Thundax's Pan-Asian Rapid Conquest Guide!

z00mz00m wrote:

This is like saying bears are stronger than wolves.

It's a true statement but it's not helpful to compare bears to wolves.

We are not running a cage fight.

[...] It's a pack of wolves ambushing a bear while he's taking a nap. The bear is big and strong, but the wolves are in control the entire time.

Brando Dilla wrote:

Still, Pan-asian navy is considerably weaker than Axis vessels. Also consider that Pan-asian high level destroyers and cruisers are available 2-3 days later than Axis ones.

And if I'm playing Axis I prefer simply submarines, except as escorts.

Thundax's Pan-Asian Rapid Conquest Guide!

Days 2-3

You wake up and check the map. Waking up on Day 2 (or later day on speed maps) and check what happened while you slept is always a roll of the dice to some degree. Starting so close together something is bound to go down. It's likely that some unit or another died in the night like a low budget horror movie and that happens. You did your best and went with the attack and set some waypoints before you went to bed, a certain amount of the outcome while you sleep is outside of your control.

“The sea – like life itself – is a stern taskmaster. The best way to get along with either is to learn all you can, then do your best and don't worry – especially about things over which you have no control.”

- Admiral Nimitz

Days 2 and 3 are very similar, and are critical for expansion. Players who are entirely or mostly inactive can be conquered very easily by artillery before they go under AI control on day 4 (or after 2 real life days on speed maps). This is prime time for marching your artillery through the enemy provinces and cities to capture them without even having to be online. The tricky part is identifying who is active and who is inactive.

A variety of outcomes are possible, but regardless, things open up quite a bit on day 2.You will want to continue identifying who might be an inactive target. At some point you will meet some resistance, likely from units that don't fire at range but are trying to catch your artillery and get into close combat with it. Your 9hp artillery lasts only 2 rounds in close combat if it is lucky. It's a game of tag and you're not it hopefully!

Some call it shoot and scoot, some call it kiting, whatever it is, you need to take advantage of it to keep your artillery alive. The move bonus for your artillery makes it as fast as normal infantry. Don't be afraid to occasionally force march your artillery to safety. You lose 5% hp per hour of force march (proportionally fast on speed maps). 5% of 9hp is not a big number so don't sweat it if you need to run away in a tight spot from time to time.

Pan-Asian units have -10% hp, but outside of select offensive exceptions like taking a city quickly , you need to avoid close combat whenever possible the first few days. So artillery needs to stay moving and shooting. Fire Control settings are your best friend for this. Sometimes you get attacked, and I'll go over how to handle that, but avoid getting caught up in melee.

Fire Control settings:

There are 2 main fire control settings that I use from the start, and a 3rd for a little later on.

Offensive Fire

My main go to setting. Anytime the artillery comes within range of an enemy it will stop and fire until there is no more enemy within range, then keep going on it's route. This is how you conquer land overnight. Set an artillery unit walking through multiple enemy cities (ideally inactive but not yet gone AI enemy), and you wake up with that artillery working hard for you all night long baby

Fire At Will

This is the default, all new units come out like this, and non High Command Members have all their artillery like this when not directly commanded. The unit will only fire when it is still and something comes into range, or if it is ordered directly. If you run your artillery around in this setting, it will bravely charge the first enemy it meets, and likely be dead minutes later.

And later... Aggressive

Aggressive is like Offensive Fire but any neutral unit will also be shot at on sight. I use this for patrolling my coast with battleships and subs. Anyone doing a sneaky invasion while at peace will be intercepted by any units on this setting and fired at, before they can get ashore hopefully.

The goal is to keep your artillery unit firing every time it can (every 30 minutes on normal speed). There is a lightning bolt that fills up with red as a unit gets closer to being able to attack again. Become familiar with this and have your artillery move in between shots while being chased. The firing range for artillery takes 30-60 minutes to cover for artillery, so you can keep inching your artillery up to be able to continue swiftly after gunning down the inactive enemy stack. Also useful is running away from someone chasing you but getting a shot in manually every 30 minutesto slowly whittle them down.

Don't be shy, probe your neighbors, and whoever hasn't move much of their starting units and isn't responding to your messages, those cities will soon belong to you with little to no casualties if you have enough artillery. to move through them on offensive fire.

Ideally you can be at 80-120 VP by the end of day 1, to 150-200 VP at the end of day 2, and 250-300 VP at the end of day 3. Keep those artillery producing, moving and shooting through the inactives. Keep identifying new targets, because lots of people go inactive after their first hour of playing. If you identify and take advantage of it right away, you have a huge leg up on your competition.

Research:

The only tech I research on day 1 and usually for day 2 as well, is Artillery level 1 only. All you need. If you research something and don't use it anytime soon, it is wasted resources. Sure you will eventually get Battleships and Tanks, but researching it early on really slows down your artillery assembly line which costs you a lot of potential territory that you won't be able to conquer quickly because you only have 10-12 artillery instead of 20-25. In order to actually use the tech not only do you need to pay for research, but for the unit production building as well as the unit. Only then can you use it, Hours or days later after robbing your Artillery Army of reinforcements and slowing your industry upgrades to pay for your pet vanity project.

As an example, let's look at how much it costs to make your first Light Tank unit:

Total Costs:

Armored Car (pre-requisite), 5250 money, 1000 goods, 1450 steel, 1200 oil, 0:30

Light Tank, 5250 money, 800 goods, 1600 steel, 1300 oil, 2:30 hours

Tank Plant Level 1, 3600 money, 1600 steel, 1250 oil, 750 rares, 0:30

Light Tank unit, 1390 money, 1060 manpower, 400 goods, 800 steel, 650 oil, 3:15

That first Light Tank unit cost you a total of: 15490 money, 1060 manpower, 2200 goods, 5450 steel, 4400 oil, 750 rares, and 6 hours and 45 minutes minimum. Very expensive for your first one so early in the game. To do what exactly? What can that light tank unit do for you that your starting armored cars and infantry can't, and is it really worth it?

Research only has 2 slots which become a bottleneck later in the game, and you can't hold off research for too long. But you will usually run into max tech for a particular unit level limited by game day rather than research slot issues for your key units. It is important to focus research, and I try to avoid researching naval units for a long time to stay focused.

Here are the researches I would start thinking about on day 3, sometimes day 2 if I have an urgent need due to an active neighbor.

Interceptors (countering those players who love their Tactical Bomber stacks)

Armored cars, day 3 once you need more than your starting 2 or 3 and you have a lot of open empty ground to cover

**Light Tanks are possible instead of armored cars but I prefer armored cars because they are slightly faster, have better vision, can scout hidden units, and defend better, particularly against infantry stacks early on.

Naval Bombers, countering invasions and those pesky battleships bombing your coastal cities

Infantry and Infantry level 2, getting ready for a mass upgrade from level 1 to level 3 or 4, on day 3 or day 6 if you need to fight a big battle early (more on this massive upgrade later)

So when you have the resources, upgrade those industries, especially goods, both urban and local industries! You will plunder lots of oil and rares and steel that you don't need for artillery. Use those resources to upgrade your industry further and further. Keep those Ordnance factories pumping out new artillery at all times! No time off allowed for ordnance factory workers for Days 1-4 if you can avoid it

HR note: PTO requests denied for ordnance factory workers first 4 days. Hopefully only limited time off for Industry construction contractors as well

Capitals:

A critical factor in building your overall economy is getting your morale high quickly. For newly conquered provinces raising morale will also prevent rebellion. Whenever you capture a capital, all your provinces go up in Morale by 10%. This is huge for large empires, and is the primary way for large expansionist players to sustain high morale long term. Those small 1 city AI nations are critical for capturing quickly to get the morale boost. Capturing 2 capitals on the first day or 2 is critical to getting your productive core cities up in morale fast. Those little island nations and small AI countries are like tasty snacks for your empire, raising morale. Sometimes you even need to save a tasty snack for later, without taking the capital, as long as only you can get to it so it can't be snatched from you. When you have 30 provinces and capture a capital it can raise your manpower/hour production by 50-100/hr. Then you have 1500 provinces and you capture a capital, it can raise your manpower production by over 1000/hour potentially just from the blanket morale bonus. Capital capture is key to a growing large economy.

"If troops lay siege to a walled city, their strength will be exhausted." "Therefore, the best warfare strategy is to attack the enemy's plans, next is to attack alliances, next is to attack the army, and the worst is to attack a walled city.

-Sun Tzu

What "enemy's plans" to watch out for:

Eventually one of your targets will wake up and see half his country gone and be upset and send troops to attack you. Or you run into a fully active player who just wants to attack you. Or a coalition of mildly active newer players all next to each other see you as a threat and want to attack. I'll cover a few possible threats to your expansion and how I like to counter them below.

Early attack with start units:

For whatever reason a neighbor sends a big stack or two into your territory thinking your a soft target. If you have been sending friendly chatty messages, you should be able to avoid this, but s**t happens.

Fall back a little to your core territory. Group your nearby artillery behind several infantry. Ideally find a hill or mountain for the artillery nearby before the city.. Maybe even build a level 1 or 2 bunker if you have time. Their infantry slams into your infantry, which is better on defense, and is 15% stronger and 15% protected from damage on your core territory. With your artillery firing on the stack as well, it should go down fast. All that artillery you are building early can be called on to shoot up people attacking you if needed, which is one reason I like to build so many so early.

Dealing with those players who love to make one big tactical bomber stack:

As Pan-Asian you have the best interceptors in the game. If you are next to an Allies doctrine player, or see that tac bomber stack developing, or read about your neighbor's "Tactical Bomber Squadron" in the newspaper, research interceptors and build a few. Have an airbase or two around as well so you have a decent range of action with your interceptors. How many you build depends on how early it is and how much air you have to fight off, but anywhere from 4-7 is a decent amount. Build these after you detect the tactical bomber threat, you don't need to automatically build 7 interceptors for no reason, that will just slow you down. Again, ideally friendly diplomacy is your best friend to avoid having to have an aerial showdown in the first place, but some people can't be reasoned with early. You'll build them on day 4 or 5 for sure if not earlier, but every day you get away without spending resources on them, the more resources you have to expand and build your economy.

One of my favorite Call of War pastimes is to take out enemy Tac bombers with my interceptors, especially with Pan-Asian. Many tactical bomber players are not very careful with their tactical bomber stack, and don't escort. Even if escorted you can give them a bloody nose. Whenever they come to strike your units, have interceptors patrolling near the unit, ideally away from them a bit so it isn't too obvious. Your Pan-Asian interceptors are the nearly the fastest air units in the game, with great range too. And Tactical bombers, especially Allied ones, are some of the slowest. This means you can catch them easily if you are prepared.

I like to use 1 Armored car as bait, running around, perhaps into an undefended enemy province of the tactical bomber player's. I will take my 5-7 interceptors and keep them nearby but ideally out of sight of the enemy TAC bomber player. with the Armored car's big sight range, you can detect these bombers incoming earlier than most. Often with Armored cars, it will take 2 bombing runs, or patrolling to take them out, so you can be ready with some notice. For attacks, move your fighters into patrol nearby to arrive and go on patrol 10-30 seconds before his attack hits, or 10-30 seconds before his Patrol Tick (patrol blue box fills up, timer seen if you hover). When the tactical bombers attack or patrol, they will take damage from your newly patrolling interceptors nearby.

Then! You follow up with your fast interceptors and attack him as he flies back home to really drive home the victory. This requires some vigilance and execution, but that tactical bomber stack will be severely damaged between your defensive patrol and your aerial counterattack. And with all their resources invested in that tactical bomber stack, they might just quit in shock. But even if they don't, you should scare them off bombing you until you can push artillery into them. Just be sure to keep your interceptors nearby when online.

Big tank stack comes for you:

Lots of newer players love tanks. Iconic world war 2 unit, but as Pan-Asian, you have good artillery, and artilleryare innately strong against hard targets. Ideally if their units are slow enough, you can pick them apart with artillery and shoot and scoot while retreating until they are dead. Sometimes they get too close to your cores however. In this case, you will need to find a city or forest to defend in, DO NOT fight the tanks in the plains. Have a solid stack of infantry ready to tie them up once you picked your defensive battle site. In a perfect world there is a hill or mountain province nearby to shoot from. After several rounds of taking artillery fire they should go down fast. Be sure to have interceptors on hand to defend your artillery against air attacks. Artillery is very weak to air attacks. Keep AntiAir with your artillery when stacked on the defensive.

Battleships (or cruisers) bombarding your coastal cities, and/or seaborne invasion by ground:

In a perfect world you have no coastline, but if you do, you are vulnerable to ship bombardment and invasion by sea. Naval bomber level 1 takes only 30 minutes to research, so you can research it in a hurry. Once you have 3 or 4 naval bombers you can take on those early fleets, especially if they only have battleships and no cruisers. Convoy units can be dealt with by 1 or 2 naval bombers patrolling. I often keep a unit in a coastal city, so I can see if something is moving up next to it. It can be a good idea, especially by day 3 or 4, to have a naval bomber or two patroling your vulnerable coast near your coastal cities as a deterrent as well.

Fledgling coalition nearby sees you as a threat and wants to take you out:

Usually they try to recruit you first, and if you can be noncommittal but promising for a few days, you can avoid being attacked. Sometimes you will be accused of being a dirty golder though, because for some people any success above a mild amount in a game means you must have used lots of gold, as it is far easier to simple call someone a golder than to be consistently active and do the work you need to do to be substantially successful in Call of War. That's life though, some people are just haters.

The beautiful thing about fighting coalitions, especially early ones of neighbors, is that they are often disorganized, sporadically active for some members, and slow to react and attack. When attacked by multiple nations, you need to give a little ground at first. Then wait for one player to overextend. Bring all your force to bear on that player for a short while, the other nations are likely too far away to help immediately. Once you give them a bloody nose, Pivot to find one of the closer members who maybe isn't as active. Plan a lightning invasion of them, ideally when they are offline, and rampage your Armored cars through their hopefully mostly empty provinces once you breakthrough.

Gas tanks:

For early game Pan-Asian offensives, I'm going to teach you about the secret turbo mode feature on Pan-Asian armored cars.

The goal of attacking the enemy is to destroy their capacity and especially their will to fight back. There is nothing more deflating than waking up and seeing half your country captured. Any cities you sneak into overnight and they recapture will have most of their building gone. Morale is devastated, resources stolen. Ideally they quit resisting.

Armored cars are cheap, fast, and expendable. It is far less expensive to sneak an armored car or two through the enemy defenses when they are offline and shatter their personal morale by running through half their country, than to fight them in a prolonged battle that will slow down your expansion.

Like I said for Day 1, you don't want to win big battles, you want to avoid fighting big battles and attacking "walled cities" entirely. Defeat the enemy by shattering their will to fight by annoying and painful fast unit raids. You may need interceptors around if someone is online and tries to bomb the armored car, but your goal is to infiltrate when they are offline.

Plains provinces are your friend, Armored cars fly through those. Often a Pan-Asian armored car is faster on enemy provinces than that enemy's own infantry! Pan-Asian armored cars level 2 for example have a speed of 76, 95 on plains, and 143 when force marching there. You can cover most of the enemy country in a few hours if going through plains provinces this way! Don't be shy about force marching in this case. That right half of the health bar at the very least, is just fuel for you to tear up more of their core provinces. High value targets are hopefully empty cities, airfields with grounded planes unguarded. Rural provinces with resources or with Recruitment centers. The capital is a bonus. An armored car can often defeat a weaker enemy unit as well in a pinch if there is a really high value target.

Aim for having 2 armored cars running through their lands when they are hopefully offline, grab everything that isn't tied down with a garrison. Even if they don't lose heart and quit, they are likely to focus on defense more to give you time to build a better army while they clean up the mess.

A quick note about hoping people quit: I am almost always friendly while playing, and enjoy a good challenge. Some people may think there is less honor is attacking people while they are offline and going for empty provinces instead of fighting their main army. This guide is for the anti-heroes out there. There are plenty of guides with more direct and valiant ways of operating, but for Pan-Asian "Surprise", attacking when it is unexpected and looking for weak points is part and parcel of how a war is fought.

This reminds me of Bronn, one of my favorite Game of Thrones characters:

As always, be friendly and courteous even to your enemies, it is a game for fun after all.

Don't mourn the loss of half your Armored Car's HP when force marching into open enemy provinces when they are offline, because what they gain strategically by force marching is far far more valuable. It is a gas tank!

In summary, day 2 and 3 you need to keep your artillery moving, shooting and capturing inactive (but not yet taken over by AI) enemy cities, plundering their wealth. Target capitals to get the blanket morale boost. Watch out for threats by talking to nations nearby, scouting what they have with planes and armored cars. Read the newspaper to figure out who has what and how they are using it on what other nation. React to threats accordingly, just make sure you look for the signs. Each night before you go to bed, take a few minutes plot your artillery on offensive fire tours through inactive player enemy territory. Then wake up to more profits.

On day 4, you will have to start switching gears, the Coup d'etats begin, and a slightly different approach will be needed. Watch for the next episode of the guide soon!

This discussion has given me a lot to think about, playing PanAsian is an art that accepts little to no error, you have to plan your strategy way before and have into account ranged units, if you master the doctrine, you're unstoppable, if you fail to master it, however, your downfall is inevitable.

Franz1430 wrote:

This discussion has given me a lot to think about, playing PanAsian is an art that accepts little to no error, you have to plan your strategy way before and have into account ranged units, if you master the doctrine, you're unstoppable, if you fail to master it, however, your downfall is inevitable.

On being landlocked or even double landlocked, IMHO it is not too bad, because you have land all around your cores which is favourable when defending, no surprises from the sea, also no worries about early investment on Naval bombers and subs. The fleet options seems nice for panasian, but the focus best be land and conquering that, boats dont go ashore right,.....

All doctrines can do everything, they just do it in their own way.

Lord Crayfish wrote:

Brando Dilla wrote:

Still, Pan-asian navy is considerably weaker than Axis vessels. Also consider that Pan-asian high level destroyers and cruisers are available 2-3 days later than Axis ones.

You're quite right, but realistically if I'm playing Japan or China I'll usually manage to invade Persia before I get to the first frequently active Axis member, Turkey. There's little reason to expand out of the Indo-Pacific even for a solo victory, so no real reason to fight axis navies in Historic World War.And if I'm playing Axis I prefer simply submarines, except as escorts.

• Persia and/or Turkey can expand eastward and threaten you
• Mexico can gain influence in the east Pacific and clash with you navally
• Argentina frequently tries to take Australia, if they do you will have an Axis power to the south
• If the nations you attack are allied with Germany...

Yeah, by the time any of this happens, you control most of Asia and you can do whatever you want.

Brando Dilla wrote:

Playing as China or Japan:

• Persia and/or Turkey can expand eastward and threaten you
• Mexico can gain influence in the east Pacific and clash with you navally
• Argentina frequently tries to take Australia, if they do you will have an Axis power to the south
• If the nations you attack are allied with Germany...

Ya get where this is going.

Argentine invasion onto Australian soil poses a threat, which is part of why I usually take it after the Dutch East Indies (that and the lots of steel and rare). But to invade, Argentina first has to project power all the way across the Pacific either at the start of or throughout the 24+ hour operation. If I take New Zeeland first, which I usually do, it's even trickier. And if Australia is too skilled for me to invade he is too skilled for Argentina, too.

Assuming identical rates of economic growth, Mexico getting a navy big enough to challenge Japan seems non-credible. Japan starts with a massive naval advantage and all it needs to do is keep that edge.

z00mz00m wrote:

Yeah, by the time any of this happens, you control most of Asia and you can do whatever you want.

At equal expansion rates, when Mexico controls America, you control Asia PLUS Europe and Africa.

Wouldn't Africa, Asia, and Australasia make more sense? Or even Asia, Australasia, parts of Africa, and western North America?

excellent and throughly interesting thread to read. Please post more

I notice most of these posts are dated 2023. Would anybody like to update.