Help needed for Japan to defeat China

[Flip]

Hi all,

I am having a bloody tough time of defeating china as Japan. According to a friend who has done it, it should take about a year and a half. Well I am almost past my 2nd year, did ok, slowly secured some of the North, have a massive defensive line stretching just north of Niaking all the way to Mongolia. I have about 110 divisions commited and so far have killed about 1m chinese troops to about 150k losses myself.

However, I just got over-run with over 250 divisions! The biggest problem is that they so massivly outnumber me that any progress is a long hard slog and then they just push a half dozen super stacks against my thing front lines. Not sure how I am supposed to defeat them so assume I have done something horribly wrong. I cannot make troops as all my production goes to replacing losses in the field.

[IIIIlllIIIII]

Best way is to do a naval invasion.. its actually the only way i could take them. Now i dont know what year you are but if you start the game 1936 they have 5 million manpower and it wont be less in the following years. Their divisions are really bad however they got a lot of them and you will also have supply problems northern China. Do naval invasion and try to encricle them and take their supply. And no you didnt really do something wrong considereing the fact that china was incredibly weak in the past HOI games they seemed to "buff" them making them actually a real threat to japan.

If i can give you an advice, if youre not roleplaying or something, id recommend making it a puppet and you got a strong ally.. they have so much manpower that they can support you through entire Asia.

[Flip]

Originally posted by RueiAn:

Best way is to do a naval invasion.. its actually the only way i could take them. Now i dont know what year you are but if you start the game 1936 they have 5 million manpower and it wont be less in the following years. Their divisions are really bad however they got a lot of them and you will also have supply problems northern China. Do naval invasion and try to encricle them and take their supply. And no you didnt really do something wrong considereing the fact that china was incredibly weak in the past HOI games they seemed to "buff" them making them actually a real threat to japan.

If i can give you an advice, if youre not roleplaying or something, id recommend making it a puppet and you got a strong ally.. they have so much manpower that they can support you through entire Asia.

Thanks for the advice!

My initial assault was as follows

35 Divisions attacking northern china via Beijing. I had a marine army invade shadong and then a 24 division army followed them. I also had a 24 division army protect against the RoC border.

I had some initial success and destroyed about 30 or so divisions via encirclement but the problem is the front line is so massive now hard to keep it defended and advance and they just seem to have unending divisions. Will try to see if I can muster enough forces to take out the RoC, that way I will have a smaller front...hopefully...:/

[Smash]

I'm playing a Japan game (among others) and China got its ass whupped. I declared war on May 20th 1936 and had won by December 5th 1937 so 1 and a half years is certainly doable. I caused a combined 700k losses to China and Communist China and took 70k myself.

The answer is Encirclements Encirclements Encirclements, especially in the early days of the war. If you kill an enemy unit when it had no adjacent friendly province to retreat to it is completely wiped out. This is a lot better than just pushing the enemy back a a province and then having to fight them all over again once you've moved forwards. If you give China time, it can form up and hold a decent line against you.

When the war starts, a lot of their divisions will be out of place guarding other borders and it will take them a little while to come over and reinforce. You need to use this opportunity to make a massive encirclement of their forces that are already lined up against you, because if you can pull that off then they won't recoveer.

I encircled roughly half of Nationalist China's army by making two thrusts from either side that met in the middle behind them. Once i'd done that, I slowly pushed in on the cauldron and wiped them all out.

That was a massive blow and it tipped the odds in my favour a lot. From there they just didn't have the strength to hold the line. I kept on pushing, getting small encirclements where I could destroy further divisions with ease, which made it even easier to push forward and get more encirclements, etc.

Use that initial push when you declare war (and declare war pretty early, 1936 for sure) to seize the advantage. Don't just push them back a few provinces.

[IIIIlllIIIII]

The fronts are "big", your resources are limited and especially your manpower, the terrain is really bad like... REALLY bad, there is barely any supply, your units will suffer of attrition you have 50~ divisions against 300~. As my knowledge for now, i have to say you either win it really fast or you will end up losing.

[Exarch_Alpha]

Since defense is easier and China needs those factories... Pull the marines, do a second invasion to take Shanghai and Nanking. It will also draw armies away from other fronts.

Yes you win by encircling, as long as you do it consistently and don´t do like the dumb japanese AI (which does three landings at a time...) you will be ok. The AI is good on a micro level to avoid encirclement - but not on the macro level, which is where you do better.

[Wild Arms]

What I did is declare on shanxi, while the warlords focus finishes then i declared on the top left faction chianxsomething. At the same time I prepared an invasion for nanking. when the war in the north finished, i was able to ahve troops across th entire top half of china. then I declared on china and rushed for that center province thats worth alot while invading shanghai and Nanking. The war was over before even 200k casualties were sustained on chinas side. I guess if you really wanted you could take all the chinese factions first before declaring on china proper, but the world tension would skyrocket. Once you declare on china proper all the factions merge into china and you have alot more victory points to capture.

[SmellyWer]

There is a puppet focus or war focus after you begin the war with China tree. Go for puppet, then use subdue warlords to secure buffer zones through puppets and the resources of the Guanxi Clique. Then, if you can lend-lease your equipment Nationalist China can become very powerful from what I've seen.

[Flip]

Originally posted by Wild Arms:

What I did is declare on shanxi, while the warlords focus finishes then i declared on the top left faction chianxsomething. At the same time I prepared an invasion for nanking. when the war in the north finished, i was able to ahve troops across th entire top half of china. then I declared on china and rushed for that center province thats worth alot while invading shanghai and Nanking. The war was over before even 200k casualties were sustained on chinas side. I guess if you really wanted you could take all the chinese factions first before declaring on china proper, but the world tension would skyrocket. Once you declare on china proper all the factions merge into china and you have alot more victory points to capture.

I think that is where I went wrong. I got the Warlords of China before I declared war... (still learning the game here). Which mean that the Republic of China territories where a massive thorn in my side because I had an extra (horrible terrain) flank to deal with.

To declare war on the other factions do I just need to create a CB or does the Conquer China idea (before warlords) allow me to not have to take on all of them at once>

Just wondering if I can take them on piecemeal instead of all at a time.

Right now my curent game is lost, they just have too many men. Ah well the last 10 hours where a harsh learning experience!

Btw, really appreaciate all the advice on this thread!

[SmellyWer]

Oh, did you group all your troops in Manchuria together on the front against China? Because if so, the garrison troops are just about as strong as the Chinese divisons. Most of your proper infantry divisons are regular, affording them combat bonuses, and are pretty much 2 Chinese divisions with better leadership, supply, organization, and equipment. The Garrison units however, are just about as strong as the normal Chinese divisons.

[Wild Arms]

Originally posted by Nevster:

Originally posted by Wild Arms:

What I did is declare on shanxi, while the warlords focus finishes then i declared on the top left faction chianxsomething. At the same time I prepared an invasion for nanking. when the war in the north finished, i was able to ahve troops across th entire top half of china. then I declared on china and rushed for that center province thats worth alot while invading shanghai and Nanking. The war was over before even 200k casualties were sustained on chinas side. I guess if you really wanted you could take all the chinese factions first before declaring on china proper, but the world tension would skyrocket. Once you declare on china proper all the factions merge into china and you have alot more victory points to capture.

I think that is where I went wrong. I got the Warlords of China before I declared war... (still learning the game here). Which mean that the Republic of China territories where a massive thorn in my side because I had an extra (horrible terrain) flank to deal with.

To declare war on the other factions do I just need to create a CB or does the Conquer China idea (before warlords) allow me to not have to take on all of them at once>

Just wondering if I can take them on piecemeal instead of all at a time.

Right now my curent game is lost, they just have too many men. Ah well the last 10 hours where a harsh learning experience!

Btw, really appreaciate all the advice on this thread!

So from the start you do marco polo incident focus, then war with cihna. It gives you a conquer cb on shanxi and china. Declare on shanxi while doing warlords focus next. after warlords focus you will have a cb on every china faction individually. you can take them piece by piece or however you want. each faction is super weak besides china proper so you can do multiple wars at once.

[SmellyWer]

Originally posted by Wild Arms:

Originally posted by Nevster:

I think that is where I went wrong. I got the Warlords of China before I declared war... (still learning the game here). Which mean that the Republic of China territories where a massive thorn in my side because I had an extra (horrible terrain) flank to deal with.

To declare war on the other factions do I just need to create a CB or does the Conquer China idea (before warlords) allow me to not have to take on all of them at once>

Just wondering if I can take them on piecemeal instead of all at a time.

Right now my curent game is lost, they just have too many men. Ah well the last 10 hours where a harsh learning experience!

Btw, really appreaciate all the advice on this thread!

So from the start you do marco polo incident focus, then war with cihna. It gives you a conquer cb on shanxi and china. Declare on shanxi while doing warlords focus next. after warlords focus you will have a cb on every china faction individually. you can take them piece by piece or however you want. each faction is super weak besides china proper so you can do multiple wars at once.

Could always puppet China proper. All you really need is the Guanxi Clique, which gives you resources and a safe place for factories and such.

[N'Zoth]

I think it is Operation Zet. I did a play through as Russia just to test it out and Japan owned half of China. After zet they got rolled back all the way to Korea.

[Flip]

Originally posted by SmellyWer:

Originally posted by Wild Arms:

So from the start you do marco polo incident focus, then war with cihna. It gives you a conquer cb on shanxi and china. Declare on shanxi while doing warlords focus next. after warlords focus you will have a cb on every china faction individually. you can take them piece by piece or however you want. each faction is super weak besides china proper so you can do multiple wars at once.

Could always puppet China proper. All you really need is the Guanxi Clique, which gives you resources and a safe place for factories and such.

Main reason I want china is more factory space but more importantly more resources as Japan is quite light and hate relying on trade. Just afraid if I puppet I loose a lot of potential resources and not sure how effective the AI is in supporting in future wars?

[Flip]

Originally posted by SmellyWer:

Oh, did you group all your troops in Manchuria together on the front against China? Because if so, the garrison troops are just about as strong as the Chinese divisons. Most of your proper infantry divisons are regular, affording them combat bonuses, and are pretty much 2 Chinese divisions with better leadership, supply, organization, and equipment. The Garrison units however, are just about as strong as the normal Chinese divisons.

I upgraded the reserve troops to regular infantry divisions before the invasion plus they all had recon & artillery support.

[SmellyWer]

Originally posted by Nevster:

Originally posted by SmellyWer:

Could always puppet China proper. All you really need is the Guanxi Clique, which gives you resources and a safe place for factories and such.

Main reason I want china is more factory space but more importantly more resources as Japan is quite light and hate relying on trade. Just afraid if I puppet I loose a lot of potential resources and not sure how effective the AI is in supporting in future wars?

They do help, and China has no resources. Let us be clear on that - they have veryyy limited resources. Easier to go Marco Polo Bridge Incident > Puppet China > Subdue the Warlords for claims on the Guanxi Clique which are loaded with everything except Oil and Rubber.