An attempt at summarizing the "world building" discussion - in a constructive way [Cross-posted from FB page]
Now that we have had a few days to discover all of the goodies our friends at Fria Ligan have prepared for us, I wanted to take a few minutes to try and summarize the discussion. Indeed, threads tend to get very long, people can be unnecessarily aggressive, and this may obfuscate both valid criticisms and relatively easy fixes. I have tried to stick to "issues" that people have been able to back up with logical economic / military reasoning, and that, even my suspension of disbelief dialed to 11 and all of my understanding (if not compassion ....) for fellow game designers who have undertaken such a difficult project, I think should be addressed.
Preliminary issue: as another forum participant (I could not find the post and don't recall the name) brilliantly put it, there is too much information in the Player's book regarding the status of the war, and some of the details. While all PCs would know how the war started and the initial phases, information will quickly degenerate into rumors, etc. For instance, it is very unlikely that US or Dutch soldiers in Poland would know the details of the coup in France: they'll probably know France has been nuked after supporting NATO in the war and that's it. Same goes for the pseudo-Kings in the UK and Sweden. So maybe a lot of that information, at least the most current one, could be moved to the Referee's book (which will also give more flexibility to referees)
Issue 1: Soviet military ground prowess - Suggested fix: Nuke'm!
Many readers agree that the Soviet military, which was, according
to the book itself, "on its knees" in 1991-3, wouldn't have been able to come back that strongly in 97/98. I tend to agree, given the very deep issues affecting the Soviet army. However, the Soviets do benefit from the fact they initially face forces from Warsaw Pact countries they deliberately under-equipped - and, when the better equipped NATO forces (French, German, UK ...) show up, they do have the possibility to use tac nukes on the staging areas for possible counter-attacks. The only change in the timeline is that the Soviets use nukes first, but that's not crazy given how ready they were to use chemical weapons (and some plans made public highlighted that).
Issue 2: Unrealistic Soviet power projection, e.g. UK invasion and Middle East intervention. Suggested fix: downscaling
A lot of readers have commented that the Soviets managed to project power simultaneously in a lot of very far away places .... and that they would never have been able to do it. Some have criticized the Sweden invasion: that, IMHO, could have worked with some planning - and a lot of luck. It would also have caused pretty high casualties to air & naval transport units, which would have been very hard to replace. So, a Middle East invasion AND an invasion of the UK, launched from ... Sweden (all the way across the North Sea), in the face of active NATO opposition, strikes me as going too far. As Churchill pointed out in his Memoirs, amphibious operations are extremely taxing logistically (he would know, he screwed up Gallopoli), which explains why Hitler was never able to cross the Channel even though he had crushing superiority. Here, we are not talking about a few miles of sea .... but the entire North Sea, with NATO controlling a good part of the coastlines of Sweden, Denmark, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, France ..... so moving massive forces to the UK is, quite simply impossible. It WOULD be possible to move smaller forces, once, especially if the Soviet leadership was duped as to, say, a potential worker uprising (my favorite version, with the KGB agents embezzling the funds and absconding) which just requires a few elite troops to finish off the dying Capitalist beast, already devastated by tac nukes. When said troops arrive, surprise! No one is there to welcome them, and supply lines back home are cut off.
Issue 3: country-specific issues. Suggested fix: trust your native scouts!
Many UK players, especially JerryB on the Fria Ligan forum, have made well researched points regarding both Issue 2 above and more UK specific issues. They have great ideas, and I think picking their brains for ideas would be a wonderful way to give depth to a UK setting - and relatively easily. I have, also respectfully, made a few suggestions regarding France (tweaks, but that do improve, IMHO, both the "realism" and the dramatic potential). I am sure JerryB and the other UK readers would be happy to help develop this part - I know I am for the French part, and, with the Internet, you have potential contributors from all over. The Polish and Swedish parts certainly benefited from local input - so it's time to think globally and act locally
Again, thanks to you Fria Ligan team for all for this: world building is incredibly difficult when dealing with alternative histories as opposed to purely imaginary worlds, and rest assured the overwhelming majority of backers are REALLY grateful and happy.
Moderator Action: Changed the oversized emoji to a smiley of a more moderate size.
- Fenhorn