HEARTS OF IRON III Communist China FAQ by Sephiroth Katana (http://www.rpgclassics.com) INTRODUCTION ============ Once you've beaten Hearts of Iron III as some of the major powers, it's time to experiment with some of the more challenging countries. For example, France is very difficult. But it's even more interesting to try a minor power, with very little industrial capacity and technology. Among these, Communist China offers an interesting challenge. In 1936, they start tucked away on a tiny scrap of land between Nationalist China, Japan, and some of the other Chinese warlords, with extremely backward tech and severe economic problems. And yet, they have claims on all of China, so if you manage to survive and expand, you can jump into superpower status and take on the mighty Japan. Do you have what it takes? This FAQ is much more streamlined than my Soviet Union FAQ for Hearts of Iron III, and that's because Communist China has far fewer options. There's really only one logical way to proceed in order to have a shot at reuniting China. There is also an element of luck, since AI Soviet Union will have to defeat AI Germany on their own (you're just too far away to help). But, as long as this happens, you have a decent chance with this guide. GENERAL STRATEGY ================ Like in my other FAQ, this section describes your general plan for managing Communist China throughout the game. Specific step-by-step instructions will be given later in the walkthrough. Here, I will go through the main interfaces. 1. Diplomacy This is very simple. As soon as the game starts, align toward the Comintern. The Soviet Union will invite you to join by mid-1937. That's about all the diplomacy you'll be able to do -- you have so few leadership points that there isn't really anything else you can do with this interface. The main benefit of joining a faction is that it lowers your neutrality, which is extremely important in order for you to expand your territory in time to build up against Japan. Unfortunately, you won't be able to trade with the Soviet Union for a long time since you don't share any borders and since you start off land-locked. The other benefit is that, if Japan attacks you, they'll have to commit troops to the Russian Far East, which might make your task a bit easier. Technically, you don't need to join the Comintern. But, if you join the Axis, you won't be able to reclaim your land from Japan, which is the whole point of this challenge. If you join the Allies, you don't get any extra benefits over joining the Comintern, and the Soviet Union won't help you if you get attacked. So, might as well go with the more realistic choice. 2. Production This is very simple. You have next to no industrial capacity, so the only thing you'll ever have time to build is infantry. Make the following divisions: 3x Infantry, 1x Artillery That's it. You won't have time to research Superior Firepower, Engineers, or even light tanks. No planes, no boats, no extra IC, no infrastructure. It is infantry all the way, baby. Of course, always opt to make them as reserves, to save IC. A cheaper option is to make militia, but in my opinion, they're too weak to stand up to the Japanese army. Just make infantry. Of course, it goes without saying that you should always make sure that you have enough IC invested in Consumer Goods and Supplies. Divert IC from Produc- tion to Upgrades temporarily once you start researching infantry techs. 3. Technology When you start the game, you'll have a bit over 5 leadership points. Therefore, you will never have a chance to research 99% of the technologies. Your focus will primarily be on the Industry screen. You always want to have the following up-to-date (in order from most to least important): - Industrial Production/Efficiency - Education - Agriculture (this makes a big difference for your severe manpower issues) - Supply Production - Coal Processing/Rare Materials Refining/Steel Production - Electronic and Mechanical Engineering (and the Computing Machines) - Combat Medicine/First Aid (to conserve manpower) To maximize your efficiency, don't start researching a technology until you reach the calendar year that the tech is marked with. That is, don't try to research anything ahead of time. The major powers can do that, but you can't. If you're up-to-date on the industry techs, go to the Infantry screen and research Small Arms, Light Artillery, and Support Weapons. You actually don't need Anti-Tank Weapons, since Japan won't have any tanks in Asia. Under the Armor screen, try to keep the two Artillery techs up-to-date. You'll never get a chance to research any of the others (no, not even Light Armor). Finally, under Land, try to research techs that benefit your all-infantry army: Infantry Warfare/Mass Assault: improve infantry organization and morale. Operational Level Command Structure: improves combat speed. Operational Level Organization: allows your units to regroup quickly after an attack, thus letting them attack again sooner. Delay Doctrine/Assault Concentration: improve organization and morale for your artillery. Mobile Warfare: increases the likelihood of Breakthrough combat tactics. Large Front/Guerrilla Warfare: reduce supply consumption and increase the likelihood of useful combat tactics. If you can make the time to research Human Wave, it will improve your combined arms bonus, doubling it from 5% to 10%. Most likely you will not get a chance to do this until very late in the game. You won't have a chance to research anything else. In particular, Schwerpunkt and Blitzkrieg won't help you much, since you will have no tanks. Spearhead Doctrine is of no use to you for that reason. Superior Firepower sounds like it might help, but you'll first have to research Tactical Command Structure, which is useless, and even then you'll get to Superior Firepower far too late for it to matter. Just don't bother. Needless to say, you are not going to be able to research any naval or air techs. If you really have spare leadership, you can research the two Supply techs on the Theory screen. China has very poor infrastructure, and you will face severe supply issues. 4. Politics Not too much to do here, but you can make a few useful changes. Mao Zedong is not replaceable as Head of Government or Head of State. The others have a few options: Foreign Minister: Wang Jiaxiang improves your intelligence gathering in peace- time, which is not that useful, but is OK early on. After that, you can switch to Zhou Enlai to build up support for your ruling party. You never get any truly useful options for this position, unfortunately. Armament Minister: Lin Bojiu gives you a bonus to Supply production, which is quite useful in the early game. In 1937, however, you will want to switch him out for He Yuandang, who gives a 5% boost to resource production. You can then leave him there for the rest of the game (in 1939, Cao Qiuru will give you +10% to IC, but since you can't use your IC if you are out of resources, it is better to keep the resource bonus). Minister of Security: you start with Xie Juezai, who gives you +5% to leader- ship. Keep him there for the whole game. Head of Intelligence: it doesn't much matter whom you use early on, but in 1939 you can appoint Zhou Enlai, who gives +5% to espionage. Chief of Staff: Zhu De gives you a bonus to manpower, so you can just keep him for the entire game. Chief of the Army: Zhu De reduces supply consumption, so just keep him. Chief of the Navy: completely irrelevant. Chief of the Air Force: completely irrelevant. Every country in this game always wants to pass the most oppressive laws. You will actually have an easy time with this, and should have the best peacetime laws by late 1936 (see the walkthrough for details). 5. Intelligence This is very important. When you start the game, use 4 leadership points for technologies, and put the rest into intelligence. Send spies to Nationalist China and your neighbour Xibei San Ma. Don't assign them any tasks until you have 10 spies in each country. Now, have your spies Raise Threat on Xibei San Ma and Disrupt National Unity in Nationalist China. Make sure to do this from day one! You'll see in the walkthrough why this is so important. You won't have a chance to do anything else in this interface. I tried sending spies to France to steal technologies, but only got a couple of useless naval techs for my trouble. Just don't bother. After 1939, it may be useful to send some spies to Japan to Disrupt National Unity. If you can spend a bit more leadership, you can also build up Covert Ops and Support Our Party. Japan is actually quite vulnerable to a coup if you've built up your spy network for a few years. This might be a desperation move if you start losing the war. 6. Theatres Pretty pointless. You only have one theatre for the entire game, and you can manage it manually. THE ROAD TO WAR: 1936-1948 ========================== I'll focus on the 1936 start, as I suspect that it might be impossible to win with Communist China using the later starting dates. Your game will consist of three main stages. The first two will prepare you for war with Japan, and the third will take you through that war. It is imperative to finish the first two stages quickly -- if you do not build up in time, Japan will almost always attack you in early 1943. 1936-1939 You do not have many options when you start the game. You only have a handful of provinces, about 10 IC, and a little over 5 leadership. You do start with a large standing army, but it mostly consists of militia. I recommend disbanding all the militia and keeping only your one corps of infantry and mountaineers. This will save IC that you would otherwise have to spend on supplies. Before you unpause, make sure to execute the "Prepare for war" decision. This is the only decision Communist China ever gets, and it will quickly reduce your neutrality during your first year. You start with 100 neutrality, and you need to bring this down ASAP. There is no way that you can possibly take on Japan with your starting territory, so you'll have to fight some local wars first to expand. Start making infantry divisions, align to the Comintern, and send spies to Xibei San Ma and Nationalist China. Raising threat on XSM will also slowly reduce your neutrality. Research Industrial Production/Efficiency, Education, and Agriculture. Alternate your last leadership point between Agriculture and Supply Production. Don't bother trying to research anything else until you are up to date on the crucial industry techs. Once you're good on IC, Agri- culture, Education, and Supply Production, start on the resource techs. You may notice that you have next to no resources, which is a big problem since you won't be able to use what little IC you have if you experience shortages. Not much will happen in your first year. Just keep researching industry techs and trying to make infantry divisions. You start with high National Unity, so you should be able to enact the best peace-time laws (War Economy and Three- Year Draft) by the end of your first year. Stay with Consumer Product Orien- tation for a while, though, since you don't have much IC to spend on Consumer Goods. In 1937, Japan will attack Shaanxi to your north. I do not think there is any way to beat them to it -- your neutrality will simply not be low enough to allow you to attack Shaanxi in time. Just watch Japan win. They'll also attack Nationalist China, another war where you will have no chance to participate. The war will end quickly and Nationalist China will cede a large part of its coastline to Japan. If you aligned to the Comintern on day one, the Soviet Union will invite you to join by mid-1937. Accepting will lower your neutrality a bit more, though you won't be able to trade with them. Your main problem at this point will be a shortage of Energy, so try to find someone to trade with for it. Nothing much happens in 1938. As you improve your Supply Production tech, you will start accumulating a large surplus of supplies (the only resource that you will have enough of). You can try selling supplies to other nations. In 1939, keep monitoring the Diplomacy interface. Your goal is to declare war on Xibei San Ma as soon as you can. They will most likely align with the Axis, but fortunately, their neutrality will be too high for them to join. Your own neutrality will continue dropping as you raise threat on XSM. Move your main infantry corps to the border with XSM, and put whatever infantry divisions you had time to make close behind. As soon as you are able, declare war on XSM with the Conquer wargoal. Then, go to Intelligence immediately and tell your spies to Disrupt National Unity instead of Raise Threat. Send your troops over the border into Xianyang. From there, send your main corps west to Lanzhou, and your secondary divisions south to Tianshui. You should be able to enact Service By Requirement, Total Economic Mobilisation and Heavy Industry Emphasis as soon as you are at war. In Hearts of Iron III, you don't need to occupy every single enemy province in order to conquer a country. You only need to capture their "victory points," which represent key cities and industrial centers. XSM has only three VPs, and two of them are Lanzhou and Tianshui. Their third VP is far away, but XSM has fairly low National Unity, so if you wait a bit, your spies will lower it to the point where you can win by holding just the two VPs that are close to your border. When you win, you will annex the entire country. Communist China has claims on all of XSM (and also the rest of China), so it is OK to just annex them instead of installing a puppet government. You will not have any rebellions on core territory. Now, switch back to Consumer Product Orientation and take a look at Production. You should now have double your previous IC and a substantial increase in leadership. You will also seize XSM's resource stockpile, which will be quite helpful. Immediately use your new IC for infantry divisions, and try to get a few infantry techs. 1940-1943 After you conquer XSM, your neighbours will begin to see you as a threat, which will cause them to gravitate toward the Axis. Furthermore, in early 1943, Japan will declare war on you unless you build up sufficiently to scare them off. You still do not have enough IC to do this. Thus, your next goal should be to conquer Nationalist China ASAP, before they or the other Chinese minors have time to join the Axis. Nationalist China is much bigger than you and has a much bigger army, not to mention a huge amount of manpower. You will not be anywhere near parity with them, and you will not have the forces (or the time) to set up a front and fight a long war. However, if your spies were ordered to Disrupt National Unity in Nationalist China on day one, you have a chance to conquer them quickly by seizing a few key VPs. In fact, your spies can get them down to about 45% National Unity, which means that you can get by with four VPs. You can just barely grab this many with two and a half infantry corps, meaning two full corps and 2-3 extra divisions. If you spent every free unit of IC on production from day one, you should just barely have this many troops. Position one corps in Tianshui (former XSM territory), and one in Yan'an (your capital). Keep the half-corps close by. You need to do this soon, before the Nationalists figure out what you're up to and position troops along the border. If you don't see much opposition, it might be time to strike. Sometime in 1941 may be optimal (to give you a chance to research a few infantry techs and land doctrines). Declare war on Nationalist China (most likely, they will have no allies). Send one corps from Tianshui south to Chengdu, and send the other corps south from Yan'an to Xi'an. Don't stop at Xi'an -- keep heading south and east to Changde. The half-corps should follow them part of the way and try to fend off Chinese troops trying to retake Xi'an. Once the first corps reaches Chengdu, break off three divisions and send them southeast to Chongqing. You should just barely be able to reach these four VPs before being swarmed by the Nationalists. But, if their unity is low enough, they will surrender once these VPs are seized. It can be done. Again, you can use the Conquer wargoal and simply annex all of Nationalist China. This will give you substantially more IC and leadership, but you can't relax just yet. Once the Nationalists fall, you will become so threatening that Yunnan and Guangxi Clique will immediately join the Axis. To keep this from happening, you can declare war on them and try to conquer them. It is not too difficult -- Guangxi Clique only has three VPs, two of which are on their northern border, not too far from your Changde team. Yunnan only has two VPs, both relatively close to your Chengdu team. Even so, it takes a long time to move your troops through China due to the poor infrastructure. You may only realistically be able to fight one of the minors. In my case, Yunnan joined the Axis immediately, so I declared war on Guangxi Clique and annexed them. Even if Yunnan joined the Axis, you may still be able to attack them. In 1941, Germany will attack the Soviet Union, so you will already be at war with part of the Axis (it won't matter though, since they're too far away to attack you and you're too far away to help the Soviets). If Germany used its diplomatic influence on Yunnan, it may be viewed as a "German ally," not a "Japanese ally." If you declare war on them, Japan may prefer to keep its distance. I would recommend trying this a bit later, after you've built up some forces on the border with Japan. Your #1 goal at this moment is to mass up enough troops on the Japanese border to deter them from attacking you in 1943. Use as much of your new IC as you can on infantry and put them along the border. I recommend grouping infantry into corps of five divisions, then splitting those corps between two adjacent provinces (so, three corps and the HQ go to one province, and the other two corps sit next to them). If you've done this and have time to make more infantry, start massing up full corps in key areas close to the VPs. A few VPs, like Wuhan, are right on the border. Also place two corps in southern China, near the two Japanese exclaves there. You do not need to worry about the border with Japan's holdings in Indochina -- the infrastructure there is so poor that they will not be able to attack you that way. Likewise, even if they take over the UK's Asian holdings, they won't be able to reach you through your southwestern border. Sometimes it's good to have no infrastructure. It is also a good idea to put corps along your southern coast, since the Japanese may try to stage a landing in one of your ports. By mid-1943, you will know if your military build-up was successful. If Japan doesn't attack you, just keep massing up troops. The best time to go to war is sometime in mid-1944. Before then, just make as many infantry corps as possible and hope that the Soviets are beating the Germans in Europe. 1944-1948 By mid-1944, you should be up-to-date on infantry techs and land doctrines. If they are all marked as 1946, and all the upgrades have gone through, you're all set. Declare war on Japan using the Acquire Territory wargoal (you can demand Guangdong from them). Before unpausing, go to Japan's puppet countries of Man- chukuo and Mengkukuo, and add the Conquer wargoals for both of them. Attack with everything you have. If you managed to deter Japan until mid-1944, you should be able to attack all the Japanese units on the border at the same time. Some border provinces may be undefended, and if you have a spare couple of divisions somewhere, you can just walk across. After the very first round of battles, you will already be able to seize several VPs, such as Wuhan. You should pursue several strategic goals as you attack: 1. Your northernmost divisions (the ones in your starting territory) should move north. Send a single corps to converge on Hohhot. This is Mengkukuo's only VP, and as soon as you take it, you will knock them out of the game and conquer all their land. When this happens, Japan's northern forces will try to retreat, since they will suddenly find themselves out of supply. 2. The southernmost divisions should move north and try to wedge themselves in between the Japanese divisions. As you move closer to the coastline, the front will become more narrow and you will have spare divisions that you can use to get ahead of the Japanese and try to surround them. Surrounding units is the only way to destroy them in Hearts of Iron III. If an enemy division does not have a friendly province to retreat to, it will surrender when it loses a battle. There are a few chokepoints in this area, such as Shanghai or the Qingdao peninsula, where you can trap some Japanese corps. You do not necessarily need to destroy them immediately -- in my game, I had three full corps containing a couple of Japanese corps near Qingdao, and only moved in to capture them sometime in 1946. 3. The northern half of the front should move northeast toward the city of Bei- ping. Japan has an air base here, so after you take Beiping, they will have far less air support. Don't attack Beiping as soon as you get to it. Instead, send some corps north to meet up with the Hohhot team and create a front in northern Mengkukuo and western Manchukuo. You can take Beiping once you have multiple corps within attacking range. You should also be careful when you fight. When you annexed Nationalist China, you did not automatically get all of their reserve manpower. You did get a much faster manpower growth rate, but you used a lot of that on infantry corps. When the war starts, you should have 500-600 reserve manpower, while Japan has about 2000. You can't recklessly throw your men at them. Rather, pursue hit-and-run tactics. If you attack an enemy division and find that you are not making much progress, call off the attack before your men lose more than 50% of their Orga- nization (the green bar you see when you click on them). Sometimes the enemy will attack them right back, but more often than not, they'll also have taken losses, and they'll just sit there and regroup, giving you time to bring up some more divisions from another side. In Hearts of Iron III, attacks are much more effective if they occur from mul- tiple directions at the same time. Suppose that provinces A and B are both adjacent to province C. If the enemy is sitting in C, and you have a full corps with which to attack them, you will actually do better if you split up the corps between A and B, and attack simultaneously from both directions, than if you put the whole corps in A and attack at once. This is because two provinces have more "combat width" than one, so your units will be used more efficiently. It is also quite helpful to have the Combat Medicine and First Aid techs at a decently high level -- this will reduce your casualty rates and conserve your manpower. In that regard, you should also avoid attacking across rivers. If you have a full corps at full strength, they can overrun a single enemy division across a river, but otherwise you may wish to have some other units cross the river at an adjacent province and support your attack from the side. Once the coastline is cleaned up, hold on to Beiping while the southern front moves north to catch up. You may need to leave a few corps behind to guard the coastal ports, or to contain some trapped Japanese divisions (try to capture as many of these as you can, but don't risk it if they have a large number of divisions in the same province). Now, you can rearrange your units as follows: 1. The Hohhot group can move further north into Mengkukuo territory, but not too far. Mongolia and northern Mengkukuo have many provinces with very poor infrastructure that Japanese units will not be able to traverse. It is good to stay adjacent to such a province, thus protecting against the risk of attacks from that side. You just want to harass the Japanese and Manchu troops in this area, not advance. 2. Your Beiping front should move northeast toward Harbin, deep in the heart of Manchukuo. 3. Your southern front should swing by Beiping and move east toward Mukden. Manchukuo only has two VPs, Mukden and Harbin, and will be knocked out of the game once you capture them. When this happens, the remaining Japanese units in Manchu territory will be out of supply and can easily be cleaned up. You can take things a bit slower here, since some of your units may be low on Organi- zation from all the battles, and you need to give them a chance to recover. Manchukuo has rough terrain, so don't force river crossings before your men have backup from adjacent provinces. Due to the poor terrain and infrastructure, you will start running into supply issues in Manchukuo. To mitigate these issues, research the two Supply techs on the Theory screen in the Technology interface, and also put more IC into Supplies than the game asks for. For instance, if you are asked for 25 IC, invest 70. Any excess supply will be sold, but chances are, someone somewhere needs it. If the Soviets are winning the war with Germany, they'll also have a decent task force in their Far East. When you attack Japan, the Soviet Union will also join, and these units will divert a lot of Japanese fire, letting you clean up the Chinese coast much more easily. Once Manchukuo is conquered, the Soviets will hunt down a lot of the remaining units and retake any territory that they might have lost in the meantime. Now, send both the Harbin group and the Mukden group toward the Korean penin- sula. This is Japan's last stand on the continent, and the Japanese/Manchu border is marked by rivers, so don't rush it until everyone is ready. You have more than enough troops to overrun Korea (you can go ahead and add the Conquer wargoal against Japan by now), so get them together and head on south. If you are impatient, Japan may make a comeback by routing your tired, disorganized men, so get them together and let them recover a bit before your final attack. Now, you're basically done! Keep guarding the coastal ports, and capture any final Japanese units that you may have surrounded. You probably won't be able to take the fight to the Japanese, since you haven't built any ships and don't have any naval tech, but it shouldn't matter -- either USA or the Soviets will finish them off eventually. Once Japan loses to one of them, you get to keep all the territory that you have occupied using the Conquer wargoal. This will give you all of China, plus the Korean peninsula. You can create Korea using the Politics interface, to save yourself the trouble of dealing with rebels. You have cores on both Meng- kukuo and Manchukuo, as well as the Chinese coast, so you can just annex that territory. Some Manchu provinces may go to the Soviets if they were the first to occupy them. Congratulations! You have beaten all odds and reunited China. It is probably late 1946, so there isn't much time left. Just let the Soviets and the Allies mop up the remaining Axis countries. If you quickly build a few transport ships, you can stage a land invasion of Siam, but the UK may get to it first. Otherwise, you can also conquer Tibet with the Puppet wargoal, since they only have one VP right on your western border. Sinkiang will most likely have joined the Comintern already. OTHER STRATEGIES ================ One strategy that I have seen is to try to annex Nationalist China first, not Xibei San Ma. The best time to do this is in 1937, while they're beset by the Japanese. In order to be able to declare war, you need to have your spies raising threat on Nationalist China from day one, and even then I'm not sure that you could get it sufficiently high in time. You'd also have to focus on raising threat instead of disrupting national unity, which would also mean that you'd have to capture more VPs in order to win. Thus, you'd have to keep your starting militia units, and since you'd then have to use IC to keep them supplied, it's likely that you'd have to try to win with just your starting army. The strategy would be to rush to the VPs while most of their army is tied up on the Japanese front. Should you manage to win, you'll put yourself in a far better position much earlier in the game. The other Chinese powers would feel greatly threatened, so you'd then have to hurry and possibly declare war on all of them at once. But you'd also have much more land and manpower, and if you can beat the Nationalists, you can easily beat everyone else. OTHER CHINESE POWERS ==================== You can also try to reunite China as any of the other Chinese powers. All of them have to deal with similar issues, namely poor infrastructure, low leader- ship, and low IC. Nationalist China has the easiest time, since it starts off in control of much more land, and has very high manpower, allowing you to muster up an army more quickly. Both the Nationalists and the Communists have cores on all of China, so you can follow the same strategy -- just let Japan win in 1937, then go around conquering Xibei San Ma, Yunnan, Guangxi Clique, and finally Communist China, before taking on Japan. It is probably useful to join the Comintern (as ahistorical as that is), since that gives the Japanese two fronts to worry about when you attack. The other Chinese powers have a much more difficult time, mostly because they don't get cores on all of China. Shaanxi is doomed since Japan always invades in 1937, and your neutrality is still too high to do any significant expansion by then. Guangxi Clique can easily conquer Yunnan (they share a border), and then has to try to bum-rush the Nationalists from the south. Likewise, Yunnan can first conquer Guangxi Clique, which is a bit more difficult. Xibei San Ma can start with the Communists first. However, the lack of cores means that you receive fewer resources from conquered lands, and you also face much greater risk of rebellion. If you want to reunite China, the Nationalists and the Communists are probably the only two feasible options. THE END ======= Hearts of Iron III is a copyright of Paradox Interactive, 2009-2012. This FAQ is a copyright of Sephiroth Katana, 2014.