Pinned How to play the Pan Asian doctrine: Nationalist China day to day report on World at War

The point is to spam level 1 subs and upgrade them afterwards. It's the fastest way to produce a large army of a higher research level.

Day 11 & 12: Preparation for the invasion

During these two days, Ma-Clique has single handed beaten the coalition in Europe. Fairly spoken, it were noobs who were good in role playing and spamming in the newspaper and lacking both game activity and understanding of the game mechanics. Still, it's an accomplishment on Ma-Clique's part. The French territory got taken by Mauritania. Is a war with Africa inevitable?

In the meantime Both North India and Tibet have utterly destroyed the remaining troops of Saudi Arabia. No surprise there, after the SA disembarkation fiasco on the Egyptian shore he didn't come back online. I sincerely hope that North India and Tibet will fare better with their invasion of Egypt. Funny is that Egypt hasn't been aware of the danger from the East as he has been expanding westwards, where he's fighting the African coalition.




Research:

Previously, I wrote that I'm never in the top of the research list. Most players research whatever, but not necessarily produce the units which is simply a waste of resources. I only research the units that I want to produce so by consequence i'm not ranked well in the list.

However this changes as today I'm ranked first place. Most players make the mistake to not upgrade their troops sufficiently. Each unit has a daily upkeep which wears down your economy. However if you upgrade your units they get instantly more damage output but it doesn't raise their daily upkeep. This is there reason why it's better to upgrade your existing units instead of producing more of them.





Unit production and upgrades

I have been training additional units and upgrading my existing ones. I want the perfect invasion force to wreck the South American coalition.

My invasion force will look like this:

- Navy:

8 battleships level 2, 7 aircraft carriers level 3, 5 cruisers level 2, 11 destroyers level 3, 6 submarines level 3.

- Airforce:

17 interceptors level 2 (I'll upgrade them to level 3 tomorrow), 11 tactical bombers level 2, 9 attack bombers level 2, 4 naval bombers level 2.

- Army:

15 artillery level 3, 15 rocket artillery level 2, 21 infantry level 3, 12 Anti Air level 2, 12 Anti Tank level 2, 6 Light Tanks level 2, 6 Armored cars level 2.

the aim is to make 3 stacks composed of 5 artillery and 5 rocket artillery, as the maximum is 10 in a stack for damage output reasons also called SDBE. The artillery stacks will be protected by 7 infantry, 4 AT, 4 AA, 1LT and 1AC.

The infantry and AT are both defensive units that get terrain bonusses in forrests and cities so they mix perfectly together. The AT are stealth so tanks will only see juicy infantry that they want attack and walk in the trap. My artillery gets a terrain bonus in hills and mountains so that terrain is also covered. As most players use mostly light armor and heavy armored units I need to avoid plains. That's where my tactical and attack bombers will do the killing.

I also put an LT in the stack so that I can split it off at some point to cover more ground. I also add an AC as a scout, thanks to it large line of sight and it's power to reveal stealth units i won't be surprised by large stacks of militia, commandos, AT and such. Preparation is key!


Here you find the current army sizes:

Yellow: me
Green: my coalition
Red: the active American and African countries.

As you can see my army combined with that of Manchukuo will outnumber whateve the South Americans can throw at us.

Day 13 and 14: Reveal all on Peru.

Europe is all but conquered, in Africa only Egypt and South West Africa are active. In North US only Texas remains and in Latin America we have a coalition of 4 players in which there's only one player that really matters being Peru.







Peru: reveal all armies

There's basically two players to beat in the Americas: Texas and Peru. From what I can see in the newspaper Texas is a medium tank spammer and nothing more. The troop composition of Peru however was unknown, until today. He uses AC, LT, MT, HT, mech infantry, mot infantry and has still his starting infantry and a couple of artillery and SP artillery but nothing more. As he has no air force and no AA, those units will be picked off easily by my bombers. Finally he has little to no navy, we are talking about 5 lone battleships which are easy pray for subs or naval bombers.

Now that I have an all reveal I realize that I really have overdone my invasion force. As Peru only has 105 units and my army counts 88 units and 44 planes. On top of that I have 8 battleships and 6 cruisers that can bombard land troops from sea. If ever I'm met by a large force when I've already split up my units into different stacks and directions, all I need to do is pull back to the sea.

Trouble is coming: tomorrow we disembark!




We are facing players who are doing the same thing over and over again: tanks, tanks, tanks. It outbalances your economy as you only use a couple of resources and sell the rest to buy more of what you need. Instead of building an army that is adapted to your countries economy they bleed their land dry of goods, oil and steel. Peru's army is more varied but it's still mainly light armor and heavy armor.

Day 15: D-day

I skipped day 14 as nothing really interesting happened.


Peru

While our fleet was moving to the our designated disembarkation location we crossed unescorted convoys of Peru heading for Asia. We've split our subs from our stacks and deployed our naval bombers as well. It was over before it started. 12.000 Peruvian lives have been lost at sea.

My troops disembark while I was sleeping. My battleships are covering both sea and land approach and my planes patrol over the disembarkation location as well. Whatever happens tonight, my convoys are safe.

In the morning I sent my AC in all different directions while my planes are scouting. There are no troops in sight so a couple of hours later just before day change at lunch Peru has lost all of his core provinces. It was all over before it started, he's gone inactive. He had lost his south American garrison at sea and had only his army in north America left. With no airforce and no navy protecting his shores he was a sitting duck. He has lost heart and hasn't been seen nor heard of again.

Nationalist China - 260
Peru - 7,910




The failed African invasion

Maranhão tried to invade the lands of AI Mauritania. Unfortunately they got spotted by North India and got killed very effectively. Soldiers on the ground reported that the army was partying drunk in the streets of Dakar when they got gunned down.

North India - 80
Maranhão - 9,633

This is halfway day 16:

Day 16: The Blitz in South America



We are making the best of the Pan Asian doctrine as we can. AC and LT run in all different directions. Due to their speed and bigger line of sight they can avoid all enemy units and run havoc behind enemy lines. The smaller stacks are being taken care off by our air force and the larger stacks are being pounded to oblivion by our artillery. The enemy that is using mainly unarmored, light and heavy armored units has no answer to our tactics. Due to the terrain in South America there are little to no plains so we have basically a higher terrain bonus everywhere and we are exploiting it as we can.


This is how the map looks like halfway into day 16. I've posted one with relations and one without.





Bolivia:

Bolivia needed a little bit to organise himself but by that time most of the Peruvian territory in South Amerika was already taken. His cities were all empty and I could have taken his capital. With a big stack incoming I decided to pull back and reorganize. He had a stack of over 80 units stacked together. I already could imagine the scenario where I would lock him in melee combat in the forest where both my infantry and anti tank get 70% terrain bonus. Me being on the defensive and him on the offensive while being pounded by 3 artillery stack with a total of 30 guns. It would be over fast. Especial as I would make a stand in non core territory where he wouldn't have his 15% core bonus.

He decided to split up his stack and keep half of it in his capital and send the rest in different directions. My single AC and LT danced around them, running havoc behind his lines. The smaller stack were being killed by my bombers while my artillery stacks took care of the rest while marching on his capital.

His last stand in his capital was lost before it started. I surrounded him with my 3 artillery stacks and attacked from the mountains where I had 70% bonus for ranged units. With both 15 rocket artillery level 2 and 16 artillery level 4, his stack of 45 units were gone in only 3 hours. It was the perfect answer as his stack consisted out of unarmored, light armored and heavy armored units. While being in a city only his infantry was having a terrain bonus but that didn't matter. He had 6 SP artillery but they don't get a bonus in cities and they are versus armored units while I have mainly unarmored units so I took little damage.

With his last stack gone, the rest of the terrain fell with little to no opposition. My AC and LT kept driving all night long and when I woke up it was almost over. Only a few single heavy tanks remained and were dealt with fast.

Bolivia - 81,563
Nationalist China - 6,843







A toxic player:

Some players are just toxic, others can't handle the fact that they are losing, some players have a tough time in RL and circumvent in game as a coping strategy. My experience with SW Africa wasn't very good. Even though we always stay polite and helpful in our games and give even advice to our enemies, some go in the defensive, see it in a negative light and have the impression that they are being told off, insulted, patronized. In my opinion players who react like that are to be ignored as nothing good comes of it. I'm not a psychologist so I'm not going into discussions of their issues.

Day 17: The fall of the South

So it's day 17 and probably the last day of the game. My coalition has 3400 points so only an additional 552 points is required. South America holds another 410 points so if the others in Africa can take an additional 142 points it will be GG at day change.



This is how the map looks like at day change.



Two versus four:

Peru:

Hestarted moving his units again but it was too little too late. He tried to bring his troops from N America back to the south. As he had no navy, his attempt was in vain. He should have known that convoys need to be escorted. Especially after a part of his army was destroyed in the Pacific. I guess some players will never learn. They join the next and the next game using the same tactic over and over but lose in the end. Whom who doesn't adapt cannot survive, this rule as old as life itself.

Nationalist China - 1,291
Peru - 27,712



Bolivia

He had almost lost everything he had yesterday so there was only some cleaning up to do. He sent a stack of 5 battleships and 5 destroyers (he probably had read my naval guide) to my naval units. I had 8 battleships, 6 cruisers and 6 destroyers. I've split them up in two stacks so that all my capital ships would open fire. I've opened fire as soon as my battleships were in range and I closed in closer afterwards so that also my cruisers could get into the action. With 14 ranged ships versus 5, it was over fast.

Bolivia - 96,361
Nationalist China - 9,451


Texas

Since our landing in South America, Texas didn't move an inch to help his allies and continued his war against AI. As we weren't attacking AI, but taking out player after player he had to know that he was next, shouldn't he?

Texas - 37,370
California - 74,219

Texas - 29,621
Quebec - 43,824

Texas - 2,848
Saskatchewan - 4,977

Texas - 20
New Brunswick - 1,146

Ultimately he tried to assit Peru by sending a part of his army and all though he had some navy, he didn't stand a chance against our combined navy.

Manchukuo - 2,456
Texas - 29,083

Ma-Clique - 1,506
Texas - 7,107


Argentina

He wasn't moving his troops at all so that was a Turkey shoot. I've sent in my air force to deal with any stack he had and to clear his cities while my AC and LT were set loose. I managed to get a reveal all armies on him so it was a peace of cake.

Nationalist China - 7,068
South Argentina - 24,589


Maranhao was the only player with a force to defy us in S America but he retreated his army into his cities and went offline. I've lost 1 AC and 1 LT in an attempt to capture his core cities. (It's Saturday and very beautiful outside so I went race biking)

Nationalist China - 2,506
Maranhão - 21,083

THE END



All beautiful stories come to an end and this is one.
As in any good and self respecting show they share some bloopers in the end so let's jump right into it.


In the first blooper North India has the honors. Before you go to bed please check where your troops are going. Better to retreat them a couple of provinces and losing some ground in order to keep your army intact.




In the second blooper Ma-Clique has the honors. As you know by now, artillery and rocket artillery get a 50% bonus in hills. Going after that large of a stack containing 5 artillery, the LT Nemesis. It isn't a good idea to chase it with 4 LT. Neither is it a good idea to chase it with an overstacked stack of 16 units (remember SDBE is 10) of which 13 unarmored while the enemy has 9 rocket artillery, the unarmored unit Nemesis. I haven't got to explain you how this situation got wrong rather fast.

My overall impression of the Pan-Asian doctrine

Early game

Due to their extra speed, line of sight and terrain bonus that comes with the doctrine and the additional bonus of plenty early game units, Pan-Asian appears to be OP. However, in the early game you'll fight mostly other Pan-Asian nations so there the advantage nullifies and it's mainly the most active or best player that wins. You can also meet a Comintern player early on depending on your country choice. With their reduced production cost and reduced upkeep they can produce and maintain a bigger army than yours with the same amount of resources. Take account the fact that Comintern has access to rocket artillery from day one. As this is an anti-unarmored unit and that you start with only unarmored units you will need all the extra speed and line of sight to evade him until you can outgun him.

All the combined bonuses have mostly their impact in the early game. It helps you to play more efficiently, to expand faster and lay the foundation of a strong economy from which you will profit all game long.


Mid game

In the mid game it is important to keep upgrading your early game units as that is where your strength lies. They still represent a large number of troops in your army composition so every upgrade will give you an extra edge. If you stack infantry and anti tank which share the same terrain bonus in forests and cities, together with artillery and rocket artillery which both have a bonus in hills and mountains you cover all the terrain types except on the plains but there you have your AC and LT which are fast and have their additional bonus. I'd say that in mid game those artillery stacks are the biggest strength of the Pan-Asian doctrine as they have both their additional bonus but also their speed where they can just shoot and retreat every 30 minutes for as long as it takes. Due to their extra line of sight they can see the army stack troop composition sooner and evade danger.

In the late Early game into the mid game it is important to switch to air. Due to their extra speed and the interceptors whom deal an additional 15% damage, have 15% extra range and their research upgrades that are available sooner they have without doubt the best air force in the game. It enables you to attack ground units fast with your bombers and get out before the enemy can react. If the enemy does react well your interceptors are simply better so your enemy will pay the price.


Late game

By now you have a formidable air force which you can use to take out all the smaller stacks. Your AC need constant upgrading to be a good scout and to capture empty provinces. With it's extra line of sight you can see the enemy coming and switch directions. You can do a lot of damage to the enemy and he might give up just because of that. Your artillery stacks are still very important and you keep upgrading them as you need them to stay on top.

In the late game you will start encountering Axis players. I'd say that they are the Nemesis of the Pan-Asian doctrine. As axis has 15% extra HP and Pan-Asian has a -10% penalty, there's a 25% HP difference. You simply don't want to be locked in melee combat against an Axis player. This is why it's important to have both an air force as those artillery stacks. If you are forced to engage in melee combat with an axis player then choose your ground carefully. If you fight on the plains against Axis you will get obliterated. The best defensive position in melee combat for a Pan Asian player is on the border in a forest or (city) where your infantry and anti tank have their 70% bonus. Behind that stack you will put your artillery stack in the hills or mountains where your artillery gets 70% bonus. This way every single unit that you have will get a terrain bonus. Defending in a city is less favorable because mot infantry also has a bonus there. The forest on the border of hills or mountains would be the perfect situation.

You also need to defend your coastline and prepare for an invasion. As you have 10% less HP you need to avoid to be locked into melee combat. As you are 20% faster your battleships will be almost as fast as a cruiser from another doctrine but you will have a longer range. The Pan-Asian battleship has an additional 10% HP which nullifies the Pan-Asian -10% HP penalty. On top of it your battleship deals an additional 10% damage to all units, so both air, land and naval units. This makes the Pan-Asian Battleship one of the best naval unit in the game. They should be the core of your navy but well protected with destroyers and cruisers so that you are safe from both air and subs.


Conclusion

Pan-Asian is perfect for players whom have a lot of online time, who play proactive, like micro management and know the game mechanics well enough to exploit them. Due to it's speed and extra line of sight Pan-Asian plays very fluently. I've never finished a World at War in 17 days before, my record was 18 days. If you take in account that two players (Nationalist China and Manchukuo) didn't expand for five days as we had to prepare our invasion and cross the Pacific it's quite impressive. The whole South American continent got conquered in only 52 hours. If you exploit all the terrain bonuses, the strengths of the doctrine, the excellent airforce and the Battleships as flagship then you can expand rapidly and surprise your enemy.

I'd say to stick with what Pan-Asian does best. Use those same early game units but upgrade them to their maximum. A Pan Asian mech infantry level 2 does 11 damage to an infantry. But a regular Pan-Asian infantry level 4 defends with 10.5. If you defend with your infantry in a forest you will get an additional 70% bonus. This means that you will win easily against other doctrines in terms of equal resources. You will take the same or a bit more damage than the enemy but your units are much cheaper and faster to produce.

Keep in mind that Pan-Asian has 10% less HP which means that you need to avoid to lock them in melee combat, especially versus Axis. The strength in Pan-Asian is to use both its speed and larger line of sight to avoid battles it cannot win. Together with the terrain bonuses you can just fire and pull back every 30min. As the combination of infantry, AT, AA, artillery, rocket artillery has a terrain bonus in all terrains but plains they are deadly.

In combination with that you use AC fully leveled up to use as shock units to part in all directions and take as many enemy cities and resource provinces to bleed him dry economically.

In mid and late game you should focus more and more on a large air force. With the extra interceptor attack bonus and increased range combined with the Pan-Asian speed, the Pan-Asian interceptor is the best in the game. They will kill of easily enemy air force and protect your bombers well. Your air force will easily pick off all stacks of maximum 10 units that have no AA protection. Your artillery stacks will deal with whatever is left over that can't be killed by planes. That combined with AC running havoc in all directions and avoiding combat will bring your enemy rapidly on his knees. This tactic is extremely difficult to counter.