How the fuck do we still not have a good Cold War grand strategy game?

Because everyone just goes "nothing can ever happen because nukes". It's lame. Twilight Struggle is a fantastic board game though, it definitely scratches that itch for me.

>>2096374
So then why does it work in Twilight Struggle?

>>2096374
true.
Cold War games devolve into two branches: Diplomacy and Spycraft.
Alt-Cold (World) War would be a cool subject to explore.
A sustained World War that uses either no or limited nuclear weapons (somehow stuck in mid-escalation). You could handwave it with a political reason or claim that the nukes were covertly disarmed by inspector-activists on both sides during inspections over the years in case global thermonuclear war ever did break out (if the unimaginable became imaginable).
Yeah there's a lot of ways you could write this.

>>2096374
Bullshit it's absolutely doable. Focus on diplomacy, economy, politics, and have the possibility of nuclear warfare

>>2096386
>6 million
i've seen that gif a thousand times and i can't believe i never noticed that before

>>2096377
Twilight Struggle isn't a grand strategy game in the traditional sense, but since it's a big boardgame they're cousins. Twilight Struggle works because it gives you plenty of options for doing things and has ways to represent every aspect of the Cold War you'd like with clear rules over nuclear exchanges and straightforward, sensible victory/scoring models. It also captures the vibe of the cold war well, and a lot of the cards are really well-designed. So TS definitely proves that it could be done, I think. It's just that no one has.

>>2096386
I'd just have enough key people in enough key projects die to delay nuclear development by a few decades or something. At least I can suspend my disbelief over an excuse like that.
>Shadow President
Really with you could play as different nations in it and have different scenarios where countries are more aggressive. That'd be fun. Imagine having China and the USSR trying to invade all their neighbors.

>>2096424
>Twilight Struggle isn't a grand strategy game in the traditional sense, but since it's a big boardgame they're cousins. Twilight Struggle works because it gives you plenty of options for doing things and has ways to represent every aspect of the Cold War you'd like with clear rules over nuclear exchanges and straightforward, sensible victory/scoring models. It also captures the vibe of the cold war well, and a lot of the cards are really well-designed. So TS definitely proves that it could be done, I think. It's just that no one has.
So then you agree with my implied point that it would absolutely work for grand strat, contrary to what the first poster said

>>2096386
webm version so I can pause and read?

>>2096441
You'd have to rework some of the content to transition from a traditional board game to a gsg but yes you could absolutely do it. Grand strategy games are really just a different kind of board game when you think about it.

>>2096464
>You'd have to rework some of the content
Bro I didn't ask literally for a Twilight Struggle GSG, I said a cold war GSG. It doesn't have to adapt Twilight Struggle's stuff

>>2096471
I was just agreeing with you that TS is a great example of something that could be made into a gsg, I know what you meant.

>>2096473
NO I'm ANGRY for no reason

>>2096443
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKwwH0CZSEM

>>2096557
>stops not even halfway through and turns into a sissyhypno brainrot "music" video
got another one?

anyone with the twilight struggle PC port want to have a match?

>>2096377
Because you lose if it goes to nukes. They can do that in other games too. If your situation destabilizes completely and the world goes MAD, you lose.

Or just go WiC mode and make tactical nukes fly like confetti.

>>2096822
1. Having a hardcoded lose-condition in a grand strat game is not a bad thing in and of itself.
2. It doesn't actually have to be an instant game over: if you get them first, get them good, you wipe them off the face of the Earth. Yeah they could have a Dead Man Switch but it might not destroy your country completely.

The real issue is a public relations one: nobody wants to depict genocides. It's why Hearts of Iron 4's nukes don't do any damage to population

>>2096811
Game's too deep for me. I tried getting into it once but there's so much shit to do and learn, and then learning how to do it WELL and having actual strategies...
Too much for me. And I'm a GSG player

>>2096868
I learned mostly by messing around and looking up cards on the twilightstrategy site when I wasn't sure what the best use of a card would be. idk how the competitive "meta" has evolved, since that site hasn't been updated since 2015 or something, but it definitely helped me get to a level where I had good opening setup and card knowledge so I didn't get steamrolled by my friend who had been playing for awhile.

What people want from a Cold War game is a "what if Cold War goes hot" scenario, but what we always get is a "try not to go to war" game where you instantly lose if it does go hot.

>>2097033
You don't even have to have it go hot. Just have lots of big regional wars with the superpowers avoiding nuking each other. But that'd be fun so all we get is relatively minor proxy wars and low intensity conflicts. If you're lucky, a conflict in the Middle East or Kashmir that stops before anything of consequence can happen.

>>2096622
are you this guy>>2096410
you might want to try and notice the lyrics of the song this time too

>>2096317 (OP)
The real answer is because the Cold War just had so much psychological machinations and so many deep aspects to it which both make it one of the most interesting periods of history and make it practically unplayable with a traditional scripted AI. Threats made by placing missiles or troops near the border, proxy wars with incredibly diverse factions and their motivations, deep and psychological negotiations with both the other side and the journos, bluffing, regime changes and shit like destalinization, perestroika, glasnost - how is an AI supposed to understand all of this plus two hundred other systems and apply it intelligently? The only possible Cold War game currently is a very roleplay and narrative heavy multiplayer server for hoi or vic or something similar.

Also it's worth noticing that a fair amount of normies are faggots like >>2097033 who just want "big heckin explosions go boom boom!!! :D:D:DDD:DD" despite there being already dozens of cold war goes hot games and almost 0 games which actually model the interesting diplomacy and politics of the period very well. They have no curiosity about history or the world, they don't want to try a new engaging concept in strategy vidya, they just want the 23094th bing bang wahoo slopshit edition.

>>2096424
>That'd be fun. Imagine having China and the USSR trying to invade all their neighbors.
there was a game like that called Nuclear War (1989).
and Balance of Power.
come to think of it, there were a few geopolitical simulators back then.

>>2096443
the .gif is just a series of jpg files run in sequence.
just find an application that can open it like like a comic book.

>>2097233
>Nuclear War
It's more of a comedy board game. Fine for what it is, but it's not really the kind of Cold War game OP is looking for.
>Balance of Power
I remember hating it because every time I'd do even the simplest thing the AI would go "no way motherfucker", go to Defcon 2, and you could either wimp out and lose a trillion prestige points or blow up the world over economic aid to Iraq and lose.

A better political game with a cold war theme from the era imo is Hidden Agenda. Manage a Latin American third world shithole caught in the crossfire of the superpowers. Definitely not a grand strategy either, but it does politics pretty well. It's like a proto-Suzerain. Good replay value and let's you play as anything from communist to fash and mold your politics accordingly. 99% of the time you're going to get killed in a coup but that's just regional politics for you.

>>2097245
I'm amazed a Cold War scenario/mod of one of the Civilizations games never took off.
Or Hearts of Iron.
I mean like break off into a full official game.
Seemed like fertile territory but I guess everyone just wanted to forget the realities of the actual Cold War.

>>2097288
just like how everyone is desperately trying to forget the reality that was COVID and the consequences (you'd think there'd be a lot more pandemic video games post-covid, but no. it's being memory holed because it was an awful experience from top to bottom.)

How have none of you mentioned RoN: Thrones and Patriots?

It has a Cold War scenario where you act on a world map, fight separate battles in the regular game engine, do espionage, partake in arms races, and even get to play out many historical and ahistorical scenarios. You can even have the war go hot, face a nuclear exchange, and simply keep on playing with some spaces on the map reverting to blanks slates. Don't like to fight? It's perfectly possible to win without going to battle once through economics.

>>2096317 (OP)
Because its too hard to translate this era onto one coherent mechanic for a video game.
It has too many factors, variables, different areas to depict etc.
Its an era of rapidly changing tech, of espionage, MAD, diplomacy, proxy wars, population changes, social changes and so on and so forth.
Its impossible to translate this to a competetive game.

>>2097181
>Also it's worth noticing that a fair amount of normies are faggots like >>2097033 (You) who just want "big heckin explosions go boom boom!!! :D:D:DDD:DD" despite there being already dozens of cold war goes hot games and almost 0 games which actually model the interesting diplomacy and politics of the period very well. They have no curiosity about history or the world, they don't want to try a new engaging concept in strategy vidya, they just want the 23094th bing bang wahoo slopshit edition.
No, faggot, the reason you need to allow a 'cold war goes hot' scenario is because otherwise vast amounts of military buildup which actually occurred during the period is rendered completely pointless. You don't need massive naval fleets or to invest in the nuclear triad if any military conflict in the game will only ever amount to proxy wars.

>>2097518
nayrt but you could make militaries worth it in games without a going hot scenario through prestige scoring by military strength and such concepts.

I agree with you though and I prefer a hot scenario being there. But I'm just saying you can make big militaries worthwhile even at peacetime. Various grand strategies reward players for having large armies even outside of wars.

a bit simple but conflict: middle east political simulator seems to capture the dynamics of a cold war imo in a sense that you can fund proxy wars and putting money into your military in case of invasion by your neighbors.

extremely random tho and punish you for nuking

>>2097526
I don't disagree, but that still leaves militaries rather passive when there was always a sense throughout the Cold War that it could heat up at any time. Scoring points passively from militaries should be as valid as going up the escalation ladder.

>>2097697
>Extremely random
Just great replay value. Having a completely different starting situation and tactics from the AI is one of the things that made it good imo. It takes less than half an hour to finish a full run so it's fine, I think.
>Punished for nukes
It's not that bad unless they can retaliate. You just lose all your aid. The real bitch is when say, Iran and Iraq go to war, nuke each other and cause the apocalypse that way.

Good game overall.

>>2097721
You're not wrong, I was just presenting the idea in its simplest form. My point is that with even a minimal effort you can make them count. Of course doing it more thoroughly would make for a better game.

What's the source of that image by the way? Just autistic curiosity, thank you.

>>2097819
yea I like that conflict is a bit short and the opening song really sets the mood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxefldVcKsg

>>2097033
>What people want from a Cold War game is a "what if Cold War goes hot" scenario
Oh, go fuck yourself.

>>2099279
No you. Having things go hot is fun. At least have it be an option.