Avoid China

[Funcioneta]

Oh, wall of text!  :-o Seems you played with the true setup. Well, let’s suppose you are true and China not needs new units or conserve her lone and last fighter round 1. If true, at least one thing must be modded: China should be able of attacking Japanese controled territories, as FIC, Burma or India (and even german and italian occupied ones if you ask me). If not, we’ll see gamey strats here and there.

[Funcioneta]

Yea, pretty reasonable stuff, Craig  :-)

Just a item: in Revised, techs were forbidden for competitive play in most places, even if tech were mandatory in OOB rules. Maybe the same will happen with China not being able of go out of China: mandatory in OOB, but ignored rule in league games or even in LH rules next versions

[FieldMarshalGames]

@Funcioneta:

Yea, pretty reasonable stuff, Craig  :-)

Just a item: in Revised, techs were forbidden for competitive play in most places, even if tech were mandatory in OOB rules. Maybe the same will happen with China not being able of go out of China: mandatory in OOB, but ignored rule in league games or even in LH rules next versions

I agree, what if you are just very good or lucky with CHINA?  In a game of Pacific I played once, to the surprise of all players… with a little dice luck and some poor Japanese decisions CHINA became not only a nuisance but a TRUE THREAT!  It would seem silly to me that if CHINA was lucky enough to stand on its own two feet ans expel the invaders…  They would sit on thier hands when they had the Japanese on the run in Asia.

(If this game is ever changed so CHINA is a 7th player this will have to be the case)

[italiansarecoming]

The war game: world war 2 allows that to be done because china is its own player.

You cannot avoid china at all because of its power the only problem i have with it is were the industrial complex is and the only reason it is there is actually because of how it can touch the water.  The game is very realistic for adding china italy is added. normally for 6 players because there is 8 powers germany, japan, china. italy, france, ussr, gb and usa. normally they say they would play as 6 players so italy/ china would be played for 1 or all allied players or 5 players so china/ italy played by all or 1 player.  france is for d-day.  Also i would like to pinot out this game is similiar to a&a except for the dice is 12 not 6.  Anyways chian in that game is playable.

Avoiding china i beleive many will not since it is quite away to deplinish the forces of asia for the allies and gives a little ipc’s for the cost of few men.

In all in all there will be probably a few who will not go for asia but thats all good more men to supply eastern/western sea front.

[RisingDragon]

a couple questions for clarification:

1. 1 infantry per 2 territories…so you round down not up if you have an odd number?
2. rules state that you can only place new units up to a limit of three units per territory.  Does that include the flying tiger unit or only chinese infantry?  what about other allied forces reinforcing the chinese?  do those also count towards the limit of three units?

[Krieghund]

@RisingDragon:

1. 1 infantry per 2 territories…so you round down not up if you have an odd number?

Correct.

@RisingDragon:

2. rules state that you can only place new units up to a limit of three units per territory.  Does that include the flying tiger unit or only chinese infantry?  what about other allied forces reinforcing the chinese?  do those also count towards the limit of three units?

Only Chinese units count, including the fighter.  You can only place units in territories that had less than three Chinese units before you started placing units, but there’s no limit on the number of units you can place in a single territory.  In other words, you can place all of your new units in a territory that already has two units in it, but none of them in a territory that already has three units in it.

[Ó Ruanaidh]

I am rather skeptical about this avoid China strategy. I believe that Japan will need a firm base on the mainland of Asia to extend it’s control over the continent and that base is ideally Manchuria or Kiangsu. If you simply forfeit these territories to the Chinese then what other options have you? India? Perhaps but the U.K. and U.S. will do everything they can to wrench you out of it, and will most likely receive Russian aid and in the end Russia will be able to throw more units in India than Japan in my opinion. What about Russia’s territory? Again maybe, but they aren’t worth very much and it’s a long way to rich lands from Soviet Far East, not to mention you’ll be vunerable to attacks from the Russians and Americans, who are sitting in Alaska. So, I believe that Manchuria is the ideal spot to build an IC and get your firm footing on the mainland, and that is threatened by China. I believe as China has no hitting power, since they can only get infantry, that you could defend against them fairly easily and cheaply, also using infantry, so they wouldn’t dare attack Japan if the Japs had enough Infantry in Manchuria, or else they would hit back and steam roll all of China, especially since you can’t hastily rebuild China’s forces. I believe it will be far more likely to have a stalemate for the first 3-5 turns then see Japan attempt to defeat China and thus gain quick and easy access into the Russian heartland from the back door.

[a44bigdog]

Avoiding China is one of the dumbest strategic thoughts I have ever heard for several reasons.

1. Their units are free. All the other Allies have to purchase units and get them into the Pacific. Other than Russia, this means either an IC or transports which = more purchases.

2. They are nothing but a paper tiger to start out with and I see no reason to allow them to grow stronger. After the destruction of the Chinese fighter on round 1 they have no real ability to attack. This also means it is worth sacrificing Japanese fighters to kill the Chinese fighter because once it is gone China has almost no means of attacking you.

3. The Chinese territories are very hard for the allies to reach. This means once you have them they are yours.

[Funcioneta]

The idea of ignoring China was because that dumb rule of “China cannot go out of China”. Why fight a power who cannot attack you? Leaving Manchuria ang Kiangsu would reduce China to a almost “neutral” country.

But I must agree. It’s better toast the chineses J1. It’s ridiculously easy killing all them in 1941, and you can still reduce to 3 territories, 4 units, in 1942  :-P. China is not properly represented in this game, I think it’s even worst than in Revised in 1941 and simply not fun in 1942

[Imperious Leader]

I think China is an easy task for Japan in either scenario. AS long as you take the fighter on the first turn its easy.

[Ó Ruanaidh]

But as long as China gets the worst of Japan’s attacks on J1 then it doesn’t matter. The allies are each given one turn to prepare, since China is virtually of no use to them anyway, they lose nothing if they lost China, but Japan loses precious time it doesn’t have, and they also would gain another border with the Russkies, who are not to nice on land, especially with two IC’s nearby. Simply by absorbing Japan’s blow it serves it’s purpose. Not well represented enough? China was a weak struggling nation with no industries, no coastline pratically, and on top of that they were not in anyway unified against Japan, they only reason Japan did not destroy them was because of China’s size and the fact that Japan had to worry about other fronts.

[Funcioneta]

@Ó:

Not well represented enough? China was a weak struggling nation with no industries, no coastline pratically, and on top of that they were not in anyway unified against Japan, they only reason Japan did not destroy them was because of China’s size and the fact that Japan had to worry about other fronts.

China’s size is not properly represented. China was not at brink of colapse in 1941 as in this setup. They were at draw with Japan. How reasonable is that Japan can make China a 1 inf nation after China 1?. One lone inf!  :-o Hardly the size of chinese armies, even bad quality as they were (the Kuomingtan ones, not the commies). As for other fronts, China was resisting alone, yes, alone and divided, from 1937, more time that USA fought against Japan the whole war.

Japan don’t loses precious time if they kill China J1. In fact, they are winning a lot of time killing one enemy power before it has its very first round. A major design flaw, allies fall as a card castle: first China, then India, then Pacific seas, then Moscow or San Francisco, Japan’s choice.

[Ó Ruanaidh]

Like I said, knocking China out is very different from knocking Russia or the U.S. out. Seeing as how in previous versions the U.S. owned China and usually lost it right away, I can’t complain that they have a slim chance of holding it in AA50, besides, India cannot fall immediately after China as Neutral nations block the passage from India to China, and because China is absorbing a good part of Japan’s blow the Brits have a slight window in which to gear themselves to fight Japan. You must keep in mind that the U.S. and U.K. are very rich, and Japan is very poor, and losing China changes that only slightly for Japan, and not at all for the other two, so let Japan destroy China, who cares? Because the U.S. will be readying itself to counterattack Japan,who will not be able to resist unless they move far and fast.

[Black_Elk]

I predict that China gets trounced every time, unless the rule is modified to 1 inf per territory (with no upwards cap at 3 total, or anything weird like that.) As it stands, once China is done, seems like its going to be Jap tanks on India and the Russians as usual.

The Chinese just shouldn’t fold this easily. They had the second highest military casualties of any nation after the Soviet Union, and tied down hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers for the durration. It should be a lot harder for the Japs to take Sikang and Ningxia. The British and Russians should be encouraged to reinforce and defend China, instead of just totally ignoring it as irrelevant after the first round.

Need to get beyond this scripted collapse of China that we’ve had going back to Classic, and replace it with something a bit more dynamic.

[Ó Ruanaidh]

Having a high number of casualties does not necessarily indicate that they were fighting effectively. In fact it would rather point to the opposite, the Chinese dided in droves against Japan, and if they would make the game your way, then China would be a black hole that sapped Japan of it’s money and men. While this would be historically correct, the Japanese would have no hope of destroying China for good, much less Russia, and then there would be complaints that Japan had no hope for winning because China and Russia are to big and have to many soldiers.

[Black_Elk]

Well right now its hard for me to see a good reason not to attack the Soviet Far east with Japan. Just to park the bombers in Yakut alone would make it worth it, but you can still grab 6 ipcs from the Russians without having to worry about anyone putting up much of a defense. It would have made more sense to me if China was a full player, and the Soviet Far East did some sort of non-aggression pact/valueless territories/infantry popping thing. Right now I don’t see China as a very strong deterrent to the invasion of Russia. You just knock them out in the first round, and start sending troops and bombers against Moscow.

Every version of AA since Classic has catered to this same scenario with a premature conflict between the Soviets and Japanese, at the expense of pretty much everything else. At least a China sink hole would be somewhat accurate to the history. I also think its odd how quick we are to marginalize the Chinese contribution to the Allied War effort. Just because Western war planners didn’t care much about Chinese casualties, and western historians have typically downplayed the Second Sino-Japanese war in favor of the broader global/European conflict, doesn’t mean that it was just a sideshow of little consequence. They way AA plays out, its as though the Japanese war plan in 37 had been perfectly executed according to their expectations: when the reality was more like a decade of intestine warfare and a total logistics nightmare. If it weren’t for all those dead Chinese people, maybe operation Impala would have actually been successful. Or maybe they would have invaded Australia instead, or hit Panama.

I feel like AA50 is getting closer to the mark, but its still not there yet. The Chinese need a little more fight to them, so that the rest of the Pacific/Asia will fall into the right balance.

[ShredZ]

So far by the accounts of people(s) that have played the game and are not just speculating, it looks like Japans intial low income dictates that they make bigger gains in the IPC deptarment, thus not to attack China.
The investment of troops and supplies and the meager gains from doing so at 1 IPC each TT look like they might have juicier targets. Then when finally you taken care of the targets in the Pacific etc. that get you gains thru NO’s you might consider coming back to China, but by then they might have enough Inf to discourage a Japanese player - the next logical step of thinking asks should you even bother when they cant even attack you anyways… ?

[Funcioneta]

@Ó:

Seeing as how in previous versions the U.S. owned China and usually lost it right away, I can’t complain that they have a slim chance of holding it in AA50

Revised: IC to India, IC to sin, fleet to z55. Result: China will resist at least 5-6 turns and if things go well, the whole game. With no ICs, 2 chinese inf could escape to USSR to fight back another day. China gives Japan 4 ipcs

AA50, 1941: China toasted J1. Fully toasted. 1 inf pops in Chinghai, ready to die in J3. No chance of escape to Soviet Union because of buggy rules. China gives Japan 7 ipcs. Result: China is much worst now

AA50, 1942: not sure, needs playtesting, but seems Japan can still attack and kill 4 territories, leading China to a poping 1 inf status. As best, equal resistance, but less attack power because killing the fig is a no brainer. Buggy rules still apply and China cannot trade territories even if the fig survives (by a miracle) because they “colect” inf at begining of turn instead the usual end of turn.

China is a bad joke in 1941, gives axis a too big advantage. I could stand China in 1942 (if it reveals balanced), but it’s buggy and not fun.

I must agreed with Black Elk, China is marginalized too often, even when they were fighting axis even before than Poland. WWII begun in 1937, to be honest, with Marco Polo issue.

[Funcioneta]

@ShredZ:

So far by the accounts of people(s) that have played the game and are not just speculating, it looks like Japans intial low income dictates that they make bigger gains in the IPC deptarment, thus not to attack China.
The investment of troops and supplies and the meager gains from doing so at 1 IPC each TT look like they might have juicier targets. Then when finally you taken care of the targets in the Pacific etc. that get you gains thru NO’s you might consider coming back to China, but by then they might have enough Inf to discourage a Japanese player - the next logical step of thinking asks should you even bother when they cant even attack you anyways… ?

You can take Philippines, Borneo, Sumatra and still China. 42 IPCs with NOs, 32 without them. Why should Japan spare a easy killed enemy power that will be popping guys and finally taking Manchuria and Kiangsu? Where do you else prefer attack than China? Soviets? 1 IPC and 3 guys killed instead of 4 inf, fig and 4 IPCs won. Australia? Good luck. Burma? You can do round 2 or 3 still. Alaska? Too risky for your fleet and gains less than in China

The juicier land target is China because is the bigger menace Japan can kill round 1, and nothing stops you from taking Dutch East Indies still, the 2nd juicier target

[thrasher]

Haven’t played yet :(
Think we need much more playtesting before coming up with new rules.

But let’s just share an idea I got for World at War (Xeno Games). The idea was:
_Follow normal rules. So China gets one infantry for every area it controls. But Chinese infantry get a defense bonus of 1 for every area it is ‘in land’.

So a Chinese infantry in an area one area away from sea will defend at 2+1=3.

This to reflect the hugeness of China. And the many mountains and rivers to be crossed when you invade this enormous country._

Just an idea! But first let’s have fun with this new game!