Japan, MIL or CIV?

[Kryndude]

After playing some time as Japan, I found that it's difficult to decide which industry build to take; should I build MIL only? CIV for a year? Two years? At a glance, Japan's Militarism modifier that gives -10% to CIV construction along with its easy access to Total Mobilization via NF seem to heavily incentivize going MIL. However, the East Asian region generally has an issue with supply and therefore Japan needs a good amount of CIC to build infrastructure and naval bases. And, until you can secure the resource rich states of SEA, you do need to import most of your resource needs, especially after conquering China, which, if you puppet every Chinese minor, gives you something like +35% increase in total factory count but not nearly as many resources. You also need a good amount of oil in order to run your heavy weight navy, air, and tanks. So all in all, Japan doesn't need that much MIC due to its geographical isolation (the Allies won't commit to you as much once they get busy with Germany) but does need a solid base of CIC. Then again, its NS and NF favors building MIL, and, additionally, it has relatively few building slots which means it won't be able to fully utilize CIC later on because there simply won't be room for MIL or Dockyard left. What do you guys think? What's the optimal strategy for Japan's indsutry?

 

[Black_Shade]

I typically build a few MIC at the start to help out with China, but switch to CIC in '37 and stay there until late '39 or early '40.

I also run 2 collaboration governments in China so any territory I take is useful from the get go. I puppet them and let them annex most of the Chinese minors, but I do take GQ. Nice thing about that is since China has cores they start off with 70-90% collaboration from your spy work, which means you get pretty much all of the 100 steel in those GQ provinces. With a strong Chinese puppet you really don't have to worry about your army anymore, they will pump out a ridiculous number of divisions allowing you to redirect most of your mils to fighter/cas/nav production and you won't have to build too many additional mils. This lets you stay building CIC for a strong resource base and then switch to dockyards once you unlock torpedo cruisers.

 

[Neal Mac]

You probably won't go to war with China until late in 37, unless you are not going historical, so I think it is better to build a few civs and infra to speed up your building for the Mil factories you will need. Then pump out mils and sprinkle a civ in here and there. The start pumping out infantry weapons and support equip.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

What do you guys think? What's the optimal strategy for Japan's indsutry?

That would depend on what you see as an optimal military/political strategy said industry should be able to support. When do you expect to start your war with China, and when do you expect it to end? Are you going for SU after? Allied colonies? USA (before they join Allies)? Neutrals? Will you take a breather before your next move?
Japan has a lot of possibilities, which might require a slightly different approach, especially considering that everyone have their own way of doing things. If you want a general-purpose "optimal": historically, you are going to war first, so build all MIC you can, so you can grab all the land you can as fast as you can, leaving US AI to launching its futile naval invasions - not like they will get a lot out of it, even if they succeed from time to time.

 

[Icedkk]

Well I usually build max civs in 4zones, which are 70% and 80% infa. at the beginning, and 10/10naval base the province next to Beijing for stopping supply problems.

btw if you produce only weapons, support, artillary, and 1-3factories to planes, it is good enough to win china, before germany attacks poland.

I use no tanks or mobile units to kill china since they are bad in low supply situations.

I go against china with 24division 40width(14/4 with nice support companies), and 24division 20width(10 with just shovels).

To get army exp to create these templates I run army trainings with my whole army before the war. It is unefficient but I still have enough equipment, till I declare.

Btw I go simple pushing, after removing the escalate marco polo. no encirclements or anything. I also do not naval invade south.

I just naval invade next to my army so that I can grind invader in one of my generals. After 5/6 invading you get the invader trait.

Lastly I find it better this way (simply pushing from north to south), because usually china attacks you before you can escalate and remove the modifier. They lose tons of equipment, you just wait. Then you push easly, and grind exp to your generals. I usually get 2 level7/8 generals, with lots of traits, and with the air exp got from war I upgrade the zero's gotten from the focus. and then start air production.

Meanwhile during war I usually build infastructure and mils in my homeland. After 10/10 naval base

 

[Voigt]

Normally you can easily defeat the chinese (ai) with you starting Mils, incl. you gain from foci and steel for weapons decision.

Total Mobilsaition gives a quite high bonus for Mil construction this is correct, but don't forget it gives a good boost the Civ production aswell, even compared to partial mobilsation.

Yeah there is no flat +% construction speed modifier, but less consumer goods means that each newly build Civ is worth more, since less of it goes to consumer goods.

So I personally built purely Civ till around early 1939. You can do it longer than Germany, since you attack the Allies later. I roughly build Civ as long as I am in a war with China.

Like said before here, only building in 80% and 70% states. Filling up 70% states with 1937 buildingslots and 80% with 1939 buildingslots techs with civ should be fine. Then start building Mils in the 70% states with the slots gained by 1939 industry tech, then I always build up infrastrucutre to level 5 in the rest of the japanse core states and purely build Mils there.

Inbetween I upgrade the Dalian Port to level 7, but thats it. No Airbases, no Infrastructure no further naval bases, everything goes into Civ.

Getting atleast 100 Civ after China falls should be a good target, more is better. Then you can start building Mils with the Total Mob modifier, and not losing lots of Civ to consumer goods by building more Mils.

 

[Kryndude]

Normally you can easily defeat the chinese (ai) with you starting Mils, incl. you gain from foci and steel for weapons decision.

Total Mobilsaition gives a quite high bonus for Mil construction this is correct, but don't forget it gives a good boost the Civ production aswell, even compared to partial mobilsation.

Yeah there is no flat +% construction speed modifier, but less consumer goods means that each newly build Civ is worth more, since less of it goes to consumer goods.

So I personally built purely Civ till around early 1939. You can do it longer than Germany, since you attack the Allies later. I roughly build Civ as long as I am in a war with China.

Like said before here, only building in 80% and 70% states. Filling up 70% states with 1937 buildingslots and 80% with 1939 buildingslots techs with civ should be fine. Then start building Mils in the 70% states with the slots gained by 1939 industry tech, then I always build up infrastrucutre to level 5 in the rest of the japanse core states and purely build Mils there.

Inbetween I upgrade the Dalian Port to level 7, but thats it. No Airbases, no Infrastructure no further naval bases, everything goes into Civ.

Getting atleast 100 Civ after China falls should be a good target, more is better. Then you can start building Mils with the Total Mob modifier, and not losing lots of Civ to consumer goods by building more Mils.

Do you even have room left for MILs by that point? Japan has so few building slots for a major that I would imagine building CIV for that long would leave no room for anything else.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Do you even have room left for MILs by that point? Japan has so few building slots for a major that I would imagine building CIV for that long would leave no room for anything else.

That's what puppets are for
The real problem is dockyards.

 

[Kryndude]

That's what puppets are for
The real problem is dockyards.

You mean you just build them on puppets and get 65% out of them? I'm not sure if I like the idea, although something tells me I don't really have a choice.

 

[Voigt]

You still have plenty of room for Mil, the low infra states have lots of building slots, and after they are ugpraded to 5 Infra, they can quickly be filled up. The 1941 tech isn't to far of aswell.

And then you have China where you should have high compliance or even a collab goverment. If they are a collab goverment puppet you get 75% of all factories there, Civs and Mils, not perfect, but not too bad if you are really in a pinch.

But in a best case you wanna try to trace a ic-cost-heavy supply path either way, from Toyko to Nagasaki, over the Okinawa Seazone into the Zhejiang Supplyzone, and then from there to Singapur, India and Russia. Short supply path over water over shallow sea you can easily control with Airplanes and Radar from Okinawa, with still good supply on the far of fronts. For that you need quite a bit of civ.
And building lots of airbases so you can use your produced airplanes, because even with max range fighters, you still often only have like 2 states reaching a target airzone you wanna contest, so building up those 2 states to level 10 airbases takes a while.

 

[Kryndude]

Yes, I agree that Japan needs CIV more than European nations. I prefer to use at least four light tanks against China to get large encirclement and mass purge those roaches (not intended against the Chinese people, just the in-game units controlled by the AI. PC, check) but I'll have to compromise to a division or two and see how the standard CIV-for-2-years build goes. Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Voigt]

I use 2 40W tank divisions against China, maybe later 3.

8 Mot / 8 Light SP ARTY 2 (converted from LT1) this combined with 5 Mils on 1936 Tacs lets me break trough easily.