Apocalypse (1983): Terrible UI and stale gameplay packaged in one successful game!
Comrade, what do we do with this Neo-Mayan weapon?
It's obvious. Following in the dictate of Great Lenin, we'll use this technological advantage against the capitalists, the fascists and the nihilists. If only I could understand the launch instructions, it's all in Mayan gi....
Comrade, what's a nihilist?
Did you fail at school or something? It's from Latin, numbskull. "nihil" means nothing. It's a sect of enemies of the people that refuse to eat so they don't have enough meat on them when it's their turn to be eaten. Wait a moment, maybe this button does something....
Following the peace-loving ways of the UGSSR the abominable Neo-Mayan weapon was safely disposed of in the seas near Ancient Nicaragua. Sadly some Scribe tourists were nearby, but we've heard they were cooked fine by the blast.
Turn 11
Without news of their Censors in Central America, the Scribes assessed the situation:
- Their allies the Neo-Mayans were clearly winning, and were in the enviable situation of having only 2 neighbours:
x The Genarids, who had a weaker economy and themselves fighting on a second front against the UGSSR,
x The Scribes, who were their only long term threat.
As the Scribes saw it, either the Neo-Mayans would attack them or, more likely, they would just beat the Genarids, then the UGSSR, then the Genarids again one after the other, and the Scribes would be alone fighting the Neo-Mayans.
And in the unlikely case where the Genarids and the UGSSR would ally against the Neo-Mayans, then the UGSSR would have no other target... than the Scribe themselves. The UGSSR and the Scribes had a local understanding in Texas, but in case of an alliance between the Genarids and the UGSSR it would not hold. And in case of no-alliance, then the Neo-Mayans would win.
A decision was taken:
The Scribes determined that just like for fauna, it is easier to study dead cultures than live cultures. Henceforth:
But wait, there's more!
Having ensured that no one ever trust them again in this dimension or any other, the Scribes then proceeded to the other part of their plan. It turns out they had not only stockpiled nukes!
With this reserve ppaattieeenttttllly accumulated in the last 3 quarters, the Scribe could equip a lot more fire teams than they could have with their regular revenue. It was essential to annihilate any Neo-Mayan holdout in Floria, lest the Scribe fight a two-front war against disappointed Neo-Mayans. Of course, most of the recruitment was tasked with Mission Ouranos, aka "Seal The Manhole".
With close to 25 new divisions in addition to more than 10 divisions already deployed and available, both missions were a success and the Floridexas zone was declared Commie-free and Pagan-free. The excess Scribes were then sent to study nuclear Fallout.
I am not going back reputationally from this.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that it's always the theocratic fundamentalists who are the most eager to play with nukes, to burn open-minded cities with brimstone.
After the massive radioactive dust settles the numbers really tell a depressing story. Looking at how much more valuable place North America is compared to South America makes me feel like the war I have had with Karbonkitty there has been for nothing.
So this turn neo-Mayans have been adjusting to the new world order.
My new plan will be to use the lessons learned from the attempt of a long lost nation, USA, when they conquered Guadalcanal Island during the second world war. I'm confident that Scribe can't answer since he has no experience of that campaign, ..., right?
Some of you might be surprised by being stabbed in the back so soon, but as it turns out, the Genar have already has a treaty with the Scribes when one was proposed to them... And as a result, the value of the South America was reduced a little bit more this quarter, as the Panama nuke strikes the outskirts of Bogota and the Genar soldiers pour in into the opening (and then promptly fail to dislodge a single division of infantry in the open field, even with 5:1 ratio).
Now, I'm unlikely to win a duel with the Scribe, due to his strong position in the rich North America, I know that. But the worst case scenario is being second, while a three-way against him would leave open the possibility of me being third, and I still would be very unlikely to win against the neo-Mayans, so at least this way I can secure a second place. Also, he asked first.
"Oh no, the Scribe has betrayed every single pact and word he he said since turn 1"
"Let's trust him and become his meat shield against the surviving players!"
I mean, I wasn't smart to not knife the Scribe when he blatantly betrayed me in Central America, but it's just me being me. Sacrificing yourself to let him win the game is a strategy, but a weird one for sure. Who you think is going to take the brunt of the fight now?
Quote from Dayyalu on 24 May 2024, 12h47"Oh no, the Scribe has betrayed every single pact and word he he said since turn 1"
"Let's trust him and become his meat shield against the surviving players!"
I mean, I wasn't smart to not knife the Scribe when he blatantly betrayed me in Central America, but it's just me being me. Sacrificing yourself to let him win the game is a strategy, but a weird one for sure. Who you think is going to take the brunt of the fight now?
Wait, wait, wait! We only had a non-aggression pact (that I blatantly violated) in Texas! Central America was FFA, you even nuked me there :).
I can't betray KK now; if I do all I am going to be stabbed in every single future MP game.
Well, to be fair, he didn't betray me even once so far. Neither here nor anywhere else, in fact, helped by this being my first PBEM game. 😉
The fact that 3 vs 1 would make it much longer also played a part in my decision, to be fair... This UI is not very good.
Quote from KarbonKitty on 24 May 2024, 15h00Well, to be fair, he didn't betray me even once so far. Neither here nor anywhere else, in fact, helped by this being my first PBEM game. 😉
The fact that 3 vs 1 would make it much longer also played a part in my decision, to be fair... This UI is not very good.
Heh, that was one of the questions I was thinking when I was trying to calculate the likelihood of you using the Panamian nuke in South America, but found it difficult to determine the weight to be used with that unknown factor.
My view hasn't changed during the game, that is if everyone play smartly - either to win or not to let others to win - with this ruleset it is really difficult to gain big enough resource lead to really get the snowball rolling. So this match has the potential of continuing indefinetly, and I understand well the desire for this to not go on forever.
Quote from Operative Lynx on 24 May 2024, 16h09Quote from KarbonKitty on 24 May 2024, 15h00Well, to be fair, he didn't betray me even once so far. Neither here nor anywhere else, in fact, helped by this being my first PBEM game.
The fact that 3 vs 1 would make it much longer also played a part in my decision, to be fair... This UI is not very good.
Heh, that was one of the questions I was thinking when I was trying to calculate the likelihood of you using the Panamian nuke in South America, but found it difficult to determine the weight to be used with that unknown factor.
My view hasn't changed during the game, that is if everyone play smartly - either to win or not to let others to win - with this ruleset it is really difficult to gain big enough resource lead to really get the snowball rolling. So this match has the potential of continuing indefinetly, and I understand well the desire for this to not go on forever.
Indeed, that's the curse of the 3 or 4 players games with no time limits. If the players are rational, they keep ganging up on whoever is leading. In this case, we have a unique situation where Dayyalu cannot physically go anywhere except through the Genarids, so I hoped it would naturally create a 2v2 alliance and end up in a duel instead of a constantly shifting quadrille. I had a worst case scenario where KK would have handed Dayyalu Panama, but it did not happen.
I just wish terrain could go down to 0 production, with the players fighting over a shrinking valuable territory over time. Alas, they did not dare do it. They should also have changed terrain color according to current (not initial) productivity.
Does anybody know what is the damage that the nukes deliver? I know it depends on the terrain, but I'm not sure if it depends on the distance from the explosion itself? There were two tiles with two armies in the range of the Bogota nuke, one directly adjacent and one diagonal; the directly adjacent were both destroyed, and on the diagonal one was left, and I'm not sure if it's random or distance-related.
As for the ruleset - I feel like it has been built out of disparate parts meant to balance each other, but without a final balancing pass of sorts. As a result, we get a game that gets slower over time, as the nukes destroy the landscape and make it harder to build the material advantage over the opponent, while the landscape gets filled with armies which need like 4-1 or 5-1 ratio to semi-reliably dislodge them (or nukes, which cost at least as much as 6 armies to get the range that won't devastate the city they were launched from), and any half-competent defence is strong enough to require multiple turns of buildup from the aggressor to break through.
Kind of like WW I, really? The question is, who will be the Germany running out of people to feed to the meatgrinder, I guess.
Oh, and also, defender getting two guesses against the seaborne invasion is incredibly powerful, to the point that Carribean map seems to have a _very_ different dynamic than other maps would.
For our current situation - I was thinking of crushing the communists and making it a three-way, but the nuke problem rises it's ugly head again - if I nuke the Central American cities, I will spend a lot of resources and not gain much, since they will be reduced to production 1-2 resources per turn (they are 4-5 cities now, not 9), and assaulting them with conventional forces would take so long Scribe would eat me from the north, or Lynx from the South; my lines of defence there are single-nuke wide, so it's not difficult to break through them if one is determined enough (and has a nearby city to build a nuke in; one of my major errors was building nukes out of the way, where they ate up resources while being to far from the fighting to use). And while I stood to gain a lot from capturing Texas, it is also nearly impossible without nukes, and those would reduce the value of the territory there so much that South America would look good again, probably.
Quote from KarbonKitty on 24 May 2024, 18h49Does anybody know what is the damage that the nukes deliver? I know it depends on the terrain, but I'm not sure if it depends on the distance from the explosion itself? There were two tiles with two armies in the range of the Bogota nuke, one directly adjacent and one diagonal; the directly adjacent were both destroyed, and on the diagonal one was left, and I'm not sure if it's random or distance-related.
As for the ruleset - I feel like it has been built out of disparate parts meant to balance each other, but without a final balancing pass of sorts. As a result, we get a game that gets slower over time, as the nukes destroy the landscape and make it harder to build the material advantage over the opponent, while the landscape gets filled with armies which need like 4-1 or 5-1 ratio to semi-reliably dislodge them (or nukes, which cost at least as much as 6 armies to get the range that won't devastate the city they were launched from), and any half-competent defence is strong enough to require multiple turns of buildup from the aggressor to break through.
Kind of like WW I, really? The question is, who will be the Germany running out of people to feed to the meatgrinder, I guess.
Oh, and also, defender getting two guesses against the seaborne invasion is incredibly powerful, to the point that Carribean map seems to have a _very_ different dynamic than other maps would.
For our current situation - I was thinking of crushing the communists and making it a three-way, but the nuke problem rises it's ugly head again - if I nuke the Central American cities, I will spend a lot of resources and not gain much, since they will be reduced to production 1-2 resources per turn (they are 4-5 cities now, not 9), and assaulting them with conventional forces would take so long Scribe would eat me from the north, or Lynx from the South; my lines of defence there are single-nuke wide, so it's not difficult to break through them if one is determined enough (and has a nearby city to build a nuke in; one of my major errors was building nukes out of the way, where they ate up resources while being to far from the fighting to use). And while I stood to gain a lot from capturing Texas, it is also nearly impossible without nukes, and those would reduce the value of the territory there so much that South America would look good again, probably.
I just read the wording in the manual again, and yeah, it's quite vague. I have been thinking that a nuke destroyes everything in 3x3 grid, since I believe all the nukes in our game have done that so far. But your experience demonstrates that there must be some randomness in the damage value of the fallout and it's possible for someone to survive. I don't think the distance matters, since as far as I can tell the game treats cardinal and diagonal directions equally.
I think it's both a blessing and a curse that we selected Caribbean map. Blessing in a sense that I think it most clearly shows how the systems work (or don't work) together as well as the balance issues thus making it easier for Scribe to assess them in his review. Curse in a sense that with so much zero-valued sea the overall value of the land is rather low meaning that building massive armies or strong nukes is rather slow. This would translate into a very long and arduous end-game even if that would be only a duel over a nuclear wasteland.
Quote from The Wargaming Scribe on 24 May 2024, 16h17If the players are rational, they keep ganging up on whoever is leading.
If I had played it rationally, this game would have been a complete slog. I repeat my point: I got bored of doing the same moves (that were rational, because bogging you down in endless combat in Texas would have forced you to dump all your resources in endless counterattacks without any chance of building nukes because they're too expensive) so I decided to play suboptimally to have fun.
When a player needs to play badly to do something different and interesting, it's a basic breakdown of game design. Repeating the same moves every turn in a vain hope that one of the other will get bad RNG is devastatingly bad design.
I will instead defend the UI, after a while you get used to it. It may be I'm more resilient to bad UI, but it's.... decent after a while.
Turn 12
Well, time to go on the offensive:
After relatively easily chasing the Neo-Mayans from Cuba and sending a few more scribes in the remote parts of Texaflorida, I land in Venezuela... and then a second time a good chunk of my first invasion force is wiped out by the double-roll. I reach, errr, Caracas and stop there because I forget I can't conquer the city without ships, as there are ships in defence. Bummer.
Still, I have a foothold!
The omens are clearly visible, the Apocalypse is once again approaching. Because neo-Mayans don't possess the necessary resources to stop the world from ending, we have decided that it will less painful to focus on speeding up the end-game. Thus on this turn we have been reclaiming as much of the barren wasteland back from Genar as possible. The God of ReveNGe is on neo-Mayan side and we manage to push back Genarian forces in several places.
Desperate times mean desperately searching for history books in the hope of finding some strategy which could postpone the Apocalypse. Let's see does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Blockade has any effect in the current age.
The Genarian army marches into Central America, where cities lay in ruin, the villages are buried under radioactive dust, and jungle is already reclaiming the land as if the humans were never there. Doubled-up blast, first by the tactical device deployed by the Genarian High Command, and then the secondary one from the nuke prepared by the communists has scorched the earth of almost everything, and as the burned-down ruins of the cities are captured, a few divisions launch conventional assaults against the communist positions in the east, to no avail. As the dug-in infantry repels an attack after an attack, Genarians lose five divisions with nothing to show for it...
So it turns out - I've mentioned it in the email - that the nukes _are_ capable of stripping the land bare and removing the last point of resource production. Entire territory captured by me this turn is worth a grand total of 2 (two) resource points, one in the city, and one on the plain; not that I've actually captured two cities, one of which is literally worthless now.
This, incidentally, means that Scribe has two turns of 140+ production ahead of him no matter what anybody else does (nukes take one turn to produce, and another to launch, and amphibious assault is not a good idea, even if somebody has range). Even 3-vs-1 we wouldn't have much of a chance, really.
Turn 13.
I wake up with a naval blockade around Jamaica. With 140+ in revenue, I buy a fleet and attempt to break through.
The Neo-Mayans somehow "dig in" the water ^^.
As you can see, the UGSSR and the Neo-Mayans are trying to go a Torgau handshake through the Genarids. There is a fleet in Panama and the UGSSR blocks the Southern access, so the Neo-Mayans will have to bring their fleet to the North to take Panama.
Back to my situation. I land in Saint-Domingue. It takes me 2 attempts:
After that I conquer Haiti and dig in in the sea just like the Mayans, because boy those fleets are expensive:
This turn Neo-Mayans spent removing all kinds of infidels from South America. In the beaches of Venezuela thousands of Robes are burned in the holy fire, and the survivors are driven back to the sea. In the jungle some Genarids were rooted out of their hiding places. Unfortunately the God of ReveNGe wasn't our side this turn and we suffered heavy losses in these operations.
I think the number of units in a square affects the number of casualties in a nuclear blast. Scribe had 4 armies in one place and while 3 armies perished in the blast one survived.
The slow and ardous grind in Central America continues, as the Genarite armies push the communists deep into the jungles (this seems to be a common theme with communists). The light of Genar will not be extinguished easily.
The instructions mention that armies in the mountains are less affected by nuclear blasts, while armies in the cities are more affected, so I imagine that the nuclear blast deals something like d10-1 damage to the armies in the field? Hard to tell without digging into the code.
Brothers! The Genarites have betrayed us and nuked us, and are building weapons of hatred to snuff out the last light of Civilization. But they too miscalculated.....
The dreaded Campesino Manhole Maneuver hits again, and the Genarite city holding the dreadful weapon of mass destruction is captured by masses of conscripted peasants and swift underground assault. One of the last Warships is sent to secure the weapon, making its recapture impossible.
You guys have no idea the amount of movement abuse stacking the army required. Imagine pretty much all my armies moving one after the other to a single location (then calculating from where I could move another) and the fleets doing the same jumps to keep the city occupied. I'd say building a nuke in a warship-less city in striking distance is quite the bold move nowadays.....
Well, I mostly hoped that commies won't have enough ground strength left to take the city, and building otherwise-useless warships just the cheese the defence seemed like overkill. Apparently the Random Number God though differently on that day, though.