I am pleased to announce a new scenario and a lot of new content.
What's new?
A new scenario set in Hunan
Play as a coalition of several factions
A lot of new content to simulate communist activism
There is now a tutorial
Multiplayer Beta for the Shanghai scenario
Some bugs and broken stuff fixed
Next to come: Chen Jiongming
False start in Hunan
Discover a new Province and a tense scipted scenario.
February 1926.
The governor of Hunan, Zhao Hengti, plays his four division commanders against each other to consolidate his power. That worked well so far, but when Zhao asked the commanders to hand over the local taxes they gathered to the provincial government in Changsa, this was more than Tang Shengzhi, the powerful commander of the fourth division, was ready to accept. Zhao Hengti's protector, the powerful warlord Wu Peifu being busy fighting in the north, the governor's situation is more fragile than ever. In the South, the Guomindang prepares a northern expedition against the warlords. That expedition should cross Hunan, and Guomindang agents are actively seeking allies in the province to sustain the expedition. Tang Shengzhi gladly accepted the Guomindang's helping hand and rebelled against Zhao Hengti.
Play as a coalition
The Guomindang side offers a new experience: you will be able to play with 3 factions at once! So a lot of communist and Guomindang secret agents action added to interesting military operations, culminating with the launch of the famous Northern Expedition.
Communist Activism
The communist player gains a lot of new actions on the Province map. Last content patch focused on the peasant masses. This patch adds actions for the Working class, but also actions for the warlords to fight radical activism in their domain.
Communism activism will now appear on the map, and have its own management window.
Multiplayer for Shanghai
Ths is at the Beta stage. I need your feedback to know if it is viable. 2 players are enough to launch a game. I will reactivate the Demo, with the tutorial, the Hunan scenario and the multiplayer Shanghai scenario, so you can easily play with friends.
Tutorial and bugs fixed
-The Hong Kong strike will launch properly now (in May) -Actions for your pickets are working again in the Shanghai scenario
Next to come: Chen Jiongming
You asked for it: next scenario will feature Chen Jiongming in an epic fight against the Old Guangxi clique across several provinces. A new province will be introduced: Fujian. And also some special actions for the Chen Jiongming faction
Have fun!
Become a running dog of Imperialist Powers (1st Content patch)
Hello!
Here is the first content patch for the topics you selected in the first poll. The Guangdong scenario has been reworked and deepened, and many actions and interactions have been added with the Superpowers.
List of changes introduced with the last patch (scroll down to the sections that interest you the most)
Interacting with Foreign Powers
Southern Guangdong faction reworked
List of new characters
中文！我需要中文
What's next?
Boring long list of bugs corrected (the game is quite clean now)
Interacting with Foreign Powers
A lot of new actions have been added to buy weapons or borrow money from Foreign colonial empires. That won't come for free: you will certainly have to sell away some sovereignty to benefit from foreign aid.
The relationship of your faction with each Foreign Power is the main variable here. As your relationship increases, you will unlock new actions. But beware! Colonial Powers are competing with each other and you can't befriend everybody. Worst: Chinese patriots won't be kind with traitors and you may earn the infamous title of "running dog of Foreign Imperialism".
Soviet-British power play in Guangdong
The Soviet will support the GMD and the CPC to organize a boycott against British held Hong Kong, ruining its economy. Local warlords will have there a unic occasion to gain the British Empire friendship by supplying goods to Hong Kong. The British will search for some able faction to counter the GMD and end the strike, providing it with $ and rifles.
All that is now in the game!
The CPC AI has been reworked so the strike can get really damaging to Hong Kong. If ever the Guangzhou is taken by a warlord faction, the strike would immediately end.
Southern Guangdong faction reworked
There is a nice not well known faction in Southern Guangdong. It has been reworked with added events, and more characters (they are 3 now).
That faction controlled Hainan, so the island has been added in the game as a new province. A starting event will give you an opportunity to influence the game to suits your playing style.
New characters
The Southern faction gained two characters including one with a bandit background. Those of you who have already used bandits characters from the Old Guangxi Clique know how useful they can be.
The Guizhou Clique faction leader is currently fighting in Sichuan. He is now in Guizhou characters pool. It won't be easy to gather enough face to have him back. But with the generalissimo/overlord role, he will certainly boost your faction effectiveness at fighting bandits and enlarging your domain.
The Guomindang was not lacking characters, but some important figures were still missing. Tan Yankai is a very able character you can use in mist of your strategies.
中文
You have been many to ask for a chinese version of the game. You will be pleased to learn that the translation into chinese by community has started. This is a long process: there is as much text as there would be in a big book. So be patient. We have done it before for Cauldrons of War Stalingrad, so we know this is an efficient way to have a great quality translation. Efforts are coordinated from the Discord: you can join if you are both fluent in Chinese and in English. A profesional translation would have been totally out of reach of a small indie dev (And it would have costed more than this game would ever earn), community translation is the only way to do it while fact checking history and quality.
What's next?
Next on the poll was the scenario opening of the Northern Expedition in Hunan. So Hunan will be included in the next content patch.
I will also pursue the deepening of the Guangdong Revolutionary base scenario.
Answer this news to tell me which faction I should rework now: -Chen Jiongming (with Anarchist inspired policies and army actions, and relationship with the merchants and the gentry special events) -The Yunnan Clique (with some Opium stuff, and tribal minorities)
Boring List of killed bugs and reworked features
-Save files have been cleaned: no more living dead armies coming back while you have destroyed them. -Saved files: no more events popping endlessly after loading -Characters limit: now that's 7 characters and no more! -AIs: most of the AIs have been reworked. -Tons of typos have been corrected (You read the texts, don't you?) -The "alt" shortcut to display the numbers of actions on the map works fine now -Non CPC factions can no more send back Borodin to Moscow! (CPC faction can still do it, and that may be useful to reclaim a free character slot to recruit some more relevant character)
Add to that bugs nobody reported and those cleared in the previous patches and you have now a pretty decent build.
I hope this news was not too lenghty :)
Have fun!
Maestro Cinetik
PS: so Yunnan or Chen Jiongming as next reworked faction? Tell me!
Become a running dog of Imerialist Powers (1st Content patch)
Hello!
Here is the first content patch for the topics you selected in the first poll. The Guangdong scenario has been reworked and deepened, and many actions and interactions have been added with the Superpowers.
List of changes introduced with the last patch (scroll down to the sections that interest you the most)
Interacting with Foreign Powers
Southern Guangdong faction reworked
List of new characters
中文！我需要中文
What's next?
Boring long list of bugs corrected (the game is quite clean now)
Interacting with Foreign Powers
A lot of new actions have been added to buy weapons or borrow money from Foreign colonial empires. That won't come for free: you will certainly have to sell away some sovereignty to benefit from foreign aid.
The relationship of your faction with each Foreign Power is the main variable here. As your relationship increases, you will unlock new actions. But beware! Colonial Powers are competing with each other and you can't befriend everybody. Worst: Chinese patriots won't be kind with traitors and you may earn the infamous title of "running dog of Foreign Imperialism".
Soviet-British power play in Guangdong
The Soviet will support the GMD and the CPC to organize a boycott against British held Hong Kong, ruining its economy. Local warlords will have there a unic occasion to gain the British Empire friendship by supplying goods to Hong Kong. The British will search for some able faction to counter the GMD and end the strike, providing it with $ and rifles.
All that is now in the game!
The CPC AI has been reworked so the strike can get really damaging to Hong Kong. If ever the Guangzhou is taken by a warlord faction, the strike would immediately end.
Southern Guangdong faction reworked
There is a nice not well known faction in Southern Guangdong. It has been reworked with added events, and more characters (they are 3 now).
That faction controlled Hainan, so the island has been added in the game as a new province. A starting event will give you an opportunity to influence the game to suits your playing style.
New characters
The Southern faction gained two characters including one with a bandit background. Those of you who have already used bandits characters from the Old Guangxi Clique know how useful they can be.
The Guizhou Clique faction leader is currently fighting in Sichuan. He is now in Guizhou characters pool. It won't be easy to gather enough face to have him back. But with the generalissimo/overlord role, he will certainly boost your faction effectiveness at fighting bandits and enlarging your domain.
The Guomindang was not lacking characters, but some important figures were still missing. Tan Yankai is a very able character you can use in mist of your strategies.
中文
You have been many to ask for a chinese version of the game. You will be pleased to learn that the translation into chinese by community has started. This is a long process: there is as much text as there would be in a big book. So be patient. We have done it before for Cauldrons of War Stalingrad, so we know this is an efficient way to have a great quality translation. Efforts are coordinated from the Discord: you can join if you are both fluent in Chinese and in English. A profesional translation would have been totally out of reach of a small indie dev (And it would have costed more than this game would ever earn), community translation is the only way to do it while fact checking history and quality.
What's next?
Next on the poll was the scenario opening of the Northern Expedition in Hunan. So Hunan will be included in the next content patch.
I will also pursue the deepening of the Guangdong Revolutionary base scenario.
Answer this news to tell me which faction I should rework now: -Chen Jiongming (with Anarchist inspired policies and army actions, and relationship with the merchants and the gentry special events) -The Yunnan Clique (with some Opium stuff, and tribal minorities)
Boring List of killed bugs and reworked features
-Save files have been cleaned: no more living dead armies coming back while you have destroyed them. -Saved files: no more events popping endlessly after loading -Characters limit: now that's 7 characters and no more! -AIs: most of the AIs have been reworked. -Tons of typos have been corrected (You read the texts, don't you?) -The "alt" shortcut to display the numbers of actions on the map works fine now -Non CPC factions can no more send back Borodin to Moscow! (CPC faction can still do it, and that may be useful to reclaim a free character slot to recruit some more relevant character)
Add to that bugs nobody reported and those cleared in the previous patches and you have now a pretty decent build.
I hope this news was not too lenghty :)
Have fun!
Maestro Cinetik
PS: so Yunnan or Chen Jiongming as next reworked faction? Tell me!
That patch kills a lot of Shanghai uprising & saved game bugs
-You can now recruit more men for your ShanghaI pickets with Wang -The Shanghai uprising saved game could have problems of missing actions: this is fixed now -The CCP icon in the scenarios screen have been reworked to be more historically accurate.
Have fun!
Yes, this is early access launch, so there will be several patches a day for some time...
27 september daily patch
-Some typos have been corrected. -Units in Shanhai now appears again
Please do not hesitate to report bugs, typos and other issues on the Discord, so that game improves faster.
Rise of the White Sun Early Access
The game is out!
What's in the Early Access?
The game contains 4 scenarios. The deepest scenario features all Southern China provinces and 9 different factions. You can already play the Eastern Expedition against Chen Jiongming's stronghold and the epic Guangdong-Hong Kong strike against the British Empire.
That's enough to guarantee you hours of fun, playing very different factions facing different challenges.
The content you have not seen in the demo includes Guangdong Province, the cities of Guangzhou (Canton) and Hong Kong, and new mechanisms like the Government management, Komintern actions and mobilization of the peasant masses.
What the final version will look like?
The final version will display also central and northern China, and every faction and important war from 1924 to 1927. The big piece being the Northern Expedition.
Some more important cities will also be added like Hankow.
3 good reasons to jump in now
The price of the final version will be higher
Your voice will have more weight to influence the evolution of the game
This is by far the best way to support my work
Give your opinion : what do you want to see in the game next ?
The great revolutionary Sun Yat Sen just died. In Guangzhou, his followers inspired by his thought are keeping his legacy alive. Tang Jiyao, the powerful Yunnan Warlord has long been a staunch supporter of Sun Yat Sen's party, the Guomindang. Tang claimed the leadership of the party, but as been turned down by the new Guomindang rulers. Tang is not a man you can disdain: he rallied his allies in Yunnan and Guizhou and started a military campaign to reclaim the power. In his way stands the small army of Guangxi, lead by bold and competent generals: how long will they be able to contain the onslaugh of the mighty Yunnan army?
Character management: you can now recruit new characters from a pool of historical characters or from a role of your choice (officer, spy, diplomat etc...)
Diplomacy: The diplomacy system is still in its infancy, but a tleast it exists
Multiple province actions: The new demo scenario covers 3 provinces and will give you a better feeling of what the complete game will be.
I hope you you will enjoy it enough to put it on your wishlist! Anyway, I will need your feedbacks.
If ever you like my games, you may also enjoy cold war 2. Cold War 2 is a free browser game and it celebrates its 5th Birthday. So far, 100 000 players have enjoyed this game. For the occasion, more playable content is available. You can play it here (That game is perfect to play at work during summer)
Have fun!
Maestro Cinetik
Warlord factions : new scenario in the demo
May 1924
Guangxi, although a very poor province, is coveted by its powerful neighbors to the North, West and East. Lu Rongting, the current governor, has not been able to make sufficiently powerful allies and his power is contested by a new clique from Guangxi won over to the republican ideals of Sun Yat Sen. Arriving from Hunan, General Shen Hongying, supported by the powerful warlord Wu Peifu, also claimed the province. Which faction will rule Guangxi? Only the results of bloody fights and bold treasons will tell. You have 23 turns to take control of the whole province with your faction.
Play as the Old Guangxi Clique
This faction has some real weaknesses but also some unsuspected strengths.
Usually, corruption, fraud and smuggling will be very high in the districts controled by this faction. This can be partly fixed by policies to fight corruption like training the magistrates.
Old Guangxi clique leaders have strong local ties: they can use their strong relationships among the Zhuang ethnie to quickly raise irregular armies. It can be done with the action "Zhuang Self Government". use it wisely because this action will also strongly reduce your income.
If you play with this faction, don't forget that your characters are former bandits! They go along very well with smugglers and bandits. These sympathies give them bonuses for actions like "smuggling rifles" or "recruit bandits".
Play as the New Guangxi Clique
This faction has some real strengths and no real weaknesses. The New Guangxi Clique has a unique combination of complementary and useful characters. LiZongren and Bai Chongxi are very competent strategists while Huang Shaohong will be perfect as Civil Governor. If you play this faction, your army can be organized on the nationalist model. The Chinese Nationalist Republic you support is trained and organized by soviet advisors. This gives you many more organizational actions than your enemies. Try to create a "Political Department" in each of your armies as soon as you can, it will unlock other useful actions to make your armies more efficient.
Cool things you will do in this scenario include:
-Recruiting bandits -Bribing enemy armies -Smuggle rifles to equip your troops -Torn down buddist temples to pillage their treasures etc...
You will be able to access provincial policies and infrastructure building, but, to be honest, this scenario is too short and too violent to let you playing at nation building.
If you play it, I would love to have your feedback!
Have fun!
Maestro Cinetik
Province Management Preview
Hello, I hope you enjoyed the demo.
Now it is time to show you that the game won't be only about organizing uprsings. Next scenario I am actually working on is called "The Guangdung Revolutionary Base". It will feature the eastern expeditions and the 1925 fightings in South China.
So I am working on new things like Province management or armies management.
The player will have a vast array of policies to develp his provinces, including social reforms, infrastructure building.
Each district of a province has 2 main statistics:
-Tradition -Vitality
The higher the tradition score, the less the influence of revolutionaries movement. Tradition has many other side effects : a high score will limit the economical efficiency, and increase the chances of mystical rebellions (like the Red Spear movements for exemple).
Vitality will also impact the revenues, but also the recruitments.
To developp your economy you can make patient and costly efforts, but you can also take faster and more nefarious shortcuts (the opium trade).
Players will rarely have a whole Province for themselves: they will have to disput the territory to bandits, pirates, rebels and local minor warlords.
In Guangdung or Guangxi alone, several factions are fighting for the control of the Province. Sometimes players will just invade a territory so their own huge warlord armies don't ruin their home country.
Of course that scenario will also feature some important strike and boycott actions with 2 city maps available : Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
Your feedback about this new step in the game development is important for me, so please share your expectations.
Have fun!
Maestro Cinetik
New Content for the Demo, ETA and next steps
Shanghai Uprising Demo: all factions are now playable!
You can now visit this story from multiple perspectives. -As a Shanghai Garrison Commander, ready to bettray but not too soon -As Green Gang underworld bosses, trying to preserve their opium trade -As Guomindang agents trying to sabotage the efforts of your communist allies -As Chinese Communists trying to take over the city
Disclaimer: the game is still in development and certainly needs more proof reading, polishing etc... I certainly need your feedback here or in the Discord.
Next Steps
-The multiplayer mode for the Shanghai Uprising scenario (there is no better way to test the game balance and gather feedback) -A scenario at Province scale about the 1925 Eastern Expedition (I don't know yet if it will be in the Demo or in some closed Beta)
Then, when all of that will have been enough playtested and polished, I will go for the whole 1926-1928 Northern Expedition. The Early Access will start when most of the Northern Expedition will be done.
Some of you have asked me for the Chinese and Russian translations: this is too early in the development phase for the internationalisation, and texts change nearly every day. I may provide later some DYO tools for those who can't wait.
Some cheat Codes for the road
Here are some cheat codes to help you explore fully the game. I know some of you are already tinkering with cheat engine, so I'll spare you that effort. If ever you don't find the cheat code of your dreams, just ask for it ^^
First press "C" to open the cheat console.
Then type:
-"su" for launching the Shanghai Uprising (nice to train yourself at uprisings) -"rsu" does the same but also triggers the invasion of the concessions -"resolvesu" automatically resolves an uprising (very useful if you are lazy bored by uprisings) -"yollo" give to all your character a lot of any resource -"inthenavy": during an uprising, the gunboats will join your side -"rfos": stands for Red Flag Over Shanghai==>Rebels instantly win the Shanghai uprising -"shanghaicarnage" ==> Rebels instantly lose the Shanghai uprising -"lacavaleriearrive"==> The National Revolutionary arrives in the Shanghai suburbs, ready to assist -"showspots" to display on the map the spots used during uprisings -"trafalgars" to force the gunboats to leave the battlefield
I hope you will have a lot of fun with that game. I know this is a game that needs a learning phase, but I believe it is worth the effort. Tell me!
