I played as the US on the last difficulty and Japan cant even take chinese land. I think its just random. Maybe try to enforce embargo on them as fast as you can (decisions). The main goal for u must be the germans anyways. Try to land in France as soon as u can to make it easier for the soviets. Use scout planes to see which ports there units are guarding.

Originally posted by 2D_SiZe:

I played as the US on the last difficulty and Japan cant even take chinese land. I think its just random. Maybe try to enforce embargo on them as fast as you can (decisions). The main goal for u must be the germans anyways. Try to land in France as soon as u can to make it easier for the soviets. Use scout planes to see which ports there units are guarding.

Thanks! I'll try to prioritize it this time. I was baffled by the tree so I went down army and economic way too fast, I'll see what happens if I do pure embargo, then I'll do mixed.

The problem is Japans Army is way to powerful its needs to be nerfed. Historically speaking they got the poor peasants and dejects. The honor money and focus was in the Navy and Airforce. They had the best fighter at the start of the war and a world class Navy on Par with the Brits and US. The US only lost one solder for every 20 they killed. Their tanks were trash but in this game they are nearly on par. HOIIV does not simulate the major difference in quality of the diffrent countries. The Army needs national ideal that make is worse. However even more importantly China nations need major nerfing but it can't happen with the supply system and front limits. China had crappy troops but could throw a lot at the ♥♥♥. The ♥♥♥ were bad against US troops but the Chineese lost 10 troops for every one they killed. The ♥♥♥♥ were also stalled about because the deeper they got away from water the harder it was to due logsticics. The Chineese did not have the issue. Maybe a Rail line nerf.

Japan is unstoppable lol , there is something wrong every game I play they destroy China , India and own the entire pacific , including Austrilla and Pearl Harbor 2 Japan units can destroy 20 of my units .. Japan is broken.

Japan Garrisons all the islands and even if you somehow get one they will send amphibious divisions every few months to take it back , There is no way to stop them , its crazy

Another problem is naval damage and frequency of engagement in this mod is ridiculously low. Japanese fleet sitting in harbour with orders could provide 10000+ naval supremacy and you do not have many chances to catch them nor launching invasions. Even you catch them, the naval damage is pathetic. None of capital ships would be sunk. You can only kill a few destroyers and submarines. In my current US save from 1942 to 1946 no capital ship are sunk from naval battle. The only viable strategy is guarding island with 10+ divisions and 2000 naval bombers on it, watching for slowly removing Japanese fleet.

sometimes they goood sometimes they baaad

tell me about it, I just tried to do a game as China but Japan seems to not give a crap about lack of supply, bad terrain, river crossing penalties, forts, etc, and my army is well equipped. This mod is a "historical" mod that allows the AI to make ahistorical conquests

Originally posted by Mimir:

tell me about it, I just tried to do a game as China but Japan seems to not give a crap about lack of supply, bad terrain, river crossing penalties, forts, etc, and my army is well equipped. This mod is a "historical" mod that allows the AI to make ahistorical conquests

I have done about 10~ attempts as china trying to beat Japan on veteran before I finally succeeded.

First success was when socialist china took shanxi. Japan didnt declare war on socialist china, causing the border to be limited to beijing. Holding the border in that case is annoying since you have to move troops manually literally all the time, but its kind of "easy". From then on you either start eating all the factions around you without having to spend lots of units while you continue to hold japan on the border to get stronger, or you wait until america gets involved. Once japan declares war on the allies, the border will thin out and you can breach through easily.

I also found success in rushingly conquering socialist china before japan attacks. The window for that is about 3 month and needs you to prepare supply hubs on the border to have the strength to pull it off.
After that you can move all of your troops (Minus troops securing ports) to the chinese border and hold it, either completely on beijing or, if things dont go perfectly, hold it on the next river where you ideally built more forts beforehand.

However, I still didnt find the right mixture of troops and equipment.

I only build forts (not anymore, check edit below) and supply hubs + railways until my border has been stabilized, dont even think of touching industry until then.

Edit: I now switched to anti-air instead of building forts. Using anti-air and a small amount of fighters seems more effective, as you completely take out the enemie's CAS. Right after the start of the war, I found high success on the beijing border (veteran difficulty) - don't forget to add a supply hub for shanxi territory.

I brought this up over on the discord a little while back. The answer I got was basically that Japan is currently meant to win in China, because it was the only way the devs found of balancing Japan. Otherwise they end up being too weak and just getting rolled over when they attack the US/Allies.

Regardless of which mod I am using, I always give China a plus 1 on game start up. Nothing can spoil a game for me more than Japan conquering China before the war in Europe even gets stated. When I did continue a couple of times, Japan links up with IT forces in Sudan--blocking the rest of Africa. Of course, if playing as Japan, the China 1 boost is not required.