Week 43, 1942, Emporer level, playing Japan.
The game is going well and I expect to win a domination victory in about 2 turns. My alliance has 77% of the pop and 58% of the terrain. It's taking forever due to my "tic" of having to name all of my units. I started building a load of militia divisions to rapidly free up my infantry divisions from garrison duty to fight the Russians and it takes time to name them all (I went from 24 militia divisions to 135 in 2 turns).
In Mexico, it's down to 2 cities. In a couple of turns it will be out of the game (Mexico is being attacked by infantry, paratroopers and marines and has 1 battle fleet with it - this force will continue on against south america when Mexico is finished - after being joined by my 12 ANZAC divisions which are en route from North Africa). In Canada, there is one city left, but it will be taken next turn. My original battle fleet has sailed from Canada for Iceland with a load of Marines and infantry to take it. In England, I've taken all of southern England and only the three scottish cities remain on the main island and only Belfast in Ireland. One battle fleet is attacking Belfast, the other has went through the channel (the Germans obligingly evacuated the channel when Russia declared war - I assume their u-boats are heading to the Baltic) and up the eastern coast of England. The Brits (I finally replaced my spy) are down to 3 Infantry and 13 militia divisions, and a few special fortress troops. They also have 2 spitfire squadrons left and 3 destroyers and a transport (I'm assuming in Scapa, though maybe in Iceland). Clearly they are finished and I'm relentlessly pressing on.
I'm moving all of my tank units and most of my artillery in the US to Anchorage. An invasion fleet of cruisers, destroyers and transports is en route from Japan to pick them up and start taking Russian cities in eastern siberia from the sea. My Otsus have totally blockaded the siberian coastline.
I've taken 17 cities from Russia, in the process cutting the road to Siberia, seizing most of southern central asia, shortening my front, and mashing over 175 russian ground units (most of them infantry, but almost 45% of them varied armored and motorized infantry units). I've also annihilated all of their ships opposite Japan and in the Black Sea. The vast majority of my air force is now redeployed and actively engaged in smashing russian units (and doing well at it too - over 40 russian air units have been destroyed by my air craft and they have redlined everything within reach - though I have lost around 15 squadrons to flak and russian CAP).
Three interesting developments: 1. I took Astrachan from the east - then noticed that Stalingrad was within easy reach and took it the same turn - mobile artillery redlined the fortresses and tanks destroyed them - I got lucky and lost no units in that attack. 2. I used Kamikazes to destroy the fortresses at Odessa and Sevastopol - that lethal land bombardment is awesome - then took Odessa with a large infantry/artillery force I had moved in through Bulgaria/Romania. The Hungarians had taken a russian city just north of Odessa - then lost it to russian t-34 counterattacks - I used my kamikazes after redlining the units with heavy bombers - based out of Istanbul, to wipe out the 5 division garrison force and expect Hungary - which has units adjacent, though so does Bulgaria - to walk into it next turn and retake it. 3. I successfully planted a spy with russia and note that it has an army of over 600 divisions - though much of that is infantry and garrison, about half is t-34s, KV-1s, and motorized infantry (they also have a lot of heavy artillery and fortresses still). They did have 4 paratrooper planes and regularly dropped single units in my areas (especially Yugoslavia - they had a thing for that), but I have destroyed them all now and they apparently aren't making more. Also, they had a lot of flak at the beginning of the war but I have destroyed tons of them and they are down to 6 units of flak (also apparently they aren't building more - they are building tanks and motorized infantry instead). They still have a lot of ships - destroyers, transports, submarines, 2 BBs and 1 CA - I don't know where - I assume mostly in the Baltic and maybe up at Archangel/Murmansk. It doesn't really matter since terrain conquests - which are ongoing every turn - will shortly bring me to 60% land and a domination victory.
Here are some of the leys I noticed to the game - or interesting points:
1. My original main carrier battle fleet, with the 6 carriers Japan starts the game with, has done fantastic work. It destroyed the US Pacific fleet almost single-handedly, took Hawaii and Panama - then destroyed the US Atlantic fleet in the Carib - then supported my Carib invasion of the US and is now headed to Iceland. The heaviest damage was done by Kates. All of my fleets now have Grace DBs and they are better than Kates and the 3 fleets of 6 Shokakus each are more powerful than the original battle fleet, but they have had less combat and done less damage. But I found the carriers to be the key to naval victory - and for Japan, naval victory is the first and most important requirement to winning the game. The Otsus are magnificent.
2. The RRs have been the single most important tool for managing ground units. You simply have to have them and you have to have them developed as far forward as possible (this may be less important for others than for Japan due to the enormous distances Japan has to cover in Asia - though I would expect Russia needs them badly too - and England - Query: Can England build all of its units and RRs in Africa, the middle east and India? I never noted that they had a wonder allowing them to do so and not having played them I wonder, are they restricted on the mainland mass by not having the import wonder that allows that?). I'm able to maintain a large mobile reserve at Baghdad that I can deploy anywhere I wish on the russian front instantly due to my RRs. This allows for such an advantage in economy of force that it's like having an army 4 times the size it really is.
3. Heavy Artillery (and mobile artillery) and effective bombers are the key to winning battles on the ground. The ability to cripple enemy ground units prior to engaging them makes all the difference and the AI does this so poorly that this is, in my opinion, the key to winning battles on the ground.
4. Lethal land bombardment is also extremely useful. Once I found out the kamikazes were capable of it (and can be moved on the ground along my RRs like cruise missiles), I started building and using them in large numbers and they make things - like destroying fortresses - much, much easier.
So, to recap, for Japan, naval victory in the Pacific first - and the carriers are the key to that - build aircraft (espcially Bettys and Peggys) and artillery units - lots of them - for ground combat - build RRs and Otsus and kamikazes. The Chi-Nu tanks are awesome too, but I think I would be as far along without them simply due to the arty, air power and RRs.
I was looking through the list of units last night and when I went to check an italian plane unit description (I think some type of Brescia plane) the game said "file not found - the game will now exit." Unfortunately, while I was preparing to shut down for the night, I had not saved for some time. I lost about 2 hours worth of work and will have to redo it. Is there any way to prevent that from happening? I mean the automatic shut down thing.
Kelly Whiting
