Turning Point 1989 [RELEASED]

[Insert-Name]

I'm still thinking if I release another hotfix or just go straight to 0.2 but if you guys really want I can release it. About the Afghan War I wanted to make the war difficult in a way, since because of the egine it wouldn't be possible to represent proper assymetric warfare and it would be easy to just defeat them, so the idea was to make this a kind of war exhaustion. But I'm thinking of making some kind of Crisis in the Kremlin "motion of no confidence" event perhaps and an already planned dynamic coup system if you fail to balance your dissent.

Well then you're gonna get coupe'd a lot, because 13% dissent for 20k dead is like pitchforks and torches

Now I should have played smarter, but I was playtesting to see how bad it could get and it was terrible, not to mention too high. And again, it also has another problem with the represenation because on my last playthrough, I just stationed my entire air force there, put divisions to hold regions and bombed the Mujahideen back into the stone age. But obviously one would imagine that this would create huge dissent in the upper echelons of the Party and Army.

Honestly I think the most logical opinin (And I'm sorry to suggest this because it's something I can't code for you, so let me know if it's unfair to your time because your hard work is amazing) is that the Mujahideen get random events giving them more units. Its not the best fix but the most satisfactory from a series of poor choices imo.

There is definitely a problem with representing asymmetric warfare, but then again if Vietnam couldn't cause a coup, neither was Afghanistan ever going to. From the perspective of gameplay, it makes no sense, for example, to get that much dissent from it because Soviet industry ground to a halt due to economic issues, not because people were pissed at the war.

If you release a 0.2 I can wait a bit but I really wanted to play. However I'll wait if 0.2 has more leaders, ministers, and my Canadian OOB (sorry I didn't do an .inc file, how does one go about it?)

 

[Kennelly]

Now I should have played smarter, but I was playtesting to see how bad it could get and it was terrible, not to mention too high. And again, it also has another problem with the represenation because on my last playthrough, I just stationed my entire air force there, put divisions to hold regions and bombed the Mujahideen back into the stone age. But obviously one would imagine that this would create huge dissent in the upper echelons of the Party and Army.

Such a disposition of forces (the entire Soviet Air Force!) was impossible not due to internal dissent, but due to the bulk of the Soviet Armed Forces "needed" in Europe and East Asia. A player will ofc move many more (air) divisions to Afghanistan, because he knows NATO+China won't attack. A solution could be to lock most of the Soviet units outside of Afghanistan, so the player will be reduced to those already there or build many more, adding even more strain to the Soviet economy.

 

[Deounce]

Oh no it plays fine if i keep the events file untouched, but when i modify the East Germany.inc under events to allow for the manpower regain it crashes during loading to desktop.

 

[Galbatorix994]

In this mod Ethiopia is depicted as right wing radical,during this time period,if I recall correctly Ethiopia was at least nominally a communist state.

 

[ChrisFox]

In this mod Ethiopia is depicted as right wing radical,during this time period,if I recall correctly Ethiopia was at least nominally a communist state.

Yeah, but this mod is still a WIP it seems, though fun to play so far.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked...nflicts-and-the-fall-of-the-monarchy#toc37710
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Democratic_Republic_of_Ethiopia

There are a lot of missing ministers as well, but I'm sure those will all be sorted out.

 

[alxeu]

Maybe a morale/organization/some penalty to Soviet units? This way the economy isn't destroyed, but the soldiers are shown as demoralized. Furthermore, this penalty will slowly recover afterwards, with another event.

 

[ChrisFox]

Also, just out of curiousity, Why is it the Eastern Block nations are not Satellite states of the Soviet Union as they were in real life, at least up until the policy of letting them go off on their own and try to survive without military intervention from the USSR?

Also both Romania and Bulgaria are missing a random core, forgot the names of the provinces, but they are in the nations.

 

[bhef]

How about an event that forces you out of the war after your dissent reaches a certain level, or after the "troops dead" event chain reaches a certain point? Combined with a morale/organization penalty, and perhaps a buff to the Mujahideen, this could make the war difficult, but not impossible. I mean, Realistically even the most stone cold dictator would have to pull out of a war with such negative popular approval past a certain point.

 

[hansnery]

Well then you're gonna get coupe'd a lot, because 13% dissent for 20k dead is like pitchforks and torches

Now I should have played smarter, but I was playtesting to see how bad it could get and it was terrible, not to mention too high. And again, it also has another problem with the represenation because on my last playthrough, I just stationed my entire air force there, put divisions to hold regions and bombed the Mujahideen back into the stone age. But obviously one would imagine that this would create huge dissent in the upper echelons of the Party and Army.

Honestly I think the most logical opinin (And I'm sorry to suggest this because it's something I can't code for you, so let me know if it's unfair to your time because your hard work is amazing) is that the Mujahideen get random events giving them more units. Its not the best fix but the most satisfactory from a series of poor choices imo.

There is definitely a problem with representing asymmetric warfare, but then again if Vietnam couldn't cause a coup, neither was Afghanistan ever going to. From the perspective of gameplay, it makes no sense, for example, to get that much dissent from it because Soviet industry ground to a halt due to economic issues, not because people were pissed at the war.

If you release a 0.2 I can wait a bit but I really wanted to play. However I'll wait if 0.2 has more leaders, ministers, and my Canadian OOB (sorry I didn't do an .inc file, how does one go about it?)

The US government didn't get couped because of the Vietnam War but they were forced to pull out anyway. Making an event giving more units to the mujahideen was already in my to-do list since the desertions from the communist government there were very high, but I didn't make it because I was focusing on the World in Conflict mode and it seems that nobody plays it.

How about an event that forces you out of the war after your dissent reaches a certain level, or after the "troops dead" event chain reaches a certain point? Combined with a morale/organization penalty, and perhaps a buff to the Mujahideen, this could make the war difficult, but not impossible. I mean, Realistically even the most stone cold dictator would have to pull out of a war with such negative popular approval past a certain point.

That's the idea.

 

[Galbatorix994]

I love the world in conflict mode but I hated the fact that the second I reconciled with the chinese (as the soviets) they declared war on Taiwan in 1988,sparking world war three,I just wanted to do some badass brinksmanship and possibly sparking a war when I was ready,but the AI just forced me into an undesirable war,as I said before I just wanted to stop the collapse of communism with force not be dragged kicking and screaming into a worldwide war.

 

[hansnery]

I love the world in conflict mode but I hated the fact that the second I reconciled with the chinese (as the soviets) they declared war on Taiwan in 1988,sparking world war three,I just wanted to do some badass brinksmanship and possibly sparking a war when I was ready,but the AI just forced me into an undesirable war,as I said before I just wanted to stop the collapse of communism with force not be dragged kicking and screaming into a worldwide war.

The world in conflict mode is meant to spark ww3 but I will see to it so that the chinese be less agressive.

 

[evilcorgi]

This mod has a long way to go, but it is REALLY good for an alpha. I wish more mods would use the E3 map.

 

[Galbatorix994]

During this time period Somalia was also at the very least nominally communist http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Democratic_Republic

 

[Samilou]

These casualty triggers are already in but Insert-Name thinks they are too harsh.


But I mean after what this starts to happen, because you played it until near reunification.

They don't seem to function. It tells the player that casualties are many times higher than they actually have been, no matter if there have been battles or not.

 

[ajeto]

I think they take into account the soviet losses that occured before 1985.

 

[Insert-Name]

Well, while I support the desire to make Afghanistan realistic and difficult, I also think it was something that could be won and the comparison of it to Vietnam is something done in hindsight to a war which was considerably different. But that's for historical discussion.

The gist of my argument is like this:
13% dissent for a few thousand dead is totally unlike what happened. The war did not cripple the nation with protests and anti-government activity - that was much more a combination of nationalist and liberal agitation, plus the fact Gorbachev began appointing many rebellious figures to the media after 1986 (and his head of media Yakovlev who admitted he was trying to sabotage the union also said in his memoirs he deliberately facilitated this). But that means that having huge dissent against the war makes o sense, I would argue nationalist uprisings in say the Baltics would make more sense for causing high levels of dissent. Like I'm playing and 50 000 dead causes my dissent to be in the high 30's... this makes no sense, my friends, how would a country like the USSR cause virtual total civil strife with 40% of the population not co-operating over a backwater conflict only a few hundred thousand people of a country of hundreds of millions were involved in, then turn around and take 10 million+ dead in WWIII without massive backlash? Or even suffere a 100k dead intervening in another war, in the prevention of the breakup of the WP, etc? Like I love the game, hans, but I think the analogy of Afghanistan to Vietnam is incorrect because Vietnam was a media failure by a few years in, by 1968-69 the Soviet war isn't a huge drag on morale until, at earliest, early 1987 (at least not one causing mass dissent). Moreover like I said it's an easier war to fight assuming you just dump divisions and air forces into it, which is actually realistic you can win a conflict with Herculean effort... but that should itself cause mass dissent rather than just taking casualtis. Also it was unfair because I had a glitch in my game where all the outdated Afghan forces were taken as part of the Soviet Army and so their casualties were counted as part of mine re: casualties for dissent. Anybody else have this problem?

Then I just took 5 divisions from central asia, a bunch of aircraft, put them in and it was no longer an issue.

 

[hansnery]

I think they take into account the soviet losses that occured before 1985.

Yes.

Well, while I support the desire to make Afghanistan realistic and difficult, I also think it was something that could be won and the comparison of it to Vietnam is something done in hindsight to a war which was considerably different. But that's for historical discussion.

The gist of my argument is like this:
13% dissent for a few thousand dead is totally unlike what happened. The war did not cripple the nation with protests and anti-government activity - that was much more a combination of nationalist and liberal agitation, plus the fact Gorbachev began appointing many rebellious figures to the media after 1986 (and his head of media Yakovlev who admitted he was trying to sabotage the union also said in his memoirs he deliberately facilitated this). But that means that having huge dissent against the war makes o sense, I would argue nationalist uprisings in say the Baltics would make more sense for causing high levels of dissent. Like I'm playing and 50 000 dead causes my dissent to be in the high 30's... this makes no sense, my friends, how would a country like the USSR cause virtual total civil strife with 40% of the population not co-operating over a backwater conflict only a few hundred thousand people of a country of hundreds of millions were involved in, then turn around and take 10 million+ dead in WWIII without massive backlash? Or even suffere a 100k dead intervening in another war, in the prevention of the breakup of the WP, etc? Like I love the game, hans, but I think the analogy of Afghanistan to Vietnam is incorrect because Vietnam was a media failure by a few years in, by 1968-69 the Soviet war isn't a huge drag on morale until, at earliest, early 1987 (at least not one causing mass dissent). Moreover like I said it's an easier war to fight assuming you just dump divisions and air forces into it, which is actually realistic you can win a conflict with Herculean effort... but that should itself cause mass dissent rather than just taking casualtis. Also it was unfair because I had a glitch in my game where all the outdated Afghan forces were taken as part of the Soviet Army and so their casualties were counted as part of mine re: casualties for dissent. Anybody else have this problem?

Then I just took 5 divisions from central asia, a bunch of aircraft, put them in and it was no longer an issue.

I have already reduced the dissent from losses for the next version. Also, now you will have less dissent but the more you lose, the more mujahideen shows up for the jihad. I have also added an event to represent the Afghan desertions to the Mujahideen side. I wonder how could we make so that the player don't take all european armies and send to Afghanistan, like, if the Soviets could have won then why they didn't? What stopped them from pouring more troops there?

 

[NikephorosSonar]

Probably the same thing that kept US forces focused on Europe during all the years of the conflict in Southeast Asia. Keeping forces to help out your allies in the main theater oa war with your worst enemy. That, and going into total war mode threatens to expand the conflict into a general war.

If the Soviets mass too much, all of a sudden it looks like preparations for a war that goes beyond Afghanistan.

Anyways it's the same problem as in the MDS mod with the US in Iraq. No rebellions are strong enough to defeat the conventional forces the AI will send into theater.

As it was, the insurgency in Iraq killed and wounded plenty of US troops, but at no point were any large American formations looking like they would disintegrate. I'm sure it was the same thing during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Costly enough to make figures in the government question whether the gains were worth the effort, but not enough to ruin a significant portion of the army's power.

Semi-relevant discussion under the spoiler:

Spoiler

One of the problems with dissent is that I'm not sure what it represents in game other than being a pain in the butt. If it represents disagreement with the government's actions, then it should always be far higher than it is in-game and with less effect. George W Bush's approval rating reached the the low 20s, but the country didn't revolt and stop going to work in the factories. If it represents a proportion of the population/workforce that is doing just that, then most things shouldn't raise it too much regardless of country.

 

[Insert-Name]

Yes.



I have already reduced the dissent from losses for the next version. Also, now you will have less dissent but the more you lose, the more mujahideen shows up for the jihad. I have also added an event to represent the Afghan desertions to the Mujahideen side. I wonder how could we make so that the player don't take all european armies and send to Afghanistan, like, if the Soviets could have won then why they didn't? What stopped them from pouring more troops there?

Perfect, I think this makes perfect sense

Nikephoros also outlined the problems extremely well. I wouldn't be surprised if this issue was a large contributing factor to the discontinuation of EvW, either. The defeat of conventional forces by insurgents is extremely difficult to portray.

Why do countries lose historically? Basically, the war takes on a logic of its own and gets caught in the same spiral of stagnation: training an incompetent local force, trying to fix a broken country where few want you, dealing with general upset and home, and coping with low levels of morale in the armed forces who, by the way, go in rotations meaning that their commanders can always say: "Well, we sh*t the bed on this one, next roto will be better." Add for the Soviets that it's a conscript army using personal kit more accustomed to 1945 than 1985 and that the country is in the middle of a crisis, which isn't helped by the frankly schizophrenic and often self-contradicting rule of Gorbachev. Maybe it would have been better under a different leader, we'll never know, but for the purposes of the mod I think it makes more sense Gorby screws up the effort more than a more committed moderate may have.

 

[NikephorosSonar]

The problem is that for all the improvements the Darkest Hour team made, we just don't have the tools we need to represent such conflicts better. This game is about total war, and while we have work-arounds like events or decisions, those don't really do the job either. It's not an enviable task trying to make it better and I don't even know where to start.

I'll have to download this and see if I have any idea.