CONGO! v.1.2


CONTENTS:

The unzipped Vietcong folder should contain the following files:

Vietcong folder:
		Cities
		Events(V)
		Events(V)
		Game
		Icons
		Labels
		Pedia
		People
		Readme
        	Rules
		Terrain1
		Terrain2
		Title(V)
		Vietcong!
		Vietcong.scn
		Vietcong.sav
		Units

Grunts folder:  Events(G)
		Events(G)
		Grunts.scn
		Grunts.sav
	        Grunts!
		Title(G)

Sounds folder:  custom3.wav
		begin.wav
		helic.wav

INSTALATION:

NOTE: You need Civ 2 Fantastic Worlds or Civ2 Gold Edition for this scenario to work properly.

From the main Civ2 sound file, you will need to copy a number of wav files and rename most of them. They are:

	aircombt  is renamed  jetcombt
	cavalry   "  "        medgun
	engnsput  "  "        jetsputr
	infantry  "  "        mchnguns
	swrdfight "  "        mchnguns
	divecrash "  "        jetcrash
	divebomb  "  "        jetbomb
	jetcombt  "  "        aircombt
	jetcrash  "  "        divecrash
	jetsputr  "  "        engnsput
	civdisor  is not renamed
	cathedrl  "  "   "
	drumcn    "  "   "

These wav files, plus the custom3.wav, begin.wav and helic.wav go inside the Sound folder.
Put the Sound folder inside the Vietcong folder. Now move the Vietcong folder
into your scenario directory. Start Civ2 and play. The Grunts folder remains inside the Vietcong folder. It is used to store specific files from the scenario NOT being played. (See below)

NOTE: There are two distinct scenarios. Play Vietcong! if you want to play the North Vietnamese/Vietcong (recommended). Play Grunts! if you want to play the Americans or the South Vietnamese. Before playing Vietcong!, re-label Events(V) and Title(V) as Events and Title. Make sure that Events(G) and Title(G) are NOT so re-labeled, and remain inside the Grunts folder. Reverse the process before you play Grunts! Make sure you have the correct events text to go with the scenario you choose. Move the Scn. file, the Sav. file and the Events Txt. (including the backup) of the scenario you are NOT playing to a separate folder before loading the scenario or saved game that you wish to play. This will prevent the events imbedded within the saved games and scenarios from erasing and replacing the events required for the scenario or game you wish to play. The two events texts are very different and playing with the wrong one will completely unbalance the scenario. In case you mix them up, there is an identifying line at the top of each one.

A NOTE ABOUT GAME TITLES: Vietcong was a term used by the South Vietnamese and Americans for the forces of the National Liberation Front (NLF). The NLF was a coaliton led by communists but was not entirely communist. It fielded large forces of irregular and regular troops recruited in the south. These units consistently outfought the South Vietnamese Army and often held their own against vastly better equipped American troops. As the war progressed, more and more of the fighting was done by regulars of the North Vietnamese Army.

Grunts was the name which American infantrymen gave themselves. Whenever some grand scheme of the brass had to be carried out, it was they who had to jump out of helicopters, wade through rice paddies and risk ambush in the jungle. Most were draftees, many were poor and from minority backgrounds. Stuck in an unjust war, most aquitted themselves as courageous and skilled soldiers.



  
HISTORY: South Vietnam was first created after the defeat of the French by Viet Minh forces in 1954. The peace agreement (the Geneva Accords) created a temporary division of the country along the seventeenth parallel. Vietnam was to be re-united after internationally supervised elections in 1956. Convinced that the communists would win the elections, the US refused to allow them to occur. Instead, they and the French decided to build a separate state in the south and recruited Ngo Dihn Diem as the Premier. Diem failed to gain broad public support however, and opposition multiplied. He was assassinated in a military coup authorized by the Kennedy administration in November 1963. Kennedy himself was assassinated three weeks later in Dallas.

Upon taking office, Lyndon Johnson began expanding the American intervention in Vietnam. The fall of Diem had created more instability and unrest than ever, which the communists were quick to exploit. In August of 1964, the Johnson administration used falsified reports of attacks on US warships by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin to gain public and congressional support to introduce American ground troops and to begin bombing attacks on North Vietnam. During the next three years there was a steady buildup of US forces in South Vietnam and a dramatic increase in bombing of the North. In response, the Soviet Union and China stepped up economic and military aid to the North Vietnamese. The North Vietnamese matched the US troop buildup by introducing North Vietnamese regular troops into the south.

The scenario begins with the Tet Offensive in January 1968.  The American people had been assured that the US was winning the war. Suddenly, during the lunar New Year festival (Tet) Vietcong forces struck in a massive nation-wide assault on the urban centres of South Vietnam. They penetrated Saigon and attacked the US embassy, the Presidential Palace and other government buildings. In dozens of cities they failed, in some cases by narrow margins. But in Hue, South Vietnam's second largest city, they succeeded. 

This was the direct result of the strategy of Hanoi's top General, Vo Nguyen Giap. Beginning in October of 1967, Vietcong forces began a series of diversionary attacks, designed to draw American forces away from the population centres. In particular 2 North Vietnamese divisions attacked the US marine base at Khe Sanh. The Americans, fearing another Dienbienphu (the defeat which had forced the French out of Indochina) concentrated their forces there. When the Vietcong and North Vietnamese struck, Hue was held only by weak South Vietnamese forces, which quickly collapsed. It took 3 weeks of house to house fighting by US marines to retake the city. (this is the subject of Stanley Kubricks film "Full Metal Jacket".) 

The results of the Tet offensive were mixed. Tactically it was an American victory.  The expected popular uprising against the Americans did not occur, much of the Vietcong military organization was destroyed, few objectives were taken and those that were, were quickly retaken. Strategically, it was another matter. The image of American superiority was seriously undermined amoung the Vietnamese and the American people increasingly began to question what their leaders were telling them. More Americans began to oppose the war. Lyndon Johnson was forced to abandon plans to send more troops to Vietnam and he later decided not to seek re-election. Richard Nixon was narrowly elected President on an end-the-war platform. (They didn't call him tricky Dick for nothing!)

Upon taking office, Nixon and Kissinger began a policy of secret diplomacy and military threats against North Vietnam. Nixon ordered large-scale secret bombing of Cambodia during 1969 and 1970. When this policy had no effect on the North Vietnamese, he dusted off Johnson's old policy of 'Vietnamization', expanding the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and supplying it with huge amounts of the latest US weapons. A land reform program and a drive against corruption in the South Vietnamese government had limited success, as did the Phoenix Program, a campaign of assassination of local Vietcong leaders. Despite being one of the most powerful armies in the world on paper, ARVN continued to have serious weaknesses. It had poor morale, a high desertion rate and a corrupt officer corps. It continued to depend heavily on American advisors.
 
The Peoples' Republic of Vietnam (PRV) made use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in eastern Cambodia and Laos to infiltrate troops and supplies and developed a series of bases there. The US was heavily involved in Cambodia after the March 1970 CIA-backed coup that overthrew the neutralist government of Prince Sihanouk. This was followed by an American invasion of Eastern Cambodia in April. This caused the greatest anti-war protests ever, including the shootings at Kent State. It also brought about the rise of the Khmer Rouge, a murderous Cambodian guerilla movement aligned with China. Militarily the offensive was a failure, and the last US troops were withdrawn in June.

Faced with growing opposition to the war both at home and internationally, and trapped by his own promises, Nixon continued to withdraw US ground forces from Vietnam throughout 1971. At the same time he stepped up the air campaign, attacking PRV bases in Cambodia and Laos plus industrial and military targets in the Hanoi-Haiphong area. In February 1971, the US sent two ARVN divisions with heavy American air support to attack North Vietnamese bases in Laos. Gen. Giap counter-attacked with tanks, routing the South Vietnamese and driving them back into South Vietnam. ARVN was still no match for the North Vietnamese Army.

Following this defeat, Kissinger made new proposals at the Paris peace talks. The Americans for the first time dropped their insistence that the North Vietnamese withdraw their troops from the south. Instead they agreed to the withdrawal of US forces in exchange for the release of American POWs. The sticking point was the government of President Thieu, who the North insisted must be removed. Thieu eliminated this possibility when he disqualified his two main opponents in the South Vietnamese presidential elections of 1971.

With negotiations at a standstill and almost all American ground troops withdrawn, the North prepared for an offensive. They hoped to influence, as they had done in 1968, the US elections later that year. Attacking with tanks in March 1972, 120,000 PRV troops achieved surprise and easily broke through the ARVN front. Vietcong forces attacked in the Mekong delta and around Saigon. Faced with the defeat of ARVN, Nixon in May ordered the mining of North Vietnams' harbours and subjected it to the most heaviest bombing of the war so far. By resorting to conventional tactics, the PRV had become more vulnerable to air power and the offensive was eventually stopped.

Badly hurt by American air power and realistic about Nixon's impending re-election, the PRV decided to negotiate. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho reached an agreement, only to have Thieu refuse to accept it. The North Vietnamese, feeling betrayed, refused to re-negotiate the terms of the agreement. Once Nixon was re-elected, he began the most intensive and devastating bombing of the entire war over Christmas of 1972. Faced with hostile congressional action as a result, Nixon was as ready as the PRV to negotiate. An agreement was reached in January 1973 at Paris. Thieu was strong-armed into going along. The US was out of the war.

The next three years saw relative stability of the front lines while the North gained strength and the South gradually weakened. Nixon became paralyzed by the Watergate scandal. Ironically, Watergate was caused by his (illegal) attempts to defeat growing domestic opposition to the war. Thieu continued to attack PRV and Vietcong forces, but his government steadily lost support. ARVN desertions reached new highs. By September of 1974 the US Congress had cut most of the aid for South Vietnam. In March 1975 PRV forces launched the final offensive of the war. The South Vietnamese army collapsed. On May 1, 1975, triumphant Vietcong soldiers took possession of a renamed Ho Chi Minh City. President Thieu and the last Americans escaped in their helicopters. The Vietnam War was over.

The cost: 58,000 Americans were killed, 300,000 wounded. Between 3 and 4 million Vietnamese were killed. The Khmer Rouge killed 1.7 million Cambodians before being overthrown by a Vietnamese invasion in 1978. There was (and is) widespread environmental devastation caused by intensive use of defoliants by the US.

The lessons: 
	1. There are very real limits on military power, especially airpower. (largely forgotten) 
	2. When your government prepares to go to war, it will start lying to you. (completely 	forgotten-must be re-learned each time)


	
DESIGNERS' NOTES: Vietcong! is intended to be played as the North Vietnamese only. If you want to play as the South Vietnamese or Americans use the Grunts! scenario instead. It has not been playtested. 

There are a couple of things that are a bit different from most scenarios. The first is the use of technologies to control events. The Americans are given all of the wonders that speed up the development of technology, so they move from one to another fairly quickly. They follow a specific progression and each tech. corresponds to a distinct phase of the war. They are: Escalation, Vietnamization, Peace with Honor, Troop Withdrawal and Paris Peace Accords. Each has its own effect on the game, which is realized through the events text and Westmoreland's Workshop. In the Grunts! module these techs are given to the Americans on specific turns. This is so the American player can't reduce his science rate to avoid the Troop Withdrawal and Paris Peace Accords technologies.

I used the wonder Westmoreland's Workshop (Leonardo's Workshop) to solve the second problem of the game, American withdrawal. It is easy to handle the build-up of forces just by means of the events text. But you can't use it to eliminate certain types of units if they haven't been lost in combat. So I made American ground units obsolete with the advent of the Troop Withdrawal tech. They are replaced with the refugee unit that has no combat value. Westmoreland's Workshop (Leonardo's Workshop) then automatically replaces all American ground units with refugees. Similarly, the Paris Peace Accords technology causes the replacement of American air and naval units with evacuation helicopters and boat people. It's not perfect, but I think it works.

IMPORTANT! House Rule (House of Representatives-Jeszenka Amendment) -If you play the Americans, you may NOT move any ground units, including helicopters, within 2 squares of a North Vietnamese, Chinese, or Laos-Cambodian city. You may NOT attack the Chinese (including Khmer Rouge units) or the Laos-Cambodians. You may attack and recapture any North Vietnamese held city that was captured by them in South Vietnam or Laos-Cambodia. This rule is necessary because the domestic and international consequences of such actions would be severe and cannot be adequately simulated within the scenario.


The role of the US air force is to wear down the north and prevent them from spending their resources in attacking the south. In playtesting I found that a large air force with powerful aircraft meant blowing the north to smithereens, something that historically the US Air Force was quite unable to do. So the choice was between a small airforce with powerful aircraft or a large airforce with weaker aircraft. For effect, I wanted to simulate a large-scale air offensive against the north, so I chose the latter. That left the problem of huge casualties from attacks on base areas, and sites with SAMs and AA. So I built in large aircraft replacements for the US. Not enough, because the air offensive drops off a bit after the first few turns. In reality most missions should inflict 1 or 2 points of damage on the ground unit and maybe 1 on the air unit, which would then return to base. That's not an option with the Civ2 system in which one unit or the other must be eliminated. So consider all those planes that 'drop like flies', to have merely missed the target and returned to base.

Units that were used exclusively in a bombing role (B-52, F-105 Thunderchief, A-4 Skyhawk, A-6 Intruder, and F-111) are each given a range of 2, except the B-52 whose huge range can only be simulated by a 4-turn range. Of these, the most vulnerable by far was the B-52 whose % casualties over N. Vietnam exceeded the loss rate of US bombers over Germany in WWII. The rest of the aircraft were used in multiple roles. Of these the F-100 Super Sabre, F-104 Starfighter and F-4 Phantom were sometimes used in escort roles. I have presented the Starfighter as an escort, with a 2-turn range and a doubled defense against air units. If you play the Americans, you might want to leave one stacked with any large formation of US bombers over North Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese air defenses consist of AA, SAMs and MiG 17s and MiG 21s. Concentrate on replacing eliminated SAMs and trying to build up some MiG 21s. Use MiG 21s to attack large bomber formations, especially B-52s. Keep your MiG 17s in base, unless some helicopters stray too near.

SOUNDS: The sounds are regular Civ2 sounds except for the "helic" sound which plays at the start of each turn and the Vietnamese music which plays when the scenario begins. 



UNITS:  Most of the units are from Civ2, some with modification. Some of the infantry and SPA units are from Jeff Head's scenarios. The artillery and AA units are from Harlan Thompson's scenarios. The air units, with the exception of the B-52, whose artist I don't know, are my own. The SAM's and huey plus the base and riverine units are also mine.

	 

WONDERS: In this scenario, the wonders aren't really wonders at all, but represent policies and institutions which had a significant effect on the nations that fought in the Vietnam War.
The wonders already built are:

-Agrarian Reform in Hanoi, was the Pyramids
-Gen. Giap's Military Mission, was Sun Tzu's Military Academy
-Deficit Budget in Manila, was Adam Smith's Trading Company
-Nixonomics in Manila, was Colossus
-Aerospace Research in Manila, was Copernicus' Observatory
-Arms Race in Manila, was Isaac Newton's College
-Draft Deferrment in Manila, was Women's Sufferage
-Westmoreland's Workshop in Manila, was Leonardo's Workshop
-Military-Industrial Complex in Manila, was SETI Program

One wonder is under construction by the Americans:

-Great Society Program in Manila, was Cure for Cancer

No other wonders may be built.



OTHER CHANGES AND NOTES:
- Technology from conquest is forbidden.
- Government types cannot be changed.
- This is a Total War scenario, meaning there is no space race.
- There is no pollution in this scenario.

THANKS: to Michael Jeszenka and Dustin Dunn for their help.


COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS:

are welcome. Techumseh: e-mail- brison@home.com