The American Nightmare

[JPetroski]

I've been doing a little bit of thinking as I might want to expand on Cold War and build a new scenario, "The American Nightmare" that would detail the United States' presumptive fall from global hegemony in the 21st century coupled with the rise of China, India, Brazil, etc.

In Cold War I had two proxy civs but I'm thinking I could simply have each civ directly control conquered land in this new scenario and instead use lua to turn the barbarian/neutral civ into as many "countries" as I want. The idea would be as follows:

-In Cold War I don't allow certain nations to kill barbarian units within cities. This could be tweaked to only allowing units at certain locations to be destroyed if a particular flag is set. I could then come up with an "internal politics" model that would adjust those flags.

For example, perhaps the U.S. player would have a diplomacy module where they could try and "intervene" in Myanmar. Well, maybe they need to get that past the Congress first (with perhaps a lobbying campaign a.k.a. bribes). Maybe a neoconservative majority would be more likely to support it but a libertarian majority would balk at it. If it goes through, a flag is set that allows for barbarian units on city tiles in Myanmar to be killed by U.S. forces. If it fails, they can't attack. CanBuildSettings would be used to prevent military forces of any substance to be built in the new lands.

Basically the "gimmick" of this scenario would be to try and use lua to really create vibrant nations that are full of citizens with competing interests and unique and complex governments. Expansion would require a complex cause/effect mechanism (so if Russia intervenes in Ukraine maybe the U.S. is more likely to intervene in Syria, etc.).

I was thinking of the following civs given the proxies are freed up:

USA
Russia
E.U.
China
India
Brazil
Mexico? There are projections that it will become an economic superpower this century.
Neutrals

4 turns per year and either 120 or 104 turns. The scenario would start in the not-so-distant-future (2024 and continue until either 2050 or 2054). The 3-month turns would be important so the governments aren't flip flopping every turn as the U.S. Congress, POTUS and SCOTUS would all be modeled.

The space race/spaceship and global warming would both happen and it would be a multimap scenario (Earth, Undersea, Space, and then Utility Map/Potentially the Moon).

To be designed as a SP scenario that can support MP - building off the lessons learned in Cold War but incorporating the new template as well as using isHuman checks to ensure that only one event file is necessary.

Any interest in something like this from the community? What do you all think of the civs? Is this something you'd play? Etc.

 

[techumseh]

Iran. There's a reason Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US are all scared of it. Otherwise, not sure how this would work, but go for it.

 

[typhoon353]

Turkey would be another good contender - even today they are a fairly independent geopolitical player with fingers all over the Middle East, Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia, and would present a good challenge to many of the other players including the EU, Russia and possibly even India and China in these regions.

Depending on the time frame, many of the other incipient superpowers of the future being bandied about nowadays will face either severe challenges with maintaining their internal cohesion (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, Indonesia) or demographic vitality (e.g. Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada and the UK.) One option would be to make multiple variations of the scenario with different event and unit rosters which the player can choose and load via .bat at the start.

 

[CurtSibling]

Love the idea of this - Modern day scenarios are rare and good fun.
Just please don't put the UK in with the EU. Make them neutral, or part of the US civ.

 

[JPetroski]

Love the idea of this - Modern day scenarios are rare and good fun.
Just please don't put the UK in with the EU. Make them neutral, or part of the US civ.

Well I need to brush up on Brexit and forecast a bit but they would likely be neutral at the start with the chance to be aligned by plenty.

Otherwise, not sure how this would work, but go for it.

So for the U.K. as an example, let's suppose it starts off as neutral due to Brexit. There's some folks in the U.K. who are happy with that, some who aren't, etc. I would model these groups behind the scenes. For the sake of my own sanity, I'd keep it kind of simple, but of course that also means "oversimplified" and "stereotyped." Hope no one cancels me

For example (not set in stone):

Group A: Brexiters - want an independent Britain (wants to remain in the neutral civ)
Group B: Pro-EU - wants Britain to return to the E.U. (merge with that civ)
Group C: Pro-US - wants Britain to align itself more with the United States (merge with that civ)

I'd basically assign Britain a total value (maybe 100) and then each of these groups a sub value (from 0 to 100). Whoever had the highest value would rule (coalitions would be too complex for me to want to handle, probably, so a 40/30/30 split would see the group with a value of 40 as calling the shots).

So, at the start of the scenario, perhaps Brexiters have 50 points, Pro-E.U. has 40, and Pro-U.S. has 10 (or whatever). Britain wants to be neutral, so they stay neutral (unless someone physically conquers them and they don't have a choice).

Now let's flash forward 10 years. Maybe some event makes Britain lean towards the U.S. for cooperation. Now Group C has the majority. Do they automatically become U.S. cities? Well, that depends on what the U.S. thinks:

Across the pond, we then examine the U.S. view point. The same concept applies.

Maybe Group A (probably Neocons) wants a stronger alliance with Britain
Maybe Group B (Democratic Socialists) probably doesn't want this.
Maybe Group C (Libertarians) definitely doesn't want foreign entanglements.

If Group A is in charge, Britain would align with the U.S.
If Group B is in charge, Britain would have a chance of aligning with the U.S. Maybe 50/50
If Group C is in charge, Britain would not align with the U.S. and would remain neutral until such time Group C wasn't in charge.

So basically the neutral civ is comprised of multiple fluid and dynamic states that all have their own "thought process" / "minds."

The player-controlled civs would manage their "factions" by decisions, what buildings they build, how many military units they have, or a host of different things. Sometimes, things wouldn't go to plan, either.

Turkey would be another good contender - even today they are a fairly independent geopolitical player with fingers all over the Middle East, Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia, and would present a good challenge to many of the other players including the EU, Russia and possibly even India and China in these regions.

Depending on the time frame, many of the other incipient superpowers of the future being bandied about nowadays will face either severe challenges with maintaining their internal cohesion (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, Indonesia) or demographic vitality (e.g. Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada and the UK.) One option would be to make multiple variations of the scenario with different event and unit rosters which the player can choose and load via .bat at the start.

I think making multiple batch files wouldn't work simply because of the complexity of the events I discussed above - imagine trying to do that for more than 7 main "civs" would make me shudder. But, I'm not wed to Mexico by a long shot. Turkey too could be interesting, or frankly maybe Nigeria so that Africa could be more than a mere sideshow. Actually Nigeria is quite interesting. I've seen them on lists of emerging superpowers as well.

The timeframe I think is going to be from about 2024 to 2054 or so. I was very limited in what I could do with Cold War because I had a scenario that spanned from Spitfires to F-15s. With American Nightmare, I really don't see "that' many military units being researched which will open up unit rosters for other powers and allow me to even better arm some neutral regions.

Anyway, I'm not working much on this until I upload OTR, Boudicca, and the fixed Germanicus in the next few days. I still have my WW2 Europe scenario that I've been building as well that takes precedence, but I thought this would be a fun one to discuss at least.

 

[Fairline]

Love the idea of this - Modern day scenarios are rare and good fun.
Just please don't put the UK in with the EU. Make them neutral, or part of the US civ.

Well it would be sadly accurate to make us a small and horsehockey part of the US I suppose, chlorinated chicken, privatised NHS and all the good things we have to look forward to in the future.

 

[JPetroski]

What is chlorinated chicken?

 

[CurtSibling]

@Fairline
It's only a game, sir! Same as our lives are only a CIV2-type game to the lizards!

 

[Fairline]

What is chlorinated chicken?

Something you Americans do to dead chickens

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47440562

 

[CurtSibling]

All countries criminally mess with the food sources. We doomed our health decades ago.
Watch some of the food and sugar documentaries to really get depressed about it.

Now, I politely ask people to restrain the politics, and stick to CIV2 development.

 

[techumseh]

Watch it!

 

[CurtSibling]

Some of the fact revealed in the films like "Fed Up" make you not want to eat ever again.

 

[Fairline]

......

Now, I politely ask people to restrain the politics, and stick to CIV2 development.

This sounds like a scenario where politics is front and centre (and sounds very interesting for it!). In fact civ is inherrently a game which politics is part of the gameplay.

Anyway, apologies to JP for going OT.

 

[JPetroski]

This sounds like a scenario where politics is front and centre (and sounds very interesting for it!). In fact civ is inherrently a game which politics is part of the gameplay.

Anyway, apologies to JP for going OT.

No apology necessary - I was thinking of requesting a special dispensation from the mods for a little (friendly) political discourse here. While I wouldn't want to discuss the relative benefit of any particular political system (that's where things get ugly) I do at least need some help on the different factions in parts of the world and what they generally/stereotypically believe in to make this a functioning scenario.

The political division in the United States fascinates me and as much or more than any external reason is probably going to be our downfall, so to model that in this scenario will be an interesting challenge. I'm just a typical Yank who knows very little about the politics of other countries so I might need to lean on you all quite a bit there... Yes, I'll do research, but in some cases it's hard to know where to start.

And frankly as funny as chlorinated chicken is, the way that we get our food over the next 30 years is probably going to change in a big way. There's a tech tree to build here to try and reasonably forecast what the world will be like. The question is, can I get a closer prediction than H.G. Wells ever did?

Edit - just to be clear on my request:

BAD = "I think this faction is best because..."

GOOD = "these are the majority factions in this area and what they tend to believe in"

PROBABLY SAFEST = "Here is a cool article I found about the factions in this area. It might help you."

 

[CurtSibling]

Yeah - I bow to the logic of @JPetroski and @Fairline -
Some political exploration is bound to happen for this kind of project.
We are all gentlemen here, so I know things will be civil.

So, feel free to discuss, lads.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Chlorinated chicken, what wonder could be used for that? Pyramids?