Cold War PBEM - tracker thread

[Shogun Gunner]

Thanks Modo. I'm going to make it happen tonight. I do think this has the potential to be the best PBEM scenario I've played -- I the time period.

[Shogun Gunner]

Okay...whew. Turn 1 done.

March 1961 save to Mickeyj of the Indian Union

[Mickeyj]

This looks like it could be pretty awesome, glad i've only got a minor role - moonbars must take ages to play his turn.

May 1961 to moonbars.

[Mickeyj]

Aah and of course thanks Modo

[Shogun Gunner]

I forgot to post a few questions/issues that I was pondering last night.

Submarine bug

I think we all have submarines prowling around -- especially NATO and Warsaw Pact. When playing civ3, your battleships and cruisers can't see the opposing players subs and if you move onto the same tile as an opposing player's sub (even your allies), this becomes an automatic declaration of war. For the life of me, I don't understand why Firaxis never fixed this -- it really hurts modern naval strategy.

The net effect to my playing strategy is to not rely on submarines in peacetime as it could create a nasty little diplomatic situation that I'm not ready for. Giving up the subs hidden scouting ability is a real shame.

In some ways this makes sense historically per the Red October and other submarine incidents between NATO and Soviet Union... even the Kursk comes to mind as a recent example. However, I thought now would be the appropriate time to bring this issue up before it happens. Will open warfare just be a risk to utilizing your sub force in peacetime?

Think about the consequences -- trade and diplomatic deals get immediately cancelled. The AI could get drawn in to these situations as well --- and they are far less reasonable Any thoughts?

[Shogun Gunner]

Settlers and Razing

In your opening thread, Modo, you mentioned that there would be a fight for resources. I assume you intended to disable settlers and the "fight for resources" would be colonies. That's actually a nice touch.

However, another issue we should discuss now, and not later, is the policy of razing cities. This has been a sore point in other PBEMs I have been involved with. Some people are very against allowing the razing of cities since the ability to resettle does not exist.

I have no firm opinion on this, and will play either way the group wishes, but I think it's important that we all agree now about this policy.

[Shogun Gunner]

Battle Reports

This may not really require a seperate post, but let's try to put short, but useful battle reports in the thread. With so many units and cities for everyone -- the amount of data is more than the typical PBEM.

I think just a short blurb per battle works. For example,

At City A,
Tank attacks Infantry, kills infantry, 1 HP loss for tank
Tank attacks Infantry, tank destroyed, 2 HP loss for infantry

I mean if folks want to do more...then that much better. I realize this could extend the game a bit as people really need to carve out time to play their turns, however, it will be more fun if we keep each other informed to the battles since there's no mechanism in Civ3 to review past action. It's a real shortcoming of Civ3 PBEM functionality...I hope it's fixed in cIV.

[Modo44]

Well, better bring it up now, than later.


Subs
Well, I have hidden mine under other ships for now - just in case. I would agree to peace after any sinlge incident, treating it as a small crisis - things that were happening all the time. Of course for me fighting a phony war is not an issue, so in any case it would be the democratic coutries that suffer (WW). If these incidents get reported ASAP, then we can deal with them while still having some useful scouting data.


Razing settlements
Not metros, nor cities - only towns. Fact is, nothing (short of a Nuke) can effectively obliterate a modern metro, or a city. I would allow razing towns, as those can be torn down with conventional means. Remember, that 2-3 Nukes can bring down most metros to town status...


Battle reports
That detailed battle reports might get too tedious when applied to large land battles. Plus, the info is a bit too good, even for a modern battlefield. Remember, that if you do a battle, it all happens quickly and often simultaneously. How about something like this:

Attack [city name]. 3 Bombers: 1 shot down, 1 miss, 2 HP taken. 5 Artillery: 1 miss, 6 HP taken. 10 Tanks: 1 lost, 6 retreated, 3 won. [enemy name] losses: 2 Infantry, 1 Tank, 2 Artillery (captured). [city name] captured.

Obviously you can give a location instead of a city name, and you only say it was captured if that really happened. Basically, no info on HP losses or promotions of the attacker is given, as that kind of knowledge is hard to get on the battlefield (until Satellites, at least). Note that we might leave out the info on how many arties fired and bomber runs were done. If they miss the target (which means it was a long distance off, considering the Civ3 scale), the enemy should have a hard time learning about them. So, the even simpler report would look like this:

Attack [city name]. Bombers: 1 shot down, 2 HP taken. Artillery: 6 HP taken. 10 Tanks: 1 lost, 6 retreated, 3 won. [enemy name] losses: 2 Infantry, 1 Tank, 2 Artillery (captured). [city name] captured.

For ship to ship battles, a 1 by 1 report should be ok, except if the battle is really massive.

[Shogun Gunner]

Subs -- agree

Razing -- disagree. No razing a city once you control a city to avoid it's capture. If a city is razed because your conventional army attacked the city, that's a different matter and would be okay (of course). Basically, no purposeful razing.

Battle reports -- agree The simple report seems appropriate.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
Basically, no purposeful razing.

No industrial or modern army ever obliterted a city in a battle. Villages - definately, towns - some, but nothing bigger. The heaviest damage was always due to continuous bombing (artillery or planes - you name it), taking time to make, and even then often leaving a large population and some basic infrastructure. Tell me, how could you raze a city not on purpose?

[Shogun Gunner]

I realize that I didn't think this through when I typed the earlier post -- as all of our cities, towns, etc are already established with culture points and expanded boundaries. This means they won't be "auto-razed" when an enemy captures the city -- even if they are 1 pop point, correct?

What I mean by "no razing" would be - Once a city is captured and under your control, no left mouse click on the city and "Abandon City". (self razing, whatever the term is)

[Modo44]

Yes, all established cities have culture (for all civs, so that borders will expand somewhat when you capture them). They will not auto-raze.

I accept the razing of towns (including abandoning, I think) to make a nuclear war (if it ever happens) even more furious. Many cities could end up as towns then, at least for a while. It will probably mean little to nothing in case of a conventional war, as there are mostly metros around.

[Shogun Gunner]

Well, if we are permitting abandoning of towns, I can live with that. It does make the defense a bit more rigid as an attacker has far more incentive to dissolve a city due to corruption issues, immiment recapture, spite and you can't afford to permit the attacker a foothold on your territory for even one turn.

As stated earlier, if we all know that ahead of time, we can all adjust our strategy to fit. Thanks Modo

[Modo44]

Bringing a place to town status (6 or less population) after capturing it takes long enough to allow a counter-attack, but it can be done quite quickly if you have to (i.e. forced moving of the population). I think this adds some strategy to any conquest, unlike free disbanding of all settlements or no disbanding at all.

As to abandoning far-away cities, I think that is suicide. Dropping the income and the naval/air base is only worth it if the defense cost is too high. All the more strategy.

[Modo44]

EDIT: save to Beta.

The Warsaw Pact wishes to announce two major treaties we have agreed on. We now have a Mutual Protection Pact with China. We now have a Mutual Protection Pact with the Arab League (the AI came to me, and I accepted a straight MPP+ROP).