China's stength compared to Japan in the new DLC

[123e55]

After watching the stream, I have to say I am a bit worried about how quick the war went. I feel like the two countries aren't balanced out , and now with the potential destructive focus of Manchuko(aka free cores) it will be even harder for a chinese player to win against a japanese one, or at least to get a stalemate.

The modifier that China gets for its army when Japan does the 'Chinese border incident' is just incredibly harsh, stacked with the other modifiers and the fact that now you don't just eat up the warlords.That means China capitulates way faster (fewer victory points),and when they do they drag the other warlords to the peace deal as well. So all those things, the multitude of negative modifiers plus the changes to the united front have just made China a country ripe for taking, which you can annex in mere months ,while the real war lasted more than eight years.

 

[Reinner]

Agree, China fell way too easy on stream. Invasion of China should be Barbarossa type of difficulty for Japan. I won't even talk about Marco Polo decision mechanic which is utterly broken and only costs small amount of PP which criples China even harder.

 

[£10 bag]

Agree, China fell way too easy on stream. Invasion of China should be Barbarossa type of difficulty for Japan. I won't even talk about Marco Polo decision mechanic which is utterly broken and only costs small amount of PP which criples China even harder.

But we don’t have Barbarossa in this game, sure we have allied landing in Tuscany in 42, or Belgium able to strike back Germany, but Barbarossa...

 

[grandad1982]

Agree, China fell way too easy on stream. Invasion of China should be Barbarossa type of difficulty for Japan. I won't even talk about Marco Polo decision mechanic which is utterly broken and only costs small amount of PP which criples China even harder.

Final number aren't final?

 

[£10 bag]

Final number aren't final?

The aim of this game is not allowing you to lose, you can beat any country with the minimum amount of division necessary, you know why? Because there is no difference between a German division and a Brazilian one, as long you keep an equal composition and cw. That’s true real ww2 isn’t?

 

[FOARP]

Agree, China fell way too easy on stream. Invasion of China should be Barbarossa type of difficulty for Japan.

I get that you're probably referring to the complexity of the operations involved and the area to be covered, rather than literally saying that the level of resistance of Chinese forces to the Japanese invasion was the same as or similar to that of the USSR to the Axis invasion, but all the same, it does bear recounting that:

1) Japan never deployed more than about a third of its army to China. Compare this to the German army, which after the launch of Operation Barbarossa never had less than 80% of its army deployed against the Soviet Union.

2) The peak strength of the Japanese in China was around 31 divisions, mostly the smaller triangular "guard" divisions. By contrast the peak strength of the Axis on the Eastern Front was more than 100 divisions.

3) The Japanese in 1937-40 advanced to a line basically of their choosing and settled down to defend and patrol the territory they had. From then until Operation Ichi-Go the only offensives they undertook were so-called "cut short" operations designed to forestall and disrupt Chinese offensives. Whilst there were proposals to advance on Chongqing this was never actually attempted as by 1940 the Japanese were more interested in South-East Asia and the Pacific (a visitor to the Japanese headquarters from their forces in China in 1940 even remarked on the fact that they saw only one map of China open in their planning room, compared to dozens of maps of various parts of South-East Asia), and having already taken most of China's major cities did not think they would gain anything more by further advances. instead they hoped to win a political victory by establishing a competitor government under Wang Jingwei.

4) The Chinese resistance in battles like Shanghai, Xuzhou, Hengyang, and Changsha should not be belittled, but a simple analysis of what the Japanese achieved in Operation Ichi-Go does not reveal anything like the kind of intensity of resistance over the course of the campaign that the Germans experienced in Barbarossa.
​

What does this mean for the game? Well, it means that to properly model what happened in China during the war we need to get away form the idea that the war there was a meat-grinder type conflict similar to the Eastern Front. Instead, if there was a stalemate there, it was a political one. A decision where the front can lapse into a semi-truce after a certain number of cities are taken would actually be more realistic than the present one, and wouldn't result in Japan having no forces available for invasions of South-East Asian territories.

The present set-up is bad for game-play because it is ahistorical. A Chinese front that requires Japan to deploy the majority of its forces there does not leave enough for offensives elsewhere.

PS - the source for the above information is this book. It's very good and I advise anyone interested in this conflict to read it.

 

[123e55]

I get that you're probably referring to the complexity of the operations involved and the area to be covered, rather than literally saying that the level of resistance of Chinese forces to the Japanese invasion was the same as or similar to that of the USSR to the Axis invasion, but all the same, it does bear recounting that:

1) Japan never deployed more than about a third of its army to China. Compare this to the German army, which after the launch of Operation Barbarossa never had less than 80% of its army deployed against the Soviet Union.

2) The peak strength of the Japanese in China was around 31 divisions, mostly the smaller triangular "guard" divisions. By contrast the peak strength of the Axis on the Eastern Front was more than 100 divisions.

3) The Japanese in 1937-40 advanced to a line basically of their choosing and settled down to defend and patrol the territory they had. From then until Operation Ichi-Go the only offensives they undertook were so-called "cut short" operations designed to forestall and disrupt Chinese offensives. Whilst there were proposals to advance on Chongqing this was never actually attempted as by 1940 the Japanese were more interested in South-East Asia and the Pacific (a visitor to the Japanese headquarters from their forces in China in 1940 even remarked on the fact that they saw only one map of China open in their planning room, compared to dozens of maps of various parts of South-East Asia), and having already taken most of China's major cities did not think they would gain anything more by further advances. instead they hoped to win a political victory by establishing a competitor government under Wang Jingwei.

4) The Chinese resistance in battles like Shanghai, Xuzhou, Hengyang, and Changsha should not be belittled, but a simple analysis of what the Japanese achieved in Operation Ichi-Go does not reveal anything like the kind of intensity of resistance over the course of the campaign that the Germans experienced in Barbarossa.
​

What does this mean for the game? Well, it means that to properly model what happened in China during the war we need to get away form the idea that the war there was a meat-grinder type conflict similar to the Eastern Front. Instead, if there was a stalemate there, it was a political one. A decision where the front can lapse into a semi-truce after a certain number of cities are taken would actually be more realistic than the present one, and wouldn't result in Japan having no forces available for invasions of South-East Asian territories.

The present set-up is bad for game-play because it is ahistorical. A Chinese front that requires Japan to deploy the majority of its forces there does not leave enough for offensives elsewhere.

PS - the source for the above information is this book. It's very good and I advise anyone interested in this conflict to read it.

I totally agree with your suggestions. It would be nice if we actually got a rework on the war system altogether , as wars are too binary . All of them are either you lost everything or you won everything.There should be a reason for the player not to conquer the whole China as well, just as there was in the reality. In-game, you just put all your troops on the border and charge the enemy with everything you got -- something that in real life wouldn't be practical, as there were also troops on the border to demoralize bordering countries of thinking of a surprise attack.
Many things have and hopefully will be changed, but now,as a compromise, I'd suggest not making the war we're speaking about this one-sided.

 

[grandad1982]

The aim of this game is not allowing you to lose, you can beat any country with the minimum amount of division necessary, you know why? Because there is no difference between a German division and a Brazilian one, as long you keep an equal composition and cw. That’s true real ww2 isn’t?

That doesn't really have anything to do with what the initially complaint I responded to though does it?

Complaints about the AI are valid as is having different opinions to the devs on the design direction of the game (making minors more powerful), but really thats not the same as complaining that some number in an update that hasn't been released yet are off. Sure its ok to bring it up as a concern but they really aren't final numbers....

 

[£10 bag]

That doesn't really have anything to do with what the initially complaint I responded to though does it?

Complaints about the AI are valid as is having different opinions to the devs on the design direction of the game (making minors more powerful), but really thats not the same as complaining that some number in an update that hasn't been released yet are off. Sure its ok to bring it up as a concern but they really aren't final numbers....

So we have been waiting the final numbers for two years I guess

 

[Reinner]

Final number aren't final?

My issue is not with the numbers, it's the decision alone that is the problem. Explain to me how is it justifiable that you can with one click cripple entire China and all of its overlords around it. Unless if it gets removed or completely changed, Japan now essentially has a win button against China.

 

[123e55]

My issue is not with the numbers, it's the decision alone that is the problem. Explain to me how is it justifiable that you can with one click cripple entire China and all of its overlords around it. Unless if it gets removed or completely changed, Japan now essentially has a win button against China.

I also don't get why does it buff USA when you press it. What's their involvement in the war?

 

[grandad1982]

Look all I'm saying it's the impact of the number shown in stream aren't final. @Archangel85 even said that he wasn't happy with how quickly the war was won so expect things to change.

@£10 bag (funny name by the way) again that's not really number balance your complaining about but deliberate design choices to make small nations more powerful.

I'd love better ai (it has improved every patch) and more variation in the nations (I'd like to see research companies play a bigger role in differentiating nations abilities) but that's still not to do with non final numbers in the unreleased build.

 

[aono]

I also don't get why does it buff USA when you press it. What's their involvement in the war?

1. In this war USA diplomatically supported China, moved their interests with western countries, condemns Japan and set sanctions against Japan (well, that was kinda complicated, as Japan had trade treaty with USA same time, but it's really long story).
2. Even with Neutrality Acts in effect and before Lend-Lease Act, USA helped China with materials and specialists. USA credited China, sold them trucks and fuel. When Lend-Lease Act was approved (1940), this help intensified. In 1941 american medics fights malaria in Southern China. USA teached Chinese pilots, and American pilots-"reservists" (quotes - because they were moved to reserve exactly to allow them go to China) fought in China.

Actually, it was Sino-Japanese War that eroded support for Neutrality Acts.

 

[Lord of Beer]

I think the move to not automatically form the United Chinese Front and to annex all the warlords is a bad idea. It will be much easier to attack China now - launch a successful naval invasion and take out a puppet's VPs, and you'll secure a huge area of territory, much more than you would have currently.

I think Paradox were so keen to show off their decision system about gaining support from the warlords that they missed that the Sino-Japanese war is basically decided within a few months, either China can hold at the start or they cannot. If you lose the whole area around Beijing immediately you lose a huge amount of factories. You really need to be pumping out equipment for those extra few months. Also the AI is substantially worse than a human player, so being unable to take annex all those puppets easily before or at the start of the war will be a big nerf to China in MP.

I watched the stream also, and there were quite a lot of sub-optimal plays from Daniel. Maybe he was slowing it down deliberately to show off features, but an experienced player against that China+puppets could have won within a couple of months.

Right now in 1.4.2 Japan and China are reasonably well balanced for multiplayer. With two players of equal skill, Japan will still win 90% of the time, but it might take them 2 years and a lot of effort. From looking at the game now, it will only take about 6 months.

 

[Vieras]

I think the problem is how supply system works in the game. Supply is by the state so it doesn't matter if you are in the coast or 300km inland as long as you are in the same state. It is actually beneficial to expand inland to other states as fast as you can to even the supply load to multiple states.

 

[Reinner]

I also don't get why does it buff USA when you press it. What's their involvement in the war?

Short summary:

UK and USA froze Japan's assets in July, 1941. All financial, import and export trade transactions in which Japanese interests were involved came under the control of the USA government. USA was still looking for a way to enter the war so on 1 August, 1941 Roosevelt forced an oil embargo on Japan, which was an intentional act of hostility. As a result Japan lost access to 75% of her overseas trade ans 88% of her imported oil. Soon after Japan had insufficient resources to continue the war with China.

Japan tried to enter into negotiations with USA, but they demanded they would only end embargo if they would withdraw all their troops from China which Japan rejected.

All these actions were taken before the Pearl Harbour attack.

 

[FOARP]

If you lose the whole area around Beijing immediately you lose a huge amount of factories.

Of course, historically Beiping (as it was called then) fell in a day or two, virtually without a fight, and the Chinese kept fighting after that for another 8 years.

I think the real problem here is with the idea that Japan’s failure to conquer China was the result of the Chinese forces blocking any further advance. Trying to simulate that in the game means you end up with a situation where Japan wins every time anyway, since all you (or the AI) need do is use more force than the Japanese did historically (I.e, ~1/3rd of their forces).

Let’s be honest: even a system where the war on China typically lasts 2-3 years still isn’t much good if we’re looking for a decent WW2 experience. What we need is something that delivers (or can deliver if the players wants it) a political stalemate or even semi-truce once a certain line is reached by the Japanese.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

Let’s be honest: even a system where the war on China typically lasts 2-3 years still isn’t much good if we’re looking for a decent WW2 experience. What we need is something that delivers (or can deliver if the players wants it) a political stalemate or even semi-truce once a certain line is reached by the Japanese.

Agree. What are the conditions that force the Soviets into a "white peace" with Finland? Can something like that be employed by Japan against China?

 

[Vieras]

Agree. What are the conditions that force the Soviets into a "white peace" with Finland? Can something like that be employed by Japan against China?

I think it's just an event where Historical AI always accepts the white peace with concessions. It's not a good way to model winter war (because war never happens in winter and Soviets might as well invade the whole country) and I don't think that an event can be used to prolong the war.

 

[Meglok]

Y'all do realize at this stage nothing else major is going to change in 1.5? Release is at most a few weeks away probably. Any big changes would now be 1.6 or later.

And don't get all steamed up about anything new shown in these videos. It is all subject to change prior to final release, and in the inevitable hot fixes later. They are just publicity videos posted to generate sales.