Hi Patine,
I'd like to preface this review by saying this is a very well crafted and thought out scenario and as such I enjoyed playing it very much. The opening campaign is a real nail bitter. At one point, the only city I controlled on the Korean Peninsula was Pusan and it was only through the judicious use of air power that I was able to stave off total defeat. It's only after receiving my first reinforcements that I was able to stabilize my bridgehead.
After having blunted the North Korean onslaught and received my second batch of reinforcements, I was finally prepared to launch my counteroffensive (9 months after the initial NK invasion). As such, I used a three pronged approach:
Firstly, I would send all my British and Commonwealth troops, supported by a carrier group to re-conquer the eastern coast of the Peninsula (with the city of Najin being my ultimate goal).
Secondly, I would send the bulk of my American and United Nation forces, supported by artillery and armor, to re-conquer central Korea.
And finally, I would load my Marine Corps units aboard my landing craft, and supported by my other carrier group, re-conquer all the southern and western Korean coastal cities.
As such, I was able to liberate all of Korea by the following dates:
Feb 1951: Taech'on - Taejon - Sengju - Kosong line
Mar 1951: Inchon - SEOUL - Wonju - Wonsan line
Apr 1951: Kaesong - Seoul - Ch'unch'on - Hungnam line
May 1951: Changyan - Kaesong - Ich'on - Hungnam - Kimch'aek line
June 1951: Songnim - Sinch'on - Ich'on - Hungnam - Kyongsong - Najin line
Aug 1951: Songnim - PYONGYANG - Sinch'on - Ich'on - Hungnam - Kyongsong - Najin line
Sep 1951: Songnim - Pyongyang - Sinuiji - Sinch'on - Ich'on - Hungnam - Kyongsong - Najin line
OCT 1951: Captured Kujang but CHINESE INTERVENTION ACTIVATED
Nov 1951: Captured Yangdok but Chinese forces recapture Sinuiji and begin a relentless assault on my Songnim-Pyongyang defensive line
May 1951: Tumen captured
June 1951: P'ungsan captured
Oct 1952: Changjin captured, North Korean civilization DESTROYED
After this point, I primarily adopted a defensive stance to see how the opposing forces would react (see comments on the Chinese intervention below).
Towards the end of the game, I created a very strong amphibious force supported by a large carrier group and launched an invasion against Qingdao and Chufu to see if I could rest them from the Chinese grip.
June 1953: Captured Chinese city of Qingdao
July 1953: Captured Chinese city of Chufu and
SCENARIO ENDS
SUGGESTIONS:
After playing your excellent scenario, here are my observations on some of the issues I encountered and my suggestions on how they could be improved. I believe most of them would require minimal effort to implement. Feel free to use or disregard any of them, as you deem appropriate.
CHINESE Intervention:
The Chinese intervention is strong and relentless but because the PVA forces are created primarily along the north western Chinese-Korean border (between tiles 29,43 and 64,8), I was able to set up a strong defensive line in this area which when supported by massive US air power was capable of preventing any break through.
After capturing Kujang, I was able to control the center of northern Korea with just a few troops and aircraft, repeatedly defeating the occasional but limited enemy thrusts.
After capturing Najin, I was able to hold the entire north eastern Korean sector with relatively minimal forces, as there was almost no Chinese or Korean counteroffensive in this sector. Ultimately, I was able to push on and capture Tumen and P'ungsan ending all enemy activity in this region.
Because the enemy was unable to pierce my lines at any point they were unable to recapture any of the Korean cities and therefore didn't receive any of the free units associated to their capture as stipulated in the event file, thereby again weakening China's gambit for re-conquest.
Therefore, I have the following recommendations to improve this situation:
I believe one of the problems is that the threshold for activating the Chinese Intervention is a little too high and therefore gives the UN player too much time to establish relatively strong defensive positions. I recommend that you reduce the threshold to 4, maybe even 3, making it more difficult for the UN to have time to set up these lines.
Historically, at least 3 out of the 8 initial Chinese armies attacked south from the Chosin reservoir (just north of the city of Kujang in terms of the game) towards Hungnam.
Because the focus of the Chinese intervention is focalized to one side only, I recommend that you expand its starting points. Therefore, instead of having all your reinforcements created along the north west border split them up in three sectors. I would also attach the generation of said reinforcements to a corresponding Chinese city, i.e. as long as the Chinese control the city associated to the sector they get the reinforcements otherwise they don't. For example:
Sector A - 55% of reinforcements could be generated along these 3 sectors with Songnim & Pyongyang the initial objectives
A1- city of Liaojang: between tiles 32,46 to 39,39
A2- city of Shanyang: between tiles 38,36 to 47,27
A3 - city of Tungua: between tiles 49,25 to 57,17
Sector B - 35% of reinforcements could be generated in this sector with Hungnam the initial objective
B1 - city of Kirin: between tiles 66,20 to 82,24
Sector C - 10% of reinforcements could be generated in this sector with Kyongsong and Najin the initial objective. In addition, I would generate a onetime Chinese army in this sector on the turn that the Chinese intervention event is activated.
C1 - city of Tumen: between tiles 110,16 to 122,16
I would probably increase the overall number of units related specifically to the Chinese intervention event you receive by 30 or 50% (not talking about the other units you receive when a Chinese city is captured by UN troops).
You should also place air bases along the Chinese side of the Chinese-Korean border to allow the PRC air force to operate against the UN forces. Currently their cities are too far from the front line and it allows the UN air units to operate with almost complete impunity.
33,41
40,30
80,20
69,17
By replicating these events and increasing the likelihood of a Chinese intervention, I believe it would help destabilize the UN position and make it more difficult for them to hold on to the North (at least more difficult then it currently appears).
VICTORY Conditions:
The Decisive Victory Conditions require 50 objective cities but there are only a total of 47 objective cities in the game, thereby rendering a decisive victory impossible.
When the Chinese, in my game, managed to recapture the city of Sinuiji, it was destroyed, again rendering the possibility of a decisive victory impossible (even if there had been 50 objective cities). As such, I would recommend you implement TOTPP's 'City population loss' feature which prevents the destruction of cities.
As a rule, I find it's best to have a few more total number of objective cities in the game than are required to achieve a decisive victory.
To achieve a decisive, or even marginal, victory you are compelled to invade China. I don't believe there is a historical context for this. This certainly wasn't part of the UN mandate or an objective that either Truman or Eisenhower supported. In fact, it was McArthur's insistence on widening the war, and usurping the Executive branch's prerogative in this matter, that got him fired.
In my humble opinion the scenario should be focused on the Korean conflict and not about starting World War III. The decision is clearly up to you, as the designer, if you prefer to keep things as they are but if you are interested here is what I would change:
• I would limit all objectives cities to within the borders of Korea proper and modify the victory conditions (example: Decisive victory if you control all of Korea, stalemate if you only control the cities below the 50th parallel and marginal or decisive defeat if you control less cities than was historically controlled at the time of the armistice).
• Don't change how the Chinese Border civilization works (very clever idea by the way) to keep the Chinese from crossing the border prior to the Chinese Intervention and remove it, as already happens, after activation. Use the pollution icon, like I did for my Battle of France scenario, to draw the Chinese-Korean border, along the same line you set up your Chinese Border Station units, and implement a house rule that forbids any UN forces, including air, from crossing it.
• Either add a house rule that forbids the UN from attacking the Border Station units or make the units so powerful defensively that it doesn't make sense to attack them. Once the Chinese intervention is activated they are removed in any case.
• Create roads from the Chinese cities of Liaojang, Anshan and Shenyang towards the Korean border and use MoveTo commands to push units generated in the cities to go fight in Korea.
INCHON Invasion:
I would handle the Inchon invasion differently. For starters it is too weak, as 3 of the 7 Marine units the event places next to the city were eliminated on the first turn of the invasion and the other four reduced to less than half strength. By the second turn they were all wiped out (my only real option would have been to evacuate the survivors onto the landing crafts after the first turn).
Historically the invasion was the task of the US X Corps, which comprised the 1st Marine and 7th Infantry Divisions and was supported by tank and artillery units and the 1st Marine air wing (whose air units you could generate in Inchon upon its capture).
In addition, I believe the invasion force should be set up under a naval task force somewhere in the Yellow Sea but within striking distance of Inchon. By doing so you let the player decide exactly how he wants to use the units.
UNIT Names:
I think you should shorten the name of a number of units, for example all Chinese units which served in the Korean conflict were part of the "People's Volunteer Army" (PVA) an adjunct of the "Chinese People's Liberation Army". The North Korean army was known as the "Korean People's Army" or KPA. Thus the:
'Communist Chinese Wave Infantry' could become the 'PVA Wave Infantry'
'Defensive North Korean Infantry' could become the 'KPA Defensive Infantry'
'South Korean Infantry' could become the 'ROK Infantry'
The shorter names would make it easier to read the unit statistics throughout the game screens and rules file.
WINTER/SUMMER files:
This is simply a suggestion, but adding winter/summer months would add an extra dash of flavor to the scenario. It shouldn't be too difficult to find winter graphics for your terrain. The advantage is you could increase the movement cost of terrain for the UN forces, which were more dependent on motor transports, making it more difficult for them to respond to Chinese thrusts or breakthroughs during the winter months.
You could use a BAT file to easily let the player swap the terrain and rules file during the appropriate months (again you could take a look at my 'Battle of France' or 'A House Divided' scenario bat files to see how it's done).
AIR UNIT movement factor:
I believe the B-50 Superfortress base movement factor is too low and should be increased from 16 to 30 tiles per turn with its corresponding range reduced from 9 to 5.
I hope you find my review and comments useful. They were certainly meant in the perspective of making a very good scenario even more challenging.
Tootall
