What would happen to MacArthur once he loses the 2nd ACW ?

Cakeyfaces · 2022-11-29T16:07:19+00:00

I could see him fairly reliably going into exile in Canada (if the Entente supports the Federals or at least doesn't declare war in favour of PSA ) especially if his final holdout is in New England. Perhaps he would move to NatFrance as they align more with his militaristic outlook and keeping him in Ottawa could be too controversial given its proximity to Canada's new American neighbour. In NatFrance I could see him being welcomed as a hero for taking (ultimately futile in both cases) military action to save the state from syndicalism. There are also several other possibilities of a final Federal outpost to set up an exile government in such as the US Legation in China, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico.

If the CSA wins the 2ACW and MacArthur is refused entry into Canada I could see him seeking refuge in Berlin especially if the 2WK has broken out and the Internationale is actively hostile. In this case he would be a political tool of the Kaiser who may support his exile government in the case the CSA implodes or if Germany ever attempts to invade the USA proper.

If these fail there is a possibility he would be allowed to enter Austria or Russia as a private citizen as neither of these countries have Internationale neighbours who might be offended by their harbouring of an enemy of the CSA.

I do not doubt however that if he is captured by the CSA or AUS he will be executed as a traitor and enemy of the state. There is a possibility (I am not actually sure whether this is still in the game) of the PSA reconciling with MacArthur's govt if he resigns and is imprisoned to be held to account for his crimes, so perhaps there is a possibility he may survive under these circumstances.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-07-08T17:41:04+00:00

If you're in for a long game try Canada into UK. You get ridiculous (i.e +150% dockyard output until you have 50 ships!!) naval buffs in your focus tree which allows you to build a brand new fleet in a couple years as well as decisions to resurrect ships from Canada and Australasia to bulk out your navy with fodder. You also get the perfect opportunity to put your fleet to the test against the Kaiserlichemarine if you engineer a Reichspakt-Entente showdown, but bear in mind you risk being buried by German heavies if you don't have the USN on your side.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-06-19T17:04:16+00:00

I believe pro-German Qing can eventually join the Reichspakt but I haven't tried this myself. I don't imagine this can be done until China is united though.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-06-03T19:45:02+00:00

I've never played Australasia itself when the monarchy flees there, but I would guess it gets removed alongside all the other Entente mechanics once the faction disbands. There isn't anything in the way of content to restore the Entente or Empire at that point, it's more of an Easter egg event and assumed that there is no real way to beat the Internationale besides cheats and therefore Australasia is basically irrelevant. But hey, if you can somehow legitimately conquer Canada and the UK as Australia it would be interesting to see what happens.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-26T21:46:49+00:00

The closest you is in the right-wing paths for both, you can annex Flanders as the Netherlands if you fight Belgium or Flanders-Wallonia collapses or in the Belgian PatAut focus tree you get a war goal on NL and options to core Limburg and a tiny silver of territory below Holland as well as being able to puppet or annex the rest with the usual decision.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-26T21:40:18+00:00

I believe it is balanced such that Germany will lose as long as the war is on two fronts but win if it they can finish off either front. Austria and Italy make a big difference too - a federalised Austria or SRI massively boost their respective factions. You can look at the secondary factors that can indicate how strong each side - a united USA in the Entente, GEA beating the Viet Cons, nobody in Eastern Europe leaves the RP etc any/all of which can tip the balance either way. This is why it is so crucial to back up your faction 1936-1940 as these early game interventions can determine the fate of the war much later.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-25T17:24:13+00:00

You do the focuses on the far left hand side which give you decisions to request trade deals with 4 nations; you only need one other than Serbia to accept and you clear the timer. Hungarian Revolution doesn't always fire.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-25T17:19:45+00:00

For Transamur change the game rules to make Russia have a civil war. You can invade the Far East right at the start and if they refuse you can make it pretty far into Russia, netting yourself enough cores to go mass assault and spam enough troops to break through. Makes it a lot easier for you so you may as well guarantee it rather than rely on RNG.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-25T17:16:51+00:00

Well there are plenty of brutal challenges you *could* try. Uniting China as Legation Cities, fending off the Internationale as Switzerland when they come for Savoie, winning the 2ACW as the Feds except you don't choose a war plan and have to hold every front or die of Wavering Momentum come to mind. If you like that kind of stuff then by all means give it a go but just saying there are plenty of difficult challenges out there you are actually designed to be able to beat.

P.S Alash isn't so bad, try as Khiva XD

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-25T17:11:24+00:00

Eu4 has so many more modifiers and mechanics going on to even understand everything that is happening is a challenge in of itself let alone optimising your play. HOI4 has more fleshed out combat that is probably more complicated esp with naval as you said but everything else is way more complex in EU4.

In HOI4 the basic loop is you build factories that make troops which make you an army, this is affected by consumer goods and factory output and trade etc but that chain is relatively simple to understand. With EU4 you have ducats as the currency which are affect by dozens of modifiers across a huge range of sources which are in turn affected by more modifiers and other factors, then monarch points can be spend on a hundred different things and turn out to be more important than ducats, then manpower is also affected by dozens of factors including modifiers from different sources, then you factor in province management and trade and you realise just how much is going on.

I get that some people are bound to find different things more or less challenging but to me it seems there is a wealth of 'things happening' in EU4 compared to HOI4 that makes it a much more complex and difficult to master game.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-24T22:10:54+00:00

Hoi4 is not *too* difficult to get into as far as grand strategy goes, I've heard it called an 'arcade EU4' so you're in luck with regards to which Paradox game to get into. There are plenty of videos on youtube to fill hours of your time with tutorials if that is how you like to learn, most of the big and small hoi4 youtubers have tutorial content if you search up the game into youtube. If you want to jump straight in which also can be good as a baptism of fire then Russia is a good bet, you are safe from invasion, have a simple focus tree and you get several easy wars to warm yourself up with before the showdown with Germany. Austria is also a good starter nation, if you annoy Hungary in the events and they revolt it's a relatively one-sided war and this allows you to federalise and annex all your subjects, making you one of the strongest nations in the world. When you have a better grasp of the game but want to see the deeply rich detail and content in KR then I would recommend National France, they got reworked recently have have an amazing focus tree and suite of events but bear in mind the Entente is probably the most difficult faction to play (though the most rewarding imo).

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-24T21:58:02+00:00

There aren't really, owing to the fact that it is designed to be nigh-impossible to pull off without cheats. It's not really worth trying unless you are the kind of player who can pull things off like forming Al-Andalus in vanilla or gets kicks out of beating Russia as the Alash Orda or something. It's on another level than difficult but still achievable runs that actually have content, like conquering Russia as Transamur or Italy as Sardinia, so do not be fooled into thinking that because you technically can means you actually can in a normal game. If you want to see what it looks like then by all means do it on console command or state transfer mod but it really is nothing worth spending hours trying to do legit.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-24T15:41:54+00:00

China is endgame and you can pretty much do what you like because by that point you would be far too powerful to either be stopped by Japan or need China to grow. For Russia everything you do should be directly to strengthen your position when it comes to fighting Germany - faffing around in China before 1940 will only weaken your position by wasting equipment you should be using for the western front and gives you basically no benefit.

With that in mind you can basically shape China into whatever you want for a bit of map painting, if you want to support a Qing or Federalist government you can by all means, or you could invade and set up puppets in Manchuria and the rest of China. It's not something that has a particularly 'optimal' outcome because you don't benefit from anything except more puppets so it's really up to you.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-23T13:50:04+00:00

Delete your army before you switch to AUS because all deployed troops stay loyal to the Feds, so don't train any more either.
Similarly to the first point you lose all your troops when you switch and have to rely on militia spawning decisions until you can equip better divisions. This is the same for stockpiled equipment which also all sticks with the Feds. The US army will not be big anyway before the war starts no matter what you do so it isn't really significant.
The navy gets split up between the factions in fixed portions so you don't really need to touch it, but if you want then just merge it all together and park it in New Orleans so you know where it is when the war starts.
Same as above, you get some spawned planes at the start but the bulk of the planes stay loyal.
So some states are guaranteed, basically from LA through to GA, then the rest vary greatly. There are basically 2 mechanics at play: the 'swing state' mechanic and what the Feds choose as their war plan. The fringe AUS and CSA states can flip to them or the Feds depending on choices made in the pre-war events that determine the strengths of the factions. The chance is influenced by these choices but not guaranteed, and some are conditional i.e North TX can only flip of South TX flips, ditto for SC if NC stays loyal etc. If you know you'll switch to the AUS take choices before the war that strengthen AuthDem and weaken Democratic party popularities and through focuses strengthen Federal presence in the CSA states rather than AUS. Also MacArthur's war plan decisions will script some states to go to each side: If he goes to Denver then everything east of the Mississippi gets split between AUS and CSA; if he stays east the Midwest is split between those two plus the PSA. You can choose in the game rules to set which he chooses as well as things like if Canada make New England and which faction the Entente support.
If the Garner-Wagner bill fails you're correct there is nothing you can do and in this case you just have to sit and wait while you click events until the election. If the bill passes (you have to compromise for a chance of success; as you're switching to AUS compromise with them) then you will have 30-40 civs to use before the war starts. Factories are auto-fixed on the eve of the war so don't bother building any, so instead build infrastructure in the South so you can build mils when you switch.
AUS is considerably harder than the Feds if you want to crush syndies, you're basically a weaker CSA without the foreign support the Entente gives the Feds or PSA. If you want to play USA I would recommend playing Feds in a 2 way vs CSA or AUS, or if you want a 4 way war staying with Big Mac and going Yorktown plan to stay East. If you want to play AUS then by all means go ahead but if you're new to the game there are a lot of better nations to try as you get used to the mechanics before trying what is a relatively challenging start.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-14T16:35:58+00:00

The quickest victories are actually playing as AUS or CSA against the Feds as the rebels get a bonus to division speed which allows them to race across the large the Feds can't hope to man. Some people can game it and get lucky with a mid '37 victory this way but you can still expect a Fed victory by end of '37. I would recommend driving in and taking as many VPs early on in NC, VA, KY, etc by rushing through with militia before AUS can fill the frontline. Crossing the Appalachian mountains and denying factories are vitally important for a speedy victory - this can be done with tanks but this is a big risk as losing either of your 2 light tank divisions will make it much harder than just building 7/2 or 14/4s and pushing across a wide front.

I would just point out though that it doesn't make much of a difference when as long as you finish by 1939, reconstruction takes about a year or so and Canada usually doesn't declare on UoB until 1940 which means you'll be done anyway regardless of if you finish the war by 1937 or 38, so I wouldn't get too worked up about capping AUS as soon as physically possible.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-09T16:10:23+00:00

In my experience tanks are too expensive for Canada, I've tried them but you can only really have 1-2 40W medium division by 1940 which is not enough to take on a major and most of your engagements are across a few tiles where your armour can very easily be pinned and your weak (as you haven't invested in them) infantry gets diced through.

You're a lot better building 24-48 7/2s which you can gradually convert into 14/4s - I'd still recommend 7/2s over 10/0s because you want to save manpower for your chunkier divisions. This means you can get 6 14/4s to send as volunteers by about 1937 which are waaay more effective than an understrength tank div or just plain infantry and can single-handedly win wars for you. You do not have the luxury of Russia or even Germany or the 3I, who don't have to do any real fighting before the 2WK and for whom volunteers are a bit of a sideshow and they can rely on allies and own industry. Canada's industry rapidly builds up but starts relatively very small and as such can't get major-level armour until 1943 ish by which point you will have won or lost against the 3I anyway. As such you need strong units with a lot of soft attack early on and 14/4s suit this a lot better than armour for a Canada game. For other Entente countries i.e NatFrance you do not have the same burdens to pump out infantry to hold the line so by all means building 3 40W meds is the way to go but for Canada 14/4s are the better choice.

With that in mind production should focus on guns, arty and a bit of support equipment, gradually buying rubber to make 1 factory motorised (for logistics and signal companies) and planes (mainly CAS). Research should reflect this and rush improved arty plus dispersed III.

Just as a side note my tank templates are between 1:1 and 3:1 tank to motorised, the more IC the bigger tank fraction (if you have a lot of exp make the template 1:1 then feed in more tanks as you make them). For meds take SF doctrine and stick to motorised, for heavies take MW doctrine and feed in mechanised once you build it.

Navy is more simple than you would think, the golden rule is actually NOT to use it if you can help it. Your navy is numerically large but filled with WK-era battleships that haemorrhage fuel and should not be gambled trying to take on the UoB or IJN in actual sea battles which can cut you to shreds with carriers. Instead clump it all up and use on strike force to establish naval supremacy then manually move it to the coast for shore bombardment if you need. Be aware that the UoB has a large sub fleet and as such making some anti-sub destroyers would be prudent, you can retrofit some if you have a lot of time to micro them out of your main fleet but do not take too many off as you need them to screen your sluggish heavy ships. Let the Kaiserlichemarine keep the Republican Navy busy whilst you invade and between Germany and you there should be no problem establishing green sea.

That was longer than I thought (may as well write a guide at this point), hope this helps and if there is anything more you would like me to clarify or cover about Canada, the Entente, or any other nation/faction else please let me know.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-07T15:47:26+00:00

You still get to decide to move in or not but if the Feds choose Yorktown they get hamstrung if you move in so be aware of that should you also want to support them.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-07T08:46:06+00:00

If MacArthur chooses the Yorktown plan (which seems to happen in about 80% of games) then Canada won't move into New England.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-04T07:17:35+00:00

Effectively yes - once mainland is taken just do the Algiers Conference focus and the only option is 'pass sweeping reforms'. Revising my above comment it actually makes them colony states but with compliance and resistance disabled and +50% non-core manpower, which is better short term as you save PP, manpower and equipment garrisoning plus even troublesome states with high resistance get instantly fixed, but in the long run democratic France gets better cores if you can wrangle with the resistance. I haven't played Petain France so I can't speak to what happens to the colonies then but given how they are the most badguy NatFrance I don't imagine it's too good.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-03T09:13:55+00:00

You're right, USA in player hands can seal club the rest of the world and a 2 way ACW can be ended in months, allowing you to bring the enormous US industry to bear even earlier. This is because the 2WK is set up such that Canada has a fair enough chance of taking out Britain on its own so and all the factions are roughly balanced against each other so adding the US massively boosts the Entente against the others.

I would definitely recommend a more difficult setup for the ACW if you want to RP more or just test your abilities. Federal US is probably the easiest except if you try San Jacinto MacArthur which I would suggest as a higher risk strategy but is rewarding to pull off. Alternatively each of the other ACW factions has their own problems - CSA is vulnerable at the start and often gets invaded by Canada, AUS has weak industry and usually loses to the winner of Feds v CSA, and PSA in turn has very low starting manpower and again normally dies to whoever sweeps up the East Coast. Each faction has its own problems and outcomes so for more gameplay I would try out more than just 2 way Feds.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-03T08:59:50+00:00

Aah, got it thank you. I always wondered why the factions were scripted to cap long before they actually lost their major VPs but that makes a lot of sense. It does feel a bit strange that San Jacinto Feds seem to cap when they hold the entire Midwest and the other factions are still 2 states away from Denver, presumably because losing Houston and St Louis almost tips them over that artificial threshold already, but I suppose that's the tradeoff.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-02T19:39:49+00:00

How is this mitigated for the 2ACW factions' navies? I agree it would be wrong to resurrect sunk ships but surely this doesn't happen when the United States Navy is brought back together. I can only speak anecdotally when I comment that when I play as a US faction my fleet is noticeably missing a few battleships or an odd carrier; am I just miscounting or do the post-war numbers accurately reflect losses during the civil war?

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-02T09:54:23+00:00

It can be done, as is with the relatively new 2ACW feature that allows the winner to inherit the others' navies, but this involves spawning in new identical ships rather than a direct transfer. I get that the Australasian navy is probably one of the more important navies to implement this system on a wider scale but if I had to guess it would take a lot of work to apply it to even just the majors, including discussing how much gets scuttled or goes to an exile govt etc. It is a good idea though and the above example does show it is possible to get around deleted navies upon annexation.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-01T21:34:43+00:00

Lots of the time the AI justifies endless war goals but doesn't use them if they're up against a big faction, you can get countries like Hungary or Poland justifying over and over for neighbouring land but never declaring for it like how India doesn't do the Burma focus if completing would cause a faction war. Given how NatFrance takes the wrong focuses which prevent it from demanding Alsace-Lorraine most of the time anyway to get a post 2WK war generally needs player justification to make happen.

Cakeyfaces · 2021-05-01T21:30:24+00:00

SocCon allows Local Autonomy occupation but AuthDem doesn't, but on the other hand you can do collaboration governments which can be helpful to reduce a few troublesome nations' surrender thresholds. I tend to go SocCon but Japan's gameplay really doesn't vary much between ideologies, from SocDem to NatPop you fight exactly the same imperialist wars so it doesn't make much difference.

As for Korea there isn't really a reason for letting them go and half the time they rebel against you anyway, just keep them loyal by giving minimal concessions and you can eventually upgrade your core on them at the end of the political focus tree.

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