@regularkid
Well I’m glad you asked that question. I play balance mod exclusively now. I’ve played 10 games of it so far. And yes china gets crushed almost every game because japan pushes south and wipes out yunnan and cuts off the road. Once that road is done china is pretty much over. Japan parks its airforce in kwangsi and soon szechwan falls. It is not hard for japan to keep all those chinese territories locked down unless japan has some really bad luck which it doesn’t usually. Or decides to attack amur’s stack of russians. This would give china time to build up down south.
My option would give china +3 ipcs when yunnan falls and an extra turn to try to buy artillery. And when szechwan falls then they would get +2 ipcs. Having that artillery lets china actually fight back instead of sit there and build infantry. China would be a threat, a small one, but something instead of just a nuisance waiting to die.
Your mod is fantastic and like I said it is the only one I play. It does add a lot of strategic options across the whole board. I know a good thing when I see it so that is why I continue to play the Mod. This one place, China, is where I feel Japan can do only one thing and knock out the burma road ASAP. Then china is done. So we tried some different options with japan.
I’m not an expert and we like to try new strategies when we can. I would put my self as an intermediate player and we never use bids. I think your Balance mod is as close to balancing this game as Larry harris’ 42.3 setup.
And you just admitted that china is too weak now. I think either way it comes down to giving them Artillery options and my proposal would do that.
It fits with your criteria for balance changes.
- does it improve balance? (I think it does)
(2) does it improve fun/strategic depth? (I think it could)
(3) does it improve historicality? Yes
(4) is it simple/easy to understand and implement? Yes
"If the change satisfied all of those criteria, it was a strong candidate for inclusion.”
So why don’t we test this out and see if it fits.