Warlords of China update

[techumseh]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA


I have 2 comments on these changes.

Unless the size of the Commie "Area" cities is increased to 2, it will be be impossible to capture them. The cities will be razed when a warlord unit enters them.

That's ok. As bases, as opposed to real cities, they likely wouldn't survive a successful attack anyway.

The caravan payoffs are pretty slim as it is. The best that I've seen or tested while playing Kuomintang and the League is around 170 gold. That's not very much for a unit requiring 70 scarce shields (1 to 1.5 years for the most productive cities) to build. Playing the League, I've given up on merchants as a cost-effective way to raise cash and cash flow. There are better ways.

I can take it out again if it renders merchants pointless.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Boco
Are merchants important for the tech rate?

Not sure. AGRICOLA?

[AGRICOLA]

Merchants have played no role in the tech race. From the start to the present, March 1922, the League has been maintaining a steady 3 turns per tech with a science rate that started at 70% but gradually decreased to 40%. Admittedly, 1/4 of the flasks come from Shanghai which was captured in the first 3 turns.

I've been checking saves about the following change

1. Strengthened the minor warlord's counterattack. 5 provinces have minor warlords, represented by barbarians. When you capture one of their cities, a large number of barb units are generated the next turn. The problem is that these units didn't represent a challenge as they were too weak and moved randomly, despite using a moveunit event.

I had written some comments about them moving randomly and needing a GOTO. Obviously that is not going to help.

What might be an improvement is not to spawn them in isolated cities but to spawn them all over the province, with concentrations in the area of the most likely trigger cities where the main danger lies. Have them interdict movement by spawning on squares adjacent to roads (maybe even in isolated pieces of the Great Wall) and on terrain with a D bonus. Make it tougher on the invader by spawning on or a bit outside provincial boundaries.

When playtesting, I always look for what a designer could have done to make my life even more miserable. It's surprising how many dirty tricks one can think up in that fashion.

Hope this helps.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Just a cosmetic thing. The Communists had a different Romanization standard for Chinese names. If you want, I'd be happy to go through the Communist cities and rename them according to Pinyin.

Leaving the Nationalist and warlord held cities in their Wade Giles names also would give a good sense of factional differences.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
Just a cosmetic thing. The Communists had a different Romanization standard for Chinese names. If you want, I'd be happy to go through the Communist cities and rename them according to Pinyin.

Leaving the Nationalist and warlord held cities in their Wade Giles names also would give a good sense of factional differences.

Thanks for the offer. I'd be pleased to look at that change, though I think I'm already using Pinyin for most of the Communist cities, which represent base areas. The locations are roughly based on a map from Chiang Kai-Shek's book "Soviet Russia in China" (1956) setting out the "Sovietized" base areas in 1932-33.

The bases are size 1 cities, set in remote areas of hill terrain. This makes them very difficult to capture given that the Liberation Army unit is one of the best infantry units in the scenario. There's also a city representing the Soviet Union, called "Comintern" tucked away in the remote NW corner of the map, and protected by a moat.

Here's the list:

Yenan
Shanxi Area
W Hupeh Area
E Hupeh Area
Hunan Area
N Kiangsi Area
Central Area
S Kiangsi Area
Comintern

Thanks for your help.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Yan'an (the apostrophe is important, if you can't do it, just put Yan An in two words).

The province that Yan'an is in is called Shaanxi (note the double-A!). This is important because there is another, completely separate, province also called Shanxi (single-A). They are pronounced almost the same, except for the tonality.

The province that's north of the lake is called "Hubei". Formerly spelled Hupeh.

The province that's south of the lake is called "Hunan" by both the KMT and the CCP.

Kiangsi becomes "Jiangxi" in the Pinyin system.

Note: all of your names appear to be in the Wade Giles system, which is equally valid and is commonly used by Western scholars and the Taiwanese. The only reason to change them to Pinyin would be that's what the Communists themselves would have used. (And if you look at a modern map of China, the place names have all been converted to Pinyin, for obvious reasons.)

Good work and cool scenario!

[Boco]

Apostrophes pose no problem in city names that I've seen.

[Edit] Allie, how's your Arabic? [/Edit]

[Leirosa]

Wade Giles always makes me want to scream when I try to read something in that romanization, it's so awful and unreadable and pretty much the only people who use it are history types (which is generally for referencing older writings, once the balance tips of writings in Pinyin compared to Wade-Giles, Pinyin will be used instead). Personally I tend to avoid buying books (especially novels) entirely if they use Wade-Giles unless there is no other choice or the price is really really cheap.

I can see why you're using it here though and it's okay.. but outside that early 20th century period I think Pinyin should be used in Chinese-based scenarios as it's a better system (not perfect but better) and is the standard used now for Mandarin. I don't think dictionaries using Wade-Giles are even made anymore although I could be wrong.

Anyways I've been looking forward to this for a while and can't wait to try it. I just hope it isn't super hard as I'm not very good.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Wade-Giles, in my understanding, is fairly systematic and the Pinyin system actually can almost be translated directly into WG and vice versa because both are very rigorous.

My own preference is Pinyin, but that's only because I lived in Beijing for so long. My parents both have difficulty using Pinyin because they're A) from non-Communist parts of China, and B) old and stubborn.

However, if you thought Wade Giles was confusing, just pay a visit to Taiwan. Although WG is used in most major cities, the villages and smaller towns use all sorts of weird romanizations to approximate the "Guoyu" dialect. There are situations where I've been in one town that called itself (e.g.) Hwako Shr and the villagers in the next village over spells it Huak'ou Si and the mainland Pinyin system would spell it "Hua Gou Shi" (for "Flower Valley Town").

My Arabic is not so good. I can say "God is great", as well as "Slave of God", and "In the name of God". At bad times, I have been known to say "It is the will of God". Team America has better Arabic than mine, and that's saying something.

[techumseh]

Bing, (I'm assuming) can you translate this for me? I got the dialog part from the game "Battle of Red Cliffs". I added a cheer from the game "Legion" to make the sound for a leader unit attack. I think it sounds good, but I don't know what the guy is actually saying.

[techumseh]

I'll be gone for a couple of weeks, salmon fishing on Vancouver Island. WoC is getting very close to done, and it's much harder now. I won't say it's AGRICOLA proof, but it should provide an interesting challenge. See you in a couple of weeks.

[curtsibling]

Catch a big one for the SL forum!

PS
Did you know the Germans had a radio-controlled missile
in WW2 nicknamed 'Large Salmon'? Watch out for those!

[techumseh]

Only 'Enemy Ace' would think of that! Thanks Curt. See you in a couple.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I will listen to the wave when I am back at home, as my current computer doesn't allow me to play it properly.

Well spotted. Allie Cove was overwhelmed and commandeered by a gestalt TIE Fighter Pilot on the rooftops of our illustrious capital several years ago and now exists as part of a fragmented psyche.

This also means her Chinese has improved markedly.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Ah, I've finally listened to the wave file. Very patriotic!

The wave file translates literally to "Give me kill". In Pinyin, that's "Gei wo sha!".

"Give me" means something to the effect of "do this for me", and is often used in an imperative. You'll hear "Gei wo chuqu!" (lit. "give me go out") meaning "GTFO!".

Since a transliteration is pretty hard, I'd suggest an English approximation of "Let us kill!". The more mundane Charge! also works, and it captures the imperative nature, but the sense is very strong and quite uncivilized. Something like "Off with their heads!" or "Heads will roll" might capture the vehemence.

That's probably too much information but the wave file would perfectly suit the wartime situation, I think.