It's kind of a strange feeling. My wife grew up in eastern germany, me in western germany. You really start thinking about german history and the cold war when the journey brings you to both "homes" and the border in between... Imagine facing your brother-in-law in real life combat... Thank god that it never happened.
I also had mixed feelings when I first invented the concept of the Cold War campaign. Czech troops have been identified as the first line victims. Their task was not to survive, but to weaken the US-German allies, and die. When a few more brighter generals (among those comies who survived the political purges after 1968 occupation) asked whether they would at least a small number of units left to defend territory, they were told that it is not necessary - it has after the Russians take care ...
For or against what is there actually to fight? For bondage having at home and against freedom, which they saw on the other side of the border?
Well, after all - despite everything mentioned, Cold War aviation is still my favorite. Irrational love for the mig 21 and 23 gives me the opportunity to go beyond reality. I love the instigators stories about banter around the "high blue wall". Also, I sit in a pub with a former SA3 operator/shooter, sometimes meet mig21 pilot etc... and believe me, they are really enthusiasts in the field. I think they did not differ from those on the other side.
BTW:And how I solved that my schizophrenia?
Campaign would sit until the end of 80's years. It would cover disarmament agreements (probably SALT2), when the climate melted. Full nuclear war is unlikely. But something goes wrong about the Pershing missiles check-ups or their CCCP counterparts. Might be guilty of a Russian general - a notorious alcoholic, or his fellow American patriot with obsessional inclination to protect his body fluids(?). So come to engage a number of hostile nuclear bases. One initiative will be Blue, the second time the Reds. It will be such a superpowers skirmish on foreign bailiwick (with air support of their allies). It would be nice to select the final video from two possible randomly. Player would never know until the end, whether it is on the right side ...
But the story is secondary, mainly to have well running campaign.
Besides of that- do you think it is possible to model the wall through germany that represented the iron curtain? Kinda difficult doing that with objectives, but maybe it would be possible with tiles? The border in germany was clearly visible since it was not only a wall, also a "death strip" with mines, watch towers... It is indeed still visible in many areas, more than 20 years after the wall has been gone. There is no wall anymore, but the strip is still there since there have not been any trees or something in that strip.
I thought about it quite a lot. First, when I did X1 colouring last year.
Here a few pictures from that time:
painted border:
But I did not like such blurred boundaries very much. They are not bad when blended with textures indeed.
There is also a small off-topic bonus for sailors,
and here is also for skiers:
I also thought to make road-featured border. Then to scatter guard towers and customs along this path. The links among those could be modified by hand, so the troops can move quite fast, but the heavy armors not (border guard).
But I do not count those roads now(but we can change it). Rather only the custom objectives to have some places for units to stack.
Here is some picture of current state - it is small portion of map - there is just visible some difference in tiling situated along Czech-Austrian border:
http://www.maxipicture.cz/verejne/10/07 ... P_PART.jpg
Luk, I can also send you the unfinished files as a "state-of-work", if you want it.
Thank you. But not now, when I have time, I will give the signal. Thanks.
Luk
EDIT - note:
the only possible feature type for border are swamp-road and forrest-road. The others road types are not good, because of strong irrigation/fields - it looks very "civilian". The border will be quite wide (2 transition tiles + feature in the middle, means 3 tiles at least). The next problem are rivers. It is quite common for europe, we have natural borders - for example rivers. I did not checked EG/WG border in google maps very carefuly. But in case, there is some complicated situation, we can miss some segment. Anyway - individual approach is unavoidable in case we want road type border....
BTW Former West/East border is a huge and pretty biocoridor now! (The same in case of former and even contemporary Czech military polygons.)