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Started by MengJiao, March 23, 2022, 09:00:01 AM

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MengJiao


  I guess war games covering Russians doing their next wars in Europe are going to need some extensive revisions and I think for most hypothetical futuristic "next war" war games you can
throw out the card-play where people try rational moves and such and just substitute a big balloon inscribed, "Some nut cases have some metaphysical problems and you get some random
crap to deal with it"...BUT somewhere east of Suez we can still pretend that some kind of rationality still reigns, though I have violated that supposition by supposing that the good ole USA
pulls a metaphysical problem out of its collective hat and decides to decapitate the Phillipines due to existential threats and so on.  The Locals (Except for Vietnam) rally to fight off Uncle Sam
and China backs Malaysia and the Phillipines against the metaphysical onslaught.  So far not much has happened since the only bases the US can use are in Vietnam, but here we are:


W8taminute

Haha round two. 
It will be interesting to see how this one ends.  You were able to finish the last game pretty fast.
"You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

Romulan Commander to Kirk

MengJiao

Quote from: W8taminute on March 23, 2022, 03:13:01 PM
Haha round two. 
It will be interesting to see how this one ends.  You were able to finish the last game pretty fast.

  I've been giving up when the US airforce starts wiping out the Chinese air defenses over Vietnam.  The first few rounds of bombing by B-52s and B-2bs kind of shuts off the war once US recon detects all the
Chinese supply depots by about day 25 or so.

  Anyway, in this here next war, the Chinese are helping to defend Manila against the US Forces, which are closing in pretty fast.  I've revised the game a bit so things fit more exactly into 8-hour turns
(for example US task forces can go 5 hexes with a chance of being "spent" which isn't a problem with the Chinese at long range).  So this is about 24 hours into the war:



al_infierno

Quote from: MengJiao on March 23, 2022, 09:00:01 AM

throw out the card-play where people try rational moves and such and just substitute a big balloon inscribed, "Some nut cases have some metaphysical problems and you get some random
crap to deal with it"


Y'know, this really seems like a fertile ground for an interesting psychological horror game with sort of a wargame theme/aesthetic.  Something like Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa, but the Great Leader giving you orders is effectively an unhinged and irrational May 1945 Hitler, consistently giving confusing and contradicting orders and providing all the wrong equipment to get the job done.  Your goal is to survive the purges while doing your best to cobble together a successful military operation out of the random cards and equipment you get. 

The Great Leader orders you to secure a lightly defended airstrip, but the card you draw gives you an MLRS and some poorly trained garrison forces who just redeployed from the other side of the country.  Then you have to use a mortar team and some IFVs to secure air supremacy over a major city, meanwhile the highly skilled general of your main army has just been arrested and executed for thinking treasonous thoughts, and replaced by a guy who played golf with the Great Leader 2 weeks ago.  As the war goes, on the Great Leader's correspondences become more irrational and incoherent until they're finally just scrawls of rageful babbling without any bearing on the operational situation, and your best response to placate him is anybody's guess.  You lose the game if your relationship with him goes too low, as he will suspect you of treason and have you executed - or if it becomes too strong, as he'll suspect you of treason and have you executed.

Anyway, not to completely derail your thread.   O:-)
A War of a Madman's Making - a text-based war planning and political survival RPG

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge.  War endures.  As well ask men what they think of stone.  War was always here.  Before man was, war waited for him.  The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.  That is the way it was and will be.  That way and not some other way.
- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian


If they made nothing but WWII games, I'd be perfectly content.  Hypothetical matchups from alternate history 1980s, asymmetrical US-bashes-some-3rd world guerillas, or minor wars between Upper Bumblescum and outer Kaboomistan hold no appeal for me.
- Silent Disapproval Robot


I guess it's sort of nice that the word "tactical" seems to refer to some kind of seriousness during your moments of mental clarity.
- MengJiao

MengJiao

#4
Quote from: al_infierno on March 23, 2022, 04:46:07 PM
Quote from: MengJiao on March 23, 2022, 09:00:01 AM

throw out the card-play where people try rational moves and such and just substitute a big balloon inscribed, "Some nut cases have some metaphysical problems and you get some random
crap to deal with it"


Y'know, this really seems like a fertile ground for an interesting psychological horror game with sort of a wargame theme/aesthetic.  Something like Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa, but the Great Leader giving you orders is effectively an unhinged and irrational May 1945 Hitler, consistently giving confusing and contradicting orders and providing all the wrong equipment to get the job done.  Your goal is to survive the purges while doing your best to cobble together a successful military operation out of the random cards and equipment you get. 

The Great Leader orders you to secure a lightly defended airstrip, but the card you draw gives you an MLRS and some poorly trained garrison forces who just redeployed from the other side of the country.  Then you have to use a mortar team and some IFVs to secure air supremacy over a major city, meanwhile the highly skilled general of your main army has just been arrested and executed for thinking treasonous thoughts, and replaced by a guy who played golf with the Great Leader 2 weeks ago.  As the war goes, on the Great Leader's correspondences become more irrational and incoherent until they're finally just scrawls of rageful babbling without any bearing on the operational situation, and your best response to placate him is anybody's guess.  You lose the game if your relationship with him goes too low, as he will suspect you of treason and have you executed - or if it becomes too strong, as he'll suspect you of treason and have you executed.

Anyway, not to completely derail your thread.   O:-)

  I laughed pretty hard about this game idea.  BUT...you could do it with cards and a pretty small map.  The units might be tricky to design.

MengJiao

#5
Quote from: MengJiao on March 23, 2022, 04:13:47 PM
Quote from: W8taminute on March 23, 2022, 03:13:01 PM
Haha round two. 
It will be interesting to see how this one ends.  You were able to finish the last game pretty fast.


  Anyway, in this here next war, the Chinese are helping to defend Manila against the US Forces, which are closing in pretty fast.  I've revised the game a bit so things fit more exactly into 8-hour turns
(for example US task forces can go 5 hexes with a chance of being "spent" which isn't a problem with the Chinese at long range). 

   Meanwhile, the beginning of day two (about 32 hours into the war) brings some problems for the Northern Jaw of the US onslaught: a submarine-launched missile hits the Nimitz-class carrier and an air-launched missile also hits the
carrier.  That force will be withdrawing.  But at least some subs are getting through the San Bernadino straits north of Samar: