Modifications to MWiF China Map portion

[Mziln]

On your WiF map Wuhan is on the north bank at the juncture of the Han Kiang and Yangtze rivers.

On your MWiF/CWiF map it is on the south side.

Most maps of Wuhan (on the internet) show the majority of the city on the north side of the rivers.

[c92nichj]

From having played quite a few complete games of CWiF against capable opponents I have a few comments about the proposed China map modifications:

I have found that in CWiF China is completely conquered or thoroughly lamed about half the time.

While the supply problems for the Chinese are difficult in CWiF's China, so are the Japanese supply situations.

Been posting this before but will repeat anyhow. I have been playing a fair amount of CWIF games and also in my games China have been wiped out frequently. However the japaneese supply situation is as bad as the chineese one, I have seen my opponent advance building japaneese HQ's to be able to perform the landcampaign.

With the old CWIF map Japans main goal was to kill or subdue China before getting to war with the wallies else he would not have any HQ's or troops to fight USA.

When Japan fails to kill off china, china will get on the advance and can just simply walk around japan and threaten to put her out of supply. As any defence on this type of map is to be mobile japan cannot afford to perform as many Naval and combined actions but need to take landactions to defend in China.

Overall I think that the changes proposed will severely limit the Japaneese option of performing a succesful game.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Mziln
On your WiF map Wuhan is on the north bank at the juncture of the Han Kiang and Yangtze rivers.
On your MWiF/CWiF map it is on the south side.
Most maps of Wuhan (on the internet) show the majority of the city on the north side of the rivers.

Wuhan was already on the MWiF Map when modified it. I remarked that the original cartographer (Michael Fisher) had made a pretty accurate map in most areas. Sure, there were areas that were less accurate than others, and areas less close to the WiF FE. So his work has to be considered with respect from my point of view.

Wuhan in reality is a metropolitan area consisting of three parts - Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang, commonly called the "Three Towns of Wuhan" (hence the name "Wuhan", combining "Wu" from the first city and "Han" from the other two).
(taken from the Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan) (See also http://english.wh.gov.cn/ where a map is provided -- long java-thing to load).

The nowadays Wuhan seems to be situated more on the north bank than on the south bank (http://www.maps-of-china.com/wuhan-ow.shtml). But what about the 1940 one ?

On most WWII maps of China I have, the city shown is Hankow (Hankou), not Wuhan, and it is shown on the north bank.
Source for WWII maps : http://www.historylink101.com/1/world_war_II/maps.htm
There is even a 1920-1950 China map who show the 3 cities.

My approach when I made the modifications to the China portion of the map was to be minimalist and to try not to modify already existing features. That's why I did not change Wuhan position. I had added Hankow on the north bank for a while, but deleted it when I learned that Hankow was part of Wuhan.

Maybe I would put Hankow back again on the north banks ?
Or simply as you say, put Wuhan on the north bank, as it is on the WiF FE map too.

I'll wait further comments on this to change it.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj

From having played quite a few complete games of CWiF against capable opponents I have a few comments about the proposed China map modifications:

I have found that in CWiF China is completely conquered or thoroughly lamed about half the time.

While the supply problems for the Chinese are difficult in CWiF's China, so are the Japanese supply situations.

Been posting this before but will repeat anyhow. I have been playing a fair amount of CWIF games and also in my games China have been wiped out frequently. However the japaneese supply situation is as bad as the chineese one, I have seen my opponent advance building japaneese HQ's to be able to perform the landcampaign.

With the old CWIF map Japans main goal was to kill or subdue China before getting to war with the wallies else he would not have any HQ's or troops to fight USA.

When Japan fails to kill off china, china will get on the advance and can just simply walk around japan and threaten to put her out of supply. As any defence on this type of map is to be mobile japan cannot afford to perform as many Naval and combined actions but need to take landactions to defend in China.

Overall I think that the changes proposed will severely limit the Japaneese option of performing a succesful game.

The previous discussions about the Play balance in China (See that thread -- tm.asp?m=903208) concluded that one of the solutions to adopt to help having a China campaign more balanced was to add cities to the China portion of the map.

I just did this, and I'm looking for comments about which city to add, about whether I added too much or not enough (and which ones to add or not). Comments about the original WMiF/CWiF map features are welcomed too, such as Wuhan position off the Yangtzee from Mzlin, and the modification of the river around Chungking from Nils (that I had prior to post this thread).

I'm sorry I'm not sure to understand fully your comment c92nichj. Are you arguing that adding cities to the China map would not be good ? I was not one of the more convincted that the CWiF/MWiF map was wrong in China, but having played it too, I'm sure those supply holes are not good for the Chinese, not good and not realistic neither, so adding cities to China is a must if only on this regards.

[Froonp]

My suggested changes to what you propose are:
South China - as is.

I did not change it a lot anyway.

China Coast - remove Hefei and Su-Chow. They are not needed for Chinese supply when counterattacking.

The main reason to add Hefei & Suchow (why do you spell it Su-Chow ?) were to give back the map the "City battle" feature that the WiF FE maps had.
The coast has a lot of cities, and on the WiF FE map there is nearly 1 city in each hex you want to advance. Adding those was to make the area more like this, you see ?
Moreover those cities are already conquered by Japan, so they do not add an US Entry roll.

North China - remove Baoji, Yinchuan, and Sining. Baoji is not needed for maintaining Chinese supply given the two other new cities.

This reduces the new, conquerable cities to 16. They all would be worthwhile taking for the conquest of China. At .3 per, the cost in US Entry points would be 4.8, which is still a little high. If need be, we could make some of the less important cities cost .2, to make it come out to an even 4 as in WIF FE.

I added Baoji feeling that it was maybe too much (with Tianshui).
Nils also asked me to remove Sining & Yinchuan before I post this to this thread, so I believe you must be right the both of you.
It removing both, I will then modifiy the river around Lan-Chow to cover it on 3 sides as it is on the WiF FE maps.
Would you agree ?

I noted down your proposals.
I'll wait further forum members comment before making changes, is this OK ?

[wosung]

Some questions, hints and thoughts:

1. What is the main criteria for placing cities on the map: "strategic value" (as seen in the light of future game situations) or contemporary significance (population numbers, economic values)? Cities like Baoji at that time were really small places, relatively speaking.

2. Anybody seen the quite detailed, huge "railay, highway and aviation map" in: Tang Leang-Li (ed.) Reconstruction in China, Shanghai 1935, China United Press. According to it, for instance: there was no Railway from Xian to Lanzhou (not even planned), just a "highway" and an "airway".

3. Please be careful with chinese city names. You are using at least 2-3 different transcription systems for Chinese characters: modern post-49 Pinyin (Baoji) and different sorts Wade-Giles (Nanking, Nan-King. Baoji would be Pao-Chi). Unify it: Either delete all "-", or use them uniformly between the Syllables Shang-Hai. Better delete them. And: World War 2 Peking ("Nothern Capital") schould be Peiping ("Nothern Peace").

4. Well: Chinese Communists and cities... They were the ones in WW2 who were the least dependant on "supply cites", because they were using grass-root manufactering and captured weapons for their regular troops. One would need far more complex rules, to simulate this.

Regards

[wosung]

Depends on criteria: little Chengchow should be deleted for the far more important provincial capital Kaifeng (just the hex right of Chengchow, at the railway line).

The distance between Nanking and Shanghai seems to be too long.

The rail between Hangchow and Nanchang was not completed (1935), also the one Changsha - Canton. Not sure about 1939.

The Rail between Nanchang and Changsha was not even projected in 1935.

There should be a "highway" from Chengtu-Chongking-Kweiyang. But not one from Kweiyang to Changsha. The route Kweiyang - Kunming is debatable, because it was built, as much infrastructure in Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces in wartime. Much of the traffic was by river.

[wosung]

From Nanning to Changsha there should be no railway, just some sort of "Highway".

There should also be a "Highway" from Nanning to Canton.

The rail line Hanoi-Nanning should end just before Nanning. And be exchanged by Highway.

Perhaps one should delete all the highways in China anyway. Better not to substitute them by railway, as sometimes has been done in wif maps. Long distance transportation in China WAS a mess. But then the Japanese would get problems with transporting ressources by land. So at least delete most of the connections between Inland provinces (Yunnan and Sichuan) and costal China. Provincial modernization in KMT-Hinterland just slowly started bout 1935 as ressource and armament centre and as Chinese "Alpen fortress".

Regards

[wosung]

and pardon: I ment Chungking (Chongqing) and not Chongking

Regards

[Froonp]

Wosung, you seem well aware of China during WWII, I'm happy someone like you is around to provide help.

ORIGINAL: wosung

Some questions, hints and thoughts:

1. What is the main criteria for placing cities on the map: "strategic value" (as seen in the light of future game situations) or contemporary significance (population numbers, economic values)? Cities like Baoji at that time were really small places, relatively speaking.

For the Chinese controlled areas I used WWII campaign maps I downloaded from the web (there http://www.historylink101.com/1/world_war_II/maps.htm for example), and WWII campaign maps I found in my atlases, and added cities where I found that the Chinese would need supply. There are places on the WiF FE maps where the Chinese can't be put out of supply, and on those same places on the MWiF maps they could have been. I added cities in those places. Those cities added for supply reasons are denoted as such on my comments posts.
For Baoji, I was suggested to add either Baoji or Tianshui, and I added both, so that future comments would allow me to choose which one to keep.
For the moment, the comments I gathered lead me to think I should delete Baoji and keep the other.

2. Anybody seen the quite detailed, huge "railay, highway and aviation map" in: Tang Leang-Li (ed.) Reconstruction in China, Shanghai 1935, China United Press. According to it, for instance: there was no Railway from Xian to Lanzhou (not even planned), just a "highway" and an "airway".

Don't know this book.

3. Please be careful with chinese city names. You are using at least 2-3 different transcription systems for Chinese characters: modern post-49 Pinyin (Baoji) and different sorts Wade-Giles (Nanking, Nan-King. Baoji would be Pao-Chi). Unify it: Either delete all "-", or use them uniformly between the Syllables Shang-Hai. Better delete them. And: World War 2 Peking ("Nothern Capital") schould be Peiping ("Nothern Peace").

In fact, I did not want to change the things that are coming from the WiF FE maps.
It is a game design decision to make MWiF a computer version of WiF FE as close as possible.
Anyway, for the new cities, I would be very happy to add the names as they were in 40-45, and as uniformely as possible, unfortunately it is very hard to find them.
Maybe you can provide me for new names for the added cities ?
The added cities are those whose name is in blue in the maps I uploaded.
The black cities I won't change (they are those inherited from the WiF FE maps), I'll leave this to Steve to decide.

4. Well: Chinese Communists and cities... They were the ones in WW2 who were the least dependant on "supply cites", because they were using grass-root manufactering and captured weapons for their regular troops. One would need far more complex rules, to simulate this.

Well, unfortunately, the Communist army in WiF FE is like any other regular Army. It needs supply frm primary sources.
Anyway, WiF game experience shows that the regular Communist army receive support from the Partisans who appear in China. Those partisans are considered Communists, and cooperate with the Communist regular Army. Those partisans do not need supply, they are always considered in supply.
So in the latest part of the game, the Communist army is composed of a part of regulare Army and a part of Partisan Army.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: wosung
From Nanning to Changsha there should be no railway, just some sort of "Highway".

There is one railway on the maps I have. But it stops at Liuchow as I wrote in the comments from the China South map.
Anyway, this railway come from the WiF FE map, I won't delete it.
Moreover, there are no "highways" in WiF FE.
The only roads that are represented are the Burma Road and the Arctic Road (Finland). They obey to special rules.

There should also be a "Highway" from Nanning to Canton.

No highways in WiF FE.
Either railways or nothing.
Maybe some highways are considered as railway for WiF FE needs. This I don't know.
There is no railway between Nanning & Canton on the WiF FE maps, so I won't add one.
The maps should strategically stay the same, from WIF FE to MWiF.

The rail line Hanoi-Nanning should end just before Nanning. And be exchanged by Highway.

Maybe that part of highway was considered as a railway by the WiF FE design team.

Perhaps one should delete all the highways in China anyway. Better not to substitute them by railway, as sometimes has been done in wif maps. Long distance transportation in China WAS a mess. But then the Japanese would get problems with transporting ressources by land. So at least delete most of the connections between Inland provinces (Yunnan and Sichuan) and costal China. Provincial modernization in KMT-Hinterland just slowly started bout 1935 as ressource and armament centre and as Chinese "Alpen fortress".

About railways, I'll leave them as they are on the WiF FE maps.
I only modificated them at 2 places : I added one from Naninkg to west of Hang-Chow, because it is present on the WiF FE maps, and I moved the one that goes from Tai-Yuan to Chengchow, because it was not accurate.
I prefer not to add any one more, and not to delete any.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: wosung

Depends on criteria: little Chengchow should be deleted for the far more important provincial capital Kaifeng (just the hex right of Chengchow, at the railway line).

I can't, Chengchow is already on the WiF FE maps.

The distance between Nanking and Shanghai seems to be too long.

Would you move Nanking to have a better distance ?
You would move it where ?
This I can do if it is so badly placed. [:D]
But please also consider the distance from Nanking to other places in China.

The rail between Hangchow and Nanchang was not completed (1935), also the one Changsha - Canton. Not sure about 1939.

The Rail between Nanchang and Changsha was not even projected in 1935.

It is present on WiF FE maps. I can't remove it.
I've not my WWII maps from where I'm answering you, but I'm pretty sure that this railway is present on them.

There should be a "highway" from Chengtu-Chongking-Kweiyang.

As I already said, there is no highway in WiF FE. Only special roads.
I can't add one, as there is none on the WIF FE maps.

But not one from Kweiyang to Changsha. The route Kweiyang - Kunming is debatable, because it was built, as much infrastructure in Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces in wartime.

This is supposed to be the famous Burma Road.
The Burma Road is not done well on WiF FE maps ?

Much of the traffic was by river.

Maybe some of the trafic by river is shown by railway on the WiF FE maps ?

[Froonp]

Wosung, your comments seemed to be very learned, and I thank you warmely for them, I appreciated.

I wanted to say this to you because I realized that my comments were not very kind to you. I seemed to always say "no" "no" "this is not on the WiF FE maps" all the time. [:D]

Your comments were especially with the railways, and the goal I think we try to reach in modifying the China portion of the map is to add more cities to it. Not to add any railway.

Would you have further comments about the cities proper ?
That is : Are the cities added to the map seems right to you, from a WiF Fe point of view, and from a real terrain point of view.
Would you have added more ? Less ?

Could you provide me with a list of coherent names for the cities that I added ?
I tried to be coherent, and to use names from WWII, I even kept 2 columns on my Excel chart where I track the cities of China, with the present name and the WWII name.

[wosung]

Thanks, no problems with the "no", well nearly no problem[:)]

The Names should read,
for the north-west;
Ankang
Sining
Paochi*
Tienshui*
Tungkwan*
Ningsia (like the province, itself = modern Yinchuan)
*IRL really historical insginficant small places

for the north-eastern/ middlechina part
Hofei
Tsingkow (can't find this Xinhailian = Hsinhailien. Tsingkow must be around the corner, now, I think part of modern Lianyungang. Tsingkow is a habor, kow means mouth, like river in the sea)
Nanchang
Hsüchow (Your Suchow, which IRL is near Hangchow)
Yencheng (Your Xiangfan, I think)
Paoting

South China
Chihchiang (can't find it, probably really small) What about exchanging it with Kweilin (Guilin), which was an important traffic centre between the Hinterland and the coast in the "Antijapanese Resistance War"?

And please just think about removing the "-" between the syllables, to make it uniform. Otherwise it is looking, well unprofessional. Even if this ment asking WIF god himself. Imagine 1,4 billion potential WIF customers confused, because they can't find their cities. [:'(]

I know there are no highways in WIF (highway was the term on the legend of my 1935 map, and that was just euphemistic propaganda tlk). I know rails sometimes are abstracted transport routes.

IRL much traffic was on the Chinese rivers. (Rail lines along the rivers?) But then overall it would be wiser to delete questionable rails, instead of placing them, because inland-China was a logistical nightmare for both, Japanese and Chinese. Much worse than Western Russia. Because of this and because of population ratios, it should be immpossible for Japan to conquer China, but possible to knockout its will to resist.

Main problem with Burma road was that it didn't exist in 1937. It just was constructed until the end of the war.

Reexamined Nanking, which is about 300km from Shanghai. So that's right, if it's 100 km per hex.

Regards

[wosung]

forgot South Chinese Liuchow

Regards

[lomyrin]

Being an experienced CWiF and WiFFE player as I have stated before, I would want to limit the additional Chinese Cities to just a few somewhat evenly spaced ones.

I would add only, if any have to be added at all:

Tianshui - a veritable Communist lifesaver being a city in a mountain hex on the rail line between Lan Chow and Si An.

Baoding - provides a stopgap supply point in the north east of China.

Xiangfan - provides a stopgap Nationalist supply point in Mid China.

Suchow - a stopgap supply point of minor importance, it starts in Japanese control.

Liuchow - a stopgap supply point in southern China, but do not change the rail line there.

I think the other additions proposed are either too strong additions for the Chinese or without much importance except for adding US entry costs.

Every one of these additions will definitely change the China campaign and cause Japanese losses higher than they would be without any changes as well as make China stronger and more of a later war threat to Japan. It is also likely to reduce Japanese resource captures and eventually reflect in a weaker Japan against the USA.

It may seem like only a few minor changes to add Chinese cities but it WILL CHANGE the entire Global War game.

Lars

[wosung]

Ok found Your Chihchiang (better: Chihkiang), according to a modern PRC 1:4 000 000 map it's a district town, that means it is really small. Next bigger town (in the same WIF hex) is Hwaihua (modern: Huaihua). But I would vote for Kweilin

According to the 1935 traffic map, it's a border area without much places and traffic. Only named place in that area is a Taohwaping (which doesn't exist on the slightly larger PRC map).

Regards

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

My suggested changes to what you propose are:

China Coast - remove Hefei and Su-Chow. They are not needed for Chinese supply when counterattacking.

The main reason to add Hefei & Suchow (why do you spell it Su-Chow ?) were to give back the map the "City battle" feature that the WiF FE maps had.
The coast has a lot of cities, and on the WiF FE map there is nearly 1 city in each hex you want to advance. Adding those was to make the area more like this, you see ?
Moreover those cities are already conquered by Japan, so they do not add an US Entry roll.

North China - remove Baoji, Yinchuan, and Sining. Baoji is not needed for maintaining Chinese supply given the two other new cities.

This reduces the new, conquerable cities to 16. They all would be worthwhile taking for the conquest of China. At .3 per, the cost in US Entry points would be 4.8, which is still a little high. If need be, we could make some of the less important cities cost .2, to make it come out to an even 4 as in WIF FE.

I added Baoji feeling that it was maybe too much (with Tianshui).
Nils also asked me to remove Sining & Yinchuan before I post this to this thread, so I believe you must be right the both of you.
It removing both, I will then modifiy the river around Lan-Chow to cover it on 3 sides as it is on the WiF FE maps.
Would you agree ?

I noted down your proposals.
I'll wait further forum members comment before making changes, is this OK ?

My ability to spell the names of Chinese cities is very poor. Please ignore any mistakes I make.

The limiting factor when attacking in China tends to be that only one land attack can be mustered per game turn. Many units are needed for maintaining the front lines and acquiring enough excess units to launch an attack is always difficult. Since armor is not commonly available, even good attacks result in all the attacking units becoming disrupted. Reorganizing all of them for performnig a second attack is hard to do.

So, adding more cities has the effect of requiring the attacker to use the assault table more often. Simply placing the weakest sacrificial lamb in a city can delay the Japanese army for an entire turn. Throw in a few bad weather rolls and the China campaign grinds to a halt. Conversely, a few lucky rolls for combat (no attackers disrupted plus 2 or 3 defenders in a hex destroyed) and for weather, and Japan can roll up China with relative ease.

This is why play balance in China is so hard to do. Its sensitivity to die rolls is much higher than for other land action in WIF.

So I strongly prefer to not add cities unless there is an excellent reason for doing so. Hence my suggestion to not add those 2 (hard to spell) cities behind the Japanese lines.

[c92nichj]

I agree with Lars, that we should add less cities , maybe add about 4 in total.
One of them should be between Lanchow and Si-An.
One between Changcha and chungking

The other two evenly spaced from other cities.

To make a japaneese strategy of not going all out for china possible, you could move the resources closer to the Coastline and more easily to defend against a coming chineese juggernaut.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Patrice,

There seem to be several issues under discussion here:

1 - Adding cities

2 - Adding rail lines

3 - Naming cities

4 - Change in play balance

For naming cities, I like going with what Wosung suggests, even if that changes what is printed on the WIF FE maps. I would want them to be names appropriate for English speakers, circa 1937-1945, and to be consistent in their spelling mechanics.

For adding cities and rail lines, I suggest breaking the problem into the 3 geographical areas you started with. If a consensus can be achieved for one or two of those sections, then the problem is smaller.

#4 is the hard problem. I do not expect us to be able to reach universal agreement on this and I have always believed we would have to play test any solution we come up with. Therefore, I suggest identifying 2 or 3 alternatives and we will play test the most likely solution first. If that fails, then we will try the alternatives. It might be possible to have a couple of solutions in play test simultaneously. I already have adding additional Chinese cities as an optional rule, so that gives us 2 alternatives already built into MWIF (none/some). With reluctance, I might be persuaded to extend that to two flavors of additional Chinese cities (none/few/many).