1937 - Japan Invades China play test thread

[techumseh]

Those designate major Chinese ports. Each one controlled by the Chinese increases the probability that a unit killed in a give turn will be replaced. Historically, Japan captured all of these ports in an attempt to strangle Nationalist China. There are similar markings and rules for Kunming, which was the terminus for the Burma Road and the Hump airlift and Lanchow, which was the entry point for Soviet aircraft and supplies. Airbase cities for the American 14th Air Force are also marked on the map.

 

[techumseh]

Here's a screenshot from an earlier game. Bases used by the 14th AF are marked with a green 'A'. The little blue dots represent portions of rivers that are navigable.

 

[Civinator]

techumseh, thank you very much for the explanation. Of course your new screenshot triggered some new questions:

These red Chinese symbols and above some of them on rivers these "green balls", what is their purpose?
If the names for the rivers, landscapes and the coding-letters were done with TOTPP, can the font be changed ?

 

[techumseh]

The red writing is the Chinese character for "rice", or so I was told. I used it in place of the "shield" on grassland terrain. Much of the map and terrain are re-used from "Warlords of China". 1937 is really an extension of that scenario.

Sorry, I don't know how to change the font, but I believe it can be done.

 

[Civinator]

Again thank you very much for the explanation.

 

[Patine]

@techumseh Will Units of the Collaborationist Manchukuo Imperial Army, Navy, and Air Force, Collaborationist Chinese Army, Navy, and Air, and Megjiang National Army appear? Despite despite taking their marching orders at the top levels, de facto, from the Imperial Japanese General High Command, they seemed to have their own units and commanders at the mid- to- lower unit levels, their own uniforms, and some different equipment, including spoils taken from the KMT National Army and even some Soviet stuff.

 

[techumseh]

Yes. Both the Manchukuo and Nanking Regime puppet governments have units included in the Japanese mix, as well as rules governing their use.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Tech,

Just a quick update on your play test thread:

It’s October 1939 (turn 15 of 50) and I’ve just captured the last coastal port (‘P’) city of Canton. By doing so, I hope to reduce the flow of reinforcements that the Chinese have been receiving through them.

It’s a good thing I brought my aircraft carrier and had additional air units operating out of Swatow and Taihoko (aka Taipei), as the Chinese were prepared to put up a tough fight for the city and I was a little short on assault troops to defend it. Fortunately, I have a couple of Freighters laden with troops just a turn away to reinforce my beleaguered force.

In the meantime, after my capture of Nanking, I amassed a sizeable ground force in the city and for the last 2 turns have been making my way down the Yangtze River valley and have managed to capture Anking (seen in the top right corner of the screen shot).

From there, my goal is to split my force to move down towards Nanchang and the objective city of Wuhan to finally meet up against the other objective city of Changsa. In the meantime, with my reinforcements arriving in Canton, I will move northward against the future American air base cities of Shaokuan and Kanchow thereby closing off my conquest of Western China. From there I can move, on to capture the objective cities of central/southern China.

At least that’s the plan! What the Chinese have to say about it is another matter altogether ! As I’ve mentioned in our private thread, the multi Chinese counter-offensives are frequent and often fierce and they have managed to inflict 43 casualties on my forces to their own loss of 266 units (a kill ratio of 6 to 1 in my favor but one that improved from the previous 4 to 1 due to some costly operations on their part).

Without reinforcements from Japan, it would have been impossible for me to maintain my momentum. On the other hand, as you indicated, as I approach the third of the way in the game, the rate of these new units should tapper off significantly, so I will have to manage my forces accordingly.

 

[techumseh]

Looks excellent. Solid strategy. Are you getting enough Resource units to Japan to offset your deficit?

 

[Dadais]

Here's a screenshot from an earlier game. Bases used by the 14th AF are marked with a green 'A'. The little blue dots represent portions of rivers that are navigable.

View attachment 619947

It seems you have two kind of hills, the second one present mainly on the west side.
Are those portraying rice paddies in terrace ?
Or higher grounds ?
Maybe is only this second one's distinction to be impassable ?

As already said, that Great Wall design is really cool,
which make it sad to see it eaten by river. Did you try working it with
1. TileBonus design
2. TileBonus Personalized Disposition
to hide the 3 or so tiles affected ?

Well, that's only small detail anyway.

Overall, that's looking great !

 

[tootall_2012]

Looks excellent. Solid strategy. Are you getting enough Resource units to Japan to offset your deficit?

In addition to maintaining a very high tax rate (since there is no research in the game) I've been sending regular Resource shipments to Japan and that has helped keep my treasury on the positive side so far, though because of my southern strategy I started running into a shortage of transports to carry my reinforcements arriving in Japan to China and the Resource units accumulating in the Korean port of Fusan over to Japan.

As I completed my conquest of the sourthern coastal port cities, I'm in the process of returning my extra Freighters used for that operation back north to the East China Sea to pick up the slack.

 

[techumseh]

It seems you have two kind of hills, the second one present mainly on the west side.
Are those portraying rice paddies in terrace ?
Or higher grounds ?
Maybe is only this second one's distinction to be impassable ?

Overall, that's looking great !

Thanks. I used 2 kinds of mountains, both impassible. It's just for esthetic reasons, I only want high snowy mountains in the Himalayas. I did this in Burma campaign as well. It's useful to channel the units of the AI (and the Japanese for that matter) to where you want them to go.

Thanks for the tip on the Tile Bonus feature. I'll have a look, but honestly I'm not really stressed about it.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Tech,

Another quick update:

It's now late in the game, December 1943 (turn 39 of 50). It was a long and titanic struggle, particularly in the vicinity of Changsa but I finally completed Phase I and II of my objectives stated previously around June 43, i.e. the capture of the 2 airbase cities of Shaokuan and Kanchow and the objective cities of Changsa and Wuhan.

In the meantime, Amercian submarines started operating near Japanese home waters as early as mid 1942, thereby posing a serious risk to my convoys. As well starting in early 1943, the American 14th Airforce has starting deploying it's avant-garde units to support Chinese operations.

After my conquests of Changsa and Wuhan, I started clearing the area west of those cities and amassing my troops to lay the stage for Phase III of my campaign, i.e. the capture of the objective city of Nanning in the south west (which should give me chance at a Marginal Victory) and the reduction of the three Amercian airbase cities of Chichaing, Liuchow and Kweiyang.

If these operations prove successful, I could even contemplate moving against Chungking to the north, which is worth 3 victory points on its own.

But I realize time isn't on my side, as I expect American B-29 bombers will soon start operating against my cities with Industries. Once they start destroying one by one the Industrial units based in my home island and Manchurian cities I won't be able to produce new units.

And of course, the Soviets threat might make it very difficult to hold onto the few objective cities located in Mandchuria, thereby putting in peril my ability to maintain the minimum 18 victory points required for a marginal victory.

As such, I trying to build up my defenses in both Japan and Manchuria to parry the oncoming threats but I don't know that it will be enough!

 

[techumseh]

I've finished my play test game. I forced the Yangtze gorges at Ichang then moved upriver to Fouling, which I captured after a fierce fight. Meanwhile, I was held up at Kweiyang after taking heavy losses at Liuchow. I then attacked at Chungking and was almost wiped out by a counter-attack. I retreated to Fouling to lick my wounds. With the reinforcements for Operation Ichi-Go, I was able to finally take Kweiyang and move north to meet up with a second offensive from the east towards Chungking, which was finally re-captured. In the last 2 turns, I move on to Chengtu, but was unable to capture it before the game ended. Meanwhile, the Soviet attack only came on the last turn, which was very fortunate, so they were only able to capture Harbin. However, the guerrillas managed to take Keijo (Seoul) on the last turn. B-29 raids only destroyed 3 of 10 industry units (plus Soviets one in Harbin, and guerrillas 1 in Keijo) I ended up with 20 VPs, a marginal victory and two short of a decisive win. (Btw, I have no idea why the fortified units do not appear in this screen shot.)

The scenario has a few issues later in the game, mostly overall play balance and adjusting the US B-29 and submarine events. I have some ideas, but I'll wait for Tootall's play test report before finalizing them.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Tech,

Here’s my final update.

I’ve reached the end of the scenario on October 1945, and managed to capture the 18 objective points required for a Marginal Victory though it was a close run affair.

As previously discussed, I implemented Phase III of my southern campaign and was able to push all the way to the air base city of Kweiyang, south of Chungking, before I was prevented from going further within the remaining timeframe, due to repeat and heated Chinese counter offensives in the area.

But even more critically I was able to capture the 18th objective point when I conquered the city of Nanning, potentially giving me a Marginal victory.

During this time, the American submarine and B-29 campaigns though intense both failed in their primary objectives, respectively that of hindering the maritime traffic of my resource units or the destruction of the industrial units in my cities.

I said potentially with regards my marginal victory because I still had to face the Russian Manchurian ‘August Storm’ offensive which was launched in August 1945. Though it managed to pierce my outer defenses and came within the vicinity of my objective city of Harbin, it failed to conquer it before the game ended, thereby confirming my victory.

Had the offensive started earlier, I cannot say for certain whether I would have been able to hold onto Harbin or even Mukden, giving the Soviet forces arrayed against the Japanese stationed in Manchuria but such are the vagaries of war. It’s a rare scenario that can manage to keep you on your toes till the very end!

Overall, a very challenging and enjoyable experience. Very well done indeed!

 

[CurtSibling]

Looks like a truly splendid scenario - @techumseh once again confirms his place as one of the great modders.

 

[techumseh]

Thank you, gentlemen. I think it's 80% there, but clearly there's some work to do at the back end. It was a long war (8 years), so I had to use 2 month turns to keep it manageable. That means that much of the US contribution comes only in the last few turns of the game, particularly the B-29 bombing campaign. Deciding how to make that relevant to the war in China is a bit tricky. I'll start by making the B-29's powerful enough to actually destroy the Japanese factories.

Both Tootall 2012 and my playtests also exposed the failure of the USN submarine campaign events. Historically, unlike the German U-boat campaign, the American submarine campaign was successful, virtually blockading Japan by the end of the war. So I have to up my game there too.

I think the war could be divided into 4 phases: 1) The Japanese offensive, where they attack south from the Great Wall and land at Shanghai and push into central China; 2) The stalemate, following the withdrawal of forces for the invasion of SE Asia at the end of 1941, they become short of troops and get bogged down, with increasing Communist guerrilla activity in their rear; 3) The final push in 1944, where they get large reinforcements and launch Operation Ichi-Go, an attempt to capture US airbases in China; and 4) The desperate defense - with their factories destroyed and their trade strangled, the Chinese take the offensive and the Soviets deliver the coup de grace with their massive Manchurian offensive.

It's the last part that needs more work. The Soviet offensive events seem to work quite well, but the US bombing and sub campaigns do not. So back to the drawing board for the next week or two I guess. Much thanks to Tootall 2012 for his meticulous play testing as usual, and to John Petroski, who is helping me with Lua events.

 

[Patine]

Say, @techumseh , do you, perchance have separate roundel graphics for the Manchukuo Imperial Air and Chinese National Collaborationist Air Force I could borrow for Empire of the Rising Sun, or would I have to take a take at them on my own?