The Cold War

[JPetroski]

The Cold War

Hello all,

Not to get too far ahead of myself (I still have Over the Reich to finish), but I have been involved in a multiplayer match of Eivind’s “First Strike” for several months now, and it has inspired me to consider building my own Cold War scenario. I think it makes for an extremely interesting time period for a multiplayer scenario, and allows a few different sorts of players to join (the warmonger, the nation builder, the trader, etc).

Whereas Eivind’s scenario covers 1975--1989 (and Academia’s “Iron Curtain” covers 1964--1975), I propose to start my scenario in 1947, just as President Truman has announced the Truman Doctrine, and just before the Marshall Plan begins. The scenario will end in 1989. Though this is an extremely long timeframe, it is possible with ToT’s extra units.

The Nations

Spoiler :

The USA
- ONLY has cities in the United States, Hawaii, and Alaska.
- Largest navy at game start, and has jet fighters (F-80).
- Majority of units are far from home, in Europe, Japan, and China, costing support shields.
- Has nuclear monopoly, but this will be extremely short-lived, and unlikely to prove decisive.
- Has access to many indigenous aircraft and tanks for sale to the world market or production at home.

The Capitalists
- Western Europe, Japan, Nationalist China
- Should not necessarily be taken to mean the nation is “capitalistic.”
- Does NOT include W. European colonies.
- Having been ravaged by WW2, most cities are missing most improvements and need rehab.
- Very minimal defenses, so relies on American forces for protection from the Soviets.
- Ideally played by individual, but can be played by American player in a pinch.
- Has access to some indigenous aircraft and tanks for sale to the world market or production at home.

The USSR
- Up in the air as to whether they will also control Eastern Europe.
- Largest army at game start, and soon to research a better jet fighter (MiG-15).
- Has access to many indigenous aircraft and tanks for sale to the world market or production at home.
- Many, but not all, cities ravaged by WW2, and these will require rebuilding.
- Must join the nuclear club as soon as possible for MAD’s protection.

The Socialists
- Starting Base TBD, but very few cities at start.
- Should not be construed that every nation represented will actually be socialists.
- Access to very few indigenous units, most being various “revolutionaries.”
- Gains most units via events depending on flags (see proxy war section).
- *Could* be played by independent player, but might be better for Soviet player to start.

The People’s Republic of China
- Begins the scenario embroiled in a civil war against “Capitalist” forces being supported by the U.S. military.
- Has access to several indigenous tanks for sale to the world market or production at home, but will largely rely on imported aircraft.
- Has access—eventually—to a better freight unit (along with India).
- Starts scenario with very large forces.
- Huge population, agrarian economy that must be industrialized and built-up.

India
- Four months away from Independence!
- Will soon be drawn into a war with Pakistan.
- Huge population, but largely agrarian and will need industrialization.
- Major internal problems to be dealt with at first.
- Has access to few indigenous aircraft and tanks for sale to the world market or production at home.
- Will have to source majority of aircraft and tanks from world market (has only one indigenous tank and one indigenous aircraft, neither of which are available for some time).

Brazil
- Alone on South American Continent, with plenty of neighbors ripe for the picking.
- Has access to few indigenous aircraft and tanks for sale to the world market or production at home.
- Will have to source majority of aircraft and tanks from world market (has only one indigenous tank and one indigenous aircraft, neither of which are available for some time).
- Definitely begins the scenario as a minor nation, but with good diplomacy, could eventually become a major player.

The Non-Aligned (Barbarians)
- This civ will play a much greater role in this scenario than in First Strike. The majority of minor nations on the planet will begin as non-aligned, and it will be up to the different players to carve up as much of the globe as possible.
- The Soviets and Americans can only absorb such a city if they already share a border with it. If not, and it is overseas, they must turn it over to the Capitalists or Socialist civilizations.

There will be two major elements this scenario will revolve around: proxy wars and arms deals.

Spoiler :

Proxy Wars

This should take First Strike’s proxy war system a step further. Whereas in First Strike, the lines are fairly clearly drawn from the start, I want to represent how no one knew exactly which places were going to fall to Communism (and indeed represent the plausibility of “Domino Theory&#8221. The beginning of this scenario will very much be a race to grab as much of the planet as possible.

There will be some sort of proxy war rule system, but I haven’t determined exactly what that is yet. I’m leaning toward a situation where you start with a certain limit of units, but can then escalate things as time goes on.

Further, I intend to use ToT’s flag system to check what nations are under what bloc’s influence, and then have rebels for the other bloc show up. Some places will constantly be at war no matter who is in control. Others will merely suffer revolts until the preferred (historical outcome) ruler controls the land.

Arms Deals

The majority of weapon systems are produced by the USA and Soviet Union. A moderate amount come from Western Europe, but very few are indigenous to China, India, or Brazil. This should create a fun side-game whereby there will be bidding wars and various production orders. Indeed, the economy of some nations might come to revolve around such things.

Some techs will be tradable, allowing some aircraft and tanks to be license-built.

The price of these deals will be up to the players to work out for themselves, and this should help build alliances and a network of intrigue. Always fun in MP!

The two major problems I foresee with my design plan are:

1. Only one civ starts with nuclear weapons; and
2. The U.S. is definitely in a much better position for trade.

I hope that by giving the Soviets a majority of units at the start, and the U.S. only minimal nuclear arms, this shouldn’t be a game-killer (although the Soviet player will no doubt feel immense pressure to level the playing field). At any rate, it will make for an interesting early-game choice (The Soviets might be able to take Western Europe, but can they hold it? Or, the US may be able to destroy a few dozen units, but can they thwart the rest?)

IIRC, Eivind himself initially had NATO split between Western Europe and the U.S., but decided that the trade advantage was too great, and thus combined them into one civ. I am going to try and avoid doing this, because I feel it imbalances the production aspects of the scenario. Instead, I will have Western Europe be a fairly lousy place to trade with at first, as it will feature next to no useful trade-increasing improvements, or technologies. Once it is built up, it will no doubt be a powerhouse, but that is assuming it survives that long. Further, by the time it is rebuilt, the socialists may very well have large holdings across the globe.

Anyway, that is pretty much what I have so far. Over the Reich continues to take priority, but I don’t anticipate it taking many more man hours (when those hours will come is another story), so my mind is already starting to think of the next project

 

[Ingvar VII]

Great news, First Strike is one of my top favourite scenarios. (Along with A Soaring Spirit I guess.)

Some ideas I have had while playing First Strike:
Players can "buy" Industrial sectors, for a large sum of course. Finding the right price would be a hassle though. If they were too expensive they would not be worth the money, too cheap and they would be unbalancing.

NATO/Soviet can, again, "buy" cities belonging to their pro counterpart.
This would simply make it a base of that nation, the monetary cost signifying the cost of building, adapting or bribing the part of the ruling class in the nation to be, for all purposes, a part of the greater power.

It could help balance this to have an improvement such as the Aqueduct set to be needed for pop>5, and forbidding it to be built in those cities. This way, only part of the nations industrial output could be harnessed.
In modern age scenarios the pop controlling improvements could be seen as controlling the level of administration/industrialization rather than actual population.
I hope some of these make sense and could perhaps help give you ideas, I don't expect this makes enough sense to be actually usable though.

 

[JPetroski]

Hi Ingvar,

Well, I really like the base idea and using the aqueducts/sewer systems to work it. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by industrial sector though?

Anyway, at the very beginning of the scenario, I want to have the U.S. have very large forces, but also have them scattered across the globe, and not easily disbanded for shields (you've got to bring them home if you want to do that). The U.S. cities will find much of their industrial capacity eaten up by the army and the player will have to decide on how to deal with that.

Granted, I'm not that great of a player (First Strike was my first MP game ever) and I'm sure I made some key mistakes a better player wouldn't have, but I do feel that that scenario kind of places everyone in a situation where the NATO is the undoubtedly dominant nation. I envision this scenario leaving that very much up in the air. A race to supremacy, if you will.

 

[Ingvar VII]

Most major cities in FS have Industrial Sectors, the terrain squares that give lots of trade, food and production.
If players could pay(subtract via cheat mode I guess), say, 5000 gold, they would be allowed to change one piece of terrain by one of their cities into an Industrial Sector.

Alternatively it would probably be a lot less hassle to use the terraforming function for this, this depends on wheter it's possible to edit the time it takes to terraform terrain.
If terraforming a piece of terrain into such a sector were to take a considerable amount of time, and engineers were expensive, it would stop players from placing them everywhere, but it would add an extra dimension of activity, in addition to resemble the industrialization of the world in the decades following WW2.

This idea is in part inspired by A Soaring Spirit, were there is "Resource" and "Trade" terrains.

This could of course have variations, one being Industrial Sector(lots of shields, example: Ruhr), another being Economic Sector(lots of trade, ex. London) and perhaps yet another being Science Sector(ex. Boston), which could be a blend of the two.

To simplify the creation of these they could be the result of mining/irrigating the Industrial Sector. This way players could decide the roles their cities were to take.
This could very efficiently show the build up of Europe, as the different nations built up their infrastructure.
The build up that failed completely in the East....

 

[JPetroski]

That's certainly a great idea... I know it is possible to determine how many turns it takes to mine or irrigate something, but I'm not sure if those tie in to the transformation at all?

In any event, mining and irrigation could always be used to do exactly what you suggest. If desired, it could be coupled with terraform to turn terrain squares into "acceptable" ones to mine or irrigate. Then you simply need to adjust values of various terrains to compensate for the fact that extra-food irrigation areas aren't going to be everywhere.

The only problem is that with a world map, there are only so many terrains you can get rid of. I think I could probably spare swamps and glacier (forest and tundra can substitute each respectively).

IF you don't want city walls to have a defensive effect (they won't if everything else is already a fortress, allowing stacking), then you could get away with using both terrains (make one allow mining/irrigation, make the other your economic zone).

I suppose that city walls are somewhat outdated by this scenario anyway...

Interesting idea, Ingvar. I really like it

Edit - come to think of it, this would be a pretty good way to introduce the concept of "foreign aid" into the scenario... If only a few select areas (Ukraine, Great Plains, some scattered bits here and there) can produce massive amounts of food, then these areas will have to send food shipments to other cities.

 

[JPetroski]

I have given some more thought to terrain. I think the scenario would be well-served with this lineup:

Desert - Same
Countryside - Plains renamed. "Industry" (Mines) can be built here for benefit.
Mollisols - Grassland renamed - black earth soils. Can be irrigated for MASSIVE payoff in food.
Forest - Same
Hills - Same, but will provide best industrial boost from industry.
Mountains - Same, industry.
Tundra/Glacier - Same, nothing.
City - A city square to allow city walls to have defensive bonus (gives inf. a purpose)
Energy Sources - Oil, Nat. Gas, etc. A huge trade modifier.
Jungle - Same
Ocean - Same

I need to do some testing to determine just how many food routes a particular city can have, and if these are inherited by conquering nations. Ideally, I want food to be scarce to come by, especially in the developing world, thus necessitating the need for a patron. Here is a handy map of the world's mollisols:



One more thing to trade for and fight over

Edit - depending on events space, this could be a fun way to have either random, or historic "droughts" too, simply by changing the terrain to countryside or (in extreme cases) desert.

Edit#2 - the other option would be to say to heck with the cities terrain, take a cue from Germanicus, and have a "developed" and "undeveloped" terrain. The undeveloped would not benefit from irrigation or mining. It would have to be terraformed into "developed" to get any real benefit.

 

[Strelok22]

Looks awesome...dont lose the momentum,it will be an AWESOME scenario .Here are some units that I collected for an eventual "Cuban Missile Crisis" scenario:

 

[JPetroski]

Those are very helpful, Strelok, thanks!

It's easy to keep momentum when you're still in the fun stage of imagining everything. It's when you've actually got to do the work that it gets hard!

Anyway, I'm trying to finish up Over the Reich, but am using this as a convenient break (it is very much the boring stage of creating OTR).

That is ok. ToT pretty much requires you to build the scenario before you ever open Civ2, so it's the perfect thing to work on here and there in excel.

Edit - preliminary testing (in MGE, though I assume it will work in ToT) suggests that a max paradrop range of at least up to 100 are acceptable. Therefore, if I assume that airborne forces are taken by helicopter (and effectively get rid of paratroopers), I can use the paratrooper slot as a cargo plane (domain 2 unit that can paradrop). I can use this in place of airports (which will in turn help reduce trade payoffs, extending the tech tree) to move units quickly from one area to another. Since these units MUST land in either a city or airfield to be reused, this will make airfields a much, much more strategic tile (especially if the cargo plane is very costly).

 

[JPetroski]

I’ve been drafting up some more ideas, and think I’ve hammered down a pretty solid unit list. Granted, the USA and USSR have the vast majority of forces, but again, these are intended to trickle down to other nations depending on allegiances (or spy networks)! With ToT, I can safely have some techs allowed for stealing while protecting others, and I do think a Cold War scenario needs an active spy network in it, so hopefully units will exchange hands frequently. The USSR and Socialist states will never get to use Western Units or vice versa, but China, India, and Brazil are free to choose their allegiances as they wish.

I ultimately decided to cut out most of Western Europe’s indigenous forces in favor of representing Israel, as that tiny nation had a disproportionately large effect on the world in the latter half of last century.

The USA and USSR each have 13 unique units: 7 aircraft, 5 tanks, and 1 “extra” unit. The USA gets the Nimitz Class Carrier (the only NP carrier available in the game), while the Soviets get the Mi-24 Hind helicopter.

Anyway, here’s the tentative unit list:

Spoiler :

USA
F-80
F-86
F-104
F-4
F-15
F-16
F-18
M-26
M-48
M-60A1
M-60A3
M1A1
Nimitz Class NP Carrier
(shares Cap. Infantry with capitalists nation)

USSR
MiG-15
MiG-19
MiG-21
Su-17
Su-24
Su-27
MiG-29
T-34/85
T-55
T-64
T-72
T-80
Mi-24 Hind
(shares Soc. Infantry with socialist nations)

CHINA
J-8 (fighter)
Type 69
Type 80
Type 85
Chinese Infantry

INDIA
HAL HF-24 Marut
Vijayanta
Indian Infantry

BRAZIL
AMX A-1
EE-T1 Osório
Brazilian Infantry

CAPITALIST & SOCIALIST BLOCKS
Guerillas (events S. America)
Revolutionaries (events Africa)
Fundamentalists (events Asia)
Arab Troops
RPG Troops
Handheld SAM
(Cap. Infantry)
(Soc. Infantry)
Israeli Troops
Mirage III
Merkava

NON-ALIGNED ONLY
Terrorists

ALL
Destroyer
Cruiser
Carrier
Submarine
NP Submarine
Freighter
Govt. Forces (basically a garrison unit)
Marines
Cargo Plane (only unit that can paradrop)
Airborne Inf. (helicopter)
Partisans
Special Forces
SP Howitzer
Mobile SAM
SAM
Helicopter Gunship
W. Freight
A. Freight (India and China have access to this).
Long Range Heavy Bomber
Jet Bomber
Prop. Fighter
Nuclear Bomber
MRBM
ICBM
Stealth Bomber
Spy
Cruise Missile
Laborers
Engineers
Cruise Missile
Recon Aircraft

I would not by any means blame someone for looking at that list, noticing the scarcity of indigenous Chinese, Indian, and Brazilian units, and believing that those nations stand no chance. This would not, however, be true.

China and India will have access to a special “Asian Tech Tree” that holds tremendous economic assets. Whereas all other nations will be limited to the caravan, they alone will get freight. Further, they will be the only nations with a chance to build SETI, Pyramids, and the Hoover Dam (arguably three of the most powerful wonders). This will give China and India a major boost in the mid-game, and will provide an interesting little mini-arms race in Asia. It may very well skyrocket one or both of these nations past the USA and USSR if the superpowers aren’t careful.

Brazil too will have a powerful advantage. Government switching will be allowed for Brazil, China, and India (the USA, USSR and satellites are forbidden from switching), but Brazil alone will get to switch immediately and as often as they like via the Statue of Liberty wonder, and will have exclusive access to democracy. I justify this because Brazil (South America at large, really) has had a tumultuous political history with many changing governments wildly swinging from one position to another. It’s not too much of a stretch for them to often switch in-game.

Brazil will also have access to the United Nations wonder (allowing them leeway when fighting wars in democracy), and will alone have a chance to get a major happiness wonder (depending on how they do via flags).

The Super Powers will also have their special wonders, with the United States taking Lighthouse, Magellan’s Expedition, and Colossus, and the Soviets taking Sun Tzu’s, Marco Polo, and King Richard’s Crusade.

The U.S. will get exclusive access to Cure for Cancer (Truman Doctrine) and Women’s Suffrage (Eisenhower Doctrine), whereas the Soviets will get a few doctrines of their own (undecided yet).

The idea is to very much make this a nation-building scenario where it is completely uncertain who will emerge victorious. I’m looking forward to building it and playing it

 

[Fairline]

Sounds like a great scenario idea John. I would add a couple of Brit and French items to your unit list, as the were of major significance in the Arab-Israeli conflicts: the Centurion tank and the Mirage

Edit: just noticed you already had the Mirage!

 

[JPetroski]

Sounds like a great scenario idea John. I would add a couple of Brit and French items to your unit list, as the were of major significance in the Arab-Israeli conflicts: the Centurion tank and the Mirage

Edit: just noticed you already had the Mirage!

I'm starting to feel like I've committed some great sin against Britain for leaving her out of so much I create, but there's just so little space in Civ2, always so little space!

I suppose I could substitute the Centurion for the Merkava though...

By the way, I've sent you an email when you get the chance to look

 

[Fairline]

I wouldn't worry about little-Englander's like me demanding their favourite British noddy-tanks in your scenarios John! I think the exception should be the Centurion, though, as this had a big impact in terms of Israeli tank superiority in '67 and '73. I would agree that swapping it with the Merkava is a good plan. Checking e-mail now.

 

[JPetroski]

I wouldn't worry about little-Englander's like me demanding their favourite British noddy-tanks in your scenarios John! I think the exception should be the Centurion, though, as this had a big impact in terms of Israeli tank superiority in '67 and '73. I would agree that swapping it with the Merkava is a good plan. Checking e-mail now.

Well, the goal is to try and create some semblance of how things were, so swapping out a Merkava (that would of course be house-ruled to one city) in place of a Centurion that can also defend Europe sounds like a plan.

I just felt the need to at least have one Israeli unit because of the tremendous impact they have had on the world.

Looking at the unit list, I could probably stand to get rid of a few "superfluous" units. There is very little need, after all, to have both the Su-27 and the MiG-29. Likewise, I could probably get away with taking out the F/A-18, especially if I renamed the F-15 the F-15E. That would leave two extra slots, although I'm at a loss for how to use them.

Ideally, I could give at least one to China and India, but I'm not sure where to go with that. The major problem is that up until the 1980s, it seems that most of China's military was more or less a copy of Soviet arms, and the arms deals of this scenario would represent that fine.

 

[Fairline]

I'd keep both the Su-27 and MiG-29; Su-29 = F-15, Mig-29 = F-16, more or less.

China and India are tricky. As you say, up until the last 20 years or so Chinese kit was copied from Russia. India's MBT, the Arjun was a disaster and they use T-90's instead.

 

[JPetroski]

Well, I went out and picked up a few books that should be helpful, so I think I will take a few weeks to read them to figure out if I'm on the right track.

I've also put in a line at Apolyton trying to see if there is any possibility of getting multi-map support for the civcity utility. MP games (at least those other than all-out war) greatly benefit from this program, and I want The Cold War to support it.

Still, if it were possible, I would love to have an underwater map to accompany the main one. The cat and mouse game of nuclear subs is, to me, an extremely exciting and intriguing match. I'd defintely find the room for an expanded sub game (as it is - I think I'm going to have subs start in the scenario in the 1950s or so when nuclear subs are developed. There's really little point in having the diesel WW2 versions in the scenario - the danger developed later).

 

[McMonkey]

Have only been able to have a very brief skim through this thread so far but it sounds like a real winner. Regarding the food situation, try taking a look at John Ellis' Seize the Crown. He has some very ingenious ideas for the development of land.

 

[CurtSibling]

This sounds like a it could be a good one, keep the momentum!

 

[JPetroski]

Thanks guys

I think this one has a decent chance of seeing the light of day. I'm tinkering a bit with the tech tree right now. I want to have certain units be available for licensing (or espionage!) rather than just pure export, so each tier has to look something like this:


M60A1<-----------------Tank Advance 2 ----------------->T-64
......................................................^
......................................................|
......................................................|
......................................................|

M-48<-----------------Tank Advance 1 ----------------->T-55


Wherein everything underlined is an advance. I'm not saying it would be this simple (the tank advances could have another prereq. from industry or science branches), but this is the basic idea.

I do think some units (the higher-end ones most likely) would be export-ONLY (and their technologies theft-proof).

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this project and am looking forward to playing it myself. I'll be borrowing heavily from Eivind's First Strike which should make progress go quicker.

Right now though, priority #1 is Over the Reich

 

[antostor]

Great idea and exactly what I was looking for.

I have to say I'm surprised with the choice of the Civs, though.

If I were you, I'd substitute one of the third world civs (India or Brazil got really important post 1990 only) with "Colonial Powers". Why?

In 1947, England, France, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium still controlled most of the globe. Colonial struggle was of major importance to the first stage of the Cold War, and tied up lots of resources of the mother countries. They could be separated from the actual Warsaw Pact by US presence in Germany and Italy.

They'd be locked in a war with minor communists for as long as they still control any colony and have to deal with steady influx of partisans and guerrillieros all across Africa and South Asia. Their units would be good, but much more expensive than minor commie units, so they'd have to build most of them in Europe and transport them to the colonies. The units would be rather defensive, so that retaking colonies would be harder than keeping them.

Their Euro power base would be strong, but weaker than US which would also control Germany, Europe's industrial powerhouse.

Playing the colonials would have the player lead multiple desperate struggles all across the world, trying to hold crumbling, doomed empires together. Dunno if you like the idea, but it sounds like fun to me.

Capitalists, which would gain their own rebels in some regions once colonials are out, would be better to trade with than colonials, so the US wouldn't really have all that large incentives to keep the Empires alive.

 

[JPetroski]

Well, while I do like your idea (quite a lot actually), the issue I see with it is this:

In Civ2, but especially a multiplayer game (which this will be designed as), trade is vitally important. Eivind realized this, so in his First Strike, he designed a scenario around the USSR and USA both trying to acquire as many trading partners as possible (the pro-west and pro-east civs). While I really liked that idea, his time frame, IMO, began after much had already been decided. My goal in this scenario is to leave much up in the air.

As such, the "colonial civ" you mention, is essentially ruled by Barbarians (made friendly to all via designer tricks and utility programs). The Capitalists and Communists will each fight proxy wars trying to take each "colonial" country. So indeed, the Europeans (Capitalist) player can and should send their units to their colonies to try and keep them capitalist, while the Communists will try and turn them Communist.

So I basically have what you're asking for, but the way I'm going about it leaves most of the globe up in the air as to who can trade with whom (a house rule will prohibit trade between USA/capitalists and USSR/communists.