HoI4 1.6.2 Man the Guns as Japan

It's been very long while since I last played HOI4, and back then it was mostly Kaiserreich minors.

So I tried to run vanilla Japan, with all AIs set to random. And the initial setup took forever. So many totally dumb templates, armies, navies, air forces all scattered nonsensically.

Even worse, I couldn't even change the templates because I didn't have army XP for it. Oh well.

Initial situation. I really hoped I'd get Beijing for some space, as supply situation as Japan is awful.

It turns out my shitty 12inf division barely used any supply, so my worries were unnecessary.

For first fun event, German army couped and overthrew Hitler in a civil war. Then China refused to give me Beijing, so I attacked them and Shanxi. Other warlords did not join at all. It used to be completely scripted that they would, but then again, it's AI at random.

The Beijing frontline got absolutely nowhere. Not one tile. I did two landings, as capacity is just 10 - one in Shandong failed, the other in Shanghai succeeded, but didn't get too far before getting stuck as well.

Somehow China and Shanxi had zero coordination, and there were no Chinese division in Shanxi territory. Well, that's my way to win. I pushed them real hard through the mountains, and without Chinese reinforcements, they had to surrender.

After Shanxi fell, Chinese frontline completely collapsed, and I just rushed my infantry microing the hell out of everything.

Shanxi fell and then suddenly everything started collapsing.

First big pocket was this one around Beijing. Then I connected Shanxi with Shanghai landing by direct route, and pocketed the whole Eastern China.

After that they really didn't have much left to fight with.

Having ridiculously long frontline is actually great, as AI has no idea what to do in such case. AI is only reasonably competent when frontline is narrow.

The whole war lasted 5 months and I suffered hilariously low 7403 casualties to their nearly a million. With the shitty basic 12inf divisions, to which I just added support artillery sometime halfway through the war. I am not even sure why they were so bad. And I had massive penalty to attack and defense against China, which I only slowly got rid of over time by spending some fuhrer mana. So not a clue why I'm getting such Space Marine ratios.

Combat losses - 692 equipment. Attrition losses - 5890. Enemy combat losses - 109,088. Like wat? By the way, the game really needs a damn ledger. All this information is scattered all over the place, and only half of it is even present.

At this point I used to have focus to gain CBs on remaining Chinese warlords, but that's gone now. I can only attack the Allies. Soviet CB is in completely separate branch as well.

Anyways, I hoped I'd learn new mechanics, but I failed completely.

I still have no idea how the hell the new fuel system works. I ran out of fuel because my navy was using so much, but really, that navy was a total overkill patrolling Chinese coast. It looks like my navy alone uses >10x more fuel than I can generate, by just patrolling and not engaging in any fights. Is this meant to guarantee that nobody except US can have navies? I don't hate the idea of fuel, but those numbers are just dumb. Isn't this going to destroy Royal Navy even worse than Japanese Navy?

And as for general traits, I totally missed that I could give them traits, as there doesn't seem to be any notification of it. Not like that would help, I assigned units basically at random anyway, so none of them got any meaningful traits. This probably works better for people who rely on AI to do the fighting. Can I get some notification somehow?

Since I don't know why it is so damn trivial, it feels quite pointless to continue this campaign. Ledger would definitely help me figure this out.

It was fun enough. Maybe I need to watch some let's plays to see what I'm doing too well.

Oh and before this, I ran a quick AI observe game, and Japan lost to China even after multiple successful landing. Then again, all the warlords joined China, and its Manchuria rebelled and joined the Axis, so it wasn't exactly comparable situation.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 27: 1783: The End

I planned this as megacampaign, but it won't happen. EU4 to Vic2 converter doesn't look like it's going to get updated ever, and it's not just a matter of waiting longer, as next EU4 patches will come out, and mess with the export.

The world also turned out to be a lot more centralized than I hoped. Even with mid-game tag switch and taking things really slow last century or so, I can't see this being much of a challenge in Vic2. I planned to split the world a bit, but then it would be less an export and more a fresh scenario.

I felt that early game was a lot more fun than late game. It's not just the matter of being overpowered - there's just more meaningful entities to interact with. Early on there's like hundred countries that matter - if I'm Venice, then I need to care about Austria, Hungary, Ottomans, Pope, Milan, Aragon, France, Mamluks, and so on. And then their allies, and rivals. It's a rich complex universe.

By late game it's just a few fellow blobs, and the only thing keeping those trivial minors around is the guarantee spam blobs started doing a few patches ago.

Previous time I attempted to play till the end, late game lag forced me to stop early. This time late game performance was totally fine.

Some conclusions about experimental mods:

• restoring tech groups brought tech differential back (except with Ming and its free mana), but I'm not sure if that really makes the game better
• adding strong HRE emperor buffs is a great change
• unrest and rebel buffs mattered relatively little, but were mostly positive
• warscore changes mattered relatively little, but were mostly positive

As for my next Paradox campaigns, it doesn't look like anything new is coming to EU4, and the newly Imperator: Rome is universally panned as more an empty shell for DLCs to complete than a genuine complete game. CK2 on the other hand, that keeps getting great new content. Or I could check out what's up with new Kaiserreich.

Now that Google Plus is dead, I have two blogs where I sometimes post gaming content. Generally I'll post everything to my main blog, unless it's a campaign with crazy number of episodes, in which case it will go here. It's not great, but I don't want to open even more blogs.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 26: 1770-1783: Revolution comes to New World

I got Mong Kawng as another vassal and expanded them a bit.

I force vassalized Madurai. They were already at war with France and Provence, so I attacked Kikondja guaranteed by France to remove French stack from Madurai's capital. Interestingly Fetishist rebels took over parts of South Africa and defected to Kikondja. Surprise free Cape I guess, I didn't really plan to take it, but I won't say no.

Then it was time to crush Ming. Once more my fleets were too scattered, so I got defeated in early fights. Ming managed to even sink my flagship, but I sank theirs so it was only fair I guess. Another big reason why I was doing so poorly was that Chinese coast counts as inland sea for galley bonus somehow, and I had no galleys.

It was going rather unimpressively on land and sea, so I took some minor concessions and called it a day. Also started major fort and ship building program.

HRE declared a war on my ally Portugal - which by this time should really get renamed to Brazil. I did the silly thing and joined the war. The Revolutionary HRE had 200k mercs, many military ideas by this time, and some bonuses due to being revolutionary. My armies were scattered everywhere, without any mercs, and with fairly few bonuses.

Having to flip between all the different parts of the map definitely did not help. My armies fought extremely poorly overall.

And yet somehow I turned this -40% warscore around. I gathered my scattered navies, and got a lot of warscore this war. Then HRE invasion of South America got wiped out. Then one of Malacca. The HRE took a big bite out of our ally Toulouse, but it was hopeless to even attempt saving. Finally fighting in India got warscore to +1%, and then somehow crept to 10%, with white peace resulting from it all.

492k peasants and 148 ships got lost on attacking side. 301k peasants and 79 ships on defending side. With very little to show for it all.

Now I could get back to the main business of crushing Ming, but somehow still has 62% mandate.

I've been taking long breaks between episodes to maybe see Vic2 converter ready before I finish, but that seems increasingly unlikely. Oh well.

After first battles lost I was quite convinced that we're going to lose this war.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 25: 1754-1770: Mare Nostrum Pacificum

Step by step just taking a few trading outposts turned into a plan to conquer more or less the entire Pacific Coast. There was no realistic way to grab every tiny island, but Australia was necessary and easy to take.

Afterwards I asked Ayutthaya and Champa to be my vassals - that's a new idea in American diplomacy.

Right, time to stop this retail fighting and go for the real prize - Ming. Simultaneously fighting all its tributaries with any coastline.

I finally expanded my 12inf 4cav 8art stacks to 16inf 4cav 10art. Nowhere near 30inf 30art style stacks people recommend for optimal fighting, there's no point throwing money away.

It was a true war between leading great powers. I had many 30k army stacks, but they were never in the right place. I had 4 fleets of 15 heavies and 30 transports each, as well as some lights and spare heavies near capital. Two of those fleets were constantly busy transporting troops to deal with rebels popping up on various islands and escort the transports. The other two I couldn't really use separately, as Ming had enough heavy ships to challenge that. Even 30 heavies in a stack wasn't really quite comfortable.

Because of this limited power projection, Ming's armies were far too numerous than what I could throw against them safely. In fact Ming invaded Alaska, and a big stack of revolutionary rebels spawned wiping out one of my 30k armies. Overall I had sufficient numbers, about half as much as Ming, which is usually enough, but limited capability of concentrating them where I wanted.

I crushed Ming's expeditionary forces in Japan, Java, and Alaska.

Most serious fighting was in Korea. There were a lot of close battles, some won, some lost.

I pretty much gave up the whole Southern front, my poor vassals possibly already regretting signing up. I only went there after everything else was over, and Ming abandoned its tributary Luang Prabang.

Eventually all the rebels were defeated. I managed to get into negative manpower and had to use my professionalism reserved. I didn't even get everything I wanted, that is Japan, but then does anyone ever?

The most important thing is that this is finally crushing Ming's mandate.

In all this mess, Italian rebels spilled into my country and they got independent 2 province Brunei. That's most annoying, as foreign rebels don't display their counter. There's been so many cases of rebels popping up somewhere, seceding, and then getting either sniped or guaranteed by another power. It makes the world feel a lot more dynamic.

I wanted to get into another war against Russia and Denmark to seize some Danish colonies, but Commonwealth dragged me into their pointless war against Nogai and Russia first. Oh well.

So instead I setup third vassal of Malacca and get them some land too.

In a hilarious turn of events Orthodox Egypt guaranteed independence of OPM Mamluks exiled into Arabian desert. Kingdom of Jerusalem got one of disasters and collapsed to rebels of all kinds.

Meanwhile, Vic2 converter is nowhere to be seen.

I'm not trying to exclude anyone, as Ming and Indian secondary powers are still huge, and everyone has random islands all over, but I'm clearly the dominant power of this hemisphere

Italy and Spain colonize extensively. Everyone else has some colonies.

I got some bases beyond Ceylon - Goa and on Northern Swahili Coast.

I definitely want to cleanup Korea and Japan, probably grab a bit more of Russian Far East, not really sure what would be other plans.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 24: 1733-1754: Panama Canal

I took over some Spanish colonies in the Andes, and a few more Indian Ocean minors. Everyone was guaranteeing everyone, so I had somewhat limited options without turning it into a world war.

There were rebels on a lot of random islands Europeans had, but with 5-10 year timer until defection, timer easy to reset, and disabled during wars, nothing ever happened with them. Wait, why don't I reduce it to 2 years? That's a pretty decent way to make rebels more meaningful.

I thought 2 years timers might also be just a bit too annoying, but rebels are so useless otherwise, that it was worth a try. And they now feel a lot more urgent. Also sometimes winning a bit against AI.

It was mostly random islands and tiny African colonies seceding this way, but surprisingly kingdom of Jerusalem fell apart too, with two big Orthodox states seceding. Quite often rebels like Animist Zealots sit occupy a province for decades, driving it up to 100% devastation, but it will never secede, since there are no same culture group animist countries to secede to. Should I make them secede my console? They've been de facto independent.

I was also waiting for something revolutionary to happen, but Revolutionary HRE declared "Spread the Revolution" war on Imerina - 3 province minor on Madagascar. Also Madurai, Kilwa (recently seceded OPM from another colonizer), and finally it attacked a bunch of German minors. Still, it's a very underwhelming revolution.

Ming was much more active and it grabbed some land in South America. Then they declared war on Provence which was being guaranteed by HRE, but HRE neither joined the war, nor cancelled guarantee. Is this some new AI cheat?

Well, I had enough, so I went to war with Ming. First goal achieved day one - break Portugal's silly tributary status. Second goal is to return land Ming took in New World to La Plata. I didn't take anything for myself.

The war demanded huge expansion of my fleet, but even fleet I had was scattered, so I started building Panama Canal, which only finished in 1754. Cost of 30k gold and about 600 mana from events.

That got me thinking - Japan is basically part of Indonesia, right? So invasion it is. Japan also held Kamchatka, so I took that. Then logic demanded that I take Russian Pacific Coast to connect it all. And for that matter Australia is part of Indonesia, right? Maybe my 1821 goal should be turning Pacific into Mare Nostrum.

Also I've been developing a lot of coal provinces and building furnaces for +5% goods produced bonus each. Colonists help a little, but mostly just pressing development button, as late game development discounts stack quite high.

8 properly developed Coal provinces mean +40% goods produced bonus, plus extra +10% for Coal production leader. I'll probably get up to 20 or so furnaces by the end of the game. Bonus is huge, but it takes a lot of gold and mana to set it up.

And yet I'm still not global economic leader. Italy leads with 1375/month, and I'm second at 1305/month. HRE's 525, Ming's 375, Spain's 325, and Commonwealth's 275 are far behind. Nobody except that has a serious claim to being a great power, secondaries like Russia, Great Britain, Denmark and so on are 100-ish or less.

The Future Mare Nostrum

It started when I purchased a province with coal from Brunei.

Pursuit of coal continues to drive it. But also rivalry with Ming.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 23: 1723-1733: Enlightenment and German Revolution

I never played this late, so I want too see the Revolution. Unfortunately:

• I'm outside Europe, so it can't be me - and it would be a bit boring as I don't want to invade Europe
• only countries with 30+ provinces can get it
• France has unique version, and it just needs negative prestige (or one of 4 never-gonna-happen conditions), but it has just 29 provinces - well, it's all BS, it has 12 provinces in Europe, and 17 overseas provinces, and is not even a proper secondary power
• for non-France countries, they'd need to stay at negative stability for very long time, and that's basically impossible for AI - it will just spend its points to stab up
• Europe feels far too unified for a good revolution. Most countries wouldn't even be able to go on a good rampage.

Oh wait, there's one obvious choice - Burgundy turned into HRE, it holds Paris and half of France, accepts French culture, and is sufficiently menacing. It also has 116 absolutism. So I guess they can get special French system instead of France.

EU4 disaster system is so promising, but almost all disasters require conditions which can be averted with some mana (paper mana for stability, bird mana for war exhaustion, sword mana for legitimacy), so it's exceedingly rare to see anyone get disaster, except those triggered on purpose.

And of course they defeated the revolution in a few months. Seriously?

Meanwhile, I got into minor fights for remote islands. New Venice Islands got Enlightenment, and that was really my only way to get it anytime soon, so I conquered them. It still wasn't enough, so I had to dev push third time.

I got two furnaces right away in coal producing provinces I dev pushed. For others, well, colonists were slowly developing them up to 20dev. I'm slowly catching up to Italy on income. Having spent 17k on Enlightenment it's time to start saving 30k for Panama Canal.

Commonwealth dragged me into their war against Russia and Denmark, but it was fairly uneventful.

Well, it's my first time playing this late, and I really want to see what it does, so I made revolution in HRE start again and win by console. Let's see what happens time. Price of Popcorn +20% until end of game.

A small downside of this idea is that "Revolutionary Holy Roman Empire" breaks UI in multiple places.

Colonization of Indian Ocean, and native empires of Ming and Bahmanis.

I got Ceylon, bits of Brunei, Sumatra, and Sulawesi, and a few scattered ports.

Really just getting scraps, as I joined this race too late. 

Cultural unification effort largely successful. Colombia is mine all the way to border with Portugal (Brazil basically).

I might move a bit further down Pacific coast, but not going to expand too much.

I also have a single province in Kamchatka, feeling like getting a bit of land over there maybe since it's basically West Alaska.

Revolution happened here, on second try.

That gives Revolutionary HRE enough bonuses and CBs that it should be able to beat up anyone in Europe. Unless HRE AI marches all its troops to Indonesia or something.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 22: 1705-1723: Global American Empire

Enlightenment spawned, and I really needed it, as it unlocks coal. So I dev pushed one of coal provinces, and it turns out that's not even close to helping me. Dev pushed province is just 2% of my development, and penalty for being on wrong continent is just enormous, so all the universities, neighbour bonuses, and institution spread bonuses, still don't add up to that much.

So I second dev pushed my capital to 50dev. This was mostly to get age bonus. Still nowhere near needed 10%.

I even chartered a trade company in Borneo in place prospectors claim coal might be found.

Then I chartered another one on Ceylon, which due to some minor misunderstandings with the natives soon turned to control all of Ceylon's coastline. This was a fun little fight - 24k transport and small single stack against enormous fleet and over 100k angry Indians. Some fun diplomatic race and throwing ships away as delaying tactics, but it worked.

I really needed Panama Canal and relevant trade nodes, so I invaded Caribbean of South America. That's practically North America. It was mostly CNs and some leftover native OPMs, but one thing it meant was war against Ormond, Toulouse, and Switzerland - with alliance with Commonwealth being surprisingly of some use.

Then I followed the same invasion trick with Friesland, except it didn't go quite that well, together with Clever they had bigger army and bigger navy, fortunately sacking their capital fast was enough to convince them to give me half of their New World holdings at least.

That left Provence as the last minor to deal with, except Ming got there first, with 29k stack landing in Costa Rica. Ming, seriously? And it turns out Ming is a serious global power with up to date tech and half of Japan under its control. Fortunately Ming only took their money.

So, fun war against Provence and France. HRE guaranteed them, but did not follow its word. I had to hire port in Brunswick to transport my troops in multiple waves.

Il Presidente for life, elected at age of 21, died at age of 26. What the hell is this? The Reaper's Due on max settings?

I finally ran out of uncolonized lands, so my now free colonists are now increasing development in coal regions. I doubt they'll get them to required 20, but it will still save me some dev pushing. If Enlightenment ever comes that is.

I never played this long, so I have no idea what's going to happen in age of revolution. Is it going to trigger on its own somewhere, or should I help the AI?

It doesn't look like Vic2 converter is getting anywhere. If it doesn't happen in about 2 weeks, I guess I'll need to either abandon this megacampaign idea, or do a lot of coding.

Most notable on this map are enormous Egypt and Jerusalem. They far exceeded expectations.

All countries big and small are grabbing random land all over the world. I'm a bit late to this, best I'll be able to get will be a few scattered ports of no economic value (but it's still a free merchant to get to India).