Flashpoint: September 2001 Creation Discussion

[Pap1723]

For some reason, I cannot get the idea of making a modern day scenario out of my head. I've kicked around various ideas in my head and the best one I have come up with is to start in September of 2001 right after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

I talked extensively with Academia about this idea and he came up with the idea of making it completely open ended. It will be designed as a PBEM and as the various countries, you can decide what you want to do, who you want to attack, and who you want to help.

Similar to the way battles are fought in Iron Curtain, battles will be limited to certain countries, areas, or regions.

I am still very uncertain exactly how to create the scenario, so I am putting this here in hope of help from all of you.

Right now these are the countries I am planning on having...

China
-China, Mongolia

Muslim Nations
-Syria, Iran, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, Oman, Pakistan

European Union
-Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxemborg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden

Axis of Evil or Rogue Nations
-Cuba, Iraq, North Korea, city of Grozny, Afganistan, Vietnam

United States
-America, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait

NATO
-Britain, Australia, India, Canada, Mexico

Commonwealth of Independent States or CIS
-Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijin, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldera, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

Let me know what you think about the countries, and if you have any other ideas or things you would like to see.

Thanks

Pap

[GePap]

dp

[GePap]

I really don't know if that method is the best to use:

it does become a 'clash of civs", with the "Axis of Evil" a very strange grouping...

with 8 civs, it is very hard to try to remodel the modern world post 9/11.

The big problem is that the war with Al qaeda is not one that can be easily replicated with civ engines: look at your list, the Rogue states would get squashed in 5 second, and then what? The Islamic states go to war with the EU, or with the Russian block? to what end?

I think this is a situation were ideological groupings might be best, with a map that voids giant blocks as much as possible:

1 Al qaeda: this should be one civ. First, it should have settlers pop up every so often so that even if at one point all the bases are taken, it remains. Also, have spy units pup up regularly, and rename poisoning the water supply to "suicide" bombing. Then there is the issue of them getitng thier hands on nuclear tech-which means, you should allow tech conquest but limit nuke techs to a few states, and make it the goal of Al Qaeada to try to eventually take a city of a nuclear ho;lding civ to get its hand on the "nuclear terrorism" ability.

2. The US: the other counterpol: out to utterly annahilate Al Qaeda.

That leaves 4 blocks to split into cities..

NOw, Iraq should be barbarian, becuase a war with Iraq leads nowhere (ie, no war with Iran or NK just becuase Iraq was attacked), AND also it means that Al Qaeda has the chance to take over the barbarian cities, thus "justifying" the war on that account for the US.

[Pap1723]

The thing is that the player would have to treat all of the countries under their one Civilization as seperate countries. So if the US decides to attack Iraq, technically they are at war with the rest of the Rogue States, but they aren't really as long as they discuss it with the other player.

I'm going to try to figure out a way to show that war that is not supported by other countries will cause big problems for the US for example.

I don't fully understand your idea, can you expand on it at all?

Pap

[GePap]

Well, is your scenerio simply a world in 2002 scenerio, or is it about the war on terror?

If its just the world circa 2002, and only for multiplayer, I guess it is fine..now, if it may be played for 1 plyer, or if it is about the war on terror, I think that Al Qaeda needs to be one civ by itself, but it needs to be as civ without a set base: if you just had a few small terrorist bases here or there, game over..

I mean, honestly, the Player who gets the rogue states, unless they make friends with some powerful gorups, are dead if they get into a war with any player like the Chinese, US, EU or Russia that have the advantage of huge blocks of productive cities. So the power of those blocks would be better reduced, and if each player is supposed to act as if each state figths eacch other independently, then you could space the states out into non-blocks..

As for Al qaeda, the theory is to have a civ that is not very strong, but has the ability to do damage through spy actions and guerrila warfare, and is hard to just finally kill off- also, if they pop up worldwide and take actions vs barbarian cities in east africa and so, it forces players to chase them down worldwide.

[Mercator]

As much as all those different civs are important, we don't exactly have WWIII on our hands yet, so what exactly would be the point of this scenario? Whoever kills the Axis of Evil first wins?

How about letting trade play a big role... That is, let all civs have intricate (very profitable) trade relationships with eachother, but only make freight available by events (or not at all). In fact, the trade routes should be so profitable that the civs might get into trouble financially if they are reduced.

Say, you could have France and Germany have big trade routes with Baghdad. That way, normally, the EU player would oppose anyone from taking Baghdad, because that would (at least temporarily) decrease trade for them (since Baghdad would be reduced in size). I'm not exactly sure how all of this could reliably be implemented, but well, it's an idea...

Aside from this you could make Al Qaeda a civ that's very much intertwined with the Muslim civ. Any attack on an Arab city (some more than others, perhaps) will cause terrorists to appear. Particularly in the "Axis of Evil" countries (I wouldn't really make a separate Axis of Evil civ), but of course also some in the US or wherever... Sabotage success rate shouldn't be too high, though, and any surviving spies would be relocated back to Al Qaeda cities in the ME or so, so there's actually little chance many terrorists find their way far outside the Muslim world.

Edit: and only giving Spies (=terrorists) to an Al Qaeda civ would give them an extra advantage over the others too.

For some Al Qaeda cities you could use "invisible cities", that is, remove the city flag by hexediting. Those cities do exist in any normal sense of the word, but they don't have a city graphic and can not be captured. That could be an idea for "terrorist hide-outs" and gives them a chance to survive against the major powers as GePap mentioned.

[Case]

Re: Flashpoint: September 2001 Creation Discussion

Why seperate the US from Australia and Britain? Both countries have, for all intents and purposes, mirrored the US's foreign policy perfectly since September 2001.

Originally posted by Pap1723
Muslim Nations
-Syria, Iran, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, Oman, Pakistan

The problem with that is that the Muslim world is no less divided then the Christian world. Whatever the views of their populations, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Gulf States have been solidly in tune with US government policy.

-Cuba, Iraq, North Korea, city of Grozny, Afganistan, Vietnam

Why Vietnam? The US has been steadily mending relations with Vietnam. Burma and Sudan are contenders though.

NATO
-Britain, Australia, India, Canada, Mexico

AFAIK, there are almost no similarities between all these countries (and only two out of the five are actually NATO members ). Canada would be best lumped with a European bloc, Mexico would be be neutral or left out, and India should be clearly alligned with the US.

Commonwealth of Independent States or CIS
-Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijin, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldera, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

Georgia and a few of the 'Stans should be alligned with the US, not Russia.

[Pap1723]

You are probably right, should I then include a Neutral Barbarian civ and group more of the countries that do not fit anywhere else there?

Is SEATO still around?

There will be a lot of new neutral coutries.

I like the idea of having Al Qaeda with hidden units, etc...They are going to be grouped with the Rogue Nations just because of the limitations of the engine. They will be getting units via techs, and events...I really like the idea of tying things in with the Muslim Nations. Any attack on a Muslim nation would cause problems to the Al Qaeda and terrorists in general so I like the event popping up there.

I do plan on making trade a big bonus everywhere. Would it be true that if I had a trade connection from say Baghdad to Berlin, if Baghdad was taken over, wouldn't the trade end??

Anyway, after the discussions here, I am going to make Israel a Neutral country and the United States will have troops near them to either take over the city and continue like it is today in real life, or you can leave them be, and leave them on their own, my choice

I think I will leave most of Central and Southern Africa as well as South America as Neutral cities so that whoever wants to, can lead massive invasions, or they can keep it peaceful. I might intersperse Rogue Nations cities throughout both continents and have them as the antagonists. Then it is up to the world Superpowers to either let them continue or to stop them. This can cause possible conflcts between superpowers and if someone gets out of hand, then it could turn into a fun game.

Pap

[Pap1723]

I was kicking around the following idea...

I was thinking of not allowing the Muslim Nations and the Rogue Nations to build any tanks, destroyers, cruisers, or aircraft unless they actually construct them theirselves.

Instead, I was thinking of giving Russia extra outdated T-80 and T-62 MBT's as well as extra older aircraft that they will then have to sell to the other countries.

This way, Russia will rely on the countries also because their main income will be from selling equipment.

China, the US, European Union etc will also be able to sell equipment as France used to do it all the time with Iraq.

I didn't really clearly state what I am thinking here because it is still a new idea forming in my head.
Let me know what you think.

Pap

[POTUS]

I'd make it Russia and CIS, EU, America and allies, China, Western Muslims, Anti-Western Muslims, and India, probably with Neutrals as Barbarians.

[curtsibling]

Don't forget that the US sells plenty of hardware too!

Northrop Grumman being one of the biggest arms exporters on Earth.

For the top news on the current military playing field, check this useful link!

http://www.militaryweek.com/intell.shtml

[Case]

Originally posted by Pap1723
Is SEATO still around?

AFAIK, SEATO collapsed in the 1960s. It was never a coherent alliance anyway - the treaty was very weak, and none of the member states was particularly intrested in helping all the others (for instance, when Australia signed up, our government made it perfectly clear that we wouldn't lift a finger to come to Pakistan's aid if they were attacked by anyone).

[Arthedain]

Make so that the EU can be able to bribe some of the states in Eastern Europe so they can join the EU (So they join of "free will", not by force, like IRL).

[Pap1723]

POTUS, I like the idea of having the different countries like you said...

China
-China, Mongolia

European Union
-Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxemborg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Canada

USA and Allies
-America, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Australia

CIS
-Same as before

Muslim Nations
-Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, Oman, Pakistan

Anti-Western Nations
-Syria, Iran, Libya, Jordan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, North Korea, Cuba

Neutrals
-Israel, India, Mexico, Most of South America, Most of central and southern Africa, pretty much everyone but the listed above

I don't know the type of relationships with all of these countries. Should the following be Muslim or Anti-Western:
Lebanon and Sudan

Pap

[Pap1723]

The temporary units list is supplied below, let me know what needs to be addded or taken out.

Possible Units List

Infantry
Engineers
Chinese Infantry
US Infantry
Airborne Infantry
Fanatics
Arab Infantry
CIS Infantry
Type 69
Type 88
Leopard 2
LeClerc
M-60
M1A2
Challenger 2
Merkava
T-62
T-72
T-80
T-90
J-7
J-8II
J-10
H-5
Eurofighter
Tornado
B1-B
Tiger
F-15
F-22
F-35
B-52
B2
AH-64
MiG-25
MiG-27
MiG-29
Su-37
Su-47
Ka-50
Tu-160
MLRS
ICBM
MRBM
UAV
Republican Guard
PRNC Infantry
Terrorists
Frigate
Guided Missile Destroyer
AEGIS Cruiser
Carrier
SSK
SSN
SSBN
Transport
Freight
Cruise Missile
Spy Satellite
Mech Infantry
Mobile Artillery
Mobile SAM