from there somewhere in July 1941. The Oil Embargo which would cripple their economy would come after that in september 1941. Now there are many ways we could have Japan make better diplomatical decisions and therefor delayed if not prevented and even joined with the US to protect against the threat of communism. Without pearl harbor, no US intervention, and no Hitler declaring war on the US. Communism would grow much larger before the US would even have a chance to get into the war, and the world would have looked different from our current one.
Since this is a game, I won't get into the details, but instead focusing on how to make Japan grow as large as possible without having to provoke a conflict with the US. I will then see how an inevitable conflict with the US could be won, or atleast turn into some sort of stalemate.
We know that Japan can pretty much declare war right away after the game start, regardless if China secedes territory or not, since we need the xp and resources. I am assuming since this is a game, the player will make better decisions and perhaps manage to control china in around 1937-1939ish. That would give the player plenty of time to move his army to take the fight to the soviets and harass them in order to help Germany, aswell as invade the Raj (and of course Australia cus why not). Taking all of china would definitely spark a lot of tensions, so Japan should start to build up it's navy to confront the US. The real question of this topic is how to tackle the US.
Should appeasement be used or should Japan just try to attack their coasts and panama canal? Should Japan redirect it's fleet to Europe by going through india > south africa > england > US mainland? The last option would seem more reasonable since we would have about one or two years more time if we work fast to establish ourselves in europe from where we can attack the US. Since the US probably wouldn't take the fight to the brittish (although I am not discarding the possibility), Japan could find itself at war with the US around 1939ish. While the US wouldn't be strong at first, it would become difficult to invade them and still hold onto islands in the pacific and the mainland for more than two years, so you should be ready to invade New York in around 1942. The Italian Navy aswell as the German fleet (assuming Germany beats the SU before 1942 and has begun build a stronger navy, should now be prepared to invade the US. Another option is to just wait for Italy and Germany to try and take England then the US, making an assault on the US from both sides, again, very hard. The real question is whether the US will ally with Britain or wait until it is the last one standing before going to war. The only option that represents an "easy" victory is if the US is still not at war when the SU and UK has fallen, and that the remaining axis countries are preparing to invade it from both sides (Not sure if this is possible with AI in SP but we'll see).
So what do you think? How would you go about to become masters of Asia?
Basically, Japan crawled into a corner by continuing to expand into south Vietnam to take resources from there somewhere in July 1941. The Oil Embargo which would cripple their economy would come after that in september 1941. Now there are many ways we could have Japan make better diplomatical decisions and therefor delayed if not prevented and even joined with the US to protect against the threat of communism. Without pearl harbor, no US intervention, and no Hitler declaring war on the US. Communism would grow much larger before the US would even have a chance to get into the war, and the world would have looked different from our current one.
Since this is a game, I won't get into the details, but instead focusing on how to make Japan grow as large as possible without having to provoke a conflict with the US. I will then see how an inevitable conflict with the US could be won, or atleast turn into some sort of stalemate.
We know that Japan can pretty much declare war right away after the game start, regardless if China secedes territory or not, since we need the xp and resources. I am assuming since this is a game, the player will make better decisions and perhaps manage to control china in around 1937-1939ish. That would give the player plenty of time to move his army to take the fight to the soviets and harass them in order to help Germany, aswell as invade the Raj (and of course Australia cus why not). Taking all of china would definitely spark a lot of tensions, so Japan should start to build up it's navy to confront the US. The real question of this topic is how to tackle the US.
Should appeasement be used or should Japan just try to attack their coasts and panama canal? Should Japan redirect it's fleet to Europe by going through india > south africa > england > US mainland? The last option would seem more reasonable since we would have about one or two years more time if we work fast to establish ourselves in europe from where we can attack the US. Since the US probably wouldn't take the fight to the brittish (although I am not discarding the possibility), Japan could find itself at war with the US around 1939ish. While the US wouldn't be strong at first, it would become difficult to invade them and still hold onto islands in the pacific and the mainland for more than two years, so you should be ready to invade New York in around 1942. The Italian Navy aswell as the German fleet (assuming Germany beats the SU before 1942 and has begun build a stronger navy, should now be prepared to invade the US. Another option is to just wait for Italy and Germany to try and take England then the US, making an assault on the US from both sides, again, very hard. The real question is whether the US will ally with Britain or wait until it is the last one standing before going to war. The only option that represents an "easy" victory is if the US is still not at war when the SU and UK has fallen, and that the remaining axis countries are preparing to invade it from both sides (Not sure if this is possible with AI in SP but we'll see).
So what do you think? How would you go about to become masters of Asia?
) We know Portugese, Dutch and french grip on their colonial nations were, weak, so I don't see why that wouldn't be a realistic option. Why fight them when you can just trade with them using surpluss stuff you don't need? Since you supported their glorious revolution for independence, they will most likely be more than happy to oblige. We know that we are able to create coups in countries, so inciting native population against their overlords should also be an option. The Japanese supported the Thai during the franch-thai war, and by doing so managed to mediate between them. I don't see why they couldn't have done something similar in indonesia.
