A Cold War for this Cold Winter... Multiplayer Game

I'm hoping I can find 3-4 of you who are interested in playing a match of The Cold War 1947 - 1991. I've been playtesting this fairly extensively over the past few months and am pretty sure I've caught all game breaking bugs (but, with nearly 30,000 lines of code... who knows).

I've attached a copy of the game to this post. It is current, and if you're considering playing, I'd suggest that you poke around with it a bit. There is a single player version, or you could play 3-4 turns as all civs in a MP game just to get a feel for potential strategies. Right now the game is loaded with the MP events but you can use the batch file to swap them to the SP events if you prefer.

I think if we had at least four players, this could be a lot of fun:

Player A: The Soviet Union and the Pro-Eastern Proxy Civ

Player B: China

Player C: The United States and the Pro-Western Proxy Civ

Player D: Europe

Player E: The Non-Aligned

We could give Player B's responsibility to the Soviet player, if we can't get enough players.

My first choice would be the United States with a second being the Soviets. Here are some thoughts on the civs so they can suit your playstyle:

The United States, Soviet Union, and Europe all will require someone who is "playing to win" and can stomach 20-30 minute turns. The first turn for these three civs will take awhile given how many cities you have. Also, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. players will control at least 2 civs. However, from my playtests, once you get past the first few turns and have your units deployed and cities situated, the turns don't take that long. Note that while the U.S. and Europe probably want to work together for "survival" they also are in each others way if they want to "win" so at some point, there'll likely be a fallout. It would be best if these three players had a strong grasp of the game mechanics.

Europe should be played by someone who is OK taking initial losses as you're the punching bag. You have the tools of the trade necessary to become extremely powerful as you're the only one of the big three with access to freight, and you can move units between any cities on the map, but there's no way you're holding everything and the heart of your homeland is in critical danger.

The Soviet Union should be played by someone aggressive who understands the game mechanics well - you more or less set the stage for how the game is going to be played and where most conflicts will be.

The United States player should have a firm grasp of game mechanics and be good at juggling many objectives.

China and the Non-Aligned offers a much more "laid back, empire-builder" type game. Granted, they are immediately at war with the Pro-West civ, but assuming they win this, much of the fun with these civs will be building up a strong economy and seeing how powerful they can become in a world dominated by the United States, USSR, and Europe. Projected turn times (after the first turn) are about 5-10 minutes.

Note that at the beginning of the game, China is forced into an Alliance with the Soviets but can break it via researching a certain tech (International Power). India, on the other hand, can forge alliances with any power by pressing escape (the other civ will get a chance to respond to this request on the next turn).

I'm hoping that we can get some interest for this. "First Strike" matches were always much fun and I am hopeful that this scenario will be as well. I've been playing games against myself (controlling all seven civs) and feel it is fairly well balanced, but the only way to be sure is by playing a match with all of you.

PLAYERS and Turn Order

Soviet Union & Pro-East: Prof. Garfield
China: civ2units
USA & Pro-West: JPetroski
Europe: techumseh
Non-Aligned: civ2units

 

Sounds very interesting and I would like to join the game playing with the Non-Aligned. In this case I would stop my game on the BMB multiplayer though, as we also would like to play Curt's new WW2 scenario in a multiplayer game.
Three games at once are a little bit too much for me.

 

I would like to play. I don't have a strong preference for the tribe.

 

I feel like the non aligned would be a very small time investment for you-- I'd hold off on giving up the BMB game, especially since Curt might decide to tweak a few things before going forward with a MP match.

 

If it's all the same to you, I'd say that you would probably be a handful as the Soviets,which would be a good thing to keep the game going strong.

 

Fine by me.

 

Well we just need Europe and potentially the Chinese then. Both are fun in different ways. China starts the match in a civil war but if she can win it, she's positioned to dominate much of Asia. Europe needs to pick her spots. Much of her colonies are under siege, and it'll be difficult to defend everything, but having trade units (and great destinations for them) is a *huge* advantage over time (note however that it does nothing for science boosts).

We'll give it a bit but perhaps some playtesters like @typhoon353 or @techumseh will want to try a shot at the MP game.

 

I threw a quick rules fix in the first upload. I noticed that certain cities didn't have as much production with industry than others and realized I had a typo in the special resources slot. That's the only change.

 

I made another quick fix to the rules while we're waiting for players. I decided Europe had better be able to build a unit in their empire when they're faced with multiple human opponents. They can build the nationalist infantry units for the respective regions, and that alone. The fix is in the first post.

 

That's fine for me.
I started a short game with a few turns playing the Non-Aligned civ and it looks like they are perfect for me.

 

Ok, sign me up for Europe. John, where can I find the up to date files?

 

I appreciate that! I think we're in for a fun time and it's great that the three main civs all have a unique player (the game would have been pretty skewed if I had to play Europe too).

I've gone ahead and modified the first post in this thread to include a "hotfix" zip. I made a few minor bug fixes (specifically: I noticed that the Balkans couldn't build any units depending on who owned them). Everyone should download the hotfix before playing and we'll be good to go.

This scenario is "done" and I will be releasing it as soon as I can get around to it and just tidy up the read me a bit. I won't be making any substantive changes during our game but I will be providing bug fixes to the extent that we find one. While I've spent a very considerable amount of time trying to catch everything, you never know, so if something happens that you feel is game breaking to you, pause, save, and post and we'll figure it out.

I'm not sure that we'll get another player for China at this point. I would not be opposed to @Prof. Garfield handling them as well, at least at first, and if someone wants to join in perhaps it could be given later? They were more or less in the Soviet sphere during the beginning of this scenario, anyway. I fear they are too weak if left to the AI's devices.

If others are in agreement, Prof. Garfield can start at his leisure.

I'm looking forward to this everyone - this is another scenario that was started around the time I started OTR - better late than never to knock a few of these out!

 

The dear professor will be more than a handful with just the USSR, based on what I've seen in previous MP games. How about combining China with the non-aligned instead? Historically, it's a good fit.

 

Well, that would be up to @civ2units as I think he is concerned about timeliness. While both civs are small, they may be more than he wishes to handle. I'm not against the idea in principle, but we should probably address the turn order.

It might make more sense for the civs to be picked in this order (normally the Non-Aligned is 7 and China is 3).

1. Non-Aligned
2. China
3. Soviets
4. ProEast
5. USA
6. ProWest
7. Europe

Those which are picked first in a MP game go first from my testing. Having this order would make it convenient for civ2units and Prof. Garfield to manage their civs.

Another option if civ2units wasn't keen to play two civs would be to have Prof. Garfield play China until they are unified and then abandon them to the AI.

 

A quick test suggests that all this does is skip most players for the first turn. After the Non-Aligned played, it was the turn of the soviets, and then civs took turns according to colour order.

I don't really want to play China permanently, but I'll play for now to get things started.

 

Should I start the game at Deity difficulty, or King?

 

I'd do Deity - it is what I tested everything as. If you can just play China through the end of the Civil War, hopefully we'll find someone who will take over after that, or the AI can mill about.

Edit - @techumseh I hope this allays your concerns - the civil war really should be won by any human playing as China. Prof. Garfield might accomplish it a turn or two early but the odds are heavily stacked. He might use the diplomacy menu via "Esc" when he finishes up playing to set them at peace and they can pretty much do their own thing at that point, no harm no foul. Also by the time we get there maybe @McMonkey or someone else will want to dip their toes in

 

Chinese capture Changchun, Shenyang and Lanzhou.

I've attached both the Pro East and China saved games, in case someone else turns up to play China shortly, or someone would prefer I didn't control China even for a little bit.

Does this game have the log functionality? If not, do you need help putting it in?

 

This does not have the log function and if you are willing to plug it in, I'd be indebted... unfortunately this doesn't use the template, so everything is a giant, jumbled mess. I suppose it only needs to be done in the MP events, as it would never be used in the SP one.

I will probably have to play my turn tomorrow, but we will see... I expect the others won't mind a short time to come to terms with their empires anyway.

 

April, 1947
USA:
-President Truman announces his doctrine of containment, promising to oppose Soviet geopolitical expansion across the globe.

Pro-West: a Busy turn
-A military junta has overthrown the government of Costa Rica!
-In China, there is heavy fighting NE of Beijing as a stack of Communists (3-4 units I believe, including a tank) is destroyed. However, in the interior, several brigades of defeated infantry turn coat and join the Communists...
-The border of Pakistan and India erupts in fighting! 5x Indian infantry are destroyed for the loss of 1x Comet. In Bangladesh, a squadron of Corsairs is beaten back by Indian Spitfires.


***Just so everyone knows - a few things that are pretty important:

1. @civ2units - the Non-Aligned movement is a much more powerful tech than it appears to be as it will allow you to acquire territory instantly (your choice of Egypt, Ghana, or Indonesia, and it can be researched repeatedly, though it does nothing for you after you have these lands).

2. @techumseh - it's your call what you research first, but the European Recovery Program will give you a chance to have your industry rebuilt by event - it is RNG so no promises, but it can be quite useful and usually fires a few times per game. This expires on turn 25, so the faster you get this, the more chance that you have to get some freebies (it also allows a very useful wonder). There are 13 Marshall Plan events that each have a 1/50 chance of firing every turn.

All - don't forget that you can purchase units by pressing '5' - these can be sent to any coastal city for an extra $500 in shipping costs, or to a city with an international port for no shipping charge. This makes these international port cities important.

Also - I noticed I forgot this in the readme - but fighters do react defensively against strategic bombers. Keep that in mind as it will shield you somewhat from nuclear (or conventional) attack.

China and India - Pressing escape gives you a chance to make peace with different entities if you want. It's up to the other player on their turn if it will be accepted.