C:TMK is the new entry in the "Britannia" series covering China from the Warring States period (403 BC) to the Communist victory in 1949 in 26 turns with 46 different "peoples". This makes it a significantly bigger game than its progenitor, which had 16 turns and 17 peoples, although with only 28 areas (to 32) the C:MTK map is actually a little smaller.

There was a previous attempt to cover China with a Britannia series game, called "The Dragon And The Pearl", Silk Route Games (2004), but that had a much shorter time span (from 200 AD to 1300, in 100 year turns). In addition, I felt that TDATP had some problems: interestingly, in the circumstances, that it became too difficult for new nations to make progress, as the map became gradually clogged with units from the existing powers, and that consequently nations that should have dominated most of the map, having historically ruled China, eg. the Tang or the Song, were too weak.

The system in C:TMK is basic Britannia with some changes: in non-mountain areas, the attacker hits on a 4 to 6, the defender on only a 5 to 6 (both rolled the same in the original game) which gives the attacker both an advantage and an incentive to attack. Moreover, most of the nations (except for the Europeans who turn up towards the end of the game) award varying numbers of VPs to whoever manages to ethnically cleanse them completely - the more important the people, the bigger the reward (generally 5 VPs for any nation which has likely ruled most of China). If this were not enough, the conqueror also receives additional armies equal to this "Power Factor". This has the beneficial effect (in game terms, one hastens to add) of older nations being swept aside, and consigned to the dustbin of history - very necessary, given the number of nations in the game.

There are some rules issues, mainly relating to the arrivals of some nations being dependent upon the on-board position at the moment of their entry (so what if the specified conditions do not apply?), but the rules present relatively few problems on the whole.

Physical presentation is acceptable, without being particularly impressive. There has been criticism of the multi-coloured map as being too garish, but it could be argued that it reflects Chinese graphic preferences, which are towards the vibrant.

The other map issue concerns what territory is included. The playable areas conform to the current extent of the People’s Republic (plus Taiwan), and this, it can be argued, is not the best geographic basis for a game covering such an extensive period. Thus, Chinese rule over the Tarim basin (Xinjiang) was no more than episodic during the time-span of the game, and Taiwan similarly, but Korea and Vietnam, which were deeply involved in Chinese history, and which were periodically the subject of Chinese attempts at subjugation, are effectively excluded. On balance, however, these criticisms seem overly picky. Serious Chinese attempts to rule Vietnam and Korea directly were in fact rare, the principal attempts being during the early Ming and early Tang respectively, and both came to grief. For the most part, the rulers of China were content with a tributary relationship with these two countries, and this makes their exclusion from direct involvement in the game understandable.

Of course, much the same could be said of Tibet, which is included in the game, and was not conquered by the Chinese until the 18th Century, before slipping out of China’s direct control in the following century, as the woes of the Qing Dynasty grew, only for the Chinese to re-assert control in 1959. However, while an independent power for most of the game (like Vietnam and Korea), it could be argued that Tibet’s relationship with China Proper was much more intimate than that of either of the other two neighbours, partly because of Tibet’s continuing religious influence.

But the main concern remains the history. This may seem odd, given the extremely broad brush treatment that Britannia-series give their subjects, but there are I think legitimate sources for some concern.

I have read a very lucid and penetrating commentary by Britannia designer Lewis Pulsipher at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/26999 that addresses some of these issues, though I would focus on different areas. So, the designer of the original Britannia notes that some important non-Han peoples have been missed out, and other less important ones included. I am not entirely sure about this - I probably do not know enough to comment - but I do feel that any "barbarian" peoples appearing in a game about China covering such a lengthy period are bound to have problems in this regard. There were so many nomadic peoples wandering the steppes over the centuries that sometimes their naming by their more sedentary Han Chinese neighbours was a somewhat haphazard affair, through which the same people might be given different names at different times, and creating problems for modern historians trying to work out their relationships, eg. between the earlier Jurchen and the later Manchus.

For myself, my main concerns about the history are two-fold. Firstly, there are the issues surrounding the main Chinese dynasties that received the Mandate of Heaven - that is, ruled at least all of China Proper (here defined as the provinces south of the Great Wall, and east of the mountains of Tibet and Qinghai). Into this category can be placed the Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing from the game. Interestingly, the game excludes the Western Jin, who re-unified China in the late third century - though this unification was fleeting, it lasted as long as that of the Sui.

In any event, many of these nations appear to be too weak to recreate their historical success, it being rare for them to be able to dominate China Proper as did their historical counterparts - this seems to apply to all the nations above, except perhaps the Yuan and the Qing.

In addition, the game’s portrayal of the rise and fall of these dynasties seemed at odds with the general course of their history. For the most part, the unifications of China under the various holders of the Mandate of Heaven were fairly rapid. Once established throughout China Proper, expansion beyond was relatively rare, and mostly confined to the early years of the dynasty (the Tang in Central Asia in the early 8th Century, and the Qing in the 18th are exceptions). There would then be a long period of relative peace and stability, followed by a rapid collapse.

In C:TMK the rapid collapse is fairly well modelled through the Rebellion and Uprising rules, but we found that the new dynasties often had problems establishing themselves as dominant in China Proper, let alone elsewhere. The three turns typically enjoyed by most dynasties would see the previous dominant power disintegrate, and the new nation become an important player in China Proper. Turn 2 in most cases would see the nation expand to control more of China Proper, but rarely all of it. Turn 3 would see the collapse. For example, this was the course taken in our game by the Ming. The Ming’s Turn 1 is Game Turn 16 (1368-1436 AD), with their Turn 2 Game Turn 17 (1436-1644), and Turn 3 Game Turn 18 (1644-1735), during which there is a massive Qing invasion which will probably destroy the earlier dynasty.

Comparing this with the historical Ming the dynasty, what should have happened was a conquest of all of China Proper in Turn 16, with very likely some forays beyond. In Turn 17, there should have been relative stasis, with China Proper securely under Ming rule, fraying slightly towards the end of the period. In Turn 18, the tide of Qing conquest should sweep the Ming away. The game does Turn 18 well enough, but the Ming struggled to reach anything like their historical levels of dominion in the two earlier turns. Many of the other dynasties mentioned above also followed a somewhat similar ahistorical trajectory.

The other problem relates to what seem to have been major historical developments that might be thought to have been within the scope of the game, but which are omitted. C:TMK’s shortest turn (in terms of historical period covered) is Turn 22 (1898 to 1912) which does allow for what we assumed was the Boxer Rebellion, with the Taiping standing in for the Boxers. Fair enough, but this makes it the more odd that an arguably much more seminal event in Chinese history, the An Lu Shan Rebellion, is omitted. This massive rebellion by the Turkish commander of its north-eastern armies almost destroyed the Tang, and although the dynasty did survive, it was in a much weakened state. Hitherto, the Tang had been the most powerful Chinese empire, and no native dynasty ever ruled as much territory again. The rebellion is reflected in the turn structure, represented by the breakpoint between Turns 10 & 11 (758 AD), but has no game effect. Indeed, the 758 to 827 turn in the game may well see the Tang expand to control more of China Proper, while historically the emperors of this period struggled to bring China Proper once more under central control, as powerful regional governors tried to make their positions independent.

Another development not reflected directly in the game is the conquest of northern China Proper by the Jurchen Jin Dynasty in the early 12th Century. The Song Dynasty lost its northern provinces, but survived as the Southern Song until the Mongol conquest 150 years later. Although the Khitans, (whose Liao empire was overrun by the Jurchen shortly before the Song disaster) are represented in the game, the Jurchen appear to be missing (though the contemporary Xi Xia are present). Not surprisingly, perhaps, a distinction between Northern & Southern Song is completely absent: if the Song were to be pushed back to coincide with the end of Turn 13 (1126 AD: again, the event is marked by the Turn sequence, but in no other way), this would be purely adventitious.

There are some important errata - or perhaps, more precisely, clarifications. Although the game is playable out of the box, there was a lot of uncertainty over what might be termed the contingent placement of armies, ie. reinforcements which were dependent upon the on-map position, and conditions which might not apply (eg. place country X’s starting forces on empty provinces - but what if there were none?). These issues have been largely addressed by the errata and clarifications, which also reverse the turn order of the Yuan and the Ming (preventing potential gamey tactics by the former).

There have also been some concerns that the design, because it covers the relatively recent past (most Britannia-series games are based on times sufficiently long ago that the problem does not arise) adopts pro-Chinese or Chinese nationalist (with a lower-case 'n') positions, eg. with regard to the extent of the map, or the names of the areas being romanised in Pinyin, rather than the possibly more familiar Wade-Giles system. I have already commented on the area choice above, and although the adoption of Pinyin in the wider world has a nationalist tinge to it (it is a Chinese Romanisation of Mandarin, as opposed to a western one like Wade-Giles), I do not think the designer can be really held responsible for this, as it is now the widely-accepted method.

If there was any evidence of bias in the design, it might rather be in the view of the Communists as the more determined anti-Japanese force: the Communists receive 3 VPs for every Japanese army they destroy, while the Nationalists receive only a ½ point. Whether this was really the case is at the very least open to question: a good argument could be made that it was precisely the exhaustion of the Nationalists’ best troops in fighting against the Japanese, while the Communists stood largely pat, which enabled the latter to get the upper hand after the Second World War. In game terms, perhaps the VP awards for fighting the Japanese should have been reversed? On the other hand, the questioning of the largely self-serving Communist view of the respective records of Communists and Nationalists during the Second World War is a relatively recent phenomenon, and many games take C:MTK’s view - so it is hardly an example of flagrant pro-Mainland China bias by the designer.

One of the issues for Britannia-system games is that of balance, and here one game is not enough to really say: Red was our winner, with 124.5 VPs (Purple came last with 99).

In terms of game play, there did seem to be something of a hiatus for Red in the mid to late game. On Turn 15, the Song were destroyed by the mighty Yuan invasion. Apart from a brief flicker as the Tartars on Turns 17 & 18 (never particularly strong, and quickly snuffed out by the Qing), Red only began to revive as an active presence on Turn 21, with the French and the Germans (and later, of course, Red has the Communists - how apt). However, this is nothing compared to the problems with Avalon Hill’s "Maharajah", where the Yellow player spends the second half of the game with virtually nothing to do.

We found that the game played quite easily, and although there are a great many turns, they tend to pass quite speedily, there being relatively few exceptions or special rules, most of them relating to the Foreign races (British, Japanese, etc) who turn up only on Turn 21 (of 26), plus two of the more significant invasions (the Yuan and the Qing). On many turns, the choices for most of the races are fairly limited, so they do not take long to play.

In many ways, C:TMK is the most ambitious "Britannia"-series game to date, covering the longest time-frame, and coming closest to the present (1949: "Maharajah" finishes in 1850). It is too early to comment on balance, but so far, it looks OK, and this is promising, given that balance is all-too-easily the Achilles heel of the games in the series. With the errata and clarifications, the game plays smoothly, and it was certainly an enjoyable canter through Chinese history.

My reservation remains, however, that there are key aspects of the ebb and flow of dynastic fortune in China which were not well represented by the game. This is not necessarily the fault of the system per se: I think it could have been easily tweaked to produce more historically plausible results. Lacking this, I am not sure for all its intrinsic interest that it can be thought of quite in the top flight of "Britannia" games.