WIP: The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 1979 -1990

[tanelorn]

Not really. I just replaced the radar with a recce-nose thingy and tried to fix the copkit postiton on the old Foxbat interceptor. This is supposed to be a recon Mig 25RB.
You have painted some very nice camos of it too Erica, IIRC,

[techumseh]

Sounds fun, OM! I like the concept. Perhaps the Soviets might also use spies to win over some of the Afghan cities and units? Any chance it'll be done in Test of Time?

[our_man]

Sounds fun, OM! I like the concept. Perhaps the Soviets might also use spies to win over some of the Afghan cities and units? Any chance it'll be done in Test of Time?

With regard to spies: at the moment I've decided that only the mujahideen will have them. Soviet spies being used against mujahideen camps would create problems; I don't want to give too much away with regard to what I've done for their cities. I'll just say that there was a rather neat trick you used in Prince of Darkness that I'm recycling.

Besides, the entire softly, softly approach wasn't really a feature of Soviet policy in Afghanistan after 1979. No, gunship diplomacy was the diplomatic weapon of choice AFAIK.

I'm hoping that the AI spies (Pakistani ISI agents) will stick just to sabotage mission and poisoning water supplies - if they start stealing technology I'll have to start reconsidering their use.

ToT? You really are the foremost proponent of this platform , but I can't see me making this for ToT. Two reasons: 1) I still use the in-game editors for 75% of scenario creation & 2) I don't know enough about the advanced ToT functions to know how my scenario can benefit (if at all) from them. I'll concentrate on making a MGE version and if I'm not too burned out afterwards I'll consider collaborating with someone more experienced to port an enhanced version over to ToT.

Will these Hinds do?

They look great tanelorn.

[Tigey]

If you are going to use spies in a fragile MGE scenario, there are a couple of things you might want to take account of...

1: You probably know this anyway, but there can only be one "Spy" type unit in the game. You could have a dozen "Diplomat" types, but only ever one Spy.

2: If you fear the accursed AI will try to ruin the scenario by stealing technology (and it will, just out of spite...), you might as well do what you can to limit the possibility. When you've placed every city on the map, a good idea might be to meticulously go through each city, and use a diplo/spy unit to steal a tech from it. It will eliminate the possibility of tech steals by "Diplomats" altogether, and will lessen the chance that "spies" will be successful too...

[our_man]

2: If you fear the accursed AI will try to ruin the scenario by stealing technology (and it will, just out of spite...), you might as well do what you can to limit the possibility. When you've placed every city on the map, a good idea might be to meticulously go through each city, and use a diplo/spy unit to steal a tech from it. It will eliminate the possibility of tech steals by "Diplomats" altogether, and will lessen the chance that "spies" will be successful too...

This is a good idea, and one I'm giving serious thought to implementing. The only thing I need to know is if the AI 'obeys' this rule i.e. just because the human player can't do it, it doesn't mean the AI can't...

[Exile]

You can do that with CivCity.

Just "checkmark" the appropriate box.

[GePap]

Late in the war the Soviets made heavy use of the Su-25, so maybe you should have one of them.

Also, one question- why do the cities in one of the screens have Chinese flags?

Second, maybe the motorized divisions should have a different graphic than a 1940's division? Maybe the BMP1 or their wheeled APC's would be a more time appropriate choice?

[Broken_Erika]

2 su-25's, the original one by fairline, with a few tweaked pixels, and a reskinned one,

[our_man]

Originally posted by GePap
Late in the war the Soviets made heavy use of the Su-25, so maybe you should have one of them.

Also, one question- why do the cities in one of the screens have Chinese flags?

Second, maybe the motorized divisions should have a different graphic than a 1940's division? Maybe the BMP1 or their wheeled APC's would be a more time appropriate choice?

All taken care of.

I already have this stuff in - Request Su-25 requires you to research Request Mi-24 (think of it as the Soviets not deploying the Su-25 until they realize that the Mi-24 is not up to the task.

The Chinese flags are a placeholder until I can design a PDPA flag.

The motorized divisions represent the older Soviet designs, which at this stage were really showing their age. My sources indicate that the BTR-70 and BMP-2 didn't show up in Afghanistan until 1980. BTR-70s start appearing for the USSR after turn 1, but you have to 'Request BMP-2' from military command.

I'll see if I can post the unit graphics tomorrow.

[Broken_Erika]

when did the bmd-2's start appearing,
i'll try to do a desert camo bmd-2, as well as giving desert camo to a number of other units,

[Jimmywax]

Looks cool, wish I had the time to help.

[Broken_Erika]

BTR-50 APC's would be a better choice for the motorized division,

[Broken_Erika]

hmmm, i attached the wrong one

[our_man]

i'll try to do a desert camo bmd-2, as well as giving desert camo to a number of other units

Thanks Erika, I might take you up on that.

Here's the current units.gif in case anyone thinks I'm omitting any important units or that they can improve the graphics. If you want me to clarify what a particular unit is meant to be, ask.

AFAIK BMD-2's were used at the beginning of the invasion. The VDV start off with a few of them in the scenario.

[our_man]

Forgot to attach: