@Young:
I don’t like the idea of allowing China the freedom to purchase any units with the help of a factory. I feel that it might be to much power for China, and it doesn’t solve the problem of movement restrictions on them.
I can understand the your reservations at the thought of China being able to move outside its borders and purchase units like a normal country, an over-powered China can stretch Japans ability to fight on other fronts to the breaking point. There is one major questions that I would like you to think about though, in all these scenarios that have been put forward China doesn’t get this ability unless certain conditions, and almost all of them require China to control all of its original territories, Kwangtung to be in allied hands, and the Burma road to be open, So how much of a game could possibly be left at this point? By the time these conditions are met, if they are met, I think the game would pretty much be all but over at that point right?
I can’t see the harm of giving China the ability to fight as a normal country once Japan has been effectively beaten back from the Asian mainland essentially losing the game. I begs the additional question of what’s the point in giving China this kind of ability when the game is all but over anyway, but I think that really only showcases just how harmless of a rule this would be.
There are sinerios where Japan focuses on Russia, Calcutta, and the $ islands while leaving China unchecked. Although it’s not a solid strategy, Japan can be very successful this way even if the chances of gaining the required VCs in the Pacific are close to impossible. I’ve seen games where 50 Chinese infantry are trapped with no where to go, but Japan has India and the middle east, while supporting Italy with ships in the Med. Even if the game is already over because China owns all it’s original territories, why give them the knockout punch?
I had a game like that once and what the Chinese did was stack a big bunch of infantry in Burma to block Japan from getting troops from its base in India to southeast Asia (there were American bases in Malaya and French Indochina if I recall correctly). Anyway, like you said, it’s game over for Japan in the Pacific if you go that way, but Egypt is toast and that makes Italy is strong enough to defend Western Europe while Germany puts everything into Russia.
The reason I came up with this idea was because of our last game of Global. Japan had put most everything into attacking the US and was successful in sinking the US Navy and taking Western US. However, other things were left untended, which included China. The Chinese not only regained all their territory, they had this huge force sitting on Manchuria. Japan had plopped a Major IC on Korea but it was somewhat lightly defended, at least compared to that massive stack of Chinese. All the Russians had headed west to deal with Germany and neither UK/India or ANZAC could get a large enough force up there to attack Korea (at this point Japan had enough naval power that they kept killing UK and ANZAC transports). The UK was able to bomb Japan silly, but simply could not muster enough invasion force to do the job.
So, Japan was free to keep building up troops on Korea and tromp through the eastern Soviet territories with a small force and China was there with a big stack of infantry and artillery but could do nothing about it.
In a similar game a while back, the Chinese Flying Tigers fighter was right on Shanghai with 2 or 3 undefended Japanese transports just sitting there in SZ 19. According to the current rules, the Chinese fighter can not leave Chinese borders. So those transports just got to sit there mocking me.
In another game, the Japanese took Calcutta with only 1 tank and 1 artillery left with 20 Chinese sitting in Burma. That just doesn’t seem right to me.
So, maybe my idea of giving China a Minor IC and the ability to build tanks, mechs, bombers, and such was going a bit far, but I still think the rules for CHina are somewhat too strict. I still think, under certain conditions, Chinese forces should be able to venture outside their own borders in a limited fashion, say ONLY on the Pacific side and ONLY on the mainland. NO transports. I think the conditions of having Shanghai and Hong Kong in Allied hands plus the Burma Road being open would be pretty good conditions for this. It’s hard to acheive, especially since Japan starts out in control of Shanghai, but not impossible. Plus, as other of you have pointed out, this would only occur if Japan totally ignored CHina. If Japan decides to get aggressive against China, this will likely never occur.
In another game, the Japanese took Calcutta with only 1 tank and 1 artillery left with 20 Chinese sitting in Burma. That just doesn’t seem right to me.
Why are there Chinese infantry sitting in Burma, I thought that territory was off limits to Chinese units, unless you’re using a secondary house rule. Have I missed something in the Alpha +3 rules.
If you want to solve those problems, simply allow China to invade Korea, and change the restrictions of the flying tiger unit by allowing it to fly across borders, but it must always land on a Chinese owned territory. As for the UK units in India, they should be on their own in my opinion.
In all the rules (OOB & Alpha) Burma and Kwangtung are the two exceptions to the Chinese border rule. Chinese forces can enter Burma and Kwangtung either to fight Axis forces and liberate those territories or as a NCM. The Flying Tiger fighter can also land in these areas.
Also, if India is captured by the Axis, China can gain the IPCs from Burma and Kwangtung if they take them from the Axis while India is Axis controlled.
As for India, don’t you think that China would want to liberate India if the Axis captured it? India is the leading edge of the Burma Road, China’s only supply line from the outside world. It seems to me that should be a particular exception.
Of course, you could make a further alteration. If China liberates India from Axis control, but there are still Axis warships in SZ 39, China still does not get the Burma Road NO until SZ 39 is also cleared of Axis presence.
In all the rules (OOB & Alpha) Burma and Kwangtung are the two exceptions to the Chinese border rule. Chinese forces can enter Burma and Kwangtung either to fight Axis forces and liberate those territories or as a NCM. The Flying Tiger fighter can also land in these areas.
Also, if India is captured by the Axis, China can gain the IPCs from Burma and Kwangtung if they take them from the Axis while India is Axis controlled.
As for India, don’t you think that China would want to liberate India if the Axis captured it? India is the leading edge of the Burma Road, China’s only supply line from the outside world. It seems to me that should be a particular exception.
Of course, you could make a further alteration. If China liberates India from Axis control, but there are still Axis warships in SZ 39, China still does not get the Burma Road NO until SZ 39 is also cleared of Axis presence.
Thanks for that, although it is clearly obvious in the rule book under China Rules (which I just read), our groups have not been using that advantage. I think I will surprise them with a Chinese liberation into Burma when I play the Allies this weekend.
@Young:
I’ve seen games where 50 Chinese infantry are trapped with no where to go, but Japan has India and the middle east, while supporting Italy with ships in the Med. Even if the game is already over because China owns all it’s original territories, why give them the knockout punch?
I think if anything that sounds like even more of a good reason to give the Chinese to the ability to start buying IC’s and other regular units. If Japan is going to deliberately ignore China because of arbitrary movement restrictions, then they should be made to pay for it just like any other faction in A&A would if they did that. The fact that Japan can abuse the Chinese movement restrictions to such stunning effect suggests to me that this needs to be in place just to keep them honest.
I see it as one of a few options Japan has to be a factor… remember that Japan is surrounded by 5 different enemies, if I can ignore one of them and get away with it, I would. That said, I still think that China should be able to attack Korea.
@Young:
I see it as one of a few options Japan has to be a factor… remember that Japan is surrounded by 5 different enemies, if I can ignore one of them and get away with it, I would. That said, I still think that China should be able to attack Korea.
Perhaps that would be enough to fix, what is to me anyway, a fairly glaring problem with game mechanics. Perhaps removing all Chinese movement restrictions once China has recaptured all its original territories would be better. It shouldn’t be that difficult for Japan to keep hold of a least a sliver of the Chinese territory it would need to to keep that from happening. While China can be quite potent in defense it’s offensive capabilities require it to have a superior numbers which (rather counter intuitively) is very difficult for them to achieve in early, and even mid, game turns. I think Japan is able to forestall this just by focusing even a small portion of their troops already in China from the games outset.
Japan is surrounded by 5 enemy nations, but it isn’t at war with all of them at once, and doesn’t have to go to war with one of them (the Soviets) at all if they so choose. Really when it comes down to it, Japan being able to ignore an enemy nation that begins the game at war with is wrong.
Japan is surrounded by 5 enemy nations, but it isn’t at war with all of them at once, and doesn’t have to go to war with one of them (the Soviets) at all if they so choose. Really when it comes down to it, Japan being able to ignore an enemy nation that begins the game at war with is wrong.
Yeah, especially when you consider that historically conquering China was one of Japan’s main objectives. They wanted China under their thumb for resources and manpower. That should have been accomplished before they went after SE Asia and the DEI. The only reason they ended up going south was because the war in China kept dragging on and Japan was running out of the materials they needed to continue the conflict. And, the only reason they hit Pearl Harbor and dragged the US into the war was because they saw the US Pacific fleet as the only real obstacle to grabbing and holding all the resource rich territory in the South Pacific.
I would guess that if history was a little different and Japan actually had more of the resources that they needed, they might have simply kept pounding at China and not invaded the South Pacific territories or attacked the US fleet. At least possibly until they were actually successful in China.
So, as far as the game goes, Japan shouldn’t be able to simply ignore China for any amount of time, no matter how much strategic sense it might make in certain scenarios.
I think China was to Japan what Russia was to Germany. A vast expanse of land to conquer with millions of people to subjugate that ended up being too big a bite for them to chew.
I agree that histoically, it’s a crappy rule which allows Japan to leave China unchecked. However, as far as game play is concerned, ignoring China is a viable strategy.
@Young:
I agree that histoically, it’s a crappy rule which allows Japan to leave China unchecked. However, as far as game play is concerned, ignoring China is a viable strategy.
Ya know, History aside, I think its a crappy rule in general. I think it’s unfair to give Japan a fight they can choose to back out of, no other country in the game has that ability, why should they? I understand that it is a viable strategy and I can see how that would work for Japan (when Pacific first came out I was one of the few people saying that Japan only really needed to keep control of 3 Chinese territories to win the game and not conquer the whole country). I think this needs to be addressed though and Japan should face some kind of consequences for backing out of and ignoring the Chinese front.
(when Pacific first came out I was one of the few people saying that Japan only really needed to keep control of 3 Chinese territories to win the game and not conquer the whole country).
Well, actually this would kind of solve the “ignoring China” problem. I assume by the 3 territories you mean Kiangsu (Shanghai), Shantung and Manchuria, right? This would be another possibility for Japan. They could simply keep a few transports there and shuck some men over from Japan each turn or simply build some minor ICs and put 3 men per turn in each of those territories. I think the ICs would end up being cheaper for Japan to do this so perhaps they could use those transports elsewhere. Even with the Burma Road NO, by the time CHina got a significant force up there, Japan would have huge stacks of men to defend with. Even if China got a strong enough force to take one of those, it would probably take so much out of them that Japan could take it back relatively easily and China would be back to square one for building up a new attack force.
So, Japan wouldn’t be just ignoring China, just keeping them at bay while dealing with the US Navy, DEI, India, ANZAC, etc.
Also, since Allied control of Shanghai was one of my conditions for China getting more freedom of movement and possibly being able to buy more advanced weapons, this idea would fix that problem as well. Even if the Allies still controlled Hong Kong and the Burma Road was open, with Shanghai in Japan’s control, the Chinese failed the requirements and therefore have to stay within China and can only purchase infantry and artillery.
Yeah that makes sense to me, and really seems to make it fair in my opinion.
The three territories I always said Japan needed to take and keep from China were Manchuria, Kiangsu, and Yunnan. A necessary victory city, and IPC rich territory capable of holding and Major IC, and a highly strategic and NO based objective territory, beyond that everything else was just upkeep.
I think in the long run for Japan though it would be cheaper to keep the transports on hand to shuck infantry back and forth from Japan as if the territory gets over whelmed they would lose the IC there, also the transports could be used to rapidly redeploy units from China if such a situation arose.
In the end it’s really just a way to keep Japan from exploiting the Chinese movement restrictions to massive effect. The only other thing I could think of would be to give China separate win conditions, like once China liberates all of its original territories they win and Japan can never attack them again and nobody can move through their territories anymore.
HA! Turn China into a great big impassible void.
Yeah, I see what you mean about having transports rather than ICs. That’s another rule with China that I don’t like; any ICs placed there by Japan simply get removed if any Allies take that territory. I’ve always kind of thought that the ICs should simply remain there unused so Japan has a chance to take them back. Then again, that’s not very realistic. Since China can’t use ICs and no other Allies can use it because it’s Chinese territory, it wouldn’t be likely that Allies would leave an IC sitting around that they couldn’t use. Plus, the transports would be more flexible.
Yunnan would be very hard to keep hold of. Manchuria and Kiangsu are both reachable directly from Japan. With Yunnan, you would have to also keep Kwangsi to be able to keep pouring troops in from Japan, then it would be one more move to reach Yunnan. Japan would have to have a big head start there.
The motivation Japan has in the game regarding China is to pluck the relatively easy IPC and prepare for either Moscow ( vie China) or India. Knowing this and the Historical reality of how unrealistic is was for Japan to conquer them in 3-4 turns, I propose something like this:
I favor items 3 and 4
IL,
I like your ideas. #1 definitely has merit.
Not crazy about #2 although I understand where you are coming from. Just don’t like the idea of boosting the Chinese Infantry’s defense like that.
I REALLY like #4. It would be better if China Infantry were a little cheaper. After all, if there is one thing China had it was manpower. Plus, no more than what China makes, it wouldn’t be terribly overwhelming, but it would make Japan really commit if they wanted to defeat China.
As for #3, I find that optional rule interesting. Especially since I’ve never been a fan of Japan rushing for Moscow anyway. However, I’m a little unclear as to your wording. You suggest making certain Chinese areas “impassible”. What if Japan really wanted to snuff China out – kill ALL Chinese troops and take ALL Chinese territories. It sounds like this rule would make that impossible, as there would be certain Chinese territories that Japan could not take because they would be considered “impassible”.
Also, if this were the case, would Chinese troops be allowed in these “impassible” territories? If so, wouldn’t that kind of create a safe haven for China to just keep adding more and more men until they end up with some huge stack of infantry? Or is no body, not even China allowed in the “impassible” territories?
One more question; What would be the “impassible” Chinese territories? I am assuming it would be the three that border Russia.
Good ideas, I think the best ones to use would be 1 and 4 though.
The idea that Chinese units can’t attack until they’ve reached critical mass has real good feel to it, very period correct and something specific for China that makes sense. It shows the reluctance that Chaing had to commit to any major battles against Japan while his armies were exhausted by nearly 4 years of war at this point, very good.
Idea 4 just makes sense, for a country that had an inexhaustible manpower infantry should be easier to get especially when it is their primary unit (and in some circumstances the only unit they can buy). I also fee that this would help balance having option 1 in place, sue the Chinese can’t attack unless they have 5 infantry or more but with Chinese infantry only costing 2IPC watch how quickly i’ll reach those numbers.
Also, if this were the case, would Chinese troops be allowed in these “impassible” territories? If so, wouldn’t that kind of create a safe haven for China to just keep adding more and more men until they end up with some huge stack of infantry?
Ya know, if you played the rule like that, it would be a great war to represent guerrilla forces that were in action during the war. It could be a nice way represent the communist Chinese forces in the north while not trying to carve a second country out of China.
