4e What happened to the rest of the world?

[Heffe]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Obviously there must be fuel available as the manuals state that the USN is still very much in the game - i.e. that its not like the 1st and 2nd editions where outside of places where fuel was available (i.e. CENTCOM basically) the USN is not a going concern - witness Satellite Down where it is basically stated that the USN had no ships capable of going to Mexico to get the satellite back or Last Submarine on the east coast

Here's the relevant quote:

"When the smoke clears, the US has obliterated the Soviet navy [in the Atlantic], but suffered huge losses in the process. President West has lost his capacity to ship more troops and equipment to Europe - as well as the ability to bring the forces already there back home."

I suppose there's room for a few interpretations there, but to me at least, that reads as though there's not a whole lot left of the USN. At least not in-theater. Perhaps a few warships still sailing around, but that's about it.

Other relevant bits of info are that the world's populations have been reduced by about half to two thirds by the time 2000 rolls around.

Here's another choice quote or two that add flavor:

"Africa and South America, largely spared from the war itself, are hit hard when world trade collapses. International shipping comes to a standstill and fuel prices skyrocket, when any can be found at all."

"Both sides at first only attack military and command and control targets. Step by step the nuclear duel escalates, and soon industrial centers and other civilian targets are annihilated – not only in continental Europe, but also in the United Kingdom, and soon ICBMs fall in the US and Russian heartlands. Both sides show just enough restraint to avoid total nuclear annihilation – for now – but the electromagnetic pulses knock out most electronic communication, and civil order in the affected countries starts to break down."

To me, there's clearly a few differences between the old editions and 4e, but overall the layout of the world is likely pretty similar. Command, control, and communications have basically broken down the world over. Any kind of fuel is incredibly hard to come by, even more so in continental Europe. I would imagine "industrial centers" could easily mean oil production facilities depending on the Ref's interpretation, etc.

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by Heffe

To me, there's clearly a few differences between the old editions and 4e, but overall the layout of the world is likely pretty similar. Command, control, and communications have basically broken down the world over. Any kind of fuel is incredibly hard to come by, even more so in continental Europe. I would imagine "industrial centers" could easily mean oil production facilities depending on the Ref's interpretation, etc.

Yeah, that was my take on it as well, that they're trying to recreate the 'feel' of the original V1 timeline, with a gradual nuclear exchange that starts in Europe then escalates without tipping over into outright mutual assured destruction.

[Heffe]

Hi all,

As promised, here's the canon timeline, broken apart and reassembled/summarized in spreadsheet form. This should hopefully provide a good basis for Refs looking to expand their own world timeline. Please let me know if you see any errors/problems/typos/etc.

Creation notes:

• Nations and locations mentioned have their font color listed in black. Any nation added manually has blue font.
• The list of nations clearly isn't complete. I added the larger, more economically powerful nations from most continents, or those nations I thought might be pretty interesting in which to run scenarios/campaigns.
• I did add a note for those nations that are officially a part of NATO, or, since the Warsaw PACT presumably still fell apart, those nations that I'm tentatively referring to as the AXIS powers. Really just the OpFor. I also listed a few nations that while not officially in NATO, appeared to act as allies against the USSR in the canon timeline.

Some interesting things to note as I went through the creation process:

• There's still just a complete dearth of information about the vast majority of nations in the world.
• There exists huge gaps in the timelines of even those nations that are covered extensively. Lots of opportunities here.

Let me know what you guys think.

[Questerr]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Welcome, Questerr!



I see it as strongly implied, by the 4e rulebook's presumption that military units generally need to brew alcohol fuel for their vehicles.

A major lesson of the Allied strategic bombing campaign during WW2 is that its biggest impact was achieved by targeting oil refineries. Raids against Axis war production largely failed to achieve significant reductions in arms (in fact, it increased every year until 1945); damage to transportation and infrastructure was often repaired fairly quickly. Raids on cities did not lower morale as much as hoped. In fact, studies showed that bombing raids usually steeled resolve instead of weakening it. Raids against oil refineries and synthetic oil production, however, brought the Axis war machine to a near standstill. If the Allied air forces had shifted their focus to bombing oil production earlier in the war, the war very likely would have ended earlier than it did.

I can't see either side ignoring that lesson in WWIII.

-

So I agree that the Soviets and US probably would target oil infrastructure in the territories of their enemies and their allies. The US isn’t going to miss a chance to target Baku and the Soviets are definitely hitting Houston/Beaumont (among other locations), but I guess I should narrow my point down that the deliberate targeting of oil infrastructure in *neutral* countries doesn’t seem to be the case in 4e.

[Ewan]

Originally Posted by Heffe

Hi all,

Let me know what you guys think.

Hi, had a quick look and it looks interesting and very useful. I might even adapt the format for other games

[Olefin]

"I suppose there's room for a few interpretations there, but to me at least, that reads as though there's not a whole lot left of the USN. At least not in-theater. Perhaps a few warships still sailing around, but that's about it."

FYI thats not quite the story - Tomas and Chris were asked about the USN when the game was released and also for the beta release - their comments were that the USN was still active off the coast of Europe - i.e. they got hit hard but its not the 1e, 2e situation where you are talking the USN down to one active nuclear submarine and a few destroyers in the whole Atlantic and the Pacific has nothing

[Heffe]

Originally Posted by Olefin

"I suppose there's room for a few interpretations there, but to me at least, that reads as though there's not a whole lot left of the USN. At least not in-theater. Perhaps a few warships still sailing around, but that's about it."

FYI thats not quite the story - Tomas and Chris were asked about the USN when the game was released and also for the beta release - their comments were that the USN was still active off the coast of Europe - i.e. they got hit hard but its not the 1e, 2e situation where you are talking the USN down to one active nuclear submarine and a few destroyers in the whole Atlantic and the Pacific has nothing

I hadn't heard about that, but it's good to know. Still open to some interpretation, but it sounds like it's not as dire as I had thought.

[Heffe]

Decided to put the timeline stuff all online.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Feel free to edit/add to it as you see fit. I have a hard copy of the canon stuff on my own drives, so I'd only ask that no one deletes/overwrites anyone else's work without asking them first.

*edit - set it as comment permissions so that no one can just come in and delete other people's work. Just to be safe.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Olefin

FYI thats not quite the story - Tomas and Chris were asked about the USN when the game was released and also for the beta release - their comments were that the USN was still active off the coast of Europe - i.e. they got hit hard but its not the 1e, 2e situation where you are talking the USN down to one active nuclear submarine and a few destroyers in the whole Atlantic and the Pacific has nothing

Besides being pre-release, that sounds pretty unofficial.

Like others here, I wonder if at least some of the vagueness evident in official 4e was by design. By not making definitive statements in the published materials regarding the status of non-aligned/neutral nations' oil production facilities, nuclear strike targets, and the status of major combatants' naval forces (to name just the topics that have come up in this thread), FL is giving Refs a lot of freedom to shape their respective campaign worlds as they see fit. In other words...

Want a T2kU with more fossil fuel availability? Nothing in 4e canon says you can't. Want a T2kU with almost none? Nothing in 4e canon says you can't.

-

[Olefin]

and there is that comment right in the manual about timelines as well in 4e - the problem is that you dont get a cohesive world for those who wish to expand the world - but again the creators of 4th edition apparently dont care about a cohesive timeline or world - versus V2.2 where Marc told me that I had to make what I wrote fit in the timeline and world events to be considered canon

4e really is more like the canon and timeline is what you make of it in a lot of ways given the statements that the creators made in the official released manuals

[Heffe]

Originally Posted by Olefin

and there is that comment right in the manual about timelines as well in 4e - the problem is that you dont get a cohesive world for those who wish to expand the world - but again the creators of 4th edition apparently dont care about a cohesive timeline or world - versus V2.2 where Marc told me that I had to make what I wrote fit in the timeline and world events to be considered canon

4e really is more like the canon and timeline is what you make of it in a lot of ways given the statements that the creators made in the official released manuals

This is something that actually excites me about the game, and why I’ve gone to the effort of splitting the canon timeline apart. The community right now has an opportunity before it to create the Twilight 2000 world that we want, rather than having a generated world thrust upon us. We can make the changes we feel will better fit the narrative. We can attempt to drive toward a more realistic depiction of the apocalyptic third world war, so long as we include the incredibly narrow depictions that FL has included for us (or hell, we can even rewrite that depiction should we so choose). We can include New America as being an emergent threat if we liked the concept from the original. We can make sure Mexico never takes the southwest (that one still gets me). We can even incorporate a lot of the community works that folks here have toiled away on over the years. Etc etc etc.

Indeed, maybe there won’t be any interest in this kind of dialogue. Maybe everyone will argue about what they think would have really happened, and the whole thing will fall apart. If that happens, so be it. But, if a new community-crafted timeline does take root, if it does get embraced, it could change the direction of the game and how the community interacts with it. Content creators in the community program will have a default setting they can use to craft new adventures and modules around. Not all of them will, but some will choose to if the timeline is crafted well enough. And over time, that community created timeline and the modules that work inside of it will make for a better resource for new Refs, and ultimately help drive more players to the game.

I realize that all sounds a bit starry-eyed, and that there have been attempts in the past to do this kind of thing that have fallen apart. I recall reading about a DC project at one point that never seemed to come to fruition. But the alternative in my mind is that we just sit around playing the existing stuff, and FL will release modules over the next few years that will slowly build a more complete narrative, while still leaving it to new refs to do a lot of the heavy lifting themselves. To me at least, that just seems like it would be such a wasted opportunity.

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by Heffe

I recall reading about a DC project at one point that never seemed to come to fruition.

It's still going on - the daily "25 Years Ago" thread is an extract of our work. But, yes, it is not where we once dreamed it would be!!!

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Besides being pre-release, that sounds pretty unofficial.

Like others here, I wonder if at least some of the vagueness evident in official 4e was by design. By not making definitive statements in the published materials regarding the status of non-aligned/neutral nations' oil production facilities, nuclear strike targets, and the status of major combatants' naval forces (to name just the topics that have come up in this thread), FL is giving Refs a lot of freedom to shape their respective campaign worlds as they see fit. In other words...

Want a T2kU with more fossil fuel availability? Nothing in 4e canon says you can't. Want a T2kU with almost none? Nothing in 4e canon says you can't.

-

FYI Raellus keep in mind that you can have an active Navy but not the right kind of ships to be able to support and reinforce an army in the field - destroyers can transport troops and supplies but not enough for an army - dropping off a couple hundred men with supplies and ammo for a couple of days is one thing, bringing over enough supplies to keep a division in the field is another

the Japanese managed to keep a small force on Guadalcanal barely supplied with reinforcements and supplies with just destroyers - but you are talking about several Army Corps here

the other factor is the situation in the United States - i.e. you could have the entire navy and transport structure intact (which they dont) but that doesnt mean anything if you dont have anything to transport - i.e. it hard to send more tanks over if no one is making tanks anymore or the ones you have are too busy fighting each other (the mention of US states that declared independence and most likely grabbed anything of military value in their borders when they did it)

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Olefin

FYI Raellus keep in mind that you can have an active Navy but not the right kind of ships to be able to support and reinforce an army in the field - destroyers can transport troops and supplies but not enough for an army - dropping off a couple hundred men with supplies and ammo for a couple of days is one thing, bringing over enough supplies to keep a division in the field is another

I'm not sure why your comment was addressed to me, but I'll respond anyway.

To send reinforcements from CONUS to Europe, or bring US soldiers back home, one wouldn't necessarily need any military transport ships at all. Civilian merchant ships of all sorts could, in a pinch, be used as troop transports. One would only need enough warships to escort said civie transports to and/or from Europe.

I don't think anyone is claiming that no civilian merchant shipping exists in the 4e T2kU. I'm confident that at least a few naval vessels would be available for escort duties, even as last as 2000.

The question is, is the fuel for said ships- civie and naval- available?

-

[Heffe]

Originally Posted by chico20854

It's still going on - the daily "25 Years Ago" thread is an extract of our work. But, yes, it is not where we once dreamed it would be!!!

This is awesome. I had no idea that was the impetus behind the 25 years ago thread. I'll have to start diving into there. Thanks for the info!

[Heffe]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I'm not sure why your comment was addressed to me, but I'll respond anyway.

To send reinforcements from CONUS to Europe, or bring US soldiers back home, one wouldn't necessarily need any military transport ships at all. Civilian merchant ships of all sorts could, in a pinch, be used as troop transports. One would only need enough warships to escort said civie transports to and/or from Europe.

I don't think anyone is claiming that no civilian shipping exists in the 4e T2kU.

-

Certainly there would still be a small modicum of civilian shipping happening - just not enough to make a serious dent in the collapse or enough to ferry large numbers of men and equipment. That canon piece about international shipping coming to a standstill, at least in my mind, mainly refers to large bulk container ships and oil tankers. The global shipping industry is going to be locked down by lack of fuel, lack of personnel, lack of repair parts, and fear of being sunk by hostile forces. Smaller outfits probably have the means to move around, though even they would be suffering from lack of adequate access to oil and spare parts, even if they still have the manpower available. That said, some enterprising and risk-taking small merchant captains could probably end up doing quite well for themselves indeed, so long as they stayed below the radar and stayed in friendly waters. That actually sounds like a great start to an adventure.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I'm not sure why your comment was addressed to me, but I'll respond anyway.

To send reinforcements from CONUS to Europe, or bring US soldiers back home, one wouldn't necessarily need any military transport ships at all. Civilian merchant ships of all sorts could, in a pinch, be used as troop transports. One would only need enough warships to escort said civie transports to and/or from Europe.

I don't think anyone is claiming that no civilian merchant shipping exists in the 4e T2kU. I'm confident that at least a few naval vessels would be available for escort duties, even as last as 2000.

The question is, is the fuel for said ships- civie and naval- available?

-

I was replying to your comment earlier in reply to my USN posts - sorry I should have just made it a general post

One question about fuel may be more is there fuel in Europe - i.e. its great if you can ship stuff there but you need to get the boats or planes home too or you are not going to be able to keep up any supply effort for long

[Heffe]

Originally Posted by Olefin

I was replying to your comment earlier in reply to my USN posts - sorry I should have just made it a general post

One question about fuel may be more is there fuel in Europe - i.e. its great if you can ship stuff there but you need to get the boats or planes home too or you are not going to be able to keep up any supply effort for long

One of the issues is that the only relevant verbiage here is incredibly vague.

"When the smoke clears, the US has obliterated the Soviet navy [in the Atlantic], but suffered huge losses in the process. President West has lost his capacity to ship more troops and equipment to Europe - as well as the ability to bring the forces already there back home."

Does this mean the US doesn't have enough ships to carry large amounts of troops/equipment? That they don't have enough fuel? That the men operating the ships have lost contact with command? That their morale is so low that they're simply unwilling to risk further trips?

It could be any or all of those reasons. Or something else entirely.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Heffe

Certainly there would still be a small modicum of civilian shipping happening - just not enough to make a serious dent in the collapse or enough to ferry large numbers of men and equipment. That canon piece about international shipping coming to a standstill, at least in my mind, mainly refers to large bulk container ships and oil tankers. The global shipping industry is going to be locked down by lack of fuel, lack of personnel, lack of repair parts, and fear of being sunk by hostile forces. Smaller outfits probably have the means to move around, though even they would be suffering from lack of adequate access to oil and spare parts, even if they still have the manpower available.

I agree wholeheartedly. ↑THIS↑ is a crucial premise of any T2k timeline. It explains why US military forces around the world are dwindling by 2000, and presents a major challenge to any PCs who must cross an ocean to get home.

Originally Posted by Heffe

That said, some enterprising and risk-taking small merchant captains could probably end up doing quite well for themselves indeed, so long as they stayed below the radar and stayed in friendly waters. That actually sounds like a great start to an adventure.

Indeed.

-

Twilight 2000: Free Trader.

I feel like there's another GDW RPG that covers tramp trading also.... just don't die during character generation.

[The Zappster]

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news...r-23046423.amp

Not into 4th Ed myself but this seems like a fitting place for this. From the website of my local newspaper.

[Ursus Maior]

Originally Posted by Spartan-117

Twilight 2000: Free Trader.

I feel like there's another GDW RPG that covers tramp trading also.... just don't die during character generation.

Mayday, Mayday, this tramp trader MS Kalisz... we are under attack... propulsion is gone... the Bofors on the fo'c'sle is gone... Mayday... taking water fast... calling anyone... please help... We're on our own...

[Ewan]

Originally Posted by The Zappster

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news...r-23046423.amp

Not into 4th Ed myself but this seems like a fitting place for this. From the website of my local newspaper.

Excellent, thank you

[kcdusk]

I'm quietly impressed by V4. I hope to share my thoughts and first few days gaming soon.

I've done what i normally do. I'm running a solo game, set in wherever the current hotspot is. This latest one is set in present day Ukraine.

I'm running my PC across the border into Ukraine, under a paper thin cover as being a journalist. I've met my first arranged contact on the ground, yada yada, stuff happened, and a few die rolls later I'm on foot heading east.

I've got a Woods encounter then a hills encounter to be played out. My game has been a mixture of two set pieces i thought would be good to play through some initial rules. And random encounters that i've been able to tie into the direction of the game. A bit of a story is developing.

I know one PC isn't going to impact the world in a big way. My hope is to play though some of the different rules, do some reconasonce, call in some off board artillery (or maybe mortar fire), generally be a nuisance, live off the land and make it back out. I'm using actual weather happening at the moment to impact my game world. We'll see how things go.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Ursus Maior

Mayday, Mayday, this tramp trader MS Kalisz... we are under attack... propulsion is gone... the Bofors on the fo'c'sle is gone... Mayday... taking water fast... calling anyone... please help... We're on our own...

Now that sounds like the start of a good adventure

[kcdusk]

Current day pontoon bridge built across Pripyat River, tying in to 2TK because its on the Chernobyl site of 1986.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...ess-to-ukraine

May or may not mean anything, just felt like the past and present intersecting.

[Ursus Maior]

Worth noting that the pontoon bridge was deployed on the Belarusian side of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, so it's still a bit up the road from the (former) town of Prypyat. It's interesting though that the Russians train river crossings in the Exclusion Zone proper, because they would need to cross it, if they strike from the North towards Kiev.

[unipus]

Originally Posted by Heffe

This is something that actually excites me about the game, and why I’ve gone to the effort of splitting the canon timeline apart. The community right now has an opportunity before it to create the Twilight 2000 world that we want, rather than having a generated world thrust upon us. We can make the changes we feel will better fit the narrative.

I think this is also just a natural reaction to the way the hobby has developed. Back in the day, "session zero" wasn't a thing anyone had heard of. These days, everyone putting a game out assumes you're going to houserule and poke at it -- so why not leave it wide open to do so.

Hell, it gave me the opportunity to publish an entire book on a very specific setting. You can definitely argue that stuff should have been in the core book (although it never was, in any edition of the game), but the fact that it wasn't left the door open for me to create an interpretation that made sense to me and was fun at my table... which probably wouldn't be 100% the case had it been in the core book, really! And I'd have a lot less sales.

On the topic of "what's left of the USN?" ... well, it's the same thing. If your players want to sail home and you want to say that's going to be the adventure of a lifetime just finding a seaworthy ship and crew brave enough to risk it, then you can do that. If you want to play it that the war in Europe is still sustainable and there's just enough word and supplies coming from back home to make that viable, you can do that too. If you want a game where ships are still out there volleying missiles at each other now and then, you can do that too. You could of course always do all of these things, but now at least you're not contradicting the written word to do so.

[Heffe]

Originally Posted by unipus

I think this is also just a natural reaction to the way the hobby has developed. Back in the day, "session zero" wasn't a thing anyone had heard of. These days, everyone putting a game out assumes you're going to houserule and poke at it -- so why not leave it wide open to do so.

Hell, it gave me the opportunity to publish an entire book on a very specific setting. You can definitely argue that stuff should have been in the core book (although it never was, in any edition of the game), but the fact that it wasn't left the door open for me to create an interpretation that made sense to me and was fun at my table... which probably wouldn't be 100% the case had it been in the core book, really! And I'd have a lot less sales.

On the topic of "what's left of the USN?" ... well, it's the same thing. If your players want to sail home and you want to say that's going to be the adventure of a lifetime just finding a seaworthy ship and crew brave enough to risk it, then you can do that. If you want to play it that the war in Europe is still sustainable and there's just enough word and supplies coming from back home to make that viable, you can do that too. If you want a game where ships are still out there volleying missiles at each other now and then, you can do that too. You could of course always do all of these things, but now at least you're not contradicting the written word to do so.

Of course! I bought your book btw, it's great.

Like I said in the other worldbuilding thread, I get that maybe everyone just wants to do their own thing, and that's all fine. But I do worry that with so many content creators just making products, eventually there's going to be just a ton of discrete modules, none of which work together, and IMO that's going to hurt the game in the long run.

Any Ref that's looking to run more than one module with their group is going to be running the risk of those modules not working together, in which case they'll have to houserule, potentially extensively, in order to make it work for their players. In my mind, it makes more sense to at least try to flesh out the world a little more, at a really high level, just to help center the game around a default timeline. For example, knowing which countries are fighting which, and why, etc. Hell, even knowing which countries are still in existence (Yugoslavia anyone?).

As an example, say we have multiple modules be released for the US by various content creators over the next few years. One may have Russia and Mexico/Cuba invading as in the original games. Another may not, or may have some other group invading. Others may have no one invading the US, but perhaps New America has taken a bigger chunk of the country.

Each of those options is fine, and those Refs are free to determine their own games as they see fit. But it might help them if there was something to build off of *as an option*. And if a default timeline helps to ensure that there are multiple modules made inside the same cohesive "world", then all the better.

[kcdusk]

Originally Posted by kcdusk

I'm quietly impressed by V4. I hope to share my thoughts and first few days gaming soon.

I've done what i normally do. I'm running a solo game, set in wherever the current hotspot is. This latest one is set in present day Ukraine.

I'm running my PC across the border into Ukraine, under a paper thin cover as being a journalist. I've met my first arranged contact on the ground, yada yada, stuff happened, and a few die rolls later I'm on foot heading east.

I've got a Woods encounter then a hills encounter to be played out. My game has been a mixture of two set pieces i thought would be good to play through some initial rules. And random encounters that i've been able to tie into the direction of the game. A bit of a story is developing.

I know one PC isn't going to impact the world in a big way. My hope is to play though some of the different rules, do some reconasonce, call in some off board artillery (or maybe mortar fire), generally be a nuisance, live off the land and make it back out. I'm using actual weather happening at the moment to impact my game world. We'll see how things go.

My little introductory solo adventure is progressing slowly but well. My PC is making his way across Ukraine towards the Soviet border, and its only over night my story arc has come a bit clearer.

Very sad to read about the Ukraine invasion. I have melancholy feelings about Russian forces taking Chernobyl. But, in my story line my PC is now making his way to Chernobyl. In my story the timeline is 2 weeks behind current day. I like Chernobyl as a location. I'm not sure what "happens" when my PC gets there, but it feels like worlds colliding!