What do you do when you defeat China as Japan?

[Slavicist]

Do you fully annex the Chinese, puppet them, or a mixture? E.g. take the coastline for bases and dockyards, like the AI?

The very strange position there makes it sometimes a bit bizarre due to the focuses. What is the most optimal way when it comes to exploitation of resources, production and manpower?

 

[The Colonel]

I think it's objectively ideal to do collaboration governments on nationalist china and then annex everything yourself. You'll get every state with high compliance bc Nat China has cores on it all. I guess you could argue then releasing the collaborationist state is ideal, but that's really up to you (IIRC the most "meta" way to approach is is to only release the collab gov if you're compliance is ticking down and about to fall below 80%).

 

[pro.gamer.69]

annex with 2-3 collabs is meta, start agency a little before '37 so collabs can start in early '37. not much else to it, like other guy said don't release collab government, and stay on civ occupation for full compliance growth

 

[Panther G]

Annex them all, put them under civilian administration (occupation) and let compliance rise.

 

[Slavicist]

What about the cannon fodder puppets grant you?

 

[Panther G]

When you go for world conquest, you need a prince of terror anyway. He in combination with high compliance will give you a lot of manpower.

 

[Duke_Dave]

Depends on it, I usually annex it, but make a collaboration government later on if I need the manpower. Since I hate wasting manpower on occupation I usually go for armored cars and prince of terror and agents suppressing insurgents, keeping China peaceful ain't that expensive.

 

[Panther G]

Armored cars cost starts at 4, you can get this tank for 2.4 with 80% hardness

 

[pro.gamer.69]

What about the cannon fodder puppets grant you?

not worth, you can make better cannon fodder with your own guns from the factories you'll get from the annexed land

 

[pro.gamer.69]

Depends on it, I usually annex it, but make a collaboration government later on if I need the manpower. Since I hate wasting manpower on occupation I usually go for armored cars and prince of terror and agents suppressing insurgents, keeping China peaceful ain't that expensive.

if you do 2 (with 1-2 40% lucky ones) or 3 collab gov missions pre-capping China then you should be fine with just cavalry, collaboration will be so high there will be practically no resistance once they've capped

 

[Duke_Dave]

if you do 2 (with 1-2 40% lucky ones) or 3 collab gov missions pre-capping China then you should be fine with just cavalry, collaboration will be so high there will be practically no resistance once they've capped

true that, although I don't try to play for 100% efficency and also like to use armored cars for recon and with mechanized divisions as additional firepower. Given they are dirt cheap to produce in huge mass using them for suppression comes naturally.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

true that, although I don't try to play for 100% efficency and also like to use armored cars for recon and with mechanized divisions as additional firepower. Given they are dirt cheap to produce in huge mass using them for suppression comes naturally.

it doesn't come naturally though since they're horribly inefficient...

 

[Panther G]

it doesn't come naturally though since they're horribly inefficient...

Yes, but as recon for armor divisions they have a place, as they give the highest recon value with 2.0 for recon I. This helps a lot to have the initiative in a battle.

For garrison light tanks (interwar light tank, cost of 2.4, 80% hardness) are way better. For suppression the interwar light tank and the armored car I are equal.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

Yes, but as recon for armor divisions they have a place, as they give the highest recon value with 2.0 for recon I. This helps a lot to have the initiative in a battle.

have you ever tested games with vs without recon and compared overall combat losses/winrates (or with light tank vs armored car recon)? i think you will be surprised to find no difference at all, and potentially larger losses on armored car ones due to increased overall division costs for fewer hard stats.

anyway i was more referring to the use of line armored cars in mech divisions, or making them for suppression. unless you have manpower issues you should almost never need anything more than cavalry, and as you say as well, if you do have manpower issues use tanks. seriously though, it's a million times more effective to use collabs to minimize occupation costs, and then steal their manpower using puppet memery.

 

[Casko]

What about the cannon fodder puppets grant you?

As others have said it before, not worth it.
Also with Prince of Terror, Collabs, and your few manpower boosting spirits, you get large amounts of manpower from owning the land anyways due to Chinese having stupidly high population to tap into.

At best it might be worth to puppet Sinkiang to act as a wall to block Indian invasion through Kashmir so you don't have to deal with zero supply mountain with zero infrastructure. as well as USSR's movements if you decide to attack Soviets later.

 

[Panther G]

have you ever tested games with vs without recon and compared overall combat losses/winrates (or with light tank vs armored car recon)? i think you will be surprised to find no difference at all, and potentially larger losses on armored car ones due to increased overall division costs for fewer hard stats.

No, not tested. In many videos I have seen that recon does get very low rated, but I use motorized recon for my armor divisions until I have "Sdkfz 231" available, then I switch to armored car recon, because they provide the highest recon value and the speed bonus for movement. According to the tooltip, the highest recon value or the skill level of the general determine in a battle, which side has the initiative. I also add motorized recon to my motorized brigades. In Blitzkrieg, speed is essential and way more important.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

No, not tested. In many videos I have seen that recon does get very low rated, but I use motorized recon for my armor divisions until I have "Sdkfz 231" available, then I switch to armored car recon, because they provide the highest recon value and the speed bonus for movement. According to my knowledge, the highest recon value and the skill level of the general determine in a battle, which side has the initiative. I also add motorized recon to my motorized brigades. In Blitzkrieg, speed is essential and way more important.

i agree the speed is useful, as are stats like breakthrough and attack, which is why light tank recon is totally worthwhile. but having initiative really isn't that useful, especially now since you can manually prioritize certain tactics - including ones equally good to/better than the "counters" the initiative will get you.

but again, instead of playing around in the theoretical i'd suggest you do a barb with armored vs light armored recon. you will find little difference, and any will be in favor of armored, because regardless of initiative and prioritization tactics are still just a way of making battles even more random in how they play out. there are exceptions for tactics that significantly affect combat width but that's it

 

[Panther G]

i agree the speed is useful, as are stats like breakthrough and attack, which is why light tank recon is totally worthwhile. but having initiative really isn't that useful, especially now since you can manually prioritize certain tactics - including ones equally good to/better than the "counters" the initiative will get you.

but again, instead of playing around in the theoretical i'd suggest you do a barb with armored vs light armored recon. you will find little difference, and any will be in favor of armored, because regardless of initiative and prioritization tactics are still just a way of making battles even more random in how they play out. there are exceptions for tactics that significantly affect combat width but that's it

It is also possible, that I do simply return to the motorized recon, it has 1.5 recon (second best) and gives equal or superior speed boni than light armored recon and you can skip "Sdkfz 231" tech. I would reject light tank recon, because of the 1.0 recon value and 5% lower speed bonus on plains compared to motorized recon. Also both light tank recon and light armored recon lower the defence value compared to motorized recon.

 

[Cavalry]

i agree the speed is useful, as are stats like breakthrough and attack, which is why light tank recon is totally worthwhile. but having initiative really isn't that useful, especially now since you can manually prioritize certain tactics - including ones equally good to/better than the "counters" the initiative will get you.

The tactics should be see on both sides. Get a "good tactics" is no use if enemy counter you. Prioritize tactics also not remove countering. Test show that the recon works. Now just how much is the cost to get it. Armored recon is best if you can still get initiative. But if both side rush recon advantage then AC may be a good choice.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

But do you really need to bother with countering when you can simply buff Tactical Withdrawal to max? It's not like SF is such a niche choice that it wouldn't be feasible.