Communist China impossible?

[Jopos]

I tried 2 times on ironman to survive as communist china and even if I allg with all warlords and nationalists Japan pushed us over. Help!

[NotSoRetroJakko]

Honestly your only hope is for Japan to NOT invade china, if they form the shogunate they wont invade and go straight for the Soviets, anyways the Commies are borked anyway because you have no choice but to sit around infiltrating to get things set up, but youll spend years doing this because it takes 60 days 3 times each per province, and good luck trying to invade, had a decent sized army for what industry i had and still took 4 years to conquor Shanxi

[Pyo-N]

It's easy tbh, my strat was rush Shanxi and Xibei san ma as soon as possible, you can manually justify war goal, but i'm using exploit weak neighbours focus tree, then form Chinese United Front, from there you just need to bunker up Beijing and put several divisions on Chinese coast.

After you have enough divisions, pull your coastal guard troops and let the Japan invade, then encircle them, rinse and repeat until they're weak enough. While building your troops, try to infiltrate as many nationalist china states as possible. When the nationalist manage to push through Manchuria, backstab them by forming Mutual Assistance Bloc faction, then launch communist uprising. Their troops should be busy at Manchuria, and most of their states are lightly defended. Note that by doing this strat, you didn't get peace treaty with Japan, forcing you to invade Japan mainland with paratroopers.

[Jopos]

Originally posted by Hype4(4/28):

It's easy tbh, my strat was rush Shanxi and Xibei san ma as soon as possible, you can manually justify war goal, but i'm using exploit weak neighbours focus tree, then form Chinese United Front, from there you just need to bunker up Beijing and put several divisions on Chinese coast.

After you have enough divisions, pull your coastal guard troops and let the Japan invade, then encircle them, rinse and repeat until they're weak enough. While building your troops, try to infiltrate as many nationalist china states as possible. When the nationalist manage to push through Manchuria, backstab them by forming Mutual Assistance Bloc faction, then launch communist uprising. Their troops should be busy at Manchuria, and most of their states are lightly defended. Note that by doing this strat, you didn't get peace treaty with Japan, forcing you to invade Japan mainland with paratroopers.

How can u invade them when they have bigger armies? Also, Japan attacks early in 37, which means i have `8divisions of pure infantry without support. Do you play on easier options or with mods?

[Pyo-N]

Originally posted by Jopos:

Originally posted by Hype4(4/28):

It's easy tbh, my strat was rush Shanxi and Xibei san ma as soon as possible, you can manually justify war goal, but i'm using exploit weak neighbours focus tree, then form Chinese United Front, from there you just need to bunker up Beijing and put several divisions on Chinese coast.

After you have enough divisions, pull your coastal guard troops and let the Japan invade, then encircle them, rinse and repeat until they're weak enough. While building your troops, try to infiltrate as many nationalist china states as possible. When the nationalist manage to push through Manchuria, backstab them by forming Mutual Assistance Bloc faction, then launch communist uprising. Their troops should be busy at Manchuria, and most of their states are lightly defended. Note that by doing this strat, you didn't get peace treaty with Japan, forcing you to invade Japan mainland with paratroopers.

How can u invade them when they have bigger armies? Also, Japan attacks early in 37, which means i have `8divisions of pure infantry without support. Do you play on easier options or with mods?

Nope, i play regular not historical ironman game, for early war with Shaaxi, they doesn't have enough troops to cover their entire border, you can exploit this and do small encirclement. For Xibei San Ma, should be easier since you have Shanxi industry to support you, and they usually does have weak northern border, which i usually use to rush their capital.

And didn't Japan usually invade on mid 1937 - 1938? you should be able to finish both wars already.

[~Kronos~]

I've been successful as well. Rushed Xibei and Shanxi, managed to get enough factories to produce infantry and support equipment (you want to rush engineer companies) and eventually even artillery, as Japan doesnt have TOO many tanks.

Japan never invaded China and instead went after me first, I was able to hold them back through tactical retreats and planned encirclements. (For a better, historical understanding, check out Hannibal's strategy at the battle of Cannae).

Once I sapped Japan of manpower and equipment, I marched straight into manchuria/korea.

Its also easier if Japan joins the Axis, as that will then likely pull them into a war with the soviets, and then the allies will send you lend lease

[KALLIN.VR]

Tried 4 times. I think that is really impossible to play with historical focuses.

[Torrens]

Problem is getting no resources (steel) to produce rifles at fast enough pace. Production suffers about 50% penalty with the lack of resources. So I can't produce more than 24 divisons at best.

This combined with Nationalist China AI always attacking into Japan's entrenchment and losing all equipment makes it impossible to hold the line long term.

I started another campaign as Nat China and its a whole different story when im the one controlling the most numerous army and I have resources to produce rifles.

[Hawk Tuah Pyro]

Nationalist china keeps on getting defeated by japan. Im pretty sure steamrolling shanxi will make it worse and I will also not have the concerned fox trait.
Edit: I though if you were at war with any chinese country during the japanese invasion the ally yourself with nationalist event wouldnt fire.

[Sean]

you try allying with the russians, it was a breeze

[Hawk Tuah Pyro]

Damn again china keeps on getting steamrolled. I automatically surrender when they capitulate.