I thought I'd try writing a HWW playthrough, as I write myself private ones anyway during most games. Recently I decided I wanted to challenge myself a bit more, having joined games as Nationalist China, Japan and UK, so here we have it: the weakest playable country in Asia. I had three reasons for picking it:
1. It allowed me to return to my favourite doctrine;
2. No matter how full a HWW is, one can be 99% certain that nobody's bagged it yet, so I didn't need to camp out the games page for hours; and
3. I did everyone a favour by taking one of the least popular countries and allowing that game to be replaced by a new HWW with the powerful countries untaken slightly faster than it would have been otherwise.
A disclaimer: I only play occasionally, so I'll probably do a terrible job of running the country and this will end in ignominious defeat.
DAY ONE
Fig. 1 And here we have it: one of the wimpiest armies to grace playable east Asia.
Surrounded as they are by two of the three most seriously powerful countries by far in this theatre (and, in my opinion, the scariest in the entire game), and having a weak army, the new government's first priority was to establish friendly relations on as many borders as possible. Japan being the most desirous ally, a particularly grovelling request was sent.
The Soviet Union instantly accepted, but as her ladyship had not thought to send a trade offer as part of the request, she was obliged to accept an unequal alliance (Right of Way vs Shared Map) rather than risk the wrath of a much more powerful state. Japan was much more reasonable, with the states agreeing to share maps with each other.
International peace and security being secured, Emperor Aragosta's thoughts turned to war. Manchukuo launched its first research project: light tanks and artillery, both level 2. Across the country production of artillery and militia began. Rule no. 1 in the east Asian theatre is always 'invade Manchukuo first', so I'm going to get in there pre-emptively; I've ruled out Japan and the Soviets, which leaves just one easily accessible country: Mongolia.*
An artillery division is staying right there in Hsinking (leaving one's capital undefended is asking for an ally with shared map to backstab you - I should know because I've done it) and Nanching (a port city) is remaining under militia guard, but everything else is going up to the Mongolian border. Having Japan as an ally - meaning there is no pressing urge to leave garrison forces in every city - is a huge relief, but the emperor barely trusts the Soviet Union and it's high on her list of future backstab victims.
I notice that neither of them are particularly strong players. Japan's player in particular fails its country's particular litmus test (i.e. if they don't invade Manchukuo on Day One, they're doing something wrong). Good - makes them all the easier to backstab. The Soviets are locked into a coalition with Britain and France, neither of whom bother me in the slightest as they're a fair way away from me.
As usual for me Manchukuo is already running short on goods - a combination of my habit of having every city on near-constant production (which I feel fully justified in doing here, what with Manchukuo's army being wimpy) and the fact that I focus heavily on ordnance in Comintern and Pan-Asian (ordnance foundries and artillery both chew through goods quite alarmingly). Furtunately the state has powerful - and, more to the point, rich - allies to provide aid, although begging for goods so close to first sealing the alliance is pushing it. Somehow the country is making money, so there's going to be a bit of a buffer before the emperor's chronic financial short-sightedness catches up to her.
Her financial advisors would like to know why she is not developing their industries? That won't take up goods. Most of the cities are already occupied by unit production projects that involve upgrading ordnance foundries, but the rural provinces have no such restrictions... and Yingkow, one of the only two major cities without expensive projects taking place at present, is the country's top goods producer. The other, Harbin, produces food; Manchukuo's agricultural wealth leads to the emperor dismissing industry development there as a waste of money. Metal is her next priority.
The die being cast for Manchukuo's first real war, the emperor loses interest until the first front reports start arriving.
*With the benefit of hindsight, I know what I should have done: declared war on Nationalist China and sent all my forces through Japan. With a neutral country in the way they'd be in no position to retaliate, or at least not without triggering a war with the most OP country in Asia. I did the reverse version of this, and won in a walk, the first time I played HWW, so I really should have thought of this earlier.
Feedback would be appreciated! However I should add that I'm posting on a three-day delay, so it may be too late to take very specific advice into account.
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I love turkey - I’ve won two HWW games as turkey, even with an active Germany. Granted, it wasn’t a very good player - but all I had to do was wait until day 20 ish, allied myself with India and Australia, and invaded him.
I have won so many games on so many different maps as Turkey that it’s not even funny… 100p solo games, HWW, ACAI, CON, you name it, I’ve done it.
Weird - I've heard that Turkey is one of the hardest to play as because of its central location. I suppose it depends on one's playing style whether that's an advantage or disadvantage.
In my latest solo victory as Japan late last year, Turkey was one of the three surviving nations and gave me genuine trouble in Persia and Arabia. More recently, the same in another round.Lady Aragosta wrote:
Weird - I've heard that Turkey is one of the hardest to play as because of its central location. I suppose it depends on one's playing style whether that's an advantage or disadvantage.
Being Axis helps.
The only major countries it borders are a short border with the USSR - who tends to ignore it for the first week, busy invading everyone else - and Syria, owned by France. It tends to be that you can take Syria and then make peace with France, because it’s not really worth it for him to hold onto a colony so far away.Lady Aragosta wrote:
Weird - I've heard that Turkey is one of the hardest to play as because of its central location. I suppose it depends on one's playing style whether that's an advantage or disadvantage.
you can also invade Greece or Iraq relatively early - you can expand east or west which really helps.
DAY THREE
Four important things have happened since the previous day:
Firstly, our great ally Japan's glorious leader, Emperor Hirohito, has passed away. Manchukuo offered its condolences, and wishes the new emperor a long and illustrious rule. [No this is not a very roundabout way of saying they went inactive; that wouldn't have happened before Day 4 anyway. This was directly lifted from the newspapers.]
Second, Japan has begun an attack on Nationalist China, with which we might have assisted were it not for other developments, to which we shall come momentarily.
Third, Germany has unexpectedly offered the hand of friendship, proposing a mutual shared map. Why someone as strong as they are, in central Europe, should want to befriend Manchukuo of all places escapes me.
Fourth, although we have gained ground in Mongolia, he has a massive stack sitting right next to one of the invading armies that's already made my k/d even shitter than it was already. Laat ons zien: 1 anti-air level 1 (susceptible to unarmoured, but rules out any air attack on the stack unless I send a huge fleet of aircraft), aaand damnit. The wretched thing has just left my fog-of-war vision field entirely, meaning I can't check the rest of it. There's medium tanks in there somewhere, I recall. There is also a plane patrolling nearby, probably an interceptor but I was unable to check what type for the same reason. That's fine; Manchukuo has interceptors too, and the emperor insisted on expending a research slot on better ones, what with the Pan-Asian interceptors getting some decent buffs.
Usually tacs are my aircraft 'hammer'; I'm trying to explore alternate aircraft strategies.
Manchukuo's various foundries are also going to stop wasting money on anti-air, as regular artillery is a better use of those resources.
Fig. 2 What would be my usual operational nightmare if I had more troops.
I've also splashed some more gold (hah, the goldless game resolution didn't last long) to spend my other research slot on Level 3 artillery. The country already has Level 3 armoured cars; it was a toss-up between arty and light tanks, and I use arty as my all-purpose hammer for everything except naval engagements.
This puts an end to everything the government can usefully do without a trip to the overpriced stock market; developing Level 4 goods industry in Yingkow may have been a good move long-term, but in the short term it means sinking resources.
Just as she was starting to settle down again, the empress received a number of fresh reports from the front line. Her military advisory body thinks this must be every last one of Mongolia's forces, so if we manage to mow them all down we've basically won, but holy hell.
Fig. 3-5 Panic ensues. At least they're all level 1.
I'm literally at the point where I ran out of gold to splash out on, so I'd better last to Day 7, when my 6,000 payout for Desktop General Elite will arrive.
Orders went out to every city to start producing artillery, and then anti-tank when they started running out of goods; manufacturers say they need faster ordnance foundries that the government can't afford to build. I'm not even trying to build appropriate units to counter each enemy stack; said stacks are a sufficiently mixed bag that I can just throw artillery at it all as I do by default anyway and expect reasonable results.
Selling rare materials on the stock market is the only thing that's keeping the state solvent at present. The empress decides to wait a few tactful hours before bothering Germany and Russia for some goods, until the newspaper comes in with a new economic analysis revealing that Russia tops the list. In that case they can probably afford to fund the next wave of artillery, and if they're going to throw small nations into unequal alliances in their favour it's the least they can offer in return. Requests are made for money or goods; the government doesn't care which. Having more food than they know what to do with, they've offered to pay in that. The alternative is taking a major gamble that Manchukuo will survive for long enough to pay them in something else at a later date (when their industry will have taken off and they don't need it particularly anymore, meaning Manchukuo gets the best of that deal, but our diplomats saw no reason to point that out).
OK, that's everything I can usefully do; I've left an anti-air sitting on my capital, and everything else is either on its way to the front lines or still being built. Pains me to say it, but I need to go get some sleep now.
Can I just say that I hate how I have to lower the resolution on the images showing proper maps so much in order to put them into these posts?
Fair enough.SamPGS_17 wrote:
The only major countries it borders are a short border with the USSR - who tends to ignore it for the first week, busy invading everyone else - and Syria, owned by France. It tends to be that you can take Syria and then make peace with France, because it’s not really worth it for him to hold onto a colony so far away.Lady Aragosta wrote:
Weird - I've heard that Turkey is one of the hardest to play as because of its central location. I suppose it depends on one's playing style whether that's an advantage or disadvantage.you can also invade Greece or Iraq relatively early - you can expand east or west which really helps.
I remember soloing the USSR as Turkey a few times… good times! My ancestors would be proud… kinda.
That Chinese?Lady Aragosta wrote:
Laat ons zien:
I wish. (Both that I knew Chinese and that I'd thought to actually put in random Chinese phrases, as that would have been more appropriate given the country.) It's Dutch for 'let's see'.K.Rokossovski wrote:
That Chinese?
Weet it toch, schat, weet ik...
¡Todo es de España! ¡Esos 80 años no garantizarán tu libertad! ¡Viva la España!
DAY FOUR
Manchukuo applied to Germany's and Japan's Axis coalition; we can always drop out later if there is disagreement.
Although reporters were eventually able to directly interview Emperor Aragosta on the latest news from the Mongolian front, the direct quotes she provided were all unprintable.
A few hours later, fresh reports come in; either a severely weakened anti-tank brigade has split off from the rest of its massive army, or said massive army has somehow been slaughtered in the intervening period despite having hitpoints running into the hundreds (if this was a stack unfortunate enough to be unequipped with artillery, the latter is entirely possible, given that we've been throwing everything we have at those stacks for more than 24 hours). It no longer has anti-air backing so Manchukuo's new interceptor is going to kill it.
Looking back through older reports, it would appear to have been from the 7th Tank Destroyer Division, which yesterday had 75 hitpoints, was backed by infantry and a medium tank, and was a three-unit stack all up, thus making it entirely plausible that what the front troops are seeing is the strongest remnants of it; this is also the only one that didn't have anti-air and... the high command has just realised that there's still more of it in the area, so they'd better watch it. We've still only killed the weakest stack, assuming it did get killed.
An anti-air and anti-tank stack from Hsinking is sneaking through Japan to take a Mongolian front-line city. All Mongolia's armies seem to be on the front line, probably because they don't know about the Manchu-Japanese alliance, so they're probably wholly unprepared for this. Or so the high command hopes. The high command hopes we've captured one of those awesome 40-hitpoint tank destroyers.
Celebration ensues upon the capture of Matad. The wretched tank destroyer is dead. We sent a crappy unit through the breach to take advantage of it and take Bor-Undur along with Operation Sneak Through Japan, or alternately discover the AWOL rogue last Mongolian stack and at least take a few hitpoint off it before it smashes into the rest of our army; the artillery is being promoted before being sent to deal with the other 7-stack. Said stack is visible, being slowly degraded (my anti-air died straight away and took .4 hitpoints with it), with Manchukuan artillery (level 1 and 2 respectively) just out of range and slowly killing it while taking no damage itself. Useful.
Fig. 6 Annoyingly, the supply drop will have expired by the time I capture the province if reinforcements don't arrive quickly.
Mongolia has lots of anti-tank and tank destroyers; all three stacks had one or the other. Moral: stop wasting time on light tanks, unless bypassing the front line through Japan, and focus on artillery for now.
The financial department has also decided to focus on unit production rather than industry for now. (Long-term I'd normally regret that, my typical Day Four finances being what they are, but if I can hold Mongolia back for another three days I'm due for a massive gold boost, so short-term thinking really is the right way to approach it. I love it when the techniques I always use anyway turn out to be the most sensible.)
Some frantic last-minute orders lead to the following operations: A light tank is heading in towards Ulunbataar through Russia, meaning that tomorrow Mongolia will be dealing with an invasion on three fronts at once: our actual border, the Japan incursion and the Russia incursion. Psychologically this makes it clear that we have big pals he was previously unaware of, and may prompt him to go inactive. (I hope it doesn't. Inactive players are far less fun to fight.)
Fig. 7 A three-pronged attack through allied territory, also known as 'Persykological Warfare'. Also, my logistics are horrifying.
Unfortunately, the last visible big stack is not staying where it is. The artillery fighting it is nearly dead and it'll be a while before reinforcements of any type arrive, so Manchukuo may have a lost city in the offing. ...but ah, that means they're leaving a supply-drop province empty, doesn't it? The infantry on its way to Bor-undur will, once it's done city-capturing, move on to said province.
Of course it's probably going to turn out that the major assumption the I've making here, i.e. this is the vast majority of Mongolia's forces and everything else is still being manufactured, is wrong and there's still more lying in wait. After all, they could be a gold user.
Bor-undur contains an unidentified stack of unidentified magnitude, so we've sent an interceptor to scout it out. My luck being what it is in this game, there's going to turn out to be anti-air in there somewhere, so I'm going to stay online until it arrives so I can withdraw immediately if need be. If there isn't, we're bombing it. Yes, interceptors are crud for that, but every particle of damage we can inflict without any damage to our own side is well worth it.
...plane's refuelling; the field of vision for the approaching army now encompasses Bor-undur. It still can't identify what's in the city itself, but now also knows that more units are headed its way just beyond there. Good and bad. Bad because it's a level 1 militia unit that's ill-equipped to deal with this; good because that's units moving away from the bits where the later border ambushes will happen.
The city garrison turned out to be three medium tanks. The good news being that tanks have terrible anti-air. Meaning, of course, that the approaching unidentified unit is going to turn out to be precisely that. Regrettably the tanks are just out of range of the interceptor and there isn't time to build a new airstrip. Or goods, for that matter. The high command resigns itself to the death of a perfectly good militia unit.
The approaching units are now in view: a stack of two artillery and one infantry. No anti-air to speak of, then. The interceptor attack will go ahead.
Alarming news reaches the emperor: the Mongolian artillery reinforcements are circumventing the main battlefield and heading towards what will eventually be the Japanese back entry point. Now why would Mongolia possibly be sending troops there if they can't see my own unit distribution - in specific the anti-tank/anti-air stack currently in Japanese territory? Emperor Aragosta decides it's time to invest in some counterespionage. We can scarcely afford it, but that's what the stock market is for.
Planting counterespionage in every province is absolutely too expensive, so the government made a start with Hsinking. Not that I seriously think that will stop anything; I strongly suspect he uses gold-based intelligence, and gold in general, but even long-term this is a good move. I just hope the cash loss doesn't kill me before Mongolia does.
This game is really hitting home to me that my 'Zerg Rush' technique is very inefficient. It's kind of stupid to throw random troops (paid for by hastily selling off vast quantities of food) at no doubt well-planned-out stacks. Then and again, I've won wars by doing this. If it's stupid but it works, it ain't stupid.
DAY FIVE
Latest front reports: the visible seven-stack is down to four units and only has fourteen hitpoints; it's dead. The Bor-undur offensive has failed. One of the units entering Mongolia through allies' territory (the Ulanbaatar-bound army) is down and the other two are still on their way.
Manchukuo can no longer afford to build much, nor can it fund research. It's time for Germany to show that their alliance was more than just a token display. Requests are sent for goods. In other international news, Japan is losing a war against China (which has recently gone AI). A new alliance may be in order.
Japan is wasting a perfectly good country. Since Russia's gone inactive I'm going to leave it alone for a while and backstab Japan first, then China. I'll have to talk to Germany about that, what with them being in a coalition with Japan, but all I need to do is: a) draw attention to Japan's incompetence and I should be OK, or b) forget that and pursue forgiveness rather than permission, secure in the knowledge that Germany can't do a thing about it if I do invade.
Another new report: the stack is dead.
Fig. 8 It has passed on. This stack is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. It has passed on. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. It has kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and gone to join the choir invisible. It is an ex-stack.
Sweet. Let's move into Ulanbaatar.
Meanwhile a patrolling interceptor has found the three tanks from last night. They still don't have anti-air backing and this time are within range of an airstrip, so orders are going out to bomb them.
Mandal-oovoo has a lot of unspecified buildings in it and, more importantly, no units (that I can see). There could be stealth units, but everything I've seen of his is Level 1 and my militia is Level 2, pending research to Level 3.
Invading forces from the north have revealed that there's something between them and Ulanbaatar; it's too far awar to identify, but it's probably going to turn out to be powerful enough to destroy the invaders who just spotted it. Probably one of those tank destroyers with tonnes of hitpoints.
(Nope. It turned out to be infantry. Easily dealt with.)
There's a fighter squadron hovering outside Ulanbaatar, which itself contains two grounded attack bombers and an artillery unit. Fortunately I have a squadron of my own in the vicinity, and it's a better one, so those can easily be taken care of.
Fig. 9 The last of Mongolia's army revealed at last. I hope.
Will Manchukuo at last gain the upper hand and storm its enemy's capital? Or will it be unceremoniously flattened? Only time will tell.
I feel bad for the timeline where Mongolia somehow curb stomps you and you just die…
I feel bad for all the good players, who are probably all in South America where I never pay much attention, who got stuck in a game where nearly everyone went AI early on and I somehow ended up as the most competent player in Asia.
And honestly I'm amazed Mongolia hasn't curb-stomped me already.
Imagine if you just died to Mongolia and it ended there. That would be the most anticlimactic thing imaginable and an easy 10/10 time.
At least if you survive China and Japan should be easy prey!
I was expecting this playthrough to be anticlimactic. The fact that I have a Day Eight in my post lineup, despite not seriously thinking I'd be up to playing such a weak country, is in itself somewhat impressive.
Surviving that long I’d definitely an achievement. All I know Manchuko for really is that place I like storming day 1/2 as Japan or my Asian first invasion as the Union…
The prime reason why I have a low opinion of this game's Japan player is because they haven't done that yet. No sane Japan player agrees to an alliance with Manchukuo unless they're just doing it to get safely into all its cities before declaring war.
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