Modifications to MWiF China Map portion

[Hortlund]

I guess that what Im trying to say is that we need more units.

I understand the reluctance to add new units since it would be a departure from the original WIFf-game.

However, when we do the map this way we are already departing from WIF. I can understand the reasons behind the map choise, and now, after some time pondering on the consequences of the new map I must say that I agree with Steve, we should do it this way, and I think it is the best idea to have the same scale all over the world.

Having said that, we must remember that the NatChi, ChiCom and Japanese OOBs were made with the old map in mind.

We cannot use the same OOB for the new map as we had for the old map. It simply wont work. Nor should it really, the old OOB was for the old map. The new map requires a new OOB. The same arguments can be presented for Africa really, but lets leave that aside since major land battles in Africa are very rare.

But while we need to add units to China and Japan, we must not alter the balance between these nations and the other nations on the map. Which is why I think it is a good idea to add a restricted command to Japan. A group of units that can only be used in China.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund
DA BA DADABABBAA BABA BA BA BABA [Mission impossible music]

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to hold this area, with 4 ChiCom armies against a potential force of 10+6 Japanese Corps. The enemy will have total air supremacy and will have artillery support.

This message will self destruct in 10 seconds.

If the entire Japanese setup forces are placed in front of the Communits, then the Nationalists can help the Communists to defend.
With the extra cities, the Communists have better chances resisting the Japanese by using delaying actions, and withdrawing to the next city when the Japs are too strong or menace outflanking.

This is reinforcing for me the need to have the Chinese setting up after the Japanese.

[Froonp]

This said (previous post) I agree that some extra Chinese & Japanese units should be created for MWiF :

- The extra Chinese units could be a couple of extra MIL, one for Yunnan, and one for another city, plus a couple of Warlords. The Yunnan MIL could be a Yunnan Warlord instead too.

- The extra Japanese units could be a couple of Warlords, plus a couple of units linked to the Puppet governement.

But I find the idea of Japanese restricted command in China that you propose not good for my taste. I do not like the special rule used here, and non existent in all the WiF world.

I'd prefer using mechanics already existing in WiF FE, and I find that Warlords are specially fitted to this problem.

Remember though that Warlords controlled by Japan still take their supply from Japan (as they are Japanese units, like Manchurian MIL & Korean MIL -- They are not like the Manchurian & Korean TERR that are Manchurian and Korean, not Japanese), so this won't be as good as it may seem.

Maybe the Warlord rule should be changed to say that the Warlord are always in supply by their mother city, as well as from their other (regular) Primary Supply sources.

[CBoehm]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

I'd prefer using mechanics already existing in WiF FE, and I find that Warlords are specially fitted to this problem.

Maybe the Warlord rule should be changed to say that the Warlord are always in supply by their mother city, as well as from their other (regular) Primary Supply sources.

From my gaming experience it is obvious to me that if a front is large relative to the number of corps on both sides this is HUGELY to the advantage of the attacker ...therefor I agree that both Japan AND China desperately needs a boost to their OOB in order to ever achieve anykind of stalemante front in China (ei. stalemate = strong reasons to stay on the defensive rather than go offensive) ...and here I completely agree that adding in a good number of warlords could help solve the problem by adding extra units to the OOB within the current WIFFE rules... as a small addition I would then suggest that warlords suffer from "chinese attack weakness" regardless of who controls them! (would help the defense a bit)

[mlees]

If there are not enough Japanese units to garrison the rear areas after rescaling the China map, should the Partisan number be adjusted downwards slightly?

(Making the required garrison values slightly easier for Japan to achieve, that is.) One of the problems mentioned so far is that Japan does not have enough units to respond to outflanking manuevers by the Chinese regular units, and also responding to partisan appearing in the back field.

How do the Warlords units "count" in terms of this garrison calculation? Should additional warlord units be created so that the Japanese can have a couple for rear area duties?

As warlords can not leave beyond a hex or so from their "home" city, you dont have to worry about them being used in India/Australia. Also, I think warlords draw supply from their "home" city, so they are difficult to be placed out of supply, and dont require precious HQ supply paths.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund
DA BA DADABABBAA BABA BA BA BABA [Mission impossible music]

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to hold this area, with 4 ChiCom armies against a potential force of 10+6 Japanese Corps. The enemy will have total air supremacy and will have artillery support.

This message will self destruct in 10 seconds.

If the entire Japanese setup forces are placed in front of the Communits, then the Nationalists can help the Communists to defend.
With the extra cities, the Communists have better chances resisting the Japanese by using delaying actions, and withdrawing to the next city when the Japs are too strong or menace outflanking.

This is reinforcing for me the need to have the Chinese setting up after the Japanese.

On the newest versions of Patrice's China map there are additional cities in the north, with potential milita. This would add to Chinese defence.

If Chinese set up after Japan and if National Chinese are allowed to set up in some of the Northern cities (Sian, Lanchow, which would be historical), perhaps this and the warlords (1-2 counters for this 2 places for Warlord Yen Hsi-shan) would add to Chinese defences in the North: There would be at least 5-6 instead of 4 Chinese Units up there. Plus Yennan militia. Plus 1-2 Nationalist units diverted to the North, depending on Japanese setup.

Another possibility would be to remove the factory and ressources in North West China (which would be historical). Now does Japan still concentrate on destroying the Chinese Communists? Or does it go for the richer South Chinese hinterland?

And as a question: are the Chinese Communists destroyable in WIFE once and for all? What happens if they loose all the cities? Do they still have partisans? And what happens about Chinese Communist production if these manage to (re)conquer a city?

Regards

[Froonp]

as a small addition I would then suggest that warlords suffer from "chinese attack weakness" regardless of who controls them! (would help the defense a bit)

This is a great idea !!!

[Froonp]

How do the Warlords units "count" in terms of this garrison calculation?

They count as any other unit.

Should additional warlord units be created so that the Japanese can have a couple for rear area duties?

Yes IMO, and a list of the suceptible new warlord counters was discussed previously on that thread.

As warlords can not leave beyond a hex or so from their "home" city, you dont have to worry about them being used in India/Australia.

It is 2 hexes in WiF FE, but I suggest this is changed to 4 or 6 hexes, as the Pacific scaled WiF hex is about 6 MWiF hexes.

Also, I think warlords draw supply from their "home" city, so they are difficult to be placed out of supply, and dont require precious HQ supply paths.

This is wrong by RAW7.
But should be changed if we want them to be more efficient, to help restoring the balance.

From RAW7 aug 04 :
"22.4.15 : Chinese Warlords (PoliF option 71)
(...)
Warlord units are treated like any other unit for all purposes except that no unit may move nor advance after combat more than 2 hexes from its home city. They can attack from that 2nd hex to a hex where they could not move to, but could not advance after combat.
(...)"

emphasis is mine.

[mlees]

It is 2 hexes in WiF FE, but I suggest this is changed to 4 or 6 hexes, as the Pacific scaled WiF hex is about 6 MWiF hexes.

6 hexes?? Yikes! that seems more mobile to me than they should be. They should be hanging around their home city, not conquering half of China!

I thought the Pacific scale was 2 to 1 in WiF. (6 to 1 was offmap boxes, like Ethiopia...)

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: mlees

It is 2 hexes in WiF FE, but I suggest this is changed to 4 or 6 hexes, as the Pacific scaled WiF hex is about 6 MWiF hexes.

6 hexes?? Yikes! that seems more mobile to me than they should be. They should be hanging around their home city, not conquering half of China!

I thought the Pacific scale was 2 to 1 in WiF. (6 to 1 was offmap boxes, like Ethiopia...)

The scale change is somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1. When both the width and height are changed, the increase in number of hexes is much more. patrice reported a growth from 70 hexes for China to 460 (if I remember correctly). That works out to 2.56:1 for those of you mathematically inclined.

So, a range of 4 or 5 from the Warlords home city would be comparable.

[Hortlund]

Adding warlords does not solve the problem however.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund
Adding warlords does not solve the problem however.

Why ?
You want more units.
Warlords are units, who are already specificaly tied to China.
Why is this not enough ?

[CBoehm]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

Adding warlords does not solve the problem however.

No I guess you are right ...with a new scale both USSR, JAP and China ...and probably India/Australia too ...will need quite a boost simply to be able to hold anykind of line (or garrison islands)... but how this should be done without influencing playbalance too much?! Perhaps adding extra crap TER, GAR and Warlords as appropriate...

With respect to India and Australia I have always held the belief that these should really have some units classified as "JP reserve" units ...perhaps with some forcepool additions labelled "JP" (only avaible when at war vs. JP) - and perhaps only eligebla to leave their homecountry 2 years after their "entry to forcepool date" - that way Australia and India could have HQs avaiable but unable to leave their homenation incase of JP invasion in 42!
(comeon if JP invaded India or Australia they SHOULD be able to build a HQ no?) ...alternatively allow condition-/cost-free advance building by one year of Indian/Australian units if invaded by enemy units!

[Hortlund]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund
Adding warlords does not solve the problem however.

Why ?
You want more units.
Warlords are units, who are already specificaly tied to China.
Why is this not enough ?

Because you have not added enough cities to make the warlords make any real difference. The solution to the new china map is not to add 10-15 warlords.

Adding these warlords might be one part of the solution though, but we need to look at more changes. Adding territorials might be another part of the solution, but that too will not be enough.

I think I outlined the basic idea in my first post in this thread. I really think we should start with looking at the density of combat factors per hex in the old map. And we need to use that as a base to get some sort of idea on how much we need in the new map. My gut tells me that we are talking about alot of new units for NatChi, ChiCom and Japan to be used in China only.

But we need to look at Manchuria aswell.

And we probably need to look at the Pacific, or at least some key areas in it. Now I dont have access to the pac map as it will look in MWIF, but let me just say that IF (and this is a big if) some areas are changed so that what used to be one-hex islands now are two-hex islands, then what we have done is create a whole new way to invade and sieze these islands, since you suddenly wont have to invade on top of the enemy unit in the one-hex island, but instead you can invade next to him and then attack him via normal ground combat the next turn.

What we dont need here, is a short-sighted temporary fix, were we just add a bunch of warlords or militia and hope for the best. We need to approach the problem with another viewpoint. Just adding warlords or cities or by making special rules for divisions with zoc's etc....all those things might be a part of the solution, but we need to look at this from a broader perspective.

[CBoehm]

I completely agree!! - the mechanics of WIF simply means that if a front is expanded from 5 to 10 (or even just 6-7 hexes) and both sides have 10 corps then what was before a stable (somewhat stalemated front) now is an extremely unstable front just waiting to be cracked...

[YohanTM2]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

This said (previous post) I agree that some extra Chinese & Japanese units should be created for MWiF :

- The extra Chinese units could be a couple of extra MIL, one for Yunnan, and one for another city, plus a couple of Warlords. The Yunnan MIL could be a Yunnan Warlord instead too.

- The extra Japanese units could be a couple of Warlords, plus a couple of units linked to the Puppet governement.

But I find the idea of Japanese restricted command in China that you propose not good for my taste. I do not like the special rule used here, and non existent in all the WiF world.

I'd prefer using mechanics already existing in WiF FE, and I find that Warlords are specially fitted to this problem.

Remember though that Warlords controlled by Japan still take their supply from Japan (as they are Japanese units, like Manchurian MIL & Korean MIL -- They are not like the Manchurian & Korean TERR that are Manchurian and Korean, not Japanese), so this won't be as good as it may seem.

Maybe the Warlord rule should be changed to say that the Warlord are always in supply by their mother city, as well as from their other (regular) Primary Supply sources.

I am glad to see you are onside with the extra units. As you know I think the work you are doing is excellent on the map. I think something has to be done to handle this extra terrian and also don't want to see special rules or worse, a formerly very interesting part of the game balance come unglued.

[YohanTM2]

ORIGINAL: CBoehm
...therefor I agree that both Japan AND China desperately needs a boost to their OOB in order to ever achieve anykind of stalemante front in China (ei. stalemate = strong reasons to stay on the defensive rather than go offensive)

why would you want this to be the default? The goal is to move the map to the European game scale, not take a great part of WiF FE and ruin it. Lots of options and decisions for both sides should be the norm.

[YohanTM2]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

And we probably need to look at the Pacific, or at least some key areas in it. Now I dont have access to the pac map as it will look in MWIF, but let me just say that IF (and this is a big if) some areas are changed so that what used to be one-hex islands now are two-hex islands, then what we have done is create a whole new way to invade and sieze these islands, since you suddenly wont have to invade on top of the enemy unit in the one-hex island, but instead you can invade next to him and then attack him via normal ground combat the next turn.

Very good point

[lomyrin]

Regarding the entire Pacific map and it's multitude of Islands that did not exist in WiFFE, they did exist in CWiF exactly as they do in MWiF. Having played a number of CWiF games, both past and present, I have no problems whatsoever with the Pacific map and its land areas. It is much more exciting and fun to use than the WiFFE map.
 
My concern lies with the changes in China and their potential to change the flow of the Pacific War.
 
Lars

[CBoehm]

ORIGINAL: Yohan

ORIGINAL: CBoehm
...therefor I agree that both Japan AND China desperately needs a boost to their OOB in order to ever achieve anykind of stalemante front in China (ei. stalemate = strong reasons to stay on the defensive rather than go offensive)

why would you want this to be the default? The goal is to move the map to the European game scale, not take a great part of WiF FE and ruin it. Lots of options and decisions for both sides should be the norm.

I do not think stalemate should ALWAYS be the case ...but it should definately be a realistic outcome of the whole situation...I do not believe in forcing players hands too much to achieve history but I do strongly believe that any rules/setup should be made so that there is atleast an ingame logic in what was done historically ...so that it "the historical" course of events will make sence from a game point of view...and thus be seen in some if not the majority of games...