ORIGINAL: Patton_71
I guess my concern with the maps is of a different nature.
And forgive me if this has been discussed before, but now that the Asian map is full-sized, it seems to me that this has had an unintended effect on game balance. With the lowering of the movement rates to the European level, along with the size increase, the Chinese front is much more a war of maneuver than ever before. With the Chi-coms only having 5 moves at most, and facing a now suddenly much more mobile enemy, with much more area to defend, I am concerned that the Chinese front can only be saved by immobilizing the USSR prior to Barbarossa. Looking at the current AAR example being run by Red Prince, the drain in the capability of Russian deployments are drastic, but still the Chinese are having difficulty matching Japanese maneuverability.
One of my personal life rules is not to raise a complaint without posing a possible solution. My suggestion is this: for every USSR land move allocated to the Chi-coms, they may move 2 units. This still allows an effect upon the Soviets, but since the Chinese front has changed from a WWI style 'hunker down and hang on' game when using the original maps to one of maneuver, I think this to be a fair compromise.
Any thoughts?
Patton
My sincerest apologies to Aaron here.
I come from the world of tournament chess where after each game the players sit down and criticize the 'heck' out of each other's play.
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Aaron wasn't very good at land defense so using his AAR as an indication of the Chinese having a hopeless position regardless of what they do isn't justified by the AAR. Take a look at what happened to France, Spain, Gibraltar, and Egypt. Would you make the claim that all of those countries are doomed to fall to the Axis before the end of 1940?
Yes, the scale has changed the action in China significantly. In fact, there are 6 times as many hexes in China now. But there is excellent defensive terrain, with a series of frontlines possible that are virtually all mountain hexes.
In the AAR:
1 - the Nationalist Chinese set up too far forward without regard to them being cut off. That let Japan penetrate the frontline in several places and destroy most of the Nationalist army with high odds attacks. Then the Japanese had an easy time of advancing into the Chinese interior.
2 - the Chinese did not make good use of the mountain terrain and alpine hexsides when forming their defensive lines.
3 - the Nationalist Chinese gave up hexes by the score rather than let Japan make a single good attack on a hex.
4 - having evacuated the mountain terrain, the Nationalist Chinese ended up making their last stand defending in clear hexes.
5 - Instead of the Communist Chinese retreating back to Lanchow where they could have held a frontline, they defended Sian, letting the Japanese get behind them so that they were surrounded and defended in a circle.
6 - The Chinese placed its only oil point in the frontline, letting it be destroyed (captured?). This made reorganization of the Chinese HQ's impossible, so once Mao became disorganized he remained disorganized and immobile (in clear terrain).
7 - I don't know what happened to the Chinese fighter, but it didn't last very long.
8 - By retreating, the Chinese gave the Japanese maximum mobility for positioning their units for attacking. When the Japanese are locked in enemy ZOCs, their 3 movement units are hard pressed to rearrange themselves to optimize attacks and/or ooze through openings in the lines. As it was, the Japanese needed to commit 3 HQ's to keep their units in supply, even after the Nationalist interior cities fell.
9 - partisans were never a concern here because the Chinese fled from the Japanese, so there were always a lot of Japanese out of enemy ZOCs to 'garrison' against partisans.
China is difficult to play, both in WIF FE and in MWIF. It doesn't take very many mistakes before the Chinese are reeling from the Japanese onslaught. But that is true in WIF FE too. Have you ever tried to hold the coastal hexes as the Chinese?
As for the Communist Chinese having too few land moves available, that wasn't a problem in the AAR game until the Nationalist Chinese had virtually disappeared from the map. Also, Aaron preferred to conduct a mobile defense (which requires a lot of land moves), retreating from the Japanese instead of holding onto mountain hexes and forcing the Japanese to attack strong points.
