So for the record, I love the China update. The amount of thought and work the devs have put into China's politics is unparalleled for a Paradox game mod, especially for a region that doesn't speak English and where there isn't much research done

But that being said, something that I've increasingly become frustrated with in the new mod is combat in China. Compared to historical warfare in the Chinese warlord period, or the combat described in event wars (like the KMT invasion of Lingguang or the Qing Restoration war against the Zhili) war in Kaiserreich's China involves a too small number of soldiers, is extremely slow, and causes few casualties

To go through each of my points in turn:

1. Too Few Soldiers: the Chinese warlord period was notable for absolutely massive armies in sheer human terms. By its end, the historical Northern Expedition involved 1.5 million soldiers in total fighting. The Nationalists alone fielded over a million men. But trying to replicate that in Kaiserreich is functionally impossible. There simply isn't enough industry in any Chinese warlord state to equip that number of men, even as the strongest states over a period of years. This means that the massive manpower of China is essentially irrelevant - it doesn't matter how many casualties Chinese factions suffer, the only important thing is whether they can replace the destroyed infantry equipment. The cheating AI sometimes can do this, but even they generally can't. Even worse, this disadvantages what would be an otherwise logical strategy for China - cannon fodder. It might be a smart idea to utilize China's massive manpower in huge numbers of militia divisions, except that in KR regular infantry and militia use similar amounts of infantry equipment, so the combat penalties faced by militia aren't worth it

2. Slow Combat: while the Chinese warlord period saw long periods of very successful guerrilla warfare, it also saw huge scale major offensives through some very harsh terrain. For every successful Communist insurrection in the Shanxi mountains, there were offensives with hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Yunnan. This is reflected in event wars in the game - the KMT invasion of Yunnan through the mountains is over one way or another in a couple months. The Qing restoration war against the Zhili is over in three months or so. HOI4's terrain penalties are already harsh, and the built in -50% to Chinese factions until huge amounts of army XP can be assembled are effectively insurmountable. Ironically, this is an issue more for the AI than player - the player is smarter than the AI and can position its forces, especially fast units, better than the AI. But when two AI factions fight each other across any difficult terrain (looking at you Left KMT and Shandong), the war devolves into a completely inactive stalemate, without much fighting on either side

3. Limited casualties: this is my most callous point, but it's important. Chinese warlord conflicts were incredibly deadly, both for their soldiers and civilians. The largest OTL Warlord conflict, the Central Plains War, saw over half a million casualties. But my above points lead to ahistorically low casualties in KR's wars in China. China in Kaiserreich won't suffer massively more casualties than Japan because of its lower quality forces and equipment - it doesn't have enough industry to equip an army the size of Japan's with basic infantry equipment. And the large debuffs to combat within Chinese factions means that while org damage happens, STR damage is more limited

In all, in my experience of about 15 games, warfare in China is underwhelming. Parts of China are a nearly impossible challenge to attack before building large numbers of tanks (invading Yunnan). Others are trivially easy (defeating the Nanjing Clique that's at war with Shandong with a half dozen cavalry divisions).

Now, I'm not here just to complain. Below are some suggestions I have for how to improve combat within China. Fundamentally, they involve expanding the "Army reform" system, and also by creating modifiers to differentiate internal Chinese combat with combat between a Chinese faction with a non-Chinese enemy

1. Increase the production of infantry equipment for Chinese factions: basically, right now the level of industry in China is way too low to let Chinese groups actually use their manpower resources, because they can't equip them using current rules. For this point, I'd suggest having a national spirit or company that would give a massive production cost debuff for basic infantry equipment in China. Giving incentive for Chinese factions to employ larger numbers of cheap militia units, because their equipment is cheap too. You could in exchange give a debuff to combat against more advanced equipment. And this effect could scale with the Army Reforms tab - equipment could get more expensive to produce, but it would get better and have less of a combat debuff

2. Lessen the impact of terrain for internal Chinese warfare: as it stands, it is effectively impossible for an AI faction to successfully invade Yunnan. It's extremely difficult for even players to invade Yunnan before they make a major investment in tanks. That's because Yunnan is all mountains. The same goes for combat along the major rivers in central China, and other places. China's terrain is rugged, but HOI4's mechanics amplify that to an absurd degree. Historically, Yunnan was not an impregnable fortress. The Yangtze was not an uncrossable barrier. Chinese factions, should suffer less of a penalty for bad terrain when fighting other Chinese, to make wars more fluid and winnable as they were historically. This effect could be similar to the Army Reform mechanic now, where more XP both decreases your ability to attack bad terrain, and increases your ability to defend terrain, gearing up for your inevitable war with Japan

Together, I think these elements would make war in China much more fun. Warlord armies would be much larger, combat deadlier, and wars would actually be fluid and dynamic, rather than static and boring until a third party attacks from the rear. The Zhili-Fengtien War should be a climactic war for the future of China - not a stalemante in northern China until the KMT attacks undefended Zhili rear areas, the Zhili panic because they don't have enough divisions to guard all their borders, and then the Fengtien take advantage. The AI Federalists shouldn't declare war on Yunnan in 1937 and, because Yunnan is impregnable for AI armies, never become a factor in Chinese politics again