Hello,
More ideas for Europe 2021 ! Because my secret dream is certainly to be a game designer. Too bad that my skills with a computer don't agree and stops at "open opendocument and write something".
More seriously, I've imagined this with the idea that NATO is a little bit stronger. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's my general feeling. Russia has an edge at the start, but it tend to vanish quickly. So it would give more opportunity to russian player. Not a game changer, but it would help them while keeping a kind of realism that you want :
1 - I feel that a "cheese" strategy for NATO in central Europe could be to withdraw from the frontlines to regroup quickly with reinforcments that arrives from the rear. To Leave Eastern Ukraine to fortify the Dniepr river ; to leave the Baltic States to fortify a smaller front in Poland and avoid the overwhelming troops that Russia can send in the area at the start of the scenario. Just some rear guards units with low value staying behind to slow the Russians. Then, NATO player can hold better positions while more troops arrive. Once NATO armies are together, they are extremely hard to stop, especially if they not have suffer looses at the beginning of the scenario.
I have an idea to mitigate this.
I don't remember exactly how many prestige points have NATO at the start, but maybe you should reduce it, by like -4000 points. NATO player could receive a mission at turn 1 : "Allied countries are worried by the war and fear for their security ; you have to protect Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius and Dnipro at the end of turn 7 to show our resolve to protect all of our members."
NATO player receive +1000 points for each city still in control. This mission is easily achievable, but it would require that NATO player REALLY tries to protect them ; and not withdraw like "I don't care mates".
From a realistic point of view, NATO is an alliance of 30 countries, some have very different point of view and foreign policy. If High Command (the player) decides to sacrifice some of them and allies day 1 to save the assets from others big members, it could cause distrust, chaos and disorganize the alliance. So give to the player less prestige points if he decides to not protect all his members is a good way to punish him if he do so. I think ~2500 points are enough to play 7 turns, until the 4000 prestige points arrive.
Maybe 7 turns is too short or too long ; maybe 1 000 points per objective is not enough or too much ; maybe these are not the best cities to choose for this mission ; but you get the general idea.
2 - I had ideas about adding Turkey few weeks ago, Akulla replied that the whole area will eventually join the scenario. Well, it is already a long work, but I have a worse idea
Russia has some good assets in the Atlantic Ocean and Norwegian Sea at the start of the scenario. But what to do with them ? Only defensive or limited missions. Defend the Barent Sea to not allow NATO to seize Murmansk ; support russian ground advance in Norwegia. And that's it. NATO fleets outnumbers the russian one. Impossible to take control of the Sea (unless playing against the AI of course). Too hard to avoid enemies fleets and try to invade UK or another Western European country.
Then, I remembered the book Red Storm Rising. It was not the same setting than this scenario (late Cold War), but a country can have the same function in both scenarii : Iceland. This country don't have a real military forces, it count on the US to defend it. During the Cold War, the US have established a naval air station at Keflavik, to watch soviets submarines operations in the Atlantic. This base was closed in 2006, but we can assume it can be re-established in a scenario like your. I'm not sure, but I've heard that there are discussions to open it again. So, it can be considered operational.
So, maybe you could add Iceland (I would advise you to cheat a little bit with geography and make it closer to Norwegia, to not make a map too huge). It should have a very limited ground defense (like 1 US infantry unit without any experience within Keflavik base itself), few ships and one air unit to protect it. Not something hard to capture, unless NATO player decide to reinforce it at the expanse of the european front or the naval operation in the Norwegian Sea. On the other side, maybe giving few paratroopers or naval troops ready to embark inside transports would be a good idea to allow the russian player the opportunity to capture Keflavik. It would gives both a more offensive and achievable goal to the Russian Fleet in the Norwegian Sea.
By capturing it, Russia is opening the Atlantic Ocean to it's submarines. To represent it, the russian player would earn something like 1000 or 2000 prestige points. To sum up : an equivalent of Tartus base but for Russia in the Atlantic.
I Hope it helps.
Work is over for me at home, it will be time to continue my AAR
I hope that I will be able to finish it before the release of MC V2.0
