New atWar Game/Scenario (Under Development)

Hello, I would like to introduce a brand new atWar game/scenario. It is called 'A Tale of Two Chinas' (ATOTC). The premise of the scenario is a hypothetical war between the United States (US) and Republic of China (Taiwan) on one hand, and the People's Republic of China (PRC) on the other. In this scenario, the 'war' starts when the PRC invades Taiwan.

Development of an atWar game/scenario was inspired by the Center for Strategic and International Studies or CSIS1. For those of you who are not familiar with CSIS, it is a highly respected, bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization dedicated to advancing practical ideas to address the world's greatest challenges.2

In January 2023, CSIS released a comprehensive report that examines the results of several CSIS wargames in which the PRC attacks the island of Taiwan. The report is entitled: 'The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan'1. It is a fascinating read. For those of you who are interested, the full report is available for download at:

https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan

A Tale of Two Chinas (ATOTC):

There are two assumptions to the ATOTC game/scenario. The first assumption is that Taiwan is attacked by the PRC. This effectively means that the PRC always has the first turn and that it, the PRC, is at war with Taiwan starting on turn one. The second assumption is that the United States responds to the PRC attack with military intervention. There is also the possibility that other regional belligerents will become involved in and participate in the scenario as well.

Once the basic assumptions are identified, it will be necessary to define the game/scenario itself. This involves identifying which countries will be considered belligerents and, by definition, included in the scenario. Belligerents may include Australia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, North Korea, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam. It is assumed that Taiwan, the PRC and the US are all belligerents and therefore included in the scenario. The number of players will be defined by the number of belligerents, so there will be at a minimum of 3 players: Taiwan, the US and the PRC, to as many as 12 players if each country is assigned a player. Based on this, the game looks very much like it could be a game of two or more teams. So, for example, the game could be a two team game with the US and Taiwan battling the PRC. Or, it could be a multiple team game if India and Russia are included as separate teams.

Defining the game/scenario will also define which US bases are included. For example, Japan has 14 US military bases, the Philippines has 9 US military bases and South Korea has 8 US bases. There are also several bases located in Australia as well as Wake Island which is a large US protectorate and military air base. It is also necessary to define the unit types for each country including unit names, cost to build, combat strengths (attack and defence), hit points, range (movement allowance), transport capacity and collateral damage etc. These are all unit properties familiar to seasoned atWar players. There is also a requirement to define at which turn in the scenario a particular unit type is available. This will mostly apply to US units. For example, it is unlikely that all, or even most, of the US Aircraft Carriers will be available to the US on turn one of the scenario. Similarly there are going to be other US units that arrive as reinforcements after turn one.

The next requirement is to define the Order of Battle of the units including their start points or locations on turn one. There are several web pages that identify current locations of military units. One example of this is a web page called the US Navy Warships Tracker.

The final requirement is to define the Resource Centre locations and income levels for all cities, military (land) bases, naval bases, air bases and other resource locations included in the game/scenario. For example, there are Russian oil resources centres available to the PRC along the Russian border. Unlike most of the atWar games I play, there will be significant forces available to each side on turn one. There will also be a limited number of units that can be built each build turn as reinforcements. Resource Centres will also define which units can be produced in a particular resource centre and which units can not. For example, F-35 Lightning II units can not be produced in PRC resource centres.

Finally, my goal in developing A Tale of Two Chinas is to develop a game/scenario that is as accurate as possible. There is no balance to this game. It is very obvious from what I have read so far that the US is superior in every way to the PRC both in the number of units at the start of the game, production capacity (resources) as well as the ability to build units (reinforcements) during the game. Having said this, the continental US is a long way from Taiwan, more than 10,000 kilometers, while China is extremely close to Taiwan at less than 2,000 kilometers. This is a huge discrepancy and one that the PRC will need to exploit if they are to be successful.

If you have thoughts or suggestions on the game/scenario and its design, let me know either by a Reply or by atWar message.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Commodus, Founding Leader, Niki

1. The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan, Center for Strategic and International Studies, page 1.
2. The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan, Center for Strategic and International Studies, page 3.

I really admire your passion for creating maps for a game that's on its last legs.

It's a good game. I hope you are wrong.