Hoi4 Communist China Guide – Unite China Under Mao Zedong!

China, alongside Europe – is one of the most action-packed and dynamic areas of the world in Hoi4. Several Chinese factions and warlords vie for power over the world’s most populous country – Communist China is among these factions – aiming to spread their vision for a new China to their neighbours, all the while, a militant and expansionist Japan eyes up swathes of China to add to their growing empire.

This is East Asia in Hoi4, and being the underdog of this region, we thought it would be useful to create a guide on this isolated nation. So, this is the definitive Hoi4 Communist China guide from Console Bandit.

As stated above, East Asia during this time period was an incredibly tense, competitive and complex region – and no faction feels the sting of this competition more than Communist China, led by a young Mao Zedong. 

First Off, Let’s Get Some Background

The Red Army of the Communist Party of China had faced a series of defeats during their ongoing conflict with the Nationalist KMT central government – who claimed all of china, especially in their strongholds in the South – culminating in what was referred to as “The Long March” – where tens of thousands of CCP troops attempted to retreat into surrounding areas in more rugged areas of China that could be better fortified. The remnants of these forces eventually made it to the mountainous northern region of Shaanxi, where Mao Zedong then proceeded to solidify his rule after becoming a well-liked figure in the remnants of the CCP during The Long March.

This is roughly where Hoi4 Communist China finds itself, a weakened, essentially hermit kingdom sandwiched in between stronger powers – but hopefully this Communist China Hoi4 guide should help you to change that.

To Begin – What Is The Overall Strategy?

Due to our difficult starting situation, a series of planned decisions and tactics will make our expansion and survival significantly more likely. To begin with, our priority will be expansion, conquering our neighbours through justifications, amassing a large amount of low quality divisions, and buffing their defence and logistical capabilities before a war with Japan (these two values are crucial in order to survive against the Japanese). We will also be allying with the Nationalists to begin with in order to defeat the Japanese.

Alongside this, we will begin focusing on planes in order to create paratroopers who may be able to land on the Japanese mainland (this isn’t a deal breaker, as we will get offered a peace deal regardless.)

Following our victory over the Japanese, we will focus on defeating Nationalist China by expanding our air force and launching a series of paradrops in combination with high quality infantry to break their lines.

A Step By Step Guide To Ruling Over China.

To begin with, we will establish our starting position and strategy which will be built off in later stages. By the end of this stage, you will have annexed your neighbours to the West and East, and will be preparing to join a faction with the Nationalists.

Hoi4 Communist China Guide: Stage One

• To start, select the “Strengthen The Central Secretariat” focus – our objective early on will be to get down to and complete the “Maoism” focus. Research guns level 2 and basic machine tools in the industry tab, set up your construction cue to build infrastructure. Set all your military factories to produce guns for now, we will begin to produce other equipment after getting 5 military factories on guns.

• Next, convert all divisions to the smaller template (Juntuán) and begin training more, we want about 24 of these units during the early stages. As such – you should deploy them ASAP, don’t worry about their training – it won’t matter much to begin with. In addition, exercise your existing units for some early army XP for later use.
• Then justify on Shanxi upon reaching 25 political power. Place your units on the border using a front line order.
• Hire a silent workhorse advisor for the additional political power upon completing first focus, do the “Agrarian Socialism” focus next.
• Justify on Xibei San Ma as soon as you have another 36 political power.
• Once your first two techs are done, research dispersed industry I and the first towed artillery tech, these will be absolutely essential to your industry and army respectively. And if you’re wondering why we’ve suggested dispersed industry – take a look at our Hoi4 Industry Guide to see why!
• Once your first war goal is complete – declare war on Shanxi, snake around their units and request lend leases from Comintern members. Take as much land as possible while avoiding fighting to reserve equipment then – annex Shanxi. After, line the border with Xibei San Ma, using 8 divisions on most of the front line, and then stacking the rest at the northern few provinces. This will allow you to use the 8 units along the line to pin Xibei San Ma’s divisions in place, while the rest of your army has essentially free reign to run around their territory and take their victory points.
• Next, do the “Rectification Campaign” and “Maoism” focuses to finish your political tree for now. In addition, hire the “Army Defence” chief of army, the defence buffs will be essential later and the army XP will allow you to complete your doctrines faster.
• Once you have another 150pp, move to the Free Trade law, if you’d like to know why we do this – take a look at our Hoi4 Trade Law Guide which explains why Free Trade is actually the best choice for us at this stage!
• After completing the Maoism focus, we should move over to our central focus path, which will allow us to reduce our consumer goods factory requirements. To begin – do the “Land Redistribution” focus.
• After finishing your artillery research, begin researching trucks – these will be essential for supplying our units. Set 2 military factories onto artillery, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have these yet – once you do you’ll begin producing artillery.
• Once the war goal on Xibei San Ma is done, justify a war goal on Sinkiang and declare war on Xibei San Ma – using the tactic discussed above to quickly annex them.
• After researching dispersed industry I, research production efficiency tech, this is required so that we can produce enough guns to supply our troops.
• Upon finishing the “Land redistribution” focus, begin the abolish the “Enforce The Three Rules” focus.
• After defeating Xibei San Ma, annex them and man the border with Sinkiang. They are typically easier to defeat than Xibei San Ma, and you should have at least 20 divisions by now – preferably 24, so annexing this final warlord should be easy.

Communist China Guide: Stage Two

That is stage one of this guide completed, at this point – you’ve annexed your two closest neighbours, and you are justifying on a third, ready to form a temporary alliance with the nationalists to defeat the Japanese.

• After finishing the “Land redistribution” focus, do the “Permit opium trade” focus, this will significantly reduce our consumer goods requirements, at the cost of some stability and war support – which can be easily remedied later.
• Next, build a supply hub south of the river that runs through Shaanxi, and connect railways as shown in the image below:

• With your next 150 political power – remove service by requirement and move to either limited or extensive conscription.
• Begin Improving relations with the British for their investment path.
• Then, after finishing researching trucks and better efficiency tech, research trains and support equipment, set at least one military factory onto trucks to begin creating a stockpile.
• Once the Chiang Kai-shek arrested event appears, ally with him to fight the Japanese, this will save us from having to do an extra focus for this – and will prevent the Nationalists joining the Allies or Axis when we invade later.

• When you’ve defeated Sinkiang, annex them and move your army to the Japanese/Mengkukuo border, improve your infantry template to 10w with support artillery and engineers once they’re researched, and begin recruiting them ASAP.
• After finishing the “Permit opium trade” focus, do the “Abolish The Land Rent” focus.
• At this point – you probably have enough civilian factories to be able to trade one or two of them with the Soviets in exchange for some steel.
• Once your factories have finished with the railroad, and supply hub build civs, you could also opt to instead build more supply hubs and railways, which will help you against Japan – the choice from here on is yours.

Communist China Guide: Stage Three

This stage encompasses the early stages of the war with Japan – prioritising holding land for as long as possible, then retreating behind your river line when holding the line usually no longer becomes tenable in the next stage.

• Once Japan declares war on China, don’t join immediately, wait a bit for your troops to have supplies and entrenchment, then join the war. (Aim to join the war once Japan has pushed China across the river south of Beijing) You need to play very defensively here, don’t push unless you see a sizable encirclement opportunity open up.
• Then do the “Invite foreign investors” focus.
• Research support engineers, and place them in your units ASAP – this will give you additional entrenchment – allowing you to hold for longer.
• Make sure to commandeer civilian trains, this should give you enough trains for the early stages of the war.
• Research support weapons one after finishing researching trains.
• Do the “British cooperation” focus after finishing the industry starter.
• Move to total mobilisation and do women in the workforce, once you have enough pp, you’ll need these extra factories to rebuild infrastructure and expand your military factories.
• After doing the “British cooperation” focus, do the “Fighter purchases” focus.
• Remember to move your troops around to hold the line as long as possible.
• Use the next 150 political power for an infantry expert – this will give you additional defence.
• After you finish researching support weapons and engineers, focus on improving your artillery and research speed, this will help when researching fighters later on.
• Modify the larger infantry template to 14w with support artillery and engineer companies, remember to ask for lend lease from the comintern when recruiting these units. These will be our eventual counter attack units.
• Take Grand battle plan army doctrine for additional entrenchment.
• Research radio after finishing artillery or engineers research.
• Do the “Burma road” focus for additional military factories, then do the “CAMCO” focus.

Communist China Guide: Stage Four

At this stage – it’s likely that you have been pushed back and have lost some territory, from here, it is advisable to reinforce the river line running through your territory, allowing Japan to stretch themselves thin, where you can then begin counter attacks. Using your 14w units will help with this.

1. Begin producing transport planes and fighters, just one factory on transports should be enough – putting the rest onto fighters.
2. After doing the “CAMCO” focus, hire its respective aircraft design company, and complete the rest of the fighter focuses. From this point on – your focus choices are up to you, having completed the essential ones for this guide. A recommendation would be to get the research slot from the “Literacy Programs” focus.
3. You can now begin to research fighters using your new buffs from the focus tree. We should aim to have fighter 3s by Autumn of 1941.
4. After researching radio, research support weapons two.
5. For the time being – it’s a waiting game for Japan to lose enough manpower and stretch themselves thin enough for a counter attack.
6. Once they have, use your 14w infantry to push and encircle the Japanese, and begin to squeeze them out of China. A primary objective should be to seize supply hubs and rail lines – which will constrict the Japanese supply lines, causing them to suffer majorly from attrition.
7. That’s essentially all you need to know in order to defeat Japan, obviously luck will play a factor – but you should be able to push them back.
8. One final thing to consider when it comes to Japan is whether you accept the ceasefire. In most cases, it is advisable to do this, unless you have accumulated enough planes to be able to paradrop on Japan, in such a case annexing Japan completely will help your industry significantly.
9. There you have it, you have successfully defeated Japan, and you should have something like this:

Communist China Guide: Stage Five

From here, you should turn your attention towards the nationalists, prepare a large infantry army to hold the line – using your 14w infantry – which you should now upgrade to 21w with artillery in combination with your air force and paratroopers to overwhelm the Nationalists. For an example of what your infantry templates should look like, see the images below:

Leave the faction, and declare war – China will be unable to join any faction as they’ll still be in the Chinese United Front – and they shouldn’t be guaranteed by anyone either, and with that, you should have unified China!

If you decide to continue playing from here, you can join the Comintern and help the Soviets, or form your own Communist East Asian faction – the choice is yours.

Hoi4 Communist China Guide: Conclusion

With all that said, we hope you enjoyed this Hoi4 Communist China Guide, and we hope that it helped you with one of East Asia’s most difficult factions. Thank you for reading, be sure to take a look at our other Hoi4 guides – we’ll see you next time!