So, I got this in a nice little strategy pack when I got my new iMac (ah, paradox, a company that doesn't really care that I don't have the best graphics card in world) with pretty much all the major paradox releases for Mac so far (EU2, CK, Vicky and Vicky Rev, HOI2 and DD). I've been playing HOI2DD quite a bit, and enjoying it much more than the original Hearts of Iron. Much less tedious to play.
Of course, Paradox games have a habit (on all computers) of crashing once you reach an interesting point in your game. I don't grudge them for it, they're complicated systems. Although I was having loads of fun with my game as Nationalist China.
I'd managed to hold off the Japanese for the most part, losing only small amounts of ground in northern China. Most of that was the territory of the various warlords up there, so I let Japan do the dirty work of annexing them for me, save for Sinkiang, Yunnan, and the Guangxi Clique (cool name). After building divisions of garrison troops to secure my coastline and free up the legit infantry from that boring role, I was able to push the Japanese back up the coast.
Right around the time I was getting my momentum, it was late 1941, so the US got attacked, and I offered them an alliance immediately. Netted me access to a few techs, and kept them out of declaring war on Germany for the time being (I wanna see the AI pull off Barbarossa just once). Plus, they based quite a few bombers in my area and helped pound on the Japs a bit.
I had quite a bit of fun when I took Beijing and then hooked up with the Mongolian border. That left I don't know how many divisions of Japanese soldiers cut off in the deserts and mountains of north central china. Loads of fun moping them up while I annexed Manchuko and pushed into Korea. Got the peace event where Japan surrenders all of China to me, and Korea becomes my puppet (with their amazing tech teams).
Except the territories immediately east of Sinkiang remained Japanese. Annoying, but not much more annoying than having to deal with the fact that I couldn't take over the remaining warlord states for the life of me. I'd already made my way over to Market Liberal on the government sliders, soI couldn't really declare war on them, and none of them ever even considered giving me their territory diplomatically (Japan, meanwhile, had a 1 percent chance of giving me back that useless territory they nominally held out in the middle of nowhere, if I asked).
So, resigning myself to this nuisance, I started building up my nation, while mooching as many techs off everyone else. Oh, and shipping ungodly amounts of oil to the Nazis. They were just starting to get pushed back by the Soviets, but held Leningard and Moscow at their apex. Never quite got to Stalingrad, though. I don't know how much I could have helped them, because the next thing I knew, I was at war with them (crazy US with their idea that us democratic nations should be fighting the fascists).
Oh well, not the worst situation. Except that I'm effectively part of the Allies, without any of the benefits (since I had my own alliance with the US and my warlords). Rather than scrap the alliance, which would just piss off everyone in it, I decide to cheat a little and go into the game files and create an event to join the allies. Oh, and inherit the warlords, while I'm at it.
So, I go restart the game, and it refuses to load the scenario. Don't even get to try out my new scheme. I think the game probably didn't like the fact that I was in an alliance with the US and had a non aggression pact with the Japanese, while the US were still at war with them. But who knows? It could be any number of things the game didn't like about the save file.
So, that ended my first game as the Nationalist Chinese. I probably would have stayed out the actual fighting, using my industrial base to just upgrade the infrastructure of as much of China as possible, while gearing up for an evenual war with the Soviets, so I could annex Mongolia. I probably would have puppeted Tibet somehow, as I'd feel bad about annexing them. Then again, I am an enlightened democracy, so they'd probably do better under my China than OTL's.
Any suggestions on who to play as next? I'm tempted to give Germany a try, and slip them towards democracy while I get ready to purge the world of that accursed Cyrillic alphabet. To bad there's no legit events to leave on alliance and join another. Good guy Germany (well, I'd probably still take over Austria and Czechia) as part of the allies would be fun. I suppose I could edit the Hitler assassination event to force Germany out of the Axis...
Of course, Paradox games have a habit (on all computers) of crashing once you reach an interesting point in your game. I don't grudge them for it, they're complicated systems. Although I was having loads of fun with my game as Nationalist China.
I'd managed to hold off the Japanese for the most part, losing only small amounts of ground in northern China. Most of that was the territory of the various warlords up there, so I let Japan do the dirty work of annexing them for me, save for Sinkiang, Yunnan, and the Guangxi Clique (cool name). After building divisions of garrison troops to secure my coastline and free up the legit infantry from that boring role, I was able to push the Japanese back up the coast.
Right around the time I was getting my momentum, it was late 1941, so the US got attacked, and I offered them an alliance immediately. Netted me access to a few techs, and kept them out of declaring war on Germany for the time being (I wanna see the AI pull off Barbarossa just once). Plus, they based quite a few bombers in my area and helped pound on the Japs a bit.
I had quite a bit of fun when I took Beijing and then hooked up with the Mongolian border. That left I don't know how many divisions of Japanese soldiers cut off in the deserts and mountains of north central china. Loads of fun moping them up while I annexed Manchuko and pushed into Korea. Got the peace event where Japan surrenders all of China to me, and Korea becomes my puppet (with their amazing tech teams).
Except the territories immediately east of Sinkiang remained Japanese. Annoying, but not much more annoying than having to deal with the fact that I couldn't take over the remaining warlord states for the life of me. I'd already made my way over to Market Liberal on the government sliders, soI couldn't really declare war on them, and none of them ever even considered giving me their territory diplomatically (Japan, meanwhile, had a 1 percent chance of giving me back that useless territory they nominally held out in the middle of nowhere, if I asked).
So, resigning myself to this nuisance, I started building up my nation, while mooching as many techs off everyone else. Oh, and shipping ungodly amounts of oil to the Nazis. They were just starting to get pushed back by the Soviets, but held Leningard and Moscow at their apex. Never quite got to Stalingrad, though. I don't know how much I could have helped them, because the next thing I knew, I was at war with them (crazy US with their idea that us democratic nations should be fighting the fascists).
Oh well, not the worst situation. Except that I'm effectively part of the Allies, without any of the benefits (since I had my own alliance with the US and my warlords). Rather than scrap the alliance, which would just piss off everyone in it, I decide to cheat a little and go into the game files and create an event to join the allies. Oh, and inherit the warlords, while I'm at it.
So, I go restart the game, and it refuses to load the scenario. Don't even get to try out my new scheme. I think the game probably didn't like the fact that I was in an alliance with the US and had a non aggression pact with the Japanese, while the US were still at war with them. But who knows? It could be any number of things the game didn't like about the save file.
So, that ended my first game as the Nationalist Chinese. I probably would have stayed out the actual fighting, using my industrial base to just upgrade the infrastructure of as much of China as possible, while gearing up for an evenual war with the Soviets, so I could annex Mongolia. I probably would have puppeted Tibet somehow, as I'd feel bad about annexing them. Then again, I am an enlightened democracy, so they'd probably do better under my China than OTL's.
Any suggestions on who to play as next? I'm tempted to give Germany a try, and slip them towards democracy while I get ready to purge the world of that accursed Cyrillic alphabet. To bad there's no legit events to leave on alliance and join another. Good guy Germany (well, I'd probably still take over Austria and Czechia) as part of the allies would be fun. I suppose I could edit the Hitler assassination event to force Germany out of the Axis...
