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this came up tangentially in the I/P thread and I didn't want to get zapped for gamer-posting so I'm bringing it up here: I think there's something to be said about how well the metaphor of Command & Conquer has played out IRL. you have this Western, American-led GDI that relies heavily on traditional warfare; they have lots of air-power, they have tanks, they have a drat space station, and the Firestorm facility is perhaps the greatest expression of fortress politics: a wall of energy that literally blocks even hostile projectiles from getting through on the other side of it you have the Hand of Nod, they have dirt bikes and stealth tanks and their portrayal (if not their in-game playstyle) is "terroristic" and "authoritarian" the GDI command unit is a flying base, while the Nod command unit is a subterranean tunneling craft and the battlefields are almost always in the third world: Egypt, Yugoslavia, Eastern Europe - later Nod missions will let you take the fight to places like Norway, and this is regarded as being a great escalation as you bring the conflict inside the walled garden of GDI even the first act of Tiberian Sun's Nod campaign has the player settling the score on a Nod civil war where Hassan, the nominal current leader of Nod, reports directly to GDI's General Solomon, as a reflection of color revolutions and the co-optation of third-world leaders to Western interests there are of course misses in the allegory: Nod is still ultimately lead by white dudes, just with a esoteric bent to them (thanks to the inimitable Joe Kucan), but looking back on it it's a bit remarkable how much of the material resonates today when it was written at a time when this sort of thing was just barely on the horizon of The End of History
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Nov 13, 2023 05:16
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Russia not being in NATO but in GDI shows how much of a fantasy it is and not a serious look at reality. A display of US military might always meant beating up on a disadvantaged and weakened opponent. Everyone would be excited for another war in the middle east if the MIC really was producing super weapons for the past 20 years instead of endless boondoggles.
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Nov 13, 2023 05:30
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Lostconfused posted:Russia not being in NATO but in GDI shows how much of a fantasy it is and not a serious look at reality. In the post-cold-war afterglow it was reasonable to think Russia might enter NATO one day, I think we can forgive the sweaty computer touchers for their slightly imperfectly Marxist prediction
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Nov 13, 2023 05:32
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BadOptics posted:I love UoC2, but man sometimes is it frustrating you get going a bit in a scenario and realize the piece of the puzzle you have to solve. Fortunately the only thing you lose but just restarting is score (who cares) and time needed to set everything back up (specialist steps, supply, etc.). gradenko_2000 posted:UOC2 would definitely be helped if it had a traditional save/load system and you could savescum as much as you wanted, with just an option to make it Ironman You can save in UoC2...sort of. At any point, even during battle prep, you can head back to the main menu and the game autosaves. You can then go into the Saved Games folder (which is literally linked on the main menu) and make a copy of the campaign save. Then just overwrite it whenever you want to "load" your previous state. Its just enough effort that I don't think its worth doing for every bad attack roll, but if you have a huge scenario that you miss out on an objective by one loving turn because the city went to ruINS AFTER ONE loving ARTILLERY ATTACK WHERE YOU DO LIVE YOU POLISH MOTHERFUCKERS, its helpful.
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Nov 13, 2023 06:30
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Slavvy posted:In the post-cold-war afterglow it was reasonable to think Russia might enter NATO one day, I think we can forgive the sweaty computer touchers for their slightly imperfectly Marxist prediction Russia joined the NATO "Partnership for Peace" program in 1994. Command and Conquer came out in 1995. (Red Alert Came out in 1996). Russia signed the "NATO–Russia Founding Act" in 1997. The chance to join NATO was dangled over Russia just like it was over Ukraine. I'm not surprised that video games reflected that. The USSR tried to join NATO in 1954. "Former" Nazi Adolf Heusinger was appointed Chair of the NATO Military Committee in 1961. On a related note... Command & Conquer: Generals came out in 2003 and featured the Paladin tank, available to the US faction. It had an anti-rocket point defense laser. The way to counter that was to just use more RPG troopers to overwhelm the point defense system. The game featured a few highly unrealistic elements, like Patriot missile systems being able to stop Scuds. Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars(2007) featured the NOD RPG troopers who each carried an RPG that fired two missiles in close succession. I don't recall if there was any point-defense in that game for those RPGs to overwhelm. BearsBearsBears has issued a correction as of 09:21 on Nov 13, 2023 |
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Nov 13, 2023 06:53
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BearsBearsBears posted:Command & Conquer: Generals came out in 2003 and featured the Paladin tank, available to the US faction. It had an anti-rocket point defense laser. The way to counter that was to just use more RPG troopers to overwhelm the point defense system. holy lol
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Nov 13, 2023 07:14
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Alpha Centauri 2: Sunspot Boogaloo So Deidre has recently and shockingly betrayed me, possibly taking advantage of the sunspot-caused global comms blackout to do so. I need to defeat her again and also take out Miriam. However, there was another matter I was wondering about, I was generating tons of energy, more than anybody else, so why hadn't I won an economic victory yet? I'm pretty sure I researched the proper technology a while ago. A brief investigation brought me to the answer.  It turns out I forgot to press the "Win Game" button. I was thinking it worked like it does in Endless Space 2, where if you generate tons of Energy you win without needing to do anything. It turns you you need to press a button and then wait 20 turns. I could have done this a long time ago. Oh well, I probably wouldn't have done so anyway in order to play out the rest of the game.  1000 Energy, that's so cheap! I think it's supposed to be the cost to mind control all remaining bases with 1000 as a minimum. It excludes your own bases and the bases of your rivals.  It costs more Energy to mind control a single base. I think the very cheap cost of an economic victory for me is somehow related to me being way ahead in Commerce techs? I can't get a clear answer on how the number is actually calculated. It should be pretty low but not this low, maybe on the order of 15,000 ish Energy credits as a very rough estimate. Enough to use the Mind Control ability from the probe teams on every city that doesn't belong to either me or one of my vassals.  My guys automatically take over another base. If you've got a solid lead then putting your military in automatic mode usually works out OK. They don't have any brilliant strategic thinking but they'll get the job done eventually and with some casualties.  Deidre surrenders again. The last part of that message should say "I shall never trouble you again ... again." I'm about to win the game so I'll just forgive her for her underhanded betrayal.  CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Centauri Monopoly" posted:Planet's Primary, Alpha Centauri A, blasts unimaginable quantities of energy into space each instant, and virtually every joule of it is wasted entirely. Incomprehensible riches can be ours if we can but stretch our arms wide enough to dip from this eternal river of wealth. Orbital Power! Satellites are a late game game mechanic. They're expensive but once you build one, every single one of your bases gets +1 Energy. This stacks up to your population for that base. There are also satellites for +1 Nutrients or +1 Minerals. So we enough satellites every single citizen in your city produces an additional +1/+1/+1 Nutrients/Minerals/Energy. This is a massive bonus and makes marginal bases very useful. The +1 Nutrients is especially useful for small marginal bases, it lets them continue to grow and as they grow they get even more nutrients. Large bases are usually already limited by your hab limits (14ish, or currently 13 for me). However, once you get an upcoming technology you can build a facility that completely negates the hab limits and lets your bases grow huge.  Anonymous Metagenics Dockworker, MorganLink 3DVision Live Interview posted:Optical computers, genetic catalogs, nanorepair modules—forget all of that. It's when you see a megaton of steel suspended over your head by a thread the thickness of a human hair that you really find God in technology. This is it, this is the tech. This is the one that lets you have super cities with a population only limited by your nutrient intake (and then doubled with the Nutrient satellites). It's a shame the game is usually essentially over before this point. I'm hoping that playing with the Thinker mod makes the AI better. We're only 3 turns away from winning an economic victory. The only way somebody could stop us is by conquering the colony with our HQ and that's very unlikely, especially within 3 turns.  I've conquered all of her land cities but she still has her sea colonies. I would need to build an navy or air force in order to conquer these. I won't bother, Miriam is the only one not on my side but she can do literally nothing to stop us now.  I really didn't expect this. Is Miriam desperately trying to become the Supreme Leader in the single turn she has left? This would be the first step and I think she can convene the council twice on her turn.  I carry the election 742 votes to 43. I love democracy. Also, Pravin Lal conquered Zakharov's last city while they were both my vassals. I think I tried telling them to stop fighting and they both refused.  That's it, I've cornered the Energy market. Miriam was the only holdout to my military might but she couldn't do anything against my economic might. We've finally fulfilled the dream of Earth to recreate Capitalism on another planet. We demonstrated the superiority of our economic system, out competing all other systems in the marketplace of ideas (with just a tiny little bit of help from military invasions and subversive espionage). Just as predicted in Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History" the final hold out was religious fundamentalism. It just turned out to be Space Evangelical Protestantism instead of being Islam on Earth, who would have thunk? 
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Nov 13, 2023 09:13
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one of the things that really elevates AC beyond "Civilization on an alien planet" are things like being able to plant your own rivers, being able to plant your own forests, and "no pop limits ever, restricted only by nutrient availability" thanks for walking us through your game
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Nov 13, 2023 09:21
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I do like how the fundie Christians live only on the water in the end. Reading over the mechanics again, do any of the main civs or civ clones maintain a city size limit the way AC has a hab limit? I think it's an interesting mechanic, especially if it were combined with mechanics that limit ICS. It might lead to some rubberbanding, which the 4X genre can use.
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Nov 13, 2023 09:31
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Orange Devil posted:Reading over the mechanics again, do any of the main civs or civ clones maintain a city size limit the way AC has a hab limit? I think it's an interesting mechanic, especially if it were combined with mechanics that limit ICS. It might lead to some rubberbanding, which the 4X genre can use. Nothing is exactly like it that I can think of off-hand. Endless Space 1/2 have population limits based on the planet type and those can be increased by buildings and techs throughout the game. Not quite a 4x, but Rome:Total War 1 also comes to mind, as your city population grows you need to upgrade your administration building or else your city becomes overwhelmed with squalor as your bureaucracy is overwhelmed. There are probably more examples. Orange Devil posted:I do like how the fundie Christians live only on the water in the end. I just took another look at my screenshot of her cities. One of her cities is named "The Rapture". Sister Miriam Godwinson posted:it wasn't impossible to build a city under the ocean. It was impossible to build The Rapture anywhere else. I've got to get her to talk to some Morgan-brand brand-consultants so they can convince her to drop the "the". Just call it "Rapture". gradenko_2000 posted:one of the things that really elevates AC beyond "Civilization on an alien planet" are things like being able to plant your own rivers, being able to plant your own forests, and "no pop limits ever, restricted only by nutrient availability" You're welcome, this is my first time doing something like this and it took longer than I thought. I've gained respect for the people who do this sort of thing. I'll be playing another game soon with both my changes and the Thinker mod installed. It's supposed to greatly improve the AI. I'll report back how it goes and possibly post some screenshots of my game. I'm thinking of playing Deidre. I'll also be posting my continued musings on the mechanics of Alpha Centauri until I get bored. Also a summary of my mod changes since I forgot to post a few of them. Alpha Centauri really lets you do a lot of neat things. If I really wanted to take down Miriam instead of ending the game I would have tried to avoid building a navy or airforce out of pure spite. Instead I would would have used my diplomatic power to vote to launch the Solar Shade and try to dry up the seas and used my many terraformers to build a land bridge to her cities Siege of Tyre style.
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Nov 13, 2023 10:19
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civ 1-3 all used the size cap, with buildings like aqueducts, sewer systems, and hospitals increasing the cap
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Nov 13, 2023 10:24
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Orange Devil posted:Reading over the mechanics again, do any of the main civs or civ clones maintain a city size limit the way AC has a hab limit? I think it's an interesting mechanic, especially if it were combined with mechanics that limit ICS. It might lead to some rubberbanding, which the 4X genre can use. Humankind has a population cap. A base of 6 population, +1 for every "District" you make (an on-map/on-hex improvement), a "Hamlet" district devoted specifically for higher population grants +4, certain in-city improvements grant more pop, certain civic choices grant more pop. Note that in Humankind, you can generally only build one city per predetermined region of the map, so the number of cities that can be built is hard-capped. ___ For Civ 1/2/3, a city needed "access to fresh water" to grow beyond size 6. This could be done either by building the city next to a river tile, or by building the Aqueduct improvement. And then you'd need a Hospital to grow beyond size 12. In Civ 4, cities had "Health" as a statistic, similar to Happiness. Every unit of population would generate unhealthiness points. If Health was positive or zero, then growth would proceed as normal: excess food would count towards a growth box until it filled and then the city grew. If Health was negative, then each negative point of Health would consume 1 more food-per-turn, making growth more difficult if not impossible. Aqueducts and Hospitals would then add flat amounts of +Health, as would certain resources. It's still very similar to the earlier implementations, but with a little more dynamism around the edges: you could have a size 7 or 8 city without an aqueduct if you had a LOT of food or a lot of +Health resources, that sort of thing. I believe Civ 5 did away with hard pop caps on individual cities and instead focused more on the global happiness limit and the raw amount of food needed to feed very large cities as a way to soft-cap city sizes. In Civ 6, cities had "Housing" as a statistic. A city with no other bonuses has 2 Housing. If your Housing exceeds your Population by 2 or more, then you get full benefit from your excess food in filling up the growth box. If Housing only exceeds Population by 1, then excess food only fills the growth box at 50% of the regular rate. If Housing meets Population, then excess food only counts for 25%, up to 4 Pop over Housing. Otherwise, your population is hard-capped at Housing +5. Access to freshwater is +5 Housing base, access to a saltwater coast is +3 Housing base; civics, improvements/districts, and the era of the game all add to Housing. It's sort of similar to how Civ 4 does it, but you cannot ever lose population from having insufficient housing.
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Nov 13, 2023 10:50
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And when did they start implementing anti-ICS mechanics?
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Nov 13, 2023 11:10
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Orange Devil posted:And when did they start implementing anti-ICS mechanics? in Civ 1/2/3, cities were "free" to found, but the improvements would cost maintenance. When combined with corruption, this lead to ICS: you got a better deal out of lots of empty 1-pop cities than trying to develop them in Civ 4, anti-ICS took the form of shifting maintenance to an empire-wide, per-city mechanic. You paid a cost for every city you owned (while improvements became free), and this cost went up geometrically, so founding a city was a net loss until it had some pop and improvements under its belt. You either had to have enough gold reserves to absorb however many turns it took for your finances to be in the red, or you had to already be running a surplus before founding (or taking) a new city. in Civ 5, anti-ICS took the form of global happiness. Happiness was now empire-wide, and simply founding cities added a flat amount of unhappiness, on top of the per-pop unhappiness. But, since the amount of happiness that could be added by a city was capped at its population, while unhappiness had no such cap, founding cities was likely to cause net unhappiness. Civ 5 is sort of remembered as really leaning into the "tall" style of gameplay as a result. The anti-ICS worked, but a little too well. in Civ 6, there's no anti-ICS mechanic at all, save the explicit restriction of being unable to found cities any closer than two tiles apart.
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Nov 13, 2023 11:41
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So Civ4 is the only one with both anti-ICS mechanics and city-level growth limiting mechanics?
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Nov 13, 2023 12:00
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Orange Devil posted:So Civ4 is the only one with both anti-ICS mechanics and city-level growth limiting mechanics? it looks like it?
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Nov 13, 2023 12:13
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Coincidentally civ 4 is also the peak of the system mechanics
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Nov 13, 2023 12:56
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Regarding Polish doctrine, it's crazy to think that they were the most committed foot soldiers of communism considering the hard reactionary turn after 1991. In practical terms, they used upgraded T-55s rather than the T-72s the DDR did, and iirc had more airmobile and sealift capable units. I believe they also continued using 7.62 AKM style rifles rather than switch to 5.45 AK-74s.
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Nov 13, 2023 13:42
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Frosted Flake posted:Regarding Polish doctrine, it's crazy to think that they were the most committed foot soldiers of communism considering the hard reactionary turn after 1991. My first reaction to this was "wait wouldn't it be better to standardize for interoperability reasons?" but then all this recent talk about regiments and less recent talk about industrial policy and like, soldiers of different nationalities weren't exactly likely to physically fight shoulder to shoulder and having to pick up each others guns to use or whatever were they? That's the misconception that gets spread. Instead they'd be slotted into a line where they might be adjacent to each other fighting for a common goal, but still each independently able to operate and within their own designated area of operations. So why then the push in NATO for standardization, rather than just letting each member state (or group of member states in the case of the really small ones that actually can't operate independently, like say NL basically merging with a German division) do their own thing equipment and standardization wise? And it's 100% because it makes it easier for the US MIC to outcompete the local defense contractors isn't it? If everything has to be produced to the same (read: US) standard, then US companies can compete for all the contracts. It has absolutely nothing to do with any actual battlefield usecase. The entire thing is to maximize US MIC profit/grift and make NATO countries dependent on the US.
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Nov 13, 2023 13:50
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It's because Warsaw Pact countries had the option to licence equipment, buy from the Soviets, or provide their own. Poland and Czechoslovakia, in particular, made lots of their own equipment, and even provided it to other Pact members and for export. e: To your point, this meant they had national MICs and didn't become economically and militarily dependant colonies of the USSR.  The SKOT for example, but many, many other pieces of equipment. So in this case, Poland was pleased with their Polish-made AKMs and did not want to switch to 5.45. The DDR did, and of course their AK-pattern rifles got a reputation as the world's best. The T-72 thing is a bit more complicated. If I recall, the Soviets asked for a pretty steep price for them. Pact members couldn't make the turbines required for the T-64 and T-80, their automotive industries just weren't there. However, there was a pretty advanced electronics industry in some Pact countries, so both the Germans and Poles developed upgrade packages for their T-55s that made them as, or more, capable than early production T-72s, with laser range finders, ballistic calculators, improved optics, composite armour packages etc. But yeah, there's a book on the diplomacy within the eastern bloc in the 70's and 80's that discusses some of this. The Soviets wanted Warsaw Pact to modernize because the new generation of NATO equipment was coming online. The Pact members begrudgingly agreed - with the exception of the DDR most of them had let their militaries coast through the 70's without much modernization - but they set the terms of the agreement so that it would build up their industries rather than just give the Soviets money. In a few years they were independently able to make major technological advancements to close the gap with the USSR (and NATO) and put equipment into service. Frosted Flake has issued a correction as of 14:00 on Nov 13, 2023 |
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Nov 13, 2023 13:55
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Frosted Flake posted:Regarding Polish doctrine, it's crazy to think that they were the most committed foot soldiers of communism considering the hard reactionary turn after 1991. Yeah. The T-55 Merida was a pretty significant upgrade. They did have T-72s, but definitely more T-55s. In terms of air and sea, yeah, that was the plan. The Polish military was seen as undermanned and undergeared for WW3, and the operational plan reflected that. It was assumed that there would be a naval strike by NATO: NVA would absorb the brunt of it, with Polish coastal units helping, then the Polish Front composed of 3 Army Groups would rapidly deploy from across Poland to the coast and advance on NORTHAG, eventually to punch into Denmark and Norway. This was at the time seen as the weakest sector, and it would be further weakened by nuclear strikes just ahead of the Polish forces. The vanguard would be the 6th Pomeranian Airborne (or Air Assault) and 7th Lusatian (Naval\Marine) Assault divisions, as well as commando raids. They were also specifically meant to attack the non-British sectors. It was thought that a lot of Poles had a lot of sympathy towards the British as a result of WW2, and after WW2 many Poles had families that lived in Britain. There apparently was a plan to make an "Assault Corps" combining the 6th Airborne, 7th Marine and 15th Mechanized in 1967, but it was abandoned for some reason. I think there were some disagreements among the leadership: the plan was that the overall command of the corps would pass to the leaders of each division in turn as the operation progressed, which no one was happy with and is a pretty insane idea when you're trying to win the war in 7 days. Here's where you get some interesting examples of materialism. The 6th Airborne, as usual with these sort of units, quickly gained a mythology: they got red berets, they got different uniforms, they were allowed to wear their sleeves rolled up, and everyone agreed they must be badasses. But why were they formed in the first place? Because it was concluded that paratroopers are cheaper than a mechanized division because they have less gear. This genuinely was the motivation for their founding. Poland needed a large military, but could not afford to equip it. "But surely transport planes are expensive" you might say. They are! That's why the 6th Airborne didn't have any! They were going to jump out of Russian planes! Polish commandos are also kind of interesting. I'm sure a lot of it is the usual special forces operator mythology, but the focus feels a little different than a modern Western concept and aesthetic. Similar to what FF described about JTF, commandos were officially part of their normal units, and there was no official acknowledgement of special forces: they did not have their own unit names or badges or rosters or anything like that. The training seemed particularly focused on sabotage. Some exercises involved them attempting to sabotage Polish rail infrastructure. Frequently, commandos in training would have to travel from point A to B in a designated time without being detected, while local military, police, and even civilians were warned to look for deserters in the area. Newspapers offered rewards for turning them in. They also were only ever given orders in foreign languages - German and English - and were equipped with German and American uniforms. The fun part is that they also brought in Vietnamese and Korean martial arts instructors. Now the commando part really is not particularly relevant to what I'm looking for, since there's far too much special forces wank in games already. It was just interesting to research. My general question about doctrine was more about the ways a Polish mechanized (they used mechanized rather than motorized terminology despite being Pact) or tank division would fight, rather than the gear or operational plans. Those I'm pretty familiar with.
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Nov 13, 2023 14:10
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:Polish commandos are also kind of interesting. I'm sure a lot of it is the usual special forces operator mythology, but the focus feels a little different than a modern Western concept and aesthetic. Similar to what FF described about JTF, commandos were officially part of their normal units, and there was no official acknowledgement of special forces: they did not have their own unit names or badges or rosters or anything like that. The training seemed particularly focused on sabotage. Some exercises involved them attempting to sabotage Polish rail infrastructure. Frequently, commandos in training would have to travel from point A to B in a designated time without being detected, while local military, police, and even civilians were warned to look for deserters in the area. Newspapers offered rewards for turning them in. They also were only ever given orders in foreign languages - German and English - and were equipped with German and American uniforms. The fun part is that they also brought in Vietnamese and Korean martial arts instructors. That's really cool, I had no idea Poland was that HSLD. I was at the Remembrance Day ceremonies over the weekend and it was crazy to think about JTF going from totally invisible to having their own dress and service uniforms in a span of 20 years, while not actually getting more capable or anything. Once the PR and mythology take hold, you kind of forget the skill it used to be based around. Now their guys working at headquarters have special Operator uniforms, rather than operators wearing the uniforms of clerks, if you know what I mean. It's all been inverted. It sounds like you've been able to do a lot of research, which is awesome. I would imagine the Ukraine War reversed the trend of former Warsaw Pact countries starting to appreciate their own military history?
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Nov 13, 2023 14:41
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BearsBearsBears posted:Russia joined the NATO "Partnership for Peace" program in 1994. Command and Conquer came out in 1995. (Red Alert Came out in 1996). Russia signed the "NATO–Russia Founding Act" in 1997. The chance to join NATO was dangled over Russia just like it was over Ukraine. I'm not surprised that video games reflected that.
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Nov 13, 2023 14:47
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The constant threat in C&C games is US losing hegemony over Europe.
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Nov 13, 2023 15:01
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I like how the civ series declares infantry obsolete and replaces them all with IFVs at the last tech level. getting to see how that works out right now it’s been a while but doesn’t Generals Zero Hour end with the USA humiliated by losses in the Middle East and retreating into isolationism while China integrates the EU into their sphere of influence as sole global superpower
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Nov 13, 2023 16:41
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Europe not being in any way a faction is possibly the most poignant commentary in C&C Generals. Well that and China growing larger.
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Nov 13, 2023 16:58
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:Polish commandos are also kind of interesting. I'm sure a lot of it is the usual special forces operator mythology, but the focus feels a little different than a modern Western concept and aesthetic. Similar to what FF described about JTF, commandos were officially part of their normal units, and there was no official acknowledgement of special forces: they did not have their own unit names or badges or rosters or anything like that. The training seemed particularly focused on sabotage. Some exercises involved them attempting to sabotage Polish rail infrastructure. Frequently, commandos in training would have to travel from point A to B in a designated time without being detected, while local military, police, and even civilians were warned to look for deserters in the area. Newspapers offered rewards for turning them in. They also were only ever given orders in foreign languages - German and English - and were equipped with German and American uniforms. The fun part is that they also brought in Vietnamese and Korean martial arts instructors. Admittedly my research here is a few wargame manuals, but didn't the ww2 red army kinda do this where veterans were shuffled off into company-level razvedchiki scouts?
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Nov 13, 2023 17:11
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FrancisFukyomama posted:I like how the civ series declares infantry obsolete and replaces them all with IFVs at the last tech level. getting to see how that works out right now presumably the unit is supposed to represent mechanized infantry.
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Nov 13, 2023 17:15
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FrancisFukyomama posted:I like how the civ series declares infantry obsolete and replaces them all with IFVs at the last tech level. getting to see how that works out right now Tankbuster posted:presumably the unit is supposed to represent mechanized infantry. yeah the Infantry unit is supposed to be [Foot] Infantry, and Mechanized Infantry is supposed to be "we ride the IFVs to get around but dismount to fight" except they use the IFVs as the unit model, and the IDF experience is that the troops are too scared to leave the vehicles
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Nov 13, 2023 17:58
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Problem easily solved by making them too scared to sit around in the vehicle.
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Nov 13, 2023 18:02
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gradenko_2000 posted:yeah the Infantry unit is supposed to be [Foot] Infantry, and Mechanized Infantry is supposed to be "we ride the IFVs to get around but dismount to fight" except they use the IFVs as the unit model, and the IDF experience is that the troops are too scared to leave the vehicles I think that's more of an IDF problem than an IFV problem Troops actually trained to fight actual wars know vehicles are bullet magnets and you want to gtfo asap
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Nov 13, 2023 18:19
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right, we agree. What I meant was that mech infantry doesn't fight from IFVs, Civ just uses them for the unit model because it's distinct from foot infantry, and the IDF "fights" from inside the IFVs because they're jabronis
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Nov 13, 2023 18:24
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Civ still has late stage infantry looking units in the AT team, I think.
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Nov 13, 2023 18:32
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Frosted Flake posted:
I'm not sure about recent changes, I'm pretty detached from the Zeitgeist. I can tell you that growing up, pride in Polish military history has been a huge point of pride in Polish culture. Poland absolutely thinks of itself as a Warrior Nation, though this is largely seen through a lens of grim determination and perseverance, rather than pure conquest. You do get a bit of that: Winged Hussar iconography, Fighting The Tatars and Turks, Lifting The Siege of Vienna, Fighting The Mongols (though this is a bit less known), being only nation to ever capture Moscow (even if it didn't go so well afterwards), maps Poland-Lithuania in Medieval times, Battle of Grunwald, all those are mentioned in teaching. But the other side is much more, I guess almost Lost Cause? There is pride in the bravery, determination, "fighting spirit" and the odds. Uprisings are glorified, especially failed ones. I think you can get a good sense of just by the title of one of the novellas we had to read in school. "Gloria Victis". WW2 is a major point of pride, too. But then there are darker elements of the militarism worship. There is the propaganda about Piłsudski and how poor Poland was evilly attacked by Bolsheviks, but we were the bulwark against communism. There is glorification of using child soldiers, both to fight in Ukraine, and in WW2. I was even taught in school that the Polish resistance gassing theatres full of Polish people was morally justified, because anyone who could go to a theatre to watch a movie while the country was occupied was by definition a collaborator. I don't agree with this, but it's... interesting in light of current events. There is also a lot of pride in being part of NATO. I grew up in Szczecin, which often hosted "look how cool the military is" shows with Polish, German, Danish and Norwegian soldiers and sailors. Poland was also very very proud of going to Iraq and Afghanistan, and of it's performance there. You may note the gap. No one is proud of the Polish People's Army. Rabid anticommunism in action. Many years ago, streets had to be renamed, because "glorifying communism and totalitarianism" is illegal. So, technically, saying that the Polish People's Army was good is at the very least legally questionable.
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Nov 13, 2023 20:05
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:You may note the gap. No one is proud of the Polish People's Army. Rabid anticommunism in action. Many years ago, streets had to be renamed, because "glorifying communism and totalitarianism" is illegal. So, technically, saying that the Polish People's Army was good is at the very least legally questionable. That's what I was going to ask about, because even more than France, it can be said that the Poles "liberated themselves" with the LWP, but that seems conspicuously absent as you say, compared to the short fight in 1939, the barely reorganized Free Poles with the French in 1940, and then the Polish formations with the Western Allies in Italy and North-West Europe. For instance, it is very easy to read all about the Home Army and attempted Warsaw Uprising, but, almost to the degree of finding sources on the Italian Co-Belligerents, exceedingly difficult to find anything on the Polish soldiers who actually liberated Poland alongside the Red Army. Postwar, there's just an abyss until 1991. The same is true for Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and the Czechs too, of course, but whereas a book on professional NATO militaries devoted a whole chapter to how the Bulgarian military was better respected in Bulgarian society, more professional and more effective under socialism, you can't actually find any histories of the organizations together in one place. To that last point, nearly every book I've seen on NATO expansion seems to mention in passing that all of these militaries were better off, and seem to have been serving a project the public generally supported and participated in, before 1991, compared to NATO expansion which it's all but admitted now required them to send contingents to Iraq and Afghanistan. It's included in the books for professionals, imo - this overlaps with the WW3 thread - because you have to explain why the "small, lean, modern, professional armies" are not really doing so hot. The answer is what we talk about all the time - a military for expeditionary warfare is by definition removed from the public interest, and in a democratic society, therefore removed from public participation. So, the post 91 militaries don't have public buy in for going to Iraq the same way they did when they were defending Warsaw Pact, and you could say the project of socialism. It's presented straightly, because the NATO military officers reading these dry reference books need to account for blah blah blah but you never get admissions like that in general books, because think of all of the quiet admissions: the public supported socialism, conscription isn't inherently inferior but depends on the social contract within a state, the salaries and benefits of a socialist society negated the "economic draft" and required the military as a workplace to be one people appreciated, the organization and equipment of Warsaw Pact was as good as NATOs, and on and on. Frosted Flake has issued a correction as of 21:41 on Nov 13, 2023 |
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Nov 13, 2023 21:33
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gradenko_2000 posted:yeah the Infantry unit is supposed to be [Foot] Infantry, and Mechanized Infantry is supposed to be "we ride the IFVs to get around but dismount to fight" except they use the IFVs as the unit model, and the IDF experience is that the troops are too scared to leave the vehicles lol that the average project reality player playing on IDF vs Hezbollah map actually fights more effectively than the IDF because infantry actually does it's thing of advancing and skirmishing with the enemy.
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Nov 13, 2023 21:39
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Samog posted:civ 1-3 all used the size cap, with buildings like aqueducts, sewer systems, and hospitals increasing the cap I completely forgot that the Civs used to do that. Probably because I played Civ 4 most out of all of them. StashAugustine posted:Coincidentally civ 4 is also the peak of the system mechanics Agreed, Civ 5 made some choices and then didn't polish the mechanics enough to deal with them. Never played 6. Orange Devil posted:And when did they start implementing anti-ICS mechanics? I don't remember if it was Civ 2 or 3 that added (or increased?) minimum distances between cities. That was the first anti-ICS mechanic and it wasn't hugely effective. Lostconfused posted:Weird to make a conclusion that's the opposite of your argument. How so?
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Nov 13, 2023 21:53
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StashAugustine posted:Admittedly my research here is a few wargame manuals, but didn't the ww2 red army kinda do this where veterans were shuffled off into company-level razvedchiki scouts? Semi-related: an anecdote regarding scouting forces (and also Yugosav Partizan commissars), from a book about a certain Partizan unit, the book itself being written very early after the war, the author trying to record things while they're still (relatively) fresh in the memories of the participants. I'm not very good at retelling stuff like this, but I'll try. A group of experienced fighters in the unit, members of the pre-war military, would hang out together and grumble about things, including about how the unit was run. Among them were the machine gun crews, big dudes with big guns. Nothing to be concerned about on its own, soldiers always grumble, but then the commissar got word that they've been calling themselves something like THE INNER CIRCLE". Now, to explain why this was something that the comissar had to take extremely seriously: One of the worst things that would happen to Partizan units would be a reactionary coup from within. The sequence of events was usually as follows: Some group of ex soldiers form an ingroup named something stupid like "Brotherhood of the Skull" or "The Bloodbond" or whatever the gently caress, followed by gathering supporters in the unit, followed by assassination of the unit commissar and possibly also of the unit commander, followed by a massacre of every communist in the unit, and also anyone else who was opposed to the coup, and also all of the wounded in the unit, followed by turning into a gang of murderous marauders that would head towards the nearest undefended village of the wrong ethnicity (sometimes not even that picky) and start killing and robbing people. One of the Serbian members of Young Bosnia who went on to become a doctor as an adult met his end like this - making a desperate last stand in a futile attempt to protect his patients from bloodthirsty Chetnik wannabes. Now, what did the commissar do? He Long story short, the commissar resolves this amicably, and technically even joins THE INNER CIRCLE (part of his normal job was being the guy who convinces random ambushed collaborationist conscript militia patrolmen #450 #854 and #887 that they shoud drop their guns and not do anything stupid. Sidenote - some Partizans had a "capture and release" philosophy with Independent State of Croatia's milita conscripts, and sometimes jokingly referred to them as "our armory", because they'd just keep getting more and more stuff by capturing the exact same guys on the exact same route over and over again.) and encourages some of the more daredevil-y members of Communist Youth in the unit to go through what it takes to join THE INNER CIRCLE. With the tension between the commissar and the grumblers being greatly reduced, they could actually discuss their complaints and see what can be done about them. One of the complaints I remember in particular was the machine gun guys being pissed off about always getting the order to disengage just as the enemy troops were entering the 'sweet spot' for being able to actually reliably hit them but not being too vulnerable to return fire. (i have no idea if this is an actual thing, but that's what the guy wrote). There was also general talk about the strict command discipline of the unit. While they approved of the discipline overall - it was a terrible conflict and they knew bloody well what the iron discipline of the unit was keeping at bay - they weren't happy about not being given any room to show initiative and exploit opportunities in combat when they appeared. Eventually they worked something out, and THE INNER CIRCLE lost its name but in return became a mix of scouting/special forces who could be trusted to take reasonable risks on their own without endangering the rest of the unit. While they didn't become a formalized unit of their own, these guys (and similar guys elsewhere) would go on to become the seed of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia's scouts and commandos. my dad has issued a correction as of 22:13 on Nov 13, 2023 |
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Nov 13, 2023 22:10
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Frosted Flake posted:For instance, it is very easy to read all about the Home Army and attempted Warsaw Uprising, but, almost to the degree of finding sources on the Italian Co-Belligerents, exceedingly difficult to find anything on the Polish soldiers who actually liberated Poland alongside the Red Army. Postwar, there's just an abyss until 1991. It's quite literally Not Talked About. The first I heard about there being a communist resistance movement was in a song about the animosity between the two resistance movements. Speaking of songs, I stumbled on this nice video of Warszawianka set to Polish People's Army footage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUhAnHNc3kU It's no Der Offene Aufmarsch, but I enjoyed it.
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Nov 13, 2023 22:19
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| # ? May 31, 2024 11:40 |
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Until your post I had no idea there was a communist resistance in Poland at all. I was just talking about the uniformed LWP.
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Nov 13, 2023 23:00
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