Need help taking over China as Japan

[nerdymidgetkid]

Hey guys,

I'm fairly new to this game and I decided to play as Japan because I figured I could stay pretty much within my region if I wanted to, safely away from major threats (at least for a time) and I also thought that the war with the relatively "weak" China would help me get a handle on the combat system. However, so far I've made three attempts to take over China, all of which have failed. In the last instance, I waited until 1938, reinforcing the Southern side of the front (the one where the enemy always puts up much heavier resistance) with artillery brigades and researching all infantry techs up to 1940 level, before attacking. However, in all instances, it turned out the same: I make early progress against Shanxi but then the Southern part of the line gets bogged down when it receives massive reinforcements from Communist and Nationalist China, halting my advance. The enemy then pushes through a gap in the lines and cuts the front in half. (I know that sounds like pure error on my part, but to close the gap with the forces I have I'd need to capture several regions on the east coast early on, before reinforcements arrive, and here my advance is simply too slow.) Eventually, massive numbers of troops from Communist China arrive and I am pushed back. I'd put all this down to my inexperience, but I can't help thinking that I'm doing it wrong, as this conflict seems to be considered a fairly easy one. Do I need to re-assign my military leaders to give my forces an edge or something? It just seems to me that China can field stronger forces than Japan, even in 1938, and that doesn't add up. I am using 5 tactical bomber squadrons to augment my forces and am utilizing a large part of my naval might to shut down enemy convoys. I don't really know what else I can do. Any tips?

 

[21oliver]

I always fire Marco Polo on Jul 1st 1937 the earliest possible date, and i always defeat and annex all of Nationalist China (& Shanxi) by no later then Oct 1937 using the following set up.

1. I put about 30-35 divisions on the Northern border, either INFx3/ART or INFx4 and the Cav units.
2. I make 3 groups of invading units, each of 10 divisions of INF, i place two in ports in Korea one in Taiwan.
3. I make 3 SAG naval groups of 10-12 ships (usually BBx3 CAx3 DD/CLx6 or something like that), and i put them on patrol (2 around Korea, one near Taiwan).
4. I make a single Amphibious naval force, all my CVs and CVLs (usually 4?) and about CLx8.

I invade from the North on Jul 1st, and then one by one i take the amphib forces starting up north and attack China in basically 3 spots (That northern most port China has jutting out near manchuria, shanghai and then down on the little peninsula south of guangxi). When they land i had the territory to the theater up north and put all the units under the northern theater's command. I have the theater on offensive for both land and air, and click on every chinese vp.

Then sit back and watch it work.

 

[nerdymidgetkid]

I always fire Marco Polo on Jul 1st 1937 the earliest possible date, and i always defeat and annex all of Nationalist China (& Shanxi) by no later then Oct 1937 using the following set up.

1. I put about 30-35 divisions on the Northern border, either INFx3/ART or INFx4 and the Cav units.
2. I make 3 groups of invading units, each of 10 divisions of INF, i place two in ports in Korea one in Taiwan.
3. I make 3 SAG naval groups of 10-12 ships (usually BBx3 CAx3 DD/CLx6 or something like that), and i put them on patrol (2 around Korea, one near Taiwan).
4. I make a single Amphibious naval force, all my CVs and CVLs (usually 4?) and about CLx8.

I invade from the North on Jul 1st, and then one by one i take the amphib forces starting up north and attack China in basically 3 spots (That northern most port China has jutting out near manchuria, shanghai and then down on the little peninsula south of guangxi). When they land i had the territory to the theater up north and put all the units under the northern theater's command. I have the theater on offensive for both land and air, and click on every chinese vp.

Then sit back and watch it work.

Sounds like a good plan, and perhaps the AI can do a better job than me at the moment. Still, how is it that you have enough forces to roll over Shanxi AND create three amphibious assault groups to attack nationalist China? How many units did you have to build?

 

[21oliver]

I dont build much if any naval units the first few years, build nothing but infantry.

First i reorganize all my units. i bring all the units from the islands, and bring them to japan and pile them up, i do the same in manchuria, make a pile. You have almost enough in manchuria, they just need a few brigades to round them out, dont worry about defending the soviet border, bring them all down. That means you have to build about 30 inf divisions in 18 months. What i do usually is upgrade all my GAR to inf.

Believe it or not playing many of the "Naval" nations (USA, UK, Japan, Italy?) doesnt really mean you have to build navies. The whole game is about grabbing VPs not defeating the other nations forces. I often take out the UK with Germany's starting navy. If you can eventually take Pearl and the Panama Canal youll put a serious crimp in the US, you dont have to go toe to toe with their navy.

 

[nerdymidgetkid]

I dont build much if any naval units the first few years, build nothing but infantry.

First i reorganize all my units. i bring all the units from the islands, and bring them to japan and pile them up, i do the same in manchuria, make a pile. You have almost enough in manchuria, they just need a few brigades to round them out, dont worry about defending the soviet border, bring them all down. That means you have to build about 30 inf divisions in 18 months. What i do usually is upgrade all my GAR to inf.

Believe it or not playing many of the "Naval" nations (USA, UK, Japan, Italy?) doesnt really mean you have to build navies. The whole game is about grabbing VPs not defeating the other nations forces. I often take out the UK with Germany's starting navy. If you can eventually take Pearl and the Panama Canal youll put a serious crimp in the US, you dont have to go toe to toe with their navy.

Well, THAT changes things....

Especially the part about the Soviet border, because not only did I think I shouldn't take the troops away from there because of the Soviet threat, but I also thought I COULDN'T, because I had no idea you could upgrade units How do you do that?

 

[21oliver]

in order to upgarde units bring them to YOUR territory, if need be back home. When you click on a unit there is a little upgrade button, when you click on it, you will see your options. When you click to upgrade the unit it automatically gets put in your queue. For example a militia unit can be upgraded basically to all the types of infantry units (mountain, marines etc...) if you have researched that tech.

 

[szcott69]

When you select a unit, the window that opens in the top left corner will show you what brigades are attached to the unit. Look at each brigade line and if there is a little arrow on it go ahead and click it.

I play Japan a little differently. I Pull all my mainland forces back into Korea, declare war ASAP, them let Nat China overrun and conquer Manchukuo. Once they have surrendered, I amphib invade at Tianjin and push inland till I reach Shanxi territory. This effectually puts all of Nat China troops in the north out of supply, they can't trace supply through Shanxi Territory. Then I mop up everything north of Tianjin, no need to be in a hurry, your trying to maintain a war economy till UK declares war on you. Also you want to flip all the provinces to Japans control before you conquer Shanxi or else the computer will give any provinces they had to Germany.
This has several benefits, It gives you all of Manchukuo to develop infra or whatever to help you with the fight against the Sovs, also all the captured area of Manchukuo will be partisan free.

Then Push Nat China down past Comm China and with a Corps invade Comm China 1 VP and poof all their troops are gone. At this point you might want to rest and refit your troops along a nice river line( read delay the end of the war). You can also start taking out the neighbors too.

Yes it might seem "gamey" to do that but its basically a work around for the supply system. Defeating the China's as an experienced player is just a chore, not a challenge.

This is where its nice to use the battleplan editor to draw a line around all the lev 1 provinces (use supply map mode and you'll see all the black areas). Youll find the whole area of Asia is basically walled off. I like to clear all that out.

You may want to influence USA till 41 or so to keep them from joining the allies too early.

Buy all the Metal you can get upto 99999, you'll need it.

I also upgrade all my Gar troops to Mtn (best def) and fortify(lev 4-5) all the islands that I want to defend.

As Japan, besure to check all the available Strategic effects you can get, they can get your research speed up over 50%.

 

[Kovax]

Most importantly, make sure that you have a decent officer ratio, shown as a small flag icon along the top edge of the screen. If it's under 100%, your troops are fighting below their normal capabilities, and you can get increased effectiveness up to 140% ratio. That's a more important thing than researching a few techs, so don't skimp on it.

You want to focus research on INF techs and doctrines, particularly, the Grand Battleplan doctrines which increase Organization and Morale (Infantry Warfare and Mass Assault, I believe). A few aircraft techs and pilot training doctrines will help in the long run, particularly if you use those planes in ground attack roles to increase their experience for later in the war when you'll need them. Japan has reasonable Leadership, but not enough to squander it on anything and everything. Concentrate it on what you need most.

Reorganizing the army with a full structure can be a help. Put a couple of decent commanders at Army Group level, which will reduce the supply needs of the entire army group under their command, as long as it's within command range.

The little "wrench" icon on each unit display allows you to upgrade them to another type of unit, if available. GAR or MIL can be upgraded to INF or a few specialist units. I keep a few GAR in the larger ports (port size > 2) and major VP locations (particularly capitals), because they defend almost as well as INF, but use a lot less officers and supply. Anything that I need to be mobile gets upgraded to INF.

As pointed out earlier, you don't need to build a navy as Japan, you've already got a fairly powerful one. Research carriers and CAGs (the naval aviation doctrines apply, as do the pilot/crew training doctrines for naval, interceptors, and CAS). Until you deal with China, build mostly INF, plus about one aircraft in the production que at a time. After Marco Polo, wait until those Nationalist and Communist Chinese troops show up in Shanxi, then launch an amphibious invasion on both sides of a few ports further down the coast. Once you take Shanghai, you can supply a major invasion from there, and trap the majority of the defending forces between your two armies. Be aware that as soon as you link the two fronts, you'll run into supply problems.

[ As pointed out in the following post, you'll need those carriers LATER, so start building them as soon as you've got China on the rocks, or start one CVL early to "warm" your Practicals. Building a few extra IC is good in the long term, **IF** you can supply it with resources, but building it won't help you in China. ]

 

[1alexey]

Another good strategy is to industrialise as Japan.

China is pretty weak, you need to build a corps or 2 of infantry and you will easily win, you have all the big-ships-with-guns you will ever need and you want to delay building navy till you get better naval techs to maximise the advantage your new units will have over the old navies.

Thus, build 2-3 CVLs without CAGs to keep your carrier practicals high, 1-2 cores of infantry, and the rest can be put into factries, 2-3 rounds of them. Finish building them around the time it will take for you to complete proper fleet carrier before the war starts, so around late 1938-early 1939.

Advantage is that Japan has all the troops and ships it need to success early, it`s the sustain Japan really lacks, while having extra IC will make you stronger where you need it, land combat in Russia or invasion of USA.

 

[unmerged(760343)]

What version are you playing. Beating China used to pretty hard as declaring war would draw in the communists, xebie and the nationalist. Now it just draws in Shanghai and the nationalist. Beating China in the current version is now is very very easily done with just the troops you have stationed in manchuria if you reorganize them into sensable command structure and move around your commanders to sensable levels of command.

 

[nerdymidgetkid]

What version are you playing. Beating China used to pretty hard as declaring war would draw in the communists, xebie and the nationalist. Now it just draws in Shanghai and the nationalist. Beating China in the current version is now is very very easily done with just the troops you have stationed in manchuria if you reorganize them into sensable command structure and move around your commanders to sensable levels of command.

I'm playing the old version, because the commiunists get involved every time, and despite their tiny territory, they have a LOT of troops.

This is where its nice to use the battleplan editor to draw a line around all the lev 1 provinces (use supply map mode and you'll see all the black areas). Youll find the whole area of Asia is basically walled off. I like to clear all that out.

I've seen people use the battleplan editor but have no idea how to.

Most importantly, make sure that you have a decent officer ratio, shown as a small flag icon along the top edge of the screen. If it's under 100%, your troops are fighting below their normal capabilities, and you can get increased effectiveness up to 140% ratio

That's one thing that I already do--I get my officer ratio straight to max at the start of the game.


I think the main thing that comes through here is that I need to upgrade my troops, build some more infantry and re-organize my command structure, and use all that to launch an amphibious invasion of China. I'm gonna go ahead and try that right now

 

[21oliver]

To be even more simple. Nationalist China/Shanxi cannot match you unit for unit. Theyre only hope is to stack up and force you to move through bad terrain, poor supply and suffer attrition. This is why my strategy spreads them out and allows your units to tear through them with ease.

 

[nerdymidgetkid]

When I click on my garrison units I only get a detailed description of their stats; no wrench icon. I have the semper fi expansion, so am I missing something?

 

[nerdymidgetkid]

Cancel that, it's because they were in Korea

 

[21oliver]

Bingo!

 

[Kovax]

When I click on my garrison units I only get a detailed description of their stats; no wrench icon. I have the semper fi expansion, so am I missing something?

Semper Fi is a couple of expansions ago. Good expansion, and it might be my favorite, but it's missing a lot of the "bells and whistles" added in FtM and TFH, including unit type upgrades. No "wrench" icon.

It's a bit harder for Japan to win in the earlier versions, but still not too difficult if you draw them north (where all you need to do is hold a river line to pin them in place) and then invade to the south.

 

[21oliver]

Divide and conquer as they say...

 

[unmerged(760343)]

To be even more simple. Nationalist China/Shanxi cannot match you unit for unit. Theyre only hope is to stack up and force you to move through bad terrain, poor supply and suffer attrition. This is why my strategy spreads them out and allows your units to tear through them with ease.

Yeah divide and conquer is the best way to go about it. But if you can't make that happen, you can use the doom stacks to your advantage as it is very easy to get them out of supply. Coordinated attacks with some logistical bombing and ground attack can really put the hurt on the org and Manpower. Also, people forget that paratroopers exist and a coordinated assault where you attack along the front and encircle them with paratroopers from the back is entirely possible. Great thing about transport planes is they can really help your supply situation.

I would say priority number one is to get Beijing and the huge port there so you have supplies from the sea directly into the fighting area rather than coming in from Manchuria.