China. What's its use?

Well your “solutions” don’t work within the confines of the board.
What are you going to do? Get a sharpie and draw more territories in China? Draw a higher IPC value on some US territories.

Your ideas might have merrit, but it’s too late for them. The board is already on the table. WOTC isn’t going to print another one for years.
So work within the realm of the board we HAVE, not the board you WANT.

You could make a house rule: Standing Armies. With some spare monopoly pieces or some Victory City Markers from HBG you could add a couple to East Russia (don’t remember territory name) and maybe to China as well. They could defend on a two or defend on a one w/2 hits or something to that effect. That way you don’t have an obnoxious amount of Russian attacking power in the East, but the defense is a lot better. The same would take place in China, although I think I’d rather have the fighter defend on a 5 or 6 even, as the “Flying Tigers” were very skilled pilots. Maybe you could pair those ideas? The standing armies could represent the extra time and effort the Japanese had to spend to break through China.

@Koningstiger:

What do you all think?

On Classic/Revised/AA42.1/AA41.2 China’s role is to be a speed bump. On AAE/P/G and AA50 they aren’t.

The game is designed for balance, not reproduce WW2. Otherwise the Allies would start by earning at least twice as much as the Axis.

I’ve been asking what’s China’s use ever since they’ve turned to communism….oh, it’s to do math!

This is more balanced than 42.1.  I think you’re playing the Allies wrong to say that this is a favoring the Axis like you think it is.

I have just lost as the Axis. Japan could not take India, then lost Philipinnes. Germany would probably have hot Moscow, but too late.
The Allies can win, but if you as a group are unhappy, give them a bid of 6-8.

I think to make a WWII game that is realistic, balanced, and fun to play and has a historical starting point you need to give it an earlier start and more vibrant political rules and victory conditions. You could start the game something like 1938 and have a buildup & influence period of a couple of rounds. Each major power should have its own victory conditions. For example, if USSR wound up conquering all of mainland Europe, that would be a total victory for the Soviet player, a total defeat for Germany and France, and a defeat for UK and USA.

@UrJohn:

I think to make a WWII game that is realistic, balanced, and fun to play and has a historical starting point you need to give it an earlier start and more vibrant political rules and victory conditions. You could start the game something like 1938 and have a buildup & influence period of a couple of rounds. Each major power should have its own victory conditions. For example, if USSR wound up conquering all of mainland Europe, that would be a total victory for the Soviet player, a total defeat for Germany and France, and a defeat for UK and USA.

It’s all about dimension, complexity and time. Global might be a better game to add all these house rules, or even have just a ‘pre-war’ phase where both Axis/Allies play diplomatic/economic to get their countries ready for war.
This maybe interesting actually to implement because it could be really short (2-3 turns) and instead of trying to reproduce everything from pre-war up to 1942 you just play a phase that affects your starting territories and units.