SCENARIO DEVELOPMENT THREAD: The Second Indochina War

El Justo

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The Second Indochina War
for Civ3Conquests


This scenario is being created in conjuction with the recently released Vietnam War scenario by Luddi VII.

What are the differences you ask? Many. The Second Indochina War scenario is intended to be a fuller and more particular version of the conflict in Vietnam. The map is much larger and features only N and S Vietnam as well as the eastern most areas of Laos and Cambodia. It spans from 1956, the year the elections were to be held to officially unify the north and the south, to 1973, the year that the Americans pulled out. The scenario consists of 2 eras: 1956-1964 & 1965-1973 and lasts for 202 turns. There are only 2 civs; South Vietnam and North Vietnam. The United States, Australia, South Korea, the Soviet Union & China are all incorporated in one way or another either through techs, units, or small wonders. The auto-build feature is utilized and has been used very carefully to simulate the foreign influences during the war.

Civilization previews:

~ North Vietnam: The North Vietnamese will certainly have the advantage in this scenario. They will have cheaper units, better attack/defense/movement stats, invisible and stealth abilities, and auto-producing improvements. They can also build several more culture producing improvements making culture flips much more likely in their favor. They are also flagged as most aggressive in the biq.

~ South Vietnam: South Vietnam may have more unit types to build but lack the culture producing improvements of the North Vietnamese. South Vietnamese units are more expensive and are slightly inferior in stats to their North Vietnamese counterparts. However, there are many, many small wonders that only South Vietnam can build and many of them auto-produce American units.

Here is a screen shot of the minimap.
 
Techs

here is the 1st era

None are civ/flavor specific but each allows for either a new unique unit, improvement, or wonder, small or regular. These are purley preliminary and any suggestions/critique is welcomed.
 
Improvements and Wonders

There are many custom buildings and small wonders in this scenario. Here is a brief description.

Improvements

Café: produces culture and happiness and buildable only by S Vietnam
Sewer: allows city size level 2
NLF Barracks: N Vietnam only. Autoproduces a Natl Liberation Front Infantry every 12 turns
Prison: +2 production
Dredged Harbor: S Vietnam only. +2 production
VC Hamlet: N Vietnam only. Autoproduces a Viet Cong unit every 12 turns
Go Go Bar: S Vietnam only. +5 happiness & +1 culture
Propaganda Station: N Vietnam only. +10 culture
Perimeter Defense: S Vietnam only. +50 defense


Small Wonders

Soviet Embassy: N Vietnam only. Auto-produces a Soviet Advisor (immobile/1A/10D) every 20 turns. Soviet Advisor upgrades to MiG21 (unbuildable)
AATTV Barracks: S Vietnam only. Autoproduces the Australian Army Training Team officers every 20 turns
S Korean Barracks: S Vietnam only. Autoproduces a South Korean Infantry every 17 turns.
US Marine Corps Barracks: S Vietnam only. Autoproduces an American Marine every 7 turns
US Army Barracks: S Vietnam only. Autoproduces an American GI every 7 turns
US Air Base: S Vietnam only. Autoproduces a B52 every 15 turns
American Embassy: S Vietnam only. +25 across the board on city defense bonus. +2 culture
Liberation Movement: N Vietnam only. Prerequisite tech to build Propganda Station
Air Cavalry: S Vietnam only. Autoproduces a UH-1 Huey every 12 turns
Incendiary Bombing: S Vietnam only. Autoproduces a Napalm Bomber every 15 turns
MACV: S Vietnam only. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) autoproduces an American Advisor every 20 turns. American Advisor upgrades to Green Beret (unbuildable)
AFVN: S Vietnam only. +3 culture. Autoproduces an M113 every 12 turns. Armed Forces Viet Nam a/k/a the American radio station in Vietnam. Gooooooood Morninggggg Vietnammmmm!!!!!!!!
Khmer Rouge: N Vietnam only. Autoproduces a Khmer Rebel every 15 turns


Great Wonders

Tunnels of Cu Chi: N Vietnam only. Acts as Great Wall, giving Walls to every city

Strategic Hamlet Program: S Vietnam only. Same as above but Perimeter Defense.
 
Main Issues for Development

At this point, naval combat needs to be defined, ie how to incorporate it into the scenario as historically accuratly as possible. My first thoughts are to have all naval units outside of a transport vesell flagged as unbuildable. This seems to have worked nicely in other scenarios. A river patrol type force is also possible with the coastal tiles around where the Mekong Delta is in S Vietnam.

I have attempted to fiddle with the Land & Naval Mine units to see if they could really be implemented into the scen. So far, this is the best that I have come up with:

A S Vietnam version (human player is S Vietnam) of the scen where the human player can build the Naval Mine and transport it by sea to any water tile. Flagged as immobile, invisble and hidden nationality, the Naval Mine could be used to mine the harbors of North Vietnamese cities. The N Vietnamese Land Mine unit would have to be preplaced and unbuildable (due to AI stupidity).

A N Vietnam version (human player is N Vietnam) of the scen where the human player can build the Land Mine and transport it over land. Flagged as immobile, invisble and hidden nationality, the Land Mine could be used to fortify in areas throughout S Vietnam. The S Vietnamese Naval Mine unit would have to be preplaced and unbuildable (due to AI stupidity).

Any suggestions on the above mentioned would be appreciated ;)
 
A more thorough implementation of the units in this scenario was a main sticking point and i think we've accomplished that. For example, S Vietnam now has a full arsenal of foot units to build after the appropriate techs are researched of course. Here's a list of some of the S Vietnamese (ARVN ~ Army of the Republic of Viet Nam) units from the beginning of the scenario...

Militia: a village militia/homeguard unit that is cheap and immobile (1A/5D)
Popular Force: they were kind of like a civil defense corps (2 mvmt/4A/6D)
Regional Force: same as above but 2mvmt/6A/4D

ARVN Infantry: 2mvmt/6A/8D
ARVN Marine: 2mvmt/8A/6D
ARVN Airborne Infantry: 2mvmt/7A/9D and +1 HP

Artillery: standard civ3 unit. i forget the stats but it does have 1A/3D
M107: next in line for artillery
155MM Howitzer: last in line for artillery

T-28 Recon: an air unit that has minimal attack/bombardment stats
A-1 Skyraider: the upgrade for the T-28. real nice graphics, too (ripptide)
F 100 Super Sabre: autoproduced from small wonder
B52: autoproduced from small wonder
Napalm Bomber: autoproduced from small wonder
F-4: autoproduced from small wonder

this isn't a complete list b/c i don't have my civ files on this pc. but i'll put them all in eventually.
 
It looks very interesting. I've not really got into modern scenarios/conquests, but I'll give this one a go. I like the idea of using the auto-build feature to represent other countries. It looks like you've devoted some time to planning the various units and buildings, which is a prerequisite to a good scenario. I noticed there were not many techs, but I guess with two tribes who will be unlikely to be doing any tech trading, there's enough.

Good luck with the scenario, I look forward to having a go!
 
i'd really like to have more techs but i started to run out of ideas. anyhow, i've set it up so that the max/min research time for the them runs real close to the end of the scenario. at this point, the scenario is playable. i've gone about 25 turns with each side and so far it's pretty fun. but it needs to be refined a little further.

any ideas on naval combat and Land/Naval Mine implementation?
 
Adding conflict on rivers, deltas, etc. would be great, instead of just open sea naval warfare. PBR's, Junks, and other riverine craft would really add a lot in my opinion.

Landmines: As I see them, they don't add a whole lot. As a player, I couldn't care less whether you had land mines.

As for implementing any of these things, I'm afraid I'll be no help there!

Whatever you add/don't add, I'm sure this will be a great scenario.
 
I would make terrain an important aspect to deal with. Remember, Vietnam's terrain was a severe problem for US forces for logistics. I would also try to set up a situation (and this is true for the main scenario as well) where although the US is superior if strength, the NVA has an advantage and it would take skill for a US player to win the war. Vietnam was won because they were fanatics fighting for a cause rather than ideology, not superior technology. The South ought to have bad happiness issues while the NVA should have high happiness improvements and wonders. This is so that resistance can be more threatening in NVA cities, creating the quagmire situation.

Just my suggestions.
 
But remember: The U.S. was usually outnumbered, at least when fighting the NVA. Also, if you're going to include invisible VC units, why not something like equally invisible Navy SEAL units that can detect them?
 
Sarevok said:
I would make terrain an important aspect to deal with. Remember, Vietnam's terrain was a severe problem for US forces for logistics. I would also try to set up a situation (and this is true for the main scenario as well) where although the US is superior if strength, the NVA has an advantage and it would take skill for a US player to win the war. Vietnam was won because they were fanatics fighting for a cause rather than ideology, not superior technology. The South ought to have bad happiness issues while the NVA should have high happiness improvements and wonders. This is so that resistance can be more threatening in NVA cities, creating the quagmire situation.

Just my suggestions.

yes. terrain is very important. IIRC, i made jungle terrain +50 defensive bonus (same as hills?). i think it was +25 originally. the north certainly has an advantage in manpower, culture and hapiness.
my next question would be how to manipulate to propaganda modifiers in the editor. have you any experience with this? culture flips need to be a big part of this mod and i'm a little hazy on how to correctly depict this through the editor.
thanks. i value your suggestions.
 
Yippyfn said:
But remember: The U.S. was usually outnumbered, at least when fighting the NVA. Also, if you're going to include invisible VC units, why not something like equally invisible Navy SEAL units that can detect them?

yes. the US was generally outnumbered vs the commies. but their superior fire power enabled them to not lose a single major battle during the war, at least from a miltary standpoint. i wouldn't want to get out of hand with all kinds of US units running around so this is why i have used the Small Wonder feature to auto-produce American units so as to keep the amount of Am. units at a respectable level.
The Green Beret unit can detect invisible and they are an upgrade unit (unbuildable) for the American Advisor (immobile/1A/10D).
thanks for the suggestions
 
Ongoing Development Concepts

well, i tried to incorporate the naval aspects last night. so far, this is what i added:

i created 2 more small wonders, 1 for each civ. the first is "Coastal Patrol" which is N Vietnam only. the city which builds it autoproduces a russian-built patrol boat every 20 turns and it is limited to coastal tiles only (sinks in sea or ocean tiles). it is buildable after "Amphibious Tactics" is researched in the first era. the NVA Patrol Boat is also n vietnam's top-end naval transport as well (5 capacity)
the second is "Riverine Patrol" and is available to S Vietnam only. it acts similarly as the above referenced small wonder. it autoproduces a "Delta Patrol Boat" every 25 turns but does not have transport capabilities.

IIRC, i used wyrmshadow's graphics (patrol boats) for the units

i also added another small wonder for n vietnam. "MiG Technology" which autoproduces a MiG 15. i forget how many turns.

that's it for now.next step is to maybe add another tech in the second era: "Covert Operations" buildable by both civs.
it would allow s vietnam to build the covert bomber, A-26; and for n vietnam, the Sniper unit (invisible and stealth with bombard flag).
 
El Justo said:
yes. terrain is very important. IIRC, i made jungle terrain +50 defensive bonus (same as hills?). i think it was +25 originally. the north certainly has an advantage in manpower, culture and hapiness.
my next question would be how to manipulate to propaganda modifiers in the editor. have you any experience with this? culture flips need to be a big part of this mod and i'm a little hazy on how to correctly depict this through the editor.
thanks. i value your suggestions.
I would have the culture improvements churn out much more culture in the north while the south's culture was sketchy at best. Thats how I would do it.
 
El Justo said:
yes. the US was generally outnumbered vs the commies. but their superior fire power enabled them to not lose a single major battle during the war, at least from a miltary standpoint. i wouldn't want to get out of hand with all kinds of US units running around so this is why i have used the Small Wonder feature to auto-produce American units so as to keep the amount of Am. units at a respectable level.
The Green Beret unit can detect invisible and they are an upgrade unit (unbuildable) for the American Advisor (immobile/1A/10D).
thanks for the suggestions
why dont you just have them wonder created.
 
Sarevok said:
I would have the culture improvements churn out much more culture in the north while the south's culture was sketchy at best. Thats how I would do it.
re: US Units: why dont you just have them wonder created.

so far, i have the standard culture producing improvements (those that would apply to vietnam) for both civs. however, for the north, they have an immense advantage w/ "VC Hamlet" (+10 culture & autoproduces Viet Cong), "NLF Barracks" (+10 culture & autoproduces NLF Infantry) and "Propaganda Station" (+10 culture) to name a few. N Vietnamese wonders also produce more culture than the s vietnamese wonders.

i also adjusted the corruption level on S Vietnam to "rampant"; which in reality, it was.

most US units (A-1 Skyraider, M107 & 155MM Howitzer being the exceptions) are autoproduced by Small Wonders.

after playtesting some on Deity level as S Vietnam, i was absolutely blitzed by the NVA Infantry and they took about half of s vietnam within 40 turns. this seems a bit much. i might have to reduce the stat advantage for the n vietnam units. thus giving n vietnam a manpower advantage rather than both manpower & stat advantage.
 
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