Revolution! Total War

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Although there are mod projects with ideas for muskets such as NTW etc I think there is still room for an alternative to this, namely based around the Russian Revolution. The mod could be aimed at MP and custom battles etc, but I have several ideas that could if implemented make a very unique mod.
The main arguments for the SP would be:
1. religion is political movements and have a much stronger role in the mod since there would be far fewer than 30 factions...and therefore much fewer factions per 'religion'. Obviously religious buildings and characters could be 'propaganda officers' etc
2. time, the era of the Russian revolution was played out over a twenty year time span at the most... therefore we are looking at making the most of seasons etc.
3. campaign map. The map would be more or less the former USSR and some borderlands too, what we could look at is some kind of groundbreaking way of modding railways, perhaps somekind of alternative 'road' that allows a much greater speed of movement for armies once placed on there.
4. cities and battle maps. medieval cities are not really fair representations of post-feudal Russia, so separate hand-made custom maps could be made for the mod so that a style of snow drenched inner city fighting could be made a real feature of the game. I think some of the flavour of Stalingrad could be very nice here.

-Some interesting points might be the music for instance, I already have lots of grammaphone recordings from the revolution era and the wars which would sound very effective when accompanying the red army marching across the steppe!
There now follows several miscellaneous posts to get your imaginations going...

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Cossack patrol near Baku oil fields. 1905.


Russian soldiers stand over trench of dead Japanese


The storm petrels of the Revolution---the sailors---first to raise the red flag in the fleet, always first to hurry to the rescue of the Soviets.


Chaos and bloodshed in the July uprising


Chinese Imperial Guard 1906


Russian Imperial Guardsmen 1900


´Soldiers of Second Company of the '1st Petrograd Women's Battalion-' guarding the Winter Palace, October 1917


Marching order from the '1st Petrograd Women's Battalion of Death', with bayonets.

[Comrade Alexeo]

Oh, wow... memories of The Great War: Total War dream are coming back...


I can offer my full emotional support for this. As for something more tangible, though, I don't know...

I can offer you:

-any relevant research I've gathered both on my own time and for TGW: Total War
-possibly some skins and/or models, depending on how different M2TW's code handles such things compared to RTW (I believe I saw that models are different now)...
-possibly trailers; I have a good collection of Russian music and so forth, but I can't necessarily offer too much technical pizazz, as I've only got the basic programs to create such things...



I like the idea of using "propaganda" in lieu of "religion"; "Red Communist Propaganda", "White Monarchist Propaganda", "Black Anarchist Propaganda" could really add an interesting flavor to the mod.

Have you considered how you would consider the various international intervention forces that participated in one way or another in the Civil War?

[Filibustería]

I love the idea! Whats the timeframe? does it ends in 1918 or it continues?

i could research too, if you want.

[Warluster]

Wait on the subject of WW1 (or close to it) what did happen to The Great War:TW?

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Well to answer the questions around the Graet War, yes actaully I am looking including factions and geographical areas that would have relevance to this era. So China, Japan, Poland, Ukraine, the 'stans..., Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland and perhaps Czechoslovakia as borderlands, possibly in their entirety.
Where to end a mod's map has always been an issue for discussion and since it is so far away I have no inclination to make absolute decisions just yet. I think this era and style has some possibilities that The Great War does not have as issues, mainly that the country infrastrcuture rather than the sheer all out-and-out war of World War One presents, plus the technology that the Great War saw is not at all the kinds of things that were part of the Russian troubles from the turn of the century until the thirties...

As regards the western Allies I was thinking that they would 'arise' as horde invasions much like the Steppe nomads in the original game...
The Papacy might be the Imperial Royal family, or even the Duma or something similar,...there really are so many options to represent the politics and factionalism of the time.

I am not so sure about dates just yet, -lol, I am that this is kind of crucial but I am thinking that seasons may not be long enough for this mod and that maybe even breaking up the year into even smaller parts would be preferable since the mod deals with a relatively short if turbulent and fascinating era of human and military history.

Feel free to get involved....

[Comrade Alexeo]

Wait on the subject of WW1 (or close to it) what did happen to The Great War:TW?

The Great War: Total War was my attempt to create a WW1 mod for Rome: Total War. Interest was severely lacking and, other than a few early models, not much came of it. Bwian was nice enough to let me use several of his superb tank and artillery models but we never got them ingame before the mod was cancelled.

[krellan]

Hello, first i must say wonderful idea.

I agree you can skip the navies. Especially since a good part of the waters will be frozen during winter. I dont know if the engine will be able to represent that. But ports on the other hand you should include. I remember from my history lessons that the communists had pretty big numbers of sailors and marine detachments on their side.

For the division of religions to political parties, I do think the communists fit in the catholic slot. Make the papacy the bolshevik party and Lenin the first pope. Then a number of factions that are all communist revolutionists. IIRC there were multiple similar but separate council republics founded by communists.
I would give the islam slot to the imperials. They were only united in their desire to squash the revolutions. And I dont know who could reasonably be the papal states out of the imperials. Especially why should imperial china have to ask imperial russia for a counter-revolution. There is the question if islamic factions can have princesses or not. But if not exclude princesses overall.
I agree orthodox is probably the best slot for non-communists revolutions and pagan for external neutral forces.


For the agents i think spies and assassins can stay as they are. They fulfill the same job and arent influenced by the religions-to-politics change. May be change it so they recruited in different buildings for the communist and imperial factions.

Princesses should be female agents similar to Mata Hari, i dont know a good to the point name. If you can't alter the diplomatic options, i think princesses should fall out of the mod.

Diplomats can stay mostly the same. They should loose the marry-of options, but otherwise i think they fit. I dont think "would you ally with us if we give your successor a nicely trained gal to occupy his time with" is a reasonable option in that era.

Priests become demagogs, with heretics being demagogs straying from the party line to their own vision of the revolution.

Inquisitors become political officers or revolution guards. To keep everyone on the party line.

Merchants could become requesters. Change the resources into villages, farms, mines and factories. They go and make sure the production is up and the profits go to their masters.

For the witches im not sure since i have rarely seen one in-game and don't know much about them.

[AliAS]

WOW this modification looks really cool. I must try it when its done.
and great you want add czechoslovakia so THX

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Thanks for Czeching it out

Great ideas Krellan, good arguments for the Catholics actually. I agree about the ports where applicable, I have also come across a good deal of marines and sailors as land-soldiers in the revolution histories I have read, *see pic above of 'Storm Petrals'

ps- witches are basically female heretics except they do not convert priests to heretics if they fail, just kill them... again some good political options there...There is no need to keep proncesses (or witches) female but instead mod them to some kind of political officer as you say. Great idea with the inquisitor etc,...it does make sense having the core Soviets as the Papacy

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Suggested mod start: 1898/1900.... As I said, I think we should be looking at making the Game Turns into MONTHS rather than seasons, so if we are thinking of synthesising this era, maybe we should look at a good 7 years (14 turns at least) to build things up before we can reflect the situations that existed in the Russo-Japanese war and the revolution of 1905

1894 - Start of reign of Nicholas II
1898 - First Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP)
1900 - Foundation of Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR)
1903 - Second Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Split (missing text)
1904-5 - Russo-Japanese War
1905 - Russian Revolution/Rebellion.
January - Bloody Sunday in St Petersburg.
June - Potemkin uprising at Odessa on the Black Sea
October - general strike, St Petersburg Soviet formed
- Imperial agreement on elections to the State Duma - October Manifesto
1906 - First State Duma. Prime Minister - Petr Stolypin. Agrarian reforms begin
1907 - Second State Duma, February - June
1907 - Third State Duma, until 1912
1911 - Stolypin assassinated
1912 - Fourth State Duma, until 1917. Bolshevik - Menshevik split final
1914 - Germany declares war on Russia
1915 - Serious defeats, Nicholas II declares himself CinC. Progressive Bloc formed
1916 - Gregory Rasputin killed
1917- Revolution
-Here's were the shit really goes down, military coups, civil unrest, rebellion, offensives and counter offensives with Austro-Hungary.... it's all there...


January


Strikes and unrest in Petrograd

February

The February Revolution
26th -- 50 demonstrators killed in Znamenskaya Square
27th -- Troops refuse to fire on demonstrators, desertions. Prison, court and
Okhrana buildings set on fire. Garrison joins revolutionaries.
Petrograd Soviet formed.

March

1st -- Order No.1 of the Petrograd Soviet
2nd -- Nicholas II abdicates. Provisional Government formed, Prince Lvov PM

April

3rd -- Return of Lenin to Russia. He publishes his April Theses.
20th -- Miliukov's note published. Provisional Government falls

May

5th -- New Provisional Government formed. Kerensky minister of war and navy

June

3rd -- First All-Russian Congress of Soviets in Petrograd. Closed on 24th
16th -- Kerensky orders offensive against Austro-Hungarian forces. Initial success

July

2nd -- Russian offensive ends. Trotsky joins Bolsheviks
4th -- Anti-government demonstrations in Petrograd
6th -- German and Austro-Hungarian counter-attack. Russians retreat in panic, sacking the town of Tarnopol. Arrest of Bolshevik leaders ordered
7th -- Lvov resigns. Kerensky is new PM
22nd -- Trotsky and Lunacharskii arrested

August

26th -- Second coalition government ends
27th -- General Lavr Kornilov failed coup. Kornilov arrested and imprisoned

September

1st -- Russia declared a republic
4th -- Trotsky and others freed. Trotsky becomes head of Petrograd Soviet
25th -- Third coalition government formed

October


Vladimir Lenin, leader of the October Bolshevik Revolution
10th -- Bolshevik Central Committee meeting approves armed uprising
11th -- Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region, until 13th
20th -- First meeting of the Military Revolutionary Committee of Petrograd
25th -- MRC directs armed workers and soldiers to capture key buidings in Petrograd. Winter Palace attacked at 9.40pm. Kerensky flees Petrograd
26th -- Second Congress of Soviets. Mensheviks and right SR delegates walk-out in protest at coup. Decrees on peace and land reform. Soviet government declared - the Council of People's Commissars; Bolshevik dominated with Lenin as chairman

[Filibustería]

1894 - Start of reign of Nicholas II

Hey! my name is Nicholas.... I... think... I... AM THE TZAR!!!!

[Hross af Guttenburg]

I have been thinking about the situation with trenches, not that trenches were used in any great effect in Russias conflicts as say compared to the Great War, but since weaponry is so very effective at this time both in damage and range, and considering that men wore no armour it would be important for the game to bring in some kind of defences in the battle, but how is it possible without making a new building, which the AI wouldn't just ignore? Well, it seems to me that the longbowmens 'plant stake' special ability could be modded to add defence from missiles, it could look like a raised line of earth maybe with tank traps and barbed wire on so that it has the same effect to tanks and armoured cars (modded from cannoncarrying elephants) and cavalry charges as well as obvious direct infantry advances.
Unit formations were not the same as in the Napoleonic era either and therefore units would have new formations, long thin lines of loose order.

Artillery units could be:
Heavy machine gun teams
Mortar teams
...as well as the full range of long distance field artillery

One issue that does bring questions to mind is what is to be done with the armour and the visual 'updates' or evolution of certain units when re-armoured with chain, plate etc? Could we modify this to give a different look to some units and increase their training, fire accuracy, discipline, etc? So for instande we could develop units to specific levels such as say
Peasant infantry
Light infantry
Sharpshooters
Snipers
Veterans
Commandoes
- Just to give some rough examples and an idea, and their development as a unit with each new 'armour' is effected by a visual change, so that veterans or snipers might have more worn out clothing with maybe heavier camouflauge etc...
What do you think?

These are all campaign suggestions, but the basic ability to make a start for MP and custom battles would be best, to actually get units on the go.....
I need skinners, modellers and coders. Please contact me directly if you are interested in this mod.

Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya!

[brokguitar]

Hross,
I created a gatling gun unit for the 1775-1865 mod Im working on. I am using the art. unit already in place in the game but made the effects that of a gatling gun. Im sure this can be implemented the same for a machine gun unit.

I think the art. piece is called ?riboult?

Anyway I have made it devastating to units and quite a site to see in custom battles versus waves of incoming peasants .

Hope this gives you a idea for your machine gun.

Brok

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Excellent, yes if you look at a post further up I did suggest a ribault as a possible basis for a mahcine gun, now that we know its possible we can get properly stuck into the mod...There are no major realism issues any more!!!

(I think we might have to borrow the blueprints for your gatling gun mate)

Thanks man!

[Warluster]

Sorry Hross I realised I will not be able to do coding and stuff, I can probaly only do Mapping and writing still sorry.

[brokguitar]

Hross,
Ive created great looking infantry that would blow your mind! The only thing stoping me is the fact that i cant change the graphics of the units to look different than musketeers. Your mod is very much doable.

Brok