1937 - Japan Invades China scenario released! Now with Lua!

[techumseh]

The scenario files.

1937 - Japan invades China

Play as the armed forces of Imperial Japan against the Nationalist Chinese, the Communists, the Allies (US and Britain) and the Soviet Union. Units represented include army, navy and airforce units from 1937 to 1945. The map includes China...

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The Readme files.

1937 - Japan invades China Readme files

Unzip the folder into the 1937 scenario folder. Move the Readme Word file from the Readme folder into the main 1937 folder.

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The sound files.

1937 -Japan Invades China Sounds

Unzip the Sounds folder into the 1937 - Japan Invades China folder

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[techumseh]

This is finally done, after much delay. It's a single player scenario, for the Japanese only. They face the forces of the Nationalist Chinese, the Communists, the US and the Soviet Union. The unique feature of the scenario is that the Japanese command in China must seize and hold as much territory as possible, while faced with losing the broader war because of factors beyond its control.

This is a hybrid scenario, half macro events and half Lua. It started as an almost finished macro scenario, but with the help and patience of John Petroski and Prof Garfield, it was transformed into something much more ambitious. Lua can do amazing things, but it remains largely beyond my skills, at least for now.

Thanks also to Fairline, Tanelorn and Curt Sibling for their amazing art. And to Tootall_2012 for his comprehensive play test of the original scenario.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Tech,

I believe I tested your scenario close to two years ago and as I recall it was quite challenging. I think I only managed to secure a marginal victory in the last couple of turns of the game, with a decisive victory just out of my reach. The Chinese were by no means a push over and I remember having to fight off numerous counter-offensives throughout the campaign which constantly kept me on my toes.

As I recollect, you had included many interesting concepts, though a few worked more or less well due to the limitations of ToT. I'm glad to see you were able to work with the Prof and John, I'm sure not only to correct some of those issues but as I can see from your read me add many other very cool features. As you state, lua is a very powerful tool and I'm pleased to see you were able to take your first plunge into this programming language.

I encourage anyone who likes a challenge to try this one out.

Congratulations on your latest creation, another one in a long list of your amazing scenario collection.

 

[Patine]

This is finally done, after much delay. It's a single player scenario, for the Japanese only. They face the forces of the Nationalist Chinese, the Communists, the US and the Soviet Union. The unique feature of the scenario is that the Japanese command in China must seize and hold as much territory as possible, while faced with losing the broader war because of factors beyond its control.

This is a hybrid scenario, half macro events and half Lua. It started as an almost finished macro scenario, but with the help and patience of John Petroski and Prof Garfield, it was transformed into something much more ambitious. Lua can do amazing things, but it remains largely beyond my skills, at least for now.

Thanks also to Fairline, Tanelorn and Curt Sibling for their amazing art. And to Tootall_2012 for his comprehensive play test of the original scenario.

I hope you enjoy it.

Ah, very good! Should be a true treat like all of your scenarios!

 

[techumseh]

Hi Tech,

I believe I tested your scenario close to two years ago and as I recall it was quite challenging. I think I only managed to secure a marginal victory in the last couple of turns of the game, with a decisive victory just out of my reach. The Chinese were by no means a push over and I remember having to fight off numerous counter-offensives throughout the campaign which constantly kept me on my toes.

As I recollect, you had included many interesting concepts, though a few worked more or less well due to the limitations of ToT. I'm glad to see you were able to work with the Prof and John, I'm sure not only to correct some of those issues but as I can see from your read me add many other very cool features. As you state, lua is a very powerful tool and I'm pleased to see you were able to take your first plunge into this programming language.

I encourage anyone who likes a challenge to try this one out.

Congratulations on your latest creation, another one in a long list of your amazing scenario collection.

Thanks T. Working on this has kept me from really getting into a few recent scenarios, including your Battle of Italy, something I intend to remedy now that this is finished.

I think you'll find this version a bit more challenging still. One thing you will notice is a greater role for the Communist Chinese, particularly their regular forces. PG set up a Lua event that converts a number of cities in NW China to Communist control during the game, along with some strong conventional offensives and counter-attacks. There is also a major role for the US 14th Air Force that includes strategic aspects (economic losses, limitations on movement and combat) as well as air units. US subs and B-29 attacks are more effective too. I'd love to hear your comments.

 

[techumseh]

Ah, very good! Should be a true treat like all of your scenarios!

Thanks Patine! If you can beat it, I'll buy you a coffee next time I'm in Edmonton.

 

[techumseh]

A few screen shots from my last playtest:

Japanese gunboats on the Yangtze River.

 

[techumseh]

An H8K Emily flying boat attacks a US Gato submarine.

 

[techumseh]

On the last turn of the scenario, the Soviets complete their conquest of Manchuria and northern Korea.

 

[Patine]

I know this has just been released, but may I have permission to poach your Machukuo and Chinese Collaborator units for EotRS, as they're better than what I currently have?

I'll give an initial playthrough later this week.

 

[techumseh]

They're little works of art from Fairline, but I'm pretty sure he won't mind. Maybe check first.

 

[Fairline]

I know this has just been released, but may I have permission to poach your Machukuo and Chinese Collaborator units for EotRS, as they're better than what I currently have?

I'll give an initial playthrough later this week.

Go for it

 

[techumseh]

Readme File Errata

2 omissions corrected:

Japanese air units out of supply due to US 14th AF activity do not suffer a loss of movement. Rather, there is a chance they may remain grounded for the turn, depending on the number of 14th AF airbases remaining under Nationalist control.

If the Soviet "August Storm" offensive occurs 2 turns early, the Japanese is awarded 2 additional VPs. If it occurs 1 turn early, they receive 1 additional VP.

 

[JPetroski]

The readme download on Civfanatics isn't working FYI - glad you posted it here (I was just coming to ask!)

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I've played through this scenario (having modified it so that the garrisons have 1 attack), and here are some thoughts. (I built most of the Lua events for this scenario, but didn't have much to do with design or the very substantial Macro events. I wasn't exactly playing blind, but I wasn't familiar with all the details either.)

I played an attempt for ~20 turns, and learned the fundamental tactic for this scenario: when attacking a city, make sure to bring a very large occupying force, in order to withstand the event generated counter attack without losing (many) units. Once units are healed and fortified, cities can typically be held with less, allowing you to redeploy troops for the next attack.

Having realised this strategy, I started over. (I didn't play around the flood or railroad destruction events.) Somewhat foolishly, I diverted a decent number of troops to the very north China road, and reached Lanchow shortly before the Soviets would have stopped providing aid anyway. I ended up with 20 objectives, so a marginal victory.

I built a bunch of G3M Nells to deal with strongpoints, only to later have them all withdrawn (I realised this and switched to K-21 Sally eventually).

I Sent troops by sea from Japan to capture Canton (and surrounding) by Feb 1940 (after Oct 1938), but I'm thinking it would have made more sense to send those troops through Shanghai, and come south via rail. It felt to me that capturing ports was a wasted effort. Since so many units are generated by events when a city is captured, those are the main focus of effort. By the time a few more stragglers would show up, my fortified units would have healed somewhat, and defeated them.

I spent most of the game with a relatively small deficit or surplus, and received enough income from resources that I wasn't short of cash, except in the early game. I spent a bit of money making sure Shanghai and Peiping had adequate happiness buildings and market places, since they would pay back the value. When I play again, I'll probably build newspapers in towns before switching to resources. I didn't realise it until too late, but a newspaper would free up an Infantry from garrison duty for 40 shields, which is way better than building a resource unit. This would, of course, impact the deficit somewhat. I rushed almost nothing and so had a treasury of ~4500 by the end of the game.

The submarine campaign didn't bother me. Travelling by rail is fast enough that sending units through Korea is fine, and freighters can travel between Japan and Korea in one turn until very late in the war. Almost no units are generated in Japan after 1941, and it is reasonable to build air units there anyway.

I had some difficulty breaking strong points, and it felt like there were a lot of them. (Getting "ambushed" by event generated units after taking the city didn't help.) Some of that is probably on me for sending artillery and troops up the northern route. Perhaps the difficulty is bad tactics on my part, and not gathering my heavy artillery into one place and bringing enough of it. I may have attacked with regular units and made the strong point veteran, not expecting one to be there. I think I managed to break one strong point with the Ichi-Go reinforcements. Unless you've already reached the city beside a relevant airfield, the reinforcements seem unlikely to be enough to win. Maybe this is fine and/or historical. Or, maybe my tactics need work.

Towards the end of the scenario, I didn't feel like there was much that I could do to pursue victory. But the Japanese may well have felt the same way by that point...

I should also note that the self propelled gun can be built in all cities.

I recommend the following changes to the events, which I can implement:

Fix the SPG unit so it can only be built in proper cities.

If the player builds a unit which will be withdrawn 100% on turn 27, they should receive a message letting them know that they won't retain the unit.

Aircraft like the G3M Nell can substitute for missing Zeroes and Vals on turn 27.

Ninghsia's terrain should be changed to Urban when the game is loaded for the first time.

I can implement any other changes you might want to make based on this feedback. I don't think other changes are needed. The scenario is good and challenging as is, so I'd say tinkering is strictly optional. If you don't make changes, I'll play it at least once more.

 

[techumseh]

Thanks Prof. Those changes make sense, so thank you. A message to switch heavy bomber production to the Ki-21 Sally, an army plane, makes good sense as soon as it is available. The G3M Nell and G4M2 Betty are both Navy planes and therefore withdrawn for the Strike South at the time of Pearl Harbor.

Getting the American subs to sink enough transports to really hurt the Japanese economy has been a challenge, especially in the short passage between Korea and Japan. We may have to supplement the existing system with some economic events.

You're on the right track about tactics - well-prepared attacks against Chinese cites using a large force, and then dig in for the inevitable counter-attack is the best approach in my experience. Heavy bombers and 150mm artillery are the best way to take out strongpoints. Use of the bombers should get a bit more dicey once the US 90mm AA units are deployed to protect their air fields. Did you find they made a difference?

I have not really tried to move west across N China before - I usually head south down the main railway towards Wuhan and Canton. How did you find the Communist resistance? Their units are slightly better than the Nationalists, but were there enough of them to put up a good fight?

What happened at the end of the scenario? Was there much of a threat from US-trained Nationalist units? What happened with the Soviet offensive in Manchuria?

Thanks for playing. It's good to get feedback.

 

[Patine]

Getting the American subs to sink enough transports to really hurt the Japanese economy has been a challenge

I've had this exact same problem in EotRS.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Tech,

Getting the American subs to sink enough transports to really hurt the Japanese economy has been a challenge, especially in the short passage between Korea and Japan. We may have to supplement the existing system with some economic events.

In Napoleon, I had set up different sea zones across the map. Whenever any Coalition ships where located within one of the zones at the beginning of a turn a fixed amount of Francs where subtracted from the French treasury for each enemy naval unit present in any of these zones. Therefore the French player had every incentive to hunt down these units otherwise the cost of not doing so could become detrimental to their overall financial situation.

This wasn't an overly complicated mechanism and I'm certain the Prof could easily help you implement this. In your scenario you could simply subtract gold for each active US sub on the map or even have different gold penalties based on your different sea zones (South China Sea, East China Sea, Yellow Sea and Sea of Japan). In this manner the Japanese player would not only have the burden of protecting his transports from attack but every incentive to hunt down the subs to prevent these economic loses.

I hope this helped.

 

[techumseh]

Thanks tootall. Prof and I've been tossing around some ideas. Something like what you propose might be suitable, especially for the very short Fusan-Kitakyushu route. In this case, a certain percent chance that a freighter travelling on a given route would be sunk, or trade units it carries might be lost, are also possibilities. Killing subs would reduce the probability.

 

[techumseh]

Something I wanted to talk a little more about is how we can streamline and simplify the increasingly complex Lua-based scenarios. I'm really impressed by what Lua can do, and by what others have done with it. Tootall's "Napoleon" was a revelation, and things have only gotten more impressive with each new release. Working on the 1937 scenario with hands-on help by @JPetroski and @Prof. Garfield has further opened my eyes to the possibilities.

Speaking personally, I like a game that is easy to get into, which allows me to concentrate on strategy and is operationally streamlined. But I also like some tactical complexity, so I'm interested in developing Lua techniques that combine these things. A limitation of some new wave Lua events is that they are for human players only because the AI just can't utilize them. So I'm looking for features that the AI can use as well, even if it doesn't know it's doing it.

The combat system in 1937 that Prof Garfield and I developed is an attempt to realize some of this. Most combat is the standard Civ2 kind - rounds of combat continue until either the attacking unit or the defending unit is eliminated. Bombardment combat is handled differently. Rounds of combat are limited, so one of the units in a combat does not necessarily have to die before the combat ends. In addition, the bombarding unit does not suffer any losses - unless the defending unit can fire back. For example, a Japanese cruiser can bombard a defending infantry unit on the coast without risk to itself. But if the unit is in a city with a coastal fortress, combat is mutual, and the cruiser may sustain damage or be destroyed. Artillery attacking infantry or cavalry is treated as a bombardment attack, with no losses to the artillery unit. But if there is an artillery unit defending, combat is mutual. Moreover, the defending artillery unit uses its attack factor for defense since both units are shooting at each other.

The intent is to have artillery, naval and bomber attacks inflict limited damage against units that can't fire back. If a unit can defend itself, normal combat rules apply. So no pressing the 'k' key for munitions is necessary, and AI units have the same advantages as those of the human player.