China as a new sub-player

[Krieghund]

China receives the infantry in the Purchase Units phase and places them in the Mobilization phase.

[Funcioneta]

Great, more bonuses for Japan against China. Japan can trade territories and gain the IPC. China cannot trade territories, not only because they lose the lone fighter they have, but also because they colect poping inf at begining of turn instead the usual colect income at end of turn.

Thinking ways of modding China to a true playable power …  :roll:

[Krieghund]

The rules say that Chinese units may not move outside of China.  They make no distinction between land and air units.  The Chinese fighter may not leave Chinese territory, even temporarily.  I checked with Larry on this, and he verified it.

[losttribe04]

I have not been following all that close so humor me please.  When China gets there new units can they bunch them into one space in the mobilize phase or do they have to spread them out?

Thanks,
LT

[Krieghund]

They may place them in any Chinese-held territories that don’t already have three or more Chinese units in them.  They may place them together or separately.

[losttribe04]

Thanks, Krieghund + 1.

LT

[Black_Elk]

Also in AA50 there is need for a lot of cooperation between the allied powers. Allowing China to perform an high level strategy cooperation will seem a little bit strange. For example seeing Chinese infantry defending India or cooperating with Russian Army will be really strange. At moment I am curious to see how China works as sub-player because it seems to be more fitting  with a nation that fought a bloodly war but rarely looked over the boundaries of its country to participate in high level strategy planning.
If after several games played China will appear really weak and an easy prey for Japan then we can start to think to some home rule

I can almost guarantee, that if you included China as a full faction they would be primarily preoccupied with their own defenses. If anything it’d be Indian and Russia troops helping to defend Chungking and not the other way around. In any case, the patterns of conflict can be easily determined by the unit set up. Right now China seems hopelessly neutered, with its own confusing ‘inf pop’ status and the inability to move outside its starting territories. I really dislike this idea of a Chinese defensive wall. I would rather the territories were under USA control, or else built into a seperate faction.

Also, I’m not impressed by the argument that a Chungking factory would be of more use to Japan than the Allies. Clearly if we were going to do something along these lines then we would design China to have a fighting chance in this game, and not just get blown off the map in two or three rounds.

:-)

[italiansarecoming]

hmm……

these are both reasonable arguements from you the opposing sides:

1 side thinks give china fighting chance and allow them to be a true player;
While the other enjoys allowing china to have little coperation and showing chinas weaknesses of knowing whats happening(this is basically using china as a dump for none to little help to the allies which the cinese did very little besides stall the japanese army in many squabbles

i beleive that an ipc in china or without will not harm anyone any ways even if china did have 1 ipc complex and there was a rule (sorry about going to house rules/ maybe a real rule in a&a50) that chinas complex gets destroyed as soon as a conquerer takes it .

[Funcioneta]

If they want China being only a nuisance to Japan, as in real WWII, so be it, but she must be a nuisance, and not free IPCs for Japan. I mean China should be able at least of defend herself, not being a weak sparring for eeer… Japan 1  :-P

[italiansarecoming]

Oh well all games have flukes except games that are as simple as risk! but risk has the flaw of boring and no change

[Flying Tiger]

IMO if the fighter is an American squadron then I have no problem using it out of Chinese territory. It is weak by itself though and best used as defending chinese territories.

Off Topic: Just for bragging rights I was a part of the Flying Tigers unit at Pope AFB. 1993-1995. I even got a 1 hour ride in a 2 seater F-16. I miss the Air Force but I don’t miss the pay.

[italiansarecoming]

ya the chinese fighter should stauy in chinese territory to show that china was totally scared of more japanese army’s coming oh oh japanese coming ahhhh!

[Atlantikwall]

@Krieghund:

Any number of new Chinese infantry can be placed in any Chinese territory.  However, they can’t be placed in territories that already contain three or more Chinese units.

Just to clarify: can you place units in territories that you have conquered this turn?

E.g. China retakes Hupeh with 1 inf. Can you place another two there at the end of your turn (assuming that you have at least 4 chinese territories)?

[italiansarecoming]

hmm we are all just guessing here until it comes we will not know for sure this is just great

[Imperious Leader]

Just to clarify: can you place units in territories that you have conquered this turn?

E.g. China retakes Hupeh with 1 inf. Can you place another two there at the end of your turn (assuming that you have at least 4 chinese territories)?

IN 1941 China is going to be left with 3 territories and be able to make one infantry. BY J2 China is gone unless uk does something with USSR. Japan has enough men and planes to kill 4 spots quite easily.

[Guest]

@italiansarecoming:

hmm we are all just guessing here until it comes we will not know for sure this is just great

Makes the moment you get it that much more sweet!

[Bluestroke]

In AA50 1941, I would agree with those who point out, the rules, as we understand them, is to allow the Chinese to distract the Japanese and not become a full viable playing power.

item:China can not be ignored or they become a problem.  They should not be so powerful as to be conquering other territory.  Along with, Burma, Hongkong and China, they distract-burn the resources of the Japanese, limiting/slowing the japanese India push.  It buys UK and extra round.  Thats all UK really needs to get the India IC up and running.  The main confrontation will still be India.  Uk has slightly better odds, in this setup, of making that IC viable.  And as someone pointed out, the extra Chinese territories, will slow down a tank push from Japan to Moscow.  It looks like a slight change from AAR, with good balance IMHO.  I believe those who want China to be more viable are on the balance beam, too much, too little.  Only game time under our belts will tell the truth of Larry’s balancing act.

item:a big item, no one mentions much, the US pacific carrier is now safe for US to base a pacific fleet.  Now with two Japanese carriers, this close to the West Coast, US is forced to spend/defend resources in the Pacific.

[Funcioneta]

In Revised, Indian IC was viable and in fact very powerful if well played

Now, we get a sparring China killed utterly in round 1, so India IC is not viable. Australia IC could work but maybe not with so many Japanese trannies

Bidding for China: at least 4 inf to save the fig, maybe 5, China still need some guys in frontier after Japan 1  :-P

[Lynxes]

Just a quick comment: we are now playing our second ABattlemap AA50 game with the supposed -41 setup from GENCON. We will be posting a complete report later on. We noticed this, correct me if I’m wrong Perry;

1. China falls, but slowly. In both games Japan made an Indian push and the China ftr survived turn 1, only to be killed later on.
2. There is no quick push by Japan vs. Russia through China or Siberia. IPC-wise a bad move, you need that third bonus so Australia or India is more important. Also due to the fact that Japan doesn’t have that many land units and it takes quite some time to get them in combat as you first want to grab those juicy islands. And if your units are already on transports, going at India is much quicker than landing them and marching them in-land.
3. India can be defended but only by a heavy Russian deployment. This is not as bad as you think because Russia is quite strong ín the early game.
4. UK is strong, it can build an IC and quickly get a strong invasion navy in Europe. This is due to the high IPC-value at-start and the slow way in which Japan eliminates UK areas.
5. Russia looks weak but can quickly rebuild a sizable army. The danger is turn 2 when Caucasus is vulnerable but this can be protected by setting up a counter-attack force in Moscow. Karelia on the other hand needs UK help, and in this case losing the Arkhangelsk bonus due to the presence of UK units on Russian soil is probably much better than Germany getting an extra bonus and to build in Leningrad.
6. In the Pacific, Australia is the easiest pick, being out of reach from the US navy at the West coast. Wake, Midway and Solomons are more dangerous since US may attack with navy and air force and it’s hard to defend several of these islands as Japan, so USA can get its island bonus a lot of the time. In both games we have ended up with a naval arms race b/w Japan and USA both with around 50 IPCs / turn. Hard to say how the balance works out, to be continued! At least USA can quickly get a sizable fleet by building a CV and a BB for example, much better than the AAR inept US naval position!
7. Germany is in a precarious position in that infantry is very slow to the front with the extra Eastern Europe areas. Tanks and aircraft are more effective weapons but not against a retreating Russian foe. SBR, as predicted, is dangerous. Kriegsmarine is wiped out quickly, but we have yet to try a CV build on turn 1. That said, Germany can build quite a lot of tanks that really tests Russian defences- the Russian player will depend on good US and UK play to later in the game be given the chance to go to the strategic offensive. The first turns protecting and retaking KAR+CAU is what you will be doing as the Russian player.
8. Italy is slow to build-up but can be dangerous in a few turns. Either an extra attack force in the Black Sea or to disrupt the UK and US naval build-up. We have yet to see an anti-Italian strategy however, it feels a bit like Italy can be hit easily and quickly be relegated to a second-class power once the navy and NOs are lost.
   8 ) Africa is a back-water. Once you get Egypt and Transjordan, the question is if it’s worth it. In the second game, a South African IC was built, but it is very slow to get into action, let’s see how it works out in the long run.

Overall, lots of fun, slightly stronger play for the Axis than AAR and definitely not a broken game!!

[axis_roll]

@Lynxes:

Overall, lots of fun, slightly stronger play for the Axis than AAR and definitely not a broken game!!

I’m sorry, but it is FAR to early to make any solid conclusions of the broken~ness of the game.

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Also, I noticed you are playing the OPTIONAL rules: National Objectives are optional.

Are you playing with Tech as well?