[G40] Hengst's Slightly Scarier China

[hengst]

Howdy folks. I’ve got a series of simple house rules that add a little bit of historicity & complexity to the game’s political situation without requiring new pieces, trackers, loads of exceptions & things to remember, etc. They’re intended to each be a module drop-in addition to a set of rules. I’ve playtested these roughly 3-5 times each & am looking for additional feedback. I make no claims to uniqueness or creativity–these were constructed with LOTS of taking from the community & as such, I’m offering them back to the community.

Here’s one of my favorite: Slightly Scarier China:

• China may place infantry on any originally Chinese territory which has no enemy land units on it.
• Only as many units may be placed in a territory as twice the IPC value of that territory.
• China never purchases Artillery, it is given by a modified Burma Road National Bonus:
  • 3 IPCs & +1 Arty in Szechwan if Burma Road is open.
• Chinese units may go anywhere in China as well as:
  Korea, Burma, Shan State, Siam, French Indochina, and Hong Kong.
  • They may never collect income from these additional territories, even if they control them.

First of all, to clarify for everybody: the Chinese Coast is originally-Chinese! Japan just starts with it; read the rules.

This is just like any of the million Chinese Guerilla rules out there. Japan’s got to keep an infantry on every territory or Chinese dudes pop up behind the lines. In practice, we found that to be actually too powerful for China, and made it impossible for Japan to hold any part of the continent for more than 5 turns if they wanted to adopt a Pacific strategy.

While it was fun with an aggressive Japan, and accurately represented the way you had you throw money into China to make any minor progress (you’d be surprised how much Chinese guerilla placement slows you down after 2-3 turns, if you haven’t played with it yet), it didn’t represent well the other way the pendulum swung–it was too easy for China to seize the initiative & end the forever war.

As a result, we’ve found that forcing China to distribute its builds hampers its ability to form doomstacks. Additionally, forcing offensive units to be shipped from the south really makes it hard for it to press the advantage in the north without Soviet help. We found this feels a lot better.

One note: we typically play with a “Coiled Japan” setup that gives Kiangsi and Kwangsi to China & moves the Japanese units there further north, representing a few months earlier than the OOB setup. This also really slows Japanese progress & makes a J1/J2 closure of the Burma road impossible, ruling a classic Calcutta crush out entirely. If you don’t do this, I’d recommend removing a Japanese infantry from each of the coastal territories (not Manchuria or Korea).

This rule pairs well with:

• 200th Division (swap a Yunnan Inf for an irreplaceable Chinese tank)
• Gobi Wasteland (Kansu, Tsinghai, and Sikang have no economic value)
• Can’t Send Tanks Over the Desert (the border between west China & the USSR may only be traversed by aircraft and infantry)

Overall, this is a big swing in the Allies’ favor, probably about 10-15 IPCs worth of bidding. The Gobi Wasteland rule might be required if the extra rounds of Burma income prove too much for your Japan player to overcome.