New Chinese Communist Leaders?

[kodiak491]

I am looking for a mod with a good supply of historically accurate Communist Chinese leaders. The vanilla leaders are good but too few and my research hasn't turned much up. I am also especially interested in whether any former nationalist or warlord leaders switched sides at any point.

 

[Lord Finnish]

Mod New Nations, CCIP (Consolidated China Improvement Pack).

 

[kodiak491]

Mod New Nations, CCIP (Consolidated China Improvement Pack).

Surprisingly neither has any new CC leaders. Good suggestions though, thanks.

 

[Lord Finnish]

Surprisingly neither has any new CC leaders. Good suggestions though, thanks.

No?
Haha, that's a great shame.

 

[kodiak491]

No?
Haha, that's a great shame.

Yeah its seems data on the Chinese Communist Generals is somewhat thin until the 1960's or so. Makes it rather difficult to field a true Communist Chinese mass army, without huge stacking penalties coming into play. Ironic since Mao was sort of the main proponent of the mass untrained militia philosophy.

 

[ozman2]

I can tell you that Li Zongren and Long Yun defected to the Communists after the CCP came to power due to their disagreements with Chiang Kai Shek. Long Yun went over in 1950. Li Zongren moved to Communist China in 1965 but was relieved of his duties with the Nationalists in 1954. IMO Long Yun is valid CCP if Yunnan does not exist and it's 1946 or later and CHC controls Nanjing and Chongqing, and Li Zongren is valid CCP provided Guangxi does not exist and either it's 1965 or Nationalist China does not exist. Another idea is to just have a large pack of generic major generals with skill zero and have some training events to bump up the skills.

Because of all the "ifs" I'd recommend inserting Li Zongren and Long Yun into the savegame file rather than adding them to the CCP leader lists. Just remember to renumber them.

As for training events, here's the code:
command = { type = set_leader_skill which = -1 value = x }
This sets the skill of a random leader to 1. You have to be careful about setting the skill of a random leader though because you might actually reduce someone's skill if the random generator happens to pick someone like Lin Biao. Alternatively if you put the leader number instead of -1 you'll set the skill of the specified leader to 1. You can then promote them to Lt. Gen. manually. Play around a bit with the events and set dates so that it is somewhat realistic.
You can "pay" for the training events by increasing dissent (which forces economic investment into reducing it)

BTW--One of the CCP leaders actually defected FROM the Communists to the Nationalists. It was Zhang Guotao.

Here are a couple of others--Mao Zemin (Mao Zedong's brother) assisted Sheng Shicai in Xinjiang. He'd be valid in some cases. He was murdered by Sheng Shicai after the initially bad response of the Soviet Union to Operation Barbarossa as Sheng decided to cut his ties at that point to what he believed was a losing horse. There's an event in CCIP where Nationalist China folds to Japan but the CCP fights on and forges a new front (absorbs SIK and CXB) In this case both Sheng Shicai and Mao Zemin would be valid CCP generals. But I would not put them in the files. Just add them to the savegame file if the situation warrants.

Zhang Xueliang is another possibility but only if you completely destroy (annex) CHI in order to spring him from Chiang's jail.

 

[clanjay1989]

I can tell you that Li Zongren and Long Yun defected to the Communists after the CCP came to power due to their disagreements with Chiang Kai Shek. Long Yun went over in 1950. Li Zongren moved to Communist China in 1965 but was relieved of his duties with the Nationalists in 1954. IMO Long Yun is valid CCP if Yunnan does not exist and it's 1946 or later and CHC controls Nanjing and Chongqing, and Li Zongren is valid CCP provided Guangxi does not exist and either it's 1965 or Nationalist China does not exist. Another idea is to just have a large pack of generic major generals with skill zero and have some training events to bump up the skills.

Because of all the "ifs" I'd recommend inserting Li Zongren and Long Yun into the savegame file rather than adding them to the CCP leader lists. Just remember to renumber them.

As for training events, here's the code:
command = { type = set_leader_skill which = -1 value = x }
This sets the skill of a random leader to 1. You have to be careful about setting the skill of a random leader though because you might actually reduce someone's skill if the random generator happens to pick someone like Lin Biao. Alternatively if you put the leader number instead of -1 you'll set the skill of the specified leader to 1. You can then promote them to Lt. Gen. manually. Play around a bit with the events and set dates so that it is somewhat realistic.
You can "pay" for the training events by increasing dissent (which forces economic investment into reducing it)

BTW--One of the CCP leaders actually defected FROM the Communists to the Nationalists. It was Zhang Guotao.

Here are a couple of others--Mao Zemin (Mao Zedong's brother) assisted Sheng Shicai in Xinjiang. He'd be valid in some cases. He was murdered by Sheng Shicai after the initially bad response of the Soviet Union to Operation Barbarossa as Sheng decided to cut his ties at that point to what he believed was a losing horse. There's an event in CCIP where Nationalist China folds to Japan but the CCP fights on and forges a new front (absorbs SIK and CXB) In this case both Sheng Shicai and Mao Zemin would be valid CCP generals. But I would not put them in the files. Just add them to the savegame file if the situation warrants.

Zhang Xueliang is another possibility but only if you completely destroy (annex) CHI in order to spring him from Chiang's jail.

There were so many of them that turned communist at the end. Zhang Zizhong, Fu Zuoyi, Chen Minren, Du Yumin...etc. But almost none of them was active in PLA service after 1949. And a lot of them were victims later in a series of movements launched by Mao. In many cases even the genuine communists who fought with Mao were purged. I really doubt these former Nationalists would be given control to the troops at all.

 

[ozman2]

Clanjay,
Yes there are a lot of caveats. But what I think kodiak will have to settle for is this: I came up with the idea of just pasting in the U87 leaders in the savegame file for CHC after giving them new numbers first. This should only be done in VERY ahistorical situations, for example Commie China goes on a rampage and takes off for world conquest early after eliminating all Chinese rivals including the Nationalists. Then the Chinese leaders would have nowhere else to go. You can use U87 from my mod which has all the Nationalist leaders EXCEPT for the big name leaders like Chiang, von Falkenhausen, Li Zongren, etc (names previously suggested by mib as 'not willing to work with Japan').

If someone is playing Communist China for world conquest after eliminating all Chinese rivals I think this is perfectly reasonable but ONLY in this case. I would not add any leaders to the files.

You do have another option, which is to spam out huge masses of militia. Sure militia are weak and you'd have stacking penalties but when you attack with 100-200 militia or more they'll probably win anyway. Sophianumg some time ago did a Soviet AAR with the mass militia philosophy and did pretty well.

 

[kodiak491]

Clanjay,
Yes there are a lot of caveats. But what I think kodiak will have to settle for is this: I came up with the idea of just pasting in the U87 leaders in the savegame file for CHC after giving them new numbers first. This should only be done in VERY ahistorical situations, for example Commie China goes on a rampage and takes off for world conquest early after eliminating all Chinese rivals including the Nationalists. Then the Chinese leaders would have nowhere else to go. You can use U87 from my mod which has all the Nationalist leaders EXCEPT for the big name leaders like Chiang, von Falkenhausen, Li Zongren, etc (names previously suggested by mib as 'not willing to work with Japan').

If someone is playing Communist China for world conquest after eliminating all Chinese rivals I think this is perfectly reasonable but ONLY in this case. I would not add any leaders to the files.

You do have another option, which is to spam out huge masses of militia. Sure militia are weak and you'd have stacking penalties but when you attack with 100-200 militia or more they'll probably win anyway. Sophianumg some time ago did a Soviet AAR with the mass militia philosophy and did pretty well.

Actually, playing a world conquest through militia game is exactly what got me going looking for CHC leaders. I managed to find around 20 or so via the web but I understand that Mod New Nations will have more in the next release.

For me, solutions that require modding the save game should be avoided whenever possible. I usually treat modding the save as a last result to correct for confusing multiple overlapping wars and restore leaders lost due to the annex and release bug.

 

[ozman2]

Actually, playing a world conquest through militia game is exactly what got me going looking for CHC leaders. I managed to find around 20 or so via the web but I understand that Mod New Nations will have more in the next release.

I'd take anything New Nations puts out with a huge grain of salt (I actually either verify their stuff myself or get a second opinion before using anything they put out) but I'd be interested in the CHC leaders you managed to find yourself. Can you post names and links?

I still think modding the savegame is the most practical and honest approach. If you don't want to do this then you can add them to the files but if you do this PLEASE--1) disclose what you are doing if writing an AAR 2)Put a "Z-" prefix before their names so you remember not to use them prematurely. 3) Commit yourself to not using them until you've met specified parameters, which should be that you are the only Chinese state existing.

The other thing you can do is mod the Armageddon nation UCH (change the flag) to reflect normal CHC plus your added leaders, and when the time comes turn yourself into that nation--it's done by 1) creating an entry for UCH in revolt.txt 2) writing the following events
a) independence for UCH triggering
b) UCH event allying itself to you which then triggers
c) save and reload advice
d) (after reload) 24 hrs after reloading as UCH you inherit CHC and you're on your merry way.
If both CHC and UCH have "regular_id = CHI" you'll inherit the units automatically. For CHC this needs to be in the inc file. For UCH put it in revolt.txt
If you take a look at my New Revolters mod you'll see how this is done for Austria-Hungary (U39) allowing Austria to turn itself into them after taking over Hungary.
Don't forget to use all of CCIP's tech teams for ComChi.

 

[kodiak491]

I'd take anything New Nations puts out with a huge grain of salt (I actually either verify their stuff myself or get a second opinion before using anything they put out) but I'd be interested in the CHC leaders you managed to find yourself. Can you post names and links?

I still think modding the savegame is the most practical and honest approach. If you don't want to do this then you can add them to the files but if you do this PLEASE--1) disclose what you are doing if writing an AAR 2)Put a "Z-" prefix before their names so you remember not to use them prematurely. 3) Commit yourself to not using them until you've met specified parameters, which should be that you are the only Chinese state existing.

The other thing you can do is mod the Armageddon nation UCH (change the flag) to reflect normal CHC plus your added leaders, and when the time comes turn yourself into that nation--it's done by 1) creating an entry for UCH in revolt.txt 2) writing the following events
a) independence for UCH triggering
b) UCH event allying itself to you which then triggers
c) save and reload advice
d) (after reload) 24 hrs after reloading as UCH you inherit CHC and you're on your merry way.
If both CHC and UCH have "regular_id = CHI" you'll inherit the units automatically. For CHC this needs to be in the inc file. For UCH put it in revolt.txt
If you take a look at my New Revolters mod you'll see how this is done for Austria-Hungary (U39) allowing Austria to turn itself into them after taking over Hungary.
Don't forget to use all of CCIP's tech teams for ComChi.

I appreciate your well thought out response to my original post but I think we disagree here.

Your comments about editing the save games and conditions for using new leaders mystify me. 1.) I do not write AAR's but the most basic rule of doing so is to disclose mod's whether community or personal and I would certainly do so. 2.) & 3.) The conditions in which I choose to use anything in my own game are up to me. The generals I am primarily concerned with are those CHC leaders not currently reflected in the game, not turncoats from other Chinese states. As such any condition other than a start year is pointless. Changing the nation into another just to add leaders strikes me as needlessly cumbersome but that is of course a matter of personal taste.

I see no need to be critical of MNN. I exchanged a few PM's with one of their members and he shared his source material with me. We both agreed that there is little reliable data on the CHC generals available in the west. Both he and I independently chose to use the list of Chinese leaders promoted to general in 1955 (the first year they did so) as a source. Most of these men were promoted in '55 based on their service in the prior 20 years and some of that service can be found on the net. MNN decided to be much more conservative than I and assign a max skill level of 3 to all. I was impressed by his attention to the subject and restraint in using the incomplete material.

At this time I see no need to publish my new leaders as I think the MNN team probably has them all and seems to have a good hand on properly limiting them. Should I ever get around to releasing my mod someday those leaders will be included along with all the others I have dug up over the years.

Thank you again for your interest and the time you took in your response, although we disagreed on methodology I still very much appreciate it.

 

[ozman2]

Naturally you are free to use whomever you want in your games. I was simply expressing my reservations to satisfy those who might otherwise object to the idea of using an extra 400 leaders normally associated with Nationalist China. Otherwise certain people will get mad at ME for making the suggestion. Hence my recommended conditions that you're going for world conquest and have already eliminated other Chinese states. That should satisfy the nay-sayers.

Renumbering the leaders and modding the savefile is actually the easiest solution once you know the tricks, and I actually did this myself in 15 minutes. Of course it would be even easier if Paradox would just simply make the wakeleader command work. But they haven't, necessitating one of the workarounds I have suggested. It sounds as if you're partial to just adding them to the files and using them with proper discretion.

I don't think I'm being "unfair" to New Nations at all. Let me ask you this--what would you do if you discovered their data ranges from being perfect to so grossly wrong that you've had to start from scratch? And of course you can't tell in advance which data is good and which is bad, requiring you to check EVERYTHING. That has been my experience. I'll see how much they clean things up in their next release and might change my tune at that time.

As for their conservatism in rating leaders' skills it is based upon this: If someone was a very good soldier in real life but never attained General rank then he gets inserted with a low skill level. Like Hitler was a great corporal but a lousy general. IMO typical leader skills for Communist leaders would be about 2-3. They were decent but not in the class of Vo Nguyen Giap.

Good luck with your world conquest game.