manchukuo first time playing, which is more beneficial, and what is the 'create underground workshops' decision?
staff the court vs. five equal peoples
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Five equal is better, due to the bonuses and free troops. The underground workshops give you civs, I think?
Underground workshops gives a discount on infantry equipment, I believe, though I also recall there being a slight downside to it as a balancer.
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Expand the imperial guards is pretty solid - it gives you 7-2s which is pretty useful early on when your industry is terrible
So does "raise the banner,"on the other path, tho. Gives you more, but lesser, troops, actually. I'd argue more troops, over quality, wins out the day, here, considering the country this is for.
I will try to do this off of what I remember.
Staff the Court - 4 '7-2' divisions, 4 military factories, underground workshops decision (-40% cost, -25% reliability, I believe. Could be the other way around.)
This one is good because it gives you a good template and 4 military factories, which is important for going to war with such a large country, especially since you don't have a lot to start out with (I think I had roughly 10 military factories before this focus). The UW decision is mixed, and one of the main deciders for me is if it was permanent, as that national spirit isn't as worth it when you have 50 military factories. (I never tested it)
Five Equal Peoples - 7 '3' divisions, +2% recruitable population (not factor), +5% attack and defense (I believe only on core territory though.), and (possibly) either political power, stability, or reduction in legitimacy penalty (Not sure what Legislative Council gives)
This one is better in the long run as if you do eventually take China you get an additional 2% to your conscription laws, which nearly ensures near-unlimited manpower. The attack and defense bonuses are also nice for obvious reasons, though they won't help you in Korea or the rest of China until you gain cores on it. And of course, PP, stability, or the penalty reduction are always nice in general to get, especially with Manchukuo's starting 2% stability and 0% WS.
So in summary, I would say it is a question of how long term do you want to think? Do you want to give yourself a better chance at taking out Japan before turning your focus to the rest of the world, or are you going to trust in what you have to take out Japan and focus more on the long term? (Not saying that Five Peoples focuses don't help against Japan though. The problem is that your industry could be in trouble before taking over Japan, though if you do you will probably get a fairly good boost to it from the Japanese economy, provided you annex or puppet them.)
Staff the Court - 4 '7-2' divisions, 4 military factories, underground workshops decision (-40% cost, -25% reliability, I believe. Could be the other way around.)
This one is good because it gives you a good template and 4 military factories, which is important for going to war with such a large country, especially since you don't have a lot to start out with (I think I had roughly 10 military factories before this focus). The UW decision is mixed, and one of the main deciders for me is if it was permanent, as that national spirit isn't as worth it when you have 50 military factories. (I never tested it)
Five Equal Peoples - 7 '3' divisions, +2% recruitable population (not factor), +5% attack and defense (I believe only on core territory though.), and (possibly) either political power, stability, or reduction in legitimacy penalty (Not sure what Legislative Council gives)
This one is better in the long run as if you do eventually take China you get an additional 2% to your conscription laws, which nearly ensures near-unlimited manpower. The attack and defense bonuses are also nice for obvious reasons, though they won't help you in Korea or the rest of China until you gain cores on it. And of course, PP, stability, or the penalty reduction are always nice in general to get, especially with Manchukuo's starting 2% stability and 0% WS.
So in summary, I would say it is a question of how long term do you want to think? Do you want to give yourself a better chance at taking out Japan before turning your focus to the rest of the world, or are you going to trust in what you have to take out Japan and focus more on the long term? (Not saying that Five Peoples focuses don't help against Japan though. The problem is that your industry could be in trouble before taking over Japan, though if you do you will probably get a fairly good boost to it from the Japanese economy, provided you annex or puppet them.)
7 divisions of 3 infantry is something you can easily raise yourself though - it's the 4 7-2s that will help you win the day. Granted, long term the extra 2.00% manpower from raise the banners is much better, but since you've got cores on all of China long term manpower doesn't matter.
I like 5 equal people better myself, I think the bonuses are slightly better, but there's an argument for both.
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I'm not a fan of Underground Workshops. If memory serves, its something like a -50% reliability penalty to infantry equipment. Yes, you can churn out a metric boatload of rifles, but when they break at such an accelerated rate, your bonus military factories will end up being dedicated to just replacing your busted guns, instead of building artillery or AA or something useful. One trick I've pulled is to let Japan declare on China, stay out of the war (by doing Assertiveness before Japan does Marco Polo Bridge), and train up an Xbox huge amount of infantry. If you lack the rifles to equip your recruits with, Japan has a tendency to eagerly lend-lease you a bunch of guns. Even if you aren't in the war, the AI will still frequently shower you with rifles, presumably in the hope that you will join the war with your shiny new units. Of course, I do not join the war against China; I use those shiny new units to kick Hirohito back to Kyushu. With Japan supplying my infantry equipment needs, I can focus on artillery and AA.
The decisions to Seize Japanese Equipment are really worthwhile. Do as many of them as the game allows before you kick off your war of independence. Hitting the IJA with a massive stat malus for a few months really helps you kick them off the continent and back to the Home Islands.
Forgot to add:
I usually go for Five Equal Peoples because I get more units that way. Yes, those units are garbage units, but they are free garbage units. And even garbage units are useful for holding ports, which is what I use them for. Japan's AI tends to throw lots of little naval invasions at you, instead of waiting to do one big one, and derpy little garbage units can hold a port with a naval fort pretty well under those circumstances.
The decisions to Seize Japanese Equipment are really worthwhile. Do as many of them as the game allows before you kick off your war of independence. Hitting the IJA with a massive stat malus for a few months really helps you kick them off the continent and back to the Home Islands.
Forgot to add:
I usually go for Five Equal Peoples because I get more units that way. Yes, those units are garbage units, but they are free garbage units. And even garbage units are useful for holding ports, which is what I use them for. Japan's AI tends to throw lots of little naval invasions at you, instead of waiting to do one big one, and derpy little garbage units can hold a port with a naval fort pretty well under those circumstances.
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okay, so i got pulled into the war with china before i could do assertiveness as i didn't know this information yet - should i pull the guns on japan once they have their units deep in china, and when i do that, which is more important; korea or china?
If you wait till Japan is knee-deep in China, you can swing behind them and take all of their ports. This makes their entire army run out of supply, and you and China can squeeze the IJA to death between you. Korea is important to grab, though. North Korea has valuable resources (tungsten and steel) you don't have a lot of. The only port is in the south, so rush to grab that and ruin Japanese resupply. I tend to prioritize Korea and the parts of China that Japan starts with (Dalian and so on) as the KMT won't be in a position to contest those right away, once the shooting starts. They won't contest Korea at all. Anything else you can grab down the east coast of China is gravy. If China hasn't formed their defensive faction, then Shanxi tends to collapse and get puppetted by Japan early on. If you can grab it when you declare on Japan, try to take it, because the KMT will annex it if you don't. If Shanxi is independent when you declare, don't worry too much... you can potentially puppet them through a NF later on.
Once Japan has no territory on the continent, they will offer to white peace you and China. What you do then is up to you. If you turn them down, you can focus on beating Japan and leave the rest of China for later (national focuses exist that will let you puppet a few of the warlords, even if they are in a faction with the KMT) but taking out Japan is time consuming. You need an air force and/or a submarine navy and those take time to build. If you peace out with Japan, they will be locked into a focus tree that kind of requires them to be at war with China, so expect them to declare war on the KMT once the non-aggression pact from the white peace wears off. Your focus tree lets you try to puppet a few warlords, as well as claim cores on all of China, which solves any manpower issues you might be facing. Industry is always going to be a pain for you, as nobody in China starts with German or British numbers of factories. Chinese IC is impressive once you get everybody annexed, but until then you never seem to have enough factories to do what you need in a timely manner.
As always, I'm playing in version 1.8x, not in 1.9, so the new garrison/occupation mechanics may alter some of this.
Also: DON'T do Assertiveness as soon as you can. Doing that focus makes Japan less likely to do the focuses they have to develop Manchuria. Hold Assertiveness back and don't start it till you see Japan doing Liaison Conference. That's the NF right before Marco Polo Bridge. Japan's AI does Marco Polo immediately after Liaison Conference more often than not, even with historical focuses turned off. Oh! Speaking of which... if you play without historical focuses, and you see Japan starting to go Communist or Democratic, rush Assertiveness. If you don't, and you wait till their civil war starts, you will change governments when you start your war with them. Its crazy, but during a playthrough when Japan went communist, I did Assertiveness after the civil war started. Then, when I started my independence war, I turned communist for some reason. This means Puyi was not my leader, which locked me out of restoring the Qing Empire.
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whenever i play china japan is like a god but whenever i play manchukuo japan is terrible. they don't do any naval invasions, they send little-to no manpower to china and send them all to the islands, so its up to the remaining japanese troops, mengukuo, and I to do it. I try to avoid actually helping in the war as it depletes resources, manpower, etc. but japan is all of the sudden useless, any tips to this? btw you've been really helpful and nice, so i appreciate that and thank you.
edit: also, japanese troops are in my territory, dunno what happens if i pull out independence war now
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Another thing in favor of the Five Equal Peoples is the 'Raise the Banners' decision, which gives you 5 30-width infantry divisions with support artillery. While it can be a bit of a drag on equipment, they are strong enough for it to be worth it, and if I remember correctly they are veterans (+75% combat modifier). So really, you actually get a good substitute for the Imperial Guards (and it's not hard to make them through the division designer).
Really, I would put it as factories vs manpower. Generally, you don't need more manpower as a Chinese nation (unless you're one of the 'northern' ones besides Manchukuo). The factories can be immensely helpful early game but are also offset some by the 'Seize Japanese Arms Supplies', which can give you at least 10k infantry equipment and more, including artillery, support equipment, anti-air/tank, and aircraft at its max level, along with the 90-day Japanese attack/defense penalty against you. So really, both are good, and I would say to choose based on the situation. Are you (somehow) lacking in manpower? Is your industry really bad? (Not really a question with Manchukuo until the 'Machine Tooling' focus because of all of the civilian factories it gives you.)
Really, I would put it as factories vs manpower. Generally, you don't need more manpower as a Chinese nation (unless you're one of the 'northern' ones besides Manchukuo). The factories can be immensely helpful early game but are also offset some by the 'Seize Japanese Arms Supplies', which can give you at least 10k infantry equipment and more, including artillery, support equipment, anti-air/tank, and aircraft at its max level, along with the 90-day Japanese attack/defense penalty against you. So really, both are good, and I would say to choose based on the situation. Are you (somehow) lacking in manpower? Is your industry really bad? (Not really a question with Manchukuo until the 'Machine Tooling' focus because of all of the civilian factories it gives you.)
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i'm using it right now and i'm loving it, i could probably capture korea with them
Like, yeah. I get why the four mils and good units seem appealing, but they just aren't as good. Like, who cares about the mils, when you steal SO many guns and stuff from the Japanese? Who cares about those few great divisions you get when you can't supply more of them, and need even more divisions to actually hold and rush the line?
I wish I had a reliable solution to this problem. Japanese AI seems hard-coded to be a pain in the rear for a Manchuria player. The worst part is taking the "Obedience" path, singlehandedly capitulating China, then having Japan steal all the territory you won for them.
What I've done is wait it out. Japan gets a pretty steep combat malus from Marco Polo Bridge, which is one of the reasons it struggles to push China. It can gradually buy it off using PP, but I think the AI is reluctant to do this if you're playing Manchuria. I find that the AI will sometimes still remove the malus, but that it takes a lot longer to get around to it. Sometimes the AI never removes the malus and parks twenty divisions in Korea in anticipation of your sudden yet inevitable betrayal, and ends up losing Dalian to China as a result. And sometimes Japan goes all-in with the war just like normal. I'm sure there is a formula in the code that explains Japan's actions after Assertiveness, but I'm not code-literate enough to find it. My only advice is to try to wait it out and see if Japan is buying off the Marco Polo Bridge malus (it appears as a national spirit while in effect). If you see them holding at -50% attack/ -25% defense for a whole year, go ahead and re-start your game. It sucks, but there isn't much you can do if Japan isn't going to play ball. If you see them reducing that penalty, even if it is six months between reductions, wait them out. Without the malus, a half-hearted Japanese offensive can push deep into China.
As for what will happen with Japanese troops in your territory, they will occupy the tiles they are standing in. That leaves them isolated and without supply in most cases. Have a few units on standby to mop them up or keep them from rushing your capital. You don't have a lot of VPs, so any losses push you dangerously close to capitulation. Without supply, they tend to die easy. They will hit hard for a few days, but once the out of supply penalty starts eating their Org and attrition sets in, they will crumble.
Unfortunately, you can't station troops inside Japanese territory before you declare war. If you do, they will all teleport back home to your capital as soon as you finish the NF that triggers the war. BUT, in theory, you should be able to station troops inside Mengkukuo that won't teleport when the war starts. The explanation is that Meng is a puppet of Japan and your declaration of war is against Japan, not Mengkukuo. So the rule preventing you from having troops inside the territory of a nation you are declaring war on gets ignored and your guys occupy whatever tiles they are on when Meng declares on you. This can allow you to position units on top of Meng's VPs and factories so that once Japan calls them into the war, they immediately capitulate.
This tactic is known as "Order 66".
I haven't tested Order 66 with Manchuria, but I have used it as other countries, so I know the tactic works in general. In theory, it should still be viable for Manchuria to pull off. If it does work, be aware of any Japanese units that were pushing into China through Meng. They will still be active when Meng capitulates and they will probably rush back to the capital of Meng to liberate them and get them back into the war. You want to avoid this, especially if Japan pushed deep into Shanxi via Meng, as you will get control of any territory Meng was in control of when they capitulate. That could mean gaining access to both Mengkukuo and Shanxi's factories.
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Following someone's guide, I managed to get "Crusader Kings 2" using this "order 66" tactic to capitulate France quickly, hold vs. Belgium, and collapse Britain by taking what they abandoned [not much else one can do with mere rifle brigades vs. full, fully supported divisions on their home turf]. It worked beautifully. I also used this tactic vs. the USA to take Washington ["1812 Again" or something like that] but not by occupying their VPs - I just parked on my side, waited for the US to deploy overseas, and then proceeded vs. divisions that were low org due to using strategic redeployment. Its a powerful strategy if executed properly, but would never work against a human player, and can backfire.
One thing to watch for is when leaving a faction prior to declaring war, units that can redeploy home [or to friendly turf] will do so if there is a land-based or strait-based path. Units separated by oceans or borders that cannot be crossed will just sit tight. This will go on for a few days, so if you have to wait before declaring war, be aware of this. I found it useful to put all such units under one FM so that I could select the entire force, regardless of which continent they were on [they were in France, Malaya and India] and mash the "H" key to keep them in place until the units gave up on redeploying home.
One thing to watch for is when leaving a faction prior to declaring war, units that can redeploy home [or to friendly turf] will do so if there is a land-based or strait-based path. Units separated by oceans or borders that cannot be crossed will just sit tight. This will go on for a few days, so if you have to wait before declaring war, be aware of this. I found it useful to put all such units under one FM so that I could select the entire force, regardless of which continent they were on [they were in France, Malaya and India] and mash the "H" key to keep them in place until the units gave up on redeploying home.
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