Vietnam War Deluxe Edition

[unscratchedfoot]

Vietnam War Deluxe Edition


Bring your bug repellent and rain parka...

A heavily upgraded version of Luddi and El Justo's Vietnam War mod. Now has 108 custom units, new graphics, new advisors, new resources, 21 new techs and slightly unique tech charts for communists, monarchs, USA and South Vietnam. Game rules modified in unique ways to ensure efficient gameplay.

Some pictures...

Off the coast you can see heavy cruiser USS Oklahoma City moving up to support the South Vietnamese trying to hold back the communist invasion. US marines have not landed yet so there are only a few groups of advisors so far.

ARVN forces (South Vietnam) have just finished repelling a Viet Cong attack in the Saigon region. MACV commander Westmoreland (the player) is a little moody at times with the stress of the war, political pressure and all.

Again, Westmoreland showing some stress during diplomacy arrangements with Henry Kissinger. Note Cordy's terrain set I used for this photo.

A PAVN PT-76 tank army breaks through the demilitarized zone and overruns ARVN bunkers in its drive on Dong Ha. The Ai has been specially rigged to used armies effectively throughout the war.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

This picture shows the newly built Da Nang airbase which will be overrun by Viet Cong if marines are not ferried in to protect it. To the west of this area is where the historical Ia Drang battle at X-Ray occurred in the beginning of the war (We Were Soldiers book). Unless the Americans fight the same brave battle, central South Vietnam is gonna be cooked.

These are the USA staging bases. You can see the army units preparing to board transports to ship to South Vietnam. Camp S.D. Butler is in Okinawa while Andersen Air Force Base and Apra Harbor are in Guam. These were key offshore support bases during the Vietnam War. In particular is Andersen from where B-52 bombers, dropping 27 tons of ordinance per plane at a per sortie cost of $41,420, continually pounded the North Vietnamese incurring a fantastic loss of life among both soldiers and civilians.

Special note: the excellent ships in this photo were all made by Wyrmshadow and some of the other units were made by ripptide, Balou and Bebro. There is a jet taking off from the USS Kitty Hawk.

Along the bottom of the screen is a graphics glitch. Does anyone know a way to make the bottom tiles along the bottom edge into ocean without using map wrap?

Advisors graphics and messages have been upgraded. You can see some of the initial units in the US bases.

If anyone is interested in betatesting this mod, please leave a note. It won't be ready for testing for awhile yet though.

 

[kulade]

Great! The advisors are awesome! You are a true comedian unscrached!

 

[Dease]

nice screens looks like you added A LOT of new units, oh well time to buy a new hard drive can't wait!!! any idea when you'll be releasing it?

 

[unscratchedfoot]

Thanks kulade and Disease. You noticed your unit in the picture too? I don't know when it will be ready because I still have to do the civilopedia, playtest and tweak it. Do you know how to fix the graphics glitch on the bottom of the screen?

 

[Zeekater]

It is looking extremely good
Little question, any special things you did to make the AI more efficient at using armies?

 

[unscratchedfoot]

It is looking extremely good
Little question, any special things you did to make the AI more efficient at using armies?

Thanks zeekater.
A lot of changes to armies:
-I made armies only take 2 units
-only communist countries can upgrade to 3 size armies with a special small wonder and only they can get the heroic epic benefit also from a new small wonder
-victorious battles create army leaders, not great leaders so the Ai can no longer waste leaders rushing production
-only need 3 cities per army instead of four

 

[Dease]

I'm wondering, since you added 108 new units, are your starting amount of units increased drastically from the original or are they units that arn't able to be built until later?
BTW, what did you decide on for a time/turn frame?

 

[unscratchedfoot]

I'm wondering, since you added 108 new units, are your starting amount of units increased drastically from the original or are they units that arn't able to be built until later?
BTW, what did you decide on for a time/turn frame?

Starting amounts of units is about the same, just different. For example, I deleted out all the cruisers and destroyers from the original and replaced them with appropriate torpedo boats, gunboats and patrol boats. Over half the 108 units cannot be built cause many were no longer being produced during the war like the New Jersey BB, heavy cruisers, T34/85s, Sabres, A-1's, etc. Many more are autoproduced for several reasons like to avoid Ai confusion, small historical numbers, and to avoid exploitation by human players.

Time is now at 2 weeks per turn, though I'd prefer 1 week per turn so it jives with the popup messages.

 

[Goldflash]

Looks Good. I want in for testing. Anyway, I Think the USA Should have a Special Goverment called 'Invasion Force' or something With a LOT of Free Units since we sent MANY troops over there. I would say High War Waryniess but since these are only Military bases... I dunno. Looks nice, though

 

[unscratchedfoot]

Goldilocks, thanks yeah I'll give you a ring when its ready for testing. Good point about the free units. I'm thinking of giving the US maybe 110 or 120 free unit capacity so it will have more resources for teching up. Now it has its own government, Democracy, but maybe I should change it to MACV instead which is what the command was called. USA has high war weariness which is a vital part of this scenario and there is a techline called Morale Management to hold it down. Some improvements will reduce war weariness/increase happiness or even make it worse but give some other benefit as compensation.

I'm adding in this dude (even dudette) as an armed rice paddy worker. Very benign, they will not bother you if you don't bother them. If you clear an area of VC and still feel the need to potshot these folks, they will fire back, but you aren't likely to break into a sweat during the duel.

 

[El Justo]

i'll playtest some if you need it scratchy...i used that dude as a 'Militia' unit in my mod.

 

[LouLong]

Looks nice. I volunteer to playtest when the beta is up.

Not so crazy about big maps but the scenario sure looks attractive.

 

[Dease]

IIRC The map is only 180x50 (smaller than a standard size map )

 

[LouLong]

Maybe but I am pretty sure sea represents less than 50% of the total area (70% usually in random maps).

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Actually, if you want to be accurate on the carries, replace the Nimitz grafix with my Forrestal.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

i'll playtest some if you need it scratchy...i used that dude as a 'Militia' unit in my mod.

I'm using the charlie rifleman as militia. And I gave both of them softer sounding assault rifle discharges from a 3d shooter game to save the player a headache from all the crashing gunfire. And yeah, I'll need playtesters like you to ensure there are no surprise crashes in the uploaded version and challenging gameplay. How do you upload a mod? I PM'ed thunderman but got no response. Maybe he didn't like me addressing him as the "thunderdude" or something.

Loulou, this map is mediocre for size, a bit more intensive than I originally thought, but its a baby mouse compared to all the other mods. I wouldn't wish the monolithic load/turn times of those global maps upon my worst enemy.

Wyrm, I've been thinking of doing that. I found and added the Nimitz before I saw the Forrestal. I like your Nimitz better with the cool fidget and the round the end jet park which was done on the real Forrestal too.

I'm watching We Were Soldiers again to deepen the mood (and fastforwarding through the sappy parts about the wives ). I noticed they used napalm even in 1965, something I will have to amend.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

They used Napalm for the first time in WW2.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

They used Napalm for the first time in WW2.

I know, but those were just petroleum sticks, not the engulfing canister type they used in Vietnam, totally different product.

 

[El Justo]

yes, you have to PM thuderfall to start the process of uploading the file onto cfc.

the 1st thing you need is the cute ftp program which acts as a file transfer program. it can be DL'ed for free from download.com. this is advice straight from thunderfall and luddi. thunderfall will have to give you access to the cfc server so that you can upload the file. sometimes it takes a day or so for thunderfall to respond.