Communist China is impossible to play

[GraavTheUmbarBoi]

God japan is unstoppable

[GraavTheUmbarBoi]

I dont know i played 3 time with communist china and always i hold to the north and than national cina get rekt from the sea and we lose

[thehdog]

It took me a few attempts to get going with the Peoples Republic of China on Ironman Normal. The big decision for PRC is joining the Chinese United Front or leaving China to Japan and joining the Comintern. Either way, claim Shanix, Xibei San Ma, and Sinkiang as quickly as possible. If you give Sinkiang enough time to join the Comintern, the game is lost. Surrounding and cutting off supplies of these armies is easy as none have enough to cover the boarders.
I only got one state to flip to me from China by boosting communist support from the beginning of the game. It was usually a state boardering Yunnan which allowed me to claim it. Guangxi Clique looks tempting but that conflict takes long enough for them to join the Axis. The divergent state flip was when I got Beijing and China ceding it to Japan. If I ever see that again but China doesn't take that decision, I think I will stick with the Chinese United Front and wall agressively.

Either way, I enjoyed playing as China far more than Peoples Republic of China.

[Kitten Food]

I've done really well as communist china, and all on ironman. I had to immediately go to war with bordering warlords, with the essential (essential) goal of getting a border with the soviet union. Once that happens you can join Comitern which makes Japan a joke if/when they go to war with you.

I also immediately started increasing popularity of communism in nationalist china. Eventually you eat up China from defections. It takes a while, but its worth it. What is even better is if China joins Comitern (which it did in my game). Essentially you have 2 giants fighting for you, with one of them losing land to you while being allies.

Currently I own all of India and Japanese China and have caused almost 3/4 of china to defect to me.

Pretty easy game.

[Metal Izanagi]

Best strategy as PRC is as follows:

1 - From day one, begin increasing communist popularity in Nationalist China.

2 - As soon as you have enough political power, fabricate a claim on Shanxi.

3 - Once you have enough political power, set it up so that you're fabricating a claim on Xibei San Ma, and so that the claim will be finished right as you finish off Shanxi.

3.5 - When you have Shanxi, you should be able to join the Comintern, since you'll be bordering Mongolia. If not, try improving relations with Stalin a bit. You should have already gone down the Communist political tree a bit for the bonuses to relations with other Communist nations.

Note: Shanxi and Xibei San Ma will be incredibly easy to defeat, as you'll have way more troops than they do, so you can just engage every single unit they have with your own, and even if you're losing the fights at first, you can have your other units sneak around behind them and cut their supply lines off.

4 - Once Xibei San Ma is near capitulation, start fabricating on Sinkiang, and be ready to move in on them.

4.5 - Sometime during or right after you finish off Xibei San Ma, Nationalist China should approach you to form the United Front. Refuse. You don't need them, and if you avoid joining, Japan won't attack you until at least after they've defeated Nationalist China.

5 - Sinkiang will take a bit longer to defeat than your previous two opponents, but you should still be able to take them down with proper use of the massive numerical superiority you should have. Don't be afraid to send out units without enough equipment for the entire unit. You're not looking to supply every man with a gun; just enough of them that you can hold Sikiang's units in-place while the rest cut their supplies off.

5.5 - Sinkiang shouldn't be able to join the Comintern once you're at war with them while already a part of it, so you're safe on that front. Sinkiang typically won't be in any position to join Axis or Allies by the time you're done with them, either.

6 - Do NOT join the Soviets if they go to war with Japan, Germany, or the Allies. If you have to, let them lose for a bit. They should be able to hold off from capitulating long enough for you to finish your initial landgrabs and prepare to help them hold the lines. Additionally, don't allow the Soviets, Mongolia, or Tannu Tuva to join your war against Sinkiang. You need all of that land and its population for yourself.

7 - Once you've finished off Sinkiang, take half a year or so to build up factories and infrastructure, and build lots of new divisions. You're going to be preparing for the big one. That is to say, your next target is Japan. Start building up an air force. Fighters, CAS, and transports are what you want here. Nationalist China should no longer exist, or it should be a puppet of Japan, depending on how that war went. If it's still alive, you're on your own for that one, as I've never seen Nat. China survive the Japanese onslaught in the hundreds of hours I've played this game.

8 - Once you get the war started, either by fabricating a claim on Japan or joining an existing war that the Soviets have with them, ignore Germany. Focus everything you have on Japan, and throw as many men as it takes at the fascist pigs. You will absolutely have enough men to do this. Germany shouldn't be a problem, as they'll be fighting both the Allies and Russia.

8.5 - If the Soviets are at war with the Allies for some stupid reason, do NOT join that war. You'll be bordering the British Raj before too long, and even China's insane manpower won't be able to handle both Japan/any other Axis divisions that get sent to the Japanese front and the Allies at the same time. You may end up losing the Soviets as an ally, which should make you leader of the Comintern, and actually put you in a stronger position as you'll be able to avoid having other AI nations get taken out by your future enemies just for being associated with you. If by some unfortunate stroke of luck the Soviets are taken over by Germany/Japan, stop what you're doing right away and focus everything you have on protecting your core states from the Axis. By this point they should be at war with the Allies, and you'll have ample opportunity to turn the tide once you've established a defensive line.


Army composition: Until you're done with Sinkiang, and probably for a bit after that, you'll want to stick with a pre-WW1 army. Just men with support units. No artillery or motorized. Make some small cavalry divisions with a recon unit attached to help encircle enemies if you think you can handle the micro-management. This might sound sub-optimal, but you have so much manpower and so little industrial strength at the start of the game that trying to bring in artillery is going to give you a lot less men on the field than if you just go for infantry equipment alone. The PRC's only real strength in the early-to-mid game is the insane amount of manpower in the Chinese lands.

This plan takes a bit of good timing and a little bit of luck, but if you get it done, you're effectively invincible, since you'll have enough land to make more than enough factories to arm millions of soldiers that will be able to overwhelm the Japanese, and later on, the Germans.