Playthrough - Manchukuo

Not wrong, but they are fun. Also they're going towards an achievement and I'm going to need 1000 more gold to join Carking's organised HWW map, so from a meta-strategic point of view it's very sensible.

Yeah but it'd be cool if I can get it through conventional means. My personal challenge is to clean up on as many achievements if it takes to have enough gold by the time all the countries in your game are bagged, with the free gold hack as a backup plan.

I thought as much, otherwise I wouldn't have signed up. I've tried playing two HWWs at once and it didn't end well. (Japan languished on the sidelines while I focused on China, making me guilty of Wasting A Perfectly Good Country^TM.)

Holy crap. If you're capable of that, my first move in the next game will be asking for an alliance with the Soviet Union.

Probably wise. Although I tend to avoid backstabbing people who are vastly more skilled/powerful than I am, unless I'm feeling reckless.

'Puppet'? Hmm, we don't like the sound of that...

Playing the same country twice in a row might be a bit much, particularly if said country is really weak and this time it's going to have intelligent neighbours.

Screw it, I'm posting a few hours early:

DAY SEVEN

All of Mongolia's forces that we know about have conveniently lumped themselves into two armies, neither of which contain anti-air (or artillery of any kind), around the same time as there happen to be two flying bombs in Hulunbuir. Only an idiot would fail to see an opportunity here.


Fig. 14 I've been looking forward to cracking out the secret weapons all game.

Of course, the emperor very much doubts that this really is everything, even assuming the bombs manage to kill (or as good as kill) both stacks (and they won't), which is why a third flying bomb on its way up right now. Better yet, research for level 1 rockets came through overnight and Hsinking is building one right now while our scientists finish the level 2s.

We now also have a convenient road, to be upgraded to a railway when the state can afford it, between Hsinking and Hulunbuir. That's right - the government is finally shelling out for decent infrastructure.

Industry is at last getting off the ground, as it usually does at around the end of the first week; we still have oil and metal deficiencies, which hinder further developments of the very industry needed to obtain more (the key is behind the lock indeed), but the treasury also has enough money that we can easily buy up extras if needed. Goods have stopped running out within three new projects. However, industry is still being more expensive in things we're short of, so rather than upgrading that we're jacking up unit production facilities. Has anyone else ever thought it's cool how secret labs are comparatively cheap?

The bombs landed. Well, that was disappointing. I forget how ineffective those things are compared to later secret technology.

And here is something new and unexpected: Russia's shared map with me. I'm now deeply offpissed that I wasted so much time and money on Mongolia, because here we have the perfect excuse to backstab them. (Why they did this I really don't know, as they've gone inactive.)

I think it's around time I admitted it: to someone who doesn't find blow-by-blow tactical descriptions and meta-commentary about how I'm inches from losing interesting, this playthrough is bloody boring, as effectively nothing has happened since I invaded Mongolia four days ago. If I'm not getting somewhere by tomorrow I'm going to negotiate peace and attack the Soviets instead.

They could be useful, yes.
Further comments withheld until the Day Nine updates come through.