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George @ BattleGoat

BattleGoat Studios
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May 20, 2005
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www.battlegoat.com
  • Hearts of Iron III
  • Supreme Ruler 2020
  • Supreme Ruler: Cold War
  • 500k Club
Supreme Ruler Cold War - Developer's Diary # 1

The Cold War pretty well defined the second half of the 20th century - nearly every action taken by governments around the world was done so against a backdrop of Capitalism versus Communism, NATO versus the Warsaw pact, Americans versus Soviets. The world's Superpowers battled on all fronts - diplomatic, scientific, military, covert, and economic. It was a time with no precedent in history, and the future of the entire world was at stake.

Since the release of our Gold Edition of Supreme Ruler 2020 last year, there has been a lot of speculation from our fan base about what our next title would be, and the Cold War era has been on the top of many wish-lists. So we were particularly pleased to finally be able to announce Supreme Ruler: Cold War, to be published by Paradox Interactive.

Though there have been some games that have tackled the Cold War era, it remains one of the less explored areas of strategy gaming. For many, one of the touchstones of the genre is Chris Crawford's Balance of Power game, first released in 1985. While this is a very "high level" strategic game that focuses primarily on actions/reactions, it does an excellent job in managing to convey the complexities and dangers of the Cold War era. It is certainly one of the inspirations we bring to the development of Supreme Ruler: Cold War.

Yet the Supreme Ruler game engine allows us to go far beyond the basics pioneered in Balance of Power - the detailed economic and military models of the Supreme Ruler series are able to provide much more depth and detail.

We do understand that high levels of detail - and the additional complexity it brings - is not what everyone looks for in a strategy game, and we will have to deal with many conflicting demands for simplicity versus depth from our existing and potential new fans. There are many design elements we'll be talking about over the coming months that will attempt to bridge these gaps, though it is important to state right up front that Supreme Ruler: Cold War is not meant to be just a "flashier" Balance of Power. While we share the same inspirational roots, the Supreme Ruler games have always allowed players to drill down and manage their regions in great detail, and we intend to keep that as an element of our future games. The challenge is to come up with an interface and design that allows players that want to avoid that level of management to play and have fun at as well.

As Supreme Ruler: Cold War is our first historical title, it brings the very exciting new realm of "what if" into the gameplay of Supreme Ruler. History tells us about how the Cold War turned out, but there are so many turning points of events and personalities that the end result was never certain... Supreme Ruler: Cold War will allow players to see if they can change history, improve upon it, or succumb to it.

In the response we've received since the announcement of Supreme Ruler: Cold War we can see that there is a lot of excitement and enthusiasm for a title like this, and we look forward to sharing many more details of this project in the weeks and months to come.

-- George Geczy / BattleGoat Studios
 
Thanks for that.

First things first. Please keep the military part simple. Thousands of units =/= game depth. That was the lesson from SR2020.

Don`t get me wrong. SR2020 was a good game, if one wanted to conquer the world while playing Trinidad & Tobago or turn Burkina Faso into an economic powerhouse. Everything was possible and nothing was difficult (well, except unit management ;)).

For a Cold-War-Scenario I`d like to see a more realistic approach than that of a simple World-Conquest-Game. Please don`t spoil my hope.
 
Would be logical if they placed this forum into the historical games section now that I think of it.
 
Sounds good. Yeah please keep the military side fairly simple, but by all means make politics deep as hell.

Yes!!!!

There's always a trade-off, and I prefer going for complexity in politics / diplomacy (a prestige system is a must! Think the key role of Olimpic games, Nobel prizes or whatever in this time) and, in a medium stage, research and economics. Military issues should be the more abstracted of features IMO.

There're games like Civilization or Victoria that show games whith lots of things to do rather than warfaring, and they're great. That's the approach I'm looking for in a grand-strategy Cold War game like this.

Besides all of those considerations, I think it's great someone daring to do such a thing :) so... go ahead!
 
Just don't put Yugoslavia in Warsaw Pact

Why would they? It would be grossly inacurate, if the game starts in 1950 there shouldn't even be a warsaw pact, it should be an option for the player if he meets certain criteria. NATO and WP shouldn't be locked alliances anyways, I suppose countries have different ideologies and superpowers compete for spheres of influence, but there is nothing granted. The fact that yugo was never a WP member, and was on the non-alligned movement, should make it "slightly pro ussr" at game start, but that of course can change during the game.

As Supreme Ruler: Cold War is our first historical title, it brings the very exciting new realm of "what if" into the gameplay of Supreme Ruler. History tells us about how the Cold War turned out, but there are so many turning points of events and personalities that the end result was never certain... Supreme Ruler: Cold War will allow players to see if they can change history, improve upon it, or succumb to it.

So if the game starts in 1950 anything can happen, from a failed cuban revolution to a succeful hungarian one. Yugoslavia can be in the WP if and when the player manages to do it (or prevent it), but it is not granted that it stays there forever.
 
Don't forget the full quote: "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side... we will bury you!"... though apparently history changed sides in 1991 :)

In Russian "we will bury you!" phrase doesn't mean any threat. This phrase means - "We stay longer then you". But, oh well, American propaganda turns this words into hostile speech of the leader of “Empire of Evil”.
 
Thanks for that.

First things first. Please keep the military part simple. Thousands of units =/= game depth. That was the lesson from SR2020.

Don`t get me wrong. SR2020 was a good game, if one wanted to conquer the world while playing Trinidad & Tobago or turn Burkina Faso into an economic powerhouse. Everything was possible and nothing was difficult (well, except unit management ;)).

For a Cold-War-Scenario I`d like to see a more realistic approach than that of a simple World-Conquest-Game. Please don`t spoil my hope.

I hope total world conquest is utterly impossible in SRCW.

Just don't put Yugoslavia in Warsaw Pact

It could have happened. Shouldn't be easy, but should be possible. Also should be possible for Bulgaria to join Yugoslavia.

is the un going to play a pivotal role in the game?

Hope so, but it shouldn't just be a tool of any one side.
 
I hope total world conquest is utterly impossible in SRCW.



It could have happened. Shouldn't be easy, but should be possible. Also should be possible for Bulgaria to join Yugoslavia.



Hope so, but it shouldn't just be a tool of any one side.

how about the non-alligned nations? that should settle countries like yugoslavia and india.
 
Excellent. I'm starting to get quite excited about this now. If diplomacy & geopolitics in this game has the level of detail that the military did in SR2020 this will be brilliant.

One other request: please make limited wars a possibility. Of course, there should be red lines that if crossed set off WW3, but one should be able to fight wars like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Korea etc without triggering the nuclear holocaust.
 
...One other request: please make limited wars a possibility. Of course, there should be red lines that if crossed set off WW3, but one should be able to fight wars like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Korea etc without triggering the nuclear holocaust.
We are keeping track of this sort of thing, the term we've seen is "proxy wars".