If Paradox did a Cold War game, what features would you want?

[Don_Leon]

No battlegoat cold war games, i have tried them and its not so fun. The ai will mass produce units like a mad man.

As for East versus west, there was something something dark side a way to try the unfinished version of.

It was quite far along actully, damn shame it didnt get completed. As it would have a damn nice way of design ships which i loved.

But as for paradox doing a cold war game, one can hope. But it also takes as hoi games a lot of work on AI.

There is a reason i havent bought hoi4 yet as i read and saw streams the ai is just well too weird for my taste.

 

[loup99]

- Military, political, and social leaders with a good amount of depth but not an over complicated amount inspired by Stellaris

-Spreading social movements much like how EU4's new institution system works.

I'm very sceptic towards these suggestions. In my opinion politics and factions in Stellaris are currently very lacklustre, and the Cold War was dominated by it's politics. A "social movement" is very far from what is modelled with institutions.

 

[Rath12]

For a cold war game, political movments would be a major pain as a western bloc county, but if your eastern bloc, you can nip that $!t in the bud with gulags.

 

[captainroot]

In my humble opinion any Cold War game would require a system that differentiates thepolitical leanings of the population from those of the government and whether those leanings align to make influencing internal politics more exciting. It would also allow for more subtle tactics and make one's overall success or failure relevant.

For example: country A is communist according to its political pie chart, because communists constitute its majority if not its totality. The population is mostly communist according to its dedicated political pie chart, so there is an alignment between the government and the population and thus no trouble. Neighbouring country B is democratic as depicted by its own set of pie charts. As the decades go by, country B experiences economic growth, while country A experiences economic stagnation and, finally, regress. The political pie chart still indicates that the country is still run by communists and thus is still considered communist, but its population starts resenting its government (because, in their opinion, it does not manage the country properly), yearns for products and services available in the neighbouring democratic country (because the economy can't provide for their everyday needs) and is being influenced by democratic media and news or gossip coming from those who travelled there and came back (which slowly start seeping in as people look for some entertainment and wonder how people live in a different, perhaps even better system, and some of it may be part of a deliberate action taken by country B. Plus, it is hard to consider oneself a citizen of a successful country when children in country B play games on home computers and in your country having a home computer is considered a luxury if not a realm of science-fiction.). Thus, the political chart of the population starts indicating, that the population is drifting politically towards the democratic part of the spectrum, thus depicting its desire for a democratic government. The greater the disparity, the greater the chances that strikes, riots, and eventually, the formation of a political opposition, if not full civil war, will take place in country A.

This system would force the player to be mindful to not upset the population of its own country too much, making him or her make some hard choices (“Should I continue the Vietnam War and risk that my own unemployed citizens will turn against me, or should I end the war and stabilise the economy but allow Vietnam to become communist?”). It would also allow for a choice of strategies when influencing other countries. Feel lucky? Support a coup. The government will change and the population will slowly, but eventually follow the new system. Want to be subtle? Influence the population over a long period of time and make it do all the work of toppling its own government in favour of the one which is more suitable for your taste.

This system would also underline one of the key themes any Cold War must feature: in this war, everything is a weapon, not only the military. The more successful you are in fields of science, art, sports, economy, etc., the more people in the countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain want to live the way you do, because, obviously, your success did not spring out of nowhere. Outclass the oponent and, eventually, the hearts and minds of their citizens will flock to your ideology.

 

[Rip Off Productions]

This system would also underline one of the key themes any Cold War must feature: in this war, everything is a weapon, not only the military. The more successful you are in fields of science, art, sports, economy, etc., the more people in the countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain want to live the way you do, because, obviously, your success did not spring out of nowhere. Outclass the oponent and, eventually, the hearts and minds of their citizens will flock to your ideology.

indeed, one of the things that will be hard to "balance" for the game is making Capitalism and Communism have relatively "equal" advantages and disadvantages; we all remember how going communist is the best way to play Vicy2 because it lets you micromanage your economy, we don't want a repeat of that(something Vicy3 will hopefully give us a fix for as well).

having Capitalist and Communist be more of a sliding scale of possible policies(not unlike a mixture of Vicy2's Lase-fair<->interventionism<->State Capitalism<->Planned Economy and the Free Trade vs Protectionism policies, but with quite a few more steps and many possible laws/regulations/etc. having their availability enabled or disabled when holding those positions) would

another thing that would be valuable to modle is corruption, all governments are susceptible to it, and each type of economic system will lend its own ways of getting it, but each form of government will lend different ways of getting rid of Corruption; Democracies will lose a tiny bit corruption with each election cycle(more or less based on how much that cycle shakes things up/brings the government more or less in line with the populous, as per your pie chart idea), dictatorships will have options for massive reforms and purges that remove large sums of corruption, but remove bonuses and/or add detriments to how smoothly things run for a short while afterwards.

I can see there being three "victory" conditions;

Military: this will never happen 99.9999% of the time, but the threat of it needs to be there to make the arms race work. Achieving this without it turning into a recreation of the climax of the movie War Games, would be the equivalent of the world conquest achievement for the game.

Economic: prove the superiority of [Capitalism/Communism] by maintaining a strong economy as theirs falls apart under the weight of all its flaws(and maybe some pressure from you and your allies) or abandons it to adopt more ideas from your side. This will be the most common(and closest to historical) ending you'll get in most campaigns(baring perpetual stalemate).

Cultural: honestly have no clue how this would work... but I felt that having only two "victory" options a bit to limited, especially considering that one of those options isn't designed to be used most of the time. maybe something involving a prestige system? propaganda? spy networks?

 

[Rath12]

I think that along with a pie chart you should have a 3d axis system showing the axis of a person, county, or group on Isolationism/Openness Capitalism/Communism and Either Moralism or libertarianism/controlled systems.

 

[aruon]

- Military, political, and social leaders with a good amount of depth but not an over complicated amount inspired by Stellaris

there'd be an issue there. in many countries there was a rather complicated relationship between the civilian government and armed forces. enough generals and admiral who felt they weren't getting their due would take over (greece, turkey, myanmar, ...south america). hell it wasn't even top rank officials either. even colonels regularly got in on the coup fun too.

- Ten million communist rebels 24/7 inspired by Victoria

you know that actually isn't all that much of an exaggeration.

 

[grandad1982]

Comprehensive message settings. A message log. A ledger. A good variety of sensible map modes.

 

[MN121MN]

Military: this will never happen 99.9999% of the time, but the threat of it needs to be there to make the arms race work. Achieving this without it turning into a recreation of the climax of the movie War Games, would be the equivalent of the world conquest achievement for the game.

Economic: prove the superiority of [Capitalism/Communism] by maintaining a strong economy as theirs falls apart under the weight of all its flaws(and maybe some pressure from you and your allies) or abandons it to adopt more ideas from your side. This will be the most common(and closest to historical) ending you'll get in most campaigns(baring perpetual stalemate).

Cultural: honestly have no clue how this would work... but I felt that having only two "victory" options a bit to limited, especially considering that one of those options isn't designed to be used most of the time. maybe something involving a prestige system? propaganda? spy networks?

To be honest, it's a bit weird that there would be victory conditions for PDS games, since the premise usually starts with "you set your own goals". However, with regards to cultural, I think it would work more as a prestige system instead of cultural, since then you might have some influencing mechanics. Taking cue from Civ for example, the use of cultural industry to gain cultural influence over particular countries, which can be enhanced and counterattacked by propaganda, spy networks, etc, and apply it to the pie chart of the population. Technology breakthroughs, e.g. Sputnik, Gagarin, Apollo 11, would also boost the prestige of the country, which will also boost its influence to its nearest neighbors. So the more influential Communism is on France, people will drift more towards communism. Banning literature or cultural articles of other ideologies will help in preventing such ideological drift.

That being said, I only see two potential scenarios of "victory" with one ultimate goal (normalization of the relations); military victory or political collapse. The first is as you said. The second though, is mostly related to the economy and can be influenced by the ideological drift of the population. When the economy slumps for too long, political dissent will increase. If the majority of the population supports an opposing ideology (economy acts as the degree to how susceptible population are to ideological drift), then a revolution will take place and the government is changed to the opposing ideology.

 

[Rip Off Productions]

To be honest, it's a bit weird that there would be victory conditions for PDS games, since the premise usually starts with "you set your own goals".

true, but Stelaris had "victory conditions", as did HoI3 if I recall correctly. it's still super open ended in how you get them, and if you don't get them at all that's fine too. It's there for the more goal oriented players(and to set the in-game flags for unlocking achievements).

That being said, I only see two potential scenarios of "victory" with one ultimate goal (normalization of the relations); military victory or political collapse. The first is as you said. The second though, is mostly related to the economy and can be influenced by the ideological drift of the population. When the economy slumps for too long, political dissent will increase. If the majority of the population supports an opposing ideology (economy acts as the degree to how susceptible population are to ideological drift), then a revolution will take place and the government is changed to the opposing ideology.

indeed, influence and propaganda would be a big part of playing as the major world powers, indeed an intricate espionage system would be critical to making a Cold War strategy game work, as that was the primary way that the conflict was carried out at the highest levels.

I'd think the more "traditional" PDX grand strategy gameplay would be found in the "third world" nations across Africa, the Middle East, and Indonesia/Indochina where the ideological conflict between the Capitalists and Communists nations doesn't really matter to you outside of which one might be willing to send a few spare dollars and guns to subsidize your regime and/or your enemies' for whatever proxy war they want/need in the region.

 

[Goodfortune99]

EvW revival? I would love all of the great features of EvW in a Cold War game by Paradox.

 

[BernardoAZ]

Whatever is included in a Cold War era game, the game should be easily moddable.

First, there should be a clear time period for the game: such as 1947-1991, or maybe 1947-1998.

In some ways, using HOI 4 as a base may not be a totally bad idea if the game does not go into the 21st century.. Several of the victors of WWII had military strategies in the 1950s and beyond based on their WWII experiences. The USA had a model of fighting two wars at once: one (a land war) in continental Europe against Russia and the other (an air-sea war) in the Pacific Basin against China or Russia. Later counter-insurgency strategies developed in response to the Vietnam quagmire. So the whole production and research system of HOI 4 could still work.

It is only with the development of asymmetric warfare concepts since the late 1990s (although the term dates from 1975) that the concept of refighting WWII-style battles was mostly put aside. Modeling asymmetric warfare would be a real challenge for a game that went into the 21st century. Ending the game in 1991 or 1998 avoids the need to model asymmetric warfare.

 

[Rip Off Productions]

It is only with the development of asymmetric warfare concepts since the late 1990s (although the term dates from 1975) that the concept of refighting WWII-style battles was mostly put aside. Modeling asymmetric warfare would be a real challenge for a game that went into the 21st century. Ending the game in 1991 or 1998 avoids the need to model asymmetric warfare.

What? Asymmetric warfare was a huge part of the many wars that were fought in this time period; the Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf Wars for America, and the war in Afghanistan for the Soviets, and probably many more that I don't remember/never heard about.

Things like the Vietnam and Korean wars can be modeled like HoI4's "volunteers", so larger nations have a limited ability to intervene in small wars without escalating it into a larger war between major powers.

 

[Rath12]

But escalation should be possible and to avoid it should be a balancing act

 

[Tekadiel]

I would love to see such a game but it should make sense with other nations than USA and USSR. Of course there are some other potential super powers:

Britain is 1945 technically still a super power – in the game it should be possible if hard to hold on to that.

China could become a super power

Western Europe could unify

African States could unify

Arab States could unify

However I guess the later hints at one of the problems why Paradox is so reluctant about developing a game in this area: The political flame wars if you can play an Israel vs Arabs conflict could create a lot of negative publicity and will be difficult to handle it without offending anyone. This is why I do not believe such a game will be made.

 

[aruon]

I would love to see such a game but it should make sense with other nations than USA and USSR. Of course there are some other potential super powers:

Britain is 1945 technically still a super power – in the game it should be possible if hard to hold on to that.

China could become a super power

Western Europe could unify

African States could unify

Arab States could unify

However I guess the later hints at one of the problems why Paradox is so reluctant about developing a game in this area: The political flame wars if you can play an Israel vs Arabs conflict could create a lot of negative publicity and will be difficult to handle it without offending anyone. This is why I do not believe such a game will be made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpower

actually the UK was considered a superpower up until 1956, when decolonization and the Suez Crisis accelerated what WWII had exacerbated, resulting in the british colonial empire being all but defunct over the span of a couple decades. not having tens of thousands of nukes probably didn't help either.

china? sure... if the ROC wins or Mao Zedong dies right after the PRC wins the CCW. even then, it'd take quite a while.

western europe? not during the cold war. during the European Economic Community days (the predecessor to the EU) all of it's members were trying to economically 1-up each other regularly, as well as WWII still being fairly fresh in their minds.

africa? under a warmongering dictator only. a big part of sub-saharan africa only began to show some level of persistent stability by the late 90s.

middle east? not much more than OPEC has. the concept of the Arab Union does exist, but that's simply impossible. the differences in government type, ideology, and the greatly differing ideals on role of islam span each spectrum. and since Saudi Arabia has the most wealth and regional influence as well as mecca and medina, it's basically amount to a mass annexation by the saudis.

 

[Rip Off Productions]

However I guess the later hints at one of the problems why Paradox is so reluctant about developing a game in this area: The political flame wars if you can play an Israel vs Arabs conflict could create a lot of negative publicity and will be difficult to handle it without offending anyone. This is why I do not believe such a game will be made.

while controversy would plague many parts of a game that takes place in an era where many of the details of its events are still classified state secrets, the Israel/Palestine conflict is probably the simplest of the "moral gray areas" they'd need to deal with; you pick a side(either playing directly as one of the two, or one of the surrounding Arab states, or as a world power backing one of the previous options either directly or indirectly), and then try to win.

depending on how the game is 'balanced' the "historic" outcome of it stalemating for the entire game might even be the most likely outcome.

 

[Tekadiel]

western europe? not during the cold war. during the European Economic Community days (the predecessor to the EU) all of it's members were trying to economically 1-up each other regularly, as well as WWII still being fairly fresh in their minds.middle east? not much more than OPEC has. the concept of the Arab Union does exist, but that's simply impossible. the differences in government type, ideology, and the greatly differing ideals on role of islam span each spectrum. and since Saudi Arabia has the most wealth and regional influence as well as mecca and medina, it's basically amount to a mass annexation by the saudis.

Regarding the potential Western Europe Superpower:

It not more unlikely than to unify Scandinavia or Gran Colombia (or United Arabia!) in in Vic2. If the European Defence Community in the 1950s would not have failed there might have been some kind of France based unification in Western Europe (without GB) during the Cold War. At least enough to justify Western Europe as a potential Superpower to make the game more interesting.



And Pan-Arabism was a quite serious in thing in the 1960. As above it is not so farfetched to not include it as a possibility, at least if we agree that more Super Powers would spice up a Cold War game.



In the end it is a gameplay decision: If more than two super powers would improve the game, there is enough historical background to justify potential unification events for Arabia and Western Europe. I for my part would like to have more Super Power Options than just USA/USSR and possibly GB and China.

while controversy would plague many parts of a game that takes place in an era where many of the details of its events are still classified state secrets, the Israel/Palestine conflict is probably the simplest of the "moral gray areas" they'd need to deal with; you pick a side(either playing directly as one of the two, or one of the surrounding Arab states, or as a world power backing one of the previous options either directly or indirectly), and then try to win.

depending on how the game is 'balanced' the "historic" outcome of it stalemating for the entire game might even be the most likely outcome.

I would certainly hope so as I would love a Cold War (or even more a modern day) game. But if people start games with Middle Eastern powers and start write AAR about Israel conquering Egypt or vice versa all my experience with the internet tells me that this will end ugly.

 

[realQuiGon]

EvW revival? I would love all of the great features of EvW in a Cold War game by Paradox.

Pretty much this! Not much more to say about it

I'm still mourning because it didn't work out. I was so stoked for this game and I still am for any potential Cold War HOI!
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?forums/cancelled-east-vs-west.725/

 

[Rip Off Productions]

I would certainly hope so as I would love a Cold War (or even more a modern day) game. But if people start games with Middle Eastern powers and start write AAR about Israel conquering Egypt or vice versa all my experience with the internet tells me that this will end ugly.

well folks who purposefully post flame-bait like that will happen no matter what. Trolls will Troll.

I wouldn't be surprised if there haven't been some "Islamophobic" CK2/EU4/Vicy2 AARs using Arab nations or their conquerors in the past that have been rightfully purged by the moderators in the past(along with Poe's Law parodies of them caught in the crossfire).