If you buy the Platinum edition you get an extra game, 1973 The Dangerous Year, with more plastic miniatures and a map of Germany.
A by far better idea would be to make Russian and Chinese plastic miniatures, to be used on the base map in case US forces move into North Vietnam or Cambodia.
This option is currently covered by cards, and propably political impossible. If so, then that is bad.
What should have been:
If US cross the line, the Red player can place Russian and or Chinese units on the map. The Russian molds and sculpts are already made. The UK sculpts can be used too, since now UK will support US in the Nam.
How about that ?
Estimated delivery is september, plenty of time to make the Chinese sculpts and extra Deployment Cards.
7 more days go go on Kickstarter, plenty of time to add this new idea and get the extra backers you need.
Narvik,
Note that the Gold edition also comes with the free bonus game (The Dangerous Year: 1973).
That aside, there’s at least one game I know of that explores the idea you mention, but realistically it would have never happened. Certainly the Johnson administration, which was very concerned about widening the war (like what happened in Korea), would not have authorized any move that would have antagonized the Chinese into direct conflict.
And by the time the Nixon administration came to power, the political climate in the United States had changed so much that the tone of all political debate was about getting out of Vietnam, not getting into a bigger war. The debate was about how to get out (immediately, or a negotiated peace), so there’s no way to make such a scenario historically plausible.
Now that said, the game will come with more than enough game pieces for you to make up your own such scenario and play it out if you wanted. There’s plenty of Communist tanks, for example, to do what you are proposing.
Eric :-)
Narvik,
Certainly the Johnson administration, which was very concerned about widening the war (like what happened in Korea), would not have authorized any move that would have antagonized the Chinese into direct conflict.
But, what if I play the commies, and I want Russian troops to move in and start WWIII ? Sure the Johnson administration could never make such a scenario historically plausible, but what about Pol Pot, Mao and Bresjnev, they startet all this wars, you think they too would never start a WWIII ? Then how do you explain the extra game, The Dangerous year - 1973, who startet that war ?
I think it is a mistake to make that map over Germany, its a lot of WWIII games out there, A&A clones too. You should have made a map over Asia and the Pacific for your WWIII extra game, and if the war in Vietnam gets out of hands, switch over to the big map and play out the WWIII in Asia. Look at the WWIII and Cold War games at BGG and tell me how your 1973 game can compete with that .
Narvik,
Yeah, that’s exactly why I put out that poll (here and on other sites) to find out what the preference is; because although I was originally planning on a NATO vs. Warsaw Pact setting, I thought about expanding the map to cover the Middle East, too. A whole worldwide war wouldn’t be feasible on one map, but it was interesting that the voting came down just about 50/50 (some want just Germany, and some want the entire Euro-Middle East instead).
In the end, I am considering, now, doing both (two maps) since preferences are so evenly divided.
As to how I explain the 1973 game, that’s easy: The Yom Kippur War nearly touched off World War III. It’s known, now, that the Israelis had thirteen of their nuclear weapons ready to go to hit the Arab armies if it looked like the IDF was going to lose on the battlefield. The Soviets warned the United States to not let the Israelis upset the balance of power in the Middle East and threatened to intervene directly if necessary. You can just imagine what might of happened if thirteen nuclear weapons were detonated on top of the Arab armies surrounding Israel! Holy Toledo!
And that’s the basis for the game, The Dangerous Year.
Most contend that the Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest we came to World War III, but I think '73 was at least a close second, if not closer.
Eric :-)
I am on board for the Vietnam game, as I think most of the backers are. The extra 1973 game is, just an extra. But, my point is, I would rather prefer if you did a map that covered southern China to Singapore, and from Hainan to Burma, and made some Chinese infantry pieces too. Then we could play out the What If scenario in that area, what if China did what they did in Korea and went in heavy, or Russia went in heavy, or Johnston suddenly changed his mind and did a historically not plausible attack into Burma, for some reason. I figure that would be better for the crowd that back this Vietnam game, insted of just another Germany map. Germany is not the only place on earth, you know :-D But, lets forget this, your game are gonna hit the goal tomorrow, lets focus on that.
Most contend that the Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest we came to World War III, but I think '73 was at least a close second, if not closer.
Eric  :-)
I dont think that kind of stuff trigger a world war. Only if you belive that the shooting in Sarajevo triggered WWI, and the street fight in Gdansk triggered WWII. A war usually start because some people want it, so they plan for it and prepare for it, and when they are ready, they make it look like it started by accident. I say WWIII could have started at any point, except 1962 and 1973, because then everybody were on alert.
A good starting point to design such a game might be based on a book that came out and based on NATO scenario of a possible war in 1985
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Third_World_War_August_1985.html?id=yb9Kf-tUWoQC
Well I guess you can say that “close” and “actually happening” are as different as being in the army and being in a battle. Two totally different things, even though the first must precede the second.
:-D
