Playthrough - Manchukuo

I can nuke Paris 20 times and yet it still exists. SMH not realistic I am disappointed.

To be fair you wouldn’t change much by nuking Paris 20 times…

Assuming all the nukes actually land?

Because if they do, they could absolutely wipe it off the map if they're powerful enough.

I'm not sure if you're aware that this exists, but if not it can provide hours of morbid fun. I tried dropping just one of the most powerful ones on Paris. Not much of it was left. Mind you, the most powerful one on the menu was never actually built.

Even keeping things more realistic, the W-76 does a pretty good job of vaporising the important parts of Paris, and the damage encompasses pretty much all of it.

Tsar Bomba, I gotta be a basic b.

GLORY TO THE UNION!

My dream come true...

Comrade Carking, I hereby bestow upon you the honour of, HERO OF THE SOVIET UNION

This is a great honor! Glory to the Union!

Carking the 6th wrote:

GLORY TO THE UNION!

I’m more a Spiffing Brit Connoisseur myself!

DAY TWENTY-ONE

I can finally afford it! We're making the move.

Fig. 64 We're also going to move anti-air here on the off chance someone decides to nuke my capital.

My two most heavily developed cities are Harbin and Hsinking; the latter is particularly crucial to remove as a target because it has my only Level 5 secret lab. The others are all Level 1 and in random spots where other people already had one and repairing it was the only development I could afford.

It's historically accurate, it's more centralised, and I only ever use it to churn out militia anyway, as all the other stuff is inherited from Japanese occupation. What's not to like?

Our Mongolian border has pretty much shrunk down to what it was to begin with.

Fig. 65 Methinks I see an opportunity here.

That does it; I'm getting some troops over there and I'm going to attack them while they're down. For one thing they can't see my (highly suspicious) map (that was a lot more suspicious last night while Xinjiang didn't have all that land) and have no reasons to have troops in the east, so if I get in there quickly I might scoop up some cities. I also need to create the perfect stack to counter that tank stack they have sitting on my border left over from the first week.

It's mostly infantry, which has bad defense against heavy armour and air units. I'm going with the latter, because I refuse to research and build crappy Pan-Asian heavy tanks or tank destroyers just for a one-off attack. The rest of it is light tank, which has even worse anti-air.

That's decided then. I'm throwing tactical bombers at it. Now if I'd actually bothered to plan out and put together tailored stacks last time I fought them rather than panicking and sending whatever I had to the front line, I might have won.

My atomic bomb research finished; I'm currently researching nuclear bombers. I'd also be researching better tactical bombers if I had the resources, but most of the AIs have trade-embargoed me so I can forget about the stock market if I'm not truly desperate.

On the Japanese front:

Fig. 66 They landed safely. Excellent. After just one attempt, I might add, and they didn't get killed by hidden Japanese naval units at all.

I'm going to need considerably more force than this before I can try taking Nagasaki, but this alone should be enough to take all the rural provinces.

A few hours later: I'm at war with Mongolia. Now how did this happen? Not like I wasn't planning to, but I hadn't actually declared it, nor had I accidentally used an attack order (if you do that to an allied country it's kind of hard to ignore, because the game shouts at you to make sure you mean it). Perhaps they revoked my right of way at an inopportune moment? The newspaper says it was me who attacked them. No matter; this is exactly what I had planned anyway. Still, I decided to message them to deny everything just for what it's worth.

...and moments later everything is clear: at last Mongolia has gone AI, and probably has indeed revoked my right of way at an inopportune moment, what with the AIs hating me at present and with reason. This also explains why they're been losing so badly to Xinjiang.

Fig. 67 Tactical bomber strike

This is a pretty big incentive to attack Russia the moment I'm done with Xinjang and Mongolia; until just now it had not seriously occurred to me that my AI right of way might be in jeopardy. It ought to have done, because AI France did the same, only I didn't really notice because Indochina was a mess at that stage anyway.

To end today's post, yet another milestone: I now cap the Dreaded list, ahead of Germany. People have finally learned that the Qing dynasty is to be feared.

Lady Aragosta wrote:

DAY TWENTY-ONE

I can finally afford it! We're making the move.

Fig. 64 We're also going to move anti-air here on the off chance someone decides to nuke my capital.

My two most heavily developed cities are Harbin and Hsinking; the latter is particularly crucial to remove as a target because it has my only Level 5 secret lab. The others are all Level 1 and in random spots where other people already had one and repairing it was the only development I could afford.

It's historically accurate, it's more centralised, and I only ever use it to churn out militia anyway, as all the other stuff is inherited from Japanese occupation. What's not to like?

Our Mongolian border has pretty much shrunk down to what it was to begin with.

Fig. 65 Methinks I see an opportunity here.

That does it; I'm getting some troops over there and I'm going to attack them while they're down. For one thing they can't see my (highly suspicious) map (that was a lot more suspicious last night while Xinjiang didn't have all that land) and have no reasons to have troops in the east, so if I get in there quickly I might scoop up some cities. I also need to create the perfect stack to counter that tank stack they have sitting on my border left over from the first week.

It's mostly infantry, which has bad defense against heavy armour and air units. I'm going with the latter, because I refuse to research and build crappy Pan-Asian heavy tanks or tank destroyers just for a one-off attack. The rest of it is light tank, which has even worse anti-air.

That's decided then. I'm throwing tactical bombers at it. Now if I'd actually bothered to plan out and put together tailored stacks last time I fought them rather than panicking and sending whatever I had to the front line, I might have won.

My atomic bomb research finished; I'm currently researching nuclear bombers. I'd also be researching better tactical bombers if I had the resources, but most of the AIs have trade-embargoed me so I can forget about the stock market if I'm not truly desperate.

On the Japanese front:

Fig. 66 They landed safely. Excellent. After just one attempt, I might add, and they didn't get killed by hidden Japanese naval units at all.

I'm going to need considerably more force than this before I can try taking Nagasaki, but this alone should be enough to take all the rural provinces.

A few hours later: I'm at war with Mongolia. Now how did this happen? Not like I wasn't planning to, but I hadn't actually declared it, nor had I accidentally used an attack order (if you do that to an allied country it's kind of hard to ignore, because the game shouts at you to make sure you mean it). Perhaps they revoked my right of way at an inopportune moment? The newspaper says it was me who attacked them. No matter; this is exactly what I had planned anyway. Still, I decided to message them to deny everything just for what it's worth.

...and moments later everything is clear: at last Mongolia has gone AI, and probably has indeed revoked my right of way at an inopportune moment, what with the AIs hating me at present and with reason. This also explains why they're been losing so badly to Xinjiang.

Fig. 67 Tactical bomber strike

This is a pretty big incentive to attack Russia the moment I'm done with Xinjang and Mongolia; until just now it had not seriously occurred to me that my AI right of way might be in jeopardy. It ought to have done, because AI France did the same, only I didn't really notice because Indochina was a mess at that stage anyway.

To end today's post, yet another milestone: I now cap the Dreaded list, ahead of Germany. People have finally learned that the Qing dynasty is to be feared.

The Soviet Union

The United States of America

That polish guy wrote:

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Carking the 6th wrote:

That polish guy wrote:

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

That polish guy wrote:

Carking the 6th wrote:

That polish guy wrote:

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

RUSSIA

Carking the 6th wrote:

That polish guy wrote:

Carking the 6th wrote:

That polish guy wrote:

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

RUSSIA

But there are 14 other republics too!

DAY TWENTY-TWO

...oh my...

I swear I was not responsible for this, and I was under the impression (from observational evidence in the Indochina theatre, where Australia with whom I am at peace kept capturing provinces belonging to France with whom I had right of way) that if your units are set to travel through a province that suddenly revolts to or is captured by a nation you have no right to travel through, that unit's path is halted at the new border. Yet the only explanation for how this could have happened that I can think of is that Xinjiang captured a Mongolian province I was travelling through.

Fig. 68 That, or the AIs really hate me that much.

Not that this is a problem; I was going to do this today anyway. It just annoys me when I accidentally end up at war with someone and am denied the fun of declaring it minutes before my first attack arrives.

Fig. 69 It's pretty obvious I was preparing for this anyway.

Meanwhile, my capital development has come through nicely:

Fig. 70 It even has the nice new Qing flag handily attached.

This feels much better than having it at Hsinking.

In a rare display of my actually considering the functions, bonuses and such like of a vast horde of units, I've sent my tanks and artillery in ahead and left half my militia guarding the border, and sent the other half into the hilly and mountainous provinces as an advance guard.

(Readers (probably Carking Hang on aren't you meant to send artillery in at the back as a- "YES I KNOW THAT I JUST DIDN'T THINK IT THROUGH THEN AND IT'S A BIT LATE NOW OK")

Fig. 71 Too many of them are tanks. I'm going to stop with the militia for a while and focus on artillery.

I bet this isn't even all of them, either. This is going to be a repeat of the never-ending Mongolian deadlock, except this time Mongolia is going to be a walkover once I've squashed those last two tanks. If it turns out to be like this all the way to Urumchi, I'm going to give in and crack out the gold once more.

At 7:40 tomorrow I can build nukes. Note to self: make sure I have all the resources handy, even if this means buying overpriced goods on the stock market. My two most important cities, Beijing and Hsinking, have air defense (that needs upgrading). I'm prepared for nuclear war and really hoping I can be the one to kick it off.

Oh, hell. It's been like this all day but I just realised Soviet Union has revoked their right of way. That means I can forget Tibet; I'm going to war with the Russians next whether I like it or not. It's almost like the AIs can read my list of planned invasions and are forcing me to go through with them before I'm ready. Just as long as they don't do it before I've got my nuclear bombers. Speaking of which I'm going to want a second secret lab and run the two in tandem, which worked well for me in the Nationalist China game, but I also can't afford to do anything of the sort if I'm also going to hold back Xinjiang's 47 units (and that's just the ones I've revealed so far). I have 92, but most are militia and a good deal are in Japan, or being produced quite far away from the front line.

I owe Germany a bunch of food and goods; around 30,000 each. Will I ever pay them back? You'll have to wait for Book II.

Hang on aren't you meant to send artillery in at the back as a-

I had a suspicion you'd post that.