This guide is a strategy for a very strong start as Japan, one that enables you to take over at least the USA, Iran, Siam, China, and the great majority of the USSR before 1942. It assumes a familiarity with the game mechanics, like ordering a naval invasion, as well as basic competency with troop management to get encirclements and the like. This isn't for you if you're brand new to the game, but is for more of an intermediate player looking for an optimal Japanese strategy. This guide does not go to the point of world conquest, but sets you up very well for one.
- Justify in Central America
- Declare War and invade America
- Justify Against and Invade Siam and Iran
- War with China
- Race for Russia
- General Notes
- Justify on a Central American country.
Begin producing light tanks and trucks, but these aren't a priority. There's no problem finishing construction of the boats that are already started, but the only boats that really need to be produced are convoys and either 1936 hull submarines or cruiser submarines, which will require 5 Naval EXP to meet requirements, which can be had quickly through naval exercises of just the bottom two fleets. Stop importing oil. Go ahead and train three more marine divisions, but you shouldn't need more than that at this point. Park the navy in the Kuril Islands. Position planes in the airbases on Okinawa and Marcus Island or Iwo Jima and set them to naval bombing, for killing American subs later, and do the same at the airbases in Kanto and Tohoku. I like to take 14 of the divisions and set them to guarding ports in Okinawa, Taiwan, Iwo Jima, Marcus Island, Kyushu, Southern Honshu, Shikoku, and Saipan. Take another division and put him on Okinawa with either a fallback line on the port, or with a port defending order. The Okinawa defense is most important as I've found that this is where the USA likes to invade most often, though I wouldn't want to leave the rest undefended.
Position planes in Tohoku, Kanto, Okinawa, and Saipan and set them to air superiority and naval bombing. It may be useful also set Okinawa to ground support, in case there is an invasion there. The planes in Saipan should also be set to port strike, so as to attack ships docked in Guam. I've found that the American like to put all of their battleships in Guam, and since there is only a level 1 port there repairs will be very slow. So by bombing this port you can tie down all of the American battleships, in addition to whatever else they put there, which will make naval superiority much easier later.
2. Invading America
There are two ways in which invasions can be conducted: through Alaska and into Washington, or straight into Washington. My preference is actually for the former, as it pulls American forces out of the continental states and into Alaska and allows for safer transport of reinforcing armies and supplies. The advantage to invading straight into Washington is that if it succeeds, it is faster. For me, the Alaska plan is plenty fast and at least seems more reliable - if only slightly. I'll describe the Alaska plan first.
Invasions should be from the Kuril Islands to Alaska and the port just east of Amori to Seattle. This invasions should be planned out and ready to start as soon as the war is declared, though the Seattle invasions won't be able to go immediately. There is one tile in Alaska that you can invade, which is the westernmost tile of the mainland - don't invade the archipelago. Your navy has just enough range to get supremacy for an invasion there, but no where else. It's important to have Hitoshi Imamura as the general of the army invading Alaska for his Commando trait. I like to use the pony soldiers for this invasion as there will be no resistance on the coast and speed of the horses is useful in Alaska. Immediately after landing in Alaska begin constructing a naval base and send half of the divisions south, to expand the front line, and draw an attack through the state to build up planning bonus. The American fleet will not be in position for this immediate invasion, so only a small part of your navy is necessary for supremacy. You can assign a fleet or two to defending convoys and hunting submarines off the Coast of Japan and in the East China Sea, but it's not worth the oil committing a significant part of your fleet to this - your planes will do most of the work. After the naval base is constructed, then start importing oil - around 4-6 - or your navy will quickly deplete your reserve and your tanks and trucks will be rendered useless once they've landed.
The second invasion should be from the port in North Tohoku to Seattle, though the invasion can also be from the Kuril Islands again. I prefer Tohoku so that I can have these invading divisions in position without overloading the supply limit. There shouldn't be any difficulty gaining naval supremacy, at least for long enough to set off the invasion, as the American navy won't really be positioned to stop this invasion. There will most likely be American submarines poaching convoys off the Japanese coast, and they will attack your transports. If you just a assign a few task forces to convoy escort, and still have the planes in Tohoku, you'll be just fine and be able to kill off a few of those subs. You can successfully invade with 80% or so strength. Invade with the marine divisions and the . Invading with tanks or trucks will not be effective as they just don't have the organization. Once the transports make it clear of your planes' range you can move those planes to Alaska for ground support. You'll want to attack quickly in Alaska, just as soon as your organization is restored. Alaska is not difficult to take, and lets you wipe out two or three divisions, but its slow and attritional - thus why I like putting the pony soldiers there. Around this time you should notice an American invasion in Okinawa. With two divisions on the naval base, they won't be able to take it, but instead you'll often have three or four American divisions left stranded for you to wipe out. In all of my runs, they always invade here, and never any of the other islands.
Alternatively, to invade straight into the continental United States, you will need to produce cruiser submarines and put some fuel tanks on them. They'll have the range to reach the Washington/Oregon/California coastline. You can draw up an invasion into anywhere they can reach, really, and set the subs to work in the necessary sea regions. The US Navy won't be active the moment they first enter the war, so there is a brief space in which your few cruiser submarines will have the supremacy necessary to launch an invasion. My recommendation is to still go for Seattle, more than anything because I like it's border with Canada and the peninsula to the West for creating encirclements. As noted earlier, the biggest risks in this strategy are that the US Navy immediately gains naval supremacy where the rest of your ships can't reach and intercepts your convoys, or that without a few extra divisions being shipped up to Alaska there is just too strong a defense of the ports you are trying to invade - though the latter is only a minor risk.
Immediately after landing in Seattle, send over the rest of your divisions that aren't defending islands or in Alaska and before they arrive begin pushing out. You want to try to get beyond the Cascade Mountains, that run right past Seattle, and to Portland before the Americans can get into position to defend. Keep in mind that you have to defend Seattle, so it's a good idea to put a couple divisions there on a fallback line. The American AI is very aggressive in trying to invade every port of theirs you capture on the Pacific coast, but this gives great opportunities for wiping out divisions as two or three division will often end up landing adjacent to ports. Positioning two Hohei Shidan divisions on each port you take, on a fallback order, will be sufficient to keep the port whilst letting 6-7 divisions land on either side. Those divisions will be stranded and wear themselves out trying to capture the port, and you can just wipe them out with a counterattack. This is something you should be doing at every Pacific port, until the entire coast is captured or they run out of divisions. After all your division are across the Pacific, there's not really a need to keep your fleets out, unless you've been losing too many convoys, so protect them and save oil by sending them home. It's important to keep an eye on your war support, and on the convoy raiding. If the American subs are raiding your convoys successfully enough it will lower your war support, and if it drops below 90% then the National Defense State focus will only give war support, rather than changing the economy law. And if it really gets out of hand, you can bleed down 40% or so war support. Usually your planes should be good enough at killing subs that even though you will be losing some convoys, it won't be enough to significantly impact war support, though it doesn't hurt to have some convoy escort.
With reinforcements arriving on the American coast, I've found that efficiency is really key here. You'll have enough divisions that you can win just by aggressively attacking the line, but this is just not an efficient use of resources and ends up not being especially fast. Instead, just look for weak points and use your trucks, especially, as well as horses to create encirclements. There's no need to be too ambitious with this, but look for one or two divisions to wipe out at a time and keep in mind that you'll probably wipe out 14-28 divisions that attempt naval invasions if you are defending the ports correctly. It isn't too difficult, nor does it take too long, to get them down to only a couple or even zero divisions, at which point you can just race across to the East Coast. The very achievable goal is to win by Christmas 1937. Do be careful to not underestimate the American behemoth - they can still pump out new divisions and encircle isolated divisions of yours if you aren't paying attention. Falling behind on production is expected. Rifles are the most important piece of equipment here, and you want to try and not fall more than 30 days behind rifle production. Other than that, make sure to conserve tanks and trucks and produce just enough so as to not lose divisions. Importing oil is touch and go - especially as you take California and Texas you'll be extracting quite a bit yourself.
If you chose to make the original justification on Mexico, then my recommendation is to move over the 15 divisions that had been defending ports back home over around the time that you reach the Mexican border and just use them to ideally hold the Mexican army in the west while you sweep down Eastern Mexico to Mexico City and whatever else is needed for victory. If you chose Cuba or something like Panama, then just bring over those same divisions and launch a naval invasion from Texas. Wait until the USA has capitulated before bringing any fleets into the Gulf of Mexico, and you may have to move the fleets over before being able to actually assign the regions you need.
3. Invading Iran and Siam
You can wait until actually declaring the first war to then justify on Iran and Siam. If you do them one at a time it will only take 10 days and two political power each, since you'll be at war with a major power, and there should be no guarantees as the world tension will be below 25%. I don't see a reason to begin these invasions before finishing up in North America, but the invasions orders can be drawn any time. Divisions do not actually have to be assigned to naval invasions for them to actually get prepared, the order only needs to be drawn. My strategy for invading Siam is to use Hitoshi Imamura to invade on the peninsula, to draw all the Siamese divisions there, then invade at Bangkok with infantry and a couple of mobile infantry to just rush down victory points. I do expand out with Hitoshi Imamura's divisions then build a port behind the men, just in case something goes wrong.
Invading Iran is the reason for the 1936 hull submarines - if you opted against cruiser subs. Iran won't have any navy, so you actually will just need one sub for naval supremacy, but it has the most range out of all the boats you can build and actually has enough range to reach Iran without taking Siam first - granted, you will need docking rights from Italy to do this. Iran will have its port defended, but your marine and Hohei Shidan divisions are strong enough to push their way through. Once you've landed, 24 divisions is more than sufficient to win, but Iran can be fairly stubborn and even have a few Soviet volunteers. Just like the Seattle invasion, push out a little bit right away, but keep the port defended. The tile in between the two ports is very good spot to wipe out divisions, as is Sistan. If you send over the trucks and manage to wipe out a few divisions, you may be able to just pin the Iranian army in place and send the trucks through a gap to rush down victory points. You should aim to be finished with Siam and Iran by Christmas 1938.
4. Invading China
One thing that is, as far as I can tell, essential is that you strengthen the Koboda Faction. Creating the Greater East Asia Co-Posperity Sphere triggers the formation of the Chinese United Front. The sooner that you do this the better, just because the alternative to the CUF is that China will join the Allies once you declare war while Communist China will be guaranteed by the USSR. I've played through this many times, and I think in the end it comes down to a probability outcome, but forming the GEACPS will almost always result in the formation of the CUF, and I can't find any other way to trigger the CUF forming. If the CUF does not form, but China instead goes with the allies this is still a manageable situation, though not necessarily favorable.
The Bridge Blown incident will lead to a free war goal on China. You'll keep getting events about raids, but they aren't particularly consequential. The overpowered thing about how this works is that you don't even have to take the Marco Polo Incident event, but the Chinese will still trigger it happening and you will gain a war goal against both China and Communist China while at the same time completely avoiding the de-buff that comes with completing the focus. It bypasses both the Marco-Polo Incident and Secure China. This makes the war in China quite straightforward. This is totally essential. You should never take the Marco-Polo Incident focus. I have never seen a game in which China, of its own power, gives the Bridge Blown incident and allows you to have a free war goal on them without all the Marco-Polo de-buffs.
You don't necessarily want to declare war as soon as the war goal is obtained. Having no de-buff means that the border will be easily defended, especially if you drop a couple of forts across it, but every bit of army experience that the Chinese get helps them to eliminate their Army Corruption national spirit. So waiting until you're fully prepared to strike leads to a much cleaner war. The Chinese will put just about every division on the border around Beijing. There is a dock on the coastal tile of that border, in Tianjin, though it will of course be well defended. You can land an invading army just south of that port and quickly cut across behind the Chinese while pinning them on the front and using your best divisions to take the port. Doing this well allows you to encircle dozens of divisions - my usual goal is to catch at least 40 - in the Beijing area. To help with the encirclement, I like to spearhead into one tile in the west with an army of 24 divisions. The tile I like for this is not the one connecting to the river, but the long one just southwest of it.
If the initial encirclement was successful, then just by landing a couple of more times across the coast you can expand the front line rapidly and leave the Chinese totally unable to defend. Look for small encirclements of a division or two and just look to efficiently cut into the thin Chinese line until victory is achieved. There's not really a rush to start the war with China, except that you need it completed before Germany goes to war with the USSR, so I like to get the troop transport tech a little early, like the end of 1939 or start of 1940, and go to war with the Chinese then, just for larger invasions.
If the CUF did not form and China joins the Allies, I've found that the strategy I described above doesn't really need adjustment. Without the backing of the warlords, China will have fewer numbers on the front, and any British divisions sent in support will arrive too late to make much of an impact, if any. Once China capitulates, you can simply gain military access from the Germans, send over your navy and a couple of armies, and invade Great Britain from there. The English Channel is usually pretty well protected by the British navy and air force, but invading from Northwest Germany to the East of GB, like Lothian and Hull, usually works quite well. Japan has a much stronger navy than the UK, IMO, at the start of the game, and puppetting the USA in the opening war means that the British navy should be easily overwhelmed. Annexing the USA by this point, so as to gain direct control of its navy, removes all doubt that you can gain naval supremacy for an invasion.
In the peace conference, you should always puppet Communist China, if able, and then feed them all of the Chinese land. They, unlike the other Chinese states, will be on service by requirement, meaning that they will give the most manpower - upwards of 30 million.
5. The Race for Russia
The goal is to finish all of the previous steps before Germany declares war on the USSR in the end of 1941. By the time that happens, you should have divisions across the Soviet border more or less all the way from Armenia to Korea. You'll want to put all of you tanks, trucks, bicycles, or any other fast division in Iran, ready to rush across the Caucuses. The USSR will start sending all of it's divisions to the German frontline once Germany starts the War with the USSR focus. This gives you a good window for the border conflict, about 20 or 30 days after Germany starts the focus. You'll want to then generate a war goal on the USSR, using your claim on North Sakhalin, as soon as Germany declares war. This will only take 10 days. The USSR will send a few divisions back as you generate the war goal, but the war goal comes so quickly, and they send so few that it's utterly insufficient to defend. Declare war as immediately as possible and begin rushing into the heart of Russia.
Pushing out from China won't lead to a very high warscore, only 20-25% or so, as there just isn't many victory points to be captured in Siberia, leading to a low occupation, and you won't have nearly as many casualties as the Germans. This is why taking Iran at the start of the game is so valuable. It allows you to rush over a largely undefended border and much more directly run into Sevastopol, Moscow, Stalingrad, and other valuable points in the west of the USSR. Encircle all the divisions that you can as you rush north, but the main objective is to cut a line to Moscow, and hopefully Leningrad, before the Germans can reach either. Done properly, this will result in you having the highest warscore, in the area of 75% or so.
As you push into Russia, this is also a good time to mop up some minor countries. You can justify on the various remaining Middle-Eastern countries, as well as the Himalayan ones and just use a single army to take each one out. Justification will only take 10 days and since you are at war with the Comintern, they will join the Comintern as you declare war on them, since they are non-aligned. If Spain did not join the Comintern, then this is potentially a good chance to take out Portugal and thus gain a Western European foothold.
The peace conference should go something like this: puppet the USSR on the first turn, use the second turn to feed the USSR its own land back creating a wall - or curtain if you prefer - around the Soviet interior to deny Germany access to them, then take whatever minors are available. If Germany cannot puppet the USSR or have access to its land, then it won't do anything further, and this is true of all Axis nations.
6. General Notes
My preference is to take Superior Firepower. Mobilized is okay as will help with rushing into Russia, but I think Japan is at too much of a technological disadvantage to focus on tanks, as well as having no advisor to boost tanks but an infantry expert. It's also just not as helpful early because even though you end up with a lot of oil and production, these are both limited at the start. Mass Assault also works fine, but I just think Superior Firepower is stronger.
I like to rush the Supremacy of Will National Focus first as it gives a bonus slightly greater than having division attack, defense, and morale experts (an extra 2% recovery rate) for only 70 political power, so it's especially useful in the opening war as well as just being very strong in the following wars. Supremacy of technology would probably only be better if you do want to focus on tanks, for the research bonuses, but I've found that the research speed is not really an issue. The war with the USA is too early for there to be a difference, China will be behind due to its fewer research slots anyway, and the war with the USSR is really just a strategic overwhelming of their borders, so potato guns would be sufficient. After that it's good to form the Co-Prosperity Sphere early to trigger the formation of the CUF. The economy foci, everything from Guide the Zaibatsus to Spiritual Mobilization, are better the sooner they are taken so that the factories, economy laws, and research slot can have an effect for longer. The Zero focus is also one to prioritize. The difference between carrier and non-carrier planes is that carrier planes have less range (200 km at 1940 technology). You start with only interwar fighters, and a reduction to air research speed, until taking Unified Fighter Development just after The Zero. By doing The Zero early you can begin production of a 1940 fighter well before 1940, without sacrificing research time. I've found that it isn't even necessary to research planes until losing the research de-buff and only produce zeroes as fighters until 1944 planes are had. The difference in range can't be entirely disregarded, as there are a lot of large air zones in Asia, but it can be made up for just by spending a little exp.
The supremacy of Japan's navy is partly due to their great admirals. Remember to assign traits to admirals like Isoroku Yamamoto to gain the edge against the USA.
Don't give compensation for the Panay Incident. It will fire, even though America is your puppet, which means a free 100 political power.
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