Hi Alan,

Personal Impressions (NOT a review) of China: The Middle Kingdom (Decision
Games, designed by Tani Chen)

This is not a review because I have not, and likely will never, play this
game (I only play my own unpublished games these days).   You can't review a
game without playing it several times.  So these are impressions and
comments.

As the box says, this is based on the Britannia system, old-school Britannia
right down to half victory points and half increase points, and "Highlands"
instead of "Difficult Terrain".   As the designer of Britannia I'm
especially interested in such games, and of course I hope they are well
received, since I'm working on lord knows how many more of this type.

I'm especially interested because I've used my reduced-scale "gateway"
system recently for Chinese history, and because I have one of the few
copies extant of the original China Britannia, The Dragon & the Pearl (now
out of print), which covers about 200-1300.  I am by no means an expert on
Chinese history, though I have in fact read something as obscure as the
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, so I'll have some comments on the historical
aspects of the game.

(By the way, it irks me when I see it phrased "Avalon Hill's Britannia", as
it is here.  As Avalon Hill rejected the game initially ("games of that era
don't sell"), and H. P. Gibsons published it first (and provided the board
and piece artwork to AH), and AH's main contribution to the game was to
screw it up a bit, you can understand why I'm a little annoyed by the
phrase.  Why not "Lew Pulsipher's Britannia"?  Meh.)

But most of my games now go toward simpler and shorter (1 hour 40 minutes
for one played recently), not to larger, and this game is Larger.  There are
46 countries and 24 turns (12 in each of the half-games).  Time to play is
listed on the box as 4-10 hours, which sounds about right from my experience
(4 would be a quick half-game).  It's the number of countries more than the
turns that lengthen the game, which is why I try to keep the number of
nations (as I prefer to call them) low in my shorter games, as well as down
to 6 or 8 turns.

The game ambitiously covers Chinese history from 404 BC to 1949.  I don't
think the Britannia system suits the age of gunpowder--it was made to
reflect gradual barbarian migrations--but only playing the game can reveal
how well it works with European intervention and 20th century realities.

The unmounted 34" by 22" map strikes me as slightly garish.  There are 46
areas, though 18 are "foreign" areas that only serve as jump-off points for
invaders (for comparison, Britannia has 37 areas, more than this game's 28
in regular play).  It is colored like a map in an atlas, with several
different colors scattered about for areas (think of a map of US states),
rather than like a map for a game, where each terrain is a different color.
It's not a big deal, but seems a little odd, and contributes to a slightly
cartoony or artificial look to the map as a whole.

Apparently the designer, who I'm told is a Chinese graduate of MIT, now a
lawyer, decided to use only areas of modern China as in-play areas of the
game.  There are "foreign" areas along the borders, where invaders start,
but they must leave those areas and get into China during their turn.  This
decision doesn't make sense historically.  It means Taiwan and Tibet are in
play, though for most of ancient and medieval times they were not part of
China, but Vietnam and Korea are not in play, even though the former was
held by the Chinese for many centuries, and the latter played a big part in
the fall of the Sui and Tang--as it stands, no unit can enter Korea.  Either
all the adjacent areas should be "in play", or all (including Xinjiang,
rarely occupied by the Chinese but part of China in the game) should not
be.  My solution in my game has been to use the heart of China (including
Vietnam and Korea) and show a small part of Tibet and Xinjiang "in play".
The other published China Britannia game, Dragon & the Pearl, shows the
larger geographic area of this game, but all of it is "in play".

The 456 cardboard pieces are bigger than standard "wargame ghetto" half inch
counters, perhaps two-thirds of an inch square.  They are thinner than
Britannia pieces, but fairly substantial.  The wording on the counters is
fairly hard to read, unfortunately, but there is a big colored banner with a
number on most of the pieces that helps differentiate them.  Everyone
prefers larger pieces, but there are so many here that pieces the size of
the new Britannia edition aren't practical.

The nation cards are very nice, five inches tall and three inches wide.  If
I were to use nation cards (I have a different system now), I'd like them to
be this size and shape.  They list appearance, movement order, sequence
within the color, and point scoring.  My wife observed that the thin font,
over a light red background symbol, is difficult to read.  There are 50
nation cards (four nations have two players controlling them, one after the
other on the same turn), four special cards, and a sequence of play card.

The special cards need to be cut in half to provide two cards for each
player.  They are usable once per game.  One card gives a +1 in one battle,
the other causes a battle to be refought.  These are like the cards I've
used in Epic Britannia, Britannia Brevis (expansions that FFG is not
interested in printing, at last report), and especially Frankia.  They are
tied to a color in Frankia, as they are in this game, whereas in the other
two they're tied to a nation.

There are minor production glitches.  Zhuge Liang, a famous general of the
Three Kingdoms, is referred to thus in the historical booklet, but on the
cards and in the rules he is incorrectly shown as Zhu Geliang.  The Grand
Canal, said to be red in the rules, is actually blue.  And there's one place
close to a 'four corners' where the map is clearly wrong in its connectivity
compared with the rules (Henan-Jiungsu).  I assume the rules prevail.

In general, the rules are easy to read (both in flow and in font size) and
appear to be comprehensive, but that's always hard to tell until you
actually play, isn't it?

A 15 page historical article (evidently from S&T magazine) by the game
designer is a generally good introduction to Chinese history.  I haven't
figured out the author's assertion that the country has never been entirely
ruled by foreign powers.  I count both the Mongols and the Manchu as foreign
powers, and if there was any part of the country not under their rule I can
only think of Formosa (referred to by the modern name of Taiwan in the
rules), though at one point it says at least one of these invaders
controlled Formosa.  Until fairly recent times I wouldn't even count this as
part of China, and of course from 1895 until present it has been Japanese or
Nationalist Chinese (Taiwanese), not part of mainland China despite the
claims of the communists.  There are no comments about the style or weapons
of warfare, other than a sidebar about gunpowder.  There are a few other
inconsistencies in the historical notes.  For example, the author says "the
[Han] Chinese military was not powerful enough at that time to deal with the
raiders because of the rebellion against the Qin dynasty and later due to
government corruption", but from what I've read, the Han did more to crush
steppe opposition than most empires, penetrating deep into the north on
several occasions and reducing the powerful Xiong-Nu to tributaries for most
of the Han period.  The normal relationship was "Chinese bribe barbarians
with tribute", but the Han reversed that.

The game uses the relatively new Pinyin translation of Chinese to English,
rather than the older Wade-Giles.  This is why "Peking" became "Beijing".  I
dislike Pinyin, because it isn't naturally pronounceable for an English
person (I wonder if it was made for French?).  Chiang Kai-shek becomes Jiang
Jieshi in the new system!  Tsao Tsao (which is pronounced with a ts sound)
becomes Cao Cao in the new system.  Bah.  But I suppose use of Pinyin is
inevitable.  Modern names of provinces have been used in most cases.

The game is arranged very much like Britannia.  There are very few starting
armies for some nations, as few as two.  It appears that there will be a lot
of attacking, since many nations score for killing others, and since the
attacker has the advantage.  And a lot of nations may disappear quickly.
Ten of the nations have an army maximum of 10 or more.  16 nations have a
max of four or less.  Five European nations do not get Increase, and four of
them have no more than 3 armies.  But these hit on a 3+ and are hit only on
a 6.

Combat resembles standard Britannia except that attackers have one better
chance of hitting than defenders.  Highlands reduce chances by TWO.
Europeans and Mongols (during the invasion) hit on a 3 and are only hit on a
6, and Mongols can overrun at 1:1 during the invasion instead of 2:1.

Increase of Population is the same as Britannia.  There is no stacking limit
as such, but overpopulation is applied by area, three for clear, two for
highlands, after combat, any excess dying.  This is the brake against huge
stacks.

There are a few double moves (including a second Increase, however), and one
triple move, the Mongol invasion.

Leaders are called "emperors" (which include Mao and Chiang), and there are
only ten in the game.  Unlike Brit, leaders cause the enemy to attack at -1,
as well as the other usual leader effects on combat and movement.

One of the problems I've had in my China game is how to reflect the rapid
fall of a major dynasty, possibly followed by fragmentation, possibly by
another dynasty.  This game uses a clever method for rebellions that is
unfortunately rather random.  I think it reflects history pretty well, but
might be frustrating for players because of the dice rolling involved.  A
rebellion starts in one or more areas, determined by regional dice rolls
(each of the areas of the main part of China is numbered for the rolls).
Then adjacent areas roll to see if they join the rebellion, with the major
dynasties having a "power factor" of 5, which means on any roll but a 6 the
adjacent area joins the rebels!

This power factor is also the number of points scored if you wipe out a
nation, and the number of armies you get as reinforcements.   So this
becomes very important, and is also an incentive for nations to wipe out
other nations and so avoid the "Belgae survive all game in Lindsey" syndrome
of Britannia.  With 46 nations this might be needed.  Clever.

There is no indication of the typical score for the game, so I can't judge
how important the points for eliminating a nation may be compared with other
ways of scoring.  Scoring, by the way, is every third turn, except for such
things as kill points (which are common).  A scoresheet is provided.

Uprisings, not the same as rebellions, occur in empty provinces.  But the
rules don't appear to say what happens if there are no empty provinces.

The Three Kingdoms nations, successors to the Han, are all depicted,
something I could not do in my smaller-scale games with relatively few
nations.  Yet the Mongol invasion is all in one turn, rather than in two
turns!  (The Mongols finished the Jin, in northern China, in 1234 seven
years after Genghis' death; they conquered the southern Song 45 years
later.)  Insofar as I think it's important to show that the Mongols were not
invincible or unstoppable, I'm puzzled by this choice.

Another oddity is the Great Wall.  Any attack over the wall FROM EITHER SIDE
gives an advantage to the defender.  The Great Wall was a turf wall, like
Hadrian's Wall in Britain, until the stone fortifications built in the 17th
century.  There are actually fortifications like this all over Europe.  I
have a map that shows the ones in Britain (Offa's Dyke is the obvious one
after Hadrian's and the Antonine walls), and I've seen them marked southeast
of the Caspian Sea!  These walls were too long to be fully manned (even
Hadrian's, far shorter than the Great Wall, only had a garrison at
intervals).  They were more a discouragement for cattle rustlers and the
like: "how do I get the cattle back home with this wall in the way"?  In
China, the question was "how do I get my horse over this wall", even though
armed men could get over fairly easily.  Against a real invasion, the walls
weren't worth much.  Giving a +1 doesn't make sense historically (especially
to those going from south to north!), but it's a way to emphasize one of the
most famous man-made landmarks in the world.

I was puzzled by some of the nations included and not included.  The Tungus,
who I thought might be Tanguts of Xi Xia, turn out to be (Wikipedia)
"Evenks", a nation I have never heard of but which is included in the game
for 517 and on.  They start with a very substantial five armies in
Kazakhstan.  I thought these might represent Celestial or Blue Turks.  Well,
no the Tujue (another name I didn't recognize, but which Wikipedia says is
the name in Chinese sources) are in fact the GokTurks (another name
Celestial/Blue Turks).  They are in the game from 557, and are one army
weaker than the puzzling Tungus, whereas in fact the GokTurks had a huge
Central Asian empire that at one time dominated the area north of China.

The Nan Zhao (usually shown the old way on maps, as Nan Chao) are a Thai
people who later migrated into Thailand.  For some reason they start in
Vietnam instead of Thailand or Myanmar.  (By the way, why use this
recently-adopted ethnic name instead of Burma or Pyu or another older name?
I think using modern names for a sweep of history games is a poor choice.)

The Xiong-Nu are called Huns in the game, which I think is a disservice to
players.  Scholarly opinion has fluctuated on this question, beginning with
the incorrect notion that there is considerable similarity in the two names
(this is primarily in the transliterations).  Similarities between Hun and
Xiong-Nu culture can be found.   There are no written records for these
peoples, and we know virtually nothing about their languages.  No one knows
for sure, any more than we can know that the Rouran became the western
Avars.


Finally, here's a very interesting note: playtesters are listed separately
for the author and for the publisher.  The author lists two [sic]
playtesters, so do we conclude that he had three people including himself to
playtest a four player game?  The publisher lists seven playtesters.
Perhaps they only listed the major players?

I'll be interested to hear how the game plays.  After all, that's what
counts in the end.  Game balance is very difficult to achieve in these
games, and harder here in the two smaller versions of the game, yet
experienced players can provide the "invisible hand" that results in balance
because they know what imbalances need to be rectified.  I'd like a dime for
every person who says Britannia is imbalanced, yet the current results
database shows virtually perfect balance.   You certainly cannot play these
kinds of games once or twice and think you understand all the strategy or
balance.  Another reason why this is NOT a review.

It would be really interesting to hear comments from someone who has played
both this game and Dragon & The Pearl, but the latter had a very limited
distribution and is not, as far as I know, in print.  (See
http://www.spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=1969.)

(Note for completists: there was also a very, very large Brit-like China
game, Mandate of Heaven (120 BC-1949), being playtested by mail through a
Yahoo Group:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/MandateH/?v=1&t=search&ch=web&pub=groups&sec=group&slk=17.
Members only, and judging from the number of messages, the game is over.)

Lew Pulsipher