A good idea which i thought of the other day:

[N35t0r]

It is extremely hard to do, but a WW2 mod with SMAC would be highly realistic, with the artillery and stuff...

of course it would mean serious work, and the fact that you would have infantry armed with 120mm Cannon will make it not-very-realistic, but apart for that it will make a far more realistic scenario than any Civ2 one...

[Ned]

I think this is a very good idea. I the protagonist all have distinctly different ideologies and/or capabilities, which fits well with AC's design.

For example, I perceive the Nazi's as the following:

+2 morale, +2 police, +1 industry, -1 growth, +2 knowledge
Aversion: Democracy

They field a hard hitting technically advance army. Their Achilles heel is lack of growth.

The Italians are misserable solders, with an even worse science rate and poor efficiency. A real liability. (Try winning with this faction!) Their one advantage is they are a police state.

-2 morale, +1 police, -2 knowledge, -2 efficiency
Aversion: Fundamentalism

The Americans are good at mass production, money and field average troops with average technology. Their freedom happy society, however, leads to a -1 police rating.

+2 industry, +2 econ, -1 police
Aversion: Fundamentalism

The Japanese are efficient and produce elite troops equipped with second rate weapons. Their regimented society gives them a +2 police rating.

+3 morale, +2 efficiency, -2 knowledge, +2 police
Aversion: Democracy

The British field well trained, well equipped troops, have a good economy but poor production due to labor management disputes.

+1 morale, +1 knowledge, -1 industry, +1 econ
Aversion: Police State

The Russians field masses of average troops. Efficiency is high. They are also a police state of the highest order.

+2 growth, +2 efficiency, +2 police
Aversion: Democracy

The Chinese field large numbers of very poorly equiped troops. They are further handicapped by poor production, science and efficiency.

+2 growth, -1 efficiency, -1 econ, -1 industry, -1 knowledge, +1 police.
Aversion: Fundamentalism

Obviously the game would have to make the Axis and Allied powers as pacted. If I have the above correct, the Nazi's will eventually be overwhelmed by Russian numbers and American production. Ditto the Japanese vis-a-vis the Americans and Chinese. The Italians will be overwhelmed and should be the first to surrender.

Has anyone heretofore actually designed a WWII scenario?

Ned

[N35t0r]

Well, a P133 with 20 MB RAM doesn't help me to do the scenario, so somebody else will have to do it.

Ned:
The AXIS had very advanced technology; they were the first to develop jet fighters.

IMHO, they lost the war because hitler ordered the bombing of London, while up to then they had bombed factories. This enabled the British to start building more and more planes...

[Cybergod]

Originally posted by Ned
The Chinese field large numbers of very poorly equiped troops. They are further handicapped by poor production, science and efficiency.

Are you saying that Chinese have HANDICAPPED prodution?!?! HELLO! More even, they have a good bonus in production (haven't you noticed those little prints saying "Made in China"?).

[johndmuller]

This is an interesting idea; I would think that someone may have done something with this by now. There is an MP game or two with WWII sounding names (maybe they are WWI instead?), but I haven't looked at them to see what they did viz-a-viz realism.

I think that a good deal of care would have to be taken with the map as I think that resources were a major factor for the Germans and Japanese and a major advantage for the US and perhaps China and the USSR - I don't know how Italy and GB would shake out that way.

I am a little leery of those big differences in SE settings; for example, I don't believe that the Italians were that pitiful compared to the Germans or that the Germans were less industrious than the Americans. Some of the desired effects could be accomplished with terrain and starting conditions, including pre-terraforming and granting of initial techs; we might want to keep Germany short of "rolling" land, for example. Another way of fostering the desired attitudes might lie with the "impunity" thing; that would take the form of Facists Impunity Police, Allies Impunity Democracy sorts of things.

We would need to simulate all those patsies that especially Germany, but also Japan and Italy rolled over in the beginning. The idea would be to have existing bases and infrastructure that were available to be taken over (i.e. lousy defense). The way that comes to mind for this would be to make the 7th faction be a really big one comprising all the third world, plus the rest of the big powers like France and China; I would think that this faction would start out as Neutral. Making it an AI faction would probably serve a lot of these goals; perhaps it could be started with vendettas already in place with the Facists. Anyway, that would leave US/UK/USSR vs Ger/Ita/Jap with existing development in the rest of the (AI) world set up to give the Facists something to go after. The starting UK should perhaps include a lot of the Commonwealth, but weakly defended and not very developed; I think that Germany had a few African interests at that time as well.

A much larger standing army/navy in Ger/Ita/Jap might get things off to the desired start; Offhand, I don't know else how to influence the democracies to be nice to the neutrals instead of conquering them, but perhaps it doesn't matter, perhaps a submissive pact would be an appropriate goal.

Could be a fun project.

[N35t0r]

i should get SMAX first...

[Earwicker]

Ned -

I like your application of SMAC SE to WWII combatants. For that reason, SMAC is better suited to such scenarios than Civ2.

Yes, Americans would definitely have to get rid of the Demo support bonus to enable the vast amounts of men and materiel shipped overseas. And probably find a minus for the Soviets (a little too powerful, maybe just efficiency immunity but no bonus). I agree with JohnD that the Italians are too weak (or just combine Italy and Germany as in other similar scenarios).

The kind of terraforming within factions' territories can also help reflect their Nations' capabilities. Like Soviet cities (bases) with lots of mines and forests for high mineral production/ quick builds.

And the Probe SE factor. High for Russians and British.

[Ned]

What makes this project so interesting is that the WWII protagonists were so different in ideologies and basic social agenda's. This fits perfectly into SMACx's capabilities as a game.

A lot of the SE choices I proposed are pure gut instinct. Obviously, a designer would have to playtest the scenario to see if, on the average, the Germans and Japanese had the advantage early until American production and particularly Russian numbers began to take their toll.

If I were playing the Germans, I would try to knock the UK out of the war early to prevent an easy cross channel invasion route for the Americans. I could then pin the Allies down in Africa and focus on knocking out the Russians. Then I would drive the Americans out of Africa. At that point, the Germans should win the scenario.

The Japanese goal should be to neutralize the Chinese, take the Hawaiin Islands and bring the war to America by invading through Alaska. Having the army bogged down in China is a real killer.

The UK, the Italians and the Russians are secondary players and perhaps should be managed by the AI. The U.S., Germany and Japan are the major protagonists. Humans should play one of these.

I also like Johnd's idea about the 7th player, representing France, Poland, Yugosalvia, Norway, SE Asia, the Philipines, etc. as being hostile to the Axis powers, but very weak and easy takeover candidates. However, I think we will have to wait to Civ III before we can introduce concepts of critically needed resources.

Ned

[Sandman]

9 out of 10 German soldiers fell at the Russian Front. No way were the Russians secondary players. The Western Front was just a skirmish compared what happened in Eastern Europe.

[Missourian]

Its true the largest armored battles of the war and i think in the history of armored warfare happened in Russia during the years of 1942 1943. I cant recall the name but there was a battle that that involved several thousand tanks and armored guns with thousands of infantry in support.

One German army that laid siege to Stalingrad had 500,000 thousands troops in it. Which Hitler in his arogance and ignorance of the battelfield conditions allowed to be captured which broke the Germans offensive back. When the Genral in charge radioed to Berlin that he was about to be enveloped within the city of Stalingrad Hitler order him to hold out at all costs. They held out until 250,000 thousand had been killed or wounded and they ran out of food, water, ammo, and medicine. When the war was over and the Russians finally allowed the PoWs to go home there was only around 100,000 thousand left alive.

The germans were constantly in need of supplies and replacements for troops and equipment. Part of the problem was that they over engineered every thing. They had the best Tanks but they had so many moving parts they were constantly breaking down. With the complicated designs of the equipment it slowed down the production and made battle field repairs almost impossible. It took trained technicans to repair them which took time to train and time isnt something the Germans had. They had to rush the training of their recruits to meet the demand of fighting on so many fronts.

I would make the Germans +2 Police, +1 maybe +2 Morale(They fought until they couldnt fight anymore) , +1 Research, -2 Industry(Complicated designs over engeneering) -1 efficiency(corrupt leadership lining its pockets with plunderd wealth)

Now the supply and replacement shortages are do to lack of resources, sabotage(French underground and other groups) maybe increase the number of drones , and their unit designs took longer to build.

Hope that helps and if you want i can do some of they other Powers involved in WW II

[Missourian]

The Battle for Kursk in July of 1943 the Wehrmacht attacked with 435,000 men in 50 divisions with 2,700 tanks and assault guns. The Red Army fielded 1,550,000 soldiers and 4,800 armord vehicles for this battle of titanic proportions.

I think it was code named Operation Zitadelle by the Germans.

Im not sure of the numbers but i think the Germans produced around 6,000 main battel tanks during the war while the Americans and Russians producced close to 100,000 Tanks. The Americans made close to 50,000 Sherman tanks a PoS tank but when its 20 to 1 odds the best doesnt always win.

[Qualicide]

This would be hard to make, because the Americans would have to have huge advantages to represent how it was in the war. In 1943. the US was producing more tanks, amunition, arms, supplies, and air planes then all 3 of the Axis powers combined. It would end up like this: +5 industry, +3 economy, +4 efficiancy, +4 support, etc.

[Missourian]

There is a great resource on the Wehrmacht its at http://www.achtungpanzer.com/panzer.htm
It has many great resources on everything from unit composition, production numbers, battles almost everything you could want to now about the german army during WW II.

[Missourian]

http://www.euronet.nl/users/wilfried...reword.htm#top

This is another good site that can help you this page gives an overview of the Powers involved in WW II it also gives the history of events in chronological order.

I hope this helps and good luck in making this thing work and if you need any help just let me know what i can do.

[Blake]

Wouldn't the greater production power of the Americans just be from having more productive bases than the others?

There is a heck of a lot of hardcoded behaivour that would make a historical mod hard to make in SMAX... like unit cost formula, forests spreading, AI terraforming/order cheats... basically the dynamics of the game. Altough with a heavy handed approach to modification it should work.

Terraforming: Terraforming pre-done, mostly a mess of farms, mines and toned down forests (1-2-0) (forest spreading could be a minor annoyance/quirk....)
Former equipment should be disabled (and cost 99 to prevent reverse engineering), probably have two pre-set former units, rover and sea former. Altough should be renamed engineers, or something.
Doable terraforming should be limited to farms, mines, roads, magtubes (railroad), forests, sensors (radar stations?), bunkers, airbases. Mining platform (drlling rig) would be only allowable sea terraform, but with bonuses to mining platforms available from the word go (or fairly early into the scenerio, this would make the sea good for 1-3-0, which is comparable to forest), also plentifull nut resources in the sea to represent fishing areas/whatever.

Getting energy without solar, forest, tidal does present a problem, prehaps have a few boreholes as "mega mines", and liberal use of rivers and energy resources, also trade between pacted factions would help. But I dont see all that much research needing to be done anyway, so pathetic energy would be acceptable. (also research costs could be bumped up or down to balance....)

Social engineering: Either disable (preset with faction SE), or strip down to about 6 choices in 2 fields, I cant see more being required. Prehaps military alertness could be one field (War, Alert, Peace), and politics another (Demo, Commie, Fundie). Then again seeing as democracies tended to stay democracies, and a facists cause doesn't change, the only field really required is military alertness. Something like a choice between:
War
+2 Industry, +1 Morale, -1 Support, Drone, 4 (if possible)
{Support hit because all units ARE being fully supported with ammo fuel and whatsnot, industry bonus because every able body is put to work in the factories, Morale bonus from being, erh, alert, an extra drone hit would be good too, as people get demoralised due to luxury deprivation}
Alert
+2 Research
+2 Probe
{The buildup phase, different factions/nations are frantically trying to out-research each other... and they are paranoid about security, gotta keep that hard earned technologies safe, or steal it if your the one which hasn't research it}
Peace
+2 Econ, -2 Morale, -4 Police
{Peace really isn't a good setting to be in if there is any chance of being attacked, more usfull for neutral nations, note the "bad guys" would be prohibited from using peace, morale and police bonuses would both make peace overpowered}

Units: Start by disabling everything.
Reactor: Either the fission or fusion should be used exclusivly. Which is a matter of balance...
Chassis
Rover: (2 movement -> 3). This would be the tank, I guess.
Hovertank: Well, tanks are all terrain vechiles... prehaps the hovertank could fit in.
Infantry: Stay the same (or 1->2 movement, depending on map scale and time scale)
Needlejet: Possibly reduced movement, depending on scale of map, 'fuel tanks' special ability would increase range.
Chopper: Possibly, this could have it's wings clipped and be renamed jet fighter.... altough that doesn't fit will with the ability to spend turns outside a base....
Missile: I suppose this could be the V rockets... and anyway gotta put that planetbuster somewhere, mwahahahahah. Unfortunately the way SMAC diplomacy works nuking another factions city doesn't encourage surrender... oh well, just hath ta nuke them all, mwahahahahah. On second thoughts, prehaps the missile chassis doesn't fit in....
Foil: High movement, doesn't carry much.
Cruiser: Slower but greater capacity.
Gravship: Blimps, anyone?.... no, didn't think so....

Weapons: Renamed as appropriate... bigger weapons cost more - the cost/power ratio should be higher than in SMAC... how much higher depends on reactor of choice... altough naming would be really screwy with the different chassis.
Armour: Made better and cheaper, I guess. Otherwise all the tanks will have no armour, and wheres the fun with unarmoured tanks.

The design workshop is a bit of a screwy concept for a WW2 scenerio, what could work is a hybrid where:
Infantry and Tanks can be designed from a small set of weapons and armour, ie:
Small Arms, Machine Gun, litte cannon, big cannon (sorry, I know little about actual names for WW2 weapons...), missile (each of which is a little more powerfull and expensive than the previous..., something like power 3,4,6,8,9), for the morons () out there, infantry dont actually carry big cannons on their shoulder, they are lugged around and assembled on site, or wheeled around on trucks/trailers/whatever. But this process results in much less mobility than having the cannon stuck on a tank and always ready to fire.
Then some concept for armour which makes sense in context, maybe weapons used primarly for defense. Or just use armour and accept it makes no sense.
Ships: Suppose these can also be designed from the normal set of weapons/armour. Ofcourse, the sub and carrier ability will be available early on.

Artillary would be pre-designed on infantry chassis.

Aircraft would all be pre-designed, otherwise all sorts of whacky things will be flying around (not to mention the infantry carrying bombs, the aircraft weapons would all be "disabled"). Aircraft for specific roles can be made in this way. (For example the expensive one-shot nuclear bomber). Also a few missiles could be designed, like the V2 and a nervegas version - just in case your a particullary evil little Nazi

Tech tree: I imagine a rebuild would work, starting at machine guns and ending at nukes, jets and missiles, the size of the tech tree would be much smaller than the standard SMAX/Civ2 one. The tech tree would also be reasonably linear and not very scrubbery. A central core (chassis and weapons) with lots of dead ends (special abilities, specialist aircraft, radar etc) could work well.... for example heading straight to the top would result in tanks with good guns, but nothing fancy, to get stuff like radar, nukes or jets a bit of side research would have to be done. (the + Probe techs would tend to be off the central core too).

Facilties: The morale boosting facilities would stay in, they should be made considerably more expensive (both in construction and upkeep cost), if you want morale - fight for it.
Not sure if economic facilities have that much a place, maybe the +50% mineral facilities could stay in and be renamed factories. I wouldn't mind dropping all the research facilities and just keeping the two science SP's, after all attracting (or not scaring off) key scientists was fairly important during WW2. What better way to attract scientists than big expensive toys? Some bases on the map would come with banks / universities, but those things dont tend to get built all that much during a war.

[johndmuller]

Just a quickie on the time scale.

I think considering each MissionYear to be something like a Week (or maybe even a Day) of WWII time might make a lot of stuff that seems rediculously unrealistic in CIV/SMAC much less so. It would also make the time ballparks more similar - that is, a game of SMAX is set up to go several hundreds of years, while WWII took just 5 or so - multiplied by 50 would be pretty close. This way resource accumulation/support and research stuff could use numbers like the current ones without the risk of some unforseen relationships between game elements destabilizing everything. Strangely, many of the movement allowances seem more reasonable as 1 Weeks worth than 1 Years worth; planes would still be a disconnect (although less so than currently), but land and sea movement would be closer to being realistic.

[RobN]

The Italians deposed Mussolini and changed sides. Would it be possible to simulate that?

[Ned]

Blake, A lot of good ideas in your post.

- Formers should really just be engineers capable only of building road and magtubes (railroads)

- We could then just give the American a lot of very productive bases which the Axis powers could not reproduce

- Growth should be limited - Keep everyone green?

- The Nazi's initial advantage could be simulated by starting them with Fusion, while everyone else starts at Fission

Ned

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by Ned
- Formers should really just be engineers capable only of building road and magtubes (railroads)
- Growth should be limited - Keep everyone green?

If the formers are limited, then growth could be limited by pre-terraforming forest and/or (arid land) farms to the extent necessary to stabilize the pop.

Also, kelp should be disabled (unless we want to call it fishing).

Can the automatic spread of forests and kelp be controlled?

Can we prevent fungus and native life?

[Blake]

Originally posted by Ned
Blake, A lot of good ideas in your post.

- Formers should really just be engineers capable only of building road and magtubes (railroads)

I was thinking of that..... Altough seeing you can pillage terraforming I figure you should be able to rebuild it (but at a greater cost than in SMAC, and really limited to just farms and mines). Also sensors, bunkers, and airbases would have to be allowed. Especially seeing (presumably) founding new bases will be impossible.

- We could then just give the American a lot of very productive bases which the Axis powers could not reproduce

Yeah.... altough with the amount of land America has they dont even need to be highly productive.

- Growth should be limited - Keep everyone green?

Two ideas, one is to have all factions -3 growth, making it zero growth all the game. The other idea is to make the nutrient box really wide, so it takes ages to fill.
Something else to mention, specialists should be available at a greater base size, otherwise players could do all sorts of nonsense to screw up the carefully balanced energy...

- The Nazi's initial advantage could be simulated by starting them with Fusion, while everyone else starts at Fission

Interesting.... but the reactors dont really fit. And any faction which steals/begs the fusion reactor tech then gets to use it. Better just to start them with a large army, or good war SE. (I wouldn't mind the Nazi's having a fanatic bonus)

[Earwicker]

Originally posted by johndmuller

Also, kelp should be disabled (unless we want to call it fishing).

Can the automatic spread of forests and kelp be controlled?

Can we prevent fungus and native life?

Forests won't grow onto rocky squares, so those could be used to hem in automatic growth.

Spreading kelp would be less a problem than spreading forest. Without formers to build sea-platforms or tidals, the new sea squares wouldn't be that productive anyway. I like the idea of negative growth for all factions to avoid even the possiblity of pop-booming.

Is there a way to revise the ecodamage formula so that very productive Soviet and American bases wouldn't be causing fungal blooms? Or purposely running high so that some worms would pop up and be harvested for energy?

No crawlers, I'd presume?

[Ned]

Earwicker, I was thinking those same thoughts. What I think has to be done is start w/o tree farms, hybrid forests and centauri preserves, but with Genejacks and enough production to push the ED meter well into the red. After the first bloom, the Americans, Germans, Japanese, English and Russians, whichever, would be wise to spend some time building these facilities to get rid of ED.

Just one more point, I don't believe that German production was handicapped in any way. There just was not enough of it compared to American production. After Speer took over, production soared. So, rather than -1 industry, they should get +1.

I suggest the Nazi's be given 6 main production centers. The Americans could have 15, the Russians 7, the U.K. 4, the Japanese 5, the Chinese 2, and the Italians 2.

For example, the German bases could be Berlin, Munich, Prague, Hamburg, the Ruhr and Cologne.

The UK: London, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham.

Russians: Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kiev, Kirov, Odessa, Gorky and Riga.

Japanese: Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Nagasaki and Hiroshima

Chinese: Shanghai and Peking

Italians: Rome and Milan

Americans: New York, LA, SF, Chicago, Detroit, Philidelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, Washington, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh

Ned

[Sandman]

Ned, you're either grossly overpowering the Americans or underpowering the other factions. Four of the seven productive bases you are suggesting for the Soviets were captured by the Germans before they were defeated at Stalingrad.

Soviet production should be on a par with Americas.

[Qualicide]

Soviet industry was not on par with the US. They just had millions, and millions, and millions of soldiers.

[Blake]

America is grossly overpowered in real life though

Altough Russia and China should be almost on par with raw production, but tech rate somewhat slower.

An additional factor is map design, USA troops have to cross the ocean in order to fight, Russia's have to cross wasteland. Prehaps America should have a -4 support hit. This would encourage the use of expensive high tech units too.
But ultimately it was the sheer production power of America which won the war. If you want the game to be realistic America has to be more powerfull than other factions. If you want a challenge dont play as America.


With the ED problem, at the start of the game set a base for each faction as a polluter and generate turns. If done right you should be able to just gen 50 turns, and get 50 pops for each nation. Then clean away all the polluter bases and design the scenerio.

[Ned]

Just a couple more thoughts: Paris, Warsaw, Athens and Cairo should also start as UK. The Nazi's will find it tempting to take them.

We might also add Saigon, Sydney and Singapore as UK: Initial targets for the Japanese. As well, Manila will be in the US camp.

If it makes any sense, we might also add Bombay and Calcutta as UK bases.

Ditto Seoul for the Japanese.

We should also set the Russians to enter the war by 1942 and the Americans by 1943 unless the Axis attacks first.

And yes, taking those four Russian cities meant the Germans had a significant power advantage over the UK and Russia. I really doubt whether they could have beaten Germany without American help.

Ned

[Sandman]

During the course of the war, the Soviets manufactured about 100,000 tanks. 70,000 of these were T-34s.

Supplies recieved from the other Allies amounted to about 10% of what the Soviets made themselves.

For the previous decade the Soviets built up their heavy industry(at great human cost) in the Urals and Siberia.

There should be several highly productive bases in the East to account for this.

[Ned]

I absoluting agree that we need several massive production cities located far to the East in Russia. However, to simulate reality, they should not begin producing military equipment until 1942, unless they are attacked. This will leave Russia substantially unprotected in 1941, underdeveloped in 1942, but beginning to role in 1943.

The productive cities could be Kirov, Gorky and Stalingrad. They should be producing 100 mineral per turn, sufficient produce very expensive tanks in one turn.

Also, for the sake of realism, we need to limit the Russian's ability to build "offensive" aircraft. They should be limited to defensive units only.

I find it strange to discuss this topic, World War II, on the day that WWW III potentially has begun.

Ned

[Earwicker]

Sure takes the enthusiasm out of the game, doesn't it?

[Deimos]

Originally posted by Earwicker
Sure takes the enthusiasm out of the game, doesn't it?

Not really. It adds to it due to the fact that by rembering history, we (hopefully) will not be doomed to repeat it. Unless forced to, by cowerdly faceless demons.

11 September 2001 - "A day that will live in infamy."