Conquest of Communist China

     With Shanxi disposed of, we set our sights on the next natural target: Communist China.  2 Homen Gun, flush with victory, is launched across the Yellow river to avoid the painful contested river crossings.  VI Gun will launch the key effort, an attack from Hangcheng to the fortified city of Yan’an.  VII Gun will attack southward along the Yellow from Dongcheng, while VIII Gun attacks the western provinces of Yulin, Jingbian, and Wuqi.  The plan is designed to allow VII and VIII Gun to attack Yan’an from the north without crossing rivers, if VI Gun is unable to take it alone.

     We declare war at 9am on August 8^th.  It becomes immediately obvious we are dealing with a much more determined foe than Shanxi.  All communist forces are already mobilized and fully organized, and put up stiff resistance.  Communist divisions from Wuqi and Nationalist divisions from Tongchuan and Weinan counterattack VI Gun, while one division of infantry and two of militia under General Mao put up a fierce resistance in Yan’an.  VIII Gun also meets stiff resistance in Yulin.

     VII Gun makes the first headway, driving the communists from Shenmu.  The losses are very light; VII Gun, at full strength with 40,000 men, suffers only 44 casualties, while the communists lose 547 of their 8991.  Despite the low casualties, the battle runs for 3 days, and VII Gun did not occupy Shenmu in force until the early morning on the 14^th. 

     VIII Gun finally drives the Chinese from Yulin.  The battle finishes on the morning of the 15^th, making a full week of resistance.  We suffer our heaviest losses yet, with 446 dead from the original 35,000.  The Chinese lose 1471, out of 29,000.

     The Wuqi counterattack lasted from the 8^th to the 13^th; we suffered 86 casualties, and reduced attack effectiveness against Yan’an, while the Communists suffered 1153 dead, out of 14,992.  A  second counterattack lasts only several hours, and causes another 587 communist casualties.  After the Communist 9^th Infantry retreats from Yan’an, another desperate attack is launched, in which they suffer another 797 dead, and inflict 46 against us.  One of the remaining militia in Yan’an breaks and retreats, leaving only 9 Jun (militia) to absorb the brunt of the entire VI Gun.  The Chinese then launch their final counterattack with 1 Juntaun (mountain).  This collapses, like all the others, although with a mild 162 killed.  In the early hours of the 17^th, the last troops fall back from Yan’an.  Storming the city cost us 926 dead, out of 43,000, twice the previous high suffered by the VIII Gun in Yulin.  We inflict 1813, out of 31,000, a much lower ratio than experienced thus far in the war.  The loss of organization was also impressive, with the VI Gun reserve brigades being brought down to 6.2 organization, and all others in the 20s.  Troops occupy the city in the evening of the 20^th, and the Communists officially surrender a few hours later.

     As with Shanxi, the Communist China stockpiles were unimpressive.  We received around 30 units of money (monies?), about 3000 tons of supplies and a smattering of resources.  The total casualties from combat for the campaign were around 1700, two thirds of which were in VI Gun.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step

     My plan called for 1 Homen-Gun to focus on Nationalist China, by concentrating on Beiping and Tianjin, then crossing the Hai River, and fanning out across the country and conquer systematically.  2 Homen-Gun was to focus on Shanxi, supplemented by various chindai divisions.  V Gun of 1 Homen-Gun was to secure the border between the Homen-Gun, with cavalry units kept in a central reserve to help where needed.  Almost immediately the plan went off the rails as V Gun took much longer to occupy the mountains of Zhoulu and Yangyuan than expected.  I decided to throw caution to the wind and ordered 2 Homen-Gun to blitz through Shanxi towards the victory points at Hohhot and Taiyuan, leaving their flanks in the air.  While the chindai held down the forces along the border (somewhat unintentionally, they were less successful in combat than expected), VIII Gun broke through the front and turned north to capture Hohhot.  VIII Gun advanced through Datong to Huairen, then split into two groups to capture Shuoxian and Xinzhou, and hit Taiyuan from two directions.  Hohhot was captured by the 18th of July, Taiyuan fell on the night of the 20th.  Shanxi officially surrendered on the 21st, exactly three weeks after the beginning of the invasion.

     Shanxi, like all of the Chinese states, was not well-developed.  I usually plan on capturing large stockpiles of resources, supplies and cash when conquering a nation, but Shanxi had little to offer.  I received about 3000 units of much-needed supplies, but little else.  Oh well.  One country down, 76 to go.

     In the east, 1 Homen-Gun moved steadily through the Beiping area and across the Hai, but quickly ran into supply problems.  I Gun has halted short of Jinan, and is awaiting supplies and flank protection.  The remainder of the Homen-Gun is even farther back, having had their movements interrupted repeatedly.

     Upon the declaration of war, I sent my combat fleet out to patrol the coast lines.  Nationalist China has a  modest navy, made up mostly of light cruisers, but it requires dealing-with.  My gunship fleets engaged them in three separate battles, but these yielded no results and the Chinese retreated to their ports.  You can't hide from aircraft carriers, however, and 10 Kaigun (the Akagi and the Kaga) have so far sunk two destroyers and three light cruisers, and are currently working on another four light cruisers.

     Tojo's tactical bomber group is launching bombing raids in the Qingdao peninsula.  They are inflicting around 170 casualties per sortie, which is not bad considering the low level of technological development.  I prefer to bomb only during the daytime, to allow the bombers a chance to recover organization at night.

     Finally, there's been a few predictable developments on the diplomatic side.  First, I now have the ability to create Mengkukuo.  I don't know why I would bother doing that.  The only advantage is having fewer provinces to guard from rebellion, and it drops the amount of leadership, manpower and resources I get from the area dramatically.  Granted, there isn't much to begin with, but every little bit counts.  Second, I'm now getting faction invitations from Germany.  This is a fairly tough choice.  On the plus side, I'm pretty sure I need to be in a faction in order to receive the Chihli Gulf bonus (+20% research efficiency, +20% supply throughput).  It should also remove the dubious neutrality bonus (-5% research efficiency, +10% espionage bonus, +10% counterespionage) and allow me to get the naval supremacy bonuses.  These are some really big bonuses.  On the minus side, if Germany ends up actually conquering the USSR, the entire third phase of my grand plan becomes unachievable.  Even if the Soviets win, that may cause the Germans, Italians, etc to be liberated or puppetized when I beat the Soviets, which ruins the purity of my victory, and prevents the possibility of hitting the Soviets first and leaving the western hemisphere for last.  I'll put the decision off for awhile and mull it over.

     One last note.  The Japanese start with 98 ships, which is two less than the 100 required for the grand fleet bonus (+0.15 leadership, +15% organization regain rate).  Prior to "Their Finest Hour" I would build two additional transports just to get the bonus, but with the new landing craft, which are more strategically useful, take longer to build, and are not immediately useful, I decided instead to commission two light cruisers, the Suzuya and the Kumano.  These, plus a rocket test site, will tie up over a third of my IC for the next year.  My new brigade recruitment, then, is limited to occasional engineer brigades dribbling out to fill out the existing divisions.

Marco Polo Bridge

     The Big Day for the Japanese is July 1, 1937.  That's the earliest I can initiate the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, and thus begin the warmongering.  Over the last year and a half I've built an additional 50 brigades; most of these were artillery, but I made another three imperial guard brigades and a few engineer units.  My opponents over the next few years will be the various Chinese states, who have many infantry brigades, and not much else.  Thus, the artillery will come in handy, while anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and most other units aren't as helpful.  More bombers would have been nice, but past experience indicates my biggest obstacle will be supply throughput, not firepower.
     The Marco Polo decision gives a few other benefits, in addition to the war declaration and neutrality drop.  I get a modest 100 points of manpower, which is nice; more important, however, I get -10 to my dissent.  Over the course of June I dropped my consumer goods production to zero and stockpiled some supplies; they will be needed.
     Imperial Japan was renowned for intricate invasion plans, interweaving land, sea and air forces from many directions, with a wide variety of semi-independent organizations and multiple interlocking phases.  The invasion of China was no exception, with independent land and sea invasions all along China's coast.

The historical Japanese invasion plan, courtesy of "Their Finest Hour"

My plan is simpler.

My rather less sophisticated plan

My nod to "planning" is to keep several chindai divisions in reserve, which I can use to occupy victory points along the coast if I find them unoccupied.

Naval Strength and Organization

    Naval forces are strange.  You take years to build them up, then they sit around for another few years, consuming precious supplies, just waiting for the few brief hours when they’re relevant.  But, during those few hours, they are the most important parts of the game.  Then they go back to being nearly useless for another couple years.  Even so, I find the naval part of Heart of Iron every bit as interesting as the land campaigns.

     As with my air forces, I like to keep my navy fairly simple.  I keep my transports in separate fleets, and escort them with combat fleets when necessary.  I dislike submarines; they’re easy to sink, useless in battles, have a minimal strategic impact, and eat up way too much research.  So, my navies are generally made up of two types of fleets: carrier fleets and gunship fleets.  I use my carrier fleets for “backbreaking” duty.  I send them in for first, biggest, battles.  They help soften up the enemy’s major fleets, in particular wearing out the enemy’s air crews.  After the main fighting is done, they’re handy for port strikes and anti-submarine duty.  The biggest problem with aircraft carriers, however, is that they are only good for one or two battles before the CAGs wear out, and the entire fleet becomes largely useless.  Thus, the need for gunship fleets.  I use battleship-based fleets for finishing up the enemy’s fleets, wiping out the smaller groups, shore bombardments, and anti-convoy duty.

     For my carrier groups I prefer to use two full carriers, accompanied by 5-7 destroyers.  While light cruisers have better anti-aircraft, destroyers are still pretty good with AA, are better for submarine hunting, and are cheaper to build and replace.  I don’t use escort carriers; why spend three quarters of the resources for a ship with half the punching power?

     My gunship groups can get a bit more complicated.  My ideal fleets are two battleships, accompanied by 5-7 light cruisers.  Of course, I usually have many smaller capital ships at the beginning of the game, and tend to try to work those into existing fleets when possible.  I prefer battleships, though, because they’re longer range, bigger punch and better hull makes them flat-out better in combat than battle-cruisers and heavy cruisers.  My feeling is that if you’re going to have a navy, build one that wins battles decisively, and preferably without taking any major losses.  Cruisers have better anti-aircraft and mission range, but come up short when it counts.  As for the escorts, I prefer light cruisers over destroyers because they are more suitable in ship-to-ship combat, which is what these fleets are designed for.  I will, however, use destroyers in some cases, especially if I want to simplify my research.

     One of the drawbacks of playing the Big Three (USA, UK, and Japan), is that they start with established navies, frequently composed of ships that I wouldn’t build, and others that start to show their age about halfway through the war.  Japan starts out with 98 ships (including the destroyer being built), which run the gambit.  The 20 transports are somewhat useful, but with the new transport craft introduced with Their Finest Hour, these are a lot less of an advantage than they used to be.  The three carriers are good (carriers don’t really age as much as other ships), and the six battleships are also nice, but you’re also saddled with an escort carrier, four battle-cruisers, eight submarines, and 14 (!) heavy cruisers, all of which, frankly, are worth more as scrap metal than as ships.

     When playing as Germany, I take all of these lackluster ships and put them into one fleet, and use it as an auxiliary fleet, and just build the main navy from scratch.  When I’ve got this many, however, I’m sort of obligated to use them.  I divide up the aircraft carriers into two fleets, and split up the destroyers between them, making the fleets larger than they might otherwise be (12-13 escorts, instead of 5-7).  For the gunship fleets, I split them up into five fleets: one with two battleships (1 Kaigun, “Yamashiro” and “Fuso”) and the others with one battleship and one battle-cruiser (2-5 Kaigun).  I put two heavy cruisers in 1 Kaigun and three in each of the others.  1 Kaigun receives five light cruisers, while the others receive only four.  I hope that the solid anti-aircraft abilities of the heavy cruisers ameliorate the fewer-than-usual light cruisers.  Occasionally I simply leave the heavy cruisers as separate auxiliary fleets, using them in peripheral roles with no escorts; but I find they usually don’t accomplish much in those cases, so I’m going to try using them in my main fleets this time.  At the very least, they’ll draw some fire away from the battleships.

     I prefer leaders with spotter for my carrier fleets (they seem to have problems finding other fleets), and superior tactician for my gunship fleets.  I also have a fairly simple rank system: skill level 1-2 = commander; 3-4 = rear admiral; 5-6 = vice admiral; 7+ = admiral.  It isn’t perfect, but it helps the best admirals stay in charge.  Thus, in the summer of 1937 my combat fleet looks like this:

1. Kaigun	2. Kaigun	3. Kaigun	4. Kaigun	5. Kaigun
Vice Admiral Ozawa	Rear Admiral Mikawa	Rear Admiral Nagano	Rear Admiral Nomura, K.	Rear Admiral Fukudome
BB-I Yamashiro	BB-III Nagato	BB-I Hyuga	BB-I Ise	BB-III Mutsu
BB-I Fuso	BC-II Kongo	BC-II Hiei	BC-II Haruna	BC-II Kirishima
CA-III Atago	CA-I Izumo	CA-III Takao	CA-II Aoba	CA-III Maya
CA-III Ashigara	CA-III Nachi	CA-III Myoko	CA-II Furutaka	CA-III Chokai
CL-IV Mogami	CA-III Haguro	CA-I Asama	CA-II Kako	CA-II Kinugasa
CL-II Yuru	CL-IV Mikuma	CL-II Oi	CL-II Kinu	CL-II Abukama
CL-II Yubari	CL-II Naka	CL-II Nagara	CL-II Kiso	CL-II Kuma
CL-II Isuzu	CL-II Jintsu	CL-II Natori	CL-II Kitikama	CL-II Sendai
CL-I Tatsuta	CL-I Hirado	CL-I Tenryu	CL-II Tama	CL-I Yahagi
10. Kaigun	11. Kaigun
Vice Admiral Yamamoto, I.	Rear Admiral Koga
CV-III Akagi	CV-III Ryujo
CV-III Kaga	CVL-II Zuiho
DD 101	DD 202
DD 102	DD 203
DD 103	DD 204
DD 104	DD 205
DD 105	DD 206
DD 106	DD 207
DD 107	DD 208
DD 108	DD 209
DD 109	DD 210
DD 110	DD 211
DD 201

Air Strength and Organization

     My typical air organizations tend to be fairly simple.  I like my groups to be composed of single unit types.  Bombers I tend to stack 8-10 per group, while fighters, which take more damage and need to be rotated more frequently, I usually use in groups of 4 or 5.  I prefer leaders with superior air tactician, spotter and night flyer for fighter groups; fleet destroyer, spotter and tactician for carrier air groups (CAGs); and tank buster and carpet bomber for tactical groups.  I use large numbers of transports (sometimes half of my air force), but other than that, I like focusing on fighters and tactical bombers.  I will sometimes use close air support (CAS) groups, in particular in situations when I’m going up against large numbers of armor or fleets.  I have found that naval bombers are generally not worth the time to build; CASs and CAGs work nearly as well, and are useful for other missions, while naval bombers are pretty useless against land targets.  I don’t much care for strategic bombers, but occasionally use a group or two for runway cratering.  Rocket interceptors are obsolete nearly as soon as you build them, and I never bother.  Multi-purpose are a mediocre substitute for air superiority, and I don’t waste time on them either.

     The Japanese start out with 4 fighter units, 5 tactical bomber units, and 2 naval bomber units, as well as CAGs.  I have organized them fairly simply, with 1 group for the tactical bombers under Tojo, the fighters in another group under Watanabe, and the naval bombers in a third group under Takahashi.

Beginning Land Forces and Organization

     As I mentioned in my last post, a big part of my prep work involves reorganizing the starting armies.  I’m rarely happy with the structure of any of my divisions, and the hierarchy of the military.   I usually march all of the army units to one spot, and reorganize them all at once.  This doesn’t work so well for the Japanese, since the war starts fairly quickly, but I’ve found if I do the reorganization near the Chinese border, it works.

     For starters, let’s talk terminology.  After painstaking research (five minutes on Wikipedia) I have come up with reasonable approximations for organization names.  I prefer consistency over historical accuracy, so I will call all theaters So-Gun, and army groups Haken-Gun, despite the fact that these organizations had more unique names in reality.  I’ll use Homen-Gun for the army level and Gun for the corps level.  I’m not nearly ambitious enough to learn how to count in Japanese, so I’m just going to use Arabic numerals for Homen-Gun and divisions, Roman numerals for Gun, and some bizarre combination of UK-English, American-English, and Japanese for the So-Gun and Haken-Gun.   Infantry divisions will be called Shidan (which seems to be the consistently used term; does anyone know where Paradox gets Hoheishidan?); armor divisions will be called Sensha Shidan; Airborne will be Teishin Shudan, garrisons will be Chindai, and marines will be Rikusentai.  I can’t really find a good name for mountain troops, but the game suggests Gokujin, so I’ll stick with that.

     Over time, my divisional plans have evolved quite a bit.  My current preference is for three types of special forces divisions: airborne, marines, and mountain; three types of rear guard divisions: MP, cavalry, and garrison; and two types of main combat divisions: heavy and light;

     Special forces divisions are fairly self-explanatory.  Their roles are very specific, so I use divisions made up of similar types of brigades for maximum utility.  I usually prefer square divisions (four brigades), because they pack a bigger punch, work out better in terms of battle frontage, and are easier to deal with when transporting. 

     My rear guard divisions are for suppressing uprisings.  They are usually binary divisions (two identical brigades).  Cavalry makes up the bulk of the rear guard units; I like them because they are fairly fast, even in rugged terrain.  I use MP divisions on single-province islands, and I use garrisons on small 2-4 province islands, where their speed is not a factor.

     The bulk of my armies are made up of heavy and light divisions.  Heavy divisions are usually 1 brigade of infantry, 1 brigade of heavy or medium armor, 1 brigade of artillery, 1 brigade of anti-tank or anti-aircraft, and 1 brigade of engineers.  I have 2 anti-aircraft and 3 anti-tank divisions per corps; I typically use medium armor with the anti-tank and heavy with the anti-aircraft, but it depends on my tech research and industrial capacity. 

     My light divisions are made of 1 brigade of motorized or mechanized infantry, 1 brigade of light or medium armor, 1 brigade of self-propelled artillery, 1 brigade of tank-destroyers or motorized anti-aircraft, and 1 brigade of engineers.  I prefer mechanized and medium armor brigades whenever possible, but I don’t bother to upgrade earlier motorized and light armor units. 

     The terms “light” and “heavy” are a bit misleading.  The light divisions pack a bigger punch, use more fuel and supplies, and take up more space on transports, and are more expensive to build.  I call them light because of their speed, and the designation of the armor.  I would prefer to have all light divisions, but I’ve found this is far too expensive both for building and supplying.

     As a side note, I like to make a corps “reserve”, by adding the infantry, armor, artillery and engineers to the corps HQ unit, which effectively gives me 6 divisions per corps.  I’ve found this helps for several reasons.  First, it helps regulate the speed of the hq unit.  Having the corps HQ out-run the combat divisions creates all kinds of trouble.  Second, it helps balance the corps when it’s split into several provinces.  Five divisions split unevenly; six divisions split nicely into either two or three (or six) separate provinces.

     The majority of combat the Japanese face early on will be against comparatively poorly equipped nations.  Therefore, my heavy divisions will be 2 brigades of infantry early on, with the artillery and engineers being added in as they’re made.  I will start adding the less useful anti-tank and anti-aircraft later, once I get the superior firepower tech.  I will probably only have 1 or 2 Gun of light divisions until around 1941 or so, when I have mechanized researched and need the firepower to deal with the Americans.

     The Japanese start with 172 brigades.  The bulk of this is 89 infantry brigades (and 3 imperial brigades) and 63 garrison brigades, with a smattering of others.  I am going to split the infantry into eight Gun of five Shidan each.  Each Shidan will have 2 brigades of infantry or imperial guards, with artillery, etc., being added gradually.  The garrisons will be divided into 32 Chindai.  Initially I will need them for combat, but gradually they will be relegated to guard duty as I build up a more conventional army.

My main land forces organization - June, 1937

     I prefer to use leaders with the Logistics Wizard trait for corps and higher slots.  Supply requirements bring offensives to a halt much quicker than enemy forces, and stacking multiple logisticians helps alleviate supply requirements, sometimes by 50% or more.  This strategy doesn’t work as well for Japan, which has fewer logistics leaders than most other nations.  But I’ll try to cobble it together as best as I can, for now.  My best general with logistics is Kuribayashi (skill 4, offensive, defensive, logistics); he’s great already, but he’d be better with battle master too, so I put him in charge of II Gun so he can pick it up.  Other logistics generals are assigned according to skill, although considering the options, maybe skill isn’t the best word.  My best general overall is Yamashita (skill 5, defensive, engineer, offensive, trickster), and while I was tempted to put him in higher command, I think he’s going to be relegated to “Best Division Commander” for the duration of the war.

Japanese Leadership and Industry

     When starting out a game, I frequently spend hours reorganizing armies, setting up research and prioritizing my industry before the game even really gets going.  Let’s start with leadership and research.

Leadership

     The Japanese have 22.38 leadership points to start with, which is fair for a major nation.  Generally I put it all into technology development.  Diplomats are useless; I’m just going to conquer everyone anyway.  Intelligence is usually not detailed or accurate enough to be particularly helpful, although I do usually invest later on when I have extra leadership points.  Officer recruitment is necessary, of course, but inefficient until you’re fully mobilized.

     The Japanese start out with a pretty good level of technological advancement.  They already have many helpful infantry techs researched, including motorized, mountain, and engineer troops.  Air and naval techs are also pretty high, as are many of the doctrines.  I’m going to put 2 points into each of infantry, light armor, destroyer, battleship, and aircraft carrier techs.  I’m also putting 1 point into bombers, for 4 engine aircraft development (transport aircraft are a must for me) and 1 point into small fighters (for basic fuel tank).  I’ve got 2 points in theory – naval and automotive.  For doctrines I have three points in land (spearhead doctrine, assault concentration, and the very useful operational level organization), one point in naval doctrine, and two points in air (fighter doctrine for now).  I’m also researching agriculture and industrial production.  Generally speaking, here are my research priorities, from highest to lowest:

1.       Industry, agriculture, leadership, resources, computing

2.       Infantry, light armor, medium armor, artillery, destroyer, battleship (until around 1943), aircraft carriers (until around 1943), single-engine aircraft, supply

3.       Tactical bombers,  transport aircraft, naval theory, infantry theory, aeronautics theory, artillery theory, anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft weapons, light cruisers, engineer weapons, heavy armor, radar, rocket/jet

4.       Cavalry small arms, militia, encryption/decryption, strategic bomber

5.       Submarines, heavy cruisers, battle cruisers, atomic weapons, other cavalry techs, rocket artillery, super heavy armor, armored car, strategic rockets

               

     Usually I get into the 4^th tier techs fairly late in the game, and the 5^th tier techs not at all.  I usually don’t research techs which are 2 or more years ahead, for efficiency reasons, but in this play-through I may try ignoring those little angry red arrows, especially if I start hitting the fourth tier.

Industry

     The Japanese have a base of 94 industrial capacity (IC) in hard mode.  Combined with a war economy and starting techs, that starts my IC at 119.  Unfortunately, we also start out running a sizable deficit in both metals and rare materials, and not a lot of extra cash.  With many countries I start out by building more IC, but in this case that’s usually not a good idea.  I’m going to finish up the half-built destroyer, and spend the remaining IC on 3 imperial guard brigades and 12 reserve artillery brigades.

Beginning my Japan play-through

For the last week and a half I’ve been doing the data entry portion of my blog.  I’ve got the USA, UK, USSR and Italy entered in, and by the time I was about half-way through Germany and their godforsaken umlauts I decided to start up my after-action report / play-through sooner rather than later.  I’ve picked Japan for the first one, primarily because I have not played them often, or at all since I got Their Finest Hour.  I was never particularly satisfied with how my Japanese games had turned before, but I’m hoping that the changes made to the combined arms bonus and my own improved skill at the game will help.

Phase 1

My grand strategy for Japan is fairly simple.  One of Japan’s biggest benefits is the ability to fully mobilize fairly early in the game by declaring war on Nationalist China.  I will do that at the earliest opportunity.  Then I hope to be able to expand that war into a general Chinese war, by also involving Communist China, Guangxi Clique, and possibly Xibei San Ma, Tibet, and Yunnan.  If possible, I’ll extend even further against Siam, and I would like to hit Australia and New Zealand before they join the Allies.  If I can’t, then I’ll just declare war on the Allies as soon as possible, focus on British and Dutch colonies first, then Australia and New Zealand.  Simultaneously I will progress through British India, and then start to work on the Middle East, including wars against Persia, Afghanistan, Sinkiang, and Saudi Arabia, as well as the British puppet states.  I will send small groups of troops, probably transferred from Australia, to take Africa, including South Africa if necessary, while focusing primarily on conquering North Africa and the British Mediterranean (Malta, Cyprus, Gibraltar).  I will use North Africa as a spring board to Great Britain.  I hope to have the Allies knocked out of the game by mid-1942.

Phase 2

At this point I will have I have control over a very large, but unfortunately not very useful, section of the globe.  I will probably want to take a brief breather to reorganize the army.  Smaller wars against Spain, Portugal, Turkey, and perhaps other still-neutral European nations will keep me busy for awhile.  Then I will focus my efforts, most likely, on the Western Hemisphere.  I will try to invade from both the East and West, focusing my main armies on the USA/Canada while taking over the Latin American countries with special forces troops.  I plan to have the West under my control by mid 1944.

Phase 3

Then will come time for the battle-royal.  I have left the Germans and the Soviets to duke it out, and that little skirmish should be over by mid 1944.  Generally the Soviets win, but with me wiping out the British, the Germans have a fair chance of winning.  Either way, the grand finale will pit my forces of East and South Asia, Africa, Oceania, and America against the combined forces of Continental Europe and Russia.

I have never really gotten much past phase 1 of this plan before.  Even conquering Great Britain is a big step, and things usually bog down deep in the Americas.  If I get even phase 2 completed successfully by 1947, I’ll consider it a victory.

Finally, a few notes.  I’ll be playing on hard difficulty.  I tend to use very hard when playing as the US, Soviets or Germany, but based on my past experience with the Japanese, I think hard is challenge enough.  Second, I like to do everything manually.  Research, division design, assigning supply routes, everything.  So, the game may take a while.  Also, I generally prefer to use semi-accurate historical terms, but my knowledge of the Japanese language is nonexistent, so I apologize in advance if any of the names or terms are factually or grammatically incorrect.

Welcome

Welcome to the Wargamer with Free Time blog.  This blog is centered on “grand strategy” games, in particular those made by Paradox, such as Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Victoria, and Hearts of Iron. 

I started gaming in the 1980s, and have fond memories of the early SSI and Sid Meier games.  For better or worse, games like Dune 2, Command and Conquer and Age of Empires came along pretty well killed off turn-based strategy games, and people like me were stuck playing and replaying Panzer General 2.  I was fortunate to find a demo for EU3 several years ago.  It had everything I was looking for in a wargame.  Historical minutiae? Check.   A chance to satisfy my OCD by meticulously naming everything?  Check.  Staggeringly long games that eat up hours a day for months on end?  Check.  What more could I ask for?

So, after playing EU3 to exhaustion, I went on to Hearts of Iron 3, my time sink for the last year and a half.  With HOI 4 due to be released in early 2015, I decided to start up this blog/guide to benefit players who might want to revisit it later, or just to satisfy my micromanaging fix for a few months.