I thought I'd post a bit about how land and air combat is set up in the game so far. Knowing the limitations of Civ 3, and discovering many more along the way, it has been my goal to make this playable and challenging while representing real world weapons systems, maneuver, mobilization, etc. as much as possible. To do so, most of the work on the scenario for the first six months involved reading, research, and building the Order of Battle. Once I had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted out of the game, I got into making the map, unit stats, and all that other good stuff.
"Under present conditions, it is possible to simultaneously influence by firepower practically the entire depth of the enemy's military formation." - M.G. Vorobyov, 1984
Nothing much changes in the Soviet Army. Tanks evolve, new personnel carriers are made with greater firepower and armor, air assault and diversionary troops are trained to infiltrate a defense in depth. Soviet leaders were constantly evolving their operations, taking advantage of new developments, utilizing two eternally Russian virtues: imagination and planning. But the overall strategy, the world view, the military mirovozrenie stays the same. The best way, indeed the only way, to protect the Soviet Union was to take the fight to the enemy. The offense was the only form of combat. Defense was a temporary tactical, occasionally operational situation whose only purpose was to blunt the enemy in preparation for resuming the offense. All Soviet weapons are designed for offensive operations. Thus it does not matter whether the Soviets start a war or respond to an impending first strike. The repsonse is the same: attack.
The Soviets had mastered the art of the Deep Operation in World War 2. The idea was to find the enemy's weakpoint, bypass and fix his strongpoint, create a breakthrough, exploit it, and pour mechanized forces into his rear areas. During the cold war, massing large forces was out since it would invite nuclear fires. Instead, emphasis was placed on maneuver, so that forces could stay separate, concentrate for the attack, and then disperse as needed. Any Soviet offensive would by necessity be preceded by a complete nuclear first strike, followed by an onslaught of mechanized forces and subsequent nuclear attacks against receovering enemy force concentrations. The keys to success were surprise and concentration of effort at the critical area.
In the 70's and 80's, the Soviet Army vastly increased in size. Artillery and rockets increased up to 40%, and new ATGMs and air defense systems were introduced. Chief of Staff Marshal Ogarkov predicted that precision weapons, which were coming into their own on both sides of the Iron Curtain, could render nuclear weapons obsolete. With sufficient firepower and accuracy, conventional forces could attack the enemy simultaneously through his defense in depth, destroy his command and control elements, and penetrate his defenses at multiple points creating several crises that would paralyze the enemy's ability to respond. With NATO units isolated, population centers cut off, and deep penetrations in many areas, how could any effective nuclear counterattck be mustered? The idea is that with the proper speed and surprise the Warsaw Pact forces could overwhelm everything east of the Rhine within a week, politically shatter the West's will to fight, and force negotiations without complete nuclear war. This concept is appealing to fiction writers and scenario creators since it allows them to create a story about modern conventional war that doesn't involve us driving dune buggies across a post-apocalyptic landscape with spiked shoulder pads.
I've always enjoyed Civ III's modern era but we don't get to see it too often. Most regular games are well decided by the Industrial Age and there are few post-WW2 scenarios. There are interesting concepts in the game, like cruise missiles, helicopters, airbases, and units with high movement rates and long ranges. So the plan was to set up a scenario where the player and the AI could use his forces in the game in a manner that reflects the real world objectives.
Soviet forces, as mentioned previously, are represented by regiments for combat units, and battalions for combat support or special units. Everyone that trains with the Soviets and receives their equipment is organized in the same way. Motor-Rifle divisions have three motor-rifle and one tank regiment, while tank divisions have three tank and one motor-rifle regiment. All tank, BMP, recon, and artillery units have the offense flag. BTR regiments and air defense forces have the defense flag. Engineers are functional terraformers. Artillery is dual-function: offense for the AI, and bombard or offense for the player. A standard artillery regiment consists of 2 battalions of 2S3 152 mm or D30 122 mm and a multi-rocket battalion. The rocket battalion is a separate unit in the game, so each division has one tube artillery unit and one MRL unit.
Creating stats for the units involved determining their composition and weapons and then trying to translate it into numbers. Obviously this is a contentious task, as there are plenty of opinions on how one vehicle compares to another. To do this, I created combat values for each type of battalion: be it tank, mechanized, motorized, etc. Some of the factors included in making this number are:
-type of vehicle and model
-armor, speed and manueverability
-firepower, rate of fire, and maxmum range
-organic air defense and anti-tank capability
-availability of night vision equipment, laser rangefinders, secure communications
-approximation of the Civ's military operational capabilities, including training, quality of personnel, staff training and experience, logistics capability
Let's take a Soviet motor-rifle regiment stationed in East Germany as an example. This particular MRR is equipped with the latest personnel carrier, the new BTR-80, as well as an updated tank, the T-80BV. Each BTR-80 battalion (with about 47 BTRs) has an offense of 3, defense of 5, and air defense of 1. The T-80 battalion (with 40 tanks) has an offense of 8, a defense of 6, and no intrinsic air defense. The regiment also has a battalion of 18 D-30 122 mm artillery, which has a 2-2 combat stat and 5 bombard points. A battery of air defense, with 4 ZSU-23-4s and 4 Gaskins, gives an additional 1 air defense. The mortar sections add another 1-1 combat stat and 1 bombard point. The anti-tank battery adds 1 defense. Headquarters, engineers, maintenance, logistics, and scouts are not included for stat purposes. Now we've got:
3-5-1 BTR battalion x 3
8-6 T80 battalion
2-2 (5) D-30 battalion
0-0-1 air defense battery
1-1 (1) mortar section
0-1 anti-tank battery
4-4 Category A status
Every unit that starts the game as a regular active unit (veteran status in Civ terms) gets a 4-4 combat bonus. Every unit that starts as elite gets a 6-6 bonus. Reserve (regular status in civ terms) get no bonus. So our BTR-80 regiment has a combat strength of 24 offense, 29 defense, 4 air defense, 6 bombard with 0 range, and three movement points. It also has 10 hit points.
Hit points determine the size and effectiveness of a unit. An independent battalion has 2 hit points, a regiment with 140 line unit vehicles has 6, and a regiment or brigade with 160, 170, or 180 vehicles has 7, 8, or 9. The hit point bonus for veteran status is two, and one extra for elite. Thus, there's a nice space between active and reserve units. Our BTR-80 regiment has 8+2=10 hit points. If it survives the first day of the war, it may achieve elite status and garner an extra hit points to reflect its combat experience. There will, of course, be no corresponding increase in its offense or defense stats.
Now let's look at another unit, a Category B T-72A tank regiment stationed in Kaliningrad. The regiment had been at about 60% strength, with a full staff and a complete set of equipment. About 40% of the regiment was mobilized within the last 96 hours; these guys had previously served their 2 year conscription but were mainly concerned with their job, the hockey game, and occasionally harassing the old lady before they were quite suddenly called up and thrown back in uniform. The regiment has three T-72A tank battalions with 30 tanks each , a BMP-1 regiment with 40 BMPs, a 2S1 self-propelled 122 mm artillery battalion, mortars, and air defense. So it has:
6-5 T-72A tank battalions x 3
4-5-1 BMP battalion
4-4 (8) 2S1 artillery battalion
0-0-1 air defense
1-1 (1) mortars
So the unit has 27 attack, 25 defense, 2 air defense, 6 hit points and 8 bombard with 0 range. If this unit survives its journey by rail across Poland, avoiding deep strikes by Tornados and F-111s, special operations attacks, and makes it to the front, avoiding long range artillery and rocket strikes, surviving second echelon attacks from Alpha Jets and Phantoms, navigating minefields and obstacles, facing the Leopards and Challengers, and small ATGM teams with their horrific range and accuracy, and smashes through enemy defenses, it may receive a promotion to Veteran status. The hard lessons, bought in blood, give the battered regiment a two hit point bonus, but no additional combat stats.
Continued on the next post...