ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
ORIGINAL: Kull
Looking at this logically, you can clearly see the whole "debate" is essentially pointless:
1) The land war in China is an aberration in the overall mechanics of a "War in the Pacific" game. It should be obvious to everyone that the devs spent their time - and rightfully so - in upgrading the coding of the Air-Naval-Amphib portions of the game. And they succeeded spectacularly, IMHO. Seriously. Anybody who compares AE to WitP and says those aspects are now worse is flat-out lying. Elimination of air carnage, island stacking restrictions, and near-real-life loading/unloading times are just a few examples among a host of similar logistics and warfare improvements, all of which put AE light years ahead of its predecessor.
2) And that's important because, as in real life - the fate of China HAS NO STRATEGIC impact on the war. Go ahead and watch as Japan takes the whole thing (which probably isn't even possible, but let's accept the premise for a moment). What does Japan have? Answer: Absolutely nothing that will impede the cross-island onslaught from the USA. The war can only be won by preventing Allied conquest of the critical "island highway" leading straight at Japan. And every Manchurian Air Unit and all the "Artillery Death Stars" in the world won't keep that from happening.
This is incorrect. China is an important part of the war in AE. Moreover, China's fate could have a devastating impact on the game if the Japanese player is clever, determined, and unconstrained by house rules. We've been through this many times before in other threads, but just for the record:
a) Through the use of strategic bombing and Artillery Death Stars the Japanese can destroy China. The Artillery Death Stars can wipe out any base no matter how many fortifications and no matter how many troops are there. [This is supposed to have been modified by Patch Two, but early results in my PBEM indicate this isn't the case]. Strategic bombing will easily wipe out China's infrastructure meaning that China will have no supplies. Also, the Chinese cannot replace their losses (both too few men and not enough supplies) so that their army gets smaller and smaller and smaller. There is no reason that the Japanese can't overrun the entire country. None of us have gone far enough into the game to experience that, but quite a few of us were on the brink and had to request ceasefires as the Japanese had already blasted through the major Chinese bases and were on the way to Chungking.
b) China out of the game throws the entire game out of whack. Once China falls there's nothing to prevent the Japanese player from diverting those countless troops and Artillery Death Stars to India or Russia. While none of us has gone far enoguh to see that happen it's clearly a possibility. As the Allied player, though, I'd prefer for the Japanese player to pursue one of those two options as opposed to pulling all those troops out of China and using them to reinforce Luzon, Formosa, Okinawa, Hokkaido, Timor, Java, and Celebes. Doing so would slow the Allied advance tremendously and make it far, far more costly.
House rules can probably address the situation in China, but House Rules are symptoms of imperfections in the game. We need to fix the Artillery Death Stars, ability to strategic bomb in China, and the worthlessness of fortifications. Note that two of these three fixes will also benefit the Japanese later in the war.
In closing, I am bringing forward these concerns I have about the game based upon the several hundred hours I have invested in my current PBEM game. I love the game and appreciate the work that went into designing it and the way the designers are addressing problems. So don't take the easy way out and dismiss me as a "complainer." Thank you.
a) Very true, lets see of patch two tones this effect down a bit, and IMO a bit should be enough. But thats doesnt make Kull´s post incorrect...
b) Its absolutely possible to pull out many Japanese units long before the allies collapse in China, depending on what strategic targets you have for
the other theatres.I can think of many scenarios where I would pull out a majority of units deployed in China/Manchuko and deploy them elsewhere, some right from the start, some
maybe after the frontline has been cleaned there. None of this depends on a Japanese total victory in this area.
China is as important as the combination of actions of both players make it. The ressources that Japan has to invest to overrun China are so big that I
started to suspect long ago if it isnt a better strategy to deploy those valuable units elsewhere and just clean up the front to prevent successful Chinese counterattacks.
Also the ammount of garrison required nearly outweights the advantage of not having a frontline (at least after initial conquests), and you can redeploy the units earlier.
What you are all talking about is that IF the Chinese player chooses to he CAN overrun China. But he needs to invest in a full blown campaign that eats up supplies
(and ressources/fuel to replace those units) like a beast. We have not enough examples of what the impact is on late war but I quite sure the effect on other possible
campaigns is negative on the long run and could even speed up the allied counteroffensive.
Were not playing history, were playing alternative history based on historical units with astounding accuracy. I think its a mistake to artificially limit the players options just to
make sure the war goes exactly 1:1 with actual history. If this continues we arrive at a point where I just take a book recounting the whole war and doing exactly the same
things in game. Wow, very interesting. In that case id just send an email to my opponent and ask him to, please, switch to ´45 and drop two nukes on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
