East vs West Developer diary 1 - Cold War At Your Command

Did your parents ever tell you that you would grow up to become a prominent, illustrious leader? Has that not happened yet? Never fear!
The developers of East vs. West would like to welcome you to the Executive Branch!

East vs. West: A Hearts of Iron Game will let you control a nation during the recent past, leading it through the remarkable time of the Cold War. Nuclear weapons, politics, the space race, spies, guerrilla warfare and the delicate art of diplomacy, this is not a game, THIS is personal.
With East vs. West, we are definitely aiming for historical accuracy and the sense that you are immersed in the great dramas of the past, but as always, how you handle this history and the choices you make within the main plots and themes is entirely up to you as a player. History is in your hands - we just supply you the tools, in a wonderful, customizable world. Even if you use those tools to lead the world down the path of the unthinkable, the destruction of humanity. Players can edit large parts of the game content and play their favorite historical moments with up to 32 friends, rivals or even bitter enemies.

Our Cold War connection
BL-Logic has had the privilege of collecting some of the sharpest independent graphics artists, developers and coders from the grand strategy genre to work in cooperation with Paradox Development Studio. The Cold War is a challenge that we really wanted to take on, because it gives us chance to create a game about an era that many players have actually experienced a small part of – and if not, it is surely in their parents’ living memory. The game development team has this special relationship to the Cold War, since many of us can still remember the Iron Curtain and the end of that time. We can remember sitting in front of the TV and watching the Germans climbing over and onto the Berlin wall to destroy it, and how people wept with joy when the country was united again and Soviet domination removed from Eastern Europe. The Cold War era is so close to our time that it's hard not to think "What if ..."
Our world today could be very different if leaders had chosen different paths at critical moments...

Your Game play

The action is really centered on three great stages that transpired simultaneously and that defined the era.
First, we have the overarching story of two superpowers struggling for hegemony; you have the standoff in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the competition for allies and bases around the world and the nuclear threat.
Second, we have the era of decolonization with wars of liberation, Europe surrendering her colonies and how these new nations, like Vietnam or India, were caught in the battle between East and West. Finally, the cauldron of the Middle East, where oil wealth, the birth of Israel and the rise and fall of Pan-Arabism transforms the Cradle of Civilization into a region where international games are played for the highest stakes

All of this will add up to a game that will give you new ways to think about power and prestige, as old patterns give way to new realities. Will you focus on diplomacy and try to get allies through the establishment of good relations and strong trade agreements? Will you try to stay neutral in the conflict between the superpowers or put your faith in the United Nations? As a democratic state, can you see to it that elections are decided in your favor while improving the lot of your people? Are you just hungry for war and content to let the weapons do the talking in order to take what you consider to be yours? How far will you go if you know that one wrong move could lead to World War III? Can you win a nuclear war? Maybe you'll be the first to conquer space and earn the respect of all nations.
As John F. Kennedy put it, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."
And we’ve made sure there are lots of things you can do for your country.



Upcoming Development Diaries
To help you carefully consider all of your options, we will be presenting Developer’s Diaries every month up until the release in Q2 2013.
Thank you for taking interest in this general overview of East vs. West: A Hearts of Iron Game. For the upcoming developer diaries, we will go in-depth about the game features and details. In the next developer diary we will explore the new map. We’re very excited about the game, and we look forward to seeing you on the Paradox Plaza forums. Keep an eye out also for the Developer Introductions and the competitions connected to those.

Duck and cover,

Lennart Berg & Gellert Keresztes
Project leader & Game Designer


For more instructions on what YOU can do please visit this link and talk to your neighbors and friends.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/IKqXu-5jw60

PS.
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[video=youtube;LD4__jlhWo8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD4__jlhWo8[/video]

 

Awesome! The mushroom cloud graphic is particularly satisfying.

 

This is so awesome!!!!!! I want more and more...

And its good to see that you added dynamic tabs, like diplomacy in vic2

 

Use of nuclear weapons on West Berlin seems quite irrational and implausible considering it had no credible defence in RL. It was not intended to be defended (other than on a limited scale for symbolism so that it cannot be turned into a parade for propaganda purposes). I hope there will be no cap on economy points or any other economical indicators, the "nice" round number of 10 economy points on Tokyo just one year after the devastation of WW2 seems worrying, not only in terms of accuracy but also regarding the nature of the economical system in the game. In fact I disagree with the entire concept of abstract and unimmersive indicators such as points where more interesting naming can be applied, ones that are closer to reality. You can use HDI index for general living standards for example - even though it was not invented yet in 1946...

 

Seriously reading this development diary got me all hyped up. More hyped up then I was when I heard of EU4 was in the making. Seeing how we got trade, war and diplomacy its just badame amazing!

keep up the good work paradox specially the developers on East vs West

 

One quick question as I more carefully review the screenshots: what's with the digital clock in the upper left? It's not the in-game time, since there's a different spot in the GUI for that. Can you say?

 

at a guess the doomsday clock (google it, its real)

 

I hope we'll have Democratic HoS and HoG's by launch...

 

Indeed its the doomsday clock like nimrod said.
Its usage is like in real life - how close are we to a situation where no one can back down anymore...

 

I'm very interested in this game - I think it has great potential.

I worry, though, that it may be as impenetrable as HoI3. At least, for me, I found the game to be so difficult to even know where to begin. I can handle the other games, but not HoI. And this looks very, very similar.

CK2 is a good example of Paradox making their new games more accessible - will this game have a similar level of accessibility?

 

I guess that all those values we see in-game are placeholders?

 

probally not , its pretty much a ultimate mod of HOI3, as they have the .exe code for HOI3

 

Looks amazing.

 

It's as much of a mod of Hearts of Iron III as Europa Universalis III, Victoria II and Crusader Kings II are.

 

YES!!
So monthly Developer Diaries and not weekly but I will take what I can get

 

Except CK2 used an upgraded version of the same engine. Haven't you ever heard something about not judging a book by its cover?

PS - this game's looking more epic than ever. I still have no idea how they're going to deal with conflicts like the Vietnam war however - the biggest battles only had a division or so on each side, and most battles (Operation Junction City for example) simply ended with the NVA/VC fading away through US/ARVN lines. I'm not overly crazy with the way nukes have been abstracted away so as to be nothing more than very big bombs, but if making a more true to life simulation would have resulted in the game becoming overly complicated and late then I can see why this happened - but all but the smallest nukes falling on West Berlin should have negative consequences for East Berlin.

 

i can't wait to nuke some americans and commies

 

if this game retains complexity of the awesome HoI3 combat system and on top of that, diplomacy, politics, populations etc. will have deeper mechanics then I think this could be the goddamn friggin' holy grail of grand strategy if you ask me. EvW so far looks like a mature material for hardcore players, begone Crusader Kindergarten 2.

I only hope EvW replaces the parodic quasicyrilic Eastern bloc font with something like this:

 

Looks really nice, keep up the good work.

 

Getting more intrigued. No single focus, less war and more diplomacy and espionage, - excellent, thats natural niche of E.v W.