"RED FRONT"

From SLeague

Captain Nemo for "Red Front" (1999)

Red Front is, in my opinion, the best scenario ever made. It was certainly the most popular. In it's heyday, there were likely over a hundred fans playing Red Front, and talking about it on numerous threads. There were even a number of games being played by teams.

Red Front was also one of the most innovative scenarios ever made. Nemo was one of the first to employ the bat. file system for switching files developed by Allard. This was done in a unique way, introducing seasons to Civ2 scenarios for the first time. Green landscapes became covered with snow, units that had seemed invincible suddenly became vulnerable, and vice versa. "General Winter" played it's pivotal and historic role in Red Front.

In Red Front, Nemo modified the terrain to transform Civ2 into the industrial age. Railways were sensibly limited and became "suburbs". Special terrains stopped being primarily agricultural resources, and became "paper mills", "refineries" and "kollective farms". New terrain types like "industrial" and "oilfield" were added.

Nemo's design showed that the Civ2 AI, considered by many to be almost hopeless, could be transformed into an almost unstoppable opponent, through the intelligent use of events. By spawning multiple units using repeating triggers, and by mastering the MoveUnit event, Nemo introduced realistic blitzkreig warfare to Civ2 scenarios. Until Red Front, the MoveUnit event had been viewed as a failure. By using repeating triggers, Nemo showed just how effective it could be.

Red Front continued the revolution in art begun by Alex the Magnificent. Nemo introduced isometric cities and units. Vehicles and aircraft were drawn from a standardized perspective that has become the benchmark for unit art ever since. While somewhat plain and occasionaly inaccurate, Nemo's units were the precursor to the outstanding unit art of today.

As with anything that's very popular, a negative reaction was inevitable. Sometime after the release of Nemo's follow-up scenario, Second Front, an anti-Nemo movement took shape. The CivFanatics site became home to the Hi-res school, which rejected Nemo's units as "cartoonish". Even on the Apolyton site, there was a group who attacked Nemo's scenarios as being too difficult and complex.

While teams of expert players have painstakingly unearthed the weaknesses of Red Front over the years, it still remains a masterwork. It is the zenith of FW/MGE scenario design.

~techumseh