Tackling the Japanese Behemoth as (Com)China?

[Illanair]

It's been quite a while since I played HOI4 for any serious amount of time, much less played as China, but with Waking the Tiger, it seems like a natural place to start.

However... results have been mixed.

So far my best attempt was met with Japan slowly but surely pushing me so far down south, that I might as well give up, in spite of beating off every naval invasion attempt, and trying to bolster the front lines with additional generals and units as possible. I don't even dare think how hard this is taking over China late with the Leadership minigame as Mao and friends.

Does anyone have some concrete tips or maybe even know of someone who has already tackled this beast? (Youtube searches have been met with mixed results)

 

[hahaha01357]

I've been having trouble as well. So far my strategy has been to rush the conflict with the warlords focus so I can gain Shanxi and try to build as many forts along the border as I can. I'm pretty amateur at the game but on my latest attempt, I was able to unite China after 3 of the 5 warlords submitted willingly. But that 50% penalty to both attack and defense is just so harsh! Especially given that you need to be at peace to unlock more research slots - which means you fall further and further behind as the game progresses. There's also the fact that all of our army experience is basically tied up in trying to do the army reform, which means we can't even modify any division templates.

 

[Efgrafich]

That "power struggle" minigame is just slot machine. You can easily spend more than 500pp and dont achive anything. And you need gain these 30 support points just to get rid from that awful "long march" modifier or you cant build anything (about 360pp need to be spend on decisions + ~300pp on bribing two warlords, but no guarantees).

 

[Karaya 1]

My last attempt (first successful one) i went for the early extra research slot, then the 1st Industry thing, and then rushed down towards subjugate the warlords. i put troops on all the borders i could reach, and every single one of them submitted to me. (probably got lucky there, havent looked at the events in code form yet to see if that makes a difference)

With all of them as puppets you can actually defend the shanxi front from the start of the war, and you can get all your puppets troops (except shanxi for defense) to bolster your port guards. Spam infantry like crazy and hold them in beijing or at the river just behind it.

Let them kill themselves with silly attacks for a year while you build up.

The end.

 

[Joonnnyy]

as communist china it is possible but can be very hard

what i did is take over xi ba san ma and shanxi as fast as possible with the focus war, should be easy enough and pp are needed elsewhere(free economy is your best friend odly enough)
only then did i use the middle path until maoism and abolis the land rent
work together with the nationals and ignore all the inner chinese politics untill japan is thrown of the continent
and dont forget the international oinvestors for some off map factorys, though many are unavailable untill much later, due to land restrictions(burma road etc.)
and promote Zhu De to field marshal asap, since he has organizer and can get logistical wizard as soon as you have the command points, mao only has defensiv which is not so usefull in the agressive low supply war that will be expected
also get organization first and charismatic to nullify the debuffs for your army (+20% training time does not count)

best news is you dont get combat penalty similar to nationals or japan in the beginning, use this time and try to destroy menguko
but within a few weeks japan will get rid of all the penaltys, then it is a real grind, since all china has is men with guns
i did not even care for the nationals front at beijing, since with 10-12 7inf divisions its not possible to care and survive
if the nationals roll over and crumble to fast your out of luck and game over, they are the sponge to soak the japaneese hordes

once japan pushes south there may open up possiblitys to take some provinces and advans towards the coast in jehol
if that is achived japan will fall into a rage due to much lowered supply and will reshuffle and attack heavyly to reconect, but if this cut can be defended manchuko is open for a slow and bloody conquest

most important, try to gain as much territory as possible so you can, since the peaceevent will give all territory to the nation controling it, and the recources/industry will be needed for the reunification of china
with some luck by 1940 japan is crying on its island and the true enemy can be fought

 

[hahaha01357]

My last attempt (first successful one) i went for the early extra research slot, then the 1st Industry thing, and then rushed down towards subjugate the warlords. i put troops on all the borders i could reach, and every single one of them submitted to me. (probably got lucky there, havent looked at the events in code form yet to see if that makes a difference)

With all of them as puppets you can actually defend the shanxi front from the start of the war, and you can get all your puppets troops (except shanxi for defense) to bolster your port guards. Spam infantry like crazy and hold them in beijing or at the river just behind it.

Let them kill themselves with silly attacks for a year while you build up.

The end.

Which template did you use? The 8width one or the 12 width one? How did you stop the Japanese troops from breaking through? Did you get artillery? How did you deal with their armour?

 

[Lord of Beer]

I don't have a solution but will add that last night I played with all human Chinas vs Japan AI. So all the Warlords + PRC + Nationalist China + Even Manchukuo! Total of about 7 very experienced players on the same faction.

And it was surprisingly difficult.

I think part of it is the improvements to the AI, as well as overall nerfs to attacking as part of 1.5.0 that makes it hard to push.

I think Paradox need to boost attacking in 1.5.1 a bit more. Its too hard to push now even with the advantages stacked in your favour. The core defence stats are just too strong.

In the end we got through by spamming tactical bombers. Without it I don't think we ever would have got Japan off the mainland.

 

[Xia]

The biggest issue I had as Chinese nations was Japan stomping those I wasn't controlling so fast I wasn't ready for them; with the AI Japan beating AI china in like 1938 most of the time.

I was able to hold onto my land as the Clique though, but there was 0 potential for me to counter attack and so I quit as it was dull.

 

[Karaya 1]

Which template did you use? The 8width one or the 12 width one? How did you stop the Japanese troops from breaking through? Did you get artillery? How did you deal with their armour?

The slightly bigger one. I was building exclusively Infantry equipment for at least a year i think from the point the war started, until i eventually started building some support equipment to have some recon and engineers for entrenchment and some terrain bonuses.

I used the bigger one because once you get down the Mass assault line they basically become 10 width divisions if you desire them to remain that way.

Calling what the Japanese have "armor" is rather optimistic. They have 3 divisions with 2 light tank regiments each, and no tank production at the start of the game. Those divisions do not have enough damage or speed to actually work as one would think. Eventually they will run out of tanks quickly due to attrition or the occasional combat loss.

 

[hahaha01357]

So I finally did it after about my 6th try. Microed the shit out of my troops to finish off the warlords and communist China by January 1937. Had to cheese the AI against commi China by leaving my front line unguarded and luring then from their fortifications. Meanwhile I built up lvl 3 forts all along the northern border with Japan and grabbed the extra research slot about a month before they declared on me. Then it was a matter of stacking entrenchment and reinforcement bonuses and holding the line until I got enough experience for the reforms and the resistance focuses. The Japanese AI seems pretty content on smashing against my lines and losing tons of manpower and equipment such that by the time I finished my reforms and focuses, it was pretty easy to push them back all the way to Korea with minimal intervention on my part. I think what really helped a lot was the Soviet airforce. I even forgot to give my planes missions but still had air superiority pretty much the entire time. The event for Japanese withdrawal took place in July 1939, a little over two years after the war started. Never got my achievement though.

So the one thought I had was that Paradox should really try to make the warlords stronger. They were historically a serious threat to the Nationalist government and their generals and troops contributed just as much if not more than nationalist government to the fight against Japan. Instead of neutering the Nationalist (and Japanese) troops and keeping the warlords weak, strong warlords would both force the player to seriously consider the united front path and present a more credible defense to the Japanese invasion. Actually, the whole warlord era is intensely interesting the more I learn about it. It has everything from political backstabbing to large military campaigns to coalitions, foreign interventions and more. I really wish Paradox or a modder can make a scenario that focuses on this era of history.

 

[Torma25]

Just finished a pretty successful Nationalist China game. Here's my strategy that might help you out: Don't attack the warlords, you have time to do 7 focuses before Japan attacks. You want every single one to have an effect asap. So, form the Untied front, get the first research slot, the army reform and the Shanghai fortifications. Let Beijing fall, the devs have made it a lot weaker, so it only has two civs and no mils now. Draw a fallback line at the river in Shadong. This should be for your bigger, stronger army/armies. Also draw a fallback line that protects the Communist Chinese. Make sure it follows a river, if I remember correctly you can even defend one of Shanxi's provinces (Ordos I believe). the third fallback line (or rather set of fallback lines) should focus on your ports. You should use fallback lines because garrison is buggy as hell atm. YOur first priority is Qingdao, Shadong and Shanghai. After you do this, you sit and wait. The japanse can't combat the attriction and lack of supplies for too long. You can also use your starting bombers to bomb their airbases and infrastructure. And just like it happened IRL, you weak for Japan's weakest point. Also known as: a single manchurian/mengukuo division defending two or three flanks. You use this small window to encircle as many troops as you can (be aware, the AI pays a lot more attention to this now, and maybe even try to break out).Three or four bigger encirclements should be enough to completely ruin their army, to a point where they won't be able to recover. You then rush manchuria and hopefully take some factories on your way. You won't be able to remove Japan from the war just yet since they will probably mobilize more divisions against you, as you approach Korea. Although now, it's probably imposible for them to break your lines, so use this time to build a bigger airforce with british (always pick the brits, as you can't continnue focuses if the befriended country surrenders, which is more than likely to happen with france) and a few tank divisions with german help. Also try to give your divisions some artillery. After your army has real guns and not just bags filled with rice, you should be able to overwhelm the Japanese in Manchuria and Korea, soley because of your far superior numbers. Take Korea and peace out. Then you can easily win the civil war becaus you have more divisions that the warlords have guns.