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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Would it have, m’lady? Would it? Would it really have turned out differently? Or is that your “heart” just wishing it could? I know copium very well… I took a big dose just a few days ago.
'Copium'? I don't do these strange drugs. By 'differently' I could mean either 'victory' or 'equally laughable defeat, but in a different way', and from the start I've known the latter was more likely.
Indeed, when russian forces forced capitulation within 4 months, when you had boasted they would be defeaated in a yearCarking the 6th wrote:
Would it have, m’lady? Would it? Would it really have turned out differently? Or is that your “heart” just wishing it could? I know copium very well… I took a big dose just a few days ago.
They would have had you not picked a time where everyone was inactive. Your victory was empty. Plus I crushed your forces and sent them running until then. You should have and would have lost. I also didn’t surrender.
Not to mention that you bent the rules to even be allowed to have that war
I never said you surrendered, and THAT RETREAT was strategic, I had 30 mechanized infantry coming. And all your allies capitulated. And that time was carefully picked, I always study sleep schedule if possible.
DAY FORTY-FOUR
Let's see, I have... zero cities and zero land units (even my convoy got shot down). I'm not going to last past tomorrow, unless Germany is nice and gives me a city (I doubt it, because they've just gone inactive and would have to come out of retirement, assuming they were inclined to help me at all) or Argentina fails to root out all the islands I still own (which I also doubt, but that's more likely). On the plus side, I still have a few subs to annoy Argentina with, and my spy network managed to do this.
Fig. 149 The Qing spy network on its last legs
Well, almost. At this point I really may as well sell off all my resources to fund more, as I have no cities to build units in and no units to capture more cities, so I'm not trying to fund anything else.
The game also put this up:
Fig. 150 This is the first game I've been in where it even got to this point.
That vote is from me; it's in my interests to end the game while I'm still alive and technically in second place. I highly doubt the other two will vote, though, because they're in a coalition that can win in a walk from now on and they'd be daft not to take that opportunity, especially now Germany is an AI.
I'm still kicking myself for not taking a proper screenshot of the Qing empire at its height and it recently occurred to me to just go back through the newspaper for its map. It's not as good, but one gets the general idea.
Fig. 151 Not bloody bad if I do say so myself.
I'm angry that I've been reduced from that glorious empire to this pitiful state.
Hide the heir to the throne… one day they will return and the empire will rise once more…
DAY FORY-FIVE
Australia has finally been hit by the Great Inactivity Epidemic. That leaves us with two active players, one of whom is unlikely to agree to quit anytime soon.
A few provinces revolted back to me, but no cities. I'm not prepared to spend gold on decreasing morale in one of my core cities specifically to get one back, but I almost wish I were.
DAY FORTY-SIX
Australia's back; the rest are not. The APTO coalition has been dissolved.
My spy network had the desired effect but it's stopped feeling funny or clever; to be honest I'm kind of over this game. Struggling in the face of adversity was fun while I was still able to do something about it, but the fun's worn off the one thing I'm still in a position to do.
Fig. 152 This is starting to feel like hollow revenge.
If the game keeps dragging itself interminably on like this, I shall skip to the end.
Maybe inactivity will hit the final one… would fit am HWW. Then you win!
Not in any meaningful way. I'd still technically be in second place, and I'd get the corresponding gold payout.
Can never be easy.
DAY FORTY-SEVEN
Fig. 153 Well, I can't honestly say I wasn't expecting it.
In fact I wasn't destroyed; I had a few provinces and, somehow, two infantry units. I don't know how I acquired those what with not having any cities.
Fig. 154 Unnoble, 1/10
It's around now that I'd ideally be making some heartfelt, pithy statements about everything I learned playing a tiny nation, building it up to a vast empire, and having it deflate in days. In fact I had this great big speech all ready prepared, but you know what? I forgot every damn thing I intended to say and anyway, I'm far from sure my playing will be any better next time around.
Thanks for joining me on this playthrough; I hope you were entertained as I was. Thank you also to everyone who gave me advice. I'll be seeing you all, I understand, in the HWW. I may or may not tidy up my personal playthrough of that and post it here, depending on how much interest people show in seeing a retold game they were actually part of.
The Qing will return again one day, when I feel like I am a more competent player.
2nd place as Manchuko? Not too shabby. I am proud. You’ll bounce back. Next time, make sure Germany is active!
Barely counts as a second place. An intelligent Germany player would have kicked me out of the coalition by Day Three of the Manchu-Argentinian War.
Still. 2nd is 2nd. Take it!
I took the gold. That was all I cared about at that stage. And Germany got none, which satisfies me in an odd way.
Wow, that was fun thanks. Did not read all but well done.
How do you post pictures. I have a pic of a map I want to share?
can’t seem to get it to work.
You see the paper clip over the submit button? Hit it. Then you just gotta hit upload and do it however you prefer.NickXXXNick wrote:
Wow, that was fun thanks. Did not read all but well done.How do you post pictures. I have a pic of a map I want to share?
can’t seem to get it to work.
Wow that was simple… I just posted a whole ass essay explanation plus pics to help in the thread that Nick created 20 minutes ago.Carking the 6th wrote:
You see the paper clip over the submit button? Hit it. Then you just gotta hit upload and do it however you prefer.NickXXXNick wrote:
Wow, that was fun thanks. Did not read all but well done.How do you post pictures. I have a pic of a map I want to share?
can’t seem to get it to work.
I’d still love to see that lolSamPGS_17 wrote:
Wow that was simple… I just posted a whole ass essay explanation plus pics to help in the thread that Nick created 20 minutes ago.Carking the 6th wrote:
You see the paper clip over the submit button? Hit it. Then you just gotta hit upload and do it however you prefer.NickXXXNick wrote:
Wow, that was fun thanks. Did not read all but well done.How do you post pictures. I have a pic of a map I want to share?
can’t seem to get it to work.
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