Vietnam War Development thread

THIS SCENARIO HAS BEEN UPDATED TO V2.0 ON THE SCENARIO LEAGUE WEBSITE:

You can find the newly updated game zip V2.0 files and screen shots at http://sleague.civfanatics.com/index.php?title=Vietnam_1965-_1975

Check out #107 in this thread to review the latest changes.

GAME INTRODUCTION:
"
SAIGON, South Vietnam -- Presidential Palace, March 6, 1965

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Sun Tzu

General Thieu, as part of the military junta that overthrew President Diem, you and your co-conspirator General Nguyen Coa Ky have been elevated to the posts of Head of State and Prime Minister, respectively.

As you are aware, South Vietnam is in the mist of a great struggle for survival and as the leaders of your nation, you must negotiate many political and military minefields. As such, will you be able to defeat, along with your allies, the internal rebellion and repel any North Vietnamese incursion into your lands and thereby secure a future for your people as an independent country.
"

The scenario covers the 2nd Indochina War. The game can last from March 1965 to April, 1975 with each turn representing one month.

There are only two protagonists, the Insurgency (aka North Vietnam, Viet Cong, Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao) and Counterinsurgency (aka South Vietnam, America, ANZAC, Korea and Thailand). The game has been designed to play ONLY as the South Vietnamese/Americans.

There are a number of house rules and game concepts, all designed to enhance the scenario experience, that the player should familiarize themselves with before beginning to play. As such, please read the scenario's ReadMe PDF file first.

The scenario has been designed and tested on a 64-bit PC computer and should therefore work on both 32 and 64-bit platforms.

You must install version 0.131 of the Test of Time Project by TheNamelessOne to play the scenario. You may download it here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-test-of-time-patch-project.517282/page-30#post-13908456

I hope you enjoy the game as much as I liked designing it.

"If I left [the war in Vietnam] and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser, and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe."

- President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964

"Everything depends on the Americans. If they want to make war for 20 years then we shall make war for 20 years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to tea afterwards."

- North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, December 1966

Welcome to my Vietnam War development thread.

The scenario will cover the war from March 1965 to April 1975. Each unit will represent a battalion and each turn a month.

If "war is the continuation of politics by other means", as Clausewitz wrote, then Vietnam was certainly one of the most politically complex war of the twentieth century.

As such, it is my intention to develop a fully integrated scenario that covers all aspects of the war, i.e. the bombing campaign of the North, the search and destroy missions, Soviet and Chinese aid, US/SVN pacification program, Laotian and Cambodian 'neutrality', the anti-war movement, the main North Vietnamese offensives (TET, 1972 Easter Offensive and 1975 Spring Offensive) to name a few.

At this time, based on Techumseh's recommendation I'm considering including 3 maps:

• A map of the South East Asian theater of operations (including North and South Vietnam, and parts of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Southern China) with clearly defined borders tiles. Crossing the various national boundaries will strictly be controlled either by impassable terrain and/or clearly specified rules.
• A US city 'unit' map similar to the concept used by Boco in his remarkably designed 'El Aurens' scenario. As such each city will represent an American division which will appear according to its historical timeline and be gradually 'withdrawn' after the SVN (American) player implements the Vietnamization policy.
• An air map to simulate the B-52 raids from Guam

It will include the following powers:

South Vietnam (SVN) which will control all ARVN forces in addition to the US and Free World military forces (Korea, Thailand, ANZAC).
North Vietnam (NVN) which will control all PAVN forces in addition to the Viet Cong forces, Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao guerillas, and Chinese 'volunteer' forces (in the event of an American invasion of NVN) .
Cambodia
Thailand
China (inviolate neutral power)

To date:
• I've created my map of the South East Asian theater of operations
• I've selected my first draft of terrain graphics I would like to use for the map (though it is subject to change)
• I've determined all of the region's city map locations, their population size and city improvements
• I've selected all of the city improvements and world wonders I want to add to my scenario and selected their corresponding graphic icons
• I've mostly determined the starting order of battle for each power including the US and Free World reinforcement timetables
• I've completed 85% of my tech tree (still need to determine some of the interrelationships between some of the critical or event driven advances)
• I've completed 75% of my rules.txt file
• I've gathered as many of the unit graphics I was able to find on the forums but there are gaps

I want to investigate some of the features offered by The NamelessOne's ToTPP program, in particular, but not exclusively, the increased event file size.

Though I've made much progress there is still much to do. All the same, I wanted to open this thread because I might require some assistance with some elements of my scenario in the future and hope the Civ community might be able to help.

This is an ambitious project but one I've been wanting to undertake for some time. I hope I can do it justice.

Here is my preliminary map:

Hi Fairline,

tootall_2012 said:

I will open a development thread in the next couple of weeks and post the units template I have to date and the units on my wish list. I will certainly appreciate any help you can provide.

Click to expand...

As I mentioned in the WW2 Unit Graphics thread, I've been working on my next project the 'Vietnam War'. Though I've managed to gather a fair amount of units this is a period where there is a scarcity of available graphics.

As you might notice from the unit file below, I've tried to be creative and re-use some of your Arab-Israeli units for my scenario. Since that conflict overlapped with Vietnam I believe the South Vietnamese army also were clothed and armed by America. The North Vietnamese units are undoubtedly less authentic.

If you have better graphics for the VC and NVN army please feel free to share.



All the same, here is my wish list for the non VC/NVN units: US Special forces, Khmer Rouge guerrillas, Pathet Lao guerrillas, ARVN Rangers, 105mm Artillery, Korean Infantry and Marine units, Thai Infantry, Cambodian Infantry, F-5 tiger, Chinese Infantry, 57mm AA, 87mm AA.


I would be greatly appreciative of any help you, or any artist, could provide in this manner.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=383180&stc=1&d=1411923859

I'm glad you've got this underway now. But please don't refer to the American-led coalition as the "free world". It's a cold war propaganda term that inaccurately describes the Philippines, South Vietnam, South Korea and Thailand of the mid-60s. All were dictatorships of one sort or another at this time.

Hi Techumseh,

techumseh said:

I'm glad you've got this underway now. But please don't refer to the American-led coalition as the "free world". It's a cold war propaganda term that inaccurately describes the Philippines, South Vietnam, South Korea and Thailand of the mid-60s. All were dictatorships of one sort or another at this time.

Click to expand...

I should have indicated it was also one of the most controversial and divisive wars of the twentieth century. The term I used came from the game 'Vietnam 1965-1975' by the designer Nick Karp where he refers to Korea, Thailand, the Philippines and Australia as the Free World (see the following Boardgame Geek link http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5620/vietnam-1965-1975). No disrespect was meant by the use of the term.

Though I always respect people's rights to hold their opinions, this thread is not meant to be a political discourse on the war and/or the actions of the belligerents. I'll leave that to the historians and the history books. I'm simply attempting to recreate, from a historical perspective, a very tumultuous and complex war. The purpose of this development thread is meant to see how I best can achieve that aim.

Always sincerely,

Tootall

Sounds great! What about a napalm unit? And some fleeing civilians (barbarians created by events with no attack possibility), who - when attacked trigger some new event?

Another game, which I just purchased called "In Country" in issue #281 of Strategy and Tactics magazine, also refers to the US coalition as the "Free World". It looks like an excellent source as well, despite the embedded propaganda. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/130042/country-vietnam-1965-75

Needless to say, I fired off a protest email to the editor of S&T as well.... they blew me off too. No worries, I'll just change the designation when I download the scenario. I'm thinking "Imperialist Aggressors" sounds nice.

Hi Techumseh,

techumseh said:

Needless to say, I fired off a protest email to the editor of S&T as well.... they blew me off too. No worries, I'll just change the designation when I download the scenario. I'm thinking "Imperialist Aggressors" sounds nice.

Click to expand...

No problem. As I indicated, there is still a lot of work for me to do on this project and I don't want to get distracted by a political debate.

I'm familiar with the game 'In Country' as it is serving as a source material along with the following other games that can also be found on the Boardgamegeek website: 'Heart and Minds', 'No Trumpets No Drums', 'Victory in Vietnam II' and 'Fire in the Lake'.

I've also read a lot of articles on the web to give me a good overview of the conflict. I believe I have most of the elements I want to incorporate in my scenario. The most difficult challenge will be tying them all into one cohesive and integrated package.

At this time, at least, I'm leaning towards designing the scenario to be played only as the SVN/US side. I fear that doing a NVN version would require a whole other set of events and tech tree. I will have to wait and see once I'm in the testing phase whether this requires small or major changes. For now, my greatest concern is the map size (this is my third version), i.e. can I get the AI to behave in a coordinated and aggressive manner.

I have actually done a Vietnam scenario of my own back in the day, and, though it was certainly praised back then, it definitely suffered from the limits of being an MGE scenario, a tiny map, and a more limited knowledge of exploiting the limits of Civ2. I do, however, look forward to seeing how this one comes together.

tootall_2012 said:

Hi Fairline,
......
All the same, here is my wish list for the non VC/NVN units: US Special forces, Khmer Rouge guerrillas, Pathet Lao guerrillas, ARVN Rangers, 105mm Artillery, Korean Infantry and Marine units, Thai Infantry, Cambodian Infantry, F-5 tiger, Chinese Infantry, 57mm AA, 87mm AA.


I would be greatly appreciative of any help you, or any artist, could provide in this manner.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=383180&stc=1&d=1411923859

Click to expand...

OK Tootal I'll see what I can do

I glad to see this project is finally underway. I also tried to make a Vietnam scenario when I first joined the Scenario League but I ran into some problems and moved on to different projects. It is certainly a difficult conflict to replicate with Civ2 in comparison to say WW2. In the same way that nobody has been able to create a scenario that does justice to the Western front of WWI the Vietnam wars unique nature makes it a tough one to do justice to.

Firstly the objectives and victory conditions cannot be purely military. US Public opinion was the major factor in the Americans losing the war. Militarily the 1968 Tet Offensive was a US victory and the Communists took a heavy beating. However, the images shown on the news turned US public opinion against the war and this began the gradual decline of US involvement and the process of Vietnamization that ultimately failed. How do you plan to replicate this in your scenario?

Obviously a human US player with excellent modern weaponry could quite easily devise a strategy to take and hold territory against the uncoordinated AI. Therefore the objectives cannot be based on capturing cities as they would be in a WW2 scenario. Perhaps you could have an event like this:

Trigger: US unit killed or ARVN city lost
Action: Undisbandable unit created in US divisions home city

These undisbandable units will require shields for support. As the number of US casualties rises the amount of shields available for troops in theatre will dry up to the point that units begin to disband. If these event created units were created outside of the support city they would also add to the discontent of the population.

That leads on to the question: What is the US objective? If taking casualties leads to dire consequences back home then why send out Grunts to beat the bush? There should be some kind of reward for the body count policy pursued in the Americans Search and Destroy missions. If you can fathom out a solid system of objectives then you can make this work.

Here are some ideas I had for my failed scenario:

Ho Chi Minh trail

The scenario I was building had the ARVN/US as the playable nation. I created an invisible railroad network running from North Vietnam, through Laos and Cambodia with tendrils running to the borders with South Vietnam. This would allow the North to quickly send reinforcements south. I was planning to use an impassable border terrain that would make it impossible for land troops to enter Laos or Cambodia, but would still allow aircraft, and Special Forces with the ability to ignore the impassable terrain, to attack the trail.

Airmobility

How to represent troop transporting helicopters? Well the best way I could think of was to borrow the Glider idea from Eivind’s Norwegian campaign scenario (IE Transport ship with the paradrop ability). The problem is that once the Helicopter has landed it becomes immobile (unless it lands in a city or on an airfield). To solve this I planned to have a unit with the engineer ability that could very quickly construct a LZ (airbase) underneath the helicopter, allowing it to take off again. Getting this concept to work properly may take some fine tuning, but in theory it should work. Obviously the engineer would need to be able to work extremely quickly which might make using engineers in the game for building mines and irrigation untenable.

Boobie traps and ambushes

With ToTPP it is possible to create invisible AI units for the player to stumble into causing casualties.

McMonkey said:

Trigger: US unit killed or ARVN city lost
Action: Undisbandable unit created in US divisions home city

These undisbandable units will require shields for support. As the number of US casualties rises the amount of shields available for troops in theatre will dry up to the point that units begin to disband. If these event created units were created outside of the support city they would also add to the discontent of the population.

Click to expand...

Maybe just creating an immobile ship-based unit (demonstrants) somewhere far away should do the work. Set their ressource value at 99, the computer will never dissolve them. Or an immobile settler with an attack value bigger than 0?
It would be fine to have them destroyed as soon as the US trigger an event after accomplishing a special mission, take a city or kill important enemy units (like a paramount defender unit in each enemy city). Now that I think of it: Have the demonstrants altogether destroyed with a nuke, harhar.

Have you made any progress, Tootall?

Hi Techumseh,

The bad news is, unfortunately, that the past 6 months have been very demanding and have left me little time to work on my project and I expect that to be true for a while longer.

The good news is that my project is really almost at the point where I simply need to start putting the pieces together, i.e. finalizing the maps (adding cities, roads and units) and building my events file, which is usually the part that takes the least amount of time. Once that is done it's really down to testing the scenario.

It is still my goal to complete this project this year. Perhaps a few new beautiful units by Fairline from my wish list would serve as an inspiration to get back on track.

techumseh said:

Needless to say, I fired off a protest email to the editor of S&T as well.... they blew me off too. No worries, I'll just change the designation when I download the scenario. I'm thinking "Imperialist Aggressors" sounds nice.

Click to expand...

"Running Dogs."

Tech, have you seen the tabletop wargame Fire in the Lake?

I must suggest, having just read on article on them in Wikipedia, that you should include a few units from the VNAF, if only just the F8F Bearcat and B-57 Canberra (by far, their most common units). Although overshadowed greatly by the USAAF, and often reduced to a support role, many people don't realize that the VNAF by 1974 was the sixth-largest air force in the world at the time, and most of their pilots were not "six-month crash course amateurs" like many Cold War proxy state pilots often were, but were graduates of first the French, and later, the US air force academies.

committed hero said:

"Running Dogs."

Tech, have you seen the tabletop wargame Fire in the Lake?

Click to expand...

No I haven't. By tabletop, do you mean miniatures, or a boardgame?

Patine said:

I must suggest, having just read on article on them in Wikipedia, that you should include a few units from the VNAF, if only just the F8F Bearcat and B-57 Canberra (by far, their most common units). Although overshadowed greatly by the USAAF, and often reduced to a support role, many people don't realize that the VNAF by 1974 was the sixth-largest air force in the world at the time, and most of their pilots were not "six-month crash course amateurs" like many Cold War proxy state pilots often were, but were graduates of first the French, and later, the US air force academies.

Click to expand...

I don't think they used the Bearcat, which was retired in 1959. Their main aircraft was the Douglas A-1 Skyraider, also used by the US. I believe that SVN pilots also flew the F-5 jet.

McMonkey said:

Airmobility

How to represent troop transporting helicopters? Well the best way I could think of was to borrow the Glider idea from Eivind’s Norwegian campaign scenario (IE Transport ship with the paradrop ability). The problem is that once the Helicopter has landed it becomes immobile (unless it lands in a city or on an airfield). To solve this I planned to have a unit with the engineer ability that could very quickly construct a LZ (airbase) underneath the helicopter, allowing it to take off again. Getting this concept to work properly may take some fine tuning, but in theory it should work. Obviously the engineer would need to be able to work extremely quickly which might make using engineers in the game for building mines and irrigation untenable.

Click to expand...

I'm using this technique in Burma Campaign to represent the airmobile strategy that was pioneered there. It turns out that transport ships can not only be given paratroop capability, they can also be engineers. Even though they are technically naval units and can't move on land, they can build stuff. So you don't have to carry an engineer, it can be the transporting unit itself.

I'm making 2 types: a glider, which can only carry one unit, and a C-47 that will be able to carry 2 or 3. Only the glider will also be an engineer. To make this work, several house rules are needed. 1) The glider, once landed, may only build an airbase, and when finished that, must be disbanded. It can't return to it's base. 2) The C-47 may only land in a city or an airbase, but may jump to another destination from there. 3) The glider unit may only carry specified units, ie. Chindits, 75mm Pack Howitzers, pack animal supplies, and General Wingate. The C-47 can carry more types. In addition to the above, they can transport other generals, regular infantry, artillery, engineers and motorized supply units. They may not carry tanks.

When I was working on my own Vietnam scenario several years ago, I tried your idea for helicopters as well. The problem is that in Civ 2, paratrooping units cannot be intercepted. I deal with this in Burma by waiting until the British player can be expected to have air superiority before introducing air transport unit. But helicopters are notoriously vulnerable to AA and ground fire generally, even on the way to and from their LZ. And they don't need to construct an airbase to take off again.

IMHO, our best hope of solving the problem of helicopters transporting ground units is to hope that a future version of the Patch will give transport capacity to air units, including helicopters. If ships can carry other air and land units, it should be possible for air domain units as well. I've passed this request on to The Nameless One, and I hope he is able to come up with a solution.