Tweaking China for AAP40

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.

@barnee Thanks for the replies, the CIS ones sound good, and I like the idea of Gibraltar actually being important in 1914. I might also give the Spanish objectives in North Africa to motivate them to spread out a bit more. Not quite sure what to do with China yet, but they will probably be with the Central Powers (I know they weren’t historically, but it balances the game better). I’m thinking maybe I will give them IPCs for capturing Korea and parts of south Asia.

The problem with 1936 is that Com China is so weak at the start of 1936 that KMT can easily destroy them within two turns and USSR can’t do anything about it since they can’t Lend-Lease due to Com China not boarding USSR.

@Chicago:

China receives special treatment in the Chicago Rules Anniversary Edition.  China begins the game with an IC and has different rules while China controls the IC and different rules after the axis take control of and destroy the Chinese IC.

China and its units are controlled by the U.S. player, but for game purposes it is considered a separate power and its resources cannot be mixed.  Chinese combat and movement are done separately from the U.S. forces.

Chinese units have a limited range of occupation, displayed by the colored border.  They can also be moved into the Japanese occupied territories of Kiangsu and Manchuria.  China can take control of these territories and have them count toward their new infantry placements.  Chinese units cannot be loaded onto transports.

Kwangtung is a special case.  While it is not a Chinese territory and cannot be controlled by China, Chinese forces can attack Axis units there and occupy it, but the IPC’s generated, go to the United Kingdom.  This is the only non-Chinese territory that Chinese units may occupy.

Before the start of game play China places their IC in any Chinese controlled territory. The IC works like the mobile industry National Advantage (for Revised edition): the IC can move one territory per turn and place units there (no unit limits on placement of Chinese units).  Since, the IC has unlimited production it is not subject to axis strategic bombing.  
Before the start of game play China may also move their fighter to any Chinese controlled territory. The fighter represents the American volunteer group- the Flying Tigers. This fighter is considered part of the Chinese forces for purposes of movement and combat.

While the IC is in play, China collects income at the end of a turn just like any other country.  China starts the game with $7 IPC’s.  China may purchase infantry for $2, other unit costs are unchanged.  China can save unspent IPC’s and spend IPC’s on technology research if the optional rule is agreed upon.

After the Chinese IC has been captured  The Axis power that takes control of the Chinese IC must destroy it immediately.  The Chinese player must also surrender all of their IPC’s to that Axis power.  China no longer receives IPC’s for income and can no longer purchase units. China may never rebuild this IC.

Instead, China gets one new infantry unit per turn for every two Chinese territories that are not under Axis control during the Purchase Units phase of the U.S. player’s turn. The U.S. Player places the new Chinese units on any Chinese- controlled territories. However, those units cannot be placed on any territory that already contains three or more units.

Excuse my old eyes.  :wink:

There are a lot of good ideas here that’s for sure. Some, like IL’s ideas are great theme based ideas that real capture the essence of the China theater and others, like Gar’s are great from a game play mechanic point of view. I think any of them would be an improvement to the existing state of affairs for China’s movement restrictions.

@Yavid:

why not let china place there inf. in any original chinese territory even if they don’t control them. if it’s unoccupied then they gain control, if it is occupied then combat insues as soon as the territory is attacked by an allied power or on Japan’s combat phase which ever one comes first.

I like this idea, but it would need to be controlled. Making it so that the Chinese could mobilize new units (maybe 1 or 2 infantry) in any original Chinese territory that is unoccupied might make this better, and again, a great way to represent the guerrilla and partisan warfare that was a major part of the fighting in China during WW2.

@Young:

Chinese units may move into any friendly, hostile, or neutral territory during the combat or non-combat movement phases. However, they may never enter Russian territories for any reason.

I see the thinking here, but I think its entirely to arbitrary, Japan should not have a way to “opt out” of Fighting China. I think having something in place that would want Japan to keep some portion of China under occupation (I would have thought the victory city would have been reason enough but I guess i’m just old fashioned  :| ). Placing a penalty on Japan for doing so by removing China’s movement restrictions is a good idea and giving China the ability to become more of a threat is even better.

Perhaps making it so that once China captures all of its original territories it’s movement restrictions are lifted. This was Japan will want to keep at least one Chinese territories under its control to keep them in check. However, lets up the ante here, if Japan is pushed off the Asian mainland (for sake of argument lets keep it to all non Soviet land territories) China can place an IC in Shanghai which will be their capital for the remainder of the game and can purchase units normally. This way even if China is able to move and attack where ever she wants, Japan still has a chance to push them back before China gains the ability to deliver the knock out blow to Japan.

and just to note, I would have to believe that by the time either of these instances were to happen, the game would be all but over for Japan anyway.

@Napoleon:

Someone tried to put extra chinese infantry on all empty territory?

Does it make a difference?

It made China an annoy bitch.

@Funcioneta:

A small bug in UK deploy: z2 should have a cruiser instead of a dd (same as vanilla game). I’ll correct it as soon as I can

Done

Think of this way China has the most people in the world, it could send more then 10 Infantry into war so yes they should make a stronger China