Japan - Empire of the Rising Sun closing the gap

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Kantismus
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Japan - Empire of the Rising Sun closing the gap

Post by Kantismus »

Hello everyone, i wanted to invite you to my Japan 1914 sandbox campaign. English is not my native so please excuse my possibly bad english. I really don't know if it is good or bad :D

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let us set the stage first.
The game starts only two years after Tenno Meiji the great restaurator died and was succeeded by Taisho. Meiji forced Japan into a period of western stile modernization including a rapid industrialization and military reforms to close up to the western great powers. The Imperial Japanese Navy was modeled after the British royal navy and the army after the French, later German/Prussian. The military modernization was supported by British, French and German advisors and Japanese officers were send to Europe to study western military art.

In 1894-1895 the first Sino-Japanese War, mainly a dispute over influence in Korea, resulted in a Japanese victory, putting the Korean peninsula under Japanese control and the occupation of Taiwan/Formosa and Port Arthur. But France, Germany and Russia pressed Japan to abandon Port Arthur soon after and Russia, who seeks further expansion in China on their own, leased it from China. Japan won despite - on paper - being vastly outnumbered by Chinese Forces and showed the great success of Meiji's Modernization.

In 1905 increasing tensions with Russia escalated in the Russo-Japanese War. This Japanese Campaign again was successful with major victories on land and in the seas. Port Arthur fell under Japanese occupation and the russian pacific fleet was almost destroyed (and parts of the baltic fleet send there as reinforcements). Japan gained a lots of prestige because it was the first time a European army was defeated by a non-european force.

And here we are now. Neighboring Russia and China almost hate us. We start with five colonies, Port Arthur, Formosa and the small pacific islands of Palau, Micronesia and Northern Mariana. Korea is annexed territory right from the start. Allmost every other piece of land nearby is part of a colony. That limits further expansion since we would have to go to war with one of the behemoths China or Russia resulting in a large Landforce campaign or with an european great power or the US to conquer some poorly developed colonies.

We start with following Military numbers
Building capacity 3/0/4/0

Army:
90 Infantry
10 Koheitai (Engineers)
23 recon cavalry

we already have a proper long range artillery design researched but not a single battalion ready jet. Would be my first priority to get some of these guns out. It's the only true advantage against the Chinese

Air:
3 Farman (generic patrol vessel) already deployed at the only small Airfield the hole Empire has (Hadano military base near Tokyo)

Farman design is unresearched and there is no aircraft production. Combined with the lack of infrastructure and the absence of proper japanese airplane design in the nearer tech tree it is unlikely the airforce will see any love soon.

Sea:
8 coastal subs (5 1-Go Class and 3 british Vickers C2 Class)
49 Capital ships (including 30 pre century cruisers, 6 more advanced cruisers, rest i suppose to be dreadnoughts)
34 Escorts (30 pre century destroyers)
35 torpedo boats

I am really not sure what to do here. Normally subs are my preferred choice but these "1-Go"s are so limited in range (340km) and speed (12 km/h) Japan is a little bit behind in tech so the later strong and competitive sub designs are some years off. On the other hand our surface fleet is totally incapable of ASW, so the "1-Go"s are the only way to counter enemy subs for some time. Nevertheless i start with a more historical approach and ordered three additional dreadnought battleships (2 Fuso-Class and a "Aki" design with better anti air and lower costs) and another sakura escort followed by a second one in the queue. Hopefully it is better to build something, then nothing.

Economy:
Population: 69,5 Mio.
GDP/c: 168$

Japan starts with surplus production for agriculture, metal ore, power, self sufficient at industrial goods and top ranked at military goods production. There is no rubber and huge deficits running on timber, oil and coal. Consumer goods are also lacking a bit. Japan already has a strong industrial base with a good power supply but will have to import a lots of raw materials for a long time. We might get self sufficient at coal over time, but oil is very limited and rubber, beside the small pacific colony islands, nonexistent.

Now it is June 28th 1914 and the dawn of a new european war is approaching. Historically Japan joined the war in August 1914 helping their british friends to occupy german pacific colonies and fighting their raiding ships. This looks like a proper plan and the germans will really get problems to defend anything here. But if you ask me this is not how it works for a supreme ruler. Russia starts with a military production of 9/1/4/0 and China 7/0/0/0. Both are likely to outproduce my landforce over time and both are still really upset by Meiji's glorious victories in the past. Helping the British equals helping Russia and any early war effort, including possible losses will make a chinese Adventure more likely to come. And some of the British colonies are really rich and valuable targets in the long term.

So here is the plan: Keeping Japan out of WW1, possibly sell some spare military goods to the central powers to hopefully prolong it if necessary. Expand our research capabilities, optimize our infrastructure, reinforce and fortify the northern korean border and expand our ground forces and navy. Economically we keep corporate taxation as low as possible to hopefully close up to the european countries in GDP and also keep pace (starts to dream) with the US. And if the time feels right there surely will be a 2nd Sino-Japanese War or a maritime campaign for east indies or Singapore.

-----
that's it for now. I have already played a few month into the game and let's say, there happened something unexpected. But no time to write it now. I will soon go on with my first construction orders and some early troop deployments. have a nice day
Kantismus
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Re: Japan - Empire of the Rising Sun closing the gap

Post by Kantismus »

June 28th 1914: Emperor Taisho and some of his ministers inspecting the Hadano military base outside of Tokyo. It's new addition is a small airfield and the first three squads of airplanes assigned to the Imperial Army. Taisho's eyes widened while he listens to some technical details about the Farman and a still vague but fascinating idea comes to his mind. The day passes by, the inspection goes on and the main reason of the emperors visit, a meeting with the General Staff Office over the status and latest developments in military affairs, begun.

The actual Chief, Field Marshal Yoshimichi now insisted for month to use our production capacity for more equipment. "The Europeans do not only build new Dreadnoughts all the time, they also provide more and more heavy field guns and artillery to support their infantry forces". Taisho knew Yoshimichi was right. A modern competitive army needs a lot of heavy guns and a good general has to be worried when he lacks of these guns. But today Taisho smiles when Yoshimichi starts his well known triad. "You are doing right to demand theses guns every single time we meet over and over again" the Emperor begins. "But an Emperor has to consider more then the strength of our military. Today i feel the time has come to finally expand our arsenal. Our engineers developed our own superior artillery design called the J-38 149mm. These long range guns should wreak havoc upon our enemies, whoever these poor men will be,.... and i am willing to use them. Our Economy runs really good at the moment, military goods production these days is globally unmet. If the europeans can affort theses guns we should easily be able to do on our own. Hereby i give the order to Fukuoka and its two production facilities to deploy 20 new artillery battalions and ship them to Korea and Port Arthur as soon as possible. I think our army can use some more cavalry units too, just in case we need some swift and mobile additions to our glorious infantry. Akashi will provide five new battalions during the next weeks. Any questions so far?" Field Marshal Yoshimichi and surrounding Generals were silenced. Finally Japan joins the big arms race to project its industrial might to future battlefields as well.
The Generals attempted to leave but the Emperor has not finished yet. "My intelligence reported to me,that our former foes, the chinese and the russians, both have larger military production capacities. China 7/0/0/0 and Russia 9/1/4/0 I ask you, my dear loyal generals, what does this fact implicate to you?"
Yoshimichi turns a bit pale around the nose like some of its staff. "In case of war they will outnumber us"
"You are looking shocked, gentlemen", the Emperor goes on, "I was shocked too, when i saw this numbers for the first time. And as the emperor i will NOT tolerate this. But it is not that bad at the moment. We have to close up soon, but the Chinese Forces still are technologically behind and cannot provide artillery on its own and we still should be able to butcher them in case of war. And for Russia, moving units from Europe to Vladivostok takes forever. And they cannot simply move everything to the east. There are two great powers just waiting on their western borders for any sign of weakness. Nonetheless hereby i order to build another Land Production here at this base called Hadano."
(in short: Land production 2 Artillery + 1 recon cavalry and a new land production near Tokyo, Shipyards already mentioned produce 3 Dreadnought and a ?[light cruiser/destroyer/whatever])

The meeting was over and later on a small flight show was arranged to demonstrate the "impressive" abilities of the Farman vessels. Planes are really cool and new stuff in 1914 and after the show was over the small breeding idea came back to the Taisho's mind. "That's it" he shouts. "call me crazy, but aviation possibly is the future of both Japanese transportation issues and military success. We should do our very best to expand our knowledge here. Just imagine! A Farman twice as large carrying several tons of goods over a large distance in one or two hours. Hundreds of theses planes will boost our economy all over the islands" The science minister joined the rolling bandwagon "our first-to-solve main problem is long distance communication. with a few planes it is not much of a problem at all but talking about tenth or hundreds of planes we need some coordination. If we can amplify our wireless radio transmissions we should be able to send messages over long distances. And there are not only planes. Naval vessels should also benefit a lot".
(That's the story why our first research project "Amplified Wireless Transmission" was started. I want to get better airplanes and modern subs ASAP and both require this non-tradeable tech. Japan however starts with two possible projects and the second was Electrocardiography because i like to improve my health rating)
The Emperor replied "Do it, but our hole infrastructure is crap and we cannot support additional aircrafts at all. And our industry suffers from low supply anyways. We have to improve it"

Some days later following decisions were made. A new Air Base at Sasebo (Naval production Base in the south west island called Kyushu), New Sea Port and Air Base at Osaka (love the idea of a huge harbor at Osaka because it would be a great scenery for a Godzilla movie, wouldn't it?) Another Air Base at Funabashi east of Tokyo and another Airbase + Sea Port at Niigata. [Niigata has a sea pier that is scrapped. following the two piers at Akashi and Maizuru military Base. High supply level at Niigata is interesting, because there is a little bit oil and a bigger Metal Ore deposit nearby. Akashi sea pier becomes obsolete due to the sea port at Osaka which is more centralized in the urban region around Osaka. Sea Port + Air Base adds up to 100% supply almost every time in a supreme ruler game. The freed slot at Akashi later can be used for an additional land production or whatever you like in a military complex. Maizuru sea pier - north of Akashi - is almost useless and only provides a possible sea invasion hotspot in the middle of honshu. I have always scraped it in 1936 an i will scrap it in 1914 as well. If you ask me, you surely will sleep much better without it.]

last but not least: i have added a new research center at Amagasaki (left to Osaka) an Oil Field near Niigata, Consumer goods (Tokio) Industrial Goods (Higashi-Osaka) a Barracks next to Pyongyang, and some roads from Tokyo to Shizuoka, from Osaka to Nagoya and from Sasebo Shipyard to Fukuoka city. Our pacific island colonies got some Money and the order to build one rubber plantations each. All three are way to small to handle it on their own. Formosa should expand it's oil production. Port Arthur does nothing. It is only one land urban hex anyway. It is likely i will annex the pacific islands sooner or later. They can't stand on their own, will run out of money and their population will decline. They really will be better of joining the Japanese Empire.

Our initial settings for ministry departments: State is set to influence only. I am not sure how it works but i imagine it improves our diplomatic rating over time and our standing towards same sphere partners. Finance is set to Corporate tax relief, Education, Infrastructure, Inflation Control and Law Enforcement but both taxation and social spending will be manually controlled soon after. Taxation raised higher then intended and social services were largely overspend at Health, Education and family subsidies. => switch to manual control and start to counter inflation. Research, unit production and movement was controlled manually from the beginning.

---
that's it for now. I hope my first decisions became clear but the game was still paused at day one. Next episode will hopefully cover early troop deployments and let us jump into the action. By writing this AAR so far, i still wasn't able to play further and still stuck at August 27th 1914 [correction: it was September 27th]. surely a memorable day in this AAR i promise. Hope you can enjoy my writings (and some feedback/flame/hate would really be appreciated)
Kantismus
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Re: Japan - Empire of the Rising Sun closing the gap

Post by Kantismus »

July - September 1914:
During the next days Japan starts to regroup his land forces. Port Arthur garrison consisting of 7 battalions of infantry was reduced by three shipping them to Korea. The modern battlecruiser Kongo was ordered to Tokyo. Our first two artillery units set sail to Port Arthur accompanied with a battalion of engineers. Troops in Korea were reinforced up to 28 Infantry, 8 recon cavalry and 10 Artillery. Infantry and artillery grouped up 4 + 2, three packs of cavalry were formed and mostly send to the Border and Pyongjang region.

two small fleets of pre-century-ships were deployed and send to Formosa and Seoul. All 8 subs were mobilized too. They should lurk in the passage between Japan and Korea. But then it happened. Around August the 20th a naval distress signal were send from submarine 5-Go. In a overoptimistic attempt to cross the hole Japanese Sea from Sapporo to Pusan they run out of fuel in the middle of nowhere. And in fact not a single supply ship can be found in the whole Japanese Navy. How could that be?
Soooo...the 13 man of the small vessel had to pull out their fishing rods for a while until our first supply ship will be ready. The construction of our two planned Sakura-Escort set to halt for the moment and we started to build our first AE Civilian Cargo instead. 34 long extra days will pass just to rescue our poor little submarine


July 28th passed by and WW1 begins (of course) Austria declares war on Serbia, Germany to Russia, Russia allys to Serbia, France DoWs Germany, Montenegro joins the Serbs, Germany annex Luxemburg and Belgium after short resistance and the Commonwealth joins the Entente. In Japan construction and troop reorganization goes on. Still there are more then 50% of Japanese Forces in reserves. Traders sell excess goods all over the world. Electrocardiography finished and our medical scientists started to figure out the concept of blood transfusions. Asia is still a quiet and peaceful place.

But then in the early hours of September 27th at Port Arthur. The garrisons duty officer of this day drank his first cup of tea, when weak sounds of gunfire came up the hills. Suddenly a Soldier rushed in "Colonel, a small chinese force crossed the border and opened fire on our nearest outpost." What was going on? "alert our troops, retaliate immediately! Not a single enemy soldier shall enter this fortress." eight minutes later the first battery opens fire.

---
the Chinese declaration of war really surprised me. I have placed some troops in Korea just in case something odd would happen, but did not expected it. Formosa is defended by exactly zero ground forces. Only 6 Pre-Century-Ships are there to stop any invasion. I am unprepared and know almost nothing about the chinese military. Their military ranking constantly has risen over the first month of the game and now is on top (together with france) fielding 740.000 Men (vs. 128.000 of mine). I think they only have mass infantry and they definitely can not produce anything else. Do they have ships? Do they field some artillery? Suppose i will find out.
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ZEvans96
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Re: Japan - Empire of the Rising Sun closing the gap

Post by ZEvans96 »

Are you going to continue this? It's nice seeing a well written and thought out AAR.
GIJoe597
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Re: Japan - Empire of the Rising Sun closing the gap

Post by GIJoe597 »

Apologizes for not having a well written and thought out AAR. :(
https://www.youtube.com/user/GIJoe597


Older/retired gamers, who do not tolerate foolishness.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/USARG
ZEvans96
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Re: Japan - Empire of the Rising Sun closing the gap

Post by ZEvans96 »

lol, Yours is good too GIJoe ;)
GIJoe597
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Re: Japan - Empire of the Rising Sun closing the gap

Post by GIJoe597 »

I was being facetious.

I also enjoy this Kantismus, please continue.
https://www.youtube.com/user/GIJoe597


Older/retired gamers, who do not tolerate foolishness.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/USARG
ZEvans96
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Re: Japan - Empire of the Rising Sun closing the gap

Post by ZEvans96 »

I was also having fun with it GIJoe lol, hence winky face ;)
way2co0l
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Re: Japan - Empire of the Rising Sun closing the gap

Post by way2co0l »

Have to agree, I'd love to see this continued as well if only to find out how it turns out! The AAR style is definitely fun as well though! But I'm not going to play favorites. :P hehe
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