The Official Game Status Update Thread

[Seperallis]

So I have decided to not really continue this playthrough of my Japan game in Hearts of Iron.

As soon as Germany declared war against Austria, I contemplated simply blocking the conflict and signing an instant white peace with Russia to uphold the status quo. However, the Austrian borders were very ugly, so I chose to allow Germany's war to continue, with all intention for it to be a fast war and quick experiment in cheering war goals...What followed was instead a 12 hour marathon session, with half that time spent fighting a 4 front war and only advancing in-game time a month.

Now I remember why I never came back to this game; ain't nobody got time for that.

Now to be fair, half that time was spent simply shifting around and consolidating units, and reorganizing my command structure and order of battle... 6 hours going through my unit lists, renaming things, moving around unit attachments, redeployment assets, etc. For some reason, I find that kind of pointless time wasting to be fun and rewarding.

The other 6 hours were spent fighting a 1 month campaign in a war for which no one was prepared.

Right off the bat, French Iberia was under threat from an immediate Spanish advance as a much-too-small defense force fresh from defeat at the hands of Germany and Japan scrambled to form a defensive line. Japanese troops that were in the process of returning home instead were sent to form a defense in the foothills of the Pyrenees. With armor and numbers, and a Japanese air campaign launched over the mountains at every runway, smoke stack, and any gatherings of 10 or more Spaniards, Japan was able to enforce social distancing by shifting the front line back to the status quo by the end of the month.

Africa was in Africa, the story was much the same as it has always been, except initially I wasn't paying attention to this frankly uninteresting theater. Thus it took slightly more time and effort for the overwhelming superiority of the Japanese war machine to thwart the meagre Spanish defenders than it otherwise should have. This meant, by the end of the month, Spanish lines were only mostly shattered, instead of completely isolated and destroyed. *sigh*

The front in Japanese Mongolia @ Manchuria was another matter. Initially it seemed like Russia was just simply uninterested in the thousands of miles of sparsely defended border and we would have a cool Gentleman's agreement to just sit together and sing campfire songs. I was proven wrong when Russian troops began an attack into my far east and far west salient a week later. I had a bit of a crisis when it looked like my far west defenses might get surrounded, but some clever battle tactics and GLORIOUS JAPANESE AIR POWER was able thwart the initial assaults and secure enough breathing room to beat a hasty retreat towards a consolidated second line of defense I had planned further to the southeast.

It wasn't all gloom in Siberia, though. One armored corps defending the middle of the "line" almost managed an encirclement on its Russian counterpart, and an amphibious reinforcement and counter-invasion in the war east is looking to throw back and overwhelm the Russian attack. Oh and somewhere in there I found some time to send a few reinforcements from Mongolia to the Siberian line...sure, I could trivialize this entire war by drawing my entire army north from the border with China and bully Russia into submission with overwhelming weight of numbers, but that would mean turning my back to filthy stinking Commies.

At least Austria fell in a month to the combined Franco-German armies, and Japanese air power, but not before their navy sent 1/10th of my entire light cruiser force to the bottom of the Adriatic. Sure I forced them to withdraw, and can win any war of attrition, but it's still annoying.

So that's it, 12 hours of my life for a month of fighting for Germany to finally claim Austria. From here it's really a foregone conclusion. Even if I make it hard for myself against Russia, Japan's huge industrial might, 10x manpower advantage and absolute naval and air superiority (I mean it, the Japanese airforce and navy have both a roughly 2:1 advantage over the rest of the world combined) means absolute victory is eventually guaranteed. While fun to win, I don't see a point in really continuing with this time-sink when I have so many other games to play.


And so, I leave it there. From 1399 to 1937, over 538 years, Japan has gone from being a collection of fractured warrior tribes to the world's preeminent technological, economic, and military leader. The world's first, and only, true superpower. Who knows how that would last in the post-colonialism of the 50's and 60's...