To sum it up, I'll quote a friend of mine on discord;
"Uh. What focus is it to get a pistol and shoot yourself because Paradox spent more time balancing Germany than China in the China patch?"
So I was pretty excited for Waking the Tiger. I even welcomed the revamp to Germany. It is of tremendous improvement to the game in both singleplayer and multiplayer that Germany is given more room to be anything other than the 'Gatekeeper of WW2' ...however, I was concerned that this would be an allocation of resources to the detriment of the rest of Waking the Tiger.
NatChina is NOT satisfying to play. I think it boils down to four main points.
1. Progression Blockers in the Focus Tree.
2. Chronic Weakness, both early and late game.
3. Frustrating mechanics.
4. General lack of love/attention.
1. I get it, NatChi is supposed to be AWFUL at the start. It was wholly unprepared for WW2. I absolutely love playing disadvantaged nations and turning them around. It is generally very satisfying... however, so much of China's gameplay is... waiting. There are a lot of filler focuses. Look at many of the 'Befriend' focuses of other countries, where you get a permanent opinion bonus and an often substantial 'Acceptance of X Diplomacy' bonus, often along with an event. Many countries like the UK, SOV, and US get one focus that significantly changes the opinion modifiers positive and negative of multiple countries.
Suppose I took the historical route and wanted to prioritize foreign aid in the historical order that China did (SOV, UK & US somewhat concurrently) So the first focus gives me 2 offmap factories, that's neat- about standard for a focus that gives factories. Now I go for Soviet Volunteer Group... The Mission to the Soviet Union is 70 days for a diplomacy bonus. Now that bonus isn't even enough so I have to spend 50 PP to improve relations up to at least 75. That translates to waiting for your advisors/law changes. Another 70 days and I get a general, Aleksandr Cherepanov. Now China has no dearth of talent at the start. You probably won't even use Cherepanov until you have 200-ish divisions which sure as hell isn't early game. Another 70 days and THEN you get the volunteer group. That's just one example... The inflation mechanics, which I'll get into later, also contribute to this. You have to constantly moderate your progress down the tree just to maintain a status quo. If you want 2 new factories via Taiyuan Arsenel, the focus effectively costs 140 days because you practically have to take Price Controls to mitigate it. Actually, it takes more like 210 days because you've already increased inflation with Mining Commission, which has a VERY modest benefit for its cost... So you might as well reform the National Bank too. That's essentially 280 days for 2 Factories and an Industrial Concern.
2. Even with a generic tree, China had a sort of dynamic to it like the Soviet Union and the United States that early game weakness turned it into late game powerhouse. With Militarism and Military Youth, you could rock Volunteer Only and Total Mobilization with millions of manpower. The research slots were not too difficult to get despite your early lack of industrialization.
That is not the case here. For one, you CANNOT get China's 5th Research Slot without incurring Heavy Inflation. I don't know if this was a bug or a feature, but Forced Loans only became available to me once. So I was sitting with a PERMANENT 15% civilian factory penalty and -15% factory inefficiency just to be on even research terms with the rest of the world. China's chronic weakness early game translates to late game weakness even if you beast on Japan and throw them out. I've playtested quite a few games so far where I've kicked the Japanese's asses so thoroughly that not even Beijing fell. 1:2 casualty ratios... but still, I felt like time was only making me weaker relatively. It should be the opposite, no? China should be getting stronger- the sleepy kitty waking up.
But that's not all. Eventually, the Warlords will make their play for control and it is almost HOPELESS to resist them. -.75 PP a day just to build support/remove support? I had a Backroom Backstabber and a Prince of Terror in one playthrough and only barely managed to prevent one Warlord from taking control. When multiple warlords are building support- you simply don't have the PP to hold them all off. Perhaps you could if you stop all progress on the focus tree but that's... waiting. Not moving forward- it's unfulfilling. In a few games, I Subjugated the Warlords and as a result, I started to incorporate them. The -.5 PP onus over the course of 270 days is BRUTAL, especially when you are spending PP to build/purge support. It doesn't help that even the warlords you've puppetted will still support a rival and undermine you.
And then... what happens when Yunnan with 20 divisions manages to somehow declare itself the legitimate ruler of China when you have 200+ Divisions, maximum stability and war support... BAM, Stability and War Support practically get reduced to 0% because not only are you the rival government now, you're also engaged in an offensive war. In most games, I've managed to quell this rebellion... at tremendous cost. The low stability means even less PP- the low war support means that my enemy gets a core attack/defense bonus which can make some of the warlords just ridiculously stubborn to dislodge. This would be interesting, sure... if it wasn't such a foregone conclusion. The only time a warlord has ever beat me was when Japan delayed its invasion by about 3 years and pounced on me with the Qing.
A small annoyance is that if you are incorporating a warlord and a civil war triggers- the incorporation stops but you STILL pay the 0.5 PP cost the whole time. Not to mention the incorporation mechanic is MORE waiting. 90 days for a general. Another 90 days for nothing. Then the final 90 days for annexation.
I usually run Silent Workhorse, Backroom Backstabber, and the Old Guard Air Advisor for maximum PP... but usually once the warlords start getting froggy, I'm only getting .2 PP a day. Even the US gets more with the current stability mechanic.
3. I've pretty much already talked about most of the frustrating mechanics. Warlords are... absurdly powerful once they go down their trees. It's not that they even pose a threat to you but they make the game more annoying and frustrating. The inflation mechanic makes you wait and wait and wait and even beelining for all the research slots, it will always be there. The Army XP for reforms thing? I'm fine with that. It fits the spirit of China in 1936 and gives you a nice (and fun!) challenge early on that you have to overcome. But taken as a whole, the entire theme of playing NatChi seems to be 'Wait'... but even after you wait, you're not any stronger for it. In fact, you're still significantly behind... perhaps even weaker as the game progresses. I understand China is supposed to be somewhat of a 'doomed country' but so is France. However, a canny French player can overcome the challenge and end up quite powerful in the late game.
4. So... clearly, while they were working on Waking the Tiger, a significant portion of the team, both developmentally and playtesting, were focused on Germany. In the Waking the Tiger DLC, work was done on Germany. Again, while I'll say Germany badly needed this... it seems like a bit of a misallocation of resources when the DLC is all about East Asia.
WtT gave us a shared Focus Tree, 3 new Focuses, and 2 Revamps... one of which wasn't even in Asia. Death or Dishonor gave us 4 trees so... well, you could argue that it's about the same amount of content. But, well, it doesn't have much love to it. The Chinese division names are an example. Each unit type gets basically one; Juntuan, Qibing Jun...
Just rifling through wikipedia in 10 minutes, I found some Order of Battles that, admittedly, had mostly standard names like 20th Division or such but also stuff like Kiangsi Preservation Regiment, Hupei Peace Preservation Regiment (it's important to note that China's 'divisions' were often very small), the 200th Division led by Tai an Lan was known as the 'Iron Division' and there was also the New First Army, nicknamed the 1st Army Under the Heaven... and it was formed out of the X Force. Other historical names could include Guerrilla Command and the Northeastern Loyal and Brave Army, the Salt Gabelle Brigade, the Independent Brigades, Provincial Divisions, and many more had the affix 'New' attached to them because earlier iterations got entirely wiped out during the war. The German trained 88th Division had the nickname 'Tiger Division', there was also a 1st Honor Division.
Small Edit: Upon looking it over, sometimes the division names will put 'Xin' in front, which means New. :/
But aside from that, you had very dynamic attention played to the minutia of things like... Horthy's political leanings, the power struggles of Romania, and Yugoslavia's ethnic background. Lots of cool things you could do that were historical and ahistorical. The Chinese warlords were very diverse and influential people. Yan Xishan was a modernizer and so charismatic that he actually recruited Japanese troops to fight with him after the war. Ma Bufang was a devout Muslim, and his surname, Ma, even MEANS horse- going all the way back to the Liang Ma Clan of the Han Dynasty, that family have been exceptional horsemen. He was China's best cavalry commander and had an army that was ethnically diverse. Long Yun was much more democratically inclined than anyone else, seeking to make Yunnan a model for democracy, even going so far as to be called 'the democratic fortress' and it became one of the bastions of the war effort, given its location in the Southeast. Li Zongren made the Guangxi Clique THE model province... but had some fascist tendencies. How interesting would it be to have China a swirling vortex of democratic Yunnan, fascist Guangxi, and Communist Mao/Sinkiang. Speaking of Sinkiang, Sheng Shicai WAS a Soviet satellite but left when Germany invaded them and joined the Nationalist Government.
Not to mention I personally would have liked to have seen a possibility to bring back the Empire of China but NOT under Puyi, who is considered to have lost the Mandate of Heaven.. and is a puppet to Japan anyways. Inviting Yuan Kedai from Beijing and continuing his father's brief ambitions to bring back a imperial tradition isn't out of line compared to restoring the Austrio-Hungary Empire or Kaisereich... but that's just a little pet desire of mine.
All in all, it seems like... well, this.
So again, to quote my friend;
"Uh. What focus is it to get a pistol and shoot yourself because Paradox spent more time balancing Germany than China in the China patch?"
"Uh. What focus is it to get a pistol and shoot yourself because Paradox spent more time balancing Germany than China in the China patch?"
So I was pretty excited for Waking the Tiger. I even welcomed the revamp to Germany. It is of tremendous improvement to the game in both singleplayer and multiplayer that Germany is given more room to be anything other than the 'Gatekeeper of WW2' ...however, I was concerned that this would be an allocation of resources to the detriment of the rest of Waking the Tiger.
NatChina is NOT satisfying to play. I think it boils down to four main points.
1. Progression Blockers in the Focus Tree.
2. Chronic Weakness, both early and late game.
3. Frustrating mechanics.
4. General lack of love/attention.
1. I get it, NatChi is supposed to be AWFUL at the start. It was wholly unprepared for WW2. I absolutely love playing disadvantaged nations and turning them around. It is generally very satisfying... however, so much of China's gameplay is... waiting. There are a lot of filler focuses. Look at many of the 'Befriend' focuses of other countries, where you get a permanent opinion bonus and an often substantial 'Acceptance of X Diplomacy' bonus, often along with an event. Many countries like the UK, SOV, and US get one focus that significantly changes the opinion modifiers positive and negative of multiple countries.
Suppose I took the historical route and wanted to prioritize foreign aid in the historical order that China did (SOV, UK & US somewhat concurrently) So the first focus gives me 2 offmap factories, that's neat- about standard for a focus that gives factories. Now I go for Soviet Volunteer Group... The Mission to the Soviet Union is 70 days for a diplomacy bonus. Now that bonus isn't even enough so I have to spend 50 PP to improve relations up to at least 75. That translates to waiting for your advisors/law changes. Another 70 days and I get a general, Aleksandr Cherepanov. Now China has no dearth of talent at the start. You probably won't even use Cherepanov until you have 200-ish divisions which sure as hell isn't early game. Another 70 days and THEN you get the volunteer group. That's just one example... The inflation mechanics, which I'll get into later, also contribute to this. You have to constantly moderate your progress down the tree just to maintain a status quo. If you want 2 new factories via Taiyuan Arsenel, the focus effectively costs 140 days because you practically have to take Price Controls to mitigate it. Actually, it takes more like 210 days because you've already increased inflation with Mining Commission, which has a VERY modest benefit for its cost... So you might as well reform the National Bank too. That's essentially 280 days for 2 Factories and an Industrial Concern.
2. Even with a generic tree, China had a sort of dynamic to it like the Soviet Union and the United States that early game weakness turned it into late game powerhouse. With Militarism and Military Youth, you could rock Volunteer Only and Total Mobilization with millions of manpower. The research slots were not too difficult to get despite your early lack of industrialization.
That is not the case here. For one, you CANNOT get China's 5th Research Slot without incurring Heavy Inflation. I don't know if this was a bug or a feature, but Forced Loans only became available to me once. So I was sitting with a PERMANENT 15% civilian factory penalty and -15% factory inefficiency just to be on even research terms with the rest of the world. China's chronic weakness early game translates to late game weakness even if you beast on Japan and throw them out. I've playtested quite a few games so far where I've kicked the Japanese's asses so thoroughly that not even Beijing fell. 1:2 casualty ratios... but still, I felt like time was only making me weaker relatively. It should be the opposite, no? China should be getting stronger- the sleepy kitty waking up.
But that's not all. Eventually, the Warlords will make their play for control and it is almost HOPELESS to resist them. -.75 PP a day just to build support/remove support? I had a Backroom Backstabber and a Prince of Terror in one playthrough and only barely managed to prevent one Warlord from taking control. When multiple warlords are building support- you simply don't have the PP to hold them all off. Perhaps you could if you stop all progress on the focus tree but that's... waiting. Not moving forward- it's unfulfilling. In a few games, I Subjugated the Warlords and as a result, I started to incorporate them. The -.5 PP onus over the course of 270 days is BRUTAL, especially when you are spending PP to build/purge support. It doesn't help that even the warlords you've puppetted will still support a rival and undermine you.
And then... what happens when Yunnan with 20 divisions manages to somehow declare itself the legitimate ruler of China when you have 200+ Divisions, maximum stability and war support... BAM, Stability and War Support practically get reduced to 0% because not only are you the rival government now, you're also engaged in an offensive war. In most games, I've managed to quell this rebellion... at tremendous cost. The low stability means even less PP- the low war support means that my enemy gets a core attack/defense bonus which can make some of the warlords just ridiculously stubborn to dislodge. This would be interesting, sure... if it wasn't such a foregone conclusion. The only time a warlord has ever beat me was when Japan delayed its invasion by about 3 years and pounced on me with the Qing.
A small annoyance is that if you are incorporating a warlord and a civil war triggers- the incorporation stops but you STILL pay the 0.5 PP cost the whole time. Not to mention the incorporation mechanic is MORE waiting. 90 days for a general. Another 90 days for nothing. Then the final 90 days for annexation.
I usually run Silent Workhorse, Backroom Backstabber, and the Old Guard Air Advisor for maximum PP... but usually once the warlords start getting froggy, I'm only getting .2 PP a day. Even the US gets more with the current stability mechanic.
3. I've pretty much already talked about most of the frustrating mechanics. Warlords are... absurdly powerful once they go down their trees. It's not that they even pose a threat to you but they make the game more annoying and frustrating. The inflation mechanic makes you wait and wait and wait and even beelining for all the research slots, it will always be there. The Army XP for reforms thing? I'm fine with that. It fits the spirit of China in 1936 and gives you a nice (and fun!) challenge early on that you have to overcome. But taken as a whole, the entire theme of playing NatChi seems to be 'Wait'... but even after you wait, you're not any stronger for it. In fact, you're still significantly behind... perhaps even weaker as the game progresses. I understand China is supposed to be somewhat of a 'doomed country' but so is France. However, a canny French player can overcome the challenge and end up quite powerful in the late game.
4. So... clearly, while they were working on Waking the Tiger, a significant portion of the team, both developmentally and playtesting, were focused on Germany. In the Waking the Tiger DLC, work was done on Germany. Again, while I'll say Germany badly needed this... it seems like a bit of a misallocation of resources when the DLC is all about East Asia.
WtT gave us a shared Focus Tree, 3 new Focuses, and 2 Revamps... one of which wasn't even in Asia. Death or Dishonor gave us 4 trees so... well, you could argue that it's about the same amount of content. But, well, it doesn't have much love to it. The Chinese division names are an example. Each unit type gets basically one; Juntuan, Qibing Jun...
Just rifling through wikipedia in 10 minutes, I found some Order of Battles that, admittedly, had mostly standard names like 20th Division or such but also stuff like Kiangsi Preservation Regiment, Hupei Peace Preservation Regiment (it's important to note that China's 'divisions' were often very small), the 200th Division led by Tai an Lan was known as the 'Iron Division' and there was also the New First Army, nicknamed the 1st Army Under the Heaven... and it was formed out of the X Force. Other historical names could include Guerrilla Command and the Northeastern Loyal and Brave Army, the Salt Gabelle Brigade, the Independent Brigades, Provincial Divisions, and many more had the affix 'New' attached to them because earlier iterations got entirely wiped out during the war. The German trained 88th Division had the nickname 'Tiger Division', there was also a 1st Honor Division.
Small Edit: Upon looking it over, sometimes the division names will put 'Xin' in front, which means New. :/
But aside from that, you had very dynamic attention played to the minutia of things like... Horthy's political leanings, the power struggles of Romania, and Yugoslavia's ethnic background. Lots of cool things you could do that were historical and ahistorical. The Chinese warlords were very diverse and influential people. Yan Xishan was a modernizer and so charismatic that he actually recruited Japanese troops to fight with him after the war. Ma Bufang was a devout Muslim, and his surname, Ma, even MEANS horse- going all the way back to the Liang Ma Clan of the Han Dynasty, that family have been exceptional horsemen. He was China's best cavalry commander and had an army that was ethnically diverse. Long Yun was much more democratically inclined than anyone else, seeking to make Yunnan a model for democracy, even going so far as to be called 'the democratic fortress' and it became one of the bastions of the war effort, given its location in the Southeast. Li Zongren made the Guangxi Clique THE model province... but had some fascist tendencies. How interesting would it be to have China a swirling vortex of democratic Yunnan, fascist Guangxi, and Communist Mao/Sinkiang. Speaking of Sinkiang, Sheng Shicai WAS a Soviet satellite but left when Germany invaded them and joined the Nationalist Government.
Not to mention I personally would have liked to have seen a possibility to bring back the Empire of China but NOT under Puyi, who is considered to have lost the Mandate of Heaven.. and is a puppet to Japan anyways. Inviting Yuan Kedai from Beijing and continuing his father's brief ambitions to bring back a imperial tradition isn't out of line compared to restoring the Austrio-Hungary Empire or Kaisereich... but that's just a little pet desire of mine.
All in all, it seems like... well, this.
So again, to quote my friend;
"Uh. What focus is it to get a pistol and shoot yourself because Paradox spent more time balancing Germany than China in the China patch?"
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