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what all is hiding in that stack in Wuhan?

ORIGINAL: brian brian

what all is hiding in that stack in Wuhan?

A Militia, 1 Gun, 1Ftr and 1 bomber. The await the probable arrival of the 5 size HQ to proceed south and southwest eventually.

The second Japanese impulse in J/F 40 gets a break in the weather, a 1 was rolled resulting in rain in the north and fine in the south of China.

Japan lands several reinforcing units in Canton and attacks and kills a Nationalist unit in the south and now are threatening the single Chinese city in the South mountains. If China loses control of that city they will have to retreat in a westerly direction and will have supply problems as well.

As it turns out the turn also ended on a 1 so next is productin again. Thee were no partisans in China.

It is now March/April or 40 and the Allies won the initiative but the weather turned abysmal with Blizzards in the north and rain in the south. China did not do anything except place a unit in the south mountain city to stop the Japanese.

In the Japanese impulse, already impulse number 4 which will go to 7 in the next China impulse and have a small chance of the turn already ending, Japan merely moved a little and landed more troops in Canton. The Japanese in the south mountains in rain are temporarily out of supply.

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

... The Japanese in the south mountains in rain are temporarily out of supply.

I just noticed, how does it show they are out of supply?

Near the right upper corner of the units is a little dot. Thedot is green when in supply and yellow when out of supply. It can also be brown for isolated.
At the zoom leve 3 that I am using to be able to show the entire theater in China this does not show very clearly though.

In rain the supply chain is only 2 hexes and it takes the HQ in the south 2 hexes to get to a rail line from which it can get to supply in Japan, but the trip overseas requires one more hex worth of travel so it is too far.

ORIGINAL: MajorDude

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

... The Japanese in the south mountains in rain are temporarily out of supply.

I just noticed, how does it show they are out of supply?

The weather suddenly changed to a nice spring, fine weather everywhere. The Chinese try to improve their positions now that they are awaiting a Japanese onslaught. The turn might have ended on a 1 but no such luck for china.

Japan now with fine weather goes to the attack: They succefully groundstruck the 7 factor Communist Inf East of Si-An and are atacking the hex with all the strength they could move into position. China uses defensive HQ support from Mao and Japan uses attacking HQ support to improve odds.

In the middle Japan is attacking a lone Chinese Mil unit with overwhelming odds.

In the south Japan tried to groundstrike Kweillin but their NAV bomber was shot down by the Chinese Ftr that intercepted. Japan still attack the City and uses offensive HQ support to improve odds.

This screen is at zoom level 4 in order to show the units and attacks clearer but the amount of map shown is decreased.

Interesting to see how it has changed. A question for the beta testers is when Japan goes all out for China is it with the new hex scale more likley than in the boardgame to conqueour China as imo this would affect the game balance.
 
Cheers
 
Phil

I have found with CWiF that was at this scale that China often got either conquered or  completely lamed. With MWiF I do not believe it is that likely to happen. In the game here Japan is going all out to hit China and it is not worried about Manchuria and the Russians. nice in solitaire..
 
China here has many extra cities and thus a much better supply situation. The farther in the Japanese get, the more diffcult will be their supply situation. While the Japanese are making headway right now, soon will be the monsoon season in the south and that area will stagnate until the fall. The north will be hit harder but there are also a number of Communist units in the prosess of being built and a lot of Japanese troops are in the south where they will not help in the north.  Time is also against the Japanese, they must begin to produce ships and aircraft and not just infantry fairly soon and they must also have their marines and other troops ready for the Pacific war by summer of 41. Those troops are no good when far into China. That leaves them only 6 more turns, and 2 are winter, to do what they can in China.
 
Note that so far they have not gained a single extra resource although 2 may become theirs the coming summer.
 

ORIGINAL: Petracelli69

Interesting to see how it has changed. A question for the beta testers is when Japan goes all out for China is it with the new hex scale more likley than in the boardgame to conqueour China as imo this would affect the game balance.

Cheers

Phil

I am coming around to the opinion that overall not much has changed from WIF FE.

Japan tries to kill Chinese units and is lucky if they can kill 2 in an impulse. Some whole turns pass with no Chinese units being lost. Small losses for the Japanese, or even just having a lot of units become disorganized, brings their offensive to a screeching halt. Only after new units arrive, or everyone becomes reorganized can it begin again. And then if the Japanese are building just a bunch of infantry and other land units, what is the war against the US going to be like?

China has to be careful not to lose resources or else their production falls off. The trick for Japan is to kill Chinese units faster than the Chinese can replace them.

Partisans in the rear are a concern for Japan, since they have to be dealt with or supply to the frontline will disappear. That means some Japanese units are just sitting around looking at the scenery.

This all seems really familar to me when I played over the board on a completely different map.

It is intriguing. I think China could be doing better in this example game if they would stack their units, even at set-up. This could lead to more casualties but that would require better luck for Japan. Without higher combat rolls, the Japanese would be disorganized more often and progress would slow. But attacking single Chinese units is too easy for the Japanese. On the other hand, the flanks are much bigger now. But for the Chinese, I say stack units or retreat, not just give up so many single units (every unit lost so far from what I have seen). And have the Chinese called any blitz combats to conserve their units? Though again when there is only one of them it is likely to die in a blitz too.

And I think China could be doing a bit more to mess with the Japanese by sending out some Cavalry divisions (especially 5 movement point Communist ones) to threaten Japanese supply lines. Away from the coast, Japan can only be in supply in three areas but China is much bigger than that. I don't understand the defense of central China between Si-An and Chang-Sha, it is just more single units given away in an area without a rail line ... let the Japanase come in here, they would need two HQs and long exposed flanks for that to pay off at all.

And it would be awesome to build purely infantry as Japan but one rarely has that luxury; Japan has such a hard time disorganizing units that I have them build more planes and artillery to work on this problem. But then if the Chinese never stack their pieces the Japanese don't really need to disorganize them to defeat them.

As for the Russians, I do not suggest them messing around in Asia until it is definite that Germany has placed it's bet on a strategy other than '41 Barbarossa, so it is perfectly fine to ignore that possibility for a test game.

Don't know if you wanted a commentary on this game but one seemed to have started ... maybe this topic would be better in the China AI thread.

I do like the new 'river' railroads a lot though.

I think comments are fine and the more discussion that occurs the better since that shows interest by potential players of this game.
 
Stacking  Chinese of course make them stronger but there are not very many Chinese around at this time and it is a long haul.  There are 2 unit Chinese stacks in Si -An and in Changsha for the moment.
 
Chinese Cav Divs are nice to have and they can indeed help mess with the Japanese lines and supply but at the cost of not having them at the front. We have just gone through winter with movement much slower than in fine weather and that would have limited Chinese raiders effectiveness.
 
As for stacking Chinese in general a lot of players do and as many feel it is not good to do so.
 
Here Japan had the fortune of some good weather impulses in the middle of winter. Japan has lost units, not as many as the Chinese but they all have to be transported by sea to get to the fight.

The fourth turn, March/April 40 continues with rain in the north and fine in the south.

Japan did take Kweillin last impulse and the Chinese are scrambling to maintain a front. The CAV fron the center front has reached the northern end of the south front and a Div from Chang Sha is also moving south.

The small Mil in the center was knocked out by much larger Japanese attackers but it does leave those Japanese units away from the other fighting areas and a bit in nowhere. This was the Kunming Mil that can be rebuilt at low cost.

In the north Japan took out the Communist large Infantry unitbut it cost them 2 units lost and 3 more disrupted.

Next turn, 30 % end of turn now, will see 2 Communist units and 1 Nationalist Infantry and likely a Mil as reinforcements.

The turn ended on the 30% chance and CHina got to place reinforcements.

The May/Jun turn began with Japanese initiative but the worst weather possible in M/J. With storms all over China Japan could not do anything much.

The Chinese impulse is already impulse 3 so the turn will be fairly short. China moves up to the front a Communist new Mountain unit and the Nationalists a new infantry in the south. There is also the Kunming Mil rebuilt. Not much action but next Japanese impulse will almost ceratinly have fine weather.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Petracelli69

Interesting to see how it has changed. A question for the beta testers is when Japan goes all out for China is it with the new hex scale more likley than in the boardgame to conqueour China as imo this would affect the game balance.

Cheers

Phil

I am coming around to the opinion that overall not much has changed from WIF FE.

Japan tries to kill Chinese units and is lucky if they can kill 2 in an impulse. Some whole turns pass with no Chinese units being lost. Small losses for the Japanese, or even just having a lot of units become disorganized, brings their offensive to a screeching halt. Only after new units arrive, or everyone becomes reorganized can it begin again. And then if the Japanese are building just a bunch of infantry and other land units, what is the war against the US going to be like?

China has to be careful not to lose resources or else their production falls off. The trick for Japan is to kill Chinese units faster than the Chinese can replace them.

Partisans in the rear are a concern for Japan, since they have to be dealt with or supply to the frontline will disappear. That means some Japanese units are just sitting around looking at the scenery.

This all seems really familar to me when I played over the board on a completely different map.

This game is not significant because the Chinese player is in dummy mode, playing punching ball to the Japanese. He(It?) didn't try anything even remotely aggressive to hinder the japanese movement or threaten his supply lines. He give up the best defense line without a fight. Didn't set up any unit in the South East China mountain Range, where they have real potential to cut the South push supply from Canton when they enter the mountain.

And that is a deluxe game with warlords, remove them and see how hard it became for Japan to cover his supply lines against weak Chinese Cav rush...

And the fact the Japaneses player is 100% sure of no Russian intervention AND didn't have to plan for a war against USA... well it made it a totally different game, how much of the Japanese production is used in China here that should have been used in building the Navy for war against USA ? All the Japanese HQ are deeply in China and wont be able to roll back to Russian front fast enough in case of crisis... not without letting all the japanese troups stranded...

It's all a trade off.

Ignore the Russian threat? I've done that early in the war to go hard after China.

Ignore the US and see if you can take China out or put her on the ropes? I've done that before as well. If we win in China the US has a whole new set of problems. And here's a news flash for you, Japan rarely stops the US from beating them if you build only to go to war against the US. A better strategy might be to at least cripple China and release a lot more Japanese troops for the US to have to deal with. That's what makes WiF such a great game. Everything works sometimes and nothing works all the time.

Run through the basics of the new game and see how it affects the war in China? Good Job. Keep the posts coming.

Good Hunting.

MR

I do not believe that China can seriously interfere with the Japanese lines early in the war, there are not enough Chinese around to do that. Any Chinese unit in the rear of the Japanese lines is one that is not on the main defensive front and it is also llikely to be out of supply itself.  The Southeast mountains are a case in point. as soon as it moves away from ChangSha area it is out of supply and easily cut off.
 
China can, however, cause Japan to build a lot of infantry instead of ships and they can hold the resourses away from Japan for quite some time while the Japanese troops get further and further into the landmass and away from the seacoast. This interferes with Japan's ability to prepare for the greater Pacific war and their readiness to hit the CW hard to begin that war. Japan is under time pressure to get the Chinese resourses under their control. Here it is already May/Jun of 40 and Japan has not yet got control of a single extra resourse, but it looks like it will fairly soon.
 
Once Japan gets involved in the greater Pacific war China can often build up forces and come back and do the raiding against the resources to deny them to Japan.
 
There is one other side to this situation, a solitaire game such as this one does not lend itself to a lot of surprises from the other side.
 
 

For the 2nd Japanese impulse the weather has cleared, fine in the north and rain in the south.

The Japanese units in the south are now almost all out of supply, moving the HQ Yamamoto east would disrupt it but place some units back in supply. It would adversely affect future moves this turn and it does not move. No action in this front.

In the center the 5 HQ moves towards Shang Sha. This city is a very important rail junction and is needed for further advance and resources for Japan.
Some of the units in the south are also looking to move north when they can.

In the north Japan knocks out the Si-An Mil from the hex Southeast or Si-An.

lomyrin,
 
Thank you for taking the time and effort to post this thread.
 
The narration and pictures of your solitaire view, is a nice window to see how the game looks and plays, in the Far East.
Chinese marshall Lom, is doing a great job of showing a perfectly valid passive defense vs Japanese high command Yrin. Both Lom and Yrin are showing the battles are full of options to be explored when the game is released to be fought against other players and the AI. I look forward to some engaging AAR's when the marketing of the game is up and running.
 
I like the fact you have made it clear the weather plays a huge part in decision making. The random ending of the turn is also an important factor explained very well, to me.
 
If you could post some screens of the production track for both sides, from the beginning, it would be a nice addition to a wonderful thread made all the better by your commentary.
 
Keep up the good work. Im rooting for Chinese marshall Lom, and his Shau Lin Defense and hope Japanese high command Yrin, with his Karate Offense, is faced with more obstacles to overcome.