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.
As far as impassible areas, China could not build from them and Japan can’t enter them.
So China could move into them, but remember this is just the bordering Eastern areas of China/Soviet Union.
Another idea is just to stop blitzing ( all units move one space in Chinese areas)
What about Chinese infantry having an attack value of 1/2. In other words, if you had four Chinese infantry in a territory you would get two rolls at a 1? Gets to the same idea IL was getting at, especially if combined with infantry only costing 2 IPC each.
Thats true but remember to consider the designers intent and make rules that look like something that are clean and less fidgety.
So perhaps 2 IPC infantry, no blitzing in China, and China needs 2 infantry to get one roll in attack, or?
Instead of inventing new combat mechanics, or making China an exception to universal rules, why not just use this?
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.
@Young:
However, they may never enter Russian territories for any reason.
That brings me back to one of the first problems I have with the China rule. Okay, so China CAN attack Korea. Well, say Japan plopped a Major IC there and has built up quite a bit of defense. Chinese forces building up in Manchuria may not have enough to attack Japan on Korea, especially since most of their attacking power will be infantry @ 1.
Now, for the sake of argument, say any Russians in the far east territories have already been killed or were called back to Moscow and there are all these Russian territories undefended. Japan sends a couple of tanks up and starts gobbling up all those easy Russian territories. Then here is China with a large force sitting in Manchuria but they can’t send any guys up to liberate the Russian territories behind the blitzing tanks, or perhaps even split their Manchurian stack and send some guys to Amur to try and box in the Japanese on Korea. So, while China may not have enough to actually attack Korea, if Japan wants to branch out from Korea, they will have to commit a sizeable force to do so and possibly leave Korea vulnerable to Chinese attack from whichever stack the Japanese don’t attack.
Random addition:
All rules are as is, except add that, China can attack ANY territory containing atleast 1 japanese unit, or that is controlled by Japan, in the Combat Movement Phase.
That gives China the power to snipe transports if necessary, and take over ANYTHING Japanese on the mainland, without allowing them to go through allied territories.
Random addition:
All rules are as is, except add that, China can attack ANY territory containing atleast 1 japanese unit, or that is controlled by Japan, in the Combat Movement Phase.
That gives China the power to snipe transports if necessary, and take over ANYTHING Japanese on the mainland, without allowing them to go through allied territories.
This seems reasonable, I mean we don’t want to totally screw Japan with China, do we?
@Young:
Random addition:
All rules are as is, except add that, China can attack ANY territory containing atleast 1 japanese unit, or that is controlled by Japan, in the Combat Movement Phase.
That gives China the power to snipe transports if necessary, and take over ANYTHING Japanese on the mainland, without allowing them to go through allied territories.
This seems reasonable, I mean we don’t want to totally screw Japan with China, do we?
Simplest and most reasonable compromise on the rule I have seen. Flexibility without a signifant historical compromise. I like this better than oob.
