Beginner's Guide to Japan 1939

I probably will post some pictures for this guide.

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Why Am I Posting This Now?

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I've started over because I had to get a new phone a couple of months ago. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to work on a Japan 1939 conquest with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to work with. No techs, no resources, no general except for a single no-eyes cmdr without upgrades.


Okay, let's roll up our sleeves and get started. The overview:

Plenty of generals, and no shortage of units, sounds good!

Hold your horses...Japan starts with a limited amount of oil, and doesn't quite get enough gain in oil supplies per turn. The oil situation is so bad that you can't even use ALL of your units in the very first turn, yikes!

Normally, 110 oil barrels are enough to start off with (plus a positive gain of oil supplies per turn). The problem is that Japan has been blessed with so many mechanical units, there is simply not enough oil to go around. I will move my most critical units first then using the remaining oil, I might make some extra moves for the reminder units.

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Initial survey of fronts and battlegroups

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China/Mongolia

I like to use long-range artillery quite a bit and there's a field artillery pretty close to the battlefield in Northern China, so I'm putting my no-eyes cmdr on it. The two other generals will stick with him as a trio and move south to Peking. Trio's goal is marked with light blue arrow. Next... You can see we have an infantry general sitting in Pyongyang, I sent him up north to Changchun to join the Aqua group in preparation to attack Mongolia.

East China Sea

I've designated this bunch as my white group, its main mission is to defend Taiwan, Korea, and Japan against China and American Manila for the first part of the conquest. Eventually, I want Shanghai to soften up and the Chinese generals thinned out before I leave this area and take over SE Asia (including Manila). For now, gather up the white group to make a defensive cluster.

Alaska

Right now, there is no immediate threat from Russia, America, or Canada. I don't have enough oil to move everything, this orange group should stay in place and wait a couple of turns to allow the oil supplies to accumulate a little. You can see the black area I've marked as off-bound. This is important. The only two things that you can take from Russia in the black zone is 2 oil pumps and 2 docks. Hardly a valuable asset to sacrifice your own men for, plus the clock is running down on you; you have only 65 turns to achieve the Pyramids wonder. It's better to completely ignore that area, and by the time you have captured all of the Russian-owned cities, those oil pumps and docks will surrender to you for free. No need to waste your men fighting a Russian infantry general and a naval admiral on a battleship. Long as you stay out of the black zone, the Far East Russians will stay in place like stone statutes and not even breathe, so ignore!

Midway/Hawaii

Last but definitely not the least important (to me) for this attempt for a conquest under 65. I want to use Hawaii to build a couple of carriers and slowly kill the Australian general Blamey in Brisbane each turn by sea by the time I get to Australia via Indonesia conquest. So this means I need to lay out the preparations VERY EARLY by going after Midway Island and then Hawaiian Islands in the beginning with my green group.

You can see in this screenshot I already grouped the white units together on the bottom left corner. I've already gathered the green group together too in the right side, ready to sail south into Central Pacific. I must point out that at the end of my 1st turn, I went down to only 3 oil from 110. My yellow-marked land units on my homeland cities are unable to move which I have highlighted in yellow boxes in this screenshot. Eventually, in a few turns I will move the yellow group to coordinate with the Orange group to capture Alaska and Vancouver, but not now.


Back to the picture: This green group you see here with 3 subs, 2 battleships, 1 carrier. Once you've gathered them together tightly... in the next few turns... Use the carrier first to strike the enemy sub to death from a distance (remember that bombing battleships from the aircraft carrier is pretty weak due to their high resistance to air attacks). Use the subs to surround the lone battleship, and you could use the carrier general to take a bit off the high HP, and even trading shots battleship vs battleship. Kill it then proceed to Midway, but be warned that a new American General will spawn from the dock at Midway when you get close. You will need to replace your subs at Midway's dock once all enemies are dead in that area because it's likely that your subs are dead at this point.

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Strategic Choice of Units Primer

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This section will cover the whats and whys for which units I'm using and I hope that you will benefit from reading this part of my guide.

Surprisingly Good Units I Use to Help Me a Lot: Armoured Cars and Motorized Infantries.

I will admit that at zero troop tech, all of units I make will not be that strong as I would like them to be. Notheless, even without Infantry or Tank tech, the two fast units are helpful in packing a quick punch.

Armoured Car:

Heavy tanks are nice but they're expensive and I could get nearly 2 armoured cars for the same price but at much higher mobility and can coordinate together to flank an enemy. Analogy to having 2 rooks instead of 1 queen in chess would apply here. A queen may be more powerful than a rook, but in good hands, 2 rooks are more dangerous than 1 queen on the chessboard.

Cavet: a Supertank is a completely different thing. A ubergod, broken, unbalanced unit is way better than having 2 armoured cars (minus the movement slowdown). For 1939, you don't deal with Supertanks, so we will not cover this in here.

Okay in here... you can see I have also the option of picking a tank in the 2nd option instead an armored car in the first option. Regular tanks may have a bit more HP and a bit more raw damage and the ability to do a second attack after making a kill, BUT they move slightly slower and lack an useful 50% additional damage bonus on infantry and cost more anyway. It's really a fact that the regular tank is an inferior unit to the armoured car. So take it from me, EITHER go with cars or supertanks (heavy tanks okay-ish as substitute). Don't go on the middle road for tanks.

Motorized Infantry:

Most good WC3 players will prefer this unit over Commandos in most situations, why? Flexibility in overall aspect.

It has decent base damage, decent HP and epic movement, but it also have a nice bonus on tanks/cars and forts. One thing about forts, bonuses applies to them ALSO applies to cities. Because in the game files, the cities are classified as fortifications. It's not hard to set up a flanking maneuver with pairs of MIs around an enemy, and it's even easier to set up one around a city's occupier. I would bring along an Armored Car if the occupying unit is an infantry to sic the AC onto the helpless infantry sitting in there, taking maybe a 1/3 chunk of health from him.

Epic movement capability of Motorized Infantry:
Speed kills, I will tell you why. Human players can do a dance and weave around clueless AI controlled units using either the advantage of speed or long-range attacks. So if speed kills, then epic speed kills even more. No other single unit has the equal movement capacity to keep up except for generals with movement boosts in marching stars. Even the speedy Armoured Cars struggle slightly behind the MIs. When using both (as you should combine the advantages of both), I recommend trying to hold back the MIs a few hexes just enough to keep the ACs within your group.

Submarine:

The cheapest naval unit... With its low cost it's pretty easy to dominate the seas with mass subs. But you should focus your resources more on the land than the sea because only land units can be on both sea and land, and only land units can capture the enemy cities.

A sub may be cheap, but it's also relatively low in HP and base attack damage. The main reason why anyone would buy subs would be the torpedoes skill bonus of 200% damage against battleships and carriers. They're great anti-captial-ships units but pretty terrible against anything else (except for destroyers and subs which are weak anyway). They can't touch anything on land, and even if you find a vulnerable land unit floating on water all alone as a juicy target, the low base damage without the bonus is a disappointment for the submarine commander (you).

Destroyer:

The next unit seems to have much better stats than the lowly but useful submarine. Don't be fooled, the Naval Artillery skill for the Destroyers makes them feel like toy boats shooting foam nerf bullets against the important land units you need to mow down.

On the positive side, they're helpful in removing enemy forts that makes a D-Day invasion difficult for your land units. Their decently higher HP also makes them excellent meat shields, and they're not that expensive in comparison to other units in terms of how many HP per gold you're buying for.

Use them in either a screen for your expensive capital ships (battleships and/or carriers) or as a part of a D-Day invasion onto an enemy's shore. But don't build too many of them, they cost 200 gold each.

Battleship:

A battleship looks like a juiced up Destroyer on steroids laced with LSD and crack at the same time. It has the same Naval Artillery skill, but with more stats loaded up, better attack damage, and TWO HEX long-range attacks, and the highest HP in the entire game, and the high Anti-Air resistance sure doesn't hurt to have.

Before you start drooling over a brand-new 2018 battleship complete with setero sound system and a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty... There's four considerably big drawbacks to the battleship. One: it dies pretty easily to a small group of cheap, lowly subs (luckily, the AI is incredibly stupid). Two, it shares the same crappy nerf in attack bonuses against land units just the same as a destroyer has. Three, it's a naval unit, which mean it can't capture cities or do battle on land hexes (not that it can't provide off-shore bombardment support for a D-Day, it definitely can). Four, for all of the buttload of massive stats and bonuses, a battleship is insanely expensive at a price of 400 gold and 280 steel. It's nice to have a couple of those battleships, but I would advise against building a whole fleet of them -- unless you're rolling in dough and bored, but that doesn't apply to the speedrun you're planning to do with Japan 1939 here. You don't have enough turns to allow for boredom, focus! Focus on taking over the entire world in less than 65 turns.

I need to add one more drawback to the battleship, it moves SO slowly at 2 sea hexes per turn instead of 3 hexes like subs and destroyers. Slow, heavy capital ships are terrible for transferring from an ocean to another ocean in the time limit. Build only what you need and do not add more, unless you have a dock very close to the battlefield you can use.

That 400 gold & 280 gold for one battleship is often better used in making more ACs & MIs or you can order air strikes from an airport.

Aircraft Carrier:

If WC3 is not about a wargame and a worldwide conquest, this carrier ought be considered the same as Queen Anne II. It's a luxury, a beautiful luxurious ship.

What's really nice about it is the ability to make FAR RANGE attacks on an enemy and not getting any retaliation in return. But it moves so slowly, and costs much as a full group of ACs and MIs at a price of 550 gold & 300 steel, and the nice, wonderful air attacks are unfortunately very sensitive to anti-air defenses.

Also, if your precious baby gets a scratch on the paint, and much as a little chunk of HP goes down, the carrier's air attacks becomes very weak fast as a battle rages on. It's important to stay out of range from enemy cities and their evil airports until you capture them. There's one exception: if you have a very strong general with lots of air firepower stars like Yamamoto, then your carrier with the general can cruise through some minor damage to inflict pain, hellfire and brimstone from the skies on the enemies, revenge, justice, and punishment upon them!

My suggestion: don't build them much, only when there's a really good reason for them and preferably only in the Pacific Ocean where most coastal cities don't have much anti-air defenses. Eastern America & Europe has TONS of anti-air defenses, making the carriers not very useful in the Atlantic Ocean.

Battalion Artillery:

What the heck is this supposed to be? An artillery unit that can't even shoot far?

Listen, if it has an attack range of 1 hex, it is the same range as any infantry or tank, and the enemy could have a chance of shooting back at you every time you use it. Forget it.

If you ever buy one, I will deny knowing who you are and I will pretend that I never had met you before.

Field Artillery:

Ah! This is your bread and butter unit (besides ACs and MIs). It can shoot at range of 2 hexes, staying out of danger while the common peasants mingle in the bloodbath in front of the artillery.

One problem though, it moves SO slowly at a pace of 1 hex at a time. Even swimming in the water makes the FA goes faster at the slow pace of 2 hexes! They serve best when cities are so close to each other like in Europe, so don't build a lot in Asia or Africa. If I am starting a conquest in Europe, I would be mass-producing FAs in the beginning. But for this one, I'm playing as Japan 1939, so I'm mass-producing ACs and MIs instead.

Rocket Artillery:

This fellow is a bit... odd.

It has an unique skill that no other units in the entire has, even the aliens doesn't have it. What happens is that every time a Rocket Artillery shoots at someone, the enemy will never hit back, BUT every time someone shoot your RA, your RA doesn't hit back either.

But what is even odder to handle... the secondary damage that could even affect your own units! The two hexes that borders your enemy target's own hex will also get some damage (less than the primary target). Whoever is there in a hex just behind the target will receive damage from your Rocket Artillery and it doesn't matter which country this unit is from.

So what it means, your RA can hit up to 3 different units in the same shot and you have to figure out how to handle them to avoid hurting or killing your own men. I won't cover this in here because very few cities have level 3 industry (meaning - that most cities can't build RAs or Heavy Tanks). Tokyo can, but I don't recommend buying more land units in your homeland because Japan is very far from battlefronts. There's a couple of other cities that could build RAs like Moscow, Berlin or Washington DC, and so forth.

But Moscow is pretty far from other cities and by the time you reach Berlin, it's better to use the airports to capture all of the cities in Europe that has airports, then you can just clean up Europe easily afterwards with or without RAs.

Washington DC is probably among the last cities you will capture in this Japan 1939 conquest which means it's probably pointless to make RAs from Washington DC and no other city in North America has level 3 industry either.

As Japan, you DO start with a general on a RA, so you'll have a chance to use him a lot, just be careful about getting too close to the enemy without putting a meatshield in front like an infantry or a car. You want him to be healthy and strong. As for the scattershot damage to 2nd and 3rd units, just play with him and try to not worry too much. You want a conquest under 65 turns, that involves quite a lot of soldiers dying, so focus on learning how to win a worldwide conquest first for now.

In this guide, I'm just letting you know that RAs work in a way that's pretty different from other units (and they're weird).

Reserve for turn #21-30 (maybe too short in-between turns, may combine with previous post and delete some of the reserved posts)

Reserve for turn #41-50

Great guide, does not matter if it contains too much details.

Altered guide(?):
1) Maybe start off with invading Russia/Mongolia with your most mobile forces, thank Russia for the oil.
Invade Alaska one unit at a time at worse, I believe you have an General-manned RA in Hokkaido for use.
Leave the far East fleet as much as possible because thank the devs for the pre-conquest Pearl Harbour.
Try to invade Hong Kong but remember defend the sea around Taiwan, ofc taking the ports is the best choice.
Ah yes, ShangHai, good luck with it!
Peking/Beijing is easy, RA it with a couple of tanks and infantry then good bye Great Wall!
Turns 1 - 15
2) Invade Europe through Russia and Mongolia with Yamashita and a couple of Motorised Infantry because Anglo-Franc and Russian counterattack.
Be smart and leave the rest of the Pacific for your slowest.
Have fun in North American continent!
Blitz China, India, Mid-East and central Asia with armour and infantry, with Arty whenever possible.
Turns 15 - 25
3) Russia fell? Good.
China fell? Good.
West coast of the NA continent fell? Better. Seized sufficient bases in Asia, the Balkans and Europe? Well done!
Hating on Blamey? Best!
Turns 25<x
4) Just sweep the weakened european continent and the weaker NA continent and vióla. Has Brisbane/Australia fallen yet? If not then hurry up!

NA is pretty hard to invade first
I'd suggest taking 1/2 of China, Hawaii and a bit of Russia before a focused two-front war.