http://www.wargamer.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=461314&mpage=5
http://www.wargamer.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=483987
Regards
"MengJiao
Amazing stuff. Must find credit cards.
Okay. Now you've done that. What about China? Say 1910 to 1950?
Gusington
^Wow would that be a complex game or what. If it included the ability to play as foreign powers like the Japanese I would preorder now, today.
wosung
I would love to see an AGEOD Great Revolutions series as well.
Esp. the China 1910-1950 part.
It would be great with a full campaign instead of smaller scenarios. But probably this could be handled better with one month turns. Don't know if the AGE engine could do this. Even then this ammount to 480 turns. But then again Ageod's ACW is also more than 400 turns long.
For the wars in China I wouldn't mind monthly turns, because with all maneuver even in the Second Sino-Chinese War those conflicts weren't exactly the blitz.
Plus what makes those wars in China special is not so much the military but the political aspect and various categories of affiliations. Now all those wonderful special abilities of leaders in the AGE engine would be a great start to simulate this. But it would need more, like a representation of some of the most machiavellian inner party struggles the world knows.
Another point is, collecting all the hard data on the wars in China will be, well not impossible, but at least a beast, because statistical data for this period of Chinese history is notoriously unreliable.
And last not least some important aspects of the whole period are still contested today or even remain quite unclear until now, like arguably the true military performance of PLA in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Thus a representation of this historical period as a game in itself might become a target of ideological struggles.
But hell, I would love help designing and playing it.
Regards
Gusington
^Good post. There was a thread here a while back taken during a battle in Chinese city ~1937 IIRC and it took a lot of people here some time just to figure out what kind of armored car and what Chinese unit was pictured. But they did figure it out after some time
Just a small sample of the kind of work something like a modern era Chinese Civil War game would take.
wosung
Yeah remember that thread. Wasn't that about some immobilized (?) armored car used as mg. pit in the International Concession in Shanghai?!
The point is, China in turmoil became the boneyard of all the world's old military hardware after WW1.
For me the ideal game about the Wars in China would contain elements of Cremlin and Junta boardgames.
Better stop now. Don't wanna hijack the RUS thread. Great, this one will be published soon!
Regards
Robear
China had a lot of rebellions in the 19th century, including the Taiping one which lasted around 14 years. Maybe that would be a good title. "Wars in China". :-)
wosung
For Pride of Nations Phil Tib collected a massive ammount of data, including on Taiping-time units and leaders.
Regards
Gusington
Wars in China would be unfathomably awesome. Say from the Opium Wars to the end of WWII? Damn!
MengJiao
Maybe there are about a dozen smaller periods that would make good campaign scenarios. I wouldn't want to cover things like the Taiping Rebellion at least with a game derived from the RUS paradigm, but that still leaves many decades of complex manoeuvering between the warlords and the central government and the communists and the Russians and the Japanese after the fall of the Imperial Regime.
Gusington
^Boxer Rebellion? Come to think of it has the Boxer Rebellion ever been gamed?
MengJiao
I think if you could play as the Imperial Chinese and attempt to hold off the Western Powers and Japan from carving your empire up...that would a great game! Come on Meng!
wosung
I would also rather focus on 20th century China. Taiping, Western Imperialism and maybe Boxer rebellion surely will be part of AGEOD’s next block buster "Pride of Nations", alas maybe first without the option of playing the Chinese side itself.
Besides: Apart from the infamous Siege of Peking, the Seymour Expedition and the main rescue misson from Tianjin to Peking, and the assault on the Dagu forts, there isn’t really much tactical-operational about the Boxer rebellion. All the rest was a harsh Western occupation regime. Not enough for a solitary game. Same for the Taiping in Central China and the Muslim Rebellions in Yunnan and Gansu.
On the other hand China from the 1911 Revolution to 1949 would make a campaign game. the Beiyang Wars (around 1920), GMD National-Revolutionary Army's Northern Expedition (1925-27), the Annihilation Encirclement campaigns against the Jiangxi Soviet, the Long March (1934-35), Sino-Japanese War and Civil War come to mind for some short scenarios.
But again: without the “political aspect”as a pure operational military game all those might not be very much fun. Not too many different unit/formation types plus slow operational speed for having real choices.
The following things could add fun:
-Three party wings (left, right, centre) for CCP and GMD with different personnel, party functions, different options, goals and coop levels. Major and minor Warlords
-Long time covert defectors, who could switch sides taking their troops with them, bribe, hostage, assassinations.
-Wild cards like student riots, triades, famines.
-Foreign advisor leaders and bonuses, foreign loans, treaty- and railroad concessions, special bonuses if you control Peking (international acceptance as “National Gov.”) and Shanghai (big bussiness, printing houses).
-Rural and urban political agitation. (Do you take that mobile printing-press-counter with you on the long march?! It’ll slow you down but could possibly generate local support...)
-Different victory conditions for GMD, CCP (be the dominating inner party faction, unite and liberate the fatherland) and Japan (occupy, pacify, exploit to prolong the Pacific War)
-Rules for guerilla warfare, foraging, peasant mobilization.
Again sorry to Mr. Catlord for Shanghaiing this thread. Perhaps we should just open a seperate thread?
Regards
Gusington
^OK I will do that.
Gusington
Well in the other thread that some of us were derailing [apologies] we began discussing what we would like to see in an AGEOD game involved in the last 150 years or less of Chinese history.
I would love to see the Boxer Rebellion covered as part of a larger campaign game. I agree with what others have said that a game just on the Boxer Rebellion itself wouldn't hold much water.
Let's continue!
Braz24
I like the ideas about a Chinese history grand campaign game that Gus and other posted here and the other thread.
I also think that the game engine would be great for a WWII China, India, Burma campaign game from the original Japanese invasion from Manchuko (sp?) until the end of the war or at least the I-Go offensive.
Looking forward to RUS though!
Gusington
^Would it be too big of a game to include the China-Burma-India WWII theater as part of a larger Chinese campaign? Maybe 1910-1950 as others have posted? Maybe even longer?
Wolverine101
I'd like to see Romance of the 3 Kingdoms...is that Chinese or Japan?
son_of_montfort
^ China.
Nobunaga's Ambition was the one about Japan.
Wouldn't a grand strategy game about the Mongols be awesome?
Philippe
The Righteous and Harmonious fists are a fascinating subject. But I was always under the impression that their's was a cause too far lost from the outset to make much of a game simulation. Unless, of course, a Western Imperialist romp over hopelessly outgunned opponents is your idea of a good time. Some people actually like to play shooters with the invulnerability switch on. Probably the same people who hunt ducks from bird blinds.
Come to think of it, my girlfriend takes Qigong and Tai Chi classes several times a week, and those invading European armies probably would have crumbled if they'd been confronted by the tiny fists of fury. So maybe there's something to it after all.
Now the Taiping rebellion, well, that's a different story altogether. They almost took out the Manchu Dynasty. And what they were erecting in it's place was, to say the least, unusual.
The story of the origins of the Heavenly Wangs is nothing if not amazing. A poor graduate student named Hong Xiuquan gets taken in by an American missionary and keeps flunking his exams. After the last failure his health breaks down and he starts hallucinating while his missionary foster father nurses him back to health. In his delirium he's visited by his older brother, Jesus Christ, who proceeds to explain everything to him. And that's when the fun begins. Anyone who's ever survived PhD exams can relate to this. Especially the part about having to have harems of dancing girls.
It is sometimes said that when the Chinese are pissed they change religions. Mid-19th century Chinese didn't have much to be happy about, and they converted in droves. And thousands. And even bigger numbers. Hong's basic message sounded a lot better than the status quo, and was a lot more fun than his foster father's. Soon the political edifice was crumbling, and the Heavenly Wangs set up their Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace in Nanjing. With their harems. And about 30 million people, give or take a few.
The central government kept sending armies, and their generals kept coming home in a box. Somehow (but just barely) some of Peking's generals started having some success, and this had an incalculable effect on American cuisine. Many of the dishes found in Chinese restaurants are named after pro-government leaders and victories in the war, and these dishes apparently don't exist in China (or go under a different name). We could start a whole thread devoted to the quellenforschungen of General Tso's Chicken or Lake Tung Ting Shrimp.
Gusington
Now we're cookin'...so many great ideas in Asian history that just have not been done yet!"
