I remember advice that I was given was always go special forces. It gives you the most skills that you can use the soonest. When I tried to make a party, it would usually be rich old doctors, and young special forces guys, with a few mechanics and language guys thrown in. Medicine is a useful skill, and they usually have a lot of money, which helps in buying starting equipment.
I haven’t thought about this game for some time. I also found that some weapons were simply superior in the game. Some sort of grenade launcher was excellent for long range combat (long wait between shots, but it was exceptionally good at putting down enemies in the hands of someone with good skill), as well as a combat shotgun for close range (fairly rapid fire and devastating damage). I agree with the special forces and doctor combo, as well. Also, I recall much of my combat was done from within the confines of the tank, which was sadly a poor sim, but once my guys rolled out it was table-top fun simply lit up on screen.
Was vaporware a word way back then?
I remember this games full page adverts and some articles on what it would be. It seemed so big that it couldn’t be true. I never realized it actually released.
Back then there wasn’t much out there, I dreamed about that game, bought the space opera Traveler rpg books and my friends and I guessed at what the Twilight 2000 game would be and converted it ourselves into future/modern/apocalyptic times.
We had more fun converting the game to what we imagined it would be than playing it. It was fun though, we eventually used a lot of our rules for a hybrid version of Gamma world.
Even had a short time using those old rules and setting via the Storyteller system from Whitewolf, which is flexible and has a lot of modern weapon rules.
Well i had a look and it appears my Twilight 2000 install was on my ‘old game’ PC that i got rid of a few years back. My disks are also MIA, so i can only hope this turns up on GoG at some point. Most of the details i remember for the game re char creation are from the pen and paper system, so i’m not sure how handy that will be.
It’s a shame there is no real decent source on the net for info on this kind of thing (i’m sure there used to be?) anymore.
Now this is old advice from my time with the PC game, but i think you should not worry too much about skills other than for killing and staying alive, vehicles are quite important also. legowarrior’s ‘team build’ advice is about on the money from what i remember, get the best killers you can create (so spec forces) and back them up with the best ‘healers’, and sprinkle a range of driving skills/repair in that mix. The PC game distills down to these three key sets iirc, most of the pnp system is not needed?
All the language options in the game are just from the direct conversion of the pen and paper system, which itself was designed to be expanded beyond the starting central european scenario’s, so yeah go for russian etc over malaysian etc.
Oh and let us know how you get on and what you think of the PC game. From memory the char creation process was awesome, the game less so, while the pen and paper system is still one of the best modern warfare era crpg systems out there.
Boy howdy - this brings back memories. I dearly love the tabletop version of Twilight: 2000, but the computer game implementation was…problematic. The last time I ran a straight-up classic Twilight: 2000 campaign most of my players were in their late teens / early 20’s. This was probably 5 or 6 years ago. It was kind of surreal to have to explain to them why they were engaged in a land war in Eastern Europe against the Russians. Seriously, they had no idea.
Wow. So I just reread the manual addenda in the readme that is in the game folder, which I sort of ignored before, and there are some, um, important points.
*The following skills are necessary in the game:
Interrogation - does what you’d expect. The talker will get this. But that’s not the big news.
*The following skills have been removed from the game:
Combat Engineer
Disguise
Electronics
Forward Observer
Leadership
Lockpick
Navigation
Persuasion
Scrounging
Snow Skiing
Stealth
Swimming
Tracking
Biology and Chemistry are only used for entrance into Medical School.
Just…wow. So that cuts out 12 of the non-combat skills, massively de-prioritises 2 others, and removes 1 of the combat skills in one fell swoop. That must have been some serious downscaling of the game in the period between printing the manual and release!
Heavy Weapons skill now controls firing a tank gun, which sort of makes sense. On the plus side that means it’s only 9 utility skills that I now need to cover, together with bio and chem for the aspiring doctors.
Oh, and these classics:
*Combat was redesigned.
Important NPCs appear as red dots on the map. The red dots represent village leaders and important characters, but they also represent enemies, so be careful.
Revised skill list. I’m going to bed because it’s late here but I’ll have a crack at designing a party tomorrow. Should be a lot easier now.
Weapon Skills
Heavy Weapons (STR) - can use RPGs, missile launchers, grenade launchers and ‘large-caliber guns’ which I assume means machine guns of various kinds.
Unarmed Melee Combat (STR) - be a master/mistress of hand-to-hand fighting. Yeaaah…no. Can’t see that being useful against guys with AK47s.
Pistol(STR) - can use pistols. I guess someone should have this for flavour? Otherwise I can’t see why I wouldn’t want everyone to be toting rifles or heavy weapons.
Rifle(STR) - can use rifles. I am presuming that this is the basic skill for most weapons that I will be firing in the game, so everyone should have this.
Thrown Weapon (STR) - can use grenades. EVERYONE should be able to use grenades. But I’m not sure which careers make you good with this skill.
Utility skills
Mechanic (STR) - can repair/maintain vehicles. This is going to be important.
Biology (EDU) - med school only
Chemistry (EDU) - med school only
Medical (EDU) - This sounds useful, you always need healers/combat medics. Maybe I should have 2?
Language (CHA) - this isn’t one skill. It’s like fifty, one for each language. All or most of the European and Central Asian languages are in there; Welsh, Yiddish, Chuvash, Romany, Scotsgaelic as well as English, Polish, French, German etc. My sense is that since the game takes place in Poland most people should have Polish, German or Russian as their native language, plus maybe reps of each of the other nationalities so we have those in a pinch, and then try to cover the rest as best as possible.
Interrogation (CHA) - replaces persuasion.
Gunsmith (AGI) - making/reparing weapons. This sounds pretty important.
Tracked vehicle(AGI) - can drive a tank. Fuck yeah.
Wheeled vehicle (AGI) - can drive a Hummvee/truck. Someone needs this.
Foraging (INT) - can find food in the wild. Oh god oh god this game has food management. Someone gets this.
Fishing (INT) - in the grim darkness of the post-apocalypse, there is no time to go fishing.
Observation (INT) - Scout!
M404, someone needs one of those, although iirc finding the right ammo can be a problem. Hmm maybe this was just for the pen and paper game? But yeah someone with decent heavy weapons skills (for taking out enemy vehicles) is very useful in the crpg as well.
I was exactly the same when I picked ip a budget version in the late '90s.
The joke back in the day was that the Traveler character generation system was better than the game. Interestingly System Shock 2 used a similar system.
…I quite liked both the two Traveller computer games, and got quite far in them both. I think at first the interface seemed ugly and unintuitive, but maybe due to having a lot of that in the 90’s i kind of adapted and found them both really decent crpg games. Twilight 2000…less so. It was a really confusing game to try to play, so it will be interesting to see how Beefeater1980 gets on!
Sounds like a good platform for a Red Dawn mod.
Except all the skills would have to be from high school.
It’s going to take a while to get the whole team generated but here are the archetypes. Seems like it’s a lot simpler than it might appear at first glance, due to the limited number of skills modelled in-game.
There are four specialist roles that need filling:
-
Doctor. Skills: Medical, Biology, Chemistry (for med school only), Rifle, Thrown Weapon. Attributes: Str, Edu, Con, Agi.
-
Driver. Skills: Wheeled Vehicle, Rifle, Tracked Vehicle. Attributes: Str, Con, Agi.
-
Talker. Skills: Interrogation, Rifle, Thrown Weapon, Languages (As many as poss). Attributes: Str, Con, Cha, Agi.
-
Scout. Skills: Observation, Rifle, Foraging, Fishing. Attributes: Str, Con, Agi, Int.
EDIT (I couldn’t fit all the skills on the drivers and I missed Gunsmith.):
- Technical. Skills: Mechanic, Gunsmith, Rifle. Attributes: Str, Con, Agi
May have more than one of each. Most of the rest will be Grunts, only skilled in Rifle / Heavy Weapon and Thrown Weapon.
Between them they need all 31 European languages in the game. I have 20 slots so as long as each person has 2 languages I’ll have more than enough with numbers to spare.
It will probably take me a while to generate a full team. The character generator is so insanely awesome that I want to explore it properly and hopefully generate some interesting and implausible stories in the course of my frantic min/maxing.
I don’t know the game much, but this sounds like the kind of thing where death is a very real possibility, so you’d want more than one of each role.
This was certainly the case in the pen and paper game, anyway…
That sounds like good advice. If I get 3 of each of the main classes and 5 grunts, I should be ok.
The character creator is horribly addictive in a way it would be very hard for the game to be.
This game is ready for a modernization. Remember loving the concept of the game back when I started “modern” PC Gaming (I.e. 386 or more powerful stuff ;) ). My old Amstrad with CGA graphics was only used to run Sierra stuff ;)
There’s a thread about it at the BI Studios forum if you looking for some extra game info.
…and the crpg for sure. I never did last very long in it! And nice link instant0. Are you using DosBox for this Beefeater1980? I might see if i can find it and get it to run…
I don’t think i’d like to see a modern update for this…because I know what would happen, and i’d end up playing the original version anyway!
I’ve spent hours in character creation . . . . and never made it past the first handful of missions in the game proper.
Right, we now have a freshly minted squad of 20 men and women ready to face down Baron Czarny, would-be dictator of Poland. To give a sense of the depth and breadth of the character generator, I have posted quick bios below. Names have been allocated in keeping with the cheesy 80s action movie nature of the setting. Note that the game just gives you careers and skills; I have tried to give some narrative to make sense of this all.
First up, our medical staff…
[ul]
[li]Doc, an Englishwoman, enrolled in Sandhurst Military Academy at age 17 where she learned to fire a Rifle. She took an undergraduate degree in Chemistry and Biology at Imperial before going on to Med School, then joined the Army (Medical) as a Medical Doctor with the rank of Captain, where she was serving when war broke out.
[/li]
[li]Sergeant Sawbones on the other hand is a rough and ready German in the Special Forces. He took Medicine at Tech School and worked as a Paramedic for a couple of years before joining the Army. He’s a good shot and (whisper it) a better doctor than Doc is, but most of all he is an excellent grenadier.
[/li]
[li]Private Patch, a tall Dane who also speaks Polish just loves being around doctors. Like Sawbones he picked up medicine at Tech School but he then spent most of his career as a Combat Medic in the Army before joining the Special Forces when the war broke out. He’s as good a doctor as Sawbones but a slightly better shot, although not as skilled with thrown weapons.
[/li][/ul]
Next are our drivers and tankers…
[ul]
[li]Wheels is from Pittsburgh, USA. Pop was a local boy but Mom was from Mexico way, raising Wheels bilingual in English and Spanish. He was never much of a one for an education, instead getting a job as a long-distance Truck Driver and picking up a bit of Yiddish from Sammy Hirschfeld at the Bathsheba All-Hours Diner. Wheels was working as a Mechanic when war broke out and enlisted in the Armor division of the Army. Wheels can drive a car, a truck or other Wheeled Vehicle or a tank (Tracked Vehicle) and is a decent shot. In a pinch he can handle heavy weapons but he’s no expert.
[/li]
[li]Hotrod worked as a mechanic in her dad’s yard in Poland but she was always more interested in driving the cars than repairing them. She was still young when the war reached Krakow and she took a job in the Armor division of the NATO Army in Poland, where she got to know Wheels. She is an excellent driver of any Wheeled Vehicle wheels but finds Tracked Vehicles cumbersome and difficult. She is an average shot. Like Wheels, she is a Private.
[/li]
[li]Rommel on the other hand couldn’t give a damn about fast cars. Growing up Hungarian in a military family, he knew from age 6 that all he wanted to do was drive a tank, and as soon as he hit 17 he enlisted as a Private in the Armor division of the Army. Year after year he was turned down for promotion (the guy failed literally every check), but he doesn’t care so long as they let him keep on driving his beloved tanks. Rommel is excellent with Tracked Vehicles and Heavy Weapons and ok with Wheeled Vehicles.
[/li][/ul]
The Leadership of the squad…
[ul]
[li]While her sister was pursuing a career in modelling, Spook was hitting the books at Warsaw University, adding fluency in Czech to her native Polish. Her charm and her incisive intellect caught the attention of the government and on graduating she was quietly offered a position as a Government Agent, which she accepted. For the next 15 years she was deployed in a range of operations including breaking up a nationalist paramilitary group operating across Northern Ireland and Scotland where she learned to speak Gaelic and Scotsgaelic, preventing the assassination of a French dignitary in Marseille, for which she taught herself French and a deep cover anti-terrorist operation throughout the former USSR in the course of which she picked up Tartar. When war broke out she left government service for a position in Military Intelligence, rising to the rank of Staff Sgt. She is an excellent Interrogator and a crack shot with a Rifle.
[/li]
[li]Lancelot was one of Russia’s most prominent opposition Politicians before the war. A talented linguist speaking Polish, Chuvash, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Uzbek, a sex scandal left his political ambitions a smoking ruin and him with a new life in the Marines. He is the best Interrogator in the team and is a respectable shot with a Rifle. He is the Leader of the team.
[/li]
[li]Uncle Joe still gets annoyed when the other Polish team members call him that, a reference to his moustache and command of the Georgian language (he also speaks Czech, Romanian, Russian, Slovak and Spanish. He graduated with top marks from his Military Academy and moved straight into Military Intelligence as an officer, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He is a good Interrogator and a good shot with a rifle.
[/li][/ul]
After the break, our scouts, technicals and the grunts.
Our Scouts…
[ul]
[li]Sergeant “Nobby” Nobsz, a Turkoman, was a Farmer before the war and is an expert Forager for lost food and supplies, a task made easier by his firmly held view that any item not in the possession of Sgt. Nobsz is by definition ‘lost’. When the war escalated, he signed up as a Sniper in the Marines, and is popular with his colleagues for his ability to procure food and material for the team. [/li]
[li]Major Deadeye’s career started in the Taijik Marines where she quickly developed a reputation as a crack shot. Preferring medium range combats, however, she joined the Force Recon division as a commissioned officer and rose quickly through the ranks. When time the squad was formed from the remnants of shattered NATO and Pact divisions near Krakow, she was one of its best Snipers. [/li]
[li]Situation is a thoughtful Moldavian . After going through the Military Academy into the Army, he joined the Infantry and trained in the use of Heavy Weapons. His main value however is as a scout, and he has the highest Observation score of all of the squad.[/li][/ul]
And our last set of specialists, the Technicals…
[ul]
[li]Squint at Greasemonkey and you can see Hotrod, if that is Hotrod had been an Azerbaijani and more interested in repairing cars than driving them. Technical School covered the basics of mechanics and started Greasemonkey’s lifelong love affair with engine oil, spanners and anything piston-driven. When war broke out she found a natural home in an Armenian motor pool close to the front lines, and from there to the squad here in Krakow. She can handle a Rifle and is a solid Gunsmith, but where she really stands out is in the maintenance of Wheeled / Tracked Vehicles.[/li]
[li]Tinker on the other hand stuck to his guns. Never happier than when he’s stripping down an assault rifle, the Kirgiszstani is quiet about his past; Nobby spins a lurid tale about a Criminal lifestyle and mafia links but all that’s known for sure is that Tinker learned the basics of Gunsmithing at Tech School and was in a Support brigade in Eastern Poland when the bombs started to fall. Spook may know more but if she does, she’s not telling. Tinker has some small skill as a vehicle Mechanic and just about knows one end of a Rifle from another, but this is not to be relied on. [/li]
[li]Boomer learned how to repair a vehicle at Tech School and promptly decided she would rather be blowing them up. A Russian native, she joined the Navy in Vladivostok as an able seaman and saw action against the Chinese destroyer [i]Shenzhou[/b] in the early days of the war. After requesting a transfer to the Baltic fleet, she was en route westwards when the war turned nuclear. Now she has joined the stragglers in Poland to handle the aftermath, where her extreme ability with Heavy Weapons makes her a valued member of the team.[/li][/ul]
So that’s all the real characters. I auto-generated the last 5 to add some variety and to show how atrociously the RNG will dick you over if you do so:
[ul]
[li]Rifleman- Kazakh Staff Sergeant. Followed a simple path from Tech School into the Special Forces. [/li]
[li]Andrei – Scottish Private in the Armor division of the Marines. Andrei is a perfect example of how badly the RNG will mess you up if you auto-generate characters; good ability scores and a cool career progression, but ultimately no useful skills (of the skills that actually exist after character creation, his highest is Pistol at level 3). After Tech School he was a Private Eye for a few years before moving into State Law Enforcement. I love the narrative there; maybe he’s a Castle type who formally joined the Police Force? Something evidently went wrong though because his next job was as a Construction Worker, then a Farmer, before being drafted into his current position when war broke out. I like to think that he pissed off the Chief who took off his badge, and that if the war hadn’t come he would have come back later because he was the best damn officer in the station.[/li]
[li]Beatrice. Russian Private in the Armor division of the Army. This woman is the perpetual student; we all know someone like this. She went to Tech School then joined University as an Undergrad, went on to do officer training at a Military Academy and then decided it looked like real work so she returned to being an Undergraduate for the next 16 YEARS. She’s 41 years old and until someone turned the lights on, she’d never done a day’s work in her life. Sadly, her in-depth knowledge of Chemistry, Geology, Meteorology and as a Mining Engineer, and her ability to pilot a Small Boat, are of limited use in post-apocalyptic Krakow. She can just about fire a Rifle but yeah, cannon fodder.[/li]
[li]Joining her in the Penal battalion are our last two squaddies, Cathy and Dennis, whose stories are eerily similar; both attended Tech School, took Undergraduate degrees and pursued careers as Naval Aviators. Their Top Gun skills and ability to pilot Fixed-Wing and Rotor-Wing Aircraft, and I suppose to sing Righteous Brothers songs and ponce around in flight suits while projecting latent sexual tension, are not going to help them here. [/li][/ul]
So that’s the lot. I’ll probably put up another post soon with the vast list of skills available to lure the unwary at character creation – skills that are not used at all in the PC game. These are the overwhelming majority of all skills, which completely borks the auto-generation system as it does not prioritise in-game skills and the careers that grant them over the hulking mass of pointless dreck and filler. For now though, it’s into the game. Despatches to follow shortly.