I love the Total War series and basically any wargame that's focused on simulating battles, like the Graviteam Tactics games which are extremely simulationist WW2 games.
There are many of those games in many different settings. Ancient, medieval, Napoleonic, American Civil War, WW2...
But there is one setting that has never been used for a wargame, yet it would be absolutely perfect. Especially for a wargame with a focus on battles and using different unit types.
The Taiping Rebellion in 1950s-1860s China.
- some Chinaman claims to be the brother of Jesus Christ and starts a cult
- this turns into a large-scale rebellion that takes over half of China and starts an all-out civil war
- both the rebels and the Qing armies used very outdated equipment for the time: while the rest of the world was upgrading their flintlock muskets to percussion locks and converted smoothbores to rifled muskets, the Chinese still used matchlocks and half their soldiers were armed with melee weapons
- while their own arms were incredibly outdated, both the rebels and the imperial forces imported western arms; Europeans and Americans both sold new state of the art weapons as well as dumping their older guns their armies no longer used on China
- this leads to an insane variety in unit types: spearmen, sword & shield bearers, bowmen, alongside matchlock musketmen, flintlock musketmen, modern percussion lock muskets with rifled barrels, whatever type of equipment you can think of, it was used in this war
- parts of the Qing army still fought in the nomadic style of their steppe forefathers, so you get Mongol-style horse archers on top of it all, too
- some westerners even signed up as volunteers for the Taiping rebels, they were only a couple hundred but that's enough for one or two western volunteer units in the Taiping forces
- the Taiping rebels even had a lot of women volunteers, enough to form several female regiments... and the best part: they fought barefoot to proudly display their unbound, naturally-shaped feet! Barefoot female units are in, baby!
- Brits and French later intervened in favor of the Qing Empire and provided expeditionary forces against the Taiping rebels
- before the British intervention in favor of the Empire, the Brits fought against the Qing in the Second Opium War which happened at the same time as the rebellion, so you have multiple conflicts with constantly changing sides for an intense diplomatic game
- meanwhile, other regions of China also broke into rebellion, like the Muslim minorities in western China, as they sensed the opportunity to make easy gains
This scenario is absolutely PERFECT for a game.
The battles have more variety of unit types than anything else. Steppe horse archers, heavy sword & shield infantry, spearmen, firearms that range from primitive matchlocks to powerful rifled muskets and anything in-between, bowmen, cannons, etc etc. An even greater variety of unit types than Shogun 2's Fall of the Samurai had.
And then you have direct intervention by foreign powers, as well as additional rebellions in other regions of China, each with their own troop types/fighting styles.
The game would offer so many interesting scenarios both on the battlefield as well as the diplomatic stage.
Sadly, I doubt anyone is going to make a game in this setting, let alone one that would do it justice. It's not a well-known enough conflict, and the massive clusterfuck of half a dozen concurrent rebellions coupled with an extremely complicated diplomatic solution isn't too easy to implement in a game.
But holy shit do I want that game.
I love battles where radically different tech-levels meet. And the battles in this war are basically clashes of medieval armies where half the soldiers are armed with modern weapons lmao.
There are many of those games in many different settings. Ancient, medieval, Napoleonic, American Civil War, WW2...
But there is one setting that has never been used for a wargame, yet it would be absolutely perfect. Especially for a wargame with a focus on battles and using different unit types.
The Taiping Rebellion in 1950s-1860s China.
- some Chinaman claims to be the brother of Jesus Christ and starts a cult
- this turns into a large-scale rebellion that takes over half of China and starts an all-out civil war
- both the rebels and the Qing armies used very outdated equipment for the time: while the rest of the world was upgrading their flintlock muskets to percussion locks and converted smoothbores to rifled muskets, the Chinese still used matchlocks and half their soldiers were armed with melee weapons
- while their own arms were incredibly outdated, both the rebels and the imperial forces imported western arms; Europeans and Americans both sold new state of the art weapons as well as dumping their older guns their armies no longer used on China
- this leads to an insane variety in unit types: spearmen, sword & shield bearers, bowmen, alongside matchlock musketmen, flintlock musketmen, modern percussion lock muskets with rifled barrels, whatever type of equipment you can think of, it was used in this war
- parts of the Qing army still fought in the nomadic style of their steppe forefathers, so you get Mongol-style horse archers on top of it all, too
- some westerners even signed up as volunteers for the Taiping rebels, they were only a couple hundred but that's enough for one or two western volunteer units in the Taiping forces
- the Taiping rebels even had a lot of women volunteers, enough to form several female regiments... and the best part: they fought barefoot to proudly display their unbound, naturally-shaped feet! Barefoot female units are in, baby!
- Brits and French later intervened in favor of the Qing Empire and provided expeditionary forces against the Taiping rebels
- before the British intervention in favor of the Empire, the Brits fought against the Qing in the Second Opium War which happened at the same time as the rebellion, so you have multiple conflicts with constantly changing sides for an intense diplomatic game
- meanwhile, other regions of China also broke into rebellion, like the Muslim minorities in western China, as they sensed the opportunity to make easy gains
This scenario is absolutely PERFECT for a game.
The battles have more variety of unit types than anything else. Steppe horse archers, heavy sword & shield infantry, spearmen, firearms that range from primitive matchlocks to powerful rifled muskets and anything in-between, bowmen, cannons, etc etc. An even greater variety of unit types than Shogun 2's Fall of the Samurai had.
And then you have direct intervention by foreign powers, as well as additional rebellions in other regions of China, each with their own troop types/fighting styles.
The game would offer so many interesting scenarios both on the battlefield as well as the diplomatic stage.
Sadly, I doubt anyone is going to make a game in this setting, let alone one that would do it justice. It's not a well-known enough conflict, and the massive clusterfuck of half a dozen concurrent rebellions coupled with an extremely complicated diplomatic solution isn't too easy to implement in a game.
But holy shit do I want that game.
I love battles where radically different tech-levels meet. And the battles in this war are basically clashes of medieval armies where half the soldiers are armed with modern weapons lmao.
