1985 Red Storm - Beta ready to download

[sad ham]

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I think probably I have omitted a Belligerence script

Maybe you have omitted more than one script.
I'm playing now on the NATO side and trying to attack a Pact unit with a French unit. Simply: I cannot.
But I can attack a russian unit, instead.

[The Land]

Maybe you have omitted more than one script.
I'm playing now on the NATO side and trying to attack a Pact unit with a French unit. Simply: I cannot.
But I can attack a russian unit, instead.

Yes, this appears to be correct, thank you for spotting it.

You can resolve this from the Diplomacy screen by selecting France and declaring war on Warsaw Pact. Similarly with Yugo and Greece you can manually declare war.

I'll likely update the files next week.

[The Land]

On plus Yugoslavia does not produce anything. Why?

Production is generally unfinished in this version. The intention is that no powers will have the ability to build any additional units, only rebuilding previous units. This will be implemented by setting force limits that are lower than the number of units that are already on the board. However, this isn't entirely done yet.

[sad ham]

You can resolve this from the Diplomacy screen by selecting France and declaring war on Warsaw Pact. Similarly with Yugo and Greece you can manually declare war.

It is impossible to declare war manually to Greece with Yugoslavia playing as Pact side. And it is impossible to declare war manually to Pact with France playing as NATO.

[sad ham]

Production is generally unfinished in this version. The intention is that no powers will have the ability to build any additional units, only rebuilding previous units. This will be implemented by setting force limits that are lower than the number of units that are already on the board. However, this isn't entirely done yet.

If Yugoslavia produces zero, cannot rebuild anything.

[sad ham]

I'm playing testing the game, but I can play only few turns (more or less 10) after then the game ends and it is not possible disable this.
To test the game it is necessary to have more turns.

[BillRunacre]

It should be possible to disable the campaign's end date via the Options screen. Hopefully this will enable you to play further.

[sad ham]

It should be possible to disable the campaign's end date via the Options screen. Hopefully this will enable you to play further.

Thanks. It works.

[sad ham]

A lot of Countries do not have any army. Israel, Egypt, Siria, etc, can be conquered very easily because neither a garrison is in the capital.

[The Land]

A lot of Countries do not have any army. Israel, Egypt, Siria, etc, can be conquered very easily because neither a garrison is in the capital.

Yes, the intention is that there is no warfare in the Middle East. So there are no OOBs for these countries. I've not yet got around to making them neutral (which I think will stop them taking part in the war at all).

[The Land]

I'm playing testing the game, but I can play only few turns (more or less 10) after then the game ends and it is not possible disable this.
To test the game it is necessary to have more turns.

The intention is that the scenario ends after 10-12 turns, with either a negotiated peace or an escalation to nuclear warfare. There will be events to represent this, but for the meantime there is just an end date.

If you want to know more about the reasons for this and the design philosophy of the whole mod, it is covered in some of the earlier posts!

[sad ham]

In my short test, West Germany has fallen, Austria has fallen, Belgium and Holland have fallen, Denmark has fallen, France has fallen, Greece and Turkey have fallen. Great Bretain and Usa have lost almost everything, by the way the result is just a "stalemate".

[The Land]

In my short test, West Germany has fallen, Austria has fallen, Belgium and Holland have fallen, Denmark has fallen, France has fallen, Greece and Turkey have fallen. Great Bretain and Usa have lost almost everything, by the way the result is just a "stalemate".

That's quite impressive for 10 turns! Well done - what tactics did you use?

The victory scripts are not there yet so everything will be marked as 'stalemate'/

[sad ham]

That's quite impressive for 10 turns! Well done - what tactics did you use?

No special tactics; simply the computer is stupid.
I went to conquer Denmark and Norway (very easy).
Also Greece was conquered fast.
I did not enter the war with Yugoslavia.
Conquering Turkey with Romania was very easy.
The russian is very strong and can conquer everything but UK in 10 turns.

[Raptor341]

I'll play this vs someone PBEM if there is interest - I'd like to play NATO if possible.

[guy1962]

Enjoyed playing this Mod and thank you for making it. Question about Italy's delay to war entry. Is there a way other than using chits to speed up Italy's entry? Having relatives there we've discussed the anti war movement but also the likely hood of them following the USA in a 1985 timeline. Thanks!

[The Land]

Enjoyed playing this Mod and thank you for making it. Question about Italy's delay to war entry. Is there a way other than using chits to speed up Italy's entry? Having relatives there we've discussed the anti war movement but also the likely hood of them following the USA in a 1985 timeline. Thanks!

Glad you liked it!

At present, no. But I need to think about this a bit more. Presently Italy should only enter if Yugoslavia does, or if there is a DOW. But there should be more options representing Western diplomatic pressure.

The challenge is how to avoid a situation where the Italian army simply gets operated into West Germany - which would not be at all realistic. I could perhaps make Italy non-cooperative, which would mean that Italian units can only be supplied on Italian territory and other NATO units couldn't be supplied in Italy... And/or, give Italy remarkably low National Morale. One to think about!

[The Land]

Still, perhaps, given current events, the campaign should be designed more around a more extended timeframe (up to a year or more) with the assumption of a protracted conventional campaign. Or, if the author has enough time, create two scenarios, one with a shorter timeframe and strategic nuclear escalation possible outcomes and a more protracted campaign with the assumption that leaders on both sides refrain from that kind of messaging and the war continues in a more conventional manner over a more extended period of time. Something to explore at least.

Sorry I haven't checked back for a while - am definitely up for a multiplayer test if you're still interested.

Regarding the 'long war' - two thoughts. First, I think it's reasonable to think that a 1980s Soviet offensive would do better than the Russian Army is this year. Who knows, it might have been a shambles still. But:
- the early 1980s is roughly the same distance to 1945 as it is to today. Soviet generals might have a better memory of how to make combined arms warfare work, and their airforce might have been able to conduct combat missions at scale.
- Soviet troops might have had more sense of purpose and higher morale than Russian troops. This is a big 'might' given that Communism was in fact in the process of collapsing from within.
- ATGMs have improved markedly in recent decades - Ukraine benefits from Javelin and NLAW missiles which can defeat essentially any tank through top-attack, armour notwithstanding - these are 90s or later vintage missiles, early-80s missles were scarcer and less effective

Secondly, a long conventional war would be hard to make a satisfactory game out of. The casualty rates would be immense, and both sides would quickly suffer materiel exhaustion. The naval game would quickly become boring as the Soviet surface fleet would all be sunk, the Warsaw Pact air forces would collapse... Keeping all of that balanced and interesting would be a challenge.

[Raptor341]

Thank you for the reply.

Indeed I'd argue that by the mid-1980 the reliability of any WARSAW pack member armies was dropping and dropping fast, especially in Poland and Czechoslovakia, even East Germany. While this would likely not have resulted in a massive day 1 failure, it may have taken the form of refusals and perhaps even outright rebellion within a certain period of time if Soviet advances were not met with early success. Much as now, the clock would be ticking for the Soviets on the attack, either they make all of their objectives and or face great internal pressure. How exactly it would have turned out is anyone's guess but I'd argue that perhaps there needs to be a morale failure timer for the Soviet player as the game advances if they don't make objectives within a reasonable time limit or suffer major losses. This being said, for the West holding enough ground and causing the PACT major losses while minizining their own would also be key.

As far as the long game goes I think it might be interesting but as you said it would definitely slow down from the major pushes of the early war. I don't think I would bother trying to model balanced gameplay for this scenario because a lot would be decided early on, and the rest is just playing it out to see how it ends up. This war isn't going to play like SC WW2 or SC WW1 in that it is likely to be a close conflict for a long game but as long as it didn't go Strategic it could last for quite a while if neither side was able to make major advances. Not sure SC is up for modelling all of the political what-ifs but still.

Cheers,

[The Land]

Hello all,

Just to say I'm getting back into this a little at present and hope to make some progress. At very least I should shortly be able to upload another version that fixes the bugs identified in the last few months and incorporates some further balancing. I might well be able to make more progress than that. However I'm taking it slowly, it's still feeling somewhat too real.