Japan/China game balance

[erstad]

Strictly speaking, this is an "opponents wanted" message but i want to attract the attention of those who were asserting that Japan could "steamroll" China, whether or not they were actively looking for a real game. My mind isn't made up on that question and I'm looking at an option to answer it.

I'd like to try my hand at defeating the "Japanese steamroller" in China. Anyone interested in trying to kick my butt in a test game? Ideally someone who's convinced Japan can't lose? I'm thinking something like this:

2 day turns
Non-historical start, no restrictions on first turn

House rules:
Only active theater is china (and adjacent things like flying in supply from burma or whatever). Everything else is stood down.
No shock attacks
No bombing of industry
Both sides meet garrison requirements at all times


Allied forces:
Everything that starts in China
Air units in China, Burma, India (not Malaya)
ENG units in CBI
Naval units only if needed to move supply to east india (haven't played allied so don't know if that's necessary)

Japanese forces:
Everything that starts in China
- Exception: 38th div can help take Hongkong, but then needs to be shipped out. The southern army div that starts in Shanghai (4th?) also ships out
Anything that is bought out of Manchuria with PPs. Full PPs need to be paid for each air unit, no using any of the shortcuts/cheats. Japan can use 2/3 of the PP accrued to date, the other 1/3 need to be banked.
There's a regiment or two that start at Hanoi, those can be moved to China
Naval units can be used to supply china or invade coastal cities.
Air that starts outside china can't fly missions in china

Both sides:
If either of us see something not listed above we'd like to use and it seems reasonable we negotiate in good faith. If it's bringing in KB for a month, nope. If it's "Gee, I'd like to do a BB bombardment of Wuchow for a couple of turns", sure.

Duration: I'm thinking at least two game months. At that point, we can decide if we want to continue or call it a day.

Frequency: I can probably get a turn a day in, although my main PBEM will take priority so I might miss occasionally. Can do multiple turns weekends if our schedules coincide.

AAR: I'm too lazy to do one, but if you want to that's fine. Given the interest in china game balance I would assume we would at minimum post an occasional status for folks, possibly just in this thread.

[erstad]

bump.

All these folks who are convinced that the Japanese are destined to steamroll china and no-one willing to prove it out?

I'm not saying I know that I can defend china - maybe I can't. But I'd sure like to give it a shot and see what happens.

(I did get one nibble via PM that I responded to but I haven't heard anything further so I'm assuming that's not going anywhere)

[erstad]

Looks like the nibble was a bite after all. (Do fishing metaphors translate well to other languages? Probably not).

We're negotiating final HRs. Tally Ho!

[loricas]

i'm the nibble than become bite. as i think this game as a study of balance in china front, and do to the fact the erstad and i do not probably have time to make a AAR, i think it was great if we have "military observer" in our match to report to comunity if the situations of our game is due to different players skill and mistake, or for a combination of game mechanics there is (as i think now), a very few choice that china player can take to stop the starting japan offensive.

so i ask to two men, one thinking the china front is not balanced, to observe my moves/choice and report to forum, and another thinking is balanced made the same on my opponent (obiouvsly if he agree) moves/choice. in this way we can have more point of wiev of the same situations

well i ask for two, but if there are more are all welcome

[Jaroen]

ORIGINAL: erstad

I'd like to try my hand at defeating the "Japanese steamroller" in China. Anyone interested in trying to kick my butt in a test game? Ideally someone who's convinced Japan can't lose? I'm thinking something like this:

2 day turns
Non-historical start, no restrictions on first turn

House rules:
Only active theater is china (and adjacent things like flying in supply from burma or whatever). Everything else is stood down.
No shock attacks
No bombing of industry
Both sides meet garrison requirements at all times

Sorry for inserting this not quite related query! But . . .
How can you certify/test the Japanese "Steamroller" leaving shock attacks out!?
Aren't the shock attacks not the main issue in this matter?

A true test would be leaving the shock attacks in! Or do you plan to show that shock attacks really make a big difference?

Good luck with this interesting test play!

Jaroen.

[aztez]

Good luck with.

You are going to play an campaign game in other areas too correct?

The threatening Burma road and thus allied possible air reinforcements are tied down, etc.

I think so too that shock assaults should be allowed. These really make a lot diffrence in terms how the game engine handles ground combat results.

In my opinion shock assaults must be allowed.

Also since this is an test game for you two than I think it is even proper leave industry bombings on allowed status. That is the way it was designed.

Looking forward to this.

[loricas]

ORIGINAL: aztez

Good luck with.

You are going to play an campaign game in other areas too correct?

The threatening Burma road and thus allied possible air reinforcements are tied down, etc.

I think so too that shock assaults should be allowed. These really make a lot diffrence in terms how the game engine handles ground combat results.

In my opinion shock assaults must be allowed.

Also since this is an test game for you two than I think it is even proper leave industry bombings on allowed status. That is the way it was designed.

Looking forward to this.

no: we play scen 1 but moving only in china, with HR to define how to interact with arbitrary out of game, rest of map. we both have Pbem still running,and a real life to taking into account.

for my point of wiew this is a test to prove if the balance (stalemate with starting forces) can be attained with few HR, without the need of staff interventing. so i agree with erstad on this two as is common used. but the shock assault is a good point.
for strategic japan bombing i think is as it is now due to the difficult to forbid a specific air mission in a part of the map only.
By pm we are discuss now on HR regarding around unit and regions: burma, Formosa, and so on. same are arbitrary for exemple the proportion in PP spend, as there are people that in a all out CG spend all in china and palyers that spend none. i think that apart HR the spirit that must lead our choices is: in a GC you made this move? well you can do also here. if in GC you din't made this move the same you made here.
for exemple i asked that the two para starting in formosa are included in japan force becouse i've a plan for this two for openings turns AND in GC china player act taking in account that japan can made airdrops
for burma: maybe that a japan player with china conquer goal act to close burma road asap, accepting a slow malaya operations. but taking this in account open to a huge amount of possibility that are out of scope: with Burma open all the time we see what happen. if erstad don't stop me, or inflict serious damage, we see that situation can be even worst. if they stop checking the china supply status we see what is with this supply and a indication of their incidence on the china campaign: maybe we start with a goal and finish only to give allied players a critical motive to fight for rangoon [;)]

[Smeulders]

If you're still looking for a neutral observer, then I volunteer to do that. I'm not sure in which category you'll put me, I think that it's impossible that, for players of even skill, the Chinese will stop the Japanese, but do think it's possible to force them to commit to only a few fronts/cities, so broad offensives across all of China aren't a possibility. 

[erstad]

From my perspective, I'm not as much concerned with whether the game is unbalanced "out of the box" as much as I am whether with a few simple house rules it can work. Note that most of the house rules proposed by loricas and myself are really targeted at defining how one runs just the China theater in Scenario 1. For a grand campaign, the only applicable rules are
- Pay PPs to get units out of Manchuria
- No shock attacks (obviously excepting river crossings and paradrops)
- No industry bombing

If, for example, shock attacks are what unbalances the China theater, we could ping on the devs to do something about it, or we can simply agree not to shock attack in China. It's no different than in Witp-classic when people realized that allowing unrestricted movement of units out of Manchuria was unbalancing, and so virtually every game I know of requires payment of PPs to free the units.

Two other notes:
- I didn't address the Burma road in my original HRs because of the limited time duration. If we keep going, I would think loricas and I would agree on a date for Rangoon to fall and I would just move my units out so he could easily land there.
- I'm honestly a bit on the fence as to how this turns out, but if I do get steamrolled my next thought is to find a taker under the same rules but not allowing any units to be pulled from Manchuria. Again, that's a pretty simple HR to implement if that's what it takes to balance things.

[jwilkerson]

We had a "shock attack // no shock attack" debate back in WITP arena. IIRC, Moses thought shock attacks were necessary to help China balance against Japan, whereas Halsey was the "no shock attack" advocate. The requisite "show down" matches never came off though, so the question really remained open and I would say remains open for AE as well.

Certainly "fire power wise" Japan seems to have a bit more of an advantange in AE vis-a-vis WITP, but China has more units and the map has more hexes, so this might be a balancing factor.

My theory is that things are more balanced than they seem, but none of the public AARs we have going right now are really doing a full "active" offense/defense strategy for China, which is what seemed to work best in WITP. This idea is based on the assumption that for either side to pull together enough troops to sustain an offensive in one area, requires pulling troops away from another area. So the other side then has some offensive opportunities in this other area.

In my 2x2 AAR game, Rob/Tony are sending small units running around in the rear, but these units are weak enough that I can hunt them down with Chinese puppet troops.

In our playtesting, one pair of play testers consistently seemed to be able to stalemate China, this was Scholl on Allied side versus Sonny II on Japanese side. IIRC the one time I played Chinese in a CG PBEM I did get an advantage and same when I played Japanese side, but the people I was playing against probablyl prefer to have the China theater inactive by house rule.

So, net/net I think erstad challenge is valid and I am interested in how it turns out. Unfortunately I don't think I can participate right now as I am swamped already.

I also think this test might need a few more parameters around how much supply and airforce either side can bring in from the outside.

[erstad]

I also think this test might need a few more parameters around how much supply and airforce either side can bring in from the outside.

We did limit the airforce in the HRs. Although loricas proposed a couple of adjustments which I've accepted. I'll post a new set of HRs once we're 100% final. Whether it's the *right* limitation on air could be debated, but both of us are trying to be apply the criteria "what would I likely do in a grand campaign"

He did ask if I wanted to limit supply, and for only a couple of months I suggested we not worry about it. Japan starts with some large stockpiles of supply and whether going full bore in China for a couple of months is a blip or mortgaging the future I don't know that I know enough to say. Certainly in a GC Japan could keep China fully supplied if they chose to, and it's hard to represent any tradeoffs in a limited scenario like this.

I assume everyone watching this realizes than one test game is not the ultimate answer to all questions. A lot will depend on our relative styles, goals, and luck; and how they mesh together.

[jwilkerson]

Some Japanese supply will likely "roll in" from Manchuko and some Chinese supply from Burma/India. But this will happen in CG too at least early in the game.

[SuluSea]

Sounds like a good deal, real interested how this turns out best of luck to you guys.

[racndoc]

Hopefully play balance in China is addressed in a future patch.

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: AdmSpruance

If U R going to do a test then it has to be ALL OUT...NO HR....shock attacks and bombing from hell or your "tests" are irrelevent.

Again, my intent is to see if I can show that with a reasonable set of house rules that one can obtain reasonable outcomes in China. If someone else wants to do something different, more power to them. But just about every Witp-classic game I ever saw (excepting Mogami's lunacy series) had house rules, house rules don't bother me if they are simple enough to be easily implemented.

I would call this an experience more than a test. A test implies that the outcome will be highly significant and demonstrate some point. Win or lose, this is only one of many possible games. But if I do OK, it at least demonstrates that it is possible for the Chinese to do OK.

[loricas]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

We had a "shock attack // no shock attack" debate back in WITP arena. IIRC, Moses thought shock attacks were necessary to help China balance against Japan, whereas Halsey was the "no shock attack" advocate. The requisite "show down" matches never came off though, so the question really remained open and I would say remains open for AE as well.

Certainly "fire power wise" Japan seems to have a bit more of an advantange in AE vis-a-vis WITP, but China has more units and the map has more hexes, so this might be a balancing factor.

My theory is that things are more balanced than they seem, but none of the public AARs we have going right now are really doing a full "active" offense/defense strategy for China, which is what seemed to work best in WITP. This idea is based on the assumption that for either side to pull together enough troops to sustain an offensive in one area, requires pulling troops away from another area. So the other side then has some offensive opportunities in this other area.

In our playtesting, one pair of play testers consistently seemed to be able to stalemate China, this was Scholl on Allied side versus Sonny II on Japanese side. IIRC the one time I played Chinese in a CG PBEM I did get an advantage and same when I played Japanese side, but the people I was playing against probablyl prefer to have the China theater inactive by house rule.

i tried a offense\defense strategy in my pbem: i made three huge china army (1800av)to attack japan divisions alone or in pair when in clear: it work well for now, the first army destroy 1 division equivalent, the second army start their ops now so we see. but is a high risk in AE: the attacker go a faster speed than defender as i think is a common tactict to enter defender hex in move mode.and also it burn supply and with half of chinese supply in advanced undefendable citys i don't think i can use for a long time.

[loricas]

ORIGINAL: erstad

ORIGINAL: AdmSpruance

If U R going to do a test then it has to be ALL OUT...NO HR....shock attacks and bombing from hell or your "tests" are irrelevent.

Again, my intent is to see if I can show that with a reasonable set of house rules that one can obtain reasonable outcomes in China. If someone else wants to do something different, more power to them. But just about every Witp-classic game I ever saw (excepting Mogami's lunacy series) had house rules, house rules don't bother me if they are simple enough to be easily implemented.

I would call this an experience more than a test. A test implies that the outcome will be highly significant and demonstrate some point. Win or lose, this is only one of many possible games. But if I do OK, it at least demonstrates that it is possible for the Chinese to do OK.

i agree with erstad: we test what appen in china with a few simple HRs(we play 2 days turn, and this change samething, probably in favour of balance. it was interesting if sameone want made a test using the same HR we use with 1 day turns). i'm also have nothing trouble with hr. around all board wargame i play in the last 20 years need HR.
if same of the HRs can became a roule better. and if we see a set of suggested HR coming from developers was useful, for the areas where due to engine it is nothing to do.
without HR: we know what appen, and we can immagine what appen after SRA operation is closed, as i see no reasons now for japan to don't make china first operational front to finish what started: acceptable in fantasy game. not in a historical (in my opinion)

[loricas]

ORIGINAL: AdmSpruance
How about the PPs. Japan can use PPs in 1/42 to buy units from Manchuria with 80 experience to commit to the Pacifc that historically never fought there. The Allies on the other hand have to buy everything....even 2nd Marine IR and 164th IR and 7th Division and on and on that historically fought in the Pacific.

yapan can also free the 2 air div in manciuria: 13 PP to free all air group here but 3 fighter groups: i don't know if it's intentional or a forgot...

i know how difficult is found balance in a so huge game. and china is probably very difficult even made accurated OOB. but here i think there is same mistakes...where is Red army? in the winther 40 they have 100 rgt in play(the leading officer was fired and later persecuted for showing the real force): a year later they become 9 (3 div)[X(]

[Swenslim]

Common, USA will have B-27, P-51, 40 CV's so what a point to whine about China witch has practically no influetion on outcome of war ? My advice for allied, entrech at woods. At woods everything works fine for chinise.
And stay away from south china because Japan player can bomb you in hell from Takao.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Swenslim

Common, USA will have B-27, P-51, 40 CV's so what a point to whine about China wich has practically no influetion of outcome of war ?

I'm not interested in the outcome of the war - if I was, I'd play a different game, one with more fantasy involved.

It's the individual battles and the individual theatres that are the fun. I don't mind that the Dutch will lose Java, it's fun to organise the defence, put as much of a twist on the Japs as you can. I know that the end result is not in doubt, but you can put up a fierce job.

So really, 40 CVs, P51s - they aren't relevant to China, are they.