There are, broadly speaking, two different strategies you can use to conquer an opponent: blitz, and broad-front. I may provide a more thorough overview of the two techniques later, but this is a good spot for a brief crash-course in the two.
First, let’s cover the blitz technique. You start by determining your victim’s national unity on the diplomacy or intelligence screens. Then add up all of their victory points. Multiply that by the unity to find the minimum number of victory points you need to capture to knock them out of the game. Then identify which provinces you need to capture, and how to get to them as quickly as possible. This usually involves a combination of marines to capture coastal provinces and airborne or fast moving motorized/mechanized units to capture in-land provinces.
The benefits of a blitz strategy are pretty obvious. It allows you to conquer your enemy quickly, thereby giving you the most precious resource in the game: time. Related to that, is the fact that your enemy will gradually build up his strength during the early part of the conflict. It may take your opponent weeks or even months to mobilize his forces and move them to where they are needed, so if you can hit him while his guard is down, then you will have a much easier time of it.
While the benefits of blitzes are significant, so are the risks. All of your forward forces run a significant chance of having their supply lines cut; airborne and marine troops, in fact, start off with supply lines. They also frequently lack an escape route in the event of a counterattack. This means any or even all of your forces can be wiped out en-masse if you run into unexpected difficulties, including something as minor as bad weather.
Not only are blitzes risky, in some cases they aren’t even possible. Examples of this include conquests of the Soviet Union, USA, and Germany. The victory points of these countries are distributed in such a way to prevent any quick conquests. When facing these enemies, you need to use a broad-front strategy.
The broad-front strategy tends to be much simpler. Basically, you place troops in every province along the border between you and your enemy, with your flanks anchored on oceans, impassable terrain, or neutral countries. You then launch attacks whenever and wherever it is advantageous, and gradually move your entire line forward province by province. The pros and cons of this strategy are the opposite of those of the blitz strategy. It is much slower, and a successful conquest can sometimes require years, and because your enemy has a chance to mobilize and move troops to the front, you’ll be fighting harder battles. On the flip side, there is little or no chance of any portion of your army being cut off and wiped out.
A big part of the grand strategy portion of Hearts of Iron 3 is knowing when (and how) to use which strategy. Most countries can be rolled quickly with a fast blitz; unfortunately, the biggest and baddest countries can not. You need to be adept at both strategies to do well.
I mention all of this because it pertains to my strategy for conquering China. Prior to “Their Finest Hour” (TFH), the bulk of Nationalist China’s victory points were located deep inland; consequently, a broad-front approach was necessary. TFH brought many changes to China, including significantly changing the borders of the various states and completely relocating all of the victory points. Whereas a blitz was not even possible, now it is the most obvious approach. Oh well, at least my generals get some experience in.
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