What To Expect From Japan?

[legionare117]

I will preface this thread by apologizing if the subject I bring up has been done to death, and will make no complaint against the Moderators if they choose to close it for that reason.

I have been wondering lately about one particular Major Power lately, and that is the Empire of Japan. To my knowledge we have not yet seen the Japanese National Focus Tree, and as such I am curious what my fellow Paradox fans think we will see from the Empire of the Rising Sun? The branches that I can foresee are as follows:

Historical Tree: Go to war with China, join the Axis, push into the Dutch East Indies, war with the US

East Asian Faction: Align with China and help it to industrialize, form a Faction with China, push into Indochina and Indonesia

Second Russo-Japanese War: Build up and land army in Manchukuo, war with the Soviet Union, take eastern Soviet Holdings

Are there any other tree ideas that people have floating around?

 

[Ivan_W_S]

Yeah, I think we've seen all the national focus tree for all the majors, except for Japan, maybe it will be tomorrow's DD topic.

 

[General WVPM]

I think they will get 2 main paths, 'free Asians from European oppressors' and 'expand the Japanese empire'.
Basically the first would aim at freeing nations and the gains would be lower, not sure about world tension, but they shouldn't have much rebel problems.
While the second would be more like the historical road, carving out a large Japanese empire to fuel the home islands.

I find it very hard to imagine Japan and China being friendly, since they were at semi-war even in 1936.
It might be possible to support the clique's independence, for example by allying with Guanxi and preventing the Chinese from grabbing 70% of it.
Sadly I have very little knowledge of China in that era, so I may very well be wrong here.

 

[The_Meme_Man]

I would struggle to imagine Japan and China working together, because if Japan didn't join the Axis, China would, and both would be fighting anyway.

Methinks there should be the historical line, the anti-Comintern line, an anti-imperialist line (increase relations in general around Asia, and perhaps something to benefit from revolt risk in Asia due to independence movements, since you would be seen as liberators).

I think there should also be a pro-West line. I mean, it wasn't long earlier when Japan and America were good friends, and I would imagine there were sentiments to reconcile for that relationship again. It should branch between pro-British (join the Allies), and pro-America-exclusive (could get America's help in a separate faction even), since Japan might want to just stick with America as opposed to help out ALL the western powers (with America eyeing aggression towards the Western empires).

 

[RMS Gigantic]

A path to renormalize relations with the US through a nonaggression pact would be neat: US agrees to not expand in the Pacific while Japan agrees to skip over the Philippines, Guam, etc. in their Pacific conquests, with an added bonus of the two nations having a boosted opinion of each other.

Perhaps the name(s) of the focus(es) involved in this could allude to the 1912 and 1915 gifts of trees that the two nations had given each other?

Just imagine how this would affect the course of the war/history!

 

[henzington]

Personally my plan is to defeat china as quickly as possible and join Germany against the UK/French and take the Far East territories as early as possible.

 

[The_Meme_Man]

A path to renormalize relations with the US through a nonaggression pact would be neat: US agrees to not expand in the Pacific while Japan agrees to skip over the Philippines, Guam, etc. in their Pacific conquests, with an added bonus of the two nations having a boosted opinion of each other.

Perhaps the name(s) of the focus(es) involved in this could allude to the 1912 and 1915 gifts of trees that the two nations had given each other?

Just imagine how this would affect the course of the war/history!

Well, I think it might be more than that, since America (at least FDR) were pushing towards decolonization (by the time the war begun they pretty much guaranteed Philippines their independence later on), so they might expect some sentiments of decolonization on the side of Japan. Perhaps Japan would need to free Korea (as part of the nat.focus line), but it might be worthwhile if in return the US sent supplies to Japan (historically Japan wanted Korea and Manchuria not only for coal and metals, but also for food due to extreme food shortages in Japan, and America sending or selling food over to Japan would be a pretty half decent exchange, though maybe not for an ambitious video game player).

 

[CrasherZZ]

National focuses may be difficult to envision for Japan because the possibilities and variants are too many. It probably will end up being something very simple - no more than three possibilities. The military faction that ruled Japan in the 30s were not interested in "decolonization". They were really mainly interested taking colonies from the Allied nations. The US got on their bad side mainly because of their support for China. There was no possibility that Korea and Manchukuo would ever be released from their control. I see three possibilities:

1. Anti-Comintern focus
2. Anti-Allies focus
3. Non-aligned

The interesting thing will be if Japan can still avoid war with the US even if it chooses an anti-UK/France.

 

[RMS Gigantic]

Well, I think it might be more than that, since America (at least FDR) were pushing towards decolonization (by the time the war begun they pretty much guaranteed Philippines their independence later on), so they might expect some sentiments of decolonization on the side of Japan. Perhaps Japan would need to free Korea (as part of the nat.focus line), but it might be worthwhile if in return the US sent supplies to Japan (historically Japan wanted Korea and Manchuria not only for coal and metals, but also for food due to extreme food shortages in Japan, and America sending or selling food over to Japan would be a pretty half decent exchange, though maybe not for an ambitious video game player).

I figure the terms of the nonaggression pact can vary depending on who's playing the involved nations, especially depending on how the US AI/player weighs anti-imperialism against non-interventionism/the Monroe Doctrine, but that's part of why I figure it should be a part of Japan's tech tree, since giving up Korea etc. would be the decision of Japan and not the US.

 

[The_Meme_Man]

I figure the terms of the nonaggression pact can vary depending on who's playing the involved nations, especially depending on how the US AI/player weighs anti-imperialism against non-interventionism/the Monroe Doctrine, but that's part of why I figure it should be a part of Japan's tech tree, since giving up Korea etc. would be the decision of Japan and not the US.

Well, of course, naturally.

 

[RMS Gigantic]

Well, of course, naturally.

Indeed, my point is that giving up Korea might not be the case if noninterventionism is valued higher than anti-imperialism.

In fact, Japan and the US have some common ground in that they both opposed British imperialism in this era!

 

[mdw1985]

Since Japan starts only with 15 military factories and 10 dockyards (see cv warfare dd), i think, that the industry build up should be the first priority in the game, since they even got fewer dockyards than Germany. I'll go with a build up of civilian industry till the end of 1937, build up dockyards and military factories until mid 1939 and then push hard to the dutch west indies, indochina and siam, which should be easy beatable. I hope, that the focus tree covers a way for Japan, to go it's own way...