4th ed T2K

[Rockwolf66]

This is why I used Poland as the "flashpoint" when I wrote my own alternate history for V2.2. I had Russian-backed rebels creating chaos in Poland and the legitimate Polish government receiving aid from Germany, the Uk, and the US. The situation was very similar to what Russia ACTUALLY did in the Ukraine and I wrote my history in 1999. Imagine my shock at seeing Russia do EXACTLY what I predicted she'd do to prevent Poland from joining NATO. I then had the other members of the Visegrad Group join the fray. That was the spark that brought ruin to Europe.

The problem is that the writers of V4 are leftists. You could tell immediately when you read the draft of the new timeline. West was a horrible leftist pache of Trump with a bit of Bush tossed in. While it is tones down in the Alpha the elements are still there.

They don't view the Soviets or the Chinese as aggressive badguys. They think of the Soviets in the back of their mind as the good guys. Thus the Soviets get to do things that they should not be able to do at all.

Mind you that Thomas himself lied to the Discord group when he said that this would not reflect current political events.

[Legbreaker]

Mind you that Thomas himself lied to the Discord group when he said that this would not reflect current political events.

I believe he honestly can't see it because of his own bias.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I don't know if any of you chaps are on Facebook, I'm planning on doing a livestream regarding these quite frankly gross distortions of the T2k plot/worldbuilding committed by Free League. You don't have to follow me/friend me, the livestream will be viewable by all.

https://www.facebook.com/bill.silvey.7/posts/10161730122691959

[Benjamin]

I believe he honestly can't see it because of his own bias.

Same on Facebook when I warned against current political biases creeping into the setting. Thomas claimed to be totally aware of this potential issue and was doing everything to prevent it. That didnt happen.

It appears that the problem arose primarily from Chris Lites, the person listed as the primary author. His political biases are readily apparent on his oewitty Facebook page. Its fine to have biases, everyone does. But given that he looks too young to even have been alive during the Cold War, Im guessing that he has nothing but these biases to go on when writing about the Cold War. And I think youre right, Thomas who almost certainly has similar biases just didnt even notice. When you live in an echo chamber its very hard to hear anything beyond it.

[Legbreaker]

Chris has possibly pissed me off more than anyone else. Not from any one thing he's said or done, everything's just added up since I first became aware of him several years ago (when he first "leaked" news of the game and refused to put me in touch with the company, or even pass on my contact details).
Tomas has been relatively easy to deal with for most non-game related things, but trying to get him to understand what we were concerned about in the drafts was like pulling teeth - with a wet noodle. Extremely frustrating and ultimately totally ineffective.

[Spartan-117]

It's Spartan Time! Two G&Ts in, here comes the wisdom!

The great irony is that all the left believe the right is in an echo chamber and all the right believe the left is in an echo chamber. Because yeah, social media AI feed us the meals we want to eat.

Listen, you guys who were pre-Alpha and are still upset, consider this - You already moved the needle. If this is better than it was before, congrats! That's truly an accomplishment. I mean really, over the Internet, you helped someone else move from an extreme position you absolutely disagreed with to something closer to the middle, that maybe you hate just a touch less Mark your f-ing calendars; on the Internet, in the echo chambers previously mentioned, that's not something that normally happens.

What do we do when we move the needle but don't get it to where it needs to be We keep pushing. We enlisted allies (I know, I know.. but yeah, everyone needs allies) and we try to move the needle some more.

Unless you gain some spectacular and applicable insight into how to move the needle by over-analyzing someone else's political leanings, it's probably a better use of everyone's time to gather input and feedback and offer it in as-a-constructive manner as possible.

You've already had some success and this project is still in alpha. Don't fold now, the game is just getting started.

[Lurken]

You've already had some success and this project is still in alpha. Don't fold now, the game is just getting started.

That point of view is nice to hear.

[Legbreaker]

Yes, we did move it, just nowhere near far enough, and now the fan bois are praising it for being so "stunning and brave"....

[raketenjagdpanzer]

As promised, today's rant...

https://www.facebook.com/bill.silvey.7/videos/10161730120921959/

[Legbreaker]

And a DAMN FINE rant it is too!
Where can we find the youtube link

[raketenjagdpanzer]

And a DAMN FINE rant it is too!
Where can we find the youtube link

I'll upload it to Youtube probably tomorrow; I am playing AD&D right now.

[Legbreaker]

I would say you've got your priorities all backwards, but since it's Advanced D&D and not one of the heretical later pretend versions, you're forgiven.

[Southernap]

It's Spartan Time! Two G&Ts in, here comes the wisdom!

The great irony is that all the left believe the right is in an echo chamber and all the right believe the left is in an echo chamber. Because yeah, social media AI feed us the meals we want to eat.

Listen, you guys who were pre-Alpha and are still upset, consider this - You already moved the needle. If this is better than it was before, congrats! That's truly an accomplishment. I mean really, over the Internet, you helped someone else move from an extreme position you absolutely disagreed with to something closer to the middle, that maybe you hate just a touch less Mark your f-ing calendars; on the Internet, in the echo chambers previously mentioned, that's not something that normally happens.

What do we do when we move the needle but don't get it to where it needs to be We keep pushing. We enlisted allies (I know, I know.. but yeah, everyone needs allies) and we try to move the needle some more.

Unless you gain some spectacular and applicable insight into how to move the needle by over-analyzing someone else's political leanings, it's probably a better use of everyone's time to gather input and feedback and offer it in as-a-constructive manner as possible.

You've already had some success and this project is still in alpha. Don't fold now, the game is just getting started.

At the same time if the needle was moved, but it was only moved a tenth of an inch. Then did it really matter If they were unwilling to talk about or even make adjustments to the lore, then what does that say if they start to get rule questions or concerns where things don't work in the rules You want changes to character creation Yea we might consider it....okay we did some tweaks and here you go with the rule changes. [Narrator: The changes were minor and not what the play testers found were issues]. I have also seen in other places both in board games and wargame miniatures that play testers have found issues with not only the lore, but the rules. Kvetching, hair pulling, and rending of garments occurred. Only for the designer to offer up insults and ban folks or attempt to ban folks from commenting on how messed up the game is at either the alpha or beta phases.



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To me there are ways to try and make a new TL work for Tw2k post 1991. That would be exploiting Yugoslavia. To drag Sweden, like what FL wants to do into the game it isn't that hard and I really think that you can take the 1991 coup and make it work. You can work the "Peace Dividend" in and still make the whole idea of the Twilight war work.

Not that it matters much but take this:

• 1991 - Coup occurs and Gorby is disposed. Hardliners come into play
• 1991 - Even with the hardliners in power the need to feed folks and get the economy that Gorby destroyed back up causes USSR to go internal for a while. PACT collapses and the Eastern Europe tries to come up to speed fast with democracy and capitalism. The cracks start to falter
• 1992 - Clinton comes to power. With the collapse of Soviet Union. High off win in Iraq in 1991. Peace Dividend comes into effect in the west. Yet, the needs for the US to be the Hegemonic power starts to play. The US has troops in Somalia, Arabia, Korea, and the American Hemisphere. All while NATO scales back.
• 1992 - Bosina war starts. the USSR pledges military and financial aid to keep the Yugoslavia states together or at least to defend the Slavic peoples.
• At this point I think have the incident at Pristina Airport occur earlier, this starts to give a cause belli for the war in the west. Have the ChiComs decide that going after the Kamchatka Peninsula and its bases along with the traditional 1969 border crisis creep up again. Introduce an economic collapse of some sort that throws everyone into the doldrums, whether it is the 2008 Great Recession or not. So some see the rising Soviets at this point fat and flush with cash making communism work and capitalists go count trees.
• 1994 - The PACT comes back into play after the economy in the east falters. With the New Soviets promising to share their oil wealth.
• 1995 - The PACT goes west after "reports" of NATO atrocities in Yugoslavia when IFOR fails to protect Slavs from genocide.
• 1996 - To assist in securing the Northern Flank with war against NATO. The PACT invades Sweden to either allow for breakout of the Soviet Naval Forces in the Baltics or to attack Norway.
• At which we take everything else in either V1 or V2 timeline to have occurred at some point after 1996 with the course of the war.

The only other change I would make is maybe have the the RDF books shift and instead deal more with Iraqi in some way, shape, or form. Maybe even have it being that the Soviets invade Iraq to drive into Saudi Arabia oil fields. Since by this revised timeline Iran isn't a reason for the Soviet Invasion and most anyone knows about Iran is current history. While Desert Shield/Storm/Sabre are still fresh in the memories.

The biggest issues I have with the lore as written in the 4th Edition is the logic games to get us from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the invasion of the Baltic states and the use of nuclear weapons because the Soviets invade Poland while the US invades Sweden with a carrier force that doesn't exist in real life until 1998 and couldn't even get into the Baltic with said carriers due to simple physics. I am not even going to try and wrap my head around the mid-east setup, it sounds very much like some bad fever dream of Z grade pulp fiction writer of action adventure novels. There are just too many plot holes in the post 1998 time line that makes sense. There are massive nuclear strikes on the US, but somehow at surviving port facilities a convoy of thousands of ships is assembled and sent to Europe with men. Wait...what How does that even work Similarly after the nuclear strikes, there are protests in major cities throughout the US Wait...what Did we have the infamous "thanksgiving day" massacre or did it not happen The plot holes here are so huge that again a Z grade pulp fiction writer would have problems hand waving them away, let alone feel bad for creating them.

The number of plot holes in the new lore is troubling and makes it difficult to fit the older modules into the new game, let alone explain what is or isn't canon. That isn't even going to touch on the fact that they took a MacGuffin in the form of a V1 module about Operation Reset. Moved the whole operation that is the reason for the 5th ID to be destroyed and call that Operation Reset. Which completely invalidates said module as well as prevents you from using said module (and its related Polish modules) for anything since you rip the heart of the module out by eliminating the MacGuffin.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

It was implied at some point a few months back that you are not meant to try and fit modules from earlier editions into Free League's reboot of T2k.
I vaguely recall something to the effect that anything published before Free League's reboot is NOT canon for their version.

[Legbreaker]

Indeed.
Can't use previously published materials! They won't get their cut!