First Strike 2 released!

[Eivind IV]

First Strike 2





In the time after the second world war the victorious allies of the West and the Soviet Union respectively, grew growingly suspicious of each others' world ambitions. This in essence led to a state of 'cold war' between the former allies, resulting in an arms race like never before, involving not only conventional weapons but also nuclear weapons. From this constant state of war readiness, the world became a stage of an ideological battle between capitalism and communism, using means such as economic warfare and trade embargoes, propaganda, xenophobia, espionage and proxy wars. The threat of mutual assured nuclear destruction made sure that no one would dear to deliver the first strike, as both sides had enough nuclear weapons to bomb each other out of existence and to make the entire planet uninhabitable. But as technology became more advanced, granting better accuracy of the delivery systems, the doctrine of first strike was developed, to degrade the enemy's nuclear forces to such an extent that the retaliatory response would involve "acceptable" losses. The possibility of a first strike weakened the peace based on the deterrence theory, and hence increased the tensions of a third world war.

The time is 1975, where the current world tensions is at an ease, but with developing world events, and one of the superpowers in your hands, this may very well change. Will you be able to deliver the First Strike?





Civs

Playable Civs:
1. Warsaw Pact
2. People's Republic of China
3. NATO
4. Brazil
5. India

AI Civs:
6. Pro-Westerners
7. Pro-Soviets
8. Non-Aligned (Barbarians)





What's changed?
A lot has changed, there are new units, new civs, new graphics and a more polished scenario in general to enhance the gameplay. It should work well in SP as well as MP. For MP games there are specific house rules and rules on how to perform proxy wars. For the latter, read rules on SL wiki download site (link below). There are also a well tested and well working Victory Point system for MP games on the same page.





Download:
http://sleague.apolyton.net/index.ph...e=First_Strike

[GhostOfDisco]

Oooh, someone seems to be using my camouflaged French IFV graphic.

Looks good. I see you've combined NATO, as opposed to the splitting it up between US and European NATO. Which gives me all the more resources with which to liberate Eastern Europe! Not so much that Taiwan, S. Korea et al are part of the Pro-Western civ. Means I can't reunify Korea directly. (And where will I stage my invasion of Communist Vietnam?)

I also notice that you've continued with your "solid blue Ocean" trend. I took a different course with my US Civil War 2013 scenario, and as you seem to be apolyton's resident expert on MGE graphics, I was wondering what you'd think about that.

Anyway, looks like a great scenario. I'll download it when I get the chance.

[kobayashi]

looks good. I'll give it a go as soon as I get the opportunity

[curtsibling]

Once I have finished my game of Fred the Great, I will try this too!

[Eivind IV]

Thanks for letting me use the IFV, it's a very nice graphic!

The new merged NATO civ is much reduced in city size, to give room to Indian and Brazilian cities (and some Chinese). I think it's fairly balanced now, considering NATO not only lost a lot of native cities, but also Korea, Japan, Australia and the Philipenes.

To call me the MGE graphics expert is a bit of an overstatement, I'm just a strong advocate of it's graphics . As you may notice, none of the graphics are mine. I do however have an estetical sense, and I have a great collection of the beutiful works done by others, including yourself, that I use for my scenarios. Kudos to them!

Regarding the actual terrain graphic, I've just recently come to the conclusion it's more soothing to look at the solid blue water. It can sometimes get too flashy with the wave ocean graphic that has been the common choice. That beeing said, your ocean looks good, just not quite how I prefer it.

Overall, thanks!

Btw, some bugs were reported and I've released v.2.2 at the wiki site. Also a new chinese unit has been introduced.

Oh, and Curt, a SL news post would be nice!

[Tigey]

Those mountains are gorgeous!

[academia]

great! i´ll obviously give it a try as brazil

you know that i dont like the unification of USA and NATO as civ, but with the lose of Korea, Japan, Australia and the Philipines... it could work. i´ll take a look.


will it really work in SP with nukes and the global warming menace?

[academia]

mmm... 18 cities for brazil? isnt that too much?
why not distribute these new cities all over southamerica? that could encourage brazil to expand itself?

i´m obviously taking about SP mode.

i like the situation of the NATO civ cities... i´m not sure about turkey. four cities there? isnt that too much?

why not one more city in vietnam? create laos? one more city for iran? syria? more cities in africa?
i think you can encourage more proxy-wars if you add more third world cities in the map.
just my thoughts


bah... i cant use brazil in SP mode... well, i cant attack my neighbours.
what´s the point of including a civ like brazil if you cant "use it"? i dont get it

[Eivind IV]

I'm not quite sure how the AI handles pollution in SP, btu I'm guessing bad...only SP playtests can tell. I've only tested the scenario in MP. Fighting pollution's been a major new fun factor for MP at least.

18 cities cities for Brazil, 19 for India, and 24 for China is just peanuts against Nato/WARPAC's 60 so cities. And as you may notice Brazil has a poor infrastructure and their cities produce almost jack sh|t. But it adds a new element of strategy and tactics to the scenario, finally giving South America it's shot to show what they're made of

And playing Brazil/India is a challenge, as you have to build up industry etc while the other focus on arms race, so they both have potential. And civ is not all about conquest, so I think it's justifiable with 18 Brazilian crap cities, to focus on economics and trade.

For a large nation like Turkey, I don't think 4 cities is too much. I've already removed many cities globally mostly (NATO cities mind you), to give room for India/Brazil. I prefer these exotic civs before more third world cities, which there are quite a lot of already.

I hope my answers satisty your concerns regarding Brazilian cities!

[GhostOfDisco]

I'm confused about proxy wars... what if I'm NATO and I want to conquer some of the pro-Soviet places? Isn't there a thing so I can declare war on the pro-Soviets without going to war with WARPAC? I think you said that you had to gift the units to your proxy side and such... why not the other side?

Maybe I'll go and get friendly with Brazil and India ... look out, Moscow, the Death-Dealers of Delhi and the Janeiro Juggernout are coming for you!

[fairline]

Nice one Eivind

[curtsibling]

A news item has been posted on the CIV-groups pages!

http://apolyton.net/civgroups/news.php?s=&civgroupid=55

[Eurisko]

Originally posted by GhostOfDisco
I'm confused about proxy wars... what if I'm NATO and I want to conquer some of the pro-Soviet places? Isn't there a thing so I can declare war on the pro-Soviets without going to war with WARPAC? I think you said that you had to gift the units to your proxy side and such... why not the other side?

Maybe I'll go and get friendly with Brazil and India ... look out, Moscow, the Death-Dealers of Delhi and the Janeiro Juggernout are coming for you!

Well, this scenario, much like most of Eivind's scenarios, has specifically been made for PBEM play.

If you are interested, there's a new First Strike 2 PBEM in the PBEM section, and the NATO still needs a player.

[JCP]

A new good scenario from Eivin IV, I appreciate from his Norvegian Campaign.
(my father was fighting at Namsos in french alpine troops...).

[Eivind IV]

Thanks, JCP!

And salute to your father!