crsutton
Posts: 9590
Joined: 12/6/2002
From: Maryland
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Aurorus
A few observations on China. The point about China serving as a bank of VPs is not quite correct in my opinion. In order to get VPs for army losses, squads must be destroyed, usually on a follow-up attack after they have been disabled. Most Chinese units start the game with a large number of disabled squads, which can be destroyed for VPs. However, to fully realize VPs from ground combat, enemy units must be attacked several times, which often means that they must be cut-off and destroyed. Destroyed Chinese units will then reappear at Chungking, which makes the Chungking siege an enormous supply drain... enormous. The question really should be posed in the following manner: can the supply used in China score and equal number or more VPs elsewhere by destroying more ¨permanent¨ allied assets such as U.S., Australian, and British figher planes, bombers, ships, and troops and taking more bases with higher VP value for the purposes of auto-victory?
The strategic consideration is this; which path toward Japan does the Japanese player want to encourage the allies to take. Taking a middle path in China would seem to encourage the allies to focus on the liberation of Burma and to stockpile large amounts of supply in India to ¨awaken¨ the Chinese army once Burma is liberated. Ironically, by avoiding some of the ground war, the strategy of a middle path in China makes the land war for the Asian continet far more important to the outcome of the game. My question is this; isn´t the path through Burma and across the Asian continent the slower path to Japan than that which focuses more on Centpac or the DEI? Secondly, does this ¨middle path¨ in China not encourage the allied player to overlook the DEI, allowing for a stronger late-game Japanese economy in the late war?
In this particular game, Canoerebel did not really ¨take the bate,¨in that he focused more on a southern path through the DEI and into the Phillipines. I suspect, however, that most allied players, under these conditions, would have made Burma their primary focus as early as possible.
Well, I have yet to see a Japanese campaign come to anything when the Japanese player did not take China out. The problem is for Japan is that Burma will eventually fall to the Allies and once the road into China is open then supply flows amazingly well into the interior. (should not but it does) Then the issue is not necessarily land combat but big Allies airbases that can support operations against Chinese, Korean and eventually Japanese industry. North China is not so important to take, but to have any chance for an endgame the Japanese player must push through to the west-preferably all the way to Burma. Then when time comes to evacuate Burma, a solid defense can be put up in the mountains of Western China. That is what would then make it unattractive for the Allies to fight into China.
Leave Central China in Allied hands and I can pretty much guarantee you will see an eventual invasion of the Chinese mainland and a rapid collapse of Japan on the mainland.
As for diverting strength, the Allies have strength to spare. I always seek an active front in India, Burma, China and SE Asia for two reasons. It is a constant major resource burn on Japan, and the best way to train up Allied troops to expert levels is by constant fighting. By the end of my last campaign, my Indian troops were all crack units. Not necessarily full TOE but kickass nonetheless. 
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RE: August 1944 - 
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