City of Angels? (moved from archive)

[kato13]

Snake Eyes 02-02-2003, 07:43 PM So . . . what is everbody's beef with this one? Granted, I was only a dopey teenager unschooled in the ways of the world when I last played through it, but it didn't really seem that bad. Was I just not paying attention?

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TR 02-02-2003, 07:57 PM For me it was simply that we had numerous examples up until that point of good writing. plot and scripting... when GDW lent the license to let COA get printed that all went away... all the research and materials GDW had used to craft the world seemed to fade away... and the gaps of logic and military knowledge were hard to swallow... and yes before anyone asks I own it.


Of couorse I generally want one of everything for my collection... but I'm funny that way.


:p



Until Later


TR

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pmulcahy 02-02-2003, 08:10 PM The truth is, I don't have a big problem with City of Angels, but you do have to do a little work to get it to gibe with T2K canon. There is a lot of interesting stuff in it, however, such as the rules for generating civilian characters, which until that point didn't exist in any published material for T2K. (They are for Version 1, but work rather well for that version.)


The plot seems screwy, but I think that a military unit (long out of touch with higher headquarters) going to the home of their dead, but highly-respected leader just to keep a promise is something that might happen in a Twilight 2000 world.

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orrin_ladd 02-03-2003, 02:20 PM I'm in agreement with TR on City of Angels. All the GDW stuff researched and scripted. The general tone of GDW T2k material was of a serious, post-nuke survival nature.


Then City of Angels was released. Before I go on, keep in mind I was a Los Angeles resident for 10 years, and I do not have the module in front of me.


I was gravely disappointed. I had expected some scholarly work on the general situation of the T2k Los Angeles area. What I got was some comic-bookish type adventure in someone's vision of LA. I didn't have problems with the premise of the adventure (returning the deceased officer's medallion to his mother), but rather the details.


My beefs:


No realisitic orbat of Mexican forces in the area (Orange group, yellow group, etc with Soviet equipment?) Compare this with Red Star/Lone Star.


Little discussion of the nuclear blasts in Torrance, Wilmington and the other targets. I think there was brief mention in the one page timeline, that was it.


Trivializing the survivors still in LA. Where are the Bloods and the Crips? What about any other gangs or groups? Call me PC but a picture of an Vietnamese guy (Eddie Tran) with a fu-manchu type beard and wearing some Chinese style getup?


What about the numerous landmarks in the area? I realize all the refineries were nuked and nearby NAVSTA Long Beach and the LA airport were wrecked. But what about numerous universities, theme parks, etc in the area. There is more than one amusement park in the Los Angeles area. How about Hollywood, the sign, the aerospace industry, etc...? Compare this with other T2k modules.


I could go on, but you get the point.


I had expected a lot more, but got little. However, I did use some of City of Angels for my California OOB. Namely the Raiders as a marauder type gang. Which, considering what some of the Raider Nation did after the Superbowl loss isn't too far from the truth!


This just serves as inspiration to add more to my California OOB. I should just turn it into a sourcebook. I know some people have problems with the Mexican Army invasion aspect, but hey, it's a 'sci-fi' game after all!



In parting, I think it is interesting to point out that the author of City of Angels, Craig Shelley, is also the author of East Europe Sourcebook. I have my issues with some parts of that sourcebook as well.

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Aaron 02-03-2003, 03:24 PM Also something you wouldn't see as a player is the module was rigged, it really didn't matter what the players did the outcome was the same (assuming the characters don't get killed). Doesn't matter how fast or slow they the players are, the outcome is the same whether they push on without sleep, dragging their wounded for days or sit around for a week after each encounter healing up, brewing fuel and basically lollygagging their way through the module. Bad form for a module in my book.

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Jason Weiser 02-03-2003, 09:24 PM Hi all,

My opinion abt City of Angels...PU...It needs a major facelift, and I ran it with a lot of changes, dropped the cannibals, and added a New American angle (New American advisors to the Mexicans, forshadowing the 2300 timeline)..and a few other wrinkles.:)

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Dogger 02-03-2003, 10:34 PM Originally posted by Jason Weiser

and added a New American angle (New American advisors to the Mexicans, forshadowing the 2300 timeline)..and a few other wrinkles.:)


I like that, I too have had the NA showing up behind the scenes of much of Milgov's troubles.

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Ed the Coastie 02-04-2003, 01:02 AM I had to do quite a bit of re-writing before I was comfortable enough with City of Angels to run it for my players. Most of the re-writes were relatively minor, but some of the major ones included:


1) A complete revamping of the gang stronghold in the amusement park. It's obvious from the text and the illustrations that it is supposed to be Disneyland, so I made it Disneyland. Lots of changes made there...when the PCs entered, it was no longer the scripted "walk in the park" (pardon the pun) that the module would have it be.


2) I moved the Hollywood gang from Paramount Studios to Universal Studios, largely because I am more familiar with the latter.


3) I set up a timeline that was operating independantly from the actions of the PCs. The players really felt the pressure.


I did a bunch of other stuff, too...when I get around to updating my web page, I'll post the changes to it and several other modules on which I've done some re-writing.

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[Olefin]

One way you could fix City of Angels easily - and this wouldnt need a rewrite of the whole module but just the GM's making the corrections - would be to correct the Mexican units to the correct ones for California and their equipment

And had an idea there - if I remember right they supposedly have BMP and T-72 - which the Mexican Army didnt have - but there is a way to make people think they have them

Which would be that they are either:

M551A1's that were modified to look like Soviet equipment that fell into Mexican hands during the fighting when the US had to press them into service and they broke down and were abandoned - then put back into running condition by the Mexicans

or

possibly captured movie props - i.e. the T-72's that were created for Red Dawn and would be sitting on a Hollywood prop lot - which were so realistic even the CIA wondered where the heck they had come from

either one would give pause to anyone who thought they were for real - and thus you have where the Mexican forces in LA came up with Soviet equipment

[Olefin]

Been looking thru my copy of City of Angels and also Challenge 27 and have a pretty good idea for where they got the Mexican forces in the module

Looking at Force Green, Red, Yellow and Orange they are most likely all describing the 1a Brigada - that force had 1100 men and 6 AFV's, possibly reinforced by men from the 2o Regimento Caballeria which had 500 men and 2 AFV's

The four forces had 1350 men but way too many AFV's for the Mexican Army - if they had that many left in 2001 they wouldnt have been stopped in 1998 short of the Oregon border

However I do like the movie prop idea - i.e. damn look at all those AFV's we better not take them on - and there go the US forces pulling back from prop vehicles that look tough but except for the machine guns on them nothing else works

[Legbreaker]

...they supposedly have BMP and T-72 - which the Mexican Army didnt have...

Could have received them from Division Cuba, or from the Soviets as payment for opening up a Mexican/US front. It's not like the Mexicans already had any AFVs capable of standing up to even the older US M60's and M113's. They'd need the Soviet machines to have any chance of even holding their own, let alone making progress into the US.

[Olefin]

actually Leg I am looking at exactly what you said - i.e. why does the Virginia and her task force run into a group of Soviet DD's off the coast of Mexico - especially when the Soviets are as short of oil as we are

Well one idea would be escorting a few ships carrying Soviet equipment for the Mexican Army

[Legbreaker]

That is certainly a plausible explanation, given the naval engagement occurred approximately 9 months after Division Cuba began their offensive.
I'm wondering if there may have been an oil tanker involved as well though - give the Mexicans AFVs and other supplies in exchange for oil which they'd supposedly "liberated" from Texas to be taken back for use in Korea perhaps. The oil actually being in Mexican hands may have been a lie though, in order to get their hands on badly needed supplies. Soviets might have been a little annoyed to be handed nothing more than a scrap of paper with IOU on it! :D

[Legbreaker]

Thinking about it, that ties into Red Star, Lone Star as well. Could be part of the oil expected to be gained from Gulfwind Forty was slated to pay for the equipment provided the year before. Not sure how it was expected to get the oil to the west coast though, or if that was even the intention. Could be a suitable tanker(s) was already in the region and the next step may have been to acquire it and bring it to Port Isabel to be loaded up and sent to Europe (or other parts unknown).

[kalos72]

If you have read the "Pacific" document, it shows USSR putting a fair amount of effort and troops in several South/Central American nations.

[recon35]

If your timeline doesn't have Salina Cruz, just to the south of the Gulf of California, destroyed, there is a refinery and port that has the equipment to ship crude/refined oil, so the Soviets may have been getting their oil from there. That places them in the vicinity for the Virginia action in Satellite Down.

[kalos72]

The other question, would the dock facilities in LA be worth anything now? Most of the nuke tonnage hit on the north side of the city I think...

The module wanted LA to be a waste but I dont see it being any worse then Houston and they dont portray that area nearly as badly.

[Legbreaker]

Bear in mind the nuke lists only show the larger strikes - over 0.5 Mt except for a handful of specific exceptions (the White House for example which received a 0.25 Kt ground burst).

Howling Wilderness also states on page 10:
The exclusion of a city from this list does not mean that is is intact. Civil unrest, hostile military action, and other factors have cause severe damage in regions otherwise untouched by the war.
Given there are Mexican units in the LA region, it would be safe to assume the area has suffered "hostile military action", and those areas not destroyed by nukes have been damaged by more conventional means.
There's also the probability the fires caused by nukes spread unchecked for days, weeks, potentially even months, not to mention the possibility of earthquakes and the associated damage they can cause.

[Olefin]

I interpret the list of nuke strikes as the only ones that occurred in the US - you arent going to see a lot of battlefield nukes in the US - possibly Canada but only if the Soviets brought them with them - but Division Cuba and the Mexicans wont have any nukes

now on the other hand having a firestorm caused by the nuke strikes on LA - of which there were several - destroy one hell of a lot of the city - yup I will buy that totally

or rioting after the nuclear strikes - I was there for the Rodney King riots - and the citizens of LA did a pretty good job burning up a heck of a lot of buildings without any assistance from nuke strikes to help it along

[Legbreaker]

I interpret the list of nuke strikes as the only ones that occurred in the US

Well that's completely wrong given the R-27U Zyb, R-39 Rif and R29M Shtil, all common Soviet sub launched ballistic missiles, have small warheads of 100-200 kt each.

[mpipes]

Keep in mind for LA; the city is essentially surrounded by hills. Blast waves are going to head outward and then get reflected back in. Also, there are miles and miles of wooden homes built during the housing boom in the 40s through 50s. Those are going to be shattered and all that wood set aflame. At Hiroshima, a LOT of the damage was due to the fire storm started by the thermal pulse. Same would happen in LA, and with the shattered water system, no way to fight the flames. The LA basin would essentially be burned out by the firestorm. Total devastation.

[Olefin]

Well that's completely wrong given the R-27U Zyb, R-39 Rif and R29M Shtil, all common Soviet sub launched ballistic missiles, have small warheads of 100-200 kt each.

Actually I have the canon to back me up on what nukes were actually used - i.e. Allegheny Uprising confirming that the only nukes that hit in PA were the ones on the refineries near Philly

So if the Soviets were using all kinds of smaller nukes then why didnt they hit:

BAE Plant York PA - M109, M88, Bradley, M8 Buford plant - only plant making all of those vehicles - yet untouched by nukes

Harley Davidson plant York PA

Harrisburg PA state capital

Mack Trucks Assembly plant Macungie PA - which by 1997 had to be switched to making military trucks for sure

Three Mile Island Harrisburg PA

multiple army and NG bases in PA including the Carlisle Barracks

Pittsburgh and its steel producing factories

Thus its pretty clear that what got hit by nukes - not by riots, forest fires, natural disasters, etc. - but by nukes is what is in the canon only

Need more backup - look at Urban Guerrilla - only nuke attacks are the ones in the canon strikes - same with the Texas module - only nuke attacks are the ones in the canon strikes for the US as a whole

[Legbreaker]

Actually I have the canon to back me up on what nukes were actually used - i.e. Allegheny Uprising confirming that the only nukes that hit in PA were the ones on the refineries near Philly

One state does not detail an entire nation.
Also, Urban Guerrilla is only detailing one relatively small area directly involved in the module. The rest of the state is glossed over.
It also does not rule out other strikes, and actually states "Florida was hit by a series of selective nuclear strikes..."

Want more evidence? How about Howling Wilderness which specifically states "With certain exceptions, only places that received .5 megaton or more are covered here."
Also, "represented by the megaton(Mt) rating of the weapons exploded there (not necessarily as a single weapon)".

Going back to the actual warheads in the missiles most commonly carried by Soviet boomers at the time, their yield is either 100 kt or 200kt. That's a LOT of warheads spread around, even if you just dump them on only those locations which received .5 Mt or greater. As has been discussed many, MANY times in the past, there's loads of potential targets which deserve a nuke, but don't require an ICBM with their correspondingly larger (usually over 250 kt) warheads.

Again, the books only detail the larger strikes and leave the individual Referee the freedom, even duty, to allocate smaller hits as they see fit.
Note that all versions include nuclear craters as a possible random encounter with no restriction on where they can be found. Only France and Australia (according to the scenario "What's Polish for G'day") have not been hit, although that information is really just anecdotal.

Therefore your proposition that all nuclear targets in the US are already listed in the books is clearly and definitively proven wrong.

[kalos72]

I think Leg you are assuming the developers KNEW the size of all the different warheads and the like when they wrote it.

There is almost ZERO documented cases of nuke sites NOT on the cannon list...and with the one exception of Shreveport, they are ALL military/government or oil refining related.

I think its not a reach to say, if its not on the list it didnt happen.

Now of course, its your game, play it how you like as always. But if there were hundreds of other 100kt hits, we would be playing GammA World...

[Legbreaker]

Except warhead yields were known at the time of writing, at least well enough for the purposes of writing the books, and as is stated clearly in black and white in several books, ONLY STRIKES GREATER THAN 0.5 MEGATON ARE LISTED.
Absence of evidence in this case particularly is absolutely not evidence of absence.

[rcaf_777]

As has been discussed many, MANY times in the past, there's loads of potential targets which deserve a nuke, but don't require an ICBM with their correspondingly larger (usually over 250 kt) warheads.

Question, after years of war how many booomers and bombers would be left in the US and Soviet inventory? and how many mobile launchers are left?

[Olefin]

"Want more evidence? How about Howling Wilderness which specifically states "With certain exceptions, only places that received .5 megaton or more are covered here."
Also, "represented by the megaton(Mt) rating of the weapons exploded there (not necessarily as a single weapon)".

Yes and those exceptions are noted everywhere in the list - which is why they showed what the mega-tonnage was for those strikes

I am taking the list as being complete - what you see is what you get - and the Urban Guerrilla, Allegheny Uprising and Red Star Lone Star modules match up with the listed attacks - and Urban Guerrilla does a great job of detailing out exactly what HW meant by not necessarily as a single weapon

i.e. the 1 megaton attacks in Florida were actually a series of ten 100 kiloton strikes

thus the canon modules and the HW description match

And one state is very indicative of the rest of the US - the FMC plant in York, the Macungie Mack plant, Three Mile Island, the National Guard bases in PA are all ones that if the Soviets used smaller nukes all would have been big time targets - and yet none of them were hit - not even cities like Harrisburg (i.e. the bridges over the Susquehanna) or Pittsburgh with vital transportation links were hit

so if there were no other strikes at all on those areas then the idea of large or even medium scale use of smaller nukes to hit targets in the US is basically repudiated

if they had done that then most of the targets I mention above would have been radioactive debris and rubble - yet not one of them was hit - the fact that the only plant in the US making SPG, Bradleys, M88's and M8 Bufords is untouched and that the bridges over the Susquehanna are intact alone shows that the Soviets did not engage in the use of smaller weapons outside of the HW canon - and keep in mind the attacks in Maryland which were detailed - i.e. meaning there is no lack of delivery of weapons into that area - and yet the state, outside of Philly, Per Canon, is untouched

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Wasn't there something in one of the books that basically said the writers decided to leave some nukes unaccounted for so that individual Referees could add a few more targets to the hit list if they wanted?

[Olefin]

Oh I agree with you SSC (hey thats a long name to type:)) - if an individual referee wants to add more nukes thats up to him - except in places like PA or northern to central FL where the canon modules basically dictated what got nuked and what didnt (i.e. Allegheny Uprising says it plainly - the only nuclear targets in PA were the refineries in Philly - thats a fact if you want to stay with the canon) - but if you want to disregard the canon you can add as many nukes as you want

but otherwise its up to the referee what he wants to do - but one big reason I dont see more nukes hitting the US is the simple fact that doing so would probably have led to the final all out exchange that would turn the world into Aftermath - either the war is a limited exchange or its goes general - and hitting every target you can think of with nukes pretty much means the world is a smoking radioactive ruin

now you can play the game that way if you want - but the canon nukes did more than enough damage all on their own

[kato13]

Wasn't there something in one of the books that basically said the writers decided to leave some nukes unaccounted for so that individual Referees could add a few more targets to the hit list if they wanted?

There is the note about listed strikes being over 500kt in both the BYB and Howling wilderness (not sure if it is in the challenge articles that both of these were based on).

My issue with that is that only around 8% of the USSR long range warheads were under 500kt. So I personally would only add an extra 10% or so of the US and Canadian Lists. Nato had way more sub 500KT warheads (due to greater accuracy), but the tit for tat nature of the strikes leads me to add a similar number to the USSR.

Note the above logic applies is strategic strikes only. West of the Urals you can also add tactical strikes as units from both sides were inside the Soviet Union when the exchange started.

Of course if you want to say the USSR had more smaller warheads that is cool, I just try to use real world data whenever I can.

[Olefin]

For instance one place you could see battlefield nukes being used in the US or Canada would be with the Soviet forces that you see invading Alaska, Canada and trying to get to Seattle -but as far as I can see no nukes are mentioned in any of those units histories - i.e. you dont see the US nuking the Soviets or the Soviets bringing battlefield nukes with them

and there are canon smaller nukes as well - lots of the refinery strikes were 250kt or warheads with 100kt to spread out the 1 Megaton total

but the issue is as Kato said - the Soviets really didnt have much in the way of lower kt nukes back then - i.e. their sub nukes were so inaccurate they were using citibusters not small nukes - thats one reason I can see the Lima strike not hitting the tank plant by the way - i.e. that it missed so badly that it didnt hit the plant at all even considering the size of the warhead