Modifications to MWiF China Map portion

[Froonp]

China map north portion, with the proposals of roads from Lanchow shown.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

About Yennan:
Because it's exactly what Yennan (Yan'an) was: The capital of the biggest, most important CCP Base Area in WW2, the Shaan/Gan/Ning area (Shaansi, Gansu, Ningsia area). Mao Tse-tung and party central commitee resided there in the war (Zhou En-lai was in Chungking as liason-chef). Ammunition manufatories were located in Lanchow. Cadre universities were located there. The progressive intelligezia from whole China went there. The 1942 rectification campaigns took place there.

Yennan was overall centre of CCP - because it also was a marginal place, were no enemey had a real motivation to go, when there were other things to do. This was the result of the Long March, not a glorious propaganda tour through China, but a plain flight, escape.

I'll add this to the map, anyway it is subjected to the forum members comments (and votes) and playtest.

About Lanchow:
After playing around with CWIF I thought so, that Lanchow is Communist at set-up.
Problem is: It seems to be wrong, according to most sources, it should be national Chinese.

Your sources are solid it seems.
But if we follow reality to closely here, we will find the Communist without cities.
As you said previously, this was not a problem for communist armies to be without cities, as they lived from the lands, but given the WiF FE rules, land units are tied by the supply rules to owning cities.
We could say : "okay, then the Communist units will behave like partisan units", that is, always be in supply. But this would be too much powerful !!! The communist armies could wander the japanese rear areas at will without any problem.
So we are stuck to the supply / city rule, and we need the communist to own cities. Lanchow & Sian (plus Tianshui & Yennan) are the less worse choices.
I remember in the past, the player could choose where the communist camp would be. So the Communist bases could be Kunming for instance. This was worse than now.

This is why I think, the Yennan and the Lanchow/Sian questions are related: If the forum members would make their peace with Yennan, then the CCP would have a city base, and Sian and Lanchow could be National Chinese as IRL. The CCP regular Army in WW2 wasn't that important. Partisans were. .

Possible bottom line:
No Ressource, no infrastructure in these 2 places = no incensitive for the Japanese to attack in the North West.

This is wise, but this would be a far departure from WiF FE.
Maybe the resource in Lanchow is here to simulate the USSR help ?
It this is true, we could make it more far away from Lanchow (say 2-3 hexes down the silk road), with only a road likning both.

I could also stop the rail at Tianshui and only have a road from there to Lan Chow.

But that's the point faithful adaption to WIF FE? Or some carefully dosed adaptions to PC. And if you blow up the map of China, then maybe this idea above could help to get in historical setting and play balance

Perhaps playing around with the details while playtesting.

Regards

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Neilster




They're generally not very wide and with a few exceptions, IMHO, they weren't much of an obstacle to attackers.

With regard to the map changes, how will Chinese warlords affect all this? I've been reading a bit about them lately and they seem to have been extremely important.

Cheers, Neilster

There is an optional rule for including Chinese Warlords - 22.4.15 in RAW - from Politics in Flames.

Yes, and I seem to remember that it was also decided in the "Play Balance in China" thread to have more of them.
For the moment, we have the following warlords :
- Chengtu
- Chungking
- Kunming (T'ang Chi-yao faction)
- Lanchow (Kuo-mingchoung faction, under Feng-Youhsiang)
- Peking (Fengtien faction, under Chang-Tso-lin)
- Shanghai (Chihli faction, under Ch'uan-fang)

Could be added :
- Nanning (Kouang-Si faction)
- Changsha or Wuhan (Chihli faction, under Wu P'ei-fu)
- a second Warlord to Peking as this one seems to have a lot of territory under his rule (in 1928)
- a second Warlord to Lanchow as this one seems to have a lot of territory under his rule (in 1928)
- a second Warlord to Shanghai as this one seems to have a lot of territory under his rule (in 1928)


The Warlords factions and names in brackets are from the John Keegan (ed.), Times Atlas of Second World War, p. 33 (French edition). Wosunk surely has english names for this as he has the same book in English.
The Warlord I suggested are from the 1928 map page 33, so I'm not sure it is still current in 1939-45.

Moreover, the Warlord rule impose them not to go farther than 2 hexes from their home city.
With the scale change, I thing this should be changed from 2 to up to 4-6 hexes.

Please let me check out the Warlors factions in WW2. Because there was a tremenduous change between Keegan 1928 and WW2:
During the 10 years in between (1927-37 = Nanking decade of Nationalist Rule) warlords were slowly but not unsucessfully incorporated or destroyed by Chiang Kaiseks then German trained and advised Central Army.

Chengtu (Sichuan Province) was quite sucessfully incorporated in the National Chinese Kuomintang (KMT =National Party) regime of Chiang Kaishek. 1937 at the beginning of the war KMT hordes came from coast and took over, made chief warlord Liu Hsiang there governor of 6th war zone. Died in 1938, sucessor became provincial governor before Chiang Kaisehk himself took over the post. bottom line: no Warlord in sichuan.

Kunming: Lung Yun in War was quite independant "King of Yunnan" province, which became hotbed of liberal intellectuals during war. Lung was tolerated by Chiang because of Lungs importance and the importance of Burma Road (chinese way of policing: if you can't destroy your enemeys: embrace them)

Kweiling, Nanning, Kweiyang (Kwangsi Province): Kwangsi warlords (Pai Ch'ung-hsi et al.) strong anti Chiang Kaishek tradition in 20s-30s, but supported war effort without equivocations. bottom line: Kwangsi warlords.

Taiyuan, Sian (Shansi province): Yen Hsi-shan veteran warlord ruled from 1911-49. Lost Taiyiuan to Japanese, lost part of his Army, which defected to Communist 8th Rout Army (they wer neighbours). Got an agreement with Japanese Aug 1941 (wepons against defection from Nationalist China) but nothing came out of it, Yen went neutral for the rest of the war. bottom line: independant warlord.

Japanese Puppet regimes:

North China:

Peiping: North China Provisional Government, established 1937, (more or less ex- Peiyang Warlords) most time Leader Wang K'o-ming, 1940 because of inauguration of Wang Ching-wei Nanking government the North China Provisional Government was degraded to Council of North China's political affairs. But else nothing changed. It remained relatively autonomuous

Central China:
Shanghai / Nanjing 1938-end 40 Reformed Governement of the Republic of China, Leader Liang Hung-chih. Regional Organization.
1940-45 "Central Government" or "National Government" (Wang Ching-wei until his assasination Nov 1944). It "controlled" the area from Sichuan border to South Kwangtung, Hainan, North Kiangsi etc. with a 600.000 men Army, mainly a barrier to CCP partisans, but no menance to National Chinese Army.

Altogether
In Japanese occupied China 1,8 Million Japanese and Puppet Troops guarding a population of 183 Mio people.

Sources:
T'ien-wei Wu Contending Political Forces during the war of resistance, inJames C. Hsiung and Steven I. Levine (ed.), China's bitter Victory: The War with Japan 1937-1945, Armonk 1992, p.51-78.
Lincoln Li, The Japanese Army in North China, 1937-1945, Tokio 1975.

Regards

P.S.: For the names of the Lakes you can omit the "Hu" (last Syslable) because it means "Lake"

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Wosung,

The optional rule from Politics in Flames provides 6 Warlord units:

Chungking (5-2)
Kunming (4-2)
Cheng-Tu (2-3)
Shanghai (4-3)
Lan-Chow (3-3)
Peking (3-2)

These units are affliated with which ever group controls the city (Nationalist, Communist, or Japanese).

While this rule is written into WIF FE/RAW, it would be less controversial to modify because that WIF add-on is relatively recent.

Comments? Suggestions?

[wosung]

About last NC-map variant:

Thanks for testing, I like it much better. NC-Map is definitely much more historical than before.

Perhaps you should wait a few days for (dis)agreement of the others and other opinions and then just playtesting it.

Alternative/aditional Options for implementing historical setting up there for testing, debating:

-make Sian instead of Tienshui the railway/road exchange point or omit it from Sian westwards altogether.

-transform more clear hexes in desert hexes up there.

-transfer blue factory from Lanchow to Yennan (CCP Production).

-(a quite illusory one): ommit factory and resource altogether (= offensive war for Japanese in NC much less attractive) and let the Communists have a regular Inf etc. unit in production cycle or on map for every correspondent Japanese unit they destroy (this would simulate captured weapons).

Regards

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Wosung,

The optional rule from Politics in Flames provides 6 Warlord units:
These units are affiliated with which ever group controls the cities (Nationalist, Communist, or Japanese)

While this rule is written into WIF FE/RAW, it would be less controversial to modify because that WIF add-on is relatively recent.

Comments? Suggestions?

OK,
WIF FE Peking counter would be Council of North China's Political Affairs.

WIF FE Kunming counter would be Warlord Lung Yun.

WIF FE Chengtu, Chungking counters would be Sichuan province warlords. Afiliation rule simulates historical integration in National Chinese forces quite well.

WIF FE Lanchow counter could be Warlord Yen Hsi-shan, better should be located in Sian.

WIF FE Shanghai counter would be Reformed Government/National Government of Wang Ching-wei.

(Don't be confused by the 2 National Chinas: Chungking: Chiang Kai-shek; Nanking: Wang Ching-wei. The latter was a defector of the former-led party. Chinese politics).

I think, this Shanghai counter should be connected with Nanking, because it was capital of Wang Ching-wei government 1940-45.

And probably there should be 1-3 counters for it, probably with less combat value. One could be Shanghai-based.

Historical background: Wang Ching-wei government was by far the biggest political and military Chinese force after National China and Communist China. Theoretically Wang was even the boss of Peiping's Council of North China's Political Affairs. Wangs's Government was designed by the Japanese as whole China puppet government. That means, bigger than Sichuan warlords (2 counters). But they did not do more than anti-partisan guard.

Regards

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: wosung
WIF FE Shanghai counter would be Reformed Government/National Government of Wang Ching-wei.

(Don't be confused by the 2 National Chinas: Chungking: Chiang Kai-shek; Nanking: Wang Ching-wei. The latter was a defector of the former-led party. Chinese politics).

I think, this Shanghai counter should be connected with Nanking, because it was capital of Wang Ching-wei government 1940-45.

And probably there should be 1-3 counters for it, probably with less combat value. One could be Shanghai-based.

Historical background: Wang Ching-wei government was by far the biggest political and military Chinese force after National China and Communist China. Theoretically Wang was even the boss of Peiping's Council of North China's Political Affairs. Wangs's Government was designed by the Japanese as whole China puppet government. That means, bigger than Sichuan warlords (2 counters). But they did not do more than anti-partisan guard.

Regards

One warlord per city seems like a rule I want to keep.

How about a 3-3 in Shanghai and a 4-3 in Nanking? This gives them comparable strength to the Sichuan warlords (7). We could also go with a 5-2 and a 2-3 to match the Sichuan counters exactly.

[Froonp]

One warlord per city seems like a rule I want to keep.

How about a 3-3 in Shanghai and a 4-3 in Nanking? This gives them comparable strength to the Sichuan warlords (7). We could also go with a 5-2 and a 2-3 to match the Sichuan counters exactly.

There's already one (4-3) in Shanghai.

So you could create a (3-3) in Nanking.
Why not a third (2-2) or (2-3) in Suchow, this is the same province I believe.

This would make 2 extra warlords, both for Japan.
No extra Warlord for the Chineses ?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: wosung

About last NC-map variant:

Thanks for testing, I like it much better. NC-Map is definitely much more historical than before.

I believe I went too far with the resource that far away. I believe it would be better in the second mountain hex, on the trail. Or on its initial position, finaly. [&:]
Because the more far I put it, the more chances the Japs could cut it from Lanchow.

Perhaps you should wait a few days for (dis)agreement of the others and other opinions and then just playtesting it.

I will do.

Alternative/aditional Options for implementing historical setting up there for testing, debating:

-make Sian instead of Tienshui the railway/road exchange point or omit it from Sian westwards altogether.

I disagree. Sian has to be reachable by rail from the rear, as it is in WiF FE.

-transform more clear hexes in desert hexes up there.

I would like, but I hesitate to turn everything clear to desert. This may be too much.
Isn't it right as it is already ?

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: wosung
WIF FE Shanghai counter would be Reformed Government/National Government of Wang Ching-wei.

(Don't be confused by the 2 National Chinas: Chungking: Chiang Kai-shek; Nanking: Wang Ching-wei. The latter was a defector of the former-led party. Chinese politics).

I think, this Shanghai counter should be connected with Nanking, because it was capital of Wang Ching-wei government 1940-45.

And probably there should be 1-3 counters for it, probably with less combat value. One could be Shanghai-based.

Historical background: Wang Ching-wei government was by far the biggest political and military Chinese force after National China and Communist China. Theoretically Wang was even the boss of Peiping's Council of North China's Political Affairs. Wangs's Government was designed by the Japanese as whole China puppet government. That means, bigger than Sichuan warlords (2 counters). But they did not do more than anti-partisan guard.

Regards

One warlord per city seems like a rule I want to keep.

How about a 3-3 in Shanghai and a 4-3 in Nanking? This gives them comparable strength to the Sichuan warlords (7). We could also go with a 5-2 and a 2-3 to match the Sichuan counters exactly.

Both sounds good to me.

Alternativeley You could spread the 7 combat factors between the 3 cities Nanking, Shanghai, Hanchow.

That would underline their historical antipartisan use and low moral. Sichuan province (Chengtu and Chungking) warlords somtimes were used in bigger combat operations, hence only 2, albeit stronger units.

Regards

[Froonp]

China Coast.
I wondered it I could come up with pretty coasts [:D].
(Nothing else changed here)

By the way, no one commented on the extra mountain (circled in red).
Should it stay on the map or not ?

I for one think that a couple of mountain hexes around Anking are warranted.
On the other hand, north and nortwest of Nanyang I'm wondering if these mountain hexes are warranted [&:] .


Also, I noticed something thas sounded not good to me while drawing the coasts.
There is an all sea hexside between the hex NE of Shanghai and the hex NW of Shanghai. I think it should not be an all sea hexside.

[wosung]

Wow! Really a beautiful coast line.

I like the additional red circled mountains.

I, personally, think additional moutains around Anking are warranted.

You could make the all sea hex near Shanghai a clear hex. It would be warranted.

And your the China map Taipan. [:)]

[oldtimer]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

China map north portion, with the proposals of roads from Lanchow shown.

What ever is written in the Mountain squares in the upper right corner I cannot read at all. I can see "tart" then that is it. I assume it is a stat line but whatever color that is and the color of the mountain square completely blend together to me. (colorblind).

[oldtimer]

I didn't notice until I was really looking at the map but on the left side in the mountains I can tell something is written under the silk road but above the city Sining but I can make out ANY of the letters.

[Froonp]

What ever is written in the Mountain squares in the upper right corner I cannot read at all. I can see "tart" then that is it. I assume it is a stat line but whatever color that is and the color of the mountain square completely blend together to me. (colorblind).

This is just a mockup map to show the modifications propositions, this is not the real map from the game.
This is from a screen shot at low zoom on the game map, and then editing using Paint Shop Pro.

This is written 1939 Start Line, but it blends in the mountains.

I didn't notice until I was really looking at the map but on the left side in the mountains I can tell something is written under the silk road but above the city Sining but I can make out ANY of the letters.

There is written : Lake Chinghai.

The real map will have it more readable, I admit that I didn't care to be able to read it clearly on this mockup map. Even I can't read it [:D].

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: oldtimer

I didn't notice until I was really looking at the map but on the left side in the mountains I can tell something is written under the silk road but above the city Sining but I can make out ANY of the letters.

This color is also used to describe rivers and lakes. Whatever the color is; it hurts to look at.

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

No minor port at Hangchow? Anyone know if that's historical? Is it a play balance thing?

[Froonp]

No minor port at Hangchow? Anyone know if that's historical? Is it a play balance thing?

No port here.
I wondered too, but there is none on the WiF FE map.

Here is the coast again, couldn't resist [:D].
Finaly, I managed to make the coasts look like the coasts of the European maps.

[oldtimer]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

What ever is written in the Mountain squares in the upper right corner I cannot read at all. I can see "tart" then that is it. I assume it is a stat line but whatever color that is and the color of the mountain square completely blend together to me. (colorblind).

This is just a mockup map to show the modifications propositions, this is not the real map from the game.
This is from a screen shot at low zoom on the game map, and then editing using Paint Shop Pro.

This is written 1939 Start Line, but it blends in the mountains.

I didn't notice until I was really looking at the map but on the left side in the mountains I can tell something is written under the silk road but above the city Sining but I can make out ANY of the letters.

There is written : Lake Chinghai.

The real map will have it more readable, I admit that I didn't care to be able to read it clearly on this mockup map. Even I can't read it [:D].

Thanks for the explanation Froonp.

[Rexor]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

No minor port at Hangchow? Anyone know if that's historical? Is it a play balance thing?

No port here.
I wondered too, but there is none on the WiF FE map.

Here is the coast again, couldn't resist [:D].
Finaly, I managed to make the coasts look like the coasts of the European maps.

Sweet.[:)]