I was inspired by the discussion of "Geopolitical Game Simulator", which soon turns towards Chris Crawford's work. Balance of Power 1990 Edition is a Cold War simulator, known for being a pretty good game to play, altough it does has its flaws. Maybe, however, those flaws might be fixed if the AI was taken out and we just have the human element.
Due to the semi-populartiy of EoFS PBEM and the rise of the new MoO2 multiplayer game, I was wondering if anybody was interested in a multiplayer version of Balance of Power 1990. There are two positions: The President of the USA and the Preimer of the USSR, and they get to decide what their country does. The USA has more money, but less troops, and the USSR is vice-versa. The goal of each side is to get the most "prestige points" without causing a nuclear war in the process. Prestige can be acquired by establishing governments friendly to your nation and "winning"
Brinkmanship Challenges.
You do not need to actually download BOP1990 to play or watch. I can screenshot the revelant info. All actions has to be public though, because the other side can challenge your action, causing a
Brinkmanship Challenge that can lead to nuclear war.
There is only one thing that really worries me: What difficulty settings should be used for this multiplayer game? The higher the difficulty setting, the more features are added to the game, making it more complicated....
---Easy:
Insurgency feature. Players can work to defend friendly governments (by sending military aid or military troops) or overthrow rival ones (by sending military aid and military troops). There is a possiblity that Soviet troops and American troops may end up killing each other, which can increase tension.
---Medium:
Coups feature. Players can work to destabilize rival countries to cause a "coup" ('military' or 'democratic') that creates a more friendly country, or send in economic aid package to friendly countries to keep that country stable.
---Hard:
Finlandlization Feature. Powerful superpowers with lot of military aid would be so scary that rival nations would have no choice but to give in and become more friendly. Players can counteract 'Finlandization' by signing treaties promising to defend friendly nations, and by being rather scary themselves. If players sign a treaty and procede to disregard it, other nations would take less stock in your 'promises'.
---Realistic:
Minor Powers: Other nations are going to do whatever they want to do, to promote their interests. They will attempt to cause coups and fund insurgencies. Minor powers also take a cue from the two Superpowers' actions, if the two Superpowers threaten nuclear war every day, then minor powers think it is okay to cause total chaos too, and so will procede to do so merrily. Sometimes, this means you have to tell your own allies to stop causing chaos and myahem. The example Crawford gave was Israel funding terrorism in Syria, causing the Soviet Union to intervene putting the US in a hard place.
Setting the game to Realistic may make it realistic, but do you really want to baby-sit your allies? I'm just warning you.
Some possible rules for how to resolve Brinkmanship Challenges:
Superpowers can declare a Brinkmanship Challenge by stating, "I will threaten nuclear war if [SUPERPOWER] continues doing [ACTION] to [COUNTRY]."
Brinkmanship Challenges should would likely be avoided, due to Superpowers actually caring about survival, and the possiblity that both the USA and USSR forming grand baragins ("I will stop badmouthing the Nicaraguans in return for you agreeing not to attack Iran"), but if they do occur, players would PM me stating me to what DEFCON level they would wish to give in at (DEFCON 1 is nuclear war). The higher the DEFCON level you are willing to give in, the more Prestige you will lose if you actually do give in.
If both players decide to give in at DEFCON 2, then that means they'll stick to their guns, hence a nuclear war. Of course, in the process of Brinkmanship raising the DEFCON level may lead to an accidental discharge of nuclear weapons, which also lead to a nuclear war.
EDIT: To play, all you have to do is state that you want to play, and tell me what role you want, President of USA or Preimer of USSR. You are allowed to have other advisers tell you what to do, but I'm not sure about having any formal powers...at least not yet.
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Topic: Balance of Power 1990 Edition (Multiplayer) (Read 4623 times)