The Third World War 1989

[AnthonyBoscia]

I like where your head's at cause I was thinking something similar. The Caribbean is going to get some love, for sure. I just want to watch out for issues with invisible units and hidden nationalities because of how irrationally wrathful the computer gets in hunting them down.

I'm back at this and will be running through as many of the nations as possible. There's a long running list in the works of corrections and changes, but the biggest change is going to be a dramatic improvement in performance. This means things are going to get slashed. My main goal is to stop crashing altogether. Turn times are a different story. For you modders that might be reading but haven't played this, increased artillery bombardment and aircraft bombing seriously increase turn times. So we gotta be careful what we wish for.

 

[kadavrali]

thank u for great scenario but download link is not working where can i download main files?

 

[Arexander]

The link worked for me.

Spoiler :

At the top of the first post, also about halfway through.


Leads to here, there's a gray button on the right side, which opens the following.

E: I just realised, the main files and the .biq are both in a .zip file called 1989.zip. Make sure you rename one of them so they don't get overwritten while downloading the other.

 

[Civinator]

thank u for great scenario but download link is not working where can i download main files?

kadavrali, the problem comes from the security settings in your browser. I have the same problem with chrome and http and https links. In the security settings of some browsers the old http links are blocked, as they are no https links. In other browser settings http links are automatically transformed to https links and civers with these settings don´t watch the problems that other civers like you and me have.

So when you click on the download button to download this scenario nothing happens. If you click on the download button and activate "Link save under" (I don´t know if this is the correct translation of that microsoft option, in German it is "Link speichern unter" as shown in the following screenshot) and than try to open that save, you will receive a warning, that the download is not secure (what in this case is a nonsense, as the only problem is, that the download link is an old http link and not a https link - but this let your browser block the download). If you open the download save and ignore the warning (resulting from an old http link instead of a https link) the file still can be downloaded.

Tony could correct this problem by simply changing the download link from http to https by adding an s to http.

 

[kadavrali]

kadavrali, the problem comes from the security settings in your browser. I have the same problem with chrome and http and https links. In the security settings of some browsers the old http links are blocked, as they are no https links. In other browser settings http links are automatically transformed to https links and civers with these settings don´t watch the problems that other civers like you and me have.

So when you click on the download button to download this scenario nothing happens. If you click on the download button and activate "Link save under" (I don´t know if this is the correct translation of that microsoft option, in German it is "Link speichern unter" as shown in the following screenshot) and than try to open that save, you will receive a warning, that the download is not secure (what in this case is a nonsense, as the only problem is, that the download link is an old http link and not a https link - but this let your browser block the download). If you open the download save and ignore the warning (resulting from an old http link instead of a https link) the file still can be downloaded.

Tony could correct this problem by simply changing the download link from http to https by adding an s to http.

View attachment 608176


View attachment 608177

You are right civinator, i changed it and downloaded thank u

 

[vmxa]

I started to read the thread, but after 8 pages...

So my question is as France do they ever get any units other than infantry? I researched the second tier armor and I do not have any of those units in my build queue. Is this due to lack of oil or are none of the NATO armor allowed to France? Thanks. It is a tough position with no replacement for any lost unit, other than troops and some arty. You mostly play defense as one tile movement is a killer.

BTW is an impressive mod and I have played many of the really large ones.

 

[Lionic]

France could definitely build tanks, aircraft and mech infantry later in the game. NATO countries have tech trees in three different eras. One era is for military units and another one contains technologies that allow to trade with the Middle East and purchase Oil there.

 

[vmxa]

Doubt that the war last to the last age of techs. We will win or lose, prior to that I suspect. The soviets have already attacked two of my towns. I have one leader and formed a 4 move army and a few surviving tanks.

Trying to kill off some of their 1hp red army units. I cannot have any units outside of a town at end of turn.

I have Full Mobilization, Reserve Activation and Armor Retraining. So getting all the way trades, going to be a long time. No lethal bombing is hurting the effort as the Soviets retreat lots of units every turn.

The allies have pretty much shot down all the Soviet planes. France (me) has not done much. Two towns and only held one so far. It has my last tank units, so they only attacked it once.

Just massing ground units to try to go on some sort of offense. My planes are back a ways and can damage units as no Soviet planes seem to be around, a rare missile gets one from time to time.

Just not sure how many Soviet units they will bring each turn, current level we may be able to sustain, will be shaky. If they increase, well...

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Hi, vmxa. Thanks for posting and hope you are enjoying so far. France is in a tough position but is one of my favorites to play since they are so different from how most other countries operate. First off, I would research Merchant Marine right off the bat so you can trade for oil. Egypt, Saudi, Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela all have some once you build the Petroleum agreement small wonder which acts like a normal Civ 3 airport for trade purposes. Then you can start pumping out mech and air units. On turn one, make sure to trade for German, Italian, and British cultural resources to help with happiness. Once you get your Petroleum Agreement, try to get Israeli and Arab resources as soon as possible.

The best strategy for France to start WW3 is pretty much how they started WW2: don't go into Germany. Run like a scalded rabbit and get your high value armored and mechanized units to safety. Send your air forces somewhere safe, like Toulouse or Orange-Caritat AB which is between Lyon and Marseilles. Park them for half a dozen turns and let the AI morons attrit one another until it's safe to come out (which it looks like you did). The AMX-VCI brigades that come with Full Mobilization are great low cost defenders. Sign RoP with Spain and the Italians so they can move through your territory and soak up damage in Germany. Let the Soviets exhaust themselves against your NATO "allies". When you deem it is time to strike, hit them hard and don't disperse your forces. Like Guderian said, hit em with your fist and not your fingers. Generally, I'll use all my artillery to weaken one enemy position; red-line everybody just like in a normal Civ 3 game. Seize the low countries and West Germany from the Soviets and don't give them back to their rightful owners. Anytime you are on the front line facing the Soviets, make sure those cities are very heavily garrisoned. Don't keep your air forces in cities unless you want them to be bombed into obliteration. Just make sure your air bases don't get overrun or hit by Spetsnaz.

Once the Warsaw Pact advance is utterly spent, start moving east. By this time you should be able to assemble new air force squadrons and build SP artillery. Capture Berlin, Warsaw, Vienna, and Borodino. Launch an amphibious invasion of Egypt and take the pyramids. Listen to the laughter of l'empereur echo from Les Invalides.

We really ought to have a Space Race victory for France, although it will have to be entirely new since they are locked into Era 2.

I was working on an update of this during the summer, thanks mostly to Lionic and his excellent feedback. There was more work to do than I originally thought. Then I got sidetracked by working on the other mod. I've learned that my modding is most productive when I get on a roll and just go with it rather than trying to prioritize one mod or the other. But I'll be back to WW3 soon. Usually all it takes are some posts in the thread to get the gears turning again...

Attached is the updated British tech tree for Era 2.

Tony could correct this problem by simply changing the download link from http to https by adding an s to http.

Ach du lieber, it's been so long that I have to relearn how to upload ftp again.

 

[Civinator]

Ach du lieber, it's been so long that I have to relearn how to upload ftp again.

Tony, you don´t need to use ftp. Simply edit the post containing the upload link with a text editor from http to https.

 

[vmxa]

Hi AnthonyBoscia,

That is what I concluded, after I already did some way too early fighting. I did in fact give RoP. I still could not figure out how to build roads to alleviate some of the traffic issues. I finally realized last night that I need to get Merch marines. Seems to stabilize for a few turns as no attacks lately and I am getting more units
to the front to hold towns, I hope.

I am use to starting in a hole and taking time to get going as I played a lot of sid and large maps of AW 31 civs.

 

[vmxa]

What does the inbound/indirect fire msgs mean? I do not see any planes attacking or missiles. No units in the area. I guess the msgs could be displayed over the wrong town, no way for me to know.

 

[Lionic]

It is likely that Soviet SCUD launcher fired at you, but did not do any damage. The game may not show it's firing animation.

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

The scuds have a bombard range of 8. You may want to perform some aircraft recon missions around the forward edge of the battle area. They are usually protected by air defense units and can be tough to eliminate. The chemical-armed Tochka launchers have a shorter range, and they use charm bombard.

 

[vmxa]

OK, thanks. I cannot see any Soviet units, but they are likely just out of view. I use recon to see, if any units are in bombing range. Though I have not tried to determine what they are, only where. Slowly all the non aligned nations have come in against us. Having to kill off the EU neutrals, sigh. Time and materials better used on Soviets.

No idea what has pushed Soviets back as they had surged right to my door, but now are seldom even seen and when they have been it is one or two units. I guess the USA is keeping them busy. Not sure how they can as they should be mostly far away, except for sea and air.

Getting sucked in, have slowed my playing time down on PoE and D2R to a small amount as I have to see what the next turn will bring.

 

[vmxa]

The one hateful thing about civ3 is the endless DOW popups. I finally stop reading them. By the time they ended for that turn, I had forgotten who had done what to whom.

I was going in to see who the US was at war with and just declare on that nation, if I was not at war with it. I gave up on that.

The change I would have like to see in C3C would be to enforce a 10 turn duration, if they make peace. No more of this DOW, peace, DOW, sometimes on the same turn. This would only apply to games with locked alliances.

The packed map makes traffic a hassles. Allies block movement constantly. It would not be so bad, but there many tiles without a road.

I found a bunch of scud launchers, more than I could kill in one turn.

 

[vmxa]

The R-300 or whatever they use to drop scuds on me, is crazy. In one town I captured, they had 4 stacks of units with up to 9 and at least 4, right next to the town on the north. Next tile over from town on the east side of the town was 3 others stacks with launchers.

I cleared the tiles next to the town in two turns and taking out the others I could see even more stack with rockets.

They seem to never miss as every one I saw the take off, hit its target. They seem to take out a structure each hit, but cannot be certain. Only that I have more structures lost, than I saw launches or hits. They also damage units, that is pretty strong.

In the Gulf war they were very ineffective and easily destroyed. The AI rightly, makes them in bunches, possibly they are too cheap and surely too strong. Won't save them, though.

Towns change hands outside of Europe, back and forth. I did not look to see, if they are the same few or not. In my theatre that only happened early. Now, it is just me taking towns. It does look like Italy will get a Czec town soon, yeah team.

It is due to the AI problem of piece meal warfare. They send in ones and twos, I send in 14 or 20 or more. Though one town had 25 units.

This is another place where tight placing hurts. I have several cites in reach and just sent more units to finish the job. Then I have culture borders, so I can send units from other cites to defend. Wider spacing and I could not have even captured the town. (I understand that the spacing had to be this way)

I know the AI knows the disposition of units, but I still liked that they dropped paratroops on my island that had not had it units upgraded. I rectified that right away.

Paratroopers are worthless against a human as they cannot move, till the next turn. Plus the AI only sends a token number. Possibly paratroops are even less effective than invasions for the AI.

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

The Soviets start with 34 Scud brigades. Each should be accompanied by a standard escort of defensive-flagged units. Their bombard strength is 48 with a RoF of 3. I exaggerated their capabilities in order to compensate for the AI's inability to really exploit its artillery units to the maximum. Soviet artillery should be devastating, but of course most of their artillery is relegated to attacking like normal offensive units. Soviet scuds would be more accurate than the export versions that Iraq possessed, but ultimately they were superseded by newer missile types. In the game, these have been neatly separated into R-300 (conventional), OTR-21 (chemical), and OTR-23 (nuclear). In reality, of course, they could all utilize each type of warhead and would be armed for whichever mission they were given.

The problem of the AI sending piecemeal units is why I changed the game from earlier builds where there was more variety in movement points for the unit types. For the Warsaw Pact especially, most motor-rifle division units all have 3 movement so they can try to keep together. But unfortunately they just won't consolidate as efficiently as a player.

I tried different city spacing and cultural border changes in early testing. I thought this way was the best way to simulate how capturing key transportation hubs would give you control of the surrounding network. Also keeping cultural border cuts down on the border gore. And I tried not to make the game too strong for either side. In the current build it leans a little towards NATO. When the next update comes, it should lean back towards the Soviets a little.

I agree with you 100% about paratroopers. Such a disappointment for Civ 3. Since the AI is programmed to drop on undefended strategic resources, I basically placed key resources in spots I wanted the AI to drop on. I think a better use for the player is to capture a key city or airbase, then rebase the paras loaded on a helicopter or transport plane so they can fortify the position.

In the thread a few pages back some of the guys have noted the crazy issues that come with invisible units late in the game. This can cause locked alliances to go nuts when they clash with MPPs. Along with broken partisan units this is the priority to get fixed in the next update.

 

[vmxa]

I expect that invis units can be like the sub bug. Friends run into them and you get a DoW. Flintlock has fixed that in his opus. Not sure, if that will solve it for the invis units you have. I have run into a few, but they were all
bad guys. I ended a my last turn with six in my borders. Going to have to run them down, when I get back, before ending my turn. I am not worried about them, unless they start tearing up roads.

The biq shows civilians and Engineers can road, but I cannot make them do it, so I do not want to lose any that I have.

 

[vmxa]

Text blast incoming, sorry it explains my three issues so far:

USA won't renew oil deal. Can't trade it with Canada, missing the tech. No others available.
So I have to head to Bulgaria. It is not that close. First obstacle is Prague. Portugal and
Spain(?) have still not taken it.

I see why, after killing 15 units, I finally capture it. Now I have to hope USA does not make peace with
the EU crowd as they are in the line of travel and are at war with Nato, why I do not know.

CAII keeps saying I have an enemies in my borders, but I cannot see any. I send a few units around
to see, if they could bump into some. So far no go. I have run into an invis at one town a number of turns ago.

Allies keep ending RoP deals, why? I don't care, in fact I would like the deals stay dead. I do agree, if they ask as they will come through, regardless.

I guess I should not besmirch my allies as Italy finished of Iraq. No idea how much they did and
how much was done by others. I would guess a snipe. Though in WWII Italy had large forces in North Africa.

Arab league and Iran have oil for trade now, but I am afraid one of the allies will DOW and stick me with a worthless trade. Iran and the Arabs are a very popular targets for war decs. I think I will ride it out. I have 8 or less turns to get the tech to trade with Canada.

Italy is doing some work as they took out an EU town. USA finished off Cuba.

I wonder, if we are allowed only one army. I had a leader long ago. If that is the case I need to use it to
fight, till it dies, so I can make a better army. Going to have check the biq. Well I do not see how they are created or supported. IOW do you need 4 towns per? I got the Breakthrough via the normal leader method. Elite victory and out it pops. That was very early. Biq says nothing that I could see.

I had 6 invis in my land. I did some touring around and stumbled on 3. At the start of the next turn it said I had 11. One I saw and killed, it was a plain paratroop. It also said I had 2 foreign units, but I had at least a two dozen. The ai likes to sit on airfields, even when they are not theirs. I hate that as it often means I have to leave my own road and lose movement.

The endless popups about peace and war deals. Another reason I like AW, no deals of any kind. Not many popups.

Sure enough Nato made peace with EU and now I cannot attack them. I knew it. 30 invis, yikes. Found 6 and Spain ran into one, so 23.

Major issues as I see them so far:

I. Lack of oil
it is fine to make them scare, but maybe overboard here. I was able to trade once with USA, but
it ended. They would not trade further. The rest are overseas.

Later I got the overseas tech, but by then I had captured Berlin. Now no one would trade, unless I gave
them that resource. I am not inclined to that. I will get oil when I get to Sofia. Canada has 6 spare oil sources, crazy. My allies, suck.

II. How to get engineers or civilians to build a road?
It has eluded me. I tried a single tile. I tried from here to there. The town to town is worthless, as best I
can tell as they just go over the existing roads.

III. Stealth units
I finally discovered the French have a unit called a Special Forces member. They can spot invisible units.

Nice, but I cannot build them. Oh, wait they are preplaced. Great, oh wait, you need Nato Preparations.
What is that and how do I get it. Stay tuned, I do not know the answer.

At one point I had 30 invis in country. I found 6 and Spain took out one. Great only 23 wandering around and I cannot see them. If I was up to the task I could try to have units enter every tile, not sure that there are enough units to do that as I now have 38 towns. I do that for a few areas that have airfields, but most of my airfields have foreign units sitting on them, every since I got them.

This seems a bit too much. CCM handles this by having workers be able to spot invis units. This is needed as invis units show up very early in that mod.

I have to content with lots of invis units and lots of scuds and even some spies. My strat is to just keep pushing my borders farther and more towns will be safe from scuds and new towns will suffer, till they are far from the front. Who knows maybe I will figure out how to acquire Nato Prep. As to roads, who needs them, just a little time saver, not critical.

Anyway stellar work, just ignore the little gripes, just an fyi from my perspective.