well i have absolutely no problems as Japan.
the main thing to understand here is that you will not win a war against the USA. you can only delay them by holding all the ports in the islands. your main concern from gamestart should always be to puppet China.
your ministers should go like: in intelligence, get the 5%more ic bonus. for the chief of army get the 10% defensive bonus, and for the other 2 ministers get the ones that lower supply consumption and the one that gets you more supplies.
build 1 99serial run of transports and the rest focus on building infantry and mountain divs. nothing else. your fleet is more than a match for the pathetic excuse of china for a fleet. use all the garrison/inf forces you have in the home islands and the surroundings to fortify your foothold in china.
keep building divs all the time. if you run out of manpower just let it grow then build some more mountain divs. if you want though you can begin to build marine divisions for your future amphibious campaigns. rush the land doctrines for japan, and focus on increasing industry, infantry and mountain. anything else is a waste.
when the war starts immediately head south and begin to encircle as many chinese divs as possible. use the now available consumer goods to build more divs. put your fleet all around China to block any sallies by their fleet.
when the sheer weight of chinese divs forces you to stop, put groups of 4 mountain divs (with commando leaders always) and begin to do landings in southern china. if you get offensive supplies on them, as well as shore bombardment you can establish a foothold there in 2 days. begin to move all your mountain divs to the south, along with some infantry to hold your conquests. use the mountain div's superior movement to encircle the isolated divisions along the coast. from then on its just a grinding battle that will require you to be extremely mobile. if you can rush changzou do it, and deprive them of IC. remember to use manchukuo's divs as well to hold your front line. if done correctly the chinese will be down to a few divs in 39/40, and you can puppet them there.
as soon as the chinese get puppeted, begin to build marine divisions, and man the beaches in China to stop suprise landings. also use the garrisons you have still to man the japanese home islands. marines are great for landings and are awesome jungle fighters. also begin the following: 4 carriers with CAG, 6 CVL's, and about 8 destroyers. this will be the foundation of your fleet. if you have rushed tech to ship assembly line and depending on the date you can get the carriers before dec. 41. remember to tech the naval bombers for better CAG's, which is all that matters for the carriers, as well as the CAG air doctrines.
as soon as war begins, use all your land armies (easily around 80 or more) to push the brits out of india and burma for good. remember to man the coastlines with infantry to stop the certain attempts to land from the brits. also use 4 marine divs to capture hong kong to get some dissent decrease and proportional losses to the UK. depending on how well you do at this point the italians (assuming you allied with Germany) will be doing quite well in africa, thanks to the UK sending their armies to (die XD) fight in India.
as for the Americans, your first order of business now that the home islands are garrisoned is to take Yamamoto to the head of a 12sized fleet (4 CV, 4 CVL and 4 destroyers) and capture Guam. then take his fleet on a big campaign to eliminate as many US ships as possible taking advantage of the huge bonus you get after the suprise attack event. if you find ships hiding away in ports then use carrier strike on port to heavily damage them.
in india, keep pushing until you can get in touch with the italians. this means you capture Iran and Irak, as well as Port Suez. if you are still not allied to Germany now is a good time to consider it.
at this point something that i find extremely cool is to send a second carrier fleet (the 2nd carrier run you get) to the mediterranean and wreak holy havoc on the british fleet there. they may be good surface fleets, but they fall like flies to the power of the carrier.
by this point ('42 ish) you should gather your armies in the russian front, and attack them. the russians simply cannot wage a 2 front war with you and germany. the germans, usually bogged down at this point, will begin to push the reds back. just remember to always man the coastlines to stop any landing attempts by the US or UK.
if youre good, you can annex the soviet union by '43 around december or by '44. also by now hopefully you've managed to destroy at least some US carriers, or else you will be on the defensive from now on. once the Americans can muster a big carrier fleet the odds even significantly against you.
by mid '44 with russia puppeted into small states and you getting some IC from russia, you have 2 choices: one is to go straight for a landing in the US, or for the slower campaign of clearing out all of Oceania. i recommend the latter, as they give lots of oil and rares (which you can trade away later) and they give big dissent hits to the already weakened british. in order to quickly gain the upper hand in these pitched battles, use only marines, and only garrison the ports. if the province has a beach but no port, ignore it. without ports the americans cant use their fleets, and you get a significant local advantage.
by '46 all the islands in the pacific with ports should be yours, all the way to Pearl Harbor. before you conquer them however begin to build at least 5 serial runs of naval bases. they take 100 days to complete with full researched industry. capture Attu Islands, deploy your naval base, and transport all your armies there. and then begin to move east by island hopping. the americans will try to stop you, and will man the islands with lots of divisions. but if you can take an island you can march all the way to Anchorage, capturing the port and establishing a foothold in the US.
a note for wars there: the american army is chock full of mot/mec/arm, and your infantry is going to suffer a lot of punishment at the american hands, not to mention the low infra there and the montanious terrain. i recommend you research SP-Art brigades for your entire army, or maybe even Anti tank. whatever suits you. the americans can easily oppose you with around 100 divs in their turf, so you will have to outproduce them in infantry with brigades. if you have somehow built armored divs with motorized, then use them.
from then on, the last bastion are the UK islands. take them out and now the fascists rule the world!
