Modifications to MWiF China Map portion

[CBoehm]

I kind of like seing the provinces ...perhaps if they were marked with only a thin grey line and names written in light grey print ...so not to be too obtrusive on the eyes ...?

ofcause this WOULD be more interesting if the provinces actually had a meaning in the game ...ei. such as partisan activity or establishing control in case of surrender or Vichy installment ...but I guess then it would not be WIF (or atleast RAW)

[Neilster]

My vote, default off. Clutter and only confuse newbies even more.

Cheers, Neilster

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Neilster
My vote, default off. Clutter and only confuse newbies even more.

Cheers, Neilster

Having thought this over for a couple of days, I am coming down on the side of No. They would be nice to include, but so would a long list of other things. This goes onto the list of items for MWIF product 2.

Part of the reason is that the way MWIF handles boundaries is by having each hex belong to a geographic region. Then geographic regions are clumped together to form larger regions and so on. This lets Rumania, for example, have 4 parts: Bessarabia, Dobruja, Transylvania, and Rumania proper. The first 3 are 'governed areas' within Rumania. To use this system in China, France, the USA, et al would require redfining the hexes in all of those countries. That's straightforward to do, but tedious and time consuming. No real benefit at this time other than glitz.

[Anendrue]

Way too cluttered. The map is busy and it becomes hard enough with counters everywhere.
 
However on the side of the AI, small mini fronts to defend might be more workable than long strings of connected hexes. Maybe define provinces in a CSV file with levels of criticalness to hold so that Objectives can be held more tenaciously.

[wosung]

Back from holidays in France (north of La Rochelle). Great country for holidays.

And, Patrice: Chapeau les bleus! (Yesterday French football/soccer team knocked out Brazil)

Wow, Yennan is still on map! I like that.

On-map Representation of Nanyang and Hankiang-Yangtze area seems to be ok:

1. In WW2 Nanyang wasn't rail station (only air traffic). I missed that one. It should be open to the East.

2. The Wuhan /Ichang area should be in a huge valley, surrounded by bad terrain.

3. Placement of the Changchow - Wuhan Railway seems much better.

4. According to my maps Kweiyang is in about 1.000-1.500 m. altitude. South of it 50% same altitude, 50% valleys (500-1.000 m.)


Other points:

1. What about the bizarre Paotow-Peking railway? Paotow was to be omitted as final station, because of logistic considerations. Will this railway appendix still be on-map?

2. Personally I like the representation of provincial borders, because apart from a few big cities like Peking and Shanghai, provinces really were/are more important geographical/historical units, esp. when playing with warlords. There were "Kwangsi-warlords", not "Nanning-warlords". So for WIF Chinese provinces do have more meaning than, say the French ones.
But Steve has decided the matter. And I wouldn't like to have delays on this one, like all the others of you.


Historical frontlines in China
I checked out different maps: No maps in Chinese encyclopedias (even in multivolumed ones on military matters). None about Nationalist areas. Only on partisan areas.

With the Western ones, problem is, that Sept. 39 isn't exactly an important date for frontline in China. Best Western ones I found were:

1. Cambridge history of China, Fairbank/Feuerwerker (Eds.), Vol. 13.2., p. 149.

At least a July/Dec 1941 start line. Plus Dec 41-Aug 45. And: It shows the huge parts of unoccupied areas behind the Japanese frontline (not only partisan areas): Fukien (minus treaty ports) was practically never occupied. Of Kwangsi, Kwangtung, Kiangsi and Chekiang provinces only about 33-50% ever were Japanese occupied (mainly the important railway corridors.) I think, unfortunately, I can't post a photo of that map, because of copyright.

2. Oxford companion to the Second World War, Dear (ed.) p. 230.

Start lines 1939, 1944. But not as accurate as Cambridge History, because some Provinces are entirely marked as Japanese occupied, even if only railways were occupied.

So perhaps unoccupied/partisan areas plus the new treaty ports could be represented with the various start lines?

Patrice, which book did you order?

Regards

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: wosung
Back from holidays in France (north of La Rochelle). Great country for holidays.
And, Patrice: Chapeau les bleus! (Yesterday French football/soccer team knocked out Brazil)

Thanks !!! I looked that match. I'm not a football fan, but when the French team plays the world cup, or when the Marseilles team playes European match, I usually watch it. France played very well, and I'm happy we bet those Brazilians. The players from both camps really seems to have enjoyed the game, it was great !

Wow, Yennan is still on map! I like that.
On-map Representation of Nanyang and Hankiang-Yangtze area seems to be ok:
1. In WW2 Nanyang wasn't rail station (only air traffic). I missed that one. It should be open to the East.
2. The Wuhan /Ichang area should be in a huge valley, surrounded by bad terrain.
3. Placement of the Changchow - Wuhan Railway seems much better.
4. According to my maps Kweiyang is in about 1.000-1.500 m. altitude. South of it 50% same altitude, 50% valleys (500-1.000 m.)

I'm happy those are OK for you.

Other points:

1. What about the bizarre Paotow-Peking railway? Paotow was to be omitted as final station, because of logistic considerations. Will this railway appendix still be on-map?

Sure. It is like that on the WiF FE paper maps, no reasons it's not like that in the MWiF map. It's no problem having the rail ending with no cities.

2. Personally I like the representation of provincial borders, because apart from a few big cities like Peking and Shanghai, provinces really were/are more important geographical/historical units, esp. when playing with warlords. There were "Kwangsi-warlords", not "Nanning-warlords". So for WIF Chinese provinces do have more meaning than, say the French ones.

I agree

Patrice, which book did you order?

This one : Oxford companion to the Second World War
I have it now.

I'm happy you came back and you somehow reviewed the latest changes to the map.
Its latest incarnation (version 6e) was sent to Steve, who will beging making it into MWiF sometime soon. Here is what it looks.
He said there will be 3 versions to choose from for the players.
- One as it is.
- One with a few cities added (dark blue cities & ports added).
- One with a lot cities added (dark blue AND violet cities & ports added).

Playtest will soon be able to start on this.

[Zorachus99]

Wow Froonp, (what is a Froonp anyway?),

GREAT WORK!

It intuitively looks MUCH better than the printed pacific map. WOW! Weather zone, terrain, cities, the start line. Awesome job!

Just imagine I have been completely against changing the maps because of map bloat. The work here proves that something better can be done, and is worthwhile.

Let the play test begin, I'll be interested in turn-by-turn results if anyone is willing to post them; love to try it myself no less.

[Ullern]

And a good map it is. [8D]

Patrice, Mountains around Kweiyang? You decided no?

Steve, which map version will be "standard" - with regards to AI and tournament play? - or will play testing decide that.
Also I think that those who have already played CWIF or MWIF are fairly unanimous that the as is version makes it too easy for Japan?

Nils

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99
Wow Froonp, (what is a Froonp anyway?),

Nothing, just a screen name, anagram of my real Italian sourced name, that I'm using since years in games & online things & the like.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: ullern
Patrice, Mountains around Kweiyang? You decided no?

I think I'm leaving it as is.
This Kweiyang area makes me think a little to the Chungking area, which is high, but not very rugged, not enough to warrant mountain hexes.
I've added enough forests in the whole south, so I think this may be better to leave it as is.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99
Wow Froonp, (what is a Froonp anyway?),

GREAT WORK!

It intuitively looks MUCH better than the printed pacific map. WOW! Weather zone, terrain, cities, the start line. Awesome job!

Just imagine I have been completely against changing the maps because of map bloat. The work here proves that something better can be done, and is worthwhile.

Let the play test begin, I'll be interested in turn-by-turn results if anyone is willing to post them; love to try it myself no less.

I agree. A couple of stray points.

- Patrice did the bulk of the work, and he did it extremely well. But others made important contributions, even those who merely voted were of significant help [as Patrice would be sure to acknowledge I am certain].

- The rail lines that go nowhere can actually be used when playing by placing an HQ on them to act as a temporary rail head.

- "Problems are opportunities." Take something that is messy or doesn't work right, and use the fact that it is different to make it better than everything else around it. This transformation of China is a good case example.

- Restraining Warlords to operate within provinces instead of within a radius of a city sounds real good to me (as a player) and is the best argument I have heard for including the Chinese provinces as part of the map. Yes, it is a change from WIFFE, but it relates to a rather recent WIF rule, is self contained (only affects the Warlord's range), and since no code has been written for the Warlords yet (CWIF did not have them at all) ... this is open to discussion. I would have the capital of the province, or a single city within the province, act as the Warlords 'capital' which means that whoever controls the Warlords capital, controls the Warlords (with 'Control' as defined by WIFFE).

[Ullern]

I realise that my question to Steve in the previous post 467 would be partially answered had I read the June summary first, which I didn't. But in the June summary I did ge the impression there should be only two map versions, not three. Did I read it too fast, or what is correct?

And Patrice does a great job still [:)]

Nils

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: ullern

I realise that my question to Steve in the previous post 467 would be partially answered had I read the June summary first, which I didn't. But in the June summary I did ge the impression there should be only two map versions, not three. Did I read it too fast, or what is correct?

And Patrice does a great job still [:)]

Nils

I would like to end up with only two choices on the optional rules menu. The players could modify the data files if they want to tailor the system more.

For beta test, we will start by adding fewer cities and then see if more are needed.

[Froonp]

- Patrice did the bulk of the work, and he did it extremely well. But others made important contributions, even those who merely voted were of significant help [as Patrice would be sure to acknowledge I am certain].

Sure.
If you want to see the first try I achieve, alone, on the China map, you'll see how important contributions from WiF learned or Geography learned people are to me for modyfying the map.

- Restraining Warlords to operate within provinces instead of within a radius of a city sounds real good to me (as a player) and is the best argument I have heard for including the Chinese provinces as part of the map. Yes, it is a change from WIFFE, but it relates to a rather recent WIF rule, is self contained (only affects the Warlord's range), and since no code has been written for the Warlords yet (CWIF did not have them at all) ... this is open to discussion. I would have the capital of the province, or a single city within the province, act as the Warlords 'capital' which means that whoever controls the Warlords capital, controls the Warlords (with 'Control' as defined by WIFFE).

Yes that's a good idea to restrain Warlords to Provinces. I'm 100% sure that if the Provinces were drawn on the map, Harry would have made the Warlord rule this way.
As for the Warlord "capital", we need to take the present city that is written on the present counter first, and then for new warlords we will have to decide.

[Zorachus99]

Are Japanese owned warlords going to have the lend-lease stripe on them to differentiate the units?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

Are Japanese owned warlords going to have the lend-lease stripe on them to differentiate the units?

Maybe they could simply become Red.

The same goes for the Territorials. For example if Russia Conquers Manchuria, Russia can build the Manchu TERR. How will the color of those TERR be handled here too ? I don't remember how it was handled in CWiF, I don't remember if it was handled at all.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

Are Japanese owned warlords going to have the lend-lease stripe on them to differentiate the units?

Maybe they could simply become Red.

The same goes for the Territorials. For example if Russia Conquers Manchuria, Russia can build the Manchu TERR. How will the color of those TERR be handled here too ? I don't remember how it was handled in CWiF, I don't remember if it was handled at all.

Territorials have the color of the controlling major power - however, each nationality has a different interior color for the NATO icon. Since these are land units, and therefore do not have bitmapped images, it is easy to revise the background color whenever needed.

On a related point, for captured naval units (e.g., when Vichy is declared), MWIF will place a stripe across the top of the counter - it will extend through all the numbers at the top.

[composer99]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

Are Japanese owned warlords going to have the lend-lease stripe on them to differentiate the units?

Maybe they could simply become Red.

The same goes for the Territorials. For example if Russia Conquers Manchuria, Russia can build the Manchu TERR. How will the color of those TERR be handled here too ? I don't remember how it was handled in CWiF, I don't remember if it was handled at all.

CWiF changed the colour of the TERR.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
- Restraining Warlords to operate within provinces instead of within a radius of a city sounds real good to me (as a player) and is the best argument I have heard for including the Chinese provinces as part of the map. Yes, it is a change from WIFFE, but it relates to a rather recent WIF rule, is self contained (only affects the Warlord's range), and since no code has been written for the Warlords yet (CWIF did not have them at all) ... this is open to discussion. I would have the capital of the province, or a single city within the province, act as the Warlords 'capital' which means that whoever controls the Warlords capital, controls the Warlords (with 'Control' as defined by WIFFE).

I would vote for restraining Warlords to operate within provinces instead of within a fixed radius of a city.

1. It will substitute artificial geometrical homogenity ("within 2 hexes") with a more interesting historical setting: Some warlords just will have bigger or strategically better situated provinces and the corresponding movement allowance. Players will have to deal with that.

2. It will also help communication between players. Easier to talk about one province with a complicated name, than to talk about 3 cities with complicated names.

Small corrections for the 1939 start-line:
1. In the Taiyuan-Yennan-Kaifeng area it should follow directly the Hwangho (Yellow river), except the 2 clear hexes NW of Chengchow.

2. There should be a (1-2 hexed) Japanese pincer from Wuhan to Ichang. There was a Japanese offensive in that direction already 1938/39.

Sources:
Cambridge History of China, Vol.13.2, (ed.) Fairbank/Feuerwerker, p.549.
Oxford compangion to WW2, (ed.) Bear, p. 230. (although not clear on the Ichang pincer).

We'll also have to check out the start lines in China for the other scenarios. Unfortunately most maps just show a 1941/44 frontline and no partisans or unoccupied areas behind Japanese front.

[Fishbed]

From what I can say being where I am right now, nice work [:D]
 
Merci Froonp, je vois que tout cela est entre de bonnes mains [8D]