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From the DST v.3 Readme
The U.S. is now no longer unassailable. All the U.S. Army Reserve units in Hawaii and stateside will disband once MacArthur abandons the Philippines - because events will now render the Army Reserve unit obsolete, causing the AI to disband them. Using the same mechanism, Chungking will now be protected until Burma is taken.
During this campaign, you should strike early to wrest control of Peking and Tientsin from Chinese factions not under the direct control of the Nationalists. Thereafter, you will need to instigate an incident by inducing the Chinese to attack you first, otherwise the Allied attitude towards you will sour immediately leading to a 'sneak attack' on you before you are fully mobilized. The best way to do this is to mass your troops outside major Chinese cites without attacking.
Once open hostilities begin, quickly capture the port of Shanghai and conduct your main attack along the Shanghai - Nanking - Chungking Axis before turning south towards IndoChina. Forces opposing your thrust will not be unified and using only antiquated equipment and tactics. While it may not be easy to gain new territory as the campaign drags on, it should be relatively easy to hold on to whatever areas you have occupied.
The U.S. is now no longer unassailable. All the U.S. Army Reserve units in Hawaii and stateside will disband once MacArthur abandons the Philippines - because events will now render the Army Reserve unit obsolete, causing the AI to disband them. Using the same mechanism, Chungking will now be protected until Burma is taken.
During this campaign, you should strike early to wrest control of Peking and Tientsin from Chinese factions not under the direct control of the Nationalists. Thereafter, you will need to instigate an incident by inducing the Chinese to attack you first, otherwise the Allied attitude towards you will sour immediately leading to a 'sneak attack' on you before you are fully mobilized. The best way to do this is to mass your troops outside major Chinese cites without attacking.
Once open hostilities begin, quickly capture the port of Shanghai and conduct your main attack along the Shanghai - Nanking - Chungking Axis before turning south towards IndoChina. Forces opposing your thrust will not be unified and using only antiquated equipment and tactics. While it may not be easy to gain new territory as the campaign drags on, it should be relatively easy to hold on to whatever areas you have occupied.
Having read the Readme VERY carefully before playing, I had to change the approach I took in the previous version of DST. As a consequence of seeing too many questionable suggestions in other Readme files, I ignored the suggestions not to sneak attack the Chinese and to attack along Shanghai - Nanking - Chungking axis. I have learned to be highly sceptical of Readmes from playing excellent scens such as Harlan Thompson's WWII PACIFIC where the scen is relatively easy if one does not use ANY of the "good" tactics/strategies that the author suggests.
In DST v.3 the Shanghai - Nanking - Chungking axis is out of the question because it may well open the whole miserable Burma Road can of worms. Also, I was interested in the following entries in McMonkey's excellent post about the time line for his game:
FEBRUARY 1943 ................ Mandalay captured and Burma road closed.
MAY 1945 ..................Chungking invested by 15 plus artillery pieces.
JUNE 1945 Chungking captured after massive artillery bombardment.
MAY 1945 ..................Chungking invested by 15 plus artillery pieces.
JUNE 1945 Chungking captured after massive artillery bombardment.
Although I had no idea of the actual number of Arty he needed to eliminate the Chungking garrison, it started me wondering if making units obsolete works quite as well as suggested by the DST v.3 readme.
In order to see what actually happens to Army Reserve units, I gave the "I shall return" tech to both the Chinese and the US and then fast forwarded through 20 turns, each turn recording the number of Army Reserves for each civ.
After 20 turns, the US still had 2 of the 10 they started with and the Chinese still had their single unit. I suspect that neither civ can be destroyed during a game because making Army Reserves obsolete does not remove them from the game quickly enough.
Consequently, I am heartbroken
because, unlike in the previous version of DST, the following sequence is no longer possible:The Great Wall wonder is in Chungking.
The "China" tech makes the wonder obsolete.
Only the Chinese have this tech.
If the Chinese civ is destroyed, nobody has the "China" tech.
If Chungking is taken by the Japanese, they will have the Great Wall.
The wonder will be active once more.
Three Banzais for the Emperor!!!
P.S. In Aug '37, Imperial forces are massed outside Chengtu. Not a bad spot to be if an attack on Nanking is contemplated. However, any subsequent operations will depend on how the Army Reserves problem is resolved.
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