First Strike PBEM

[ISeeALL]

Originally posted by Eivind IV
For sure Russia will retaliate against NATO cities, and for sure global warming will occur.

This isn't neccessary a war scenario, it's more a struggle to keep the peace.

Then I have midunderstood the whole idea of PBEM game. I guess we play in multiplayer becuase AI challenge is not enough and also to get some good diplomacy into the game, well, in addition to communicating.

Global warming would be fun, also I would like a really intensive, win-with-what you've got game. And after looking thru the rules.txt I found out that there are in fact no good attacking units, and of those which still are there, all are hardly effective with road multiplier of 2 and no railroads. SAMs stop any bomber and make any air assaults useless. The only way to do something is to use Nukes, which can't be stopped, beause SDIs are left out of the game.

I really don't understand what you mean under "struggle to keep peace", if nukes just can't be stopped. If we just agree that we won't have any wars in this scen, ok, I'll build Engineers and start delivering vans. But I don't see why this should be a multiplayer then. I don't want to attack with conventional forces, because I don't have much in Europe and also they won't capture anything, so why should I lose shields? Even with the newly introduced victory points I would all the same attacks with nukes only, because I don't see any other ways in a scen with no SDIs. In case we are going to have way anyways, I decided that losing a turn for nothing (transporting useless handfull of vans? relocating useless armors in remote cities? ordering suicide air raids?) would be just losing the advantage of first nuke strike.

I really must have misunderstood something.


I really don't know what to do in this turn with the limitations you are telling about. Maybe I can just build more nukes to launch the strike on the second turn if this is allowed. Should I do that? But now that Nilat knows the plan, it's kind of unfiar.

So, if anyone wishes to play for American NATO, I am not agaist giving them up to you.

[Eurisko]

Sorry for butting in here, but I thought I'd comment on this as well.

I partly agree with ISeeAll. The problem in this scenario is that the civs fighting the proxy wars are AI controlled. As I said when the first game ended, this makes for a VERY boring game. Sorry, but simply building up until someone finally pushes the red button is hardly exciting at all.

Now with the new victory point system the problem of people being too (unrealistically) eager to blow the world to smithereens may have been fixed, but that takes out the last bit of (however frustrating) excitement from this scenario (although I welcome the new system).

So I will repeat the suggestion I made when the first playtest ended: For the sake of (re)playability, the concept of AIs fighting the proxy wars should be canned, and players should fight them instead. This would make the game MUCH more interesting, as well as decrease the immense amounts of fidgeting with civdip for even the most minor operations.

Quite frankly, I enjoyed academia's Iron Curtain more when I played it, mostly because I could get involved directly without having some retarded AI waste hundreds of my shields to capture some irrelevant city.

Perhaps you could replace the pro-sov/pro-west civs with the arab league and some other civ, or leave them out entirely.

[Eurisko]

And if said adjustments are made, I could probably take the US if a player is needed.

[Nilat]

Hmm.. Denis does have a point when I think about it.. Proxy wars are what happened during the cold war and it captures the atmosphere.. And now that I think about it, in the long term it might not be so interesting as who wants to lose loads of points by attacking me if I am not being provocative at all. I will be confident of safety.. Eivind, you recognised the idea of cold war and how to create it relateively realistically, however, I am not sure if you thought about gameplay and fun too much.

And the Iron Curtain point is true: limited wars fought by yourself made the PBEMs very fun, forgetting realism, and intense.

And ISeeAll, the 'struggle to maintain peace' is what the cold war was. The two factions (USSR and USA) did not want WW3 which would result in the utter destruction of the world. They feared death and destruction, however, they wished to get more power and win the cold war.

Winning the cold war was not to conquer the other nation, but to outlast the other one. Nuclear Weapons were not built for offensive purposes, as you are doing now, they were used to enforce Mutually Assured Destruction. If one side would nuke, they would be nuked too. This, in my opinion, was the struggle for peace: Having an arms race which made your opponent fear you and thus not attack them for self-preservation.

In this PBEM, you have to grow your power and make me feel inferior to you and avoid a full blown war at all costs, as everybody loses in a thermonuclear war.

(This is just a quickly written opinion, if I am wrong about something, I am then.)

[EmuGod]

I know I'm not part of this PBEM, but I have a suggestion for Eivind. Eivind, you should look at trying the old computer game Balance of Power: 1990 Edition Try googling it for information and a link (it's a few hundred kilobytes and is an old game). I can also send it to you over MSN if you like.

The game essentially simulates what you are tyring to do. It's either a SP game as either the USA or USSR or a two player game with one person as the USA and hte other as the USSR. The game has a map of countries, all worth a certain number of prestige and all with certain governments at different levels of stability. The point of the game is to gain prestige by destabilizing enemy supporting states and bolstering friendly states by sending troops, money, signing defence treaties, etc. The game is turn based and the fun part is challenging your opponents moves. For example, as the USA, you can object to the USSR's funding of insurgents in Colombia. If you do so, the USSR can either back off or escalate. The point is to force the opponent to back down on as many issues as possible while averting nuclear war.

The reason I'm suggesting you try out this game is because it might help you out in tweaking this scenario to fit the role you desire.

[academia]

well, i´ve never played this game before in a pbem.. so, i´m still willing to give it a shot.

btw... i read good comments about iron curtain thanx guys!
what do you think of opening a new pbem of that scenario?

[Eurisko]

Originally posted by academia
well, i´ve never played this game before in a pbem.. so, i´m still willing to give it a shot.

btw... i read good comments about iron curtain thanx guys!
what do you think of opening a new pbem of that scenario?

If you do, I would like to play the USA.

Also, where can I download the latest version?

[Eivind IV]

@ISeeALL:
Firs of all I suggest you to play the scenario in SP, and test out various battle situations, to best find out how to wage war. I can asure you that there are plenty of ways to win with conventional weapons. But of course not without accepting some casualties, which no war is without. And I don't like the 1-unit wins it all-units, which is what I've been trying to avoid in all my scenarios.

This is, as Nilat mentioned on the previous page, a recreation of the cold war, with all the tentions that involved. That does not mean declare war on turn 1. PBEMs are usually just as much a recreation of (as near as) real life diplomacy, as it is about improving your nation. Also, your point about not having much forces in Europe, is self explanatory. If fighting in Europe would occur, the bulk of the battle would be fought by Europeans at start, no the few yankee soldiers stationed at various army bases. A NATO war in Europe requires good co-ordination.

And now with the new system I introduced, you can see that this scenario is not a war scenario, and you seem obsessed with nukes, which should be used with care, as both the political and not to mention game effects of it is catastrophic, and with the new point system quite punishable. War can be fun, but war on the first turn is not my idea of fun, and not what this scenario was designed for.

@Eurisko:
Well, then we disagree. I think it was fun sending units to counter the Soviet sponsored guerillas world wide. At least while knowing that the WARPAC civ was dependent on these newly aquired Pro-cities to establish trade routes, and in effect to sponsor their military.

If you have a suggestion on how the humans could fight the proxy wars themselves, I am all ears. If the only one involves canning the current civs for an arab league I'm afraid I won't do that. The Arab league is an unrealistic entity in a cold war context. And the whole idea of proxy wars is to expand markets, so making these cities respectively NATO or WARPAC would make it impossible to establish trade routes with the third world.

@EMU:
Do you have any idea on how to implement that system into this scenario?

@All:
Even though I enjoy Iron Curtain very much myself, the system it uses is not what I want in this scenario. In my opinion the current scenario with the new rules and victory points could work out very well. If everybody could change their mind set to the point system, it could make for an interesting race for points. Everyone fights for points individually, using economic, technology and military means - all the aspects that should decide a PBEM, as it most too often is decided by force - as just proven by ISeeAll. but if this doesn't fit your idea of fun, then I'm very sorry my work was all in vain, as I'm not willing to make the radical changes proposed by Eurisko.

[Eurisko]

Originally posted by Eivind IV
@Eurisko:
Well, then we disagree. I think it was fun sending units to counter the Soviet sponsored guerillas world wide. At least while knowing that the WARPAC civ was dependent on these newly aquired Pro-cities to establish trade routes, and in effect to sponsor their military.

Well, I played the US, and the game was fairly uneventful compared to Iron Curtain, in which I played the US as well.

I will make a short list of pro's and contra's for both scenarios (I'll only compare concepts, though):

Pro:

FS:
Interesting tech race.
Battling pollution together with all other nations.

IC:
Proxy wars.
More minor civs allow for more fine-tuned and facetious diplomacy.

Contra:

FS:
No direct involvement in proxy wars.

IC:
No real tech race.

Summa summarum, although IC has it's shortcomings as well, I enjoyed it more because I was able to actually use the military hardware I built, and because more human-controlled territories mean more diplomacy.

You don't necessarily have to use the slots that would be freed up with 2 less AIs, but direct involvement in proxy wars is very important here, I believe.

[academia]

If you have a suggestion on how the humans could fight the proxy wars themselves, I am all ears. If the only one involves canning the current civs for an arab league I'm afraid I won't do that. The Arab league is an unrealistic entity in a cold war context.

yep. i agree with you in that one... i had lots of doubts with the arab league in my scenario. moreover, i decided that they´d be able to build some soviet and american units too...
but well, it worked fine in the scenario and acted as one more player. that´s why i kept that civ
one more time, i chose playability over realism.

Even though I enjoy Iron Curtain very much myself, the system it uses is not what I want in this scenario. In my opinion the current scenario with the new rules and victory points could work out very well. If everybody could change their mind set to the point system, it could make for an interesting race for points. Everyone fights for points individually, using economic, technology and military means - all the aspects that should decide a PBEM, as it most too often is decided by force - as just proven by ISeeAll. but if this doesn't fit your idea of fun, then I'm very sorry my work was all in vain, as I'm not willing to make the radical changes proposed by Eurisko.

That´s why i want to stay here. This scenario is really different from iron curtain. And i really wanna test that other option!!
please..........i just wanna play

[academia]

Originally posted by Eurisko


If you do, I would like to play the USA.

Also, where can I download the latest version?

awesome

right now, i´m working with both my falklands and iron curtain scenarios. so, give me a few more days and we can start a new pbem

IC:
No real tech race.

i recognize that´s true... mmm... if i open a new thread, trying to get ideas and suggetions for a new version of iron curtain, will you help me with that?

[Eivind IV]

Come with suggestions then on how direct involvement would be possible. Maybe the units could be gifted as I already want it, but instead of the AI doing the fighting, you could open as the Pro's th next turn, and controll the respective guerilla war? But then you would not be alowed to do anything to the civ's production or move units elsewere. You would finish the move of the units you gifted, and you would not hit ctrl-n. I don't know. Personally, I think these are groundless complaints, I found it very exiting and playable as it was - even more so with the new point system.

[ISeeALL]

Eurisko: yeah, please take the US NATO.

Originally posted by Nilat
And ISeeAll, the 'struggle to maintain peace' is what the cold war was. The two factions (USSR and USA) did not want WW3 which would result in the utter destruction of the world. They feared death and destruction, however, they wished to get more power and win the cold war.

Winning the cold war was not to conquer the other nation, but to outlast the other one. Nuclear Weapons were not built for offensive purposes, as you are doing now, they were used to enforce Mutually Assured Destruction. If one side would nuke, they would be nuked too. This, in my opinion, was the struggle for peace: Having an arms race which made your opponent fear you and thus not attack them for self-preservation.

I see your point, and it is grounded. My opinion is a more technical one, because it's based on a model on Nuclear war in game theory.

peoples of USA and USSR don't want any wars, but generals do, and especially Joseph Stalin who wouldn't mind killing a few hundred million after already killing 20 mio of his own citizen in Collectivization and another 20 mio in WWII. That's why it's assumed that only relative power in the world, an no ethics is counted.

Communists want full control of the world, not less (therefore the globe on the Soviet emblem). If one of the side had nuclear weapons first, and in an amount enough to do the first decisive blow, the war would start immediately. However, the soviets stole the technology pretty fast and started producing nukes, too. Quickly both nations reached the amount of nukes enough to destroy the whole world. And at this point no one could launch them, because this wouldn't lead to victory (as I said, amount of casualties and ethics are not counted). The only reason why WW3 didn't start was that USSR was quick enough to assemble a large amount of nukes nearly at the same time as US did. If USSR invented them first, it would launch them for sure. However, I am not sure if USA generals could push a decision to launch the nukes first if USSR had nothing at that time: US is still a democracy, so passing such decision wouldn't be as easy as in USSR.

I suppose that your view of WW3 as stuggle for _peace_ comes from the fact that you at least partly believe that leaders share the needs of their population. In USSR this never was so. I can even say that if J.Stalin were alive till 1970s, he _would_ launch the rockets even if this would mean nuclear winter, billions of casualties etc.

Hovewer in Civ2 nukes are not powerful enough, that's why they can easily be used. If they erased the whole city when hitting and turned the area 2 tiles around into desert/tundra, this would be something like reality. Currently reducing population to half and killing some units is more like a super-bomber, but not a nuke.

[Eurisko]

Originally posted by academia

awesome

right now, i´m working with both my falklands and iron curtain scenarios. so, give me a few more days and we can start a new pbem


i recognize that´s true... mmm... if i open a new thread, trying to get ideas and suggetions for a new version of iron curtain, will you help me with that?

Ok, I'll be waiting for it.

Until then we can of course think of some ways to improve that aspect.

Originally posted by ISeeALL
Eurisko: yeah, please take the US NATO.

Sorry, but as I said, I am only willing to take it if Eivind makes some changes. And if I play the US already in IC, I wouldn't want them in FS anymore.

[Eurisko]

Actually, academia, I think I'd prefer the USSR this time around.

I don't think that I have played a cold war scenario with the bad guys yet.