On returning to SR2020...

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Hellfish6
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Joined: Jun 17 2002
Location: Seattle WA

On returning to SR2020...

Post by Hellfish6 »

Hi guys,

I played a lot of SR2010 years ago, and had played SR2020 briefly as well. I'm in Iraq right now, and feeling a bit nostalgic I repurchased SR2020 Gold and started playing it again.

A month later, I have some observations. Some of these have been brought up before, I'm sure, but my bandwidth quotas out here don't let me look 'em all up.

Overall I like the game, but it feels like there's a lot of untapped potential in it. The main objective of the game right now is to conquer the world. That's it. Sheer brute military force. I think the game can do better than that, and it's "fractured" world ethos.

1. Enhance the peace. Right now, SR2020 is all about warfare, yet beneath that bellicose veneer is what appears to be a potentially
excellent political simulation. Probably the potentially best political simulation I've ever seen. SR2020 has entries for government type, economy, religion and social demographics, yet they don't seem to affect anything noticeably. I don't know if time or money ran out, but I'd love to see these come into play more, both internally to the country you play and internationally with your neighbors.

2. Events. More random events. All kinds of weird **** happens in the world that tests, taxes and topples governments. Read the newspapers and just think of all the stuff you see in there that could be made into a game-relevant event.

3. From a security perspective, some events that might require the player to react to non-state threats:

Piracy - pirates raid trade routes. Player has to stop them.
Drug smuggling - a plane is dispatched from one country to the next. Player needs to try to intercept it.
Illegal smuggling - a ship is dispatched from one country to the player's country. Player needs to try to intercept it.
Insurgency - when approval ratings dip below a certain level or consumer goods run out, insurgent groups might start popping up
Rebels - armed groups that fight against their own government. Spawned when public support gets too low. If unchecked rebels would develop from poor to average to experienced.

Militias - armed groups that form due to economic (poverty-stricken people turn to banditry) or political (they might be an ethnic minority oppressed by the government) reasons. Spawned when GDP is either very low or falls below 25-50% of it's initial value and/or when public support is too low.

Insurgents - armed groups that fight foreign invaders. These guys get spawned when you invade other countries and will keep spawning until the loyalty of the lands you occupy is with you.

New unit types:

Rebels (Light) - armed with small arms, minimal AT/AA capability. Basically peasants with whatever firearms they can find. Foot mobile.

Rebels (Medium) - small arms with some heavy weapons (machineguns, RPGs, mines, IEDs, etc). Modest AT/AA capability. Foot mobile.

Rebels (Heavy) - small arms and abundant heavy weapons. Significant AT/AA capabilities (they might have ATGMs, SAMs, heavy AA guns, etc). Foot mobile.

Technicals (Light) - armed groups with light civilian vehicles for mobility. Buses, cars, motorcycles, etc.

Technicals (Medium) - armed groups with light trucks (SUVs, pickups) that have some heavy weaponry.

Technicals (Heavy) - armed groups with light, medium and heavy trucks (up to 5-ton) with heavy weapons.

Armored Group - rebels with a mix of captured armored vehicles (either salvaged off a battlefield, defected, stolen, etc). Mix of tanks, APCs, technicals.

Artillery (Light) - rebels with a mix of light and medium mortars.

Artillery (Heavy) - rebels with stolen/captured heavy artillery, mortars and rockets.

Ideally all these units should be pretty stealthy to avoid detection.

What might also be useful is to make invisible/stealthy hex improvements for rebel units (rebel military facilities, barracks, supply depots, airfields, etc) that are hard to detect and are capable of spawning rebel units. They'd show up randomly within the country when the conditions are appropriate (low public opinion, very low GDP, occupied territory etc.)

4. Proactive international relations. It's rare that I see the AI do much more than offer trades. How come so few accept non-aggression
pacts? Wouldn't most countries want those - especially with neighbors? Or free trade? What abput multinational alliances?

5. You gotta group. Somehow, someway, you have to give us the ability to create units that move and fight together. It's been said,
but I'll say it again. The current battle groups don't really do it. Have you ever tried to sail a carrier strike group across the Atlantic?
Even when you're not getting shot at, it's a SERIOUS pain in the ass.

6. The map. It looks pretty good... but it also feels pretty useless. There is only some generic "high ground" to show a distinct
terrain type. I'd like to see the map with different terrain. And maybe stylized terrain, like in The Operational Art of War, would work better to portray it instead of satellite imagery that doesn't look all that good when you're zoomed in. Forests can hide units, for example, or make some
units more useful. Right now everything looks like a big desert.

7. Unit names list/CSV. Let us create flavor names for our units that pull from a pre-existing file and are tailored to countries and
unit types. Maybe not something you need to do, but something that can be modded it. I literally spend an hour when I start a scenario renaming units. Call me OCD, but those generic names really bug the hell out of me. I know it's impractical to go in and name every single unit in the game, but if we could build lists that the game pulls from so that all our units might have class-based flavor names (i.e. carriers pull from one list that might have USS Enterprise, USS Hornet, USS Ronald Reagan, etc) in it.

8. Unit leaders. Let us attach leaders to units to enhance capabilities... like Panzer General. Promote them to higher ranks, like
HOI. This'd require some kind of chain of command, of course, which can be a whole 'nother bag of cats.

9. Trade routes. Don't have to be dynamic, just a representation of where the major trade lanes are, connecting a pre-existing port to another pre-existing port. A ship on those trade lanes would be useful if it could "interdict" or "blockade" trade to a hostile country.

10. More socio-political effects. Failed states (Somalia, Zimbabwe, Eq Guinea), corruption, despotic regimes, irrational actors.
Failed states could be the source of insurgents, rebels, terrorists, etc.
"Nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure."
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Balthagor
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Re: On returning to SR2020...

Post by Balthagor »

Hi Hellfish! Hope you're staying as safe as possible on your tour of duty, nice to see our older members still come around at times.
Chris Latour
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Galindo
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Re: On returning to SR2020...

Post by Galindo »

More randon events would surely improve the gameplay, they rarely happens and it is usely to give you some exta money or comodities, what about natural catastrophes I know it would give some work since a volcano eruption coudn't happen in a countrie with no vulcano but it would be a new chalenge.
The smugling thing I don't know how hard would it be to make this. But the Insurgency I belive it would be easier since it kind of exist already.
Now the trade routes that would be something, it could be like Empire Total War simple but effective.
"Ordem e Progresso"
Julien
Warrant Officer
Posts: 41
Joined: Jun 30 2008

Re: On returning to SR2020...

Post by Julien »

All I want to see is dynamic AI who reacts international events, who jumps out an alliance if it's his best interest. Without this, the whole world is static.
Booz
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Re: On returning to SR2020...

Post by Booz »

SR2020 is about warfare and i doubt the devs are wishing to make a compleat "peace-side", that would almost be a second game to be made! Plus, there's still plenty of military schnitzen to improve.

If you really want a good political simulation, you can go for the one named "geo-political simulator". Just go for the upgraded version, they cleaned up a metric crapton of bugs. You can do pretty much whatever you want about politics, taxes, religion, business parameters, science, etc... even your own secret nuclear program hehe.

Not a perfect game, still some bugs and the learning curve is somewhere bewteen Anapurna and K2, but if thats your thing you should give it a try (and by that i mean buy it because there's no demo afaik).
Rhyus
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Location: Barnsley, Yorkshire, England

Re: On returning to SR2020...

Post by Rhyus »

Booz wrote:If you really want a good political simulation, you can go for the one named "geo-political simulator". Just go for the upgraded version, they cleaned up a metric crapton of bugs. You can do pretty much whatever you want about politics, taxes, religion, business parameters, science, etc... even your own secret nuclear program hehe.
That game (GPS) is the most unplayable game i have ever played, i wouldn't waste your money or time on this. It still has so many bugs its unbelievable and there is no official forum and if you email the devs they very rarely reply and if they do reply its not very helpful info. Its a good idea and if it worked properly then it would be a great game but as it is, unplayable.

[Edit by moderator: minor edit]
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George Geczy
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Re: On returning to SR2020...

Post by George Geczy »

I like a many of Hellfish's ideas, though certainly we get a bit into the cycle of what type of game people are looking to play with SR2020. By using the "Unification Vote" victory condition it is possible to create a peace-based game, and there also a couple of peace-based scenarios. And for people who set their own "personal" victory conditions (ie, make my country the highest GDP and civilian approval, etc) there are also peaceful ways to play.

But this sort of thing appeals to a minority of players, so it's hard to say how much benefit we would have gained by putting more development time into these areas.

Same sort of thing with major random events - most players hate the random coin flipper beating them on the head and kicking over their sand castles, so significant random events are not something we put it.

-- George.
catatonic
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Re: On returning to SR2020...

Post by catatonic »

Welcome back Hellfish6.

Here is some advice from a Navy veteran:
Hellfish6 wrote:
Overall I like the game, but it feels like there's a lot of untapped potential in it. The main objective of the game right now is to conquer the world.
True.
Hellfish6 wrote:That's it. Sheer brute military force. I think the game can do better than that, and it's "fractured" world ethos.

1. Enhance the peace. Right now, SR2020 is all about warfare, yet beneath that bellicose veneer is what appears to be a potentially excellent political simulation. Probably the potentially best political simulation I've ever seen. SR2020 has entries for government type, economy, religion and social demographics, yet they don't seem to affect anything noticeably. I don't know if time or money ran out, but I'd love to see these come into play more, both internally to the country you play and internationally with your neighbors.
SupremeWiki wrote:It has been said that "Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way." and that "War is a continuation of politics by other means." Here we will attempt to offer you an alternative to war in SR2020 and explain the diplomatic repercussions of using military might to win the game.

Diplomacy is an important tool for victory regardless of whether you selected military conquest, economic success, technological achievement or diplomatic score as a Victory Condition. This is because you can use diplomacy to obtain from other regions many of the things that you need for victory. Allies, transit rights, technology, fuel, diplomatic approval or raw materials can all be obtained through diplomatic means. "Diplomatic Score" and "Complete" victory with "Allied Victories" set are two examples of victory conditions that can be achieved by diplomatic means without having to eliminate any other region militarily.
For more see:

http://www.supremewiki.com/index.php/SR2020_Diplomacy

In my current game it is 2021 and I am allied with 43 regions - that is 43 of the remaining 129 regions that I will not have to conquor militarially in order to win the game.
2. Events. More random events. All kinds of weird **** happens in the world that tests, taxes and topples governments. Read the newspapers and just think of all the stuff you see in there that could be made into a game-relevant event.


There is a "Random Events" setting on the initial game setting screen. I think that the Ruges mod has some pretty unusual random events in it as well - not sure though...
3. From a security perspective, some events that might require the player to react to non-state threats:

Piracy - pirates raid trade routes. Player has to stop them.
Drug smuggling - a plane is dispatched from one country to the next. Player needs to try to intercept it.
Illegal smuggling - a ship is dispatched from one country to the player's country. Player needs to try to intercept it.
Insurgency - when approval ratings dip below a certain level or consumer goods run out, insurgent groups might start popping up
Rebels - armed groups that fight against their own government. Spawned when public support gets too low. If unchecked rebels would develop from poor to average to experienced.

Militias - armed groups that form due to economic (poverty-stricken people turn to banditry) or political (they might be an ethnic minority oppressed by the government) reasons. Spawned when GDP is either very low or falls below 25-50% of it's initial value and/or when public support is too low.

Insurgents - armed groups that fight foreign invaders. These guys get spawned when you invade other countries and will keep spawning until the loyalty of the lands you occupy is with you.
The game has Militia units, partisans and gurrillia units.
New unit types:
...
Technicals (Light) - armed groups with light civilian vehicles for mobility. Buses, cars, motorcycles, etc.

Technicals (Medium) - armed groups with light trucks (SUVs, pickups) that have some heavy weaponry.

Technicals (Heavy) - armed groups with light, medium and heavy trucks (up to 5-ton) with heavy weapons.

Armored Group - rebels with a mix of captured armored vehicles (either salvaged off a battlefield, defected, stolen, etc). Mix of tanks, APCs, technicals.
...
The Ruges game mod contains all kinds of technicals.
4. Proactive international relations. It's rare that I see the AI do much more than offer trades. How come so few accept non-aggression pacts? Wouldn't most countries want those - especially with neighbors? Or free trade? What abput multinational alliances?
See "Diplomacy" above.
7. Unit names list/CSV. Let us create flavor names for our units that pull from a pre-existing file and are tailored to countries and unit types. Maybe not something you need to do, but something that can be modded it. I literally spend an hour when I start a scenario renaming units. Call me OCD, but those generic names really bug the hell out of me. I know it's impractical to go in and name every single unit in the game, but if we could build lists that the game pulls from so that all our units might have class-based flavor names (i.e. carriers pull from one list that might have USS Enterprise, USS Hornet, USS Ronald Reagan, etc) in it.
Modify the DEFAULT.UNITS file and build your own cache. Or modify the file and send it to me. I will make a new cache for you.

Good luck over there. Come back safe and soon.
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012
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