10:33 - I would 100% watch that guide. I know there are other "grinding guides" out there but the ones I've seen don't mention some of the key points you do (such as stopping combat every day or two). It seems you've got a *really* good system for grinding efficiently. I know you're busy and I'm sure you have other things planned but if you get the time, a grinding guide would be much appreciated. Based on comments on your other videos (particularly the "Comprehensive Germany Guide") I know I'm not the only one who would find it helpful. Great channel and thanks for the content!
>(such as stopping combat every day or two). man that sounds like a lot of fun why would anyone ever do that first you would need to spend money to buy an unfinished and overpriced game with lazy codding and on average 10 times less content than mods, then you would need to decide to use exploits on an already extremely easy game, then you would somehow need to decide that even though you decided that cheating by using exploits is ok, cheating using the console is not and then finally decide to spend several hours spamming your spacebar and mouse to pose and unpause every few seconds for several hours straight, to do an exploit that gives you exactly the same result as a console command I don't understand why anyone would make any of these choices let alone all of them at once
Dude, I sometimes really didnt get this game and I have a 1000+ hours in it. You just made me understand grinding to begin with :D Please do your naval guide, naval seems so complicated. Combine it indeed with a japan video, make it practical. Japan is cool to play and watch
Love the videos my guy!! Can you do a comprehensive guide on The United Kingdom?? Would love to see how you play them historically and see your methods with them!
21:27 You can use the CV CAS to give your invasion extra power to secure a bridgehead. Air zone coverage is ignored in this specific case and you start with quite a few CV CAS, so they will be highly effective at bombing the Chinese out of the way. 28:46 I don't know if this is still true, but pre-NSB I played a game as Japan where I didn't escalate the war in China at all to keep war support in the US as low as possible (since escalating the war also increases their war support). I discovered that the vanilla AI seems to be scripted to not take The Giant Wakes before a certain date (somewhere in 1940, if I remember correctly), at which world tension is at 100% and they've run a war propaganda against Germany, putting them way above 30% war support regardless of Japan's actions. So holding back Ichi Go in vanilla singleplayer just because of the US might be unnecessary. 34:48 Manchukuo has to do a focus to get cores on the territory, and as far as I know the AI will never pick it, so you shouldn't give territory to Manchukuo. Unless them controlling Chinese territory makes them do the focus, but I haven't found anything about this in the game files.
Thank you! While I have a lot of time in HoI4, I would only consider myself a casual player. You explain a lot concepts clearly and detail a lot of things I haven't seen elsewhere. For instance, I hadn't heard before that parking fleets for shore bombardment doesn't consume fuel. Definitely got a sub out of me as applying your information has made the game more enjoyable.
I'd like to point out the best terrain trait grinding areas in China since you can get adaptable on most of your generals by rotating them through these areas: 1. Ranger: Province of East Hebei right where you start in China. This is the ONLY area where there are forests where you can be reliably attacked so don't push too early. Good idea to build airfields here too. 2. Hill Fighter: Province of Shandong (East peninsula) right by the port. It's the area he navally invades in the video. Just wanted to point this out because it's a great place to get the trait if you didn't get it in Spain or want it on other generals. 3. Urban Assault Specialist: Province of Shanghai, navally invade and push to Suzhou and Hangzhou. Because of how many provinces these cities touch, China will push hard which will rack up experience quickly. Both cities can also be supported by Shore Bombardment to help alleviate pressure. Navally invading here and in Shandong should give your marine general the Invader trait as well. I like to defend the cities with my marines to get them up to Lvl 5 veterancy too.
So Marine generals take a long time to grind with very little return. The only viable trait is the one that gives extra supply grace, Naval Liaison just reduces the number of capital ships required to achieve the -25% shore bombardment bonus, so its only really useful for medium sized nations that have just a few capital ships. Just use a regular Infantry general. Also If you desperately need that extra marine supply grace in order to complete your invasion plans then you’re doing something wrong.
Thank you so much for this video. I was trying for way too long to take China this quickly. I think the biggest thing I was missing was the field marshalls and just how much they add. Thank again!
"the guy who play with Japan, even the devil fears!". Man, after playing for 1260 hours, I've finally learned how to play with Japan, nice guide dude. Btw, when the enemy can't attack you because your entrenched troops are better, u can retreat some divisions a bit, after u did that, they'll begin to attack their position.
I did do that eventually. Make your divisions worse can also help because they will deal less damage to the ai which means the ai can sustain attacking you for longer. Grinding more generals along the way.
Kongo class is a really good template though, historically it was one of the best battlecruiser designs and in more RP navy games I like using them as carrier escorts
I would keep the panzer production line from the start and use them all as LT recon in your standard infantery design + exchange some infantery for arty ofc. China wont be able to pierce them and you can farm without losing men (quite literally) and barely any equipment. Same works if you attack, you just roll over them due to being unpiercable. Can also release Korea as a puppet to immediatley get one military factory and more. when they do their focuses. Due to low compliance you get nothing at the start and just have to bother with resistance. Ofc just for the ones who like to cheese.
@@bullyellis1 no, they are already perfect for that, super cheap. Can swap out the turret for a better one, but thats not a huge deal and makes it more expensive
nice video :) i´d like to see you to continue this playthrough into the next phase of conquering asia & how you manage the naval war against the british & usa.
Great guide, never played Japan before so learnt a lot. However, whenever I fight in the hills to grind the general I got the xp so slowly, by October I only had like 15/700 earned even though I followed your general grinding guide. Cancelled every other day of fighting, I only had 3-34W divisions instead of your 4 but it shouldn't be so darn slowly when yours finished in January and mine isn't anywhere close.
You may be canceling the attack before your divisions even have a chance to initiate combat due to reinforcing. I never join a Spanish battle because it takes soo long to reinforce.
Make sure that you start the attack and dont join an ongoing spanish attack, you will only gain XP efficiently if your General is leading the attack (you can check by clicking on the combat bubble)
I was trying to do the early USA invasion, I had everything ready: all naval zones are green, my invasion is ready and launched before I declare the war, but when I declare the war they don't launch because the sea zones immediately are not green anymore
If you want to have a quick feeling of success with Japan, just start in 1939 and you can run through them fast with already existing landings, templates and units. 1939 default Japan is crazy powerful.
Torpedo Bomber trait on admiral is not useless as the attack stat on carrier naval bomber is the naval attack. It applies regardless of that it says air attack.
4:19 a tip here, you can justify on Mexico, the US will join the war, invade Hawaii then hop onto Mexico (you can also get docking rights from the facist central american counties) capitulate mexico, then the US (use motorized div for the US, it's easier) you can easily do this before the end of 38 just in time for the spanish civil war's end, after that you can conquer spain (which is weak as hell) and that's sunrise invasion done
Confused on how the cruiser subs are supposed to reach the USA - even with the pacific fleet designer I can't reach North East Pacific ocean zone, let alone San Francisco. Was I supposed to capture an island to use as a base for the subs before going for the naval invasion of the US? Great video otherwise though - just got a bit excited for the idea of puppeting the 13 colonies as Japan.
Actually there is an even easier way. Join Axis at the start, justify and declare war on Netherlands as early as possible. Naval invade Netherlands first so Germany don't get too much war score. Make sure you take Curacao and Suriname though Dutch East Indies is also highly desirable for that fuel and rubber, you can let Germany have the rest. Now you can naval invade USA from Curacao, also don't forget that you can ask for docking rights from the fascist countries there. Also, justify on Mexico, not USA so you get one more country free but eliminate USA first or they will join the Allies if you take too long.
Nice guide! When at war with the Allies, what's your opinion about liberating the Marianas and Micronesia? Their generic focuses will give you factories and you won't have to defend them but can still use them to base planes, ships and launch naval invasions. Also, what's your take on only spamming CLs with light all light attack (and one recon plane)?
I don't have an opinion either way. The amount of factories for 1 puppet is pretty negligible and its just 1 more ai to slow the game down. So do it if you want I'm not going to. Spamming Cls is inferior to light attack CAs. CAs get a 40% bonus to their naval hit chance from screening efficiency that Cls do not get.
@@71Cloak there are WAY more reasons than that to spam CAs but at least you're in the right direction also you should put heavy attack on your heavy cruisers not just light, at most 2 or 3 light turrets, not the absolutly trash design with 6 light turrets you see all the monkeys on youtube try to make clickbait about, those are horrible, just put the heavy attack turrets on your crusers and a few light attack ones
How applicable is this guide for BBA? With the current BBA patch, I hear the light attack CA meta actually died. Getting the coastal defense designer still makes sense for the DDs tho. Military High Command also doesn't give army XP, so it seems like you really want to promote that general fast and get him to level 4 to start getting that XP. I assume you'd just grab the Illusive Gentleman with the PP instead. One huge difference I feel like is the Zero. Is it better to just research the modules and make the meta fighter? You save 70 days on the focus and can go Supremacy of the Battlefleet to get a research bonus for 1940 Heavies, but it is 6 different modules. I'm also not sure how Japan's bonuses to fighter agility etc. stack up with the fighter meta. If you enable Zero production, then it seems like you get access to the 1940 small airframe anyway and can build a naval bomber as a "variant" of the Zero. In this case, I'm wondering if it's better to even put the Zero focus ahead of Supremacy of Will and try to power through China with smart encirclements and diligent escalation.
Wouldn't rushing for National Defense State be better than getting the research slot first? As total mob as fast as possible would allow you to scale to a bigger economy? Also sending volunteers to the republican spain would allow you to get spanish gold reserves as well. giving you a massive boost to your economy.
Also, while at war with china, Because he's a faction leader. He counts as a "major", allowing you to get fast justifications. (so tibet/bhutan/nepal/siam are fast and easy game.) Just be sure to "false" justify on some random countries to bait the allies into guaranteeing them, so you can get free land in asia without worrying about them joining the allies.
@@marthvader14 if Republican spain does the send gold reserves away focus, a country that has sent volunteers to republican spain can seize the gold reserves and get a -5% consumer goods.
What do you think about releasing Korea as a puppet? It provides you with a 2nd steel source so you can import ~70 steel for 2 factories. It also provides a Tungsten source for early to mid game and more factories!
Why do people use Cavalry to naval invade if they have a big debuff to amphibious, whereas normal infantry doesn't? Doesn't that just make it harder to land?
Ah yes, the world-renowned Spanish and Ethiopian Military Academy that train the most famous generals in history, haha. My favorite strat of conquering China is to do early wars with western powers and come back for China eventually. I was able to take the US, UK, and France during 1938 and I just used my veteran armies with a better template to crush China easily. I usually land a few divisions in Qingdao and attack west. This usually encircles at least 20-30 divisions and after that it should be a easy push.
People make fun of navy XP for being ridiculously cheap and plentiful, and literally being just "burn oil gain XP" and I agree completely, but even that is better than the complete mess that are the other two, it's absolutely ridiculous that you can't make a template however you want, especially since they work incrementally, aka you spend 80 something (which is a huge ammount) to make a 40 width, then let's say you want to make the exact same concept but with trucks instead of infantry well then what in real life would be a matter of giving all the guys a truck and a few days of training turns into "that will be another 70 army XP sir" "oh you don't have 150 XP? well sorry sir you can't organise your army at all" So yeah I really wish there was way more control over the XP grind (they made the doctrines cost army XP instead of research and NERFED the army XP gain, absolute madness), and also I'll add something maybe controversial: the allies should NOT get a huge ammount of XP in the spanish civil war XP should be a lot more plentiful, but it should also be needed in greater ammounts to give a ton of small bonuses that add up into big buffs to the military, and the axis/nations that go to war early SHOULD have a VERY BIG LEAD in terms of military buffs from... experience this in my opinion is completely needed since the allies have like 2 or 3 times more industry than the Axis, if they continue to make it just "big countries get XP lol" then the USA with their historically garbage army in 1938 would instead have a top of the line military, on top of their massive industry, aka the allies win every single game unless the USA players gets bored and leaves lol
40 hrs in done Turkey so far, try Japan, expected easy campaign, invade China, lose immediatley and have every naval invasion cancel its assignment. Gg
you should try hungary or romania, something where germany can essentially guarantee your victory, but you'll still be able to play around with production and combat to see what works
Thanks that's a good suggestion. After rewatching this video like 4 times at a x. 025 speed (the plane carrier interface buttons are so confusing) - I can report i successfully capitulated China at 1941 last night. 300k losses vs 4million
You don’t need to bother. Naval land in the coastal tiles with 2 full armies of 12W and let the AI throw itself against you trying to dislodge your forces, throwing away their equipment. Grind until ‘39, then set Aggressive Battleplan and walk to victory.
I just push through Beijing. Once I have good 48 division and CAS on that front China collapses very fast in my opinion. So usually my war in China ends by the January of 1939.
You can actually still make tanks as Japan, there's a funny thing where the interwar light tank is way better than any new light tank you can make. You should definitely try make 1 big motorized tank division to roll over the choineez
I looked at this stuff in details a few updates ago back when I still played HOI4 semi often instead of almost never, and no, tank japan for china is an absolute waste of ressources, never do tanks unless you're doing a roleplay thing or whatever
@@anonymous-rb2sr the thing is you only need enough tanks for 1 or 2 nice divisions and you have a nice light tank available, you make enough + reserves and then put all those factories on planes anyway around 38, that's what I usually do
I have a nagging noob question: at 1:32 when you open that naval building menu, only 7 ships show, but I don't see any filters on. I have like 90. How did you make it show just those ones that are pertinent???
i need to know how to REALLY guard my convoys from subs, i take so few casualties until my naval invaders get sunk!! i stick all my destroyers on convoy escort but thats no guarantee
When you said how to invade the US, why not invade the Netherlands first (through Germany) and from those American states, you can invade the US easier and by the end of it you will have not just the US but the Indies too, so you won't run out from any resource.
Do you think making 5 collaboration governments in China so you could release colabo government gaining ~80% factories as I remember and having no resistance is viable? Or its just a waste of time?
Why would i need to make 5. I got 75% compliance everywhere by doing to on the main china. You could do another but I would caution against that. You don't get the dockyards of your puppets (any type) so if you need to expand your dockyards then you might run out of room in Japan.
@@71Cloak I've recently read that as you suggest one more would be beneficial. You need at least average 80% compliance that you'd get if you get one more mission to get division to create one. Collaboration government gives 75% of factories to the master without paying for resistance so I think this might be more beneficial than just conquering. You won't loose any compliance as well due to foreign invasion there, and you'll loose some of this compliance in the beginning due to increasing resistance
1 more collaboration government would have cost 31 civilian factories for 60 days which is quite expensive. To this point I have only spent 28 factories for 75% compliance (I did get lucky an get a 45%). Secondly, resistance does not decrease compliance, it can decrease compliance growth if you run out of garrisons but with such high compliance that is not going to happen. Even when at war the highest my resistance is going to be is 4%, a negligible amount. In addition my compliance is still growing at 75% so it will eventually get up to 80% anyways, so if you want the collaboration government you can get it without doing the last spy mission anyways. Thirdly, I am already getting 81% of their factories (including dockyards) and 90% of their resources and its only costing me 50k manpower and 6000 guns, of which I got 60000 from china. By the time you are at 80% compliance (this happens early 1940) you are going to get 84% of their factories and 92% of their resources. It does not make sense to do a collaboration government on a country you are not at war with (aka you have annexed them).
Can someone help invading USA? I land right next to San Fransisco but I can't defeat the division that is guarding the city. How do I do this? Do I need marines or just default divisions can do this?
Playing as Japan I seen Germany have 10 million manpower with 600 divisions for way more manpower in the field than I could ever use. Anyone have an idea how that is possible? He has all adults must serve most of Europe and parts of Russia west of Moscow.
Ai puts way more factories on guns and other equipemnt than the plame will. On top of that Germany gets about 200k guns for free and the ai will use them.
Your content is great, if you work on your voice to be more lively and including a bit of comedy into your videos, you could easyli get to feedback gaming level of hoi4 content. Wish u luck!
@@71Cloak is it more worth it than capitulating china faster to get earlier access to their economy and resources? An another thing, is it worth it to fill your carriers with cas to support your naval invasions ?
I did 2 collaboration governments (spy mission) on China which resulted in 75% compliance (one 30% one 45%, a little lucky). With this much compliance I get more from controlling the land directly than puppeting them. Reasons to puppet: 1. they have a large navy and you want it, aka UK/USA, if you annex them as a puppet you get their navy. China doesn't have a navy so this doesn't apply. 2. Can't/don't want to deal with the resistance while compliance grows. Not a problem because I create the collaboration government on them. 3. You are creating as many small puppets as possible to exploit the factories from the default focus tree. A super sweaty move but does have quite the impact over time. 4. The puppet has a lot of manpower and you don't, so you want to copy their templates and use their manpower instead of you own. Ex. dutch east indies, has a ton of manpower, if you puppet them you can access some of that. 5. You don't want to defend that territory in future wars so you puppet them and then never call them into the war. The ai is not smart enough to declare on your puppets anyways. None of these apply to china. Maybe sinkiang to stop the front with north india from happening.
@Robin Meineke when playing japan the ONLY thing you should worry about is getting over 80% collaboration from the spy mission, which usally takes 3, never ever under any circumstance cap them before it gets over 80% or your game is just done for then just full annex them, you will get an event to release them as a collaboration puppet, which I think (It's been a while since I played HOI4) you can later annex like a regular puppet, giving you full cores on all of china for free (aka japan with 300 factories and 45 million manpower)
@@71Cloak for what cloak said: 1 the chinese fleet is completely useless 2 you don't get resistance at all since you create a collaboration governement 3 puppet thing is correct since paradox is incredibly lazy and 80% of countries still don't have a focus tree lol (imagine playing vanilla, srsly....), but getting 6 or whatever it is factories from chinese minors is completely rendered meaningless by the fact you get literally FULL CORE, 100% OF THE RESSOURCES, MANPOWER AND FACTORIES by doing the 80%+ spy thing the way the puppet swarm stupidity thing should be used with the default focus tree is to release as puppet your entire empire while playing as france or england, of course that will make the game run even slower than it already does so is it really worth it? nah
I allways ignore China in my games and invade dutch east indies and after that Netherlands it self and get that sweet rubber and oil. You can even invade US from the east cost in 1937.
singleplayer is extremely easy either way, there's no challenge, but it's correct, if you have the choice it's way better to conquer the USA first rather than china first still, don't underestimate the ressources of china, doing 3 spy missions for compliance (>80%) is mandatory but if you do that you're still looking at an extremely strong position of course getting full compliance on america is even better, doing full compliance on anyone in practice gives you full control of both nations, at first 75% (way better than any occupation type), then you can literally annex it as a full core in a year or so, meaning that in a singleplayer with no rules, you can own all of japan and all of the USA as full cores by 1937, all the american industry with none of the debuffs and all the buffs of japan
@@anonymous-rb2sr if one of the warlords became leader of China during the war, you loose all your prewar provisional government, because it became a different country tag, another example of paradoxes spagetty scripts. Japan is pretty op in the single player can't argue with that.
@@71Cloak air is needed for fighting the USA, China is a joke, when playing japan you should never forget that the USA is your actual enemy, not China, you should take decisions that help you against the USA while making the china war harder, or else you overspend on china and get rekt by the USA
An equal amount of LC stacking light attack against cheap DDs and CAs stacking light attack. The CA's win. The CLs can't target the CAs until all of the DDs are dead, meanwhile the CAs will be targeting the CLs. On top of that CAs get a bonus of 40% to their targeting from screening efficiency that CLs don't get.
@@71Cloak the "meta" guys from the hyper serious "competitive" multiplayer lobbies are complete morons, CLs are trash, roach dds are trash, they have no idea what they are doing, the way to do navy is heavy cruiser spam complemented by whatever counters the navy you're facing, it can be torpedo destroyers, torpedo light crusers, light attack light crusers or aircraft carriers the heavy cruisers destroy everything in the most cost efficient way, so you should decide what to do from what the enemy is doing, tons of destroyers? add a bunch of light attack and a few carriers CL only spam? add more torpedoes etc, but the heavy cruiser should always be the main piece of your navy, I calculated it's like 2 times more cost efficient than battlecruisers it's insane also there's a ton of stuff no one takes into account, for example even the "pros" seem to forget the sea zones have terrain types that can give massive buffs and penalties also for japan you can go torpedo hit and run it's pretty fun, basically stack a thing called "torpedo screen penetration" on high speed whatevers, and what this does in practice is that a battleship sitting behind 120 destroyers will still have a 50% chance of getting hit by your torpedoes it's not an optimal build, but it completely anihilates people who try to do a roach build by building thousands of destroyers with no weapons and put all their production on pricey capital ships, that you can destroy THROUGH the screens with that strategy but none of what I said matters because the USA is way stronger than you and is gonna wreck you unless the guy you're playing against is quite literally worse than the AI, that's why I advise focussing on land for japan, take india, iran, then north africa if the allies have it, attack USSR if you are allowed by the admin, try to survive the USA if you somehow manage to sink the american fleet then you have a strong army instead of unupgraded muzzle loaded rifles so you can just go to the USA and conquer it
that of course includes crossing the entire rocky mountains so you need to optimize your army for that specific task, the same way you should have optimized your army to defeat china in short, you NEED a general with mountaineer+adaptable, then make a bunch of mountaineer/light tanks/trucks/whatever works on mountains, and IF you did it well, you'll have an army that is way stronger than the american one while fighting on american soil against americans entranched in endless mountain tiles the general is the most important part, without a general with the 2 traits you get a -60% malus, in practice that makes all enemy divisions you face 2.5 times stronger, and on top of that they have all the bonuses they would have through defence, country, doctrine, advisors, entrenchment etc but if america is just doing millions of strat bombers, it should be easy, if it's making millions of tanks you have a bigger issue, but by making an army purpose built for fighting in mountains you can still defeat american tanks, then of course if they're building tanks but said tanks are in random third world countries then that's pretty good for you
Bruhhh, finishing china by mid 1939 is really rough, your game is basically over, you're 2 years late, I feel sorry Usually I take january 1938 as the date to see if I'm ahead of schedule or late, usually I cap china by only mid 1938 because I have to wait for the spy compliance mission
some added info for those reading the comments: (1) It's WAY more important to get 80%+ collaboration before caping china than anything, if you cap china without 80% compliance you might as well delete your save or leave in multiplayer you need to do 3 (or 2 if you're very lucky) spy missions that take A LOT of time and a lot of ressources increasing each time, but the result is that you gain ALL OF CHINA AS FULL CORES does it make any sense? no, but paradox is a lazy and incompetent company so they won't ever do anything to fix it, instead of spending ressources on things like social programs to gain the approval of the conquered population, the way winning hearts works in HOI4 is by giving half of the GDP of your country to james bond and sending him to hide for 6 months unoticed in the country, this has the effect of making everyone there love you, go figure but yeah that's tip #1, getting 80% collaboration through spies before the peace deal is your ONLY goal in a japan game, nothing else matters compared to it (2), grinding generals, namely adaptable is more important than winning the war (3) try to win as fast as possible (4) try to not waste too many ressources on china, for example most people take the decision that gives 4 mil factories for free, this is a big noob mistake, you don't need 4 mils to kill china by 1938, take the 4 dockyards instead, USA is the threat not china And again getting the compliance stuff is an extremely big deal, it multiplies by 5 or 6 the size of your industry, and it CANNOT be done after the war, because compliance will not tick over 80% for fa countries, the people will never like you in 10000 years, unless you sent james bond on a secret trip while you were at war with them, again, go figure, but as a game mechanic, it's of primary importance, you go from being 1/10th the size of the US in industry to half or more You can also do the same with india if you fancy, and then obliviously the way to win in a multiplayer lobby is to do what japan should have done to stay alive, that is attack the USSR, but since that means basically a guaranteed win for the axis the admin of the server probably doesn't allow it
Nah. The penalty to production efficiency alone on elite is stupidly high. I don't care about the ai buffs but a 30% penalty to production efficiency cap results in -60% production output at the start of the game. By 1941 tech that penalty is still a 37.5% penalty to production output. It really just means you produce nothing. I would rather give the ai buffs than take those debuffs.
@@71Cloak the difficulty options are absolutely trash, but I wouldn't mind if you played with an AI enhancing mods, the most famous I think is "expert AI 4.0" but I have no idea how good it actually is, I don't think there even is a single good AI mod, and sadly most multiplayer lobby people are severely mentally ill so it's really hard to get a good experience playing hoi4, singleplayer is too easy, multiplayer is also too easy with added mental illness and the fact you need to play nonstop for 10 hours lol
Ethiopia doesn't last long enough. I did grind a bit in spain but most of thr grinding I did in china. I ended up with way better generals than you will ever need in sp
10:33 - I would 100% watch that guide. I know there are other "grinding guides" out there but the ones I've seen don't mention some of the key points you do (such as stopping combat every day or two). It seems you've got a *really* good system for grinding efficiently. I know you're busy and I'm sure you have other things planned but if you get the time, a grinding guide would be much appreciated. Based on comments on your other videos (particularly the "Comprehensive Germany Guide") I know I'm not the only one who would find it helpful.
Great channel and thanks for the content!
>(such as stopping combat every day or two).
man that sounds like a lot of fun
why would anyone ever do that
first you would need to spend money to buy an unfinished and overpriced game with lazy codding and on average 10 times less content than mods, then you would need to decide to use exploits on an already extremely easy game, then you would somehow need to decide that even though you decided that cheating by using exploits is ok, cheating using the console is not
and then finally decide to spend several hours spamming your spacebar and mouse to pose and unpause every few seconds for several hours straight, to do an exploit that gives you exactly the same result as a console command
I don't understand why anyone would make any of these choices let alone all of them at once
Dude, I sometimes really didnt get this game and I have a 1000+ hours in it. You just made me understand grinding to begin with :D Please do your naval guide, naval seems so complicated. Combine it indeed with a japan video, make it practical. Japan is cool to play and watch
Love the videos my guy!! Can you do a comprehensive guide on The United Kingdom?? Would love to see how you play them historically and see your methods with them!
Maybe. Haven't really played the UK in a while.
-Wait for the US to join the war.
-???
-Profit
@@infini_ryu9461 true andof course trying to Bomb Germany to submission by killing countless civilians
21:27 You can use the CV CAS to give your invasion extra power to secure a bridgehead. Air zone coverage is ignored in this specific case and you start with quite a few CV CAS, so they will be highly effective at bombing the Chinese out of the way.
28:46 I don't know if this is still true, but pre-NSB I played a game as Japan where I didn't escalate the war in China at all to keep war support in the US as low as possible (since escalating the war also increases their war support). I discovered that the vanilla AI seems to be scripted to not take The Giant Wakes before a certain date (somewhere in 1940, if I remember correctly), at which world tension is at 100% and they've run a war propaganda against Germany, putting them way above 30% war support regardless of Japan's actions. So holding back Ichi Go in vanilla singleplayer just because of the US might be unnecessary.
34:48 Manchukuo has to do a focus to get cores on the territory, and as far as I know the AI will never pick it, so you shouldn't give territory to Manchukuo. Unless them controlling Chinese territory makes them do the focus, but I haven't found anything about this in the game files.
its a shame this is such a small channel,great content!
In my opinion, smaller channels make better content.
Thank you! While I have a lot of time in HoI4, I would only consider myself a casual player. You explain a lot concepts clearly and detail a lot of things I haven't seen elsewhere. For instance, I hadn't heard before that parking fleets for shore bombardment doesn't consume fuel. Definitely got a sub out of me as applying your information has made the game more enjoyable.
I'd like to point out the best terrain trait grinding areas in China since you can get adaptable on most of your generals by rotating them through these areas:
1. Ranger: Province of East Hebei right where you start in China. This is the ONLY area where there are forests where you can be reliably attacked so don't push too early. Good idea to build airfields here too.
2. Hill Fighter: Province of Shandong (East peninsula) right by the port. It's the area he navally invades in the video. Just wanted to point this out because it's a great place to get the trait if you didn't get it in Spain or want it on other generals.
3. Urban Assault Specialist: Province of Shanghai, navally invade and push to Suzhou and Hangzhou. Because of how many provinces these cities touch, China will push hard which will rack up experience quickly. Both cities can also be supported by Shore Bombardment to help alleviate pressure. Navally invading here and in Shandong should give your marine general the Invader trait as well. I like to defend the cities with my marines to get them up to Lvl 5 veterancy too.
Fantastic videos and guides, keep up the good work pal 👍
So Marine generals take a long time to grind with very little return. The only viable trait is the one that gives extra supply grace, Naval Liaison just reduces the number of capital ships required to achieve the -25% shore bombardment bonus, so its only really useful for medium sized nations that have just a few capital ships. Just use a regular Infantry general. Also If you desperately need that extra marine supply grace in order to complete your invasion plans then you’re doing something wrong.
Thank you so much for this video. I was trying for way too long to take China this quickly. I think the biggest thing I was missing was the field marshalls and just how much they add. Thank again!
"the guy who play with Japan, even the devil fears!". Man, after playing for 1260 hours, I've finally learned how to play with Japan, nice guide dude. Btw, when the enemy can't attack you because your entrenched troops are better, u can retreat some divisions a bit, after u did that, they'll begin to attack their position.
I did do that eventually. Make your divisions worse can also help because they will deal less damage to the ai which means the ai can sustain attacking you for longer. Grinding more generals along the way.
@@71Cloak Yeah, I've seen it. thats a good way too!
@@vitorsilvestre3912 Bro can you suggest me a early game infantry division template
@@raaid72 10w all infantry or 27W 9/3s are good. Late you want to have 32/33W
Kongo class is a really good template though, historically it was one of the best battlecruiser designs and in more RP navy games I like using them as carrier escorts
I love using BC for carrier fleet as they have more speed than BB and carrier usually faster than both of them.
just found this channel, watched a bunch of videos, then just after I wake up I see another upload. fantastic
Yep the naval invasion part is where I usually stop, it's just so meticulous and not fun to set them all up again and again.
I would keep the panzer production line from the start and use them all as LT recon in your standard infantery design + exchange some infantery for arty ofc.
China wont be able to pierce them and you can farm without losing men (quite literally) and barely any equipment. Same works if you attack, you just roll over them due to being unpiercable.
Can also release Korea as a puppet to immediatley get one military factory and more. when they do their focuses. Due to low compliance you get nothing at the start and just have to bother with resistance.
Ofc just for the ones who like to cheese.
@chew bacca- does the tank template need to be changed ?
@@bullyellis1 no, they are already perfect for that, super cheap. Can swap out the turret for a better one, but thats not a huge deal and makes it more expensive
I never knew how easy it was to invade the US as Japan. I did it on my first try with absolute ease.
nice video :) i´d like to see you to continue this playthrough into the next phase of conquering asia & how you manage the naval war against the british & usa.
Just subbed. Thanks for the great Japan guide, you’re a real teacher!
Great guide, never played Japan before so learnt a lot. However, whenever I fight in the hills to grind the general I got the xp so slowly, by October I only had like 15/700 earned even though I followed your general grinding guide. Cancelled every other day of fighting, I only had 3-34W divisions instead of your 4 but it shouldn't be so darn slowly when yours finished in January and mine isn't anywhere close.
I did a general grinding video if you want to know more about general grinding.
You may be canceling the attack before your divisions even have a chance to initiate combat due to reinforcing.
I never join a Spanish battle because it takes soo long to reinforce.
Make sure that you start the attack and dont join an ongoing spanish attack, you will only gain XP efficiently if your General is leading the attack (you can check by clicking on the combat bubble)
Your guides are the best !! Keep it up
A naval meta guide would be helpful.
light cruisers with light guns
shreds screen
superheavy battleships for main fleet
When I see a playsr that doesn't rid of the navy before starting the game deserves my attention
I was trying to do the early USA invasion, I had everything ready: all naval zones are green, my invasion is ready and launched before I declare the war, but when I declare the war they don't launch because the sea zones immediately are not green anymore
I like ur content, keep going my friend.
I had no idea you could toggle automatic upgrades on ships and I've been playing HOI4 for years. Thanks!
If you want to have a quick feeling of success with Japan, just start in 1939 and you can run through them fast with already existing landings, templates and units. 1939 default Japan is crazy powerful.
great content
ive never seen a good video focus on how to naval invade well especially with generals
Torpedo Bomber trait on admiral is not useless as the attack stat on carrier naval bomber is the naval attack. It applies regardless of that it says air attack.
4:19 a tip here, you can justify on Mexico, the US will join the war, invade Hawaii then hop onto Mexico (you can also get docking rights from the facist central american counties) capitulate mexico, then the US (use motorized div for the US, it's easier) you can easily do this before the end of 38 just in time for the spanish civil war's end, after that you can conquer spain (which is weak as hell) and that's sunrise invasion done
Thats exactly the same idea as what I explained at the beginning I wasn't going to do.
Very nice guide, thanks
Thank you dude i want the learn japan navy
inb4 this channel blows up
Confused on how the cruiser subs are supposed to reach the USA - even with the pacific fleet designer I can't reach North East Pacific ocean zone, let alone San Francisco. Was I supposed to capture an island to use as a base for the subs before going for the naval invasion of the US? Great video otherwise though - just got a bit excited for the idea of puppeting the 13 colonies as Japan.
Actually there is an even easier way. Join Axis at the start, justify and declare war on Netherlands as early as possible. Naval invade Netherlands first so Germany don't get too much war score. Make sure you take Curacao and Suriname though Dutch East Indies is also highly desirable for that fuel and rubber, you can let Germany have the rest. Now you can naval invade USA from Curacao, also don't forget that you can ask for docking rights from the fascist countries there. Also, justify on Mexico, not USA so you get one more country free but eliminate USA first or they will join the Allies if you take too long.
Nice guide! When at war with the Allies, what's your opinion about liberating the Marianas and Micronesia? Their generic focuses will give you factories and you won't have to defend them but can still use them to base planes, ships and launch naval invasions.
Also, what's your take on only spamming CLs with light all light attack (and one recon plane)?
I don't have an opinion either way. The amount of factories for 1 puppet is pretty negligible and its just 1 more ai to slow the game down. So do it if you want I'm not going to.
Spamming Cls is inferior to light attack CAs. CAs get a 40% bonus to their naval hit chance from screening efficiency that Cls do not get.
@@71Cloak there are WAY more reasons than that to spam CAs but at least you're in the right direction
also you should put heavy attack on your heavy cruisers not just light, at most 2 or 3 light turrets, not the absolutly trash design with 6 light turrets you see all the monkeys on youtube try to make clickbait about, those are horrible, just put the heavy attack turrets on your crusers and a few light attack ones
What are you doing with your 2nd army of 12w? Shouldn’t they be part of naval invasions not cav?
Cav actually have higher org than infantry at the beginning of the game. The other infantry army was training to start the war I believe.
At 21:50 why aren't you pinning down the adjacent tile to prevent reinforcements?
How applicable is this guide for BBA? With the current BBA patch, I hear the light attack CA meta actually died. Getting the coastal defense designer still makes sense for the DDs tho. Military High Command also doesn't give army XP, so it seems like you really want to promote that general fast and get him to level 4 to start getting that XP. I assume you'd just grab the Illusive Gentleman with the PP instead.
One huge difference I feel like is the Zero. Is it better to just research the modules and make the meta fighter? You save 70 days on the focus and can go Supremacy of the Battlefleet to get a research bonus for 1940 Heavies, but it is 6 different modules. I'm also not sure how Japan's bonuses to fighter agility etc. stack up with the fighter meta. If you enable Zero production, then it seems like you get access to the 1940 small airframe anyway and can build a naval bomber as a "variant" of the Zero. In this case, I'm wondering if it's better to even put the Zero focus ahead of Supremacy of Will and try to power through China with smart encirclements and diligent escalation.
I believe they removed the turreted secondary battery
Wouldn't rushing for National Defense State be better than getting the research slot first? As total mob as fast as possible would allow you to scale to a bigger economy? Also sending volunteers to the republican spain would allow you to get spanish gold reserves as well. giving you a massive boost to your economy.
Also, while at war with china, Because he's a faction leader. He counts as a "major", allowing you to get fast justifications. (so tibet/bhutan/nepal/siam are fast and easy game.)
Just be sure to "false" justify on some random countries to bait the allies into guaranteeing them, so you can get free land in asia without worrying about them joining the allies.
What do you mean with spanish gold reserves?
@@marthvader14 if Republican spain does the send gold reserves away focus, a country that has sent volunteers to republican spain can seize the gold reserves and get a -5% consumer goods.
As Japan, there is honestly no reason to not take the 4 mills you get for 30 pp in the decision tab. It is one of the best decisions in the game imo
I take the four mills, then later do the "grant draft exemptions" decision. You end up with four mills and +5 on both mill and dockyard output.
2 questions, how do you grind hillfighter in Spain? And what DLC are you using I wasn't able to change the fleet designer.
What do you think about releasing Korea as a puppet? It provides you with a 2nd steel source so you can import ~70 steel for 2 factories. It also provides a Tungsten source for early to mid game and more factories!
If you didn't release them you wouldn't have to import the steel at all. Not really much of a point. I think it might also block testing the soviets.
Why do people use Cavalry to naval invade if they have a big debuff to amphibious, whereas normal infantry doesn't? Doesn't that just make it harder to land?
thanks so much
do you have a spain grind video?
Yes
7:50 what should i do rather than that bc you are not allowed to do that now
Heavy cruisers don't get any bonus from the basestrike doctrine though
i did everything like you did but i dont have range to manually move my task forces to shore bombard
Ah yes, the world-renowned Spanish and Ethiopian Military Academy that train the most famous generals in history, haha.
My favorite strat of conquering China is to do early wars with western powers and come back for China eventually. I was able to take the US, UK, and France during 1938 and I just used my veteran armies with a better template to crush China easily. I usually land a few divisions in Qingdao and attack west. This usually encircles at least 20-30 divisions and after that it should be a easy push.
People make fun of navy XP for being ridiculously cheap and plentiful, and literally being just "burn oil gain XP" and I agree completely, but even that is better than the complete mess that are the other two, it's absolutely ridiculous that you can't make a template however you want, especially since they work incrementally, aka you spend 80 something (which is a huge ammount) to make a 40 width, then let's say you want to make the exact same concept but with trucks instead of infantry
well then what in real life would be a matter of giving all the guys a truck and a few days of training turns into "that will be another 70 army XP sir" "oh you don't have 150 XP? well sorry sir you can't organise your army at all"
So yeah I really wish there was way more control over the XP grind (they made the doctrines cost army XP instead of research and NERFED the army XP gain, absolute madness), and also I'll add something maybe controversial: the allies should NOT get a huge ammount of XP in the spanish civil war
XP should be a lot more plentiful, but it should also be needed in greater ammounts to give a ton of small bonuses that add up into big buffs to the military, and the axis/nations that go to war early SHOULD have a VERY BIG LEAD in terms of military buffs from... experience
this in my opinion is completely needed since the allies have like 2 or 3 times more industry than the Axis, if they continue to make it just "big countries get XP lol" then the USA with their historically garbage army in 1938 would instead have a top of the line military, on top of their massive industry, aka the allies win every single game unless the USA players gets bored and leaves lol
40 hrs in done Turkey so far, try Japan, expected easy campaign, invade China, lose immediatley and have every naval invasion cancel its assignment. Gg
you should try hungary or romania, something where germany can essentially guarantee your victory, but you'll still be able to play around with production and combat to see what works
Thanks that's a good suggestion. After rewatching this video like 4 times at a x. 025 speed (the plane carrier interface buttons are so confusing) - I can report i successfully capitulated China at 1941 last night. 300k losses vs 4million
what do you guys think about making one mobile artillery just for break thrus and encirclements?
I do mobile infantry and mobile artillery divisions (42W) which cut through lines like there's no resistance at all. Makes for lots of encirclements
You don’t need to bother. Naval land in the coastal tiles with 2 full armies of 12W and let the AI throw itself against you trying to dislodge your forces, throwing away their equipment. Grind until ‘39, then set Aggressive Battleplan and walk to victory.
I always get no more than 5% surrender for china. How did you grt them to accept 27%? Was it cause you took Shanxi?
Tried this strat out but all the ports are guarded by troops, cant even land on china.
I always thought that it was ridiculous to take -5% stability for a handful of trains because I had no idea it was temporary.
I might have been wrong. It might be permanent
@@71Cloak Then would it still make sense to do it unless you're playing as a country that will have 100% anyway?
What if you get naval access from El Salvador? I did it to invade Mexico to get the achievement. Not sure if you need cruiser subs in that scenario.
I just push through Beijing. Once I have good 48 division and CAS on that front China collapses very fast in my opinion. So usually my war in China ends by the January of 1939.
How the hell do you have Hillfighter on this guy in January 1937? It takes forever in my game to grind this trait with just 4 Divisions
waaaait
the civilian trains decision is temporary? how long does it last?
@71Cloak - To invade the USA - do my collaboration government need to finish before invading or are they still useful while I am at war with USA ?
They just need to finish before the usa capitulates.
You can actually still make tanks as Japan, there's a funny thing where the interwar light tank is way better than any new light tank you can make. You should definitely try make 1 big motorized tank division to roll over the choineez
I looked at this stuff in details a few updates ago back when I still played HOI4 semi often instead of almost never, and no, tank japan for china is an absolute waste of ressources, never do tanks unless you're doing a roleplay thing or whatever
@@anonymous-rb2sr the thing is you only need enough tanks for 1 or 2 nice divisions and you have a nice light tank available, you make enough + reserves and then put all those factories on planes anyway around 38, that's what I usually do
I have a nagging noob question: at 1:32 when you open that naval building menu, only 7 ships show, but I don't see any filters on. I have like 90. How did you make it show just those ones that are pertinent???
Shift click the tab of production and it will only show that one.
i need to know how to REALLY guard my convoys from subs, i take so few casualties until my naval invaders get sunk!! i stick all my destroyers on convoy escort but thats no guarantee
Planes. Green air wins water just as well as land. Tacs kill subs.
@@cc0767 yeah my packs of 20 destroyers arent cutting it XD
did you make a video about the us early conquest?
No.
When you said how to invade the US, why not invade the Netherlands first (through Germany) and from those American states, you can invade the US easier and by the end of it you will have not just the US but the Indies too, so you won't run out from any resource.
I will have to try this strat. Any tips on navy without MtG?
Just use cruisers both capital and non capital it's just efficient for pumping them out.
i can grind real good against ethopia, but im too good at slicing thru chinese hordes to get the terrain bonuses I like.
Don't attack. Put some weak divisions there and let them attack you
Do you train all your navy at the start, because I seem to use way more fuel than you
I think it was all of it. I might have shift clicked exercise the fleet.
Do you think making 5 collaboration governments in China so you could release colabo government gaining ~80% factories as I remember and having no resistance is viable? Or its just a waste of time?
Why would i need to make 5. I got 75% compliance everywhere by doing to on the main china. You could do another but I would caution against that. You don't get the dockyards of your puppets (any type) so if you need to expand your dockyards then you might run out of room in Japan.
@@71Cloak I've recently read that as you suggest one more would be beneficial. You need at least average 80% compliance that you'd get if you get one more mission to get division to create one. Collaboration government gives 75% of factories to the master without paying for resistance so I think this might be more beneficial than just conquering. You won't loose any compliance as well due to foreign invasion there, and you'll loose some of this compliance in the beginning due to increasing resistance
1 more collaboration government would have cost 31 civilian factories for 60 days which is quite expensive. To this point I have only spent 28 factories for 75% compliance (I did get lucky an get a 45%). Secondly, resistance does not decrease compliance, it can decrease compliance growth if you run out of garrisons but with such high compliance that is not going to happen. Even when at war the highest my resistance is going to be is 4%, a negligible amount. In addition my compliance is still growing at 75% so it will eventually get up to 80% anyways, so if you want the collaboration government you can get it without doing the last spy mission anyways.
Thirdly, I am already getting 81% of their factories (including dockyards) and 90% of their resources and its only costing me 50k manpower and 6000 guns, of which I got 60000 from china. By the time you are at 80% compliance (this happens early 1940) you are going to get 84% of their factories and 92% of their resources.
It does not make sense to do a collaboration government on a country you are not at war with (aka you have annexed them).
@@71Cloak alright then! I hope to see second part to see how you'd manage navy and what templates you'll use against allies in Indonesia and India!
Can someone help invading USA? I land right next to San Fransisco but I can't defeat the division that is guarding the city. How do I do this? Do I need marines or just default divisions can do this?
Does having no fuel not have an effect on naval experience gain from training?
It does. You lose out on the xp for the fuel you are missing.
6:01 The words "zaibatsus" is pronounced "zye-baht-sooz". It literally means "wealthy cliques" and refers to corporate monopolies.
So what did all the templates for China look like?
What's the reasoning behind not doing any of the interservice rivalry decisions?
Idk, just always seemed like there was a better use of the pp. Carrier fighter cost reduction is the best of them.
Playing as Japan I seen Germany have 10 million manpower with 600 divisions for way more manpower in the field than I could ever use. Anyone have an idea how that is possible? He has all adults must serve most of Europe and parts of Russia west of Moscow.
Ai puts way more factories on guns and other equipemnt than the plame will. On top of that Germany gets about 200k guns for free and the ai will use them.
Your content is great, if you work on your voice to be more lively and including a bit of comedy into your videos, you could easyli get to feedback gaming level of hoi4 content. Wish u luck!
I didn’t really understand why you went so slowly with China war, could you explain it to me again ?
I was grinding general traits and air xp
@@71Cloak is it more worth it than capitulating china faster to get earlier access to their economy and resources? An another thing, is it worth it to fill your carriers with cas to support your naval invasions ?
is there a way i can get sinkiang to be in the peace deal too?
i dont understand anything you did at the end with the navy but i hope its not that important
I am dogshit at this game. but I love it.
dude how did you get your traits so high so quickly man i suck
how did u get all of the other chinese warlords in the peace deal?
Can you talk about taking territory vs puppeting.
I did 2 collaboration governments (spy mission) on China which resulted in 75% compliance (one 30% one 45%, a little lucky). With this much compliance I get more from controlling the land directly than puppeting them. Reasons to puppet: 1. they have a large navy and you want it, aka UK/USA, if you annex them as a puppet you get their navy. China doesn't have a navy so this doesn't apply. 2. Can't/don't want to deal with the resistance while compliance grows. Not a problem because I create the collaboration government on them. 3. You are creating as many small puppets as possible to exploit the factories from the default focus tree. A super sweaty move but does have quite the impact over time. 4. The puppet has a lot of manpower and you don't, so you want to copy their templates and use their manpower instead of you own. Ex. dutch east indies, has a ton of manpower, if you puppet them you can access some of that. 5. You don't want to defend that territory in future wars so you puppet them and then never call them into the war. The ai is not smart enough to declare on your puppets anyways.
None of these apply to china. Maybe sinkiang to stop the front with north india from happening.
@Robin Meineke
when playing japan the ONLY thing you should worry about is getting over 80% collaboration from the spy mission, which usally takes 3, never ever under any circumstance cap them before it gets over 80% or your game is just done for
then just full annex them, you will get an event to release them as a collaboration puppet, which I think (It's been a while since I played HOI4) you can later annex like a regular puppet, giving you full cores on all of china for free (aka japan with 300 factories and 45 million manpower)
@@71Cloak for what cloak said:
1 the chinese fleet is completely useless
2 you don't get resistance at all since you create a collaboration governement
3 puppet thing is correct since paradox is incredibly lazy and 80% of countries still don't have a focus tree lol (imagine playing vanilla, srsly....), but getting 6 or whatever it is factories from chinese minors is completely rendered meaningless by the fact you get literally FULL CORE, 100% OF THE RESSOURCES, MANPOWER AND FACTORIES by doing the 80%+ spy thing
the way the puppet swarm stupidity thing should be used with the default focus tree is to release as puppet your entire empire while playing as france or england, of course that will make the game run even slower than it already does so is it really worth it? nah
@@anonymous-rb2sr in vanilla? Kinda can’t believe that. Is that special for Japan?
One way to get the AI to attack you is to just train while on the frontline.
Edit: Also i think you could have gotten 100 free PP from the americans.
I did from the panay incident.
@@71Cloak i saw your PP go negative, think you pressed the other button by mistake or something
damn of course i wasnt as lucky as you when getting attack skill on my generals
4:28 somebody tell me how he got 7000 mile range while i have only 4000
I allways ignore China in my games and invade dutch east indies and after that Netherlands it self and get that sweet rubber and oil. You can even invade US from the east cost in 1937.
singleplayer is extremely easy either way, there's no challenge, but it's correct, if you have the choice it's way better to conquer the USA first rather than china first
still, don't underestimate the ressources of china, doing 3 spy missions for compliance (>80%) is mandatory but if you do that you're still looking at an extremely strong position
of course getting full compliance on america is even better, doing full compliance on anyone in practice gives you full control of both nations, at first 75% (way better than any occupation type), then you can literally annex it as a full core in a year or so, meaning that in a singleplayer with no rules, you can own all of japan and all of the USA as full cores by 1937, all the american industry with none of the debuffs and all the buffs of japan
@@anonymous-rb2sr if one of the warlords became leader of China during the war, you loose all your prewar provisional government, because it became a different country tag, another example of paradoxes spagetty scripts. Japan is pretty op in the single player can't argue with that.
I´ve watched the whole vid at speed x0.5 lol
Why you don't train your air force?
The air force sucks, and china doesn't really have one. Would rather use the fuel to train the navy and get navy experience than the airforce.
@@71Cloak air is needed for fighting the USA, China is a joke, when playing japan you should never forget that the USA is your actual enemy, not China, you should take decisions that help you against the USA while making the china war harder, or else you overspend on china and get rekt by the USA
how did you select all your navy at 0:16?
Click the left most icon for all of your ships while holding shift. Put them in reserve the press g to merge.
Or you can just spam ligth cruisers with the highest light attack possible 36:18.
An equal amount of LC stacking light attack against cheap DDs and CAs stacking light attack. The CA's win. The CLs can't target the CAs until all of the DDs are dead, meanwhile the CAs will be targeting the CLs. On top of that CAs get a bonus of 40% to their targeting from screening efficiency that CLs don't get.
@@71Cloak the "meta" guys from the hyper serious "competitive" multiplayer lobbies are complete morons, CLs are trash, roach dds are trash, they have no idea what they are doing, the way to do navy is heavy cruiser spam complemented by whatever counters the navy you're facing, it can be torpedo destroyers, torpedo light crusers, light attack light crusers or aircraft carriers
the heavy cruisers destroy everything in the most cost efficient way, so you should decide what to do from what the enemy is doing, tons of destroyers? add a bunch of light attack and a few carriers
CL only spam? add more torpedoes etc, but the heavy cruiser should always be the main piece of your navy, I calculated it's like 2 times more cost efficient than battlecruisers it's insane
also there's a ton of stuff no one takes into account, for example even the "pros" seem to forget the sea zones have terrain types that can give massive buffs and penalties
also for japan you can go torpedo hit and run it's pretty fun, basically stack a thing called "torpedo screen penetration" on high speed whatevers, and what this does in practice is that a battleship sitting behind 120 destroyers will still have a 50% chance of getting hit by your torpedoes
it's not an optimal build, but it completely anihilates people who try to do a roach build by building thousands of destroyers with no weapons and put all their production on pricey capital ships, that you can destroy THROUGH the screens with that strategy
but none of what I said matters because the USA is way stronger than you and is gonna wreck you unless the guy you're playing against is quite literally worse than the AI, that's why I advise focussing on land for japan, take india, iran, then north africa if the allies have it, attack USSR if you are allowed by the admin, try to survive the USA
if you somehow manage to sink the american fleet then you have a strong army instead of unupgraded muzzle loaded rifles so you can just go to the USA and conquer it
that of course includes crossing the entire rocky mountains so you need to optimize your army for that specific task, the same way you should have optimized your army to defeat china
in short, you NEED a general with mountaineer+adaptable, then make a bunch of mountaineer/light tanks/trucks/whatever works on mountains, and IF you did it well, you'll have an army that is way stronger than the american one while fighting on american soil against americans entranched in endless mountain tiles
the general is the most important part, without a general with the 2 traits you get a -60% malus, in practice that makes all enemy divisions you face 2.5 times stronger, and on top of that they have all the bonuses they would have through defence, country, doctrine, advisors, entrenchment etc
but if america is just doing millions of strat bombers, it should be easy, if it's making millions of tanks you have a bigger issue, but by making an army purpose built for fighting in mountains you can still defeat american tanks, then of course if they're building tanks but said tanks are in random third world countries then that's pretty good for you
can this also work if you don`t escalate the war?
Why wouldn't you?
@@Stormraid deny war support to the US
Bruhhh, finishing china by mid 1939 is really rough, your game is basically over, you're 2 years late, I feel sorry
Usually I take january 1938 as the date to see if I'm ahead of schedule or late, usually I cap china by only mid 1938 because I have to wait for the spy compliance mission
some added info for those reading the comments:
(1) It's WAY more important to get 80%+ collaboration before caping china than anything, if you cap china without 80% compliance you might as well delete your save or leave in multiplayer
you need to do 3 (or 2 if you're very lucky) spy missions that take A LOT of time and a lot of ressources increasing each time, but the result is that you gain ALL OF CHINA AS FULL CORES
does it make any sense? no, but paradox is a lazy and incompetent company so they won't ever do anything to fix it, instead of spending ressources on things like social programs to gain the approval of the conquered population, the way winning hearts works in HOI4 is by giving half of the GDP of your country to james bond and sending him to hide for 6 months unoticed in the country, this has the effect of making everyone there love you, go figure
but yeah that's tip #1, getting 80% collaboration through spies before the peace deal is your ONLY goal in a japan game, nothing else matters compared to it
(2), grinding generals, namely adaptable is more important than winning the war
(3) try to win as fast as possible
(4) try to not waste too many ressources on china, for example most people take the decision that gives 4 mil factories for free, this is a big noob mistake, you don't need 4 mils to kill china by 1938, take the 4 dockyards instead, USA is the threat not china
And again getting the compliance stuff is an extremely big deal, it multiplies by 5 or 6 the size of your industry, and it CANNOT be done after the war, because compliance will not tick over 80% for fa countries, the people will never like you in 10000 years, unless you sent james bond on a secret trip while you were at war with them, again, go figure, but as a game mechanic, it's of primary importance, you go from being 1/10th the size of the US in industry to half or more
You can also do the same with india if you fancy, and then obliviously the way to win in a multiplayer lobby is to do what japan should have done to stay alive, that is attack the USSR, but since that means basically a guaranteed win for the axis the admin of the server probably doesn't allow it
lol I only start with 13 mils?
You're a good player bro. Please play elite difficulty
Nah. The penalty to production efficiency alone on elite is stupidly high. I don't care about the ai buffs but a 30% penalty to production efficiency cap results in -60% production output at the start of the game. By 1941 tech that penalty is still a 37.5% penalty to production output. It really just means you produce nothing.
I would rather give the ai buffs than take those debuffs.
@@71Cloak it is much more nice, the game become way more valuable. And you can still give buffs to the ai.
@@71Cloak the difficulty options are absolutely trash, but I wouldn't mind if you played with an AI enhancing mods, the most famous I think is "expert AI 4.0" but I have no idea how good it actually is, I don't think there even is a single good AI mod, and sadly most multiplayer lobby people are severely mentally ill so it's really hard to get a good experience playing hoi4, singleplayer is too easy, multiplayer is also too easy with added mental illness and the fact you need to play nonstop for 10 hours lol
Would this work with BBA
Should do. Would definitely want to make sure you get 2 collab gov'ts done.
@@71Cloak Okay thanks!
Can u do a communist China guide?
My idea or BBA nerf JAPAN???
way not grind general in ethiopia
Ethiopia doesn't last long enough. I did grind a bit in spain but most of thr grinding I did in china. I ended up with way better generals than you will ever need in sp