The bloody stupid foreign relations game or, why is it so hard to start a war?So... to make a Japanese gameplay not boring, decided to take the plunge and started the march towards N Europe.
Wars vs Russia and GB. Secured Finland, Baltic States and Ireland as footholds into the roulette table. However it takes a couple of years to build up the base capacity in order for them to be able to sustain an entire fleet. Intention was therefore to buy time by seeking war against USA.
But Uncle SAM does not appear to be interested! Tension shoots up to orange twice, and twice it goes down immediately without me doing anything! The super power does not care about a small island nation it seems, says "meh!" and leaves Japan to play with itself.
- If RtW simulates a deliberate attack..... Operation Pearl Harbor. Definitely.
Anyway as a result of the constant budget+ tension+ choices, the naval budget soars. The pre-war fleet mobilization spending, maintaining AF status, training, foreign stations etc, also skyrockets the monthly expense. And I just watch dreadfully as unrest level starts to creep up. Yep, the super power just has to play tricks rather than actually fight and governments topple as a result!
For a small game, this strategic layer of RtW is amazing. Ofc at that moment, I didn't think so.
To make matters worse, last night I fumbled onto the weightsaving factor hex addresses and increased the factor a bit, then redid the late game AI templates. As a result it effectively ushers in a semi new ship building era as previous ships are now somewhat obsolete. Could pause the 4 BBB/BBC under construction at the time, but want them in the fleet quick. I mean if 27kt 12x18" is awesome, 30kt 16x18" plus more secondaries should surely be more devastating, because intention is to make it easier to chase down fleeing enemies when they run for port.
And yes, why have tertiaries when one can prop up the secondary count. The downside is 1 hit will knock out 4 guns. But since it's a BC and it has a lot of them, guess that's OK.
However, when unrest reached 2, 2 capital ship constructions had to be paused, while I wait desperately for a budget- event choice. If not, fleet construction would be seriously delayed by social discontent. But by doing this, cash is now overflowing at +40 mil a month. I DO NOT WANT THIS MUCH MONEY. It's just gonna be turned into a palace for the Emperor or some such. Come on people! Save your taxes, spend it on yourselves and be happy! Oh well. Pretty soon there's like 500mil in the naval bank. Right, the Combined Fleet Admiral will now order the newest fleet cruiser parked outside the vault to guard it at all times. Hmm? Digital currency.. what's that??
When the war was over against Russia, GB was for some reason pretty unhappy with us. There's no way to fight it properly at that time, since we'd already taken all of its Asian colonies and have no overlapping seazones except N. Europe, which needs a few years to build up. When tension reached orange, an event popped up about what to do with some British dignitaries' scandal. We chose to hush it up quickly, and tension just dropped back to green in 2 turns. Well.. scandals are indeed destructive.
However the seed of hate is still sowed, it seems. After USA stood us up on our war date, tension vs GB again started rising. Maybe despite covering up the scandals, it is not equivalent to not knowing. Ignorance is bliss as they say. Might as well, because a war is needed right now. Yet again I went for the tension+ and budget+ choices, propping up the budget even further, and make the ppl angrier. Yet again, in a similar pattern, just as war seems imminent, the Brits chickens out. The fleet is half way towards N. Europe, and I had to pull them all back, while watching unrest ticks to 3. Grrrrrr!
Good news amidst, 1 Hizen and 1 Kongo commissioned.
It is far from over. JUST as the fleet reached back to NE Asia and gets set to reserve/mothball status, GB's tension jumps back up. I am playing the game. But atm it feels like the game is playing me.
Unrest: 4.
It takes only 2 turns to tick from 2 to 4. I am spending twice as much as my base resource. The monthly budget is even higher, still pouring in at +20mil a month. The cash reserve is approaching a whooping 800mil.
I could just see the sailors going berserk when being called back abruptly from shore leave, for the 3rd bloody time in the year. Will this be the last time... I don't know. I'm simply making a bet that the enemy won't get cold feet for the 3rd time, and proceed to sortie the fleet towards N. Europe yet again.
Unrest: 5.
Indeed this time they decided to fight. War broke out and the British fleet dominated N. Europe for 3 turns.
On the 4th turn the Japanese navy arrived. And we've been pulling one major victory after another, sinking capital ships left and right. In a 3 v 9 large BC battle, we managed to sink 8 enemy BCs with only a DD loss. BC Kongo despite hit 28 times only sustained light damage. 2 of the enemy BCs were done in by DD suicidal charges as own BCs are running low on ammo, despite loading them to 150 RPG.
Despite this, unrest is stuck on 3 ever since war broke out. The ppl had been so unhappy that even major victories can't manage to persuade them.
"They won every battle. But they lost the war." Ofc this ain't 'Nam! But the line just comes to mind.
Next turn, the Emperor decides that the navy has too much money on its hands and divert 50mil to the army. ....I am not surprised. 50mil outta 810mil, the navy still ends up with 760mil on its hands. I've been pondering how to burn this much cash in a short amount of time but comes up blank. But good info from this is I now know how much cash on hand is too much. Probably. In RtW terms.
....
......
Unrest: 2. This is 12 months later and getting about 5 major victories. Finally the ppl can see their money put to good use by the navy, it seems.
It is interesting to get a curve ball like this. The takeaways being not to get too picky about which opponent to fight. Perhaps especially true for Japan since it's very isolated and doesn't belong to the usual trouble region.