Matrix Games Forums

Just went through much of the tutorial and scanned the czech uprising last night, and it looks really interesting. I love the command structure and the inclusion of command, supply and communications units. So rarely modeled in any detail in a game, yet so often decisive in war.

However, a couple of things led me to question the political understanding that shapes the game, in what is the most overtly political war of the last century.

I was disappointed to see a Finland tutorial end screen which said that as the counter-revolution had not been completely defeated, the Finish government would include Bolshevik ministers. I can't think of circumstances in which bolsheviks would have taken ministries in a bourgeois government. While more than ready to enter parliaments as an opposition, they regarded participation in such a government as a betrayal of class principles. That the game should offer such an outcome suggests a lack of investigation by the designers into the political principles guiding the revolutionary protagonist in the game, possibly a merging of Stalinism with bolshevism. If the principles of bolshevism are misunderstood, will their behaviour in game really reflect their politics?

Secondly, scanning the units'attributes in the czech legion demo, I was underwhelmed by the depiction of red guard militia as 'brutal' while white units suffer no such characterisation and penalties.

I'm starting to wonder, is the russian civil war being used here as a vehicle for a game engine, while pandering to every right wing prejudice and historical misconception, or have the designers made a genuine attempt to study history and interpret it in their game?

Developer please?

I was disappointed to see a Finland tutorial end screen which said that as the counter-revolution had not been completely defeated, the Finish government would include Bolshevik ministers. I can't think of circumstances in which bolsheviks would have taken ministries in a bourgeois government. While more than ready to enter parliaments as an opposition, they regarded participation in such a government as a betrayal of class principles. That the game should offer such an outcome suggests a lack of investigation by the designers into the political principles guiding the revolutionary protagonist in the game, possibly a merging of Stalinism with bolshevism. If the principles of bolshevism are misunderstood, will their behaviour in game really reflect their politics?

Secondly, scanning the units'attributes in the czech legion demo, I was underwhelmed by the depiction of red guard militia as 'brutal' while white units suffer no such characterisation and penalties.

I'm starting to wonder, is the russian civil war being used here as a vehicle for a game engine, while pandering to every right wing prejudice and historical misconception, or have the designers made a genuine attempt to study history and interpret it in their game?

Developer please?

Hmmm, the end screen you are talking about could be reviewed, yes. This is but an uchronic assessment of what could have happenned, and your analysis could be correct. This has no impact on the game, though. [;)]

Red Guard Militia have been given this attribute, because they are no regular units: They were ill equipped, ill disciplined, and ill fitted for the military. They were send to the countryside and more often were obliged to force requisitionned whatever they needed to survived in a very disorganised way. I would have to read again the attribute, but the idea was to represent just that.

We could well add the same attribute to White Guards in Russia, yes, although they generally came from ex-czarist army, so were slightly more disciplined. Also, I am not sure in case of the Finnish Finland war, because they were mostly nationalist, if I understand this conflict (and to be honest, I wasn't the one doing research on it; I personnaly research the RCW and the Soviet-Polish war. And I wouldn't give brutal occupier to a polish unit in Poland: They were nationalist volunteers, not right-wing political organisation volunteers).

There is no political message in our game. This was a civil war, and unfortunately, both side committed numerous atrocities. [:(]

But I am happy to review the unit models if you think they are imbalanced, even if just from an historical correctness point of view. [:)]

Cat

ORIGINAL: CatLord

Red Guard Militia have been given this attribute, because they are no regular units: They were ill equipped, ill disciplined, and ill fitted for the military. They were send to the countryside and more often were obliged to force requisitionned whatever they needed to survived in a very disorganised way. I would have to read again the attribute, but the idea was to represent just that.

We could well add the same attribute to White Guards in Russia, yes, although they generally came from ex-czarist army, so were slightly more disciplined.

Thanks for getting back to me CatLord.

I'd say that the attribute could be given to both sides, or elements of both. If possible, I'd like to see the possibility of a unit alienating local populations by its brutality made subject to dice rolls modified by logistics, cause, ideology, location etc, rather than a fixed attribute. This attribute does seem highly one sided and prejudicial at present.

As much as the red guard militia were ad hoc units and forced into a situation where they had to requisition from an often ambivalent or hostile population, and without the greatest diplomatic training and tact, they also saw themselves as liberators and were increasingly regarded as such wherever the whites showed their faces. I'd have to dispute that the white armies were more disciplined in their behaviour towards the population than the reds. The reverse would in most cases seem to be the case. From two relatively disinterested sources-

"The Whites also [In the article, 'also' is used in the context of another reason for their defeat, not as well as the reds.] had an appalling reputation regarding their treatment of the indigenous people of any area they controlled. As much of this land was agricultural, these people would have been peasants – the people Lenin had promised land to. Some of the Whites were known to want to turn the clock back to the ‘old days’ – such an attitude did not endear them to the peasants. The re-establishment of the old order would have maintained a lifestyle none of the peasants would have wanted. In this sense, the peasants, though in White territory, were the natural supporters of the Bolsheviks.

"The Whites also suffered a massive blow to their campaign when the Allies withdrew from Russia after November 11th 1918. With the end of World War One, the Allies were much cooler in their dealings with the White leaders. Reports reached London that the Whites had committed many atrocities on innocent civilians – and the government could not afford to be associated with such things."http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/ru ... l_war1.htm


"The aftermath of the Civil War was, however, extremely bloody. As the Reds had murdered some 1,100 people in their zone of control (so-called Red terror), the Whites retaliated ruthlessly, executing some 7,370 people after the recapture of the Red areas (so-called White terror). It is estimated some 9,720 Finns were executed in the Civil War and its aftermath."

http://wapedia.mobi/en/White_Guard_(Finland)

As you say, atrocities were commited by both sides and if this is an inevitable part of war generally, it is more so in civil war. The reds should not be singled out in my view.

V22, if you don't have the demo yet, just google the game title and the download sites will come up. It appears I am destined to buy this game this weekend.