Manchu

Overview

Manchu is a strategic level game of the Taiping Rebellion in China, which occurred from 1850 to 1868.

The game is played in yearly turns. Each yearly turn comprises of a random event roll (called Interesting Times Roll) to determine what random events, if any, occurred during the year. Random events include the appearance of bandits, river pirates and cannons, desertion of troops, plagues, famines, and even the diversion of the course of the Yellow River!

The player turn proper consists of a variable number of segments where players conduct operations ranging from recruitment to movement and combat. During each segment, players may move once stack of units, and then roll the die to determine if the segment ends, or he can continue to move another stack of units. Units may move more than once per turn, but are subject to attriction if they do so.

Units are generic "manpower steps", with different unit types having different strength points, ranging from 1sp per step for chinese banner troops to 5 for mongolian cavalry. Most other units lie somewhere in between, with the Taiping rebels having the better units.

The game revolves around the control of various provinces of China in 1850's. The aim of the Taiping player is to overthrow the Manchu dynasty while the Manchu player tries to survive without ceding too much control to the provincial warlords.

Comments

A simplistic game that somehow captures the feel of warfare in China at that period. Troops were mere numbers that did not have any semblance to the organisation of modern military units. Battles hinge on commanders and other external factors as much as the numbers and (to a lesser extent) quality of the troops involved. The manpower step system and the combat system captures this rather well.

Other rules like the interesting times table, western troops add chrome to the game.

Overall an interesting little game that I would find the time to play again.

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