From: Tony & Susan Hickie Subject: Warlords Review (Long) At 1:05 on 20/09/96 Alan Poulter wrote: >'Warlords' I have heard of but have never seen it nor seen a review. Comments >anyone? Alan, I got this one some years ago but have only played it a couple of times. Capsule review: Boxed format, published by Panther Games in 1986. The game simulates the struggle between competing Chinese factions in the period 1916-1950 and, depending on scenario, can be played by 3 to 7 players. The blurb describes it as "a fun game of political diplomacy and military expansion". You get a colourful unmounted area-movement map measuring approximately 23 inches by 19 inches dividing mainland China into 27 provinces numerically rated for resource and forage values (examples: Szechwan [best] 12/4; Tsinghai [equal worst with 4 others] 1/1). Terrain is clear (1 movement point), rough (2 MPs, -1 off attacker's combat die-roll), mountains (+1 MP to cross). There are 2 counter sheets providing a mix of army counters to depict up to 7 factions with as many as 24 armies each, plus markers for indicating famines, revolts and location of capitals. The 7 factions are Japan, KMT, CCP, Feng, Chang, Sun and Wu (I don't know how historically accurate these last 4 are). You also get 3 reference cards with tables, charts and a conference map, plus a turn record card which also has a track for recording each faction's political points' status (which contributes to determining who wins - see below). Play is sequential, with each year being divided into 4 turns: a Cycle Turn (conduct diplomacy, determine famines and revolts, production) and 3 OP Turns in each of which there is an Event Phase (faction entry/elimination, minor warlord creation, Jap reinforcement/withdrawal, Soviet entry/withdrawal, game-end), followed by an Initiative Phase (which decides who goes 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc based on highest to lowest political point scores) and then each player's OP Phase (supply-movement-combat). In diplomacy you can agree what you like so long as it doesn't violate rules elsewhere. Resource points can be traded, provinces swapped, etc. Informal agreements don't have to be declared, but formal alliances do. Formal alliances are limited to two factions per alliance and obviously a faction can only be in one alliance at any time; thereafter the two factions take their OP Phase together. Breaking a formal alliance costs the breaking faction political points. If you offer a player RPs and he agrees the deal, you cannot welch on the payment. Famine is determined by die-roll; 6 = no famine, any other result = the number of randomly affected provinces. Famines last one year and halve (round down) the resource and forage values of affected provinces. The Chinese being perceived as a turbulent nation, there is always 1 revolt each year, its location being determined randomly. Ungarrisoned provinces successfully revolt and a minor warlord with a 5-factor army takes over, otherwise the 5-factor rebels attack whatever garrison army is there. Minor warlords can themselves be the targets of revolts. Economically you need resource points (RPs) to maintain and produce armies. You get RPs equal to the RV of the provinces you control, from foreign aid (a die-roll gives you from 5 to 35 RPs, Japs and CCP don't get any), and from whatever agreements you've negotiated with other players. Uniquely, the Feng faction can draw on 5 Mongolian RPs if it controls an adjacent province. Liaoning province has industrial resources worth 5 additional RPs for revenue production purposes only. To build a regular army counter (max 1 per province per cycle) costs 2 RPs and then 1 RP for each factor you stick into it; you can of course add factors to existing armies (in all cases max factors per cycle = RP value of province). The CCP can build guerrilla armies at 1 RP each, but not guerrilla factors; these are gained by recruiting in the province where the army is located (2 on creation and then per Cycle up to the RP value of the province). Jap armies can have up to 20 factors in them, KMT 15 and others 10. It costs 1 RP to maintain each regular army for one year, irrespective of the number of factors in it. It's important to remember that minor warlords accrue RPs equal to half the RV of their province and that all of these are automatically spent on building army factors, i.e. minor warlord armies don't have to be maintained (nor supplied). The forage value of a province decides how many armies can live off the land there. Foraging armies may neither move nor attack. Alternatively you can pay 1 RP (2 to force march) in which case the army doesn't forage, but can move and attack. Normal march is 2 movement points, forced march 3. Armies must stop movement on entering a province occupied by a minor warlord or another faction's armies, unless given right of passage. Combat is mandatory if you enter another faction's province without permission or one controlled by a minor warlord (combat involving guerrilla armies is voluntary, however). Combat involves both sides rolling the die and modifying according to terrain and/or the faction's combat effectiveness rating (0 to +2). Results are given in percentages and applied trickily: an opponent's losses are calculated on the size of his enemy's army, e.g. an army with 20 factors rolls a 25% result - this means that the opposing army loses 5 factors. Whoever lost the most factors (defender wins ties) must retreat or disband. Victory is decided by ranking each faction according to its military power (how many army factors it has), its resources (how many RPs it controls) and its current political point status (PPs are awarded and lost for gain and loss of provinces, battle results, forced move of capital, and making and breaking alliances). Each faction is then given points according to its relative position in each category, with the weakest given 1 point, the next weakest 2, etc. Winner is the faction with the most points. Alternatively, any faction controlling at least 16 provinces (including Chihli [location of Peking]) during an event phase wins automatically; the Japs win with 16 provinces, including all coastal provinces. Any faction without a home for its capital (ex CCP and Japan) is eliminated. There are 4 scenarios: 1916-25: 4 players (Wu 28 army factors, 10 RPs in the bank, 6 provinces; Feng 22/10/8, Sun 18/10/5, Chang 12/20/3) + 5 minor warlords (factors 4/3/7/3/3). 1926-35: 5 or 6 players (KMT 32/10/2, Wu 40/10/3, Chang 60/10/4, Feng 25/60/7, Sun 40/20/3, CCP enters in 1927) + 8 minor warlords (factors 7/12/16/6/8/3/16/5). 1937-50: 3 players (Japan 170/40/6, KMT 200/20/12, CCP 100/10/2) + 7 minor warlords (factors 10/5/15/5/5/5/8). Campaign Game: 6 or seven players. Start as 1926-35. Japan enters 1930. In the last two scenarios, Soviet intervention is a 1 in 6 shot each event phase from 1/45 and simply involves wiping out any and all Jap forces in the 6 NE provinces. Playing Japan generally can be bad news anyway 'cause unless you can get the automatic victory (or are playing to the end of an agreed turn when you're still alive) from 3/44 onwards there's an increasingly high chance of Japan surrendering (automatic by 1/47) so you're guaranteed to lose the game no matter how well you've done up till then. Also Japan never gets to build forces with RPs, but is dependent for reinforcements from 1942 (and subsequently withdrawals) on an increasingly unpleasant die-roll (0 to +50 factors in '42, +20 to -20 from '45 onwards). Regarding resource points and army factors, each player has to keep track of his own on paper, so unless an army has previously revealed its strength and you have a really good memory, you can have only a general idea of how big an enemy army is likely to be. This can be fun or not, depending on the state of your liver and the result. As you can see from the strengths given, minor warlords can be anything from a small to a major nuisance. Unfortunately, there's no mechanic for doing anything with a minor warlord except wiping him out. IMO the game is okay without being wonderful and, for the shorter scenarios, plays fairly quickly (c. 4-5 hours). Bad points are that there's not much room for manoeuvre (nor MPs to manoeuvre with) and the little guys can find it hard to go anywhere. In addition to the imbalances in starting forces illustrated by the scenarios, the provinces you start with also tend to weight things further in favour of the chunky dudes: for example, in the 1926-35 scenario, Wu provinces are worth 49 RV and 16 FV, Feng 30/13, Sun 27/10 and Chang 15(+5 for Liaoning)/5. Set-up can further restrict options by giving you only one direction to go in: again from the 1926-35 scenario, Chang sets up in the NE corner of the map and can only expand into Feng territory; Chang's only hope is for Wu and Feng to start fighting and even then the 3 nearest Feng provines are worth only 2/1, 1/1 and 1/1. Of course, this is where diplomacy should come in and ideally Chang should be negotiating with Feng for free passage for its armies so that it can help stomp Wu and pick up something more worthwhile - but that's gonna leave those juicy home provinces temptingly weak to Feng treachery. In most cases it's probably the best strategy for the two biggest factions to join together, stomp everyone else in sight and then slug it out between themselves for top dog. Alternatively, everyone gangs up on the biggest guy around and hopes the alliance holds together. However, little fellas supporting big fellas are likely to end up as dessert for whichever big fella comes out on top. Also it's one of those games where you can easily get wiped out inside a couple of turns if everyone else decides that you're today's easy meat or pain in the b*tt, so be prepared to go and watch TV for the rest of the evening - or to sneer from the sidelines if there's nothing good on. Tony Hickie t_s_hickie@online.rednet.co.uk