[MOD] The Second Revolution!

Skavian said:

That said, imagine it more like factions in the US army turning over to the Rebels. Training and discipline can crack under sheer social audacity.

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As a member of the US armed forces (USAF), I have to say I definitely disagree.
Yes, we are made up of society and as such are affected by things that happen in and around us just like anyone else. However, most of us love our country, and that's why we're a part of the military. I personally think seeing it fall apart would only strengthen our resolve to keep it together. Now, I'm not saying that this isn't a good premise for a mod (and I LOVE, this mod) and there have been times in the past (only 1, the Civil War that I can think of), where something like this has happened, I just don't see it happening anytime soon.

Just my 2 cents. My main point is to try and be a little more sensitive to who might be reading what you post. Some things do strike close, regardless of whether you meant it.

-Smitty

Skavian said:

Two responses come to mind:
A- I realize the military is a mighty force indeed, but it is made up of people. I kind of assumed when I played this game that what I was looking at was a coup of the people, and it was a light fictional interpretation, not a serious attempt at predicting what a Revolution would look at.

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Exactly. That's why the units I had confused me. It's all soviet surplus, there aren't any hijacked tanks or stealth bombers or anything, like you'd expect.

Skavian said:

I mean, as much as I enjoy playing a bunch of anarchists bent on beating back fascism, Anarcho-Syndicalists are not known for their war streak really. They kind of turn to beating at each other for involvement in the machines of power as was displayed in the Spanish Civil War. That said, imagine it more like factions in the US army turning over to the Rebels. Training and discipline can crack under sheer social audacity.

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Which is why I was wondering why it was all soviet, and not US equipment. In the opening engagement of such a war, I would expect the regular US military to face a lot of betrayals, spies, and people fleeing the army, taking what they can with them. The rebels wouldn't have the military advantage, they'd have classified information, war plans, and such (whereas the US military will have lots of satellite and aerial recon, but not so much intel about the motives and plans of the rebels). War plans make it easy for the rebels to concentrate their forces where the enemy isn't.

Skavian said:

B- I don't know if being Democrat or Republican has much to do with supporting rebels. I live in New Hampshire, and our Republicans are the old guard type in theory, interested only in keeping the government from getting too insane.

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Democrats are generally not going to be supporting Bush, even if a lot of republicans wouldn't support him either.

Skavian said:

"Live free or die," had to be approved by more than one political party I assure you . Republicans up here might actually support a rebellion, and I am sure others would as well depending on the circumstances.

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I'm sure. In fact, in the event of a revolution, rebellion, or whatever, those kinds of people would be essential. They're going to have all the good guns, and they'll know how to use them.

Skavian said:

That said, I hope this is a fair counter-point there Norseman, and thanks for helping Garrett. I love this mod, so any support is right on.

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Likewise. What I'm asking for here is probably quite a bit of work, so it's best we make sure it isn't a waste of time.

Hmmm.

For me, this mod is representative of Chomskey's notion of People vs Power.

I don't imagine that any type of armed resistance would be possible without the "treason/patriotism" of American generals, whose units would join the rebels. These units would certainly form the core of the rebel army (just like in any other civil war.)

I can't speak for Garret, but I imagine the reason (beyond the obvious gameplay reasons) for having so many troops in New York, Hamilton, etc is due to the fact that it is the 'People' who fighting for these cities.

Unlike the forces of Bush/Fox/Harper - these cities are led by the people, and fought for by the people.

In this scenario, 3/10 New Yorkers would be taking up arms against Power, vs 1/25 (Washington) actually defending the power. Also, keep in mind that most of the U.S. arsenal is elsewhere. There are few massive domestic buildups (200 000+) of troops. In contrast, if New York were to rebel, around 2-3/10 citizens would need be involved - hence the numbers. Keep in mind that population and numbers are the two greatest weapons the rebels would have.

In contrast, Bush has the advantage of time. Given time, he should be able to harness the productive power of his remaining cities, and the vast resources of an international army to wipe out the rebels.

My Suggestions:

1. Provide a history or chronology of events, so that we can understand why there are T-80s on the west coast. China? Russia? Where do they, and the MIG's come from? (Maybe you could put this history in the empty Rebel Coalition Civpedia entry)

2. Rename some of the units. Hamilton, for example, would not be able to field the number of troops currently present in the mod. BUT, if the MGers were renamed something like MG-citizens, etc, then it would make much more sense.

3. Provide some U.S. techs which could recall troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Perhaps a wonder which spawns troops. (Keep in mind that you would have to have a negative consequence of this - perhaps less oil?)

4. Could we add some end-game options? Maybe some kind of diplomatic solution (yes, diplomacy sometimes works ) or some kind of spacerace (maybe a race to a new energy source?).

5. I think that oil should become a HOT commodity and that it should be much more limited.


@Everyone: In general, keep in mind that it would not be that difficult to capture Washington, especially if the citizenry of NYC strongly supported the cause. (Although I do think that some of Bush's continental army should be beefed up, particularly in D.C.) Washington has already been sacked once before (hence, the white house) and its location is not exactly defensible. Rather, Bush must play a little like WWII Russia. Pillage those cities which cannot be defended and build for a massive counter-attack which CANNOT be defended against.

Whoops.
An unrelated point for Garret - my download from 3ddownloads didn't work because of NoScript - an extension for Firefox. (I highly recommend both Firefox and NoScript, by the way - changed the internet for me). If anyone else is having similar problems, you will have to enable 3ddownloads in Noscript.

cheers

I love you guys *tears in eyes*

I think i will add some Abrams to the rebels, and some stealths to the US forces. If you think that this scenario is easy, try it on a difficulty higher than Noble (you may not have fun though).

As far as realistic unit placement for US forces, I wish I could, but even I was in the military enough to know that you dont know US unit placement LOL

As far as democrat-republican: i dont give these divisions much weight as i used to before i went "politcal". now they just seem like popularity contests. the real divisions come with ethical values, not moral political factions. (my 2 cents )

@norseman2
Thank you for such cool maps! they would have been really useful in week one of mod creation LOL.
if you dont take washington on first turn, the rebels aren't dong their job and wont be able to take it. (and will probly lose NYC too)
also, those unit placements you gave me WILL BE IMPLEMENTED


@skavian
your right about anarchists, they dont really want to fight. Squishy, my most radical friend, cant stand the warlike nature of my scenario, and i have to admit i might have been venting a little when i made it lol. BTW thanks for support.

@snafusmith
Good to hear from you and thanks for all my units im using LOL. i agree that US mil units wouldn't often switch over directly too oftenly. but i do think that some would outright desert (i would have) and become units like "Snipers" or "Guerillas" or perhaps command the T-80's

@zxe
good to hear from you too homie. how would i create a good description. which text.xml is this spot for this? i want to do the timeline thingie for next patch!

Thanks everyone, once again. keep the suggestion coming!

I wish there was a way to represent Organization vs. Morale. I saw that as a fairly interesting aspect in Hearts of Iron 2 by Paradox. I'll admit I pushed in that game for Anarcho-Syndicalists as well by doing everything in my power to win the Spanish Civil War as Republican Spain then entering WW2 under a completely different pretense. The Nazi infantry had better organization in that game, but not as great morale in comparison to the Republican Spanish troops. I don't know if that is even replicable in Civ 4, but it might be something to look at or think about. Maybe withdraw or increased defense bonuses, or something along those lines anyways, for certain kinds of troops to represent them getting whomped and still being able to get back together.

Just a suggestion there, and thanks for the input Norseman, I like your rebuttal. As for Snafusmith, I am not attacking the US military, I am just suggesting a plausibility in a fictional scenario in a user mod for a computer game. No harm intended.

Thanks for the work Garrett, keep it up.

I will. I'm now trying to figure out how to add events

can any of you lover's of revolution help me figure out how to intensify the war?

Well, I don't know the history of the game's fictional setting, so maybe that would be a good thing to produce. Then I could analyze it and provide some ideas. One of the ideas I can suggest is certainly using events to give a linear chronology to an extent for things happening. For instance, the Rebels getting foreign support in the form of units, or perhaps the US cashing in on foreign debt to get a money increase.

As for things to intensify the war, I think adding atmosphere would be a good thing. The international community plays very little in the game (though I like the wonders of building "support" from various other countries). Maybe making "barbarian" spawn events would make sense with extremely hostile troops from other countries coming in to pacify warring factions would be a good idea. UN Peacekeepers or the like.

Right now, also, it seems Culture doesn't play as big a role as a military battle. Some sort of culture clash accenting would be really nice. Might help show the waning support of the people for the various sides.

I think southern survivalists should be renamed Lawrence, for Anarchists have a very strong prescence there. Kansas Mutural Aid, the IWW, an Revolutionary Solidarity Library, Food Not Bombs, quite a place for revolution.

And while I don't believe it's as clear cut as stated, but democratic states are more likely to have an socialist, anarchist, or communist prescence. For example, large cities typically have more democrats, and thus free thinkers, but other than the areas deemed survivalist (and hopefully Lawrence), cities in the boondocks typically could care less about social safety nets, openly embracing Walmart.

However, to state that the Democrats would help Communists or Anarchists, that's another arguement.

vive la revolution

@skavian
i have had a few ideas since the inception about events, just no ideas whatsoever about how to do it!

Help!

Leif said:

However, to state that the Democrats would help Communists or Anarchists, that's another arguement.

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Um, if Bush started nuking cities... yeah. If you're a Democrat, you're going to be going for the guns. Republicans, I don't know about. I've seen some crazy stuff on FSTDT, such as people asserting that Bush should end the elections and nuke Iran. I can't anticipate what kind of propaganda would be going on, but I'm willing to bet Democrats will be listening to their own propaganda, and Republicans theirs. If a Republican starts nuking domestic cities, the Democrat propaganda is almost guaranteed to support revolution. A lot of Republicans, namely the ones I would call genuine Republicans are going to see the government abusing its power, and they'll join the revolution too. The rest, I don't know about.

For Bush to maintain the military, he would need to enact regulations like in a draft, or worse. Knowing him, it wouldn't be a huge stretch to label anyone who deserts a terrorist/traitor or something (and it would be plausible, since most the people who leave the military will be doing so because they can't support what the military is doing, and will probably end up on the opposite side of the conflict). Traitors can be locked up indefinitely without a trial and tortured. Done like in Vietnam, you can force many of them to fight even though they oppose the war.

I don't know if you have all heard about this, but some scientists recently found it was possible to determine your political affiliation based on your (uncontrollable) brain response to propaganda. This technology could be used to guarantee a new and perfectly loyal military. Torture and reeducation techniques could also be empirically tested, and theoretically made feasible given enough time. Basically, we're talking about the possibility of working mind control.

Here's the thing, though. If people were to find out about that, there would be an attempted revolution. People would arm themselves, the military would break up, and there would be a new civil war if anyone still supports Bush. If the army is purged of dissenters, and filled out with a draft (preferably before-hand, so the potentially dissenting draftees can be sent on suicide missions), and the draftees are properly indoctrinated, the army stands a good chance of keeping aloft. Rebels simply are no match for a trained army. If a bunch of civilians tried to storm Washington, the military would (or could) hit them so brutally that the rebels in the back realize that they want to live. They would collapse. An assault would just be impossible. For the opening of the war, the rebels would need to hold what cities they can and start getting foreign support, while a capable military force is organized, disciplined, and armed.

@norseman2
The scenario begins after half of the country goes into general strike, and then organizes. and yes, bush nukes some cities in america, cities that the rebels had expelled the loyalist police and military units.

i suppose you could say democrat/republican, but i dont agree. yes, most republicans, in my uneducated guess, would not support the rebellion. but not all democrats are anarchists, remember? I think you are a bit left of the spectrum, norseman2 my friend (as am I)

also, people who fear the goverment, "criminals", and rebels will leave their cities to travel to the rebel regions and increase their strength. in civ terms, this would be immediate, as one week is a single turn, you can get almost anywhere in a week of continuous driving.

I plan on adding a few rougue military units, represented by an abrams or a SEAL, but i think that the majority of the rebel army would be self-organized, and would consist of the type people i when i mentioned emmigration, earlier.

@norseman:

Keep in mind that just because an army is rebel does not mean it isn't well-trained. Often, rebel armies are not only better-trained, but have a higher level intelligence than their follow-the-leader counterparts. Take a look at South America. Most of the continent is controlled by US-backed police states who are stemming the tide of populist democracy. These populist movements normally defeat their fascist opponents, only to then be assassinated or removed by coup.

In simple terms, I think the rebel army would be comparable to the Canadian forces: better training, older/disfunctional toys.

i like that analogy, although i wouldn't f@ck with canada, no no

@zxe

Armies aren't made in days, especially not rebel ones (mobs maybe, but not armies). This war would have to have been brewing for at least a few months beforehand, while the rebel armies were formed. I don't know how you would sneak T-80s and MiGs into the country, but I know that would take some time as well. While this is happening, the US forces would be assembling at key places like Washington, especially if a nearby city is a rebel stronghold. Hence, you aren't going to be taking Washington on the first day.

one sec..... i got something of a teaser for the next patch (after i figure out python )

Nice Mod garret, i really like it and I really love the soundtrack, could you recommend me more music like that?
By the way in the musical aspect you could add more songs to hasper, fox, castro and marcos themes. One suggestion : I've no played with fox yet but zapatista's voices are in german, you could change it to spanish voices to make them more realistic i think.

Anyway a great mod

ive got a new patch that deals with that, but it aint out yet. as far as the music themes for those leaders, i havent thought of what tunes to use. i want some chiapas rebel music for zaps, cuban folk, and some el presidente musica for mexico.
if you like those bands there is a playlist.txt file that tells you the band names. some you probly couldn't know coz they are local bands from phoenix, az.