Rise of the Dragon:
Design Notes
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
March 2024

In the years before the First World War, the Imperial Chinese Navy went on a minor shopping spree for new ships, ordering cruisers and destroyers in European shipyards. But that was only the very thin leading edge of what would have been a massive order of dreadnought battleships and a fleet to support them. It would have been by a large margin the largest purchase made by any nation from foreign shipyards during the dreadnought era, and that was too good of an alternative-history hook to let pass by.

Great War at Sea: Rise of the Dragon is based on that 1908 Chinese plan to build a fleet of eight dreadnoughts and 20 new cruisers. An enemy was not specifically named, but Japan certainly loomed as a powerful threat - though Japanese corporations enthusiastically bid and bribed in an effort to get some of that Chinese shipbuilding business. Japan, meanwhile, squandered her naval budgets on rebuilding the hulks of Russian battleships captured during the recent Russo-Japanese War. With a new/old rival building a modern fleet across the Yellow Sea, it’s not a huge stretch to imagine that those funds would have gone to more useful ships to counter the Chinese program. So Japan also receives new ships in Rise of the Dragon.

The Second Edition of Rise of the Dragon gave me the opportunity to re-visit this story, and best of all the chance to add to it. The first edition of Rise of the Dragon included the legendary Advanced Tactical Rules by Karl Laskas and Bob Titran, but those have been superseded by the new Second Edition series rules. And many of the book’s special rules are now part of the core rules. All of that opened up a bunch of pages begging to be filled. Opportunities like that are not to be passed up.

I like for our expansions to roughly balance history and game stuff; Rise of the Dragon 2e hits that target almost exactly. It’s got the story of China’s 19th-Century attempt to build a modern navy, stifled by the 1894 Sino-Japanese War, plus that of Regent Prince Chun’s plans for a modern dreadnought battlefleet. And a look at the other dragon, the Japanese, as well. The Second Edition sports 41 new scenarios (fourteen operational scenarios and 27 battle scenarios). The story-arc format naturally encourages more battle scenarios, as they help tell the story really well, and I’ve become determined to include a large proportion of these scenarios in all of our naval games and books, since they encourage more play.

I’ve really come to like the story arc approach to game design, whether it’s history (Fall of Empires) or alternative history (Second Great War at Sea). The scenarios are interwoven with the narrative to help move the story along, to illustrate the war or campaign under discussion. This approach is way more engaging and fulfilling from the designer’s perspective than the standard approach we used to use, unchanged since the 1970’s, and the players seem to like it as well.

The story in Rise of the Dragon takes place in the spring and summer of 1915, the period when Japan presented her “Twenty-One Demands” to China, an ultimatum that would have sharply curtailed Chinese independence. In our history, China was in the midst of post-revolutionary disorder and unable to fight back militarily, instead counting on an economic boycott and foreign diplomatic aid to mitigate the Japanese aggression.

In the Second Edition, the Chinese are first tested by the Russians, who attempt to exert diplomatic pressure through some armored cruiser diplomacy, which the Chinese resist. Imperial China’s ruling family and government have discovered a greater sense of responsibility to the nation, and have managed to retain power and build the proposed dreadnought fleet (rather than squander the money on marble boats and similar fripperies). Imperial China rejects the Twenty-One Demands, and mobilizes her new fleet and her rag-tag armies. Chinese patriotism surges and the Chinese will to fight surprises the Japanese. The Chinese people had the will, and the Chinese economy had the cash; it’s the Imperial family fulfilling their side of the Mandate of Heaven that’s the real alternative-history stretch here.

At sea, the Japanese seek to support their armies’ advance from southern Manchuria into China proper and from the recently-occupied German colony at Tsingtao deeper into Shantung province. The Chinese hope to interfere with these operations, and keep the Japanese off-balance by attacking their trade and supply lines. All of the action takes place on the map from Great War at Sea: Russo-Japanese War.

The Chinese fleet roughly balances that of Japan, which is convenient from a game design perspective (funny how alternative histories tend to work out that way). The improved Japanese fleet of Rise of the Dragon reflects Japanese desires and capabilities in the decade between the Russo-Japanese War and our story. Ship classes that historically had two ships now have four (as the Imperial Japanese Navy wished) and the more-capable versions have been selected and built rather than those constructed in our own reality as a cost-saving measure (so Japan’s Satsuma-class semi-dreadnoughts, for example, are true dreadnoughts and there are four in the class rather than two). I did not have to tweak things to get a rough balance between the fleets; if the Japanese had eschewed the expensive rebuilding of their Russian prizes, this is the fleet that would have resulted regardless of a Chinese challenge.

In our story, the Chinese are pretty aggressive, but Imperial China remains an economically dependent nation: they have a difficult time repairing damaged warships, and they are overwhelmingly dependent on foreign munitions suppliers. With a war raging in Europe, there is no spare capacity for China and every bayonet and bullet has been bought up long ago. Steadily, the Chinese armies are pushed back and while the fleet fights valiantly, every ship damaged is as good as lost.

This first phase of the war ends with the Chinese requesting an armistice, but the resulting peace talks are stalled when mediator Woodrow Wilson insists on maintaining the “Open Door” policy (allowing free trade with China). After some months of fruitless talks, the American president orders U.S. Navy warships to escort convoys bearing fresh weapons and supplies to China. The Japanese move to intercept, and the United States is involved in a shooting war on the Chinese coast.

The conflict makes up the second half of the scenario set, which winds up with a series of major battles as Wilson pours in more reinforcements (the pieces coming from Jutland); this is a change from first edition, and the war ends in something close to a stalemate after an American invasion of Okinawa thirty years early.

To play all of those scenarios, you’ll need Great War at Sea: Russo-Japanese War and Jutland. Rise of the Dragon comes with 155 of its own pieces (including those we originally used in the old Pacific Crossroads game).

I wrote the first edition with the intention of fitting it into our existing alternative history story arcs, but for the Second Edition I decided to revert to the book’s original intent: to add more battleship action to the Russo-Japanese War map. That’s it does exceedingly well, while putting all of that action in the form of a narrative story.

You can order Rise of the Dragon (second edition) right here.

Prince Chun’s Dreadnoughts
            Russo-Japanese War (Playbook)
            Rise of the Dragon (2e)
Retail Price: $99.98
Package Price: $80.00
Gold Club Price: $64.00

You can order Prince Chun right here.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and his new puppy. His Iron Dog, Leopold, could swim very well.

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