china warlords

[Xepheon]

Guys im trying to do the old china technique of rushing the warlord and anti communism focus, the problem is, i Just cannot end the wars quick enough before Japan is getting ready to invade.

Can anyone give me any tips on how to quickly knock out the warlords? Which templates should I use as china attacking lets say the clique, or xibei? Does it even matter?
I try micro my forces, i get encirclement, it just takes so long to finish them off. theres no way I can do it.

I usually dont even have the first warlords beat by the time I get focus to take out communists, so theres NO way I can then have a fight going on with the comminists while im trying to stop japan from invading.

[Hearts Of Iron]

You can cheese it.

Create single battalion cavalry.

Create a fallback line far away so they cannot cover entire front line.

When gaps appear, rush for VPs.

Your aim is to have a quick victory with minimal losses to prepare for Japan

[trooperrob]

I go for the warlord focus first, fighting over that river is silly, if you can draw the other Chinese states into the war first it is helpful as you can fight from different direction (east and North best)
Any extra experience you get in your units is good.

when it comes to the fight, if you can bring the other states into the fight it allows you to fight from other states.
as said, fallback, let them advance, if you can rush an attack on the communist capital do, but otherwise, fallback, encircle. don't fight in the mountains, there is terrible attrition and debuffs.

Last game, I beat the communists shortly after the war with China started.

I think the hit to your stability is a massive debuff to industry, so you need to keep the intra China wars as quick as possible.
First game I lost railway lines or supply depots in the North, and suffered crippling attrition.
Second game, I stuck with rifle1 until much later, defeated Communists a little time into the main war and beat china.

the other states you can usually find a weak spot and go around.
Fighting too much may be bad as you gain less when you defeat them, and loss a lot of your own kit.

I didn't need single battalion cav, but they are very good for unopposed advances while minimising attrition losses.

[drewbstar]

Originally posted by Hearts Of Iron:

You can cheese it.

Create single battalion cavalry.

Create a fallback line far away so they cannot cover entire front line.

When gaps appear, rush for VPs.

Your aim is to have a quick victory with minimal losses to prepare for Japan

Basically this. You don’t even need the cav unit, they’re just faster and cheaper than your starting inf.

People think of encirclements like in Europe, you don’t need to do this. You just need to pin their forces in place long enough to defeat them, not go for big encirclements that kill every unit inside. It’s often much faster for you to fallback, rush their supply/cut off their forces, then rush their VPs. Destroying their forces is good for exp generation, but a waste of your guns and most importantly, time.

With the changes to supply in NSB I don’t generally try to defeat every warlord before Japan invades. Statistically some of them will submit, hopefully the western ones. Take out the communists before they can build up at all, take out 1-2 warlords before Japan invades, then focus on driving them out. Any warlords can be absorbed later either via the puppet decisions or with the one china policy.

[Hearts Of Iron]

As mentioned the single battalion cav is not a requirement but they offer a little more speed , which when you break the lines can help as you advance around enemy units and into the victory points.

The way I can simplify it is , think of speed to capitulate the warlords. If you see and empty tile , you can use your units to attack surrounding armies to pin them in place while your cav or whatever unit rushes through.

[trooperrob]

I only said that because you start with a number of cav units as China (maybe not the other Chinas). 1 cav wont be faster than the existing template, but they might be great for capturing empty high attrition areas.

[Hearts Of Iron]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

I only said that because you start with a number of cav units as China (maybe not the other Chinas). 1 cav wont be faster than the existing template, but they might be great for capturing empty high attrition areas.

Hey , whatever works for you is great. I only use single bat cav because essentially they are cannon fodder , I just pump them out as quick as possible and do not reinforce them. Lose very little equipment , but they cover vast areas.

In a war , they are useless , but manpower as China is never the problem to be honest. Its covering the area with limited supply hubs and railways.

[Cartoffel]

Walls of men and a few horses, the supply won't allow for anything more. Maybe CAS and Fighters, but that's already a stretch to pull off. I never tried it since the market came, selling spare convoys for extra guns usually works wonders for me.