They used to belong to the Dutch, but at some point all empires must fall (except mine). Perhaps they should be renamed to the “Japanese South Ryukyus,” but I’m saving that name for the Phillipines (which, sadly, will involve killing a lot of Americans, which is why I’m enhancing my fleet). I’ve found an excellent series of posts by some chap (I suspect an Australian) who successfully took over the world as Japan; I’m thinking of asking him how he managed to get such a huge industrial capacity by 1941, since I was lied to and have nowhere near as much benefit from China as I was expecting. The result of this is that I need a few provinces with oil, and who better to take it from than the perfidious Dutch? Tall, waffle-ated bigots the lot of them. Even their fascists are gay. They don’t deserve colonial possessions. Especially colonial possessions that offer excellent views of Australia, a launching point for rapid assaults on both French Indochina and the Phillipines, and a lot of oil and rare materials.

It’s not like the Dutch have anything to fear, anyway; Germany is about to be annexed by the Soviet Union and no amount of colonial resource flows is going to save Holland from the red tide that’s about to roll over them. Maybe I’ll offer the survivors a squalid village in Lombok where they can swelter and labour under the whip of their Sumatran overlords.

The Netherlands will fall fast, basically as fast as I’m willing to do amphibious assaults, and they are fairly resource rich. After that, unless I turn on Siam (who seem to be allied with too many people) my next step is America. In September 1943 the Pearl Harbour event will be triggered, but I’m expecting that before then the USA will go to war with the USSR, in which case I will avoid the Pearl Harbour event and build up my fleet for another year before I do anything; I suspect that the Pearl Harbour event triggers a massive frenzy of carrier construction by the US, which they won’t do if I just quietly invade their western seaboard after I destroy their Pacific fleet. I need them to be deeply embroiled in an unwinnable war with the Russians for this to be achievable, though.

Last time I fought America I managed to capture chunks of the Western seaboard (California, etc.) but ran out of manpower. This time I have invested early in manpower improvements; I just need to ensure my fleet survives to protect my transports. Then I need to get nukes early, but I’ve delayed building my powerplant for a year while I try to build up a decent industrial capacity, a tactic that hasn’t really worked because Chinese partisans are stopping me at every turn. So… to the Netherlands…