Welp, I really dropped the ball on this in many ways. I'm not sure if anybody will ever read it but I wanted to apologize. First of all, I played all the way to 1960 or so in this playthrough, and I had over 3000 screenshots ready and was pre-constructing dialogue, but then I got involved with a (terrible) sort of girlfriend and all the ensuing problems that can arise, and to my shame that caused me to neglect this AAR. Even worse, my computer died without me having backed up any of it. I tried to recreate the pre-existing conditions in this AAR but I simply couldn't do it accurately enough, so to everyone who was enjoying this, I am truly sorry.
A sort of TL;DR as to what happened in the AAR. I captured India and all the colonial possessions of the Europeans, the Comintern took all of Africa north of Rhodesia. I moved a battlecruiser fleet into the Indian Ocean to wreak havoc on Allied shipping in the Red Sea, while Yamashita's Motorized divisions stormed across New Zealand and used it as a jumping off point for later against Australia, and the more traditional land forces took New Guinea in heavy mountain and jungle fighting. The Rikusentai island hopped all the way to Hawaii which became a killing fields for American warships and landing attempts, along with bait attacks against Attu and Adak, even Anchorage, where over 20 American capital ships were destroyed. With Australia attacked by the combined forces of Yamashita, Higashikuni, Tsukuda, Kuribayashi and Terauchi, even the vast inhospitable land couldn't stop me. At that point, with all the Pacific Allied fleets defeated, I landed with the smallest of my Armies in North Africa and secured the Rhodesian border with the Soviets, as well as taking Madagascar before they could. I also invaded Neutral Afghanistan as a future attacking point against the Reds.
Following the last naval battle of the Pacific, off the Coast of Vancouver, in which the Yamato classes got to sink several Iowa classes, I stormed the west coast. Thus began the bloodiest slugfest I think I will ever see in a video game. The Americans threw seveal armored divisions at me in the mountains of Alaska, all while airplanes pummeled me in the south, the IJAAF barely managing to keep the scores even with the USAAF. Vancouver was taken with the least resistance, but the sheer amount of distance needed to travel and the sporadic ways in which the Canadians fought, I'll say for sure the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Alberta and BC were the most annoying theater I fought in. Despite huge losses on both sides, I was keeping around a 1.5 KD/R against the Americans, and managed several helpful encirclements in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, leading to hundreds of thousands of American casualties. The rest of the west coast was free for me to invade all the way up till Colorado, which we'll get back to later. Once out of Oregon, Yaamashita's forces stormed through Northern USA without much oppostion until Michigan, which became so bloody I had to deploy a new secret weapon. With my tank technology behind the Americans, I dispatched Yamashita to help subdue Canada quickly as Motorized divisions move quicker. In Michigan I threw infantry divisions armed with mobile AT and Artillery to trash the American tanks, which, with Air Superiorty established, at least over Michigan, took heavy losses, and I was *finally* able to capture Detroit, the Motor City.
Further south, several Rikusentai and Higashikuni stormed through Nevada and New Mexico as fast as they could, meeting little oppostion as they were drawn north into the bloodiest fights of the American War. Their goal: The Nuclear Reactor in Texas, which they captured and dismantled in time before the Americans could develop Nuclear Arms.
Now, to the north...
Colorado and Utah was the site of some of the worst fighting imaginable. Despite dealing more death than they took, it was still a huge loss of life for the Japanese Empire. Even with Mountaineer Leaders and Mountaineer Divisions. the sheer numbers of men and the material thrown at them was colossal. It was there that the Japanese first deployed the G10N Fugaku and the Kagu-tsuchi, the Nuclear Bomb. Initially intended to take out massive, sprawling American industrial complexes, it was employed Tactically several times in the over Three Years of fighting in Colorado and Utah, most notably in Colorado Springs and Salt Lake city. When first dropped on MacArthur at Colorado Springs, it killed 57,000 American soldiers instantly.
In the North, once Canada was vanquished and puppeted, Yamashita, now world famous for his mechanized Infantry and Tank rushes, and now equipped with the fearsome Chi-Ri, met his equivalent, the daring American Marshall George S. Patton. Meeting in Upstate New York, time and time again they clashed with no decisive outcome. Eventually Patton had to withdraw as Independent Quebec forces, under the training and equipment of Japan, invaded Maine.
Once out of the Mountains and on the open ground of Tornado alley, American morale simply seemed to collapse, with millions of lives lost fighting the Comintern and the Empire, it was by far the worst war in American history, and with the largest of Japan's nuclear bombs, Sakurajima, dropped on Pits burg, leaving the greatest Industrial Hub in the US a smoldering crater. The last pockets of resistance were in Florida, Baltimore and Manhattan. Even Kuribayashi took Washington without much of a fight worthy of note. To the south, the IJN had helped the Rikusentai invade Mexico and other Central and Southern American countries who had foolishly challenged the Empire. With the Panama Canal under control, they sent the Indian Ocean Battlecruisers, thin enough to go through, to take the British and American colonies in the Caribbean. Eventually the US ceased to exist, being replaced by independant California, governing from Baja to Vancouver, to the North an occupied Alaska to provide resources to Japan. To it's east, lied independent Texas, and to it's east lay the new CSA, with all the remaining land divided up in between them and Japanese Canada, Republic of Quebec, or Occupied directly by Japan to oversee resource extraction.
Despite the loss of all their allys, the British did not negotiate. Taking time to lick their wounds following millions of casualties, and at this point, 1957, twenty years of war, Japan remained dormant until 1959 when they launched an all out Assault on the Soviet Union. Ushijima and Sugiyama attacked out of Northwest India and Afghanistan with the Mountaineer Army, while Yamashita and the Mechanized Armies attacked Vladivostok before sweeping northward and cutting off Kamchatka, to be taken by the Rikusentai. To the west, the Manchurian and Chinese Armies, operating without Japanese support, liberated Mongola and Tannu Tuva from Soviet Control. Attacking out of Xinjiang was Kuribayashi's Mechanized Army. This massive front streched hundreds of miles, yet the Soviets offered little resistance. Their air foces were laughably inadequate, being unable to protect their Nuclear reactor from being destroyed by a Nuclear bomb, courtesy of the IJAF. On the other side of the world, the Jungle Veterans of the Pacific pushed back, with immense casualties on both sides, the Soviet Forces in Darkest Africa, eventually pushing them all the way to the borders of the Sahara when the war ended.
Once Eastern Siberia was under control, and the IJAF moved into abandoned airfields, the fighting became fierce. Despite their losses, the Soviets posessed far more artillery, tanks and motor vehicles, but the inhospitable terrain and lack of air cover meant that even the Infantry Divisions of the Japanese triumphed in the end. It may have taken four years, but the Japanese eventually took Moscow, causing the Soviet Empire to shatter into dozens of pieces. After that, it was no contest. Yamashita and Kuribayashi swept into Eastern Europe without opposition while Sugiyama and Ushijima stormed through the Mountains of Scandinavia to liberate the Nordic people from the yoke of Communism. Once in Berlin, Germany surrendered, and further to the west, Austria was liberated and it's monarchy restored. With the help of the still standing Imperial Roman Forces, France was liberated and placed under a Monarchy friendly to Japan and Second Rome. Eventually, all that was left was Old Britain. The sun had, indeed, set upon them. Once the strongest navy in the world, their navy, tailored towards combat in the North Sea and Atlantic, was brushed aside by the sheer size of the Pacific Tier Imperial Navy, and several Rikusentai were landed in Whales and Ireland, to be linked up with Paratroopers landing near dover. It was suggested to drop a Kaga-tsuchi on London, but the city was deemed of too much historic and cultural value. Once the south coast was under Control, the Mechanized Armies of Kuribayashi and Yamashita were landed, and the greater part of England was encircled, making England a pocket that collapsed when pressed upon. With only Scotland remaining, England surrendered.
The post war arrangement had most countries in Asia gaining independence, outside of a few areas of import under direct Japanese control, but bound by oath to aid and be aided by Japan. The Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere spread from Iran in the west (Liberated from Soviet Occupation) to Tasmania in the South, to New England in the East, to Alaska in the North, and countless Slavic and Siberian micronations in the northwest. This was the most costly war in human history, with over two hundred million dead, and there has not been a war since, between any major power, at least, although sadly many border disputes and proxy wars continue to this day. Besides Japan, Italy emerged hugely victorious, it's lands spreading from Southern France in the Northwest, all the way east to Anatolia, and then to the southwest, with Egypt, Libya, Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco. The extend of land it controlled was greater than even First Rome, and that was without counting Switzerland, Austria and Spain, nations many accuse of simply being puppets of Italy.
The sheer cost of life and the fanaticism both sides possessed caused immense anti war sentiment that continued to this day, with all major powers believing that any war in the future will lead to mankind's extinction. Despite it's immense losses, Japan emerged the least unscathed as it had the vast manpower of Asia to draw upon. By the 1970's Japan was pioneering Space Exploration, and by the 2010s had established an international colony on Mars alongside Second Rome, various American and Canadian Nations, Britain and Ireland, France, and members of the Slavic and Oceanic Confederations.