Order of Battle: Morning Sun

[calmhatchery]

Everyone knows the importance of the Pacific Theatre during World War II. Some of the bloodiest battles of the whole conflict were fought on the wide oceans and in the deep jungles. After three years and thousands of dead on all sides the Japanese Empire was destroyed and a new balance of power was established.

But this conflict started earlier than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. China saw its own borders constantly menaced and, after many “incidents”, on July 7th of 1937 Japan began a large invasion of the Chinese soil. A nominally united China was still fighting its own internal wars and was initially ill-prepared for the onslaught leading to the Japanese forces conquering an impressive amount of land but at the cost of overstretching its lines..

The Second Sino – Japanese War has begun!

Order of Battle: Pacific after the release of the successful free update Battle of Britain, comes back to the Pacific Theatre, covering one of the cruellest but most underrated conflicts of the Second World War period..

[kongxinga]

Oh my god I have been waiting for a proper wargame on the Sino-Japanese war for my entire life. It is a wonderful day.

Let me say I own or have played pretty much any game that even tangentially covers this topic (English or Chinese), so I can't wait.

To say this theatre is underrated is an understatement. The sheer magnitude, length and unrelenting pressure of this front is in my opinion, unmatched before and unmatched since. Yes this includes the Eastern Front. Soldiers walked thousands of miles to reinforce Shanghai, being strafed and bombed all the way, wearing only reed sandals at best.

You think Russians getting 1 rifle for 2 men was bad like depicted in Enemy at the Gates? How about no rifles, but a rusty falchion? The magnitude of the fighting spirit in China against all odds needs proper treatment.

I see we don't have a cover design yet. May I make a small suggestion to put Chiang Kai Shek's face somewhere on the cover? That's what I look for when I look for games that cover the Chinese theatre. The last game I recall that did those in the West was Gary Grisby ww2 and Strategic Command Pacific, but those were quite a let down for people playing as China.

[best75]

Oh yes this is varying exciting to see a wargame cover the war in china. Will be interesting to play to see how the war was fought.

[Loki1942]

New content is obviously nice and all, i am however not really interested in the Chinese front. Hopefully the other stuff they are working on is the Japanese vs British Commonwealth in Burma, India ,Malaya etc.. Also, what i want the most, a US campaign that is the REAL deal, Mcarthur AND Nimitz's drive towards Japan. not the disappointing few scenarios we got at launch... Havent really touched this game since i finished Okinawa as the US, played Eriks excellent Tarawa scenario (hire this guy mkay ) but this game needs to get WAY more flesh on its bones before i bother with it again. Which is a real shame, since i WANT to like it and it could be very good really.

[calmhatchery]

It would be great, that unit core experience can be transfer to another campaign...from MORNING SUN to PACIFIC (it is example) Not all units but some of units . Let say 10 % units from all army from previous campaign. I read that some of Japanese divisions from Kwantung army was transported from china to some islands on Pacific front....what do you think?...
Even that MORNING SUN campaign finish in 1945. It is no problem. After finish "Morning SUN" and starting PACIFIC campaign in DECemeber 1941 the core experience can be transfer from MORNING SUN from the time point: december 1941 . SO on the begining PACIFIC campaign we can have some of elite unit with core and experience from the previous MORNING SUN campaign....what do you think people?
PS. The-Artistocrats for sure cover another front like BURMA, INDIA ..they need a time...

[best75]

It would be great, that unit core experience can be transfer to another campaign...from MORNING SUN to PACIFIC (it is example) Not all units but some of units . Let say 10 % units from all army from previous campaign. I read that some of Japanese divisions from Kwantung army was transported from china to some islands on Pacific front....what do you think?...
Even that MORNING SUN campaign finish in 1945. It is no problem. After finish "Morning SUN" and starting PACIFIC campaign in DECemeber 1941 the core experience can be transfer from MORNING SUN from the time point: december 1941 . SO on the begining PACIFIC campaign we can have some of elite unit with core and experience from the previous MORNING SUN campaign....what do you think people?
PS. The-Artistocrats for sure cover another front like BURMA, INDIA ..they need a time...

This sounds nice but it would unbalance the campaign.

[calmhatchery]

something for something...if a player chooses unit from the previous campaign , for good balance , he has to one unit less. ore more....This a price for a elite unit...

[kongxinga]

I noticed that the campaign seems to end at Chonqing, so is this alternate history? The battles all seem to be pre 1941 as well, will we have plans to include some late war stuff (Operation Ichigo, Burma?). Also Changsha held for 3 attacks historically, falling on the 4th attack very late in the war, so I wonder how that will play out here (looks to be the alternate history Panzer General routes, ie Moscow 1941 after Sealion 1940 immediately after Dunkirk then Washington 1944 in a lightning fast campaign.)

I hope we can add some of the slugging match, lack of supplies and slow, SLOW movement in to make it play more like historically, and not feel too much like the extremely fast progress of a player led Panzer general campaign. The Japanese were not known for lightning campaigns in most of China (Post 1939 it was pretty much stalemate with stale lines). Malaya is another matter though.

[bebro]

Scns # 1-10 are based on historical battles, but of course the outcome depends on player's performance, so he can win the 1st battle of Changsha here. The Chongqing scn is hypothetical indeed.

[kongxinga]

Hi Bebro, thanks for the reply. I am very excited to play all the historical scenarios, but Chonqing/Chunking lept out to me in, sort of like how Washington DC will stick out like a sore thumb in (Poland, Norway, France, Tunisa, Stalingrad, DC). I don't think most of these battle has been given a strategy game treatment, except in maybe War of Resistance 1 (八年抗戰), which was from the Chinese side and had historical battles (a series of fighting retreats, encirclement breakthroughs and outright routs leading up to Changsha, which actually leads to the long stalemate situation. Since that was obviously not fun, and by then your core had been trained and equipped with the latest in captured and purchased weaponry, so the game makers there added a series of ahistorical missions where you counterattack and fight a deeply dug in and tenacious (and minefield loving) Japanese force in other to let the player use that core on the attack.

But yeah, that is how you can make a fun Chinese campaign, something I would like to do to rectify what looks to be a Japanese campaign only situation when the tools are released. I look forward to adding arbitrary time limits as per the grand tradition of giving the Chinese player a loss if he does not independently defeat Japan before Uncle Sam does (think this time limit is in all game I know of).

I know you guys have done a great job showing the big mess of different equipment of all kinds on the Chinese side, but do you have a good variety of troops/infantry on the Chinese side? German style divisions, English style divisions, and the various flavors of Warlord troops of varying calibre? Partisans? Armoured trains? Xibei San Ma cavalry?

[bebro]

Not going too much into detail yet, but there will be quite some variety on the Chinese side infantry-wise, including outdated/ill-equipped and irregular troops.

[simcc]

Been so long that I even forgotten my login hahaha. Just wanna drop a note to say thank you to the developers, been following the game since release and was enjoying it for a long time and I would say the expansion for sino-japs war was a dream come true finally, haven't finish it yet just started yesterday so no comment so far hahaha. Good work developer, it's not easy getting players like me back from the addictive fallout 4 game hehehe. Let's finish the expansion and review the comment. Also I saw in somewhere that you guys are planning on 4 DLC this year hehehe gotto find more time to play. So many awesome new games this year from so many companies (note: don't even have time to finish my old time favorite SC2). Let's hope the developer can give us an accurate historical battle in China hahaha good work and have fun (any new skins coming? Maybe a snow skin hahaha dreaming)

[bru888]

As a U.S. citizen, I shudder to think of what might have happened if the Japanese did not expend so much of its strength in China prior to turning east in 1941.