Between the time I wrote the first post and this one, the Panjshir Valley fell to the Taliban. Amhad Massoud, however, is still apparently alive and in Afghanistan and still vows to fight the Taliban. Both sides accuse the other of spreading falsehoods. I suppose war in Afghanistan must continue as ever.
I also, since that first post, tried the other two scenarios which take place on that same day, i.e. May 15th of 1982. Like all the scenarios in this five-part series, these are battles from the diversionary attack along the Ghorband River Valley. If you read through the scenario text of the missions, it is clear that this whole Panjshir Valley series is intended to be played from the Soviet side. So I gave that a try.
To put Massoud off his guard, the plans for an attack along the Ghorband had been shared with the Afghan Army. Soviet Command knew that there were sympathizers within that force that would pass the details along to Massoud’s people. Meanwhile, the real attack was planned in complete secrecy and was set to launch the next night, on May 16th. To be a convincing diversion, the Ghorband operation had to be large enough and aggressive enough to look like the real thing. Nevertheless, its purpose was not to succeed, it was to distract. I don’t have any information on the outcome although I would think I’d have found some mention if it had turned out a disaster for the Soviets. I’ll come back to this.
Soviet-Afghan Wars was the 8th of the Squad Battles series to be released (2007, I think). That obviously has implications to the engine (and I talked about how it was relatively bug free) but it also impacts scenario design. I’ve complained (and sometimes, it seems, that is all I do) about how Vietnam and Tour of Duty suffer scenario design problems, alternating between being impossibly hard and ridiculously easy. As usual, I offer the disclaimer that the first may be due to my own inability to play this game and the latter comes from scenarios intended to be played against another human. Whatever the details, it is probably a fair assumption that this set of battles is better optimized for the game engine than the earlier products.
As the Soviets, I enter the valley.
The first of the two remaining scenarios is a typical ambush setup, very much like the one I just played in Tour of Duty. As I move my force up the road, I discover hidden enemy positions set to thwart my path (first revelation is shown above). Winning the scenario involves exiting forces off the far end of the map but you’re never* going to run the gauntlet without engaging the enemy.
I’ve opined that sometimes these “convoy” type scenarios, particularly when Tiller himself designed them, were meant to set the mood for a “part 2.” In other cases, an ambush may be meant to illustrate the historical situation without necessarily providing a “competitive” gaming experience. As I say, it may be that I’m just too boneheaded to know how to deal with this kind of attack but, as I’ve mentioned before, an RPG-7-armed unit suddenly being revealed two hexes away guarantees that you’ll lose at least one vehicle. Conversely, actually rooting out the ambushing position is a long and frustrating process.
But given that this is #2 in a scenario set, and only six turns at that, it may very well be an appetizer for the main course that is scenario #3, titled 108th-3 Storming the Castle.
The mujahideen have armor and artillery support? No wonder they won.
This is another familiar type for someone who has been playing a lot of Squad Battles: Tour of Duty. The Soviet force has to take a well-fortified hilltop position and has a substantial attacking force with which to do so. It has much going for it. It is a big scenario (lots of map space) that involves a wide variety of combined arms. Infantry, armor, special forces, artillery, air, and helicopter support all are available to try to climb the hill.
One of my “moments” while playing this was finding the enemy using armor (see above) and heavy artillery against me. The Soviets still do have more and better, but I didn’t expect a tank-on-tank shootout. On paper, it doesn’t really look this way… the mujahideen don’t have that many vehicles after all… but I think it is exasperated by the way the engine gooses the AI.
The Soviets have the big guns.
I’ve not read any of the details although I’ve speculated on this before. It does seem to me that the AI has an advantage when it comes both to hit and kill percentages. It’s hard to quantify but I feels like my 100mm anti-armor shells bounce harmlessly off of the mujaheddin-operated BMPs while my vehicles of the same model are quickly dispatched by heavy machine guns (the Russian equivalent of the 50 cal., mounted for anti-air use). Skewing the percentages may actually be a very reasonable way to “balance” the game play so the scenarios can be played by either side with both sides being a challenge. It does not help the game along as a “simulation.”
I’m also not sure it makes the game more fun, knowing that the basic laws of physics and probability have been tilted against you.
As I said, the scenario plays out on a giant “board.” The battlefield consists of rough and sloped terrain which means that infantry mostly advances one hex per turn. While I could lead with my vehicles, when I’m worrying about losing a tank to a stray Enfield round, it seems more prudent to hold my armor back as infantry support. In other words, vehicles too advance about one hex per turn. There is a helicopter insertion, which the scenario instructions say is intended to take place to the rear of the enemy position so as to “block the enemy escape routes and attack them from behind.” While I might assume the higher-value victory locations to the rear of the enemy suggest the parameters of the landing zone, I did not believe that they would be undefended. I therefore decided to locate the Spetsnaz company so as to provide mutual support, enhancing my slog up the hill rather than bypassing it.
The long and the short of it was it was a slaughter for my side – both scenarios were. Although I’ll have no problem conceding that either scenario might be winnable given careful planning plus a little trial and error, it is difficult to see how I could have closed the gap from my results. As always, Squad Battles (with its tight time limits) discourages any subtlety in planning. You’ve got to move in a straight line towards your objectives or you’re not going to get there. There were probably better routes up the hill than the ones I took and failing to study the map before a battle probably would end up badly for any such negligent commander. Still, given how far I could get in 18 turns versus how far I need to get, it is difficult to imagine finessing my way over that hump.
A review from when the game was new suggests that one way to tweak a scenario is to edit the time limit and give yourself enough time to play it right. This might make the game more realistically-achievable and allow for more studied use of tactics (leapfrog advance supported by suppressive fire, for example). Maybe that’s the ticket to mastering this domain?
*Actually I have to ask, is this true? There are probably 3 ways to approach such a scenario. (1)Immediately dismount and fully engage every enemy position; (2) try to fight with a portion of your force while pushing onward with the rest; and (3) try to run past the enemy at maximum speed. I almost always, if not always, try some variation of (2). Would (3) work? Can’t know it won’t without trying.
Someone I know on Facebook shared a post from author Larry Correia. In it, he talks about experiencing the Dunetrailers. He expresses hope for a decent film and notices that its coming has inspired some to read the novel*. Some of the new readers are very critical – Correia highlights words like dense, clunky, and clumsy and admits that it is all of these. He also explains that, in the mid 1960s, “clunky was almost mandatory.”
He goes on to counter criticisms of “tropey” and “impenetrable.” The “tropes,” familiar to the post- Star Wars audience, were originated by Herbert, not copied by him. And as to impenetrable? He points out that he read Dune when he was 9**.
Elements of Style
This evolution of writing is extremely evident when one reads from Victorian-era works but there have also been dramatic changes (for better or for worse) within my own reading lifetime. The style from some modern novels (the likes of Brad Thor or Lee Child spring to mind, especially given the subject of this post) gives me a feeling that the writing has been weaponized to manipulate me. Sort of a literary equivalent of scientifically-developed processed foods – snacks that are obviously unhealthy but addictively compelling. Twenty-first century writing can feel like next-generation Michael Crichton. We all know, however, that there is a Venn diagram for good reading and good writing… plenty that qualifies as one but not the other (and a whole pile of stuff that is neither). I’m thinking about this as I cycle through a trio of authors.
I’ve finished another Michael Walsh book; continuing the series. I think his may be an example of this “optimized” writing style. One can’t possibly mistake these thrillers for good literature. I’m not even sure if they are good stories. And yet, the books are written in a way to be utterly compelling. Assuming you’re in the mood for the subject matter, the book will pull you along for what publicists love to pitch as a “wild ride.”
Compare and contrast to the Bourne novels. Ludlum’s writing was certainly clunky and clumsy (although he does get better). His story is a better one than Walsh’s, although it would always be impossible not to see one as the product of the other. For me, this makes Ludlum’s the far greater achievement. Creating a new world to be explored has much more value than creating a book that will effectively engage a reader. Of course, now that Jason Bourne is a part of our culture, might not we be better entertained by his more evolved progeny?
I’ll now move on to Ken Follett.
Pillars of Fiction
It is really quite a coincidence. If I couldn’t prove otherwise, I’d say the algorithms of big tech were pushing this apparent synchronicity upon me. I had decided, quite independent of topic, that I was going to follow Walsh with Follett. I also knew I’d like to stick with a Cold War era story, if possible, and would prefer an older book rather than a newer one. Finally, I intended to select from books that were already available to me rather than buying a new one. Applying all those criteria produced the book Lie Down with Lions – a 1986 novel that, at this particular moment, would be cheapest from Amazon if bought in the hardcover version.
I, myself, did not buy it. It came to me through the library. Its availability probably is related to the Afghanistan being “in the news,” although the driver is more likely the news of the last couple of years rather than the last couple of weeks. It’s an old book that’s even been out in ebook format for seven years so, current events aside, it would make an unlikely candidate for the library.
The title of the book is a reference to both the Panjshir River Valley (which, translated, is the Valley of the Five Lions) and “The Lion of Panjshir,” Ahmad Shah Massoud, a now-deceased Afghan warlord and statesman. The story is a fictionalization of the decision by the CIA to support Massoud in his fight against the Soviets circa 1982. When I realized this I had just, the day before, read an article about “the Lion’s” son Ahmad Massoud. The younger Massoud was the founder and leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan political party and perhaps is now the last, best hope for challenging the Taliban. The article quoted Massoud’s unheeded request to receive arms and ammunition ahead of the central government collapse, a failure exasperated by the massive amount of material essentially turned over to the Taliban. He also vowed perseverance in the fight for freedom for his people, despite the current dark outlook.
Within this trio of writers, Follett is (from what I’ve read so far) the standout. He tells the better stories with better writing. He also has that Crichton sensibility when it comes to writing that drives the reader to finish the story and find out what will happened. I do like the book. However, my one disconnect with Lie Down with Lions stems from its heavy and detailed sexual content.
Triangle Man
I guess it is true that sex sells novels, as it does pretty much everything else. It is also true that sex can be a prime motivator for the actions of historical and fictional people alike. One of the themes that I appreciated in The Pillars of the Earth is how the longing that one man feels for a woman could serve to advance the whole of civilization. That story hinged on the underlying romance that accompanied the building of the cathedral but I didn’t think it turned the book into some kind of Harlequin bodice-ripper.
In Lie Down with Lions, we quickly understand that the sexual compatibility between the main characters, the driving passion, is going to be a key factor in this story. “Lie down with…” Get it? I have to wonder if it might have even been enough to simply explain it in these terms… which Follett does. But, this being the 1980s, he goes on to provide a (ahem) blow-by-blow account of this otherworldy love-making to, I suppose, invest the reader directly into this emotional bond. In being so treated we experience a richness of vulgarity that I’m not sure would still fly in 2021.
Now, don’t get me wrong. it is not that I’m a prude nor am I “offended” by the explicitness of the adult themes. I probably do, however, like to mentally prepare myself when I pick up a book – am I going to be reading historical fiction or pornography? In fact, I’m not even sure what genre I’m reading. Is this similar to what the female-targeting romances feature? I wouldn’t know. As I said, I do think part of it is a sign of the time in which it was written. Explicit and even taboo themes infused the best seller shelves even as the Tipper Gores and Jerry Falwells of America decried the smut in music, film, and television. It did so without object or even comment, at least as far as I witnessed.
Whether this adds or distracts, or neither, from the overall work I’ll not comment further. As I said, Lie Down with Lions is probably a step above its peers in writing quality, both at the micro and macro scale. It is also a shockingly relevant story in terms of the headlines on today’s papers. The portrayal of the Afghan mindset in a way that we English-market readers can understand is particularly relevant. That relevance inspired me to dig through my games shelf – an exercise that left me less than satisfied and produced its own bout of vulgarity.
Forever War
I’ve spent a lot of time using Squad Battles to explore historical aspects of the Vietnam War, often in conjunction with written works of fiction and/or non-fiction. My collection of Tiller games, though, is a bit larger. Specifically, I have four of the Squad Battles titles; the two from Vietnam, Winter War (Finland), and Soviet-Afghan Wars. I would remark that all four are examples of asymmetric warfare; guerrillas fighting a much larger and better equipped occupying/invading force. It’s also remarkable that (if in the case of Finland, one qualifies one’s analysis appropriately) in all four conflicts, it was the resistance that won.
In contrast to my all-too-numerous shelfware titles, I actually played each of these games when I bought them; many, many years ago. None of them earned a long-term spot on my hard drive. Although the Vietnam titles are back for their historical insights, I found the other two games to be less engaging from a historical perspective. If you’ve read my reports from Vietnam, you’ll notice I judge the gameplay itself to be lacking. For Afghanistan, I had picked my way through most of the scenarios (or, at least, as many as I could handle before I lost interest). However, given this particular and relevant historical context, I thought a reinstall of Soviet-Afghan Wars would be enlightening and entertaining. More specifically, there are a series of scenarios reenacting the Soviet attempt to subdue the Five Lions valley. There are five scenarios covering the initial Soviet push into the valley, in the late spring of 1982, and then several more extending into the summer. This late-July-into-August is when the main events of the book are taking place.
For what its worth, I bought at least 3, if not all 4, of these games through the NWS Wargaming Store. NWS, as a creator of naval wargame software, still seems to be at it. Fifteen years ago, they were making money as a reseller of games. They sold the HPS titles at a significant discount and provided a physical product at a time when HPS seemed to be trying to push their customers to an all-digital experience. Someday I may want to write about NWS some more. I bring them up now only to point out that, for these four products, I have actual CDs in jewel cases sitting on my bookshelf.
After installing from my old CD, I went to the HPS website to download the patches. To my surprise, the section is no longer, having been replaced by a link to the John Tiller Software website. Very well. I clicked through and then downloaded a patch file as well as looked around to see if there were any enhanced or user-created scenarios (there were not). Then the horror started, along with the profanity.
When I went to run the patched program, it asked me for a serial number. I went over all my physical material – the box and the disk – and there was no serial number provided. Ignoring the prompt caused the game to shut down. Finally, after some digging into the JTS website, I realized that they had “upgraded” all the games to match their current system, which apparently requires a serial provided upon digital purchase. Furthermore, any of the older games’ (whether sold by them, I suppose, or by Matrix or HPS or third party) users were told to contact them by June 2020 to “register” their purchase and make it part of the current JTS digital management systems.
Hmmm. I remember encountering this in the weeks before the deadlines. In order to register one’s software, it was necessary to complete a form. By this, it seemed, they meant a crappy looking web form where you would type out your request. The process involved “proving” that you had legitimately purchased the product. Obviously, with a digital purchase, that would meant providing something like the receipt. With a physical media purchase, it was not clear exactly what they would require. Would I have to demonstrate possession of the CDs? Would I have to find my old NWS receipts from 15 years ago? Would I have to repeat the process for every old game I had on my shelf and how long would it take me to find everything? I finally decided that it wasn’t something I wanted to take on at just that moment and then the deadline had come and gone.
Did it really matter given that these were old games for which development support had, obviously, long lapsed? Well, actually, yes.
Patch This
So here I am in 2021, and the “upgrade” has just prevented me from using my legitimately purchased software. I’ll take software piracy for $500, Alex. Obviously (and this is why I preferred the physical media in the first place), JTS cannot take away the CD I had mailed to me all those years ago. I wiped out my install and reinstalled from CD. Enter frustration part two.
When I started up the game this time, everything went fine. I began to play.
Soviets push forward through a prepared mujaheddin ambush. The AI is not up to the task.
It did occur to me that graphics looked a little shabby compared to Vietnam or Tour of Duty, but I’m still not sure what I’m seeing. Was the engine upgraded to display the bitmaps better? Is it a color palette issue – too much tan and grey? I still don’t know but it occurred to me that I was missing some patches that predated JTS. As HPS continued to roll out more in the Squad Battles series, they made a couple of back-patches to their earlier games. My Vietnam install is at version 1.06 and Tour of Duty at 1.07. Soviet-Afghan Wars wasn’t updated as vigorously, in part because it is a later product built on a more stable base. The patch notes indicate there were two HPS patches (plus the change log lists bug fixes for “Version 1” – maybe a download after the initial CD minting). A quick perusal of the fixes suggests that these are engine upgrades rather than specific bug fixes, but who can really tell? So now I’m doubly irked. With those legacy patches unavailable, I’m stuck with an obviously unfinished product – a product whose support was paid for by HPS and not JTS.
Let’s move on to part 3.
Insert the CD
I finished the game, winning rather undramatically***, and moved on to other things. Then I decided I wanted to write this post. I opened up the game to get some information -dates, locations, and the like – but it wouldn’t oblige. I needed to locate and insert the CD first! You see, one of those patches from HPS, back in the early teens I think, was to remove the CD check from all of their products. I’d never thought about it with Vietnam, because the patches were always applied, but the original release had the licensing tied to that physical CD. So even if the bug fixes in the patch were trivial, the unpatched game is, nonetheless, crippled in terms of current expectations.
I’ll not leave you on this sad note, however. In the end, I’ve resolved my problem. But first, I wasted a whole evening searching the interwebs for some kind of backup of the HPS files. Unfortunately, it appears those interwebs lost interest in these game titles well before the HPS abandoned their hosting service. A few more days went by and then I remember something.
There was a stretch of time when file hosting was still kind of expensive. Game companies were apt to drop support of games as soon as their revenue turned negative and that often meant that all the old files would disappear. Or maybe the game companies themselves would disappear. In those dark days, installing any game more than a few years old would mean a trip to The Patches Scrolls (my browser remembers!). A little bit of searching reveals that, yes indeed, that website does have the old HPS patches archived. I’m now updated to the no-CD version and all of the major fixes. I still can’t tell whether the graphics are better or the same.
When I was mired in the worst of this experience, I thought about writing an angry note to JTS. I do understand the business sense of limiting one’s liability by not offering something forever and for free. On the other hand, most of us don’t visit web pages for games we bought more than a decade ago on anything like a regular basis. You’d think they need to, over the years, deal with guys like me who suddenly realized that this conversion was made and we missed the boat. And maybe they do. Maybe a request to upgrade in 2021 or 2022 will be met with helpful assistance.
I do know that it is lot easier just to go to Patches Scrolls and get the old patch, which has everything that the new one has minus the serial number. I also know that this has further soured me on the company and its products. These systems have long been criticized by creating “scenario packs” for circa 2000 game technology and selling them at AAA gaming prices. It doesn’t help that many of these struggle to function as a single player game (with the admonishment that the “AI” only exists as a learning tool to prepare you for head-to-head games against other players). It is even hard for me to tell what is under current development, what is a few years old, and what is simply a rebranding of the old HPS efforts. As tantalizing as, say, a Seven Years’ War game might be, as of today, I’m that much more unlikely to give them $40 for it.
*While I chuckle here at those who lack appreciation for the original books, even worse are those that are oblivious to even the existence of a literary basis for the film. When the teaser trailer came out, I read complaints about the quality of the screenwriters. The suggestion was that someone who would come up with a line like “where the fear has gone… only I will remain” needed to be replaced. A reply explained that, not only is this straight out of Herbert’s book, but it is one of its quintessential lines.
**I’m actually a little shocked. I was older when I readDune, but read it at least five years before Larry did. I hadn’t realized how much older I am than Larry Correia. I guess I hadn’t realized just how old I am.
***I played as the resistance. The Soviet AI simply did not have the “intelligence” to win.