Hortlund
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
There aren't enough Chinese units!
There aren't enough Japanese units!
Does no one see any contradiction in those statements?
I dont see a contradiction in those statements because I dont think there is a contradiction. Imagine an OOB where Germany has 3 units, and Russia has 3 units. In such a situation, it would be perfectly valid to say that there are not enough German units, and there are not enough Russian units. And these two statements does not cancel eachother out.
quote:
Hey, it's going to be different. China in WIF FE is completely different from every other theater in the war. That is true for CWIF and it will be true for MWIF.
If you are planning to multiply the number of hexes by orders of magnitude without adding more units, then yes, its going to be different.
The problem is that when you add hexes and not units on the scale we see in China now, is that you change the nature of the game completely. With the changes you are doing now you are turning China into something very new, very different and very surreal.
Look at the two images I posted. A Chinese player will be forced with a number of very ankward alternatives and choises. First he must decide whether to defend Chunking or in the South. Because he definitively cannot do both. Now lets assume that he tries to defend a normal line. He sets up in the mountains and he tries to defend Si-An, Chunking and Nanning with resource. That gives him a defensive line consisting of ~20 hexes long.
On top of that we add the ChiComs with their 4 corps and the defense of Lan Chow (~8 hexes).
So, in effect you are asking a player to defend a line consisting of ~30 hexes with 19 units. That in itself is a tall order. But we have to remember that to reach this line in the first place, China will have had to abandon everything east of their mountainline. So, the Japanese get everything east of the mountains for free. (If you want we can attempt to defend the resource south of Chansa too and extend our Chinese defensive line with ~10 hexes.)
So, to defend the 30 hexes with the 19 units, the player will have been forced to abandon both industry and resources...his BPs will suffer on turn 1.
Ok, over to the Japanese side.
Here we have 10 Corps setting up in China and 5 in Manchuria. Suppose he decides to roll down the Chinese line from north to south. He sets up 2-3 Corps to cover the land in the south, and the rest goes up north. Here he gets a local superiority of 12-13 Corps against 4 ChiComs.
But there is more. Japan starts with 3 trp and one amp. That means he can lift 4 corps from Japan to China on turn 1. These he can either reinforce the south, or add to the devastating superiority in the north. Lets assume that he just use these to reinfoce the south.
The fate of ChiCom is pretty clear. With these changes, they just die. They cant hold, it is impossible. If we add warlords they get what...2-3 more units? That does not change anything.
And after the fall of ChiCom, NatChi now must defend a line 21 hexes long. But to have the frontline being only 21 hexes, he must abandon everything except the mountainline protecting Chungking and down to Nanning. The Japanese player can decide to attack from the north or the south, or both. He has the HQs to do that. The Chinese player however can forget everything about attacking he has one HQ, and his units will run out of their supply lines fast.
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If you are hoping for MWIF to recreate the strength density per frontline hex that WIF FE has in China, you are going to be bitterly disappointed. To do that would require a massive overhaul of all aspects of the game, worldwide.
No, like I have suggested, if you add forces that can only be used in China, Manchuria, Korea, then you have not changed anything outside those places. To add a bunch of territorials that can only be used in Manchuria, Korea, China is not exactly something thar requires a massive overhaul of anything. You would not even have to change the rules. And what exactly would the principal difference be between adding a handful of territorials and adding a handful of warlords?
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Indeed, I doubt that there is a single aspect of the game that would not be affected by a mere 50% increase in troop strength (combat factors) in China. So, should you get your wish and dozens of more units were added to the Chinese (who need them to cover all the extra hexes) and the Japanese (who need them to cover all the extra hexes) you would find that the USSR is easy for the Japanese to overwhelm, and so is the CW, and it is easy for the Japanese to improve how they defend every island in the Pacific. And so on around the globe with repercussions.
No. You must have missunderstood my suggestion. If we add 20 units to China that can only be used in China and 20 units to Japan that can only be used in China, that wont have any repercussions anywhere but in China.
HOWEVER, what I have said about China also applies in Manchuria and in Korea.
quote:
Try accepting the change that you have fewer units to defend a long front. How do you do that? Have you played Finland against the USSR in the Winter War? How about the Italians defending East Africa from the CW? How about the USSR defending against Germany in 1940? WIF FE has these situations come up and the game isn't a total rout or completely unplayable. It's just different from what you are used to have happen in China.
Yes, I have played Finland trying to defend against the USSR, and I have played Italy trying to defend East Africa.
But to be honest, any Italian player that tries to hold East Africa against the UK is just suicidal since it is as good as impossible to keep the units in East Africa supplied. To be honest, the first thing you do as Italy is to withdraw from East Africa.
And to be honest, defending Finland against the USSR has got nothing whatsoever to do with the China situation, since the Finnish defence usually consists of massing all your units in 2-3 key hexes.
You are creating a situation in China which makes China impossible to defend. To defend a line that is not plausible to hold, China has to abandon some of its industry and resources. So China will lose BPs leading to fewer units still, while the Japanese player can focus on China and simply swarm the Chinese defences.
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As for mimicing reality, Harry Rowland said that WIF players never stop attacking, so the way China plays out in WIF games is markedly different from history.
Look, I know that you want to change as little as possible in the game. And I respect that. But you have made the desicion to change the map in a very big way. I respect that desicion and I am quite convinced that it is a good idea. But you must acknowledge the fact that the OOB was designed with the old map in mind. And when you change the map you will have to change the OOB aswell.
The alternative is to create a MWIF where China is always knocked out of the war before the end of 1940. In China, you are asking a player to defend 30+ hexes with the same units that he used to defend 10 hexes (on the old map). And even when the Chinese defence line consisted of 10 hexes, the Chinese player often had a heck of a time trying to survive. Ive player China in wif and been defeated by late 1940 by a concentrated Japanese effort, so I know that its hard enough to do in the old map.
And note here that these are all "game arguments" and not "history arguments".
< Message edited by Panzerjaeger Hortlund -- 6/6/2006 2:44:25 PM >
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RE: Modifications to MWiF China Map portion - 
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