Chapter 4 - 1938 & 1939
January 1st, 1938. I won’t bore you with the same set of overview screenshots as the previous years, so here’s a quick summary of where we’re at:
- The German-American bund is up to a whopping 39%. We are almost guaranteed a sweeping Fascist victory in the 1940 American election.
- The Americans are also drifting toward the Axis at a rate of 9.8 a month - I think it’s in months, don’t quote me on that. A few more aggressive acts from Japan or the Allies and we may have the Sleeping Giant on our side after all.
- Japan, Italy, Manchuko, and Ethiopia all qualify for Axis status, but I’m holding off for now, to minimize the potential threat impacts.
- Realizing that I misread the decision description, I set spies back to work in Austria supporting our party. We’ll take the Anschluss as soon as it is available - that entire country’s worth of cored land is too good to put off.
- Our production queue is focused on getting two fleets worth of carrier’s out, with whatever’s left going toward our expensive-but-vital armor and mobile divisions.
Alright, now that we’re all caught up, let’s get on with the show!
Well look at that. Austria getting this event means we can immediately annex them, three months ahead of schedule. How fortuitous!
Germany grows. Our base ICC went from 144 to 163 - not a small jump at all. Our threat didn’t even raise very much.
At the end of January, Finland starts to mobilize. What the what? Their threat re: the USSR is over 50%, so I assume they’re getting skittish about the Red Army.
Starting in February, we could claim the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, but as I said earlier, we’ll hold off for now. It’s relatively little territory, and I don’t want to risk the illusion of my neutrality.
March 1st the next batch of Carrier techs finishes, but we can’t afford to queue up more boats now - our armor divisions are too vital. Once our ground forces are more complete, I’ll aim for a 3rd and possibly 4th fleet.
I hate running a fuel deficit, because this happens. Everyone wants to sell me fuel. Don’t worry, I have plenty, go away.
In April, Romania mobilizes. Again, fear of the Soviets appears to be the reason.
Late may, Japan takes the Chinese coast and forms Mengkukou. Unfortunately, this seems to have no effect on their threat vs the Americans.
It’s June, so I take a moment to review our progress. Not a lot interesting has happened so far this year, outside of the rising tensions against the Soviets. The German-American Bund falls back down to 34% support, a dead tie with the Democrats. Threat-wise, the big boogeymen right now are the USSR and Japan - all the majors save Italy and ourselves view them as huge threats (the de jure Axis members view France as the largest threat, I assume due to proximity).
Our panzer divisions are slowly but surely rolling off the assembly lines. The massive amount of IC being hogged by our carrier construction is putting a huge hamper on our ability to produce ground forces - hopefully, however, it will be worth it.
July and August pass uneventfully, mostly consisting of me micromanaging trade deals to keep my relations with the USA up. September sees the next batch of carrier techs finish. By March of next year we should be caught up on our carrier designs - most excellent.
I miss the screenshot, but Afganistan is mobilizing too. I refuse to stop raising the USSR’s threat, which might make some wars outside our sphere inevitable.
I don’t miss this one though. I wonder what’s going to happen if Poland and the Soviets get into it before I take the Danzig decision? I’m hoping I don’t have to find out, but I’ll roll with whatever punches I have to.
Turkey joins in as tensions in the East rise.
December 31st hits without a whole lot of interesting things happening - it was a relatively slow year for us, though it seems like everyone neighboring the Soviets is scared shitless. I’m not sure if this is going to mean war or not, but we’ll see.
I do some peeking around before the year turns to see what things are looking like.
The USA’s drift is slowing down the closer they get to us. Also, something important I’ve been forgetting to pay attention to, their drif toward the Allies is very close to ours, netting only a 1~ point drift per month towards the Axis. The UK is influencing them now as well, in a desperate bid to prevent them from joining us. All will be solved upon the ‘40 election cycle, however.
...though on that note, I zoned out and stopped paying attention to my spy count, leading to a shortage, which means I have to pause our research while we fill our espionage corps back up. Whoopsie.
I could end it here, but that would make this update a little short, so let’s press on and see if we can find something interesting in 1939, shall we?
We get this event on January 19th. Hello three months of bonus IC!
Finally, on March 24th, our first two groups of carriers are ready. They’re still waiting on their CAGs, but this is the start of a powerful naval force for us. God I hope so, these things ate up a ton of IC for much too long.
I’ll take all the spy bonuses I can get, our extensive espionage program is coming down to the wire at this point. Only a little over a year and a half left.
We get hit with a 20 day leadership penalty in May, much to my chagrin. Our research is already suffering thanks to our espionage, I don’t need any more penalties.
For a brief moment, we’re back in the green in all categories! I’ve been running small deficits on rare materials and money basically this entire time - though they were small enough to maintain them for years if it came down to it.
We’re completely caught up on carrier techs as of June, so I stick another fleet’s worth in the queue - just the one. We need to finish up our ground troops and I just can’t afford the IC to do much else.
Oh, hey, something interesting! It looks like France is going to lose some colonial territory to Turkey. I’m okay with this; anything that weakens our eventual enemies is good in my book.
Our first mobile divisions finish on the 27th of August. We’re nearing the end of our current queue for armor and mobile, which will allow me to finally finish bolstering both fronts with infantry.
We start churning out infantry again in late October. We need around 35 more divisions, at least, so best get started now.
November brings us Heavy Tanks, but I’m not sure I’ll ever actually use them. Medium tanks are a bit more balanced, and we need the speed over the durability right now. They might prove useful against the Russians eventually, though.
December 31st, 1939. Our first CAG rolls off the lines and gets stationed with the Navy.
We’re more or less deadlocked at this point as far as getting America to drift toward the Axis. The UK has currently stopped influencing them, but I get the feeling they’re going to ping-pong around where they’re at now until we can gain the similar ideology bonus. The German-American Bund is completely dominating the political scene in the USA, with a whopping 43% support.
Our tech is mostly on schedule, though the coming year we’re going to have to devote a massive amount of Leadership toward officers, as our current percentage is an abysmal 53%.
Our production is going well, but as you can see we’re going to need to focus heavily on upgrades and reinforcements before we’re ready for war.
We have a huge amount of armor in Berlin, and an equally massive amount of boats in Wilhelmshaven. I promise I’ll start sorting that out next update, if for no other reason than to break up the monotony.
With that, I think we can ring out 1939 and this update. Next time, we sort out our troops and hope for a coup in the American elections! See you then.
Don't worry, delays happen.
