Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

I would like to repeat a suggestion I made previously. While I agree that the Chinese should be provided with extra forces if they are under-represented currently, it might be a good idea to make some of their ground forces static. This would enable them to defend more effectively, but prevent the Chinese turning into an unrealistic "Yellow Steamroller" later in the war.

Making some of their forces static would be a good way of representing the disorganisation, factionalism and outright civil war that existed in China at the time.

Seems like the best way to do this is little bits of supply at each base Andrew ... it gives them enough to defend (which is less supply intensive) but not enough to go on rampage. Anytime you make something static, you doom it to being cut off and killed.

I would do both. Have additional forces, some of them static, and a small amount of intrinsic supply in the same locations. Remember that the static forces would be additional forces on top of what China already has. China won't be weaker as a result. So this is an attempt to make China harder to overrun, which I think is making the game more realistic, without handing them too much offensive power.

As others have mentioned, if you give the Allied player a powerful China most will use it to the maximum extent possible, no matter how unrealistic that would be.

I also agree that some of this new beefed-up Chinese OB should be static. Or at least limited in some way from taking offensive action until late in the war.

In any Chinese offensive a bunch of the divisions will always remain static anyway. If china decides on an offensive in the North you still leave all your southern cities garrisoned for example. So unless you make a very significant proportion of the Chinese divisions static this will not slow the Chinese onslaught.

Supply restrictions have a better chance of slowing China down but I am skeptical. Unless you have China running a supply deficit from the start, China will be able to build a stockpile.

Enh.

Using this system if you have 1 million troops who fight 2 million troops, all other things being equal, the 2 million troops will kick out the 1 million in a single day, when in reality such an encounter would take weeks if not months and lead to a lot of dead people. The model might be fine for a few thousand scrapping on an atoll, but is woefully inadequate at simulating battles of attrition because, well, there is no attrition pretty much.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think thats the issue that people have from what I read.

1 million troops who fight 2 million troops

In a game started under 1.40, Allies vs AI hard I have bombarded and deliberate attacked Canton for about a year now. I am attacking with about 300,000 Chinese vs about 100,000 Japanese. When I get a lot of disrupted troops, I go to bombardment for maybe 3-7 days. Then back to deliberate attack.

So far not much has happened. In a year. (We both seem to have plenty of supply).

In Malaysia I have managed to finally corner and eliminate all the Japanese. A large group (a full strength division) cut off with no supply and no retreat still takes weeks to a month or more to eliminate. If there was a retreat path they would retreat, but cornered large glops of troops do take a long time to eliminate.

Seems pretty good to me.

Games against the AI should be discounted when discussing PBEM concerns.

Yes, you are correct to a certain extent. The losing side of any large battle is in big trouble of ever correcting the situation.

Games against the AI should be discounted when discussing PBEM concerns.

Why? The point is that 300,000 (supplied) vs 100,000 (supplied) lead to endless combat but no decision. That will happen if a human, or if a player, puts the troops in the same hex, won't it?

The AI has various cheats built in to help it. Not to mention the fact that it isn't the most brillant strategist around. So games against the AI are very different than those against another person. The China theater will run very different against a person. If you are interested, I am looking for a player to play as the Chinese in a China-only game.

I am looking for a player to play as the Chinese in a China-only game.

Thanks but I just don't have the time for a PBEM. The reason I play against the AI is that, last Saturday, I had a couple of hours free and got maybe 10 turns in. Sunday I was busy and so I didn't play any turns.

Playing against a person that sort of erratic availability would drive them nuts [:)]

So how is your AI games going? What is your current situation?

I am up to Feb 1943.

As ground rules I do not do anything "bizzare" (ie I don't attack from the Aleutians to the Kuriles.) I have SEAC attack into Singapore, SOPAC to Guad and then Buin then Green Island, and SWPAC Port Moresby to Lae (ie the historic axes for those commands). But I am way ahead of schedule.

In the SEAC area:
The Japanese were too aggressive advancing. I managed to hold Akyab, then using air cover and BBs to bombard and soften things up worked my way along the coast to Rangoon. That cut of a wad of IJ inland. With all those IJ starving around Mandalay I could role SE into the Malay peninsula. The Japanese are basically wiped out in the SEAC area (by 1/43) due to losing too many troops inland.

China: I moved troops to cities, held the line then made a 300,000 man army and marched on Canton. I have been hammering Canton to no effect for maybe a year.

CentPac: Have Tarawa as a major base. Don't see much point in advancing further in the mid pacific. (Why bother to take the large group in Kwajelein).

SWPAC/SOPAC: Rabaul is cut off (I have a base at Green Island and Lae now). Any shipping trying to resupply Rabaul is just experience for the bombers.

I will next move to Wewak/Hollandia and then to Phillipines and Okinawa. I am thinking of skipping Saipan entirely as Okinawa is closer.

ORIGINAL: moses

In any Chinese offensive a bunch of the divisions will always remain static anyway. If china decides on an offensive in the North you still leave all your southern cities garrisoned for example. So unless you make a very significant proportion of the Chinese divisions static this will not slow the Chinese onslaught.

Supply restrictions have a better chance of slowing China down but I am skeptical. Unless you have China running a supply deficit from the start, China will be able to build a stockpile.

I would still maintain that the best and quickest overall "fix" for China would be to take
the strength of Chinese Units, reduce it by 25% on the offense, but double that number
on defense.....So a unit that is now "rated" as a "100" by the game would become a "75"
for attacks, but a "150" for defense. ....That would make offensive action by either side
much more difficult without making it impossible, and tend to keep the theatre more
static as it was historically.

ORIGINAL: Beezle

1 million troops who fight 2 million troops

In a game started under 1.40, Allies vs AI hard I have bombarded and deliberate attacked Canton for about a year now. I am attacking with about 300,000 Chinese vs about 100,000 Japanese. When I get a lot of disrupted troops, I go to bombardment for maybe 3-7 days. Then back to deliberate attack.

So far not much has happened. In a year. (We both seem to have plenty of supply).

But how many have died? If its been going for a year we're talking a battle of Verdun-like magnitude (with kinda obsolete gear too, if its IJA vs Chinese, so not too far away from Verdun maybe). Nothing is happening? Shouldn't Japan be being bled white by Chinese manpower Douamont style?

I would still maintain that the best and quickest overall "fix" for China would be to take
the strength of Chinese Units, reduce it by 25% on the offense, but double that number
on defense.....So a unit that is now "rated" as a "100" by the game would become a "75"
for attacks, but a "150" for defense. ....That would make offensive action by either side
much more difficult without making it impossible, and tend to keep the theatre more
static as it was historically.

I like this idea. It would seem to create the right kind of incentives for both sides.

Hi, But it misses the point. The Chinese did not kill Japanese defending against Japanese attacks. The Chinese killed Japanese by attacjking them when they came forward to attack Chinese positions. The Chinese did not have engineers. They could not reduce Japanese fortified positions. So when the Japanese left these areas and came forward to Chinese areas the Chinese said "Dog pile of the Japs" and 300k Chinese attacked.
When the Japanese went back to their forts the Chiinese went back to theirs. The CHinese did not try to take Japanese Cities. The Japanese tried to take Chinese cities were counter attacked and retreated.

For this we need

Strong enough Chinese
enough supply for defense

A proper state of mind.

It's like I said before Mogami, we've had under-strength Chinese for so long, that people who enjoyed steamrollering them are unwilling to let that go. They're less interested in history and simply want the thrill of decimating China in 9 months to remain in the game. You'll never convince these guys, they don't WANT a tough fight in China.

They’ll simply keep making alarmist statements in hopes you decide not to modify things based purely on their speculative statements. I say go ahead and add the troops, I doubt China will be able to do squat against the Japanese due to their complete lack of sufficient engineers or modern artillery, but lets at least find out.

Then let some of these alarmists play test it as the Chinese and show us how the yellow steamroller can decimate the Japanese. They’ll soon start complaining about their inability to reduce Japanese forts and want more engineers. Not to mention the fact that all of China only starts with about 70k-80k of supply stockpiled and if they try to build forts and airfields in every base the supply begins to dwindle. So now they’ll want enough supply to build their B-17 bases and be able to launch massive offensives all at the same time. Sigh…

Sorry for the tongue in cheek sarcasm guys but common, China gets squashed flat in most any game where Japan is played competently. Adding the HISTORICAL troops won’t prevent successful Japanese moves, it’ll only make them harder and actually give the Chinese the possibility of a response which they utterly lack now.

Jim

Sorry for the tongue in cheek sarcasm guys but common, China gets squashed flat in most any game where Japan is played competently. Adding the HISTORICAL troops won’t prevent successful Japanese moves, it’ll only making them harder and actually give the Chinese the possibility of a response which they utterly lack now.

No worries Jim, one gets used to people defending something they like ... Half of the new features wouldn't be here if people didn't do it so it certainly has a time and a place. Griping has it's use [;)]

As I've consistantly said that things should be made more difficult for Japan I don't think your comments apply to me.

I'll be happy to test the mod in a China only mode against anybody and within reason pretty much whatever rules they want. If my units have 4 divsions instead of two, ( or any change that increases Chinese strength by more that about 25% above 1.4), I will stop you cold. Me and WITP_Dude are already in May in our game so we'll get results quickly.

My only concern is supply. I assume if China has significantly greater troops that some extra supply in needed or China is already running a deficit from the start. They are fairly close to break even at the start. I may be off in my math but someone will have to check this.

I really don't see Japan making progress other than perhaps taking Yenan. Success is only possible there because China cannot get force there before Japan. Once Yenan falls I'm back to the supply question. With an expanded force does the Chinese army slowly eat all its supply and drop to zero supply theater wide?


edit: I would insist on one day turns however as the chinese defence depends in my opinion having the ability to react quickly.

ORIGINAL: moses
I will stop you cold.

Um isn't that the point of an historical Chinese force? My point was an increased strength China can't steamroller the Japanese as some people were saying, not that China could stop Japan, that's the whole point of making the Chinese forces historical instead of 50% under-strength as they are now. Japan should NOT be able to have success in China without major effort and some tactical luck.

Jim