Re: Why Japan doesn't "Properly Invade" the Pacific

[Darth Modus - God of Richards]

Hi,

I'm a long time veteran of the HoI series and I always ever play as the axis on all my HoI3 games. I have the entire HoI collection from HoI 1 all the way to TFH and I have installed and tried ALL the mods available for the series. HoI2 Darkest hour for me has been my most favourite game of all since it has a stunning and accurate world map along with some very impressive mods that improve Ai and game immersion. However, after many gaming hours of HoI3 - THF. I have been trying to figure out time and time again the Ai when it comes to Japan, since I play as Japan most of the time. I have tried all the mods available for THF and although some do delivery an improvement of Japan's Ai, not one has delivered a definitive answer as to why Japan almost all the time simply doesn't want to invade SE Asia or the Pacific Islands "Historically and Alternatively" speaking.

Today, I have been reading countless threads on Steam, Paradox Interactive's own forum and V-Bulletin. A thread named 'Ai Japan still doesn't invade the Pacific' on V-Bulletin caught my attention, which I've had a thorough read of today. Basically the thread discusses why Japan is so passive in Asia-Pacific regions; taking into account experiences shared by gamers and modders. The general oppinion held in the thread is that Infrastructure and Port Levels both influenced the Japanese Ai behaviour on whether to or not invade the Pacific, mainly Dutch East Indies. Meaning that the reason why Japan did not invade or island hop in these regions is simply because the Infra and Port levels are low and not high enough to be deemed necessary for invasion by the Japanese Ai. The concern was that Japan did launch invasions, but that it aimed most of the time for India and Australia, most of the times ignoring the DEI altogether.

Now there have been agreements and disagreements to this view, so several gamers on the thread took up the task to test whether or not changing Infra and Port Lvls for each to 4 and 5 would result in any changes. However, only a few ever re-posted their findings and only one person's comment caught my attention. His comment was simply "NO". No changes resulted in increasing Infra and Port levels. Here is his comment.

By jju_57 -
"I did the changes by increasing port sizes and making sure important provinces are at lease level 4. Here is the result...........

NO CHANGE.

But I do know what the REAL issues are. There are 5 of them.

1) Japan guards the very long border of the SU with some of their best troops including marines. This takes up a big chunk of their ground forces.
2) Japan guards the border with Nat. China and Communist China after the NAP with real good troops including marines. This also uses up a big portion of their forces.
3) The remaining decent land divisions are in Burma fighting the Uk forces.
4) Because of the above and the need to have some forces in the homelands Japan has ZERO land forces left over to do anything else. They can't even take Singapore.
5) Japan has ZERO convoy transports and therefore lacks resources to run their industry which compounds the above problems.

Now maybe ports might play a part but Japan's problems above are more serious and they could do invasions even if the AI wanted to. I ran two different tests and the same thing happened in both of them.

EDIT: I see others have also found out the same causes.

I've now run 4 test games from 1936 through 1943. In 2 of the 4 Japan was out of convoys and had actually run out of steel. In one of them they were build lots more but were down to under 20 available. And in one of them they were fine.

I'm not saying convoys are the cause of the no invasions. I really believe that it is strictly due to all the land forces being on borders with SU, Communist China and Nat. China. What I was trying to stress is that if the problem of no convoys does hit Japan then they are in a death spiral. No resources to run IC so no new units or convoys. It explains why in some games Japan is steamrolled.

In the last two games I checked on the covoys more closely and then loaded up UK/USA. In the game Japan convoys were fine in there was a much reduced naval presence of UK/USA ships and subs. But in the game where they ran out of convoys the whole area was saturated with enemy naval units along the convoy routes. Basically Japan can be overwhelmed if UK/US concentrate against them. And related to this was how well Japan does in sinking enemy subs, which is strictly random number based."

After reading his comment, I immediately nodded my head in agreement since this is exactly what I had experienced time and time again with Japan. Japan expands, but runs out of convoys due to allied attacks. Japan then places too much importance with protecting its borders against Soviet and Nationalist China, even after having defeated the latter. So why is this?

This is what got me thinking and I've come up with my own opinion and understanding as to why this is. Simply put it, Japan from the very get go starts off in a very dangerous and potentially hostile position. Some may say that "its an island nation, what dangerous position?". This is true, but we must understand the fact that it has Manchuria and parts of northern China as its posessions. Due to this fact, it shares its borders with Nationalist China, who have claims in Manchuria and the Soviet Union which is a potential enemy if Japan joins the Axis, which it does almost religiously in every game where the Ai is in control. This means that Japan is constantly being threatened by the Soviets and even by Nationalist China from the very start. Also, the threat from Nationalist China doesn't descipate even after a Japanese victory against them since NC is never puppeted by Japan in any outcome by the Ai, hence why it is a threat because it remains independent.
The convoy issue is an issue, but it can be solved through building more convoys and escorts. So the main overall reason why Japan behaves like this isn't due to convoys, infra or ports. Its the georaphical position that its in and the neighbours it is surrounded with.

Now some may immediately disagree with my statements regarding the Ai. Some may say,

"Well in my game the UK and USA were very aggressive, invading places like North Africa and the Pacific Islands, so the Ai knows what its doing."

"In my game the Japanese Ai does invade"

In my opinion they are entitled to say this since game results do vary, but to my understanding and the understanding I have of several threads and comments is this. How often does it happen? In some cases Japan even loses against China, which may result in the lack of amphibious assaults by Japan in the Pacific. This again depends though on supply and demand. Supply being "are there sufficient Japanese convoys still around" and demand meaning whether or not Japan is still threatened and whether it still sees the demand in garrisoning its borders.

My answer for the US and British situations is this,

1) Both the USA and the UK start off on Islands. The USA being on a bigger Island due to North America's separation at the Panama Canal.

2) Both are surrounded by coasts all around, with great expanses of oceans and water in between threats. The USA has a distinct advantage geographically since it is so far away from both the European and Pacific conflicts, whilst the UK even though its close, but is fairly safe due to its large navy and colonies.

Some might say "well Germany can send in troop planes and para drop in the UK".

This is true, but when you consider the UK to be a vast empire with colonies everywhere. Even if the British Isles fell, it would simply move to Canada, hence it would continue to exist. Furthermore, there are no immediate threats in N.America for the UK, so it would just wait till the US liberates its home island, which it does. Also, production wouldn't stop even if the UK government is in exile over in Canada. It will simply build more factories and units to compensate for its loses.

3) The US is resource sufficient and industrially out weights all the nations at the start. Its distance from both the European and Japanese theatres of conflict means that it can simply sit it out and build up its armed forces in relative comfort. So typical US attitude is "who care's whether Japan or Germany invade Europe or Asia, we'll just build up and then invade".

4) There is no immediate threat to any of its borders. Canada is allied and Mexico has the tendency to join the allies later on. So the USA doesn't see garrisoning its borders as its no1 priority at all. This means that it can devote all of its time and resources in building up offensive units, hence why they invade rampantly throughout the Pacific and European theatres.

Overall my conclusion for why Japan doesn't invade the Pacific as frequently as all hope for is due to the fact that it considers itself in the start to be within a very hostile and volatile position, surrounded by enemies in all directions. This is why it sends most of its good units (even marines) to garrison all of the borders, which results in it having a very passive approach when invading Asia and the Pacific Islands.

The USA and UK on the other hand aren't that concerned with their positions at the start of the game and even later on simply because of geography, colonies and the lack of any serious threats along their borders, hence why the USA and UK invade a lot more than the Japanese. I've seen in some of my games the UK having countless hordes of infantry in Africa alone push up from the south. I have also noted people commenting that Italy is pretty aggressive in the Med. Well again this is due to it being a low threat zone since it borders its ally and close ideological neighbour Germany to the north. It also has a significant navy and the vast expanse of desert in between Libya's southern border means that it can send its troops steam rolling across north Africa. I've even seen it invade Syria and Palestine, creating a pincer maneuver against the UK. It also gets German assistance in North Africa.

Anyway, I just want to state for the record that everything I have put down here is purely based on my own opinion and understanding of other gamer's and modder's comments. I have yet to test this on HoI3 - TFH, with the exception for China since I am only able to demand the coast first and then possibly puppet them in another war. There isn't an option for me to demand both. The other alternative would be to wipe them out, but that would mean more land coverage to counteract partisan uprisings. I can say this though that through my many games on Darkest Hour, when I had a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, I immediately noticed the Soviet Ai re-locate its Far East & Siberian units west towards their fight with Germany. This is why I feel that if there were such events in HoI3 - TFH where Stalin and Japan sign a NAP, then maybe the Ai would do the same thing. This is a it from wikipedia,

[The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact (日ソ中立条約 Nisso Chūritsu Jōyaku?), also known as the Japanese–Soviet Non-aggression Pact (日ソ不可侵条約 Nisso Fukashin Jōyaku?) was a pact between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan signed on April 13, 1941, two years after the brief Soviet–Japanese Border War (1939). The pact was signed to ensure the neutrality between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan during World War II, in which both countries participated.]

I think it would be appropriate to enact this pact up until 1945 IF the Soviets still exist. In China's case, there should be an event that would allow Japan to take the coast, whilst demand it as a puppet state at the same time.

Anyway, thanks to all for reading this. I do apologise for its length, but I feel that it sufficiently states what I think the problem with the Japanese situation.