Long March across the sea, Communist China 1936 AAR

[Creslin]

Well this is mine first post in this forum and it will be start of an AAR. I am an avid player of Hearts of Iron games since I picked up a copy of HoI for 10 dollars in the bargaining bin about a year ago.

I have been following the forum closely and greatly enjoyed the a lot of the AARs, so this is my way of saying thanks.

As in the subject, the country played will be Communist China in the 1936 campaign. It will be a stock Doomsday 1.3a, Setting will be Normal and Furious. No modification to the game with the exception of that I changed the event file so that Xi'An incident will not fire before July 1936. The real Xi'an incident happened in Dec 1936, so this modification should be realistic enough.

The ultimate aim is to completely defeat the Japanese land and navy forces, unite China and finish with annexation of Japan.

I played one test game beforehand, so a lot of decisions will be guided by things learned in the previous run.

 

[Creslin]

The Begining

Having just finished long march, the Communist China is in a difficult position, only occupies 3 province with meager IC of 5. No friendly neighbour to speak of anywhere and couple with extremly limited resource on every category. 350 manpower represents the only plentiful resource.

Red Army is in a better state compare to it's industry, consist of 15 division, including three mountain division. All the infantry are 1936 variaty with 60 percent experience. This confer a large advantage over Nationalist and surrounding warlord armies on equal numbered fighting.

Reorganization are done to leave 1 division each holding Yan'an and Xiangang. Rest of troops are organized into corp consist of 2 or 3 divisions and start moving to Pingliang.

General Armament Department are set to research 1936 infantry, we can not afford to have inferior troops. As chairman Mao once said, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". With one tech slot at start the forcus will be on infantry and land doctrine techs. Industry techs will also be given priority when possible as China has to modernize itself.

The slider setting are pretty good to begin with already, with default max central planning and hawk lobby. The one slider move is spend on interventionsim, declaration of war will cost 4.4 percent dissent. No changes to ministers, not that you can make any, Communist China's selection of minister is very limited. However the default selection is not bad in my view already.

The spare industry capacity are set to produce one mountain division. The main forcus of future productions will be 1936 infantry when it become available.

 

[germanpeon]

Hmmm. I think this will be very challenging for you. Ive tried a game as ComChi (no CCIP, couldnt get it to work) but I couldnt get anything significant done other than taking out the western warlord states. How did you do in your test game?

 

[elbasto]

Good luck!

As ComChi you start in a precarious position to say the least.

And welcome to the forums! It is always good to see a new writaar.

 

[Creslin]

The test game is a very bloody affair, it took me years before gaining the upper hand over Japanese army. There are a number of hidden pitfalls that are not so ovious at start only to manifest later in the game.

 

[unmerged(89090)]

When i tried playing as comchi I drove the Japanese into the sea by 1942, the only problem was that whenever I annexed manchukuo it went to nationalist china and even though I took the entire Korean peninsula the fading sun event didn't fire so I was basically confined to do nothing for the rest of the scenario. I tried to install CCIP but I couldn't quite figure out how to do it. I'm sure you'll do much better than me

 

[stnylan]

Could be an interesting game.

 

[left-handed]

Good Luck, hopefully the past experience will assist you. Are you planning on joining directly into Comitern or instead forging your own path, and not risk losing any land to Tanna Tuva or Mongolia.

 

[unmerged(61606)]

good luck!

 

[Creslin]

left-handed: I do not intend to join with any major alliance, China will forge it's own destiny However there is need to keep good relationship with Soviet Union at early stages as they are only reliable trading partner can supply you large amount of resource and money steadily.

 

[Creslin]

March to the west​

Just a bit of fun information, historically communist force did try to defeat Xibei San ma and ended with disastous result, losing about 25 to 30 thousand man which is about 40 to 50 percent of veteran who successfully completed the long march.

On 10th of January 1936, red army forces launched themself at Lanzhou, the gateway to the west.

Despite the well dug in enemy and unfavourable modifiers, red army consist of veterans lead by Mao himself handily defeated defending Natinalist troops lead by Chiang. Let's hope this is a sign for the things to come.

Taking no rest upon arriving in Lanzhou, red army troops started marching towards Jinchang, Mao himself leading 15th Juntuan stayed in Lanzhou to secure the supply route.

Again the superier quality and number of red army forces easily defeated the defending forces in Jinchang.

Red army forces are exausted upon arriving in Jinchang and rested a week to regain enough organization before pushing onto Dunhuang. General Zhou Enlai's 4th Fanmingjuan is left to secure Jinchang and supported attack on Dunhuang.

 

[stnylan]

Definitely makes sense to march on the weakest target and secure that flank.

 

[Creslin]

March to the west
Part 2

General Armament Department has finished development of the Early Infantry Divison, this is a very important development as 1936 infantry will consist of backbone of the red army forces for the foreseenable future.

Lin Pao are ordered to start researching Rear Area Supply Dumps, this is an extremly important technology as it allows strategic redeployment of troops. Moving troops around in western China by walking takes a very very long time.

Zhu De's mountain troops managed to secure Dunhuang, the connection to Soviet Union is finnaly open.

Trading with Soviet Union started immediately, first priority is money, as you can see we started with 50 and it now dropped to 6 and in a very critical condition. All other resource holding more or less same, with steel dropping about 1 per day, this is not so critical, as we still have 4 month worth of supply.

Again a few days of rest are needed for Di'2 Jun recently arrived in Dunhuang as they got there with zero organization. With minimal organization regained Zhu De's mountain troops again lead the attack on Golmod supported by Di'2 Jun. A few hours later General Zhou Enlai launched seperate assault from Jinchang on Xining supported by Mao's 15th Juntuan from Lanzhou.

The Xibei San Ma's poorly equiped forces are no match for elite red army forces. Red army forces arrived in Golmud and Xining with hours of each other.

Golmud and Xining are the only provinces of Xibei San Ma that has victory points. It is extremly important for both to be occupied at same time. As any of you who played Communist China before, Nationalist has a habit of automatically annex Xibei San Ma when they are near defeat. However they will only do it a few hours after either Golmud and Xining are occupied, so if you time the arrivial properly, you can occupy both provinces without Nationalist annex the Xibei San Ma.

Successful ending to the first stage of campaign, ending with annexation of Xibei SanMa. It doubles the possible available IC and provide access to Soviet Union, also opens the door to the west for additional opportunities.

 

[germanpeon]

Nice! In my experience I had plenty of IC and resources for waging war against the nationalists but what really held me back was manpower. Sure the 350 looked like plenty at the start but it dwindles fast when all you build is inf...

Keep up the good work.

 

[Creslin]

germanpeon: China got a lot of manpower, just not much in the west part of it where Communist China initially start. If I get bog down in a slugging match with either Nationalist or Japan, there is real possibility of manpower being drained.

 

[Creslin]

Annexation of Xibei San Ma means we now can turn back and pursuit the war with Nationalist if so wished. However with the Xi'an incident forcing peace on us and giving all the Nationalist's land back to them, this is really not an option to take.

Also because without strategic redployment troops will take a few month march back across the difficult terran to the battlefront in the east. So the decision is not particularly difficult to make, Sinkiang and Tibet represents the next targets which will double our IC output and provide additional manpower plus resources.

Another factor is the stockpile Sinkiang has, taking it over will rectify the extreme dire situation of our resource situation.

 

[unmerged(89506)]

Nice job so far. When I was playing as the Commies, I would push into Xibei San Ma, but somehow, I would automatically initiate peace with them and the Nationalists. I lost all the land I got. Is there anyway to stop this from happening?

 

[Creslin]

There are two traps you face, one is the Xi'an incident where you make peace with Nationalist without any choice. This event got a random chance to fire from March 1936 onwards, easily the most annoying thing most Communist China players has to deal with.

Second one is the habit of Nationalist annex Xibei Sanma when you take over one of their victory point province, only way to annex early I found is doing what I did earlier.

Due to the second issue above, the fastest I could annex Xibei San Ma is about end of May, early June. So you either have to edit the damn event to make it not fire before that date, or pray for a bit of luck, since the chance to fire is random. You can always reload as well. Alternatively you can find one of the mod that got custome events that gives Communist China a choice on this event, I belive CCIP mod do that.

 

[unmerged(89506)]

There are two traps you face, one is the Xi'an incident where you make peace with Nationalist without any choice. This event got a random chance to fire from March 1936 onwards, easily the most annoying thing most Communist China players has to deal with.

Second one is the habit of Nationalist annex Xibei Sanma when you take over one of their victory point province, only way to annex early I found is doing what I did earlier.

Due to the second issue above, the fastest I could annex Xibei San Ma is about end of May, early June. So you either have to edit the damn event to make it not fire before that date, or pray for a bit of luck, since the chance to fire is random. You can always reload as well. Alternatively you can find one of the mod that got custome events that gives Communist China a choice on this event, I belive CCIP mod do that.

That's a lot, man. I was always stumped on that. Good job and good luck in uniting Asia under teh Commiez!!1

 

[Creslin]

March to the west
Part 3

GuanXi declared on Nationalist, this should distract Natinalist a little. In mine Doomsday experience, Nationalist is very forcused on Communist to the detractments of all other fronts.

Taking advantage of this distraction, we declared war on Sinkiang and rewarded with 4.4 percent dissent.

Zhu De again lead the attack and Sinkiang's force is no match againist the red army, especially when outnumbered 5 to 1.

Xi'an incident fired on 14th of July and Lanzhou is given back to the Nationalist. We lost 1 IC and some resource productions, but gained security on the eastern flank. Mao's unit is redeployed back to Ya'an