Bulgarian crisis 1997

Hyperinflation, civil unrest, political turmoil, post-communist econnomy in ruins, war in neighbouring Yugoslavia, more than 200 000 millitary personell (under to no paid at all), one hell of a recipe for destruction ... or Bulgaria in November 1996

(I wonder how we pulled it off without civil war)

Those were the basic thoughts behind the scenario. Detailed description of the factions will be posted at some point. Combat and production testing went with a stunning success. Now I have distribute the military units and place simple events.

Here is a teaser ...



Aldo not finished, I posted a thread to keep this place running for a bit more!

Sdrasti!Priiatel! I'm heading out to Bulgaria on Saturday, Bansko again for a week of skiing. It's a very good thing that this scenario never became a reality! It looks very interesting. keep up the good work. Mnogo blagodaria!

Well you sertainly will catch the approprite weather for winter sports. Snow finaly came to us after 3 months of rain, so there wont be any artificial snow on Todorin vrah.

About the scenario, terrain fixes are now complete, few units tweaks must be done before I test them again.

The major things left are the unit placements and events. Then I will test it again and release the beta. Some cosmetic touches to the icons will be added and thats about it actually.

Here is another picture:



EDIT: Noticed the spelling mistake in "government" on the map

^ The Legitimate government fighting IMRO militias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMRO_–_Bulgarian_National_Movement

Hotseat/PBEM edition is ready, it is just some messing around for warming up after much time of inactivity. This is for general combat testing and how the AI likes the map /with you guys/. The production values wont work perfectly with the AI but this is made for multiplayer, SP is also an option, so give it a shot while I work on the REAL campaign where you actually struggle to mantain the country from falling apart. Here, just try to occupy the country, needles to say the Legit govt has the best chances of doing it.

I remember news reports in the day of trouble over there, and then suddenly they stopped, and when I later read Bulgaria's Wikipedia article about a decade later, it seemed so politically, socially, and economically stable. I will definitely have a look at this!

BTW, @McMonkey, this reminds me, is your Balkan Wars scenario on the slate of projects to revisit?

@Petine
That project was fundamentally flawed from the outset. Perhaps I will go back to it one day and completely redesign the game mechanics, but it will take a lot of work. The map, city placement and units all look good, but I don't think it would be a lot of fun to play as it is.

Very nice. The Bulgaria I remember was beautiful back in '83.
I d'like to submit a couple of unit updates, if you don't mind.
(Check the Bulgarian camo on the flogger...)

Ooh, so sweet!
The only correction will be the removal of the red star on the helmet since the helmet model /I actually own one/ does not has one, it just looks just like a Soviet WW2 steel helmet.

The other possible usage is to make this as the standard Communist guerilla infantry /I think I'll go with that one/.
Romanian one also gets in, since the one I have in the unit set is still from you but it is marked as ''1965'' which is a little bit outdated.
I will keep the non-painted Flogger because we had like a dozen camos for the aircraft and the MiG-21 ''Fishbed'' is also without camo /and I like folded wings better/.
Also for you to know, your Osa and Tarantul class navy vessels worked their way into the scenario.

And if anyone has a camoflauged 4x4 pickup technhical (Somalian Toyota style) it will be perfect because it is the only unit graph lacking, I am using the ''American Kingdoms'' ''Gun Truck'' unit for that role and it will be just fine if you dont resking a pickup for that.

Once again, thanks Tanelorn, much apreciated!

P.S: Dear god, I am explaining like you people don't have a scenario
with all the units set in place *facepalm*

So, few hours of work were done. Now I have to start writing the events.
I had all the new units placed Tan , looking real good!
Added 6 new units and refitted the Infantry with AA company to Artilery one, since I find it pretty useless due to the abundance of ZPU AAA.

One very important question!
How do I block all possible negotiating, at least between the player and the AI?

P.S:And if there is something I can do with the partisans that appear after a city is captured will be good, other than making sure every city was captured atleast once by every fraction (which will take too much time).

Partisans only appear after a Civ has discovered Guerilla Warfare (as far as I remember) and Communism increases the numbers produced.

Negotiations can be restricted via events. Check out my SCW scenario's events file. I think the first few sections contain the negotiation events which you can copy and edit.

Hello Strelok22. A good scenario. I hope that events generate much excitement. I send the changes to the graphics that I've started to perform with Tanelorn units, flags and icons if you find useful.

Well, I had made these already, but I like gapetits as well. The G3s are dimensionally correct. I can make a ZU-23-2 "Sergey" if you wish.

This ... is all wonderful!

First, Gapetit, really good job on the wonder icons, the units and the city graphics, aldo do not hurry with the flags since the version uploaded above is really far from the actual scenario. The factions are changed, Roma and VMRO are now independent Civ's for example, and the Government's top problems are the Ultranationalists and the Muslims. More disclosure for later!

Tanelorn, I was wondering do I incorporate FYROM in the whole mess. Now I guess it is settled !
Your ''Albanian elements'' will rest for a bit, it sure is a great graphic but they look like they are going to fight in Kosovo. Petit's looks more like ''volunteering'', same for the Russian force, they look like they are going to stomp Chechnya in a few minutes!
And what is that scary guy with the balaclava on the top right?

Few words on the dev progress; Thanks to McMonkey, partisan and negotiating problems are removed, tweaks were added to the unit stats to prevent things like SOBT unit being destroyed by a Militia in one attack. T-72 and BM-21 are no longer ''death rays'' (T-72 reduced attack and increased def and BM-21 has movement from 5 to 2). The road multiplier was moved down to 4.
Thats it for now, back to work!

Update->
Like half of the events are written, severe playtesting was made and everything is working OK!
Must pay attention to the terrain stats and get the icons for the improvements right. Most of the units are incorporated (Foreign interventions etc.), but the toughest part is to playtest it enough to know for sure how does the frontlines evolve because the player will be dealing with guerilla warfare most of the time. I got to add few more starting units to the rebel factions and other tweaks to ensure that the initial uprising secures a large batch of land, not just scattered towns (in some areas).

Other than that, below is the current unit set. I used Tanelorn's Vietnam AAA since the same model is in Bulgarian stock so it is legit, no need to draw a new one. The Gun truck can be made to look like a ZPU mount, I would request tweaking on the Ultranationalist militia (above the Russian) because it is from Mafia Wars. Other than that I got no more unit requests! (except maybe to ''facelift'' the Ukrainian guy)




P.S: City graphic uploaded too if anyone wants to mess around with the flags, go creative with the muslim and the communist ones!

Various flags:

Strelok, a question that might be an impact on foreign intervention. Did the US yet have it's base in Bulgaria that was mentioned as being a site in the "War on Terror" (at least in Western news) for some activities contrary to the Geneva Convention that were revealed to be secretly going on involving "Islamist" POW's. I was thinking if they already had such a base there (which again, I don't know if they did or not at that point), they might consider a limited intervention if Bulgaria burst into civil war, at least to secure the base site and maybe to arm/aid the government that leased the site to "stabilize" the area. That's just a thought.

This certainly has great looks thanks to Tanelorn and Gapetit

Good luck finishing your scenario Strelok - interesting and unusual topic

Thanks for flags Gapetit

Patine, the US base in Bezmer is post 2006 ... in order to describe why full NATO intervention is not possible like in Yugoslavia (which is my guideline as how a country collapses!) I will need a lot of time. I will leave it for the README file, for now just a short event string:

Muslims capture Burgas-->
a.k.a. South-East area lost-->
*top secret* -->
Turkey decides to intervene aiding the muslims who have the upper hand in the area-->
Bulgarian forces retaliate by launching SCUD/FROG conventional missiles at Istanbul-->
Turkey vows to bomb Bulgaria under NATO authority-->
Greece vetoes because they support the Govt. against Macedonian rebels in the South-West.-->
Reduced amount of Turkish forces in the conflict.

This is the basic ''storyline'' for the NATO bombings question.

Will take a week off working now, vacation and stuff. Atleast I will be back fresh, the last 6 hour rules and events editing marathon was rather exhausting.

! A small addition: A Serbian veteran in Yugoslav camo bdu (as per Osprey)
and b with a Šajkača.