Playthrough - Manchukuo

In that case, if I can temporarily ally with everyone on my border, I can probably deal with Australia in the first week.



More like 3, but all the same.

Crayfish is also a better player than I am, so that could get interesting. I'd forgotten he was playing Australia.

DAY FORTY-TWO

Still somehow in the game. A few of my spies left because I can't pay them, so my daily Spite-Robbing Argentina doesn't have the same kick as yesterday and tomorrow will have dwindled to almost nothing, but all the same it's one outlet of satisfaction against an enemy I can no longer cope with.


Fig. 143 And this is why my economy collapsed between yesterday's checkin and now.

Another one got captured:


Fig. 144 But probably this one would have left thanks to lack of funding anyway. (YOU CAN'T CUT BACK ON FUNDING! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!)

Persia has gone inactive, has trade-embargoed me, and thus is likely to declare war on me pretty soon anyway, so I'm making a dash across the Caspian through Persian territory to get my last half-decent stack to safety. I've offered the contested province east of Ashkhabad to Germany in exchange for Valetta, an insignificant island they're unlikely to care about losing, in a last-ditch effort to save my capital (not that that's likely to work anymore as Persia's at war with me again now).


Fig. 145 They're going to have to accept that offer quite quickly.

I managed to recapture Seishin and am building a battleship there, rather optimistically named 'Return of the Qing'. Unfortunately I don't have a garrison, as it must have died in the act of capture and the city then revolted to me or something, so that sweet battleship is probably going over to the Argentinians. Worth a shot, though.

My submarine activity on the North American coast is also going well. I seem to have killed a number of battleships already, as there are only two left and both are not going to last out the night. There are no destroyers anywhere near the place for some reason.

Finally, I'd like to present:
The ultimate bordergore.


Fig. 146 This game's done a truly excellent job at producing the stuff, but it's outdone itself this time.

This is, by far, the messiest, most horrific bit of cartography I have ever encountered in a CoW game. I am seriously impressed with you all. Well done.

I considered moving my capitol again, this time to Hiroshima, but ultimately decided against it not for any sensible reasons, like it being surrounded by enemy territory, but because I can't afford it.

I'm getting LOTR vibes from that.

Most generic fantasy stories these days seem to be based off LOTR anyway, so that's not surprising.

Including the sad collapse at the end?
Always good to see people who insist on playing Manchukuo to the end. This is the only HWW I've been in where it didn't go inactive straight away.

Thanks!
Frankly the mere fact of the game lasting as long as it has (we're approaching Day 50) says something about the people in it.

They aren't showing any signs of kicking me out of the coalition and they're probably going to beat Argentina, so all I have to do is survive and Germany will have served their purpose. I'm reluctant to bug them for help in case they suddenly realise how useless I am to them.

DAY FORTY-THREE
Germany didn't accept the offer in time. This means I'm down a capital with nothing to show for it, but that doesn't matter, because Argentina usefully declared war on Persia themselves and dropped a nuke on Tehran. Which is conveniently close to the stack I evacuated from Ashkhabad.


Fig. 147 Thanks, Argentina!

This means a capital offensive on my end is in order.

My battleship did indeed finish with Seishin still in my possession, so it is currently bombarding an artillery unit on the coast.

APTO seems to be stuck in a rut, having run out of people other than Persia and Germany to attack, and Persia doesn't have enough cities for Argentina to win the game through its latest invasion. This means I'm going to have to fight back for quite some time if I still want to finish in second place.

My spy network got in one last hurrah before leaving en masse thanks to the lack of funding.


Fig. 148 Totally worth every dollar I spent on it. They're not to know this is the last batch, and is probably consumed by paranoia thanks to the last three days and wondering how I can possibly be funding all this.

Come to think of it... I can probably sell off some stuff and plant a few more.

I'm losing everything now except money and rare materials, but have enough rare, oil and metal to sell off and make another 40k. Four more spies in provinces that don't have counterespionage should do the trick nicely.

Well, that's determined then. For as long as I survive I sell off as much rare as I'm allowed to at daychange and plant a few more spies. Eventually I'll start needing that money for topping up my other resources, but that won't be for a while as I have decent stockpiles of them all and I don't have many units to use them up.

Reading back on this thread, I found a comment that turned out to be incredibly prescient...