Project Reality Forums

I am a pretty avid reader and Afghanistan has always fasinated me. 2 books that really get my brain going about PR were Omar Nassari's "Inside the Jihad" and "Seeds of Terror" by Gretchen Peters.

The first book is about a young man of Algerian heritage living in France and Belgium who decides that this new version of Jihad (attacking civilians) is not Islamic and becomes a spy. He trains at 2 camps, one of which was supported by Bin Laden (in Afghanistan before 2001) and he gets to know many "household names" in the terrorist community. He talks about barefoot runs through the snow covered mountains for 4 and 5 hours and then being given stale bread, tea and an onion for your daily ration. The weapons training was on par with any western military, each mujahid knew every detail of a weapon long before he was allowed to fire it.

The second book is what made me think of the twist. The author posits that the Afghan insurgency loosely known as the "little t taliban" has been funded almost solely by the production and exportation of heroin and to a far lesser extent hashish. She shows how pretty much every major player in Afghanistan right now (on both sides) is directly or indirectly being supported by drugs. Local sources talk about vast networks of mountain labs, arms caches and storage facilities for tons and tons of either raw or processed opium (to hold while the market is down).

I think since the forces fighting in Afghanistan have become so splintered, the whole concept of the insurgency game seems to fit the Iraqi situation much better. What do you think?

The idea of "find the stash" is obvious but I think maybe a map where you have Americans trying to penetrate a fortified mountain lab with the help of very light air support. Just a thought, didn't seem like the board was hopping and I need 25 posts....

This would be nice, it would put the afghans on complete defence instead of doing both positions. Like in korgengal they have to try and controll outpost by attacking and defend the caches.

It feels like the insurgents and taliban do a lot more attacking than defending.

boilerrat wrote:This would be nice, it would put the afghans on complete defence instead of doing both positions. Like in korgengal they have to try and controll outpost by attacking and defend the caches.

It feels like the insurgents and taliban do a lot more attacking than defending.

except the outpost is such a pointless objective

JacktheStripper wrote:except the outpost is such a pointless objective

It stops them from spawning there and gives a good view of the mountains and the area under it.

So we start a new gameplay mode called..."Drugwar"?

lol, "drugwar" would be pretty cool. just imagine trying to find and stop the drug routes the taliban have to use to smuggle. they smuggle 5 cache's across the border then they win!

just a half hearted thought-

Roguehellhound wrote:lol, "drugwar" would be pretty cool. just imagine trying to find and stop the drug routes the taliban have to use to smuggle. they smuggle 5 cache's across the border then they win!

just a half hearted thought-

nice idea! it would be a great expansion of afghan asymmetrical warfare!

hmmm.. I wonder where something similar to drug smuggle is happening... eheheh.

Cassius wrote:delete pls

por que? It is a very nice idea...

I just don't think the whole game-mode should be focused on drugs. Especially on the coalitions side. We're not in Afghanistan to fight the war on drugs. Your not going to win many hearts and minds by disrupting a huge chunk of their economy. I've even read articles where US supplies dropped onto a poppy field and they payed the guy for the damaged crop.

If you could work it in to the game somehow, as a bonus to Taliban, it would be cool.

Maybe a truck that reloads at the drug lab, and drops it off at the edge of the map. I'm thinking like an object just outside the play area that looks like a border gate, processing plant, shipping container or something. But it needs to be shoveled and the drug crates would repair it, similar to how a repair station repairs stuff. The more drugs you bring, the faster it repairs. Once it's done you get something, asset, tickets, weapons, etc. Randomize the the placement of both the pick up and drop off points. Maybe even have multiple points, and have them destroyable.

You could add this to a layer of insurgency, and attempt crazy drug convoys across the battlefield as Taliban. But not have 32 US actively looking to kill or stop you from delivering your goods. Maybe the reward could be kits spawn at the main, on top of the requested ones. Or maybe they get foreign equipment. Like Russian rifleman kits, or stingers.

This is a good idea and maybe not changing insurgency game type and add a new one attacker vs. defender having one side building up upon their base while the other plans a strategic attack. This could be great for PR's map devs now they can work on a small map with one very complex base with many loopholes to get inside.

IS there gonna be a kit that can chase the dragon from caches?

aperson444 wrote:IS there gonna be a kit that can chase the dragon from caches?

lol

Yeah it makes perfect sense as I've heard of NATO forces stopping drug operations before in the region to stifle money made for Taliban, but makes even more sense as in WW2 for example, ships were attacked b/c they had weapons or food on them bound for said enemy country (like the sinking of the Lousitania by german U-Boat is pretty famous one isnt it? I think the ship was named that, I'm not sure), either way details aside, messing up supply routes is a very very old and common tactic used by all military everywhere.

since NATO limits its operations to specific countries, it must be more difficult to stop the flow of food and weapons, BUT if you could stop their source of income that happened to be in your area of operation,(terrorists and civi's helping them, not regular civilians mind you) how would they buy weapons, ammo, and food?

why they grow so much opium instead of wheat is b/c opium sells for more $$$, but that practice causes much of the starvation of the Afghan people, which is the No.1 killer of Afghans atm. Sad but true.

on a sidenote: seems difficult to sort out who's a regular afghan opium grower and who's a Taliban opium grower. how do they do it rly good intel?

Ghost_1ll1 wrote:on a sidenote: seems difficult to sort out who's a regular afghan opium grower and who's a Taliban opium grower. how do they do it rly good intel?

That's the problem I have with this suggestion. In the western world all people associated with illegal drugs are bad. But, in Afghanistan only farmers who support and give money to the Taliban are the bad ones. Therefore it creates a huge gray area as to which farmers are to be targeted and which are to be left alone. It's similar to how bad the collaborator system in the iraqi insurgency works. Every civie you spot can be arrested and most of the time outright shot. There is no good or bad civies, if you see an unarmed man, he's an enemy collaborator, it's too black and white.

So any drug system that would be added to PR, would have to include a spawn kit of farmer, who needs to be arrested like the civie. Because in real life, I doubt it's common practice to murder unarmed farmers, even if they're giving money to Taliban fighters. So, would all farmers be considered hostile? Would they have to do some type of action to cross that line?

The collaborator class works in Iraqi insurgency works because of a need for them. But what need does the Taliban have for drug farmers, dealers, sellers, buyers, movers, etc. when it comes to combat?

To me, the poppy farmers who aid the Taliban are no worse than regular civilians who give food and shelter to Taliban fighters. Just because they grow drugs, doesn't automatically make them evil terrorists, who deserve to die. That's almost the attitude of the Taliban, who murder any truck driver who is hauling goods for ISAF. Nor does it mean they are willingly doing it. A lot of people in Afghanistan are being bullied into aiding the Taliban. Would you say no to a taliban fighter holding an AK to your face? I wouldn't.

It's really a screwed up situation in Afghanistan, and i just don't think it could or should be emulated in PR. I laid out a decent system in my previous post, but the more i think about it, the more it just seems wrong to add that into this game. It's not realistic and not very logical.

Ghost_1ll1 wrote:but makes even more sense as in WW2 for example, ships were attacked b/c they had weapons or food on them bound for said enemy country (like the sinking of the Lousitania by german U-Boat is pretty famous one isnt it? I think the ship was named that, I'm not sure),

Actually, the Lusitania was sunk during World War One, just before the US entered the war.
It was a passanger ship carrying civilians, and over 100 Americans were killed in the U-Boat attack, which helped spark US involvement in the war.

Anyway, this sounds like a good idea.
Someone should post a suggestion for this type of game mode in the suggestion forums sometime soon, I think it could get some good feedback.