Ok, how do I play Japan?

[Ragnarok]

I went down the manchurian project line first, built up my economy. Went to Purge the Kodaka. From there, I went guide the Zaiba, got National Mobiliozation law, then went over to the marco polo incident. As soon as this hit, I declare war.

The warfront, I have no idea what to do.

First game was a MP and I couldn't naval incade cause the player guarded the ports and I couldn't do anything without bieng wiped out.

Second game was a single player.... and the chinese front happens. So two fronts to start on the front line, not enough people to defend. I went to naval invade, and I took two ports, but im stuck on this small sliver of land and im being held back and my manpower is dying out quickly. The front line fell apart to a punch from the chinese player and im losing and I cant fix it. I dont have the manpower to defeat Japan but i seems the AI can do it but I cant.... so what exactly am I supposed to do?

None of my friends play Japan and only play Germany/Italy, so they arae absolutely no help, and even then, they tell me im wrong in waht im doing but offer no help. So please, any help? Im tired of playing Italy and Germany only to learn the game. Its exhausting and honestly, its going to burn me out quick.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Laffey Drinks:

Me personally, I prefer to start off making military factories. Rarely will I ever bother making civilian factories. And I will only ever build dockyards if maintaining naval dominance is required for my goals.

You're going to want 15 factories pumping out infantry equipment, artillery, and support equipment in that order. Make sure you have enough steel to keep at peak production cap for those 3 at least. Also make sure you are producing fighters and CAS, one factory should suffice until you notice the losses are outpacing the production. Always keep CAS above fighters in the production queue so that it gets priority resources.

Don't bother mixing in more than the engineers with 7-2 for now. If you aren't gaining ground then add a few tank divisions to the mix. If you're fielding armies of 24 then convert 2-4 to tanks.

You might also just be bottle necked. Your supply lines might not be good enough(indicated by a red skull on the units when zoomed into them). In that case you're going to want to max build a few ports in Hebei and Korea. Also max build infrastructure where you can leading from those ports to the front line. Prioritize those builds over everything else if this ends up being the case.

Also make sure you have one fleet defending convoys in the waters between your home islands and the mainland ports you built. Keep at least one dockyard on convoy production.

EDIT; Although when taking China and Russia, TAC is better than CAS purely due to range capability. So also keep one or two factories on TAC production as well.

EDIT 2; 15 factories on inf, art, sup is the ideal end goal for the start of a war as a major power. It's not a universal rule for all nations, especially at the start of the game. Balance factory production with inf priority, art below inf, and sup being low priority when compared to the other two.

So max out Korea and Hebei ports.

Hmm.

Do I upgrade my infrastcture or do I trade? Also I lost all my convys even while I had subs defending them. It seems no matter what I do, I end up losing supplies cause I lose all my convoys.

Never have enough fuel.
Never have enough anything. I end up starved for resources and I can punch a hole now into china, luckily, but I cant sustain it and gain more ground. Do I just defend after gaining significant ground? I mean I figure I need to capitulate them quickly.

[Ragnarok]

So I looked up youtube videos as well. It says 20 width is better than 40 width because of multiple attacks or something.

Which is correct. 40 or 20? Im getting it from two different sources.

[Huitzilopochtli]

Originally posted by Barneys Had Enough Of You.:

So I looked up youtube videos as well. It says 20 width is better than 40 width because of multiple attacks or something.

Which is correct. 40 or 20? Im getting it from two different sources.

20 is much better cause you fit 2 units into battle instead of one 40 and the 2x20 is stronger than 1x40. And hit the target from multiple directions cause each new direction adds onto your available width and preferably have all the attacks go in at the same time.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by RodentDung:

Originally posted by Barneys Had Enough Of You.:

So I looked up youtube videos as well. It says 20 width is better than 40 width because of multiple attacks or something.

Which is correct. 40 or 20? Im getting it from two different sources.

20 is much better cause you fit 2 units into battle instead of one 40 and the 2x20 is stronger than 1x40. And hit the target from multiple directions cause each new direction adds onto your available width and preferably have all the attacks go in at the same time.

Hmm. Thank you. I did 20's of course, but im still working on everything. This is not easy at all and ive spend hours today just trying to make a punch into the chinese forces wall. I pretty much go balls deep early on. Or should I wait it out and defend before making the attack?

[Grey]

Subs are bad at defending(they're made more for convoy raiding), use your DD/CL/CA fleets.

Trade a couple factories for fuel, just enough that you're gaining. Don't use all your fleets at once when fighting China or Russia, it's just a waste of oil.

20 is ideal, 40 is more of a flex.

[Grey]

It's a bit dated but it still should be of use;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOP758bvm5A

^Ignore this. I didn't realize how dated it actually was. Sorry.

If you have literal hours to spare(5 hours but it is mostly up to date), teaches most basics and some meta;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr0IWSQqBOM

[Huitzilopochtli]

Originally posted by Barneys Had Enough Of You.:

Originally posted by RodentDung:

20 is much better cause you fit 2 units into battle instead of one 40 and the 2x20 is stronger than 1x40. And hit the target from multiple directions cause each new direction adds onto your available width and preferably have all the attacks go in at the same time.

Hmm. Thank you. I did 20's of course, but im still working on everything. This is not easy at all and ive spend hours today just trying to make a punch into the chinese forces wall. I pretty much go balls deep early on. Or should I wait it out and defend before making the attack?

It's not useful to wait on the defensive cause in my war against China, they lost 12 million casualties before they seemed to be weakening. It's better you take over the Beijing area with a fast attack and then defend behind that river. Remember you can spam forts along the river and also along the Menkukuo border with China & her allies if you want to be defensive. Two or three levels of fort in each province plus a few infantry or cavalry defending plus river or hill terrain usually will hold out and sometimes you need to push Chinese incursions back out of your line.

Meanwhile land on mainland China with a half dozen or more marines, then immediately move in a full 24 division army onto the beach head and then rush inland to grab territory before their defenses gell. Then pull out your marines back to Japan. Build more infantry and tanks, then send your marines into another Chinese port and move in the new army and rush inland. On each front, load up a team of troops and tanks to punch through and surround small areas and evaporate the surrounded Chinese units. Keep doing that to wear them down and bite & hold territory. Wiping out their units is most important cause they have the manpower to repair damaged units so you need to kill them off properly to make progress in China. It gets easier over time as their numbers dwindle and your units get experience and you keep improving your templates with better equipment and your leaders get more skills.

For Japan, make some 20 width units and some half that size for defensive work like on islands and Japan homeland and to hold the border against Russia cause they attacked me suddenly and advance fast. Keep your islands garrisoned and put small infantry units on all of them cause you have to fight America after you invade the Philippines. And make ships all sizes and form them into fleets like big strong fleets for strike mission and light fleets for patrolling and convoy escort. Make some big Yamato BBs.

And have swarms of fighters and bombers working the Chinese over from the air too. The whole sky should be buzzing with Japanese planes and their red plum logos.

[Huitzilopochtli]

When you land forces on Chinese port areas, aim for their big cities, including their capital Nanjing, and secure them before significant Chinese troops can defend against your landing. Make sure you make enough tank units too. Tanks should have a few light tanks in a division and a half dozen or so infantry plus fill in all the support slots. Later you can get mech or use trucks but infantry with tanks are okay to get the punch you need to help against the immense hordes of Chinese.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by RodentDung:

Originally posted by Barneys Had Enough Of You.:

Hmm. Thank you. I did 20's of course, but im still working on everything. This is not easy at all and ive spend hours today just trying to make a punch into the chinese forces wall. I pretty much go balls deep early on. Or should I wait it out and defend before making the attack?

It's not useful to wait on the defensive cause in my war against China, they lost 12 million casualties before they seemed to be weakening. It's better you take over the Beijing area with a fast attack and then defend behind that river. Remember you can spam forts along the river and also along the Menkukuo border with China & her allies if you want to be defensive. Two or three levels of fort in each province plus a few infantry or cavalry defending plus river or hill terrain usually will hold out and sometimes you need to push Chinese incursions back out of your line.

Meanwhile land on mainland China with a half dozen or more marines, then immediately move in a full 24 division army onto the beach head and then rush inland to grab territory before their defenses gell. Then pull out your marines back to Japan. Build more infantry and tanks, then send your marines into another Chinese port and move in the new army and rush inland. On each front, load up a team of troops and tanks to punch through and surround small areas and evaporate the surrounded Chinese units. Keep doing that to wear them down and bite & hold territory. Wiping out their units is most important cause they have the manpower to repair damaged units so you need to kill them off properly to make progress in China. It gets easier over time as their numbers dwindle and your units get experience and you keep improving your templates with better equipment and your leaders get more skills.

For Japan, make some 20 width units and some half that size for defensive work like on islands and Japan homeland and to hold the border against Russia cause they attacked me suddenly and advance fast. Keep your islands garrisoned and put small infantry units on all of them cause you have to fight America after you invade the Philippines. And make ships all sizes and form them into fleets like big strong fleets for strike mission and light fleets for patrolling and convoy escort. Make some big Yamato BBs.

And have swarms of fighters and bombers working the Chinese over from the air too. The whole sky should be buzzing with Japanese planes and their red plum logos.

Im more worried about China. It's a struggle. Im going to redo my early game construction and try to get proper industry going. I will try a naval invasion but ive had bad luck. Ill try again but what's the point of Marines. What do they do compared to my 7-2.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by RodentDung:

When you land forces on Chinese port areas, aim for their big cities, including their capital Nanjing, and secure them before significant Chinese troops can defend against your landing. Make sure you make enough tank units too. Tanks should have a few light tanks in a division and a half dozen or so infantry plus fill in all the support slots. Later you can get mech or use trucks but infantry with tanks are okay to get the punch you need to help against the immense hordes of Chinese.

So combine tanks with infantry. So say 7 2 with tanks instead? Like copy my main force and go different 7 2s.


Anyways. Im out for the night. Going to sleep

[Beyaz]

Naval Invasion is not a good idea at the early game. Because you can't put many troops as you want. Try to build 7 inf 2 art troops to lead an offensive plan. You also need cav troops to decrease rebellions. You can build med-bombers for the long area of the Chinese land. And you can go for CAS bombers for a shock attack too. But med-bombers very useful at Pacific too. Try to decrease the limit of oil you used. Never build tanks for China if Chinese player is a infantry spammer. But if he build forts and 40 width inf you have to go for the tanks and artillery many more than normal. And you need tanks for the Pacific War too. Allies will use tanks for defense and attack. And if you build all inf you'll get destroyer before understand it all.

[Orxan]

Originally posted by Laffey Drinks:

Originally posted by Barneys Had Enough Of You.:

Dont really have anywhere else in the current focus tree honestly. You have no economy focus except the project.

Asks for advice and then proceeds to argue with advice given.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1780038040

I guess I just don't know what I'm talking about after nearly 2k hours played. :Aste_Esto:

hahaha you actually have reported me ? awww I am sorry I hurt your feelings

[Grey]

Originally posted by Papirus:

Originally posted by Laffey Drinks:

Asks for advice and then proceeds to argue with advice given.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1780038040

I guess I just don't know what I'm talking about after nearly 2k hours played.

hahaha you actually have reported me ? awww I am sorry I hurt your feelings

? I didn't report anyone. I got a warning too... The hell's wrong with you?

[Scrotum Scratcher]

40 width infantry and CAS will do fine against an AI. TommyKay plays a lot of japan, maybe watch his videos and streams.

[Ragnarok]

Alrighty! I want to thank everyone here for their help. I actually ended up conquering Japan by early 1940 and that includes ALL warlords. I did end up quitting without trying when going against hte allies but... im going to be honest. I didn't really find Japan fun.

But all this assistance, has shown me the way for other nations as well. I appreciate it everyone! :)