Vietnam continuing on for PC Game

Hi All, first Ill say I am no expert on history, I am a game developer who is trying to hash out some ideas for a alternate history timeline for my game Recruits.

So, in my research, America joined the Vietnam War to defend the South in an attempt to prevent the spread of Communism, and the war 'ended' due to protest and the fact that the war could not be 'won' (My vague general knowledge of the topic).

For my game, I want to propose an Alternate History where the spread of Communism is a bit more wide spread. For example, Russia/China/North Vietnam being on the offensive and attempting to move into the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and of course south to South Vietnam, Indonesia. Due to this huge offensive by the communist nations the U.S, British and Australian forces must all push back on these communist countries.

Now... I'm sure there are HUGE issues with this scenario being that its pretty much WW3, but can any one see a viable way of anything similar to this happening.

Keeping in mind that this is for a PC Game, I'm not to crazy about the exact logistics, more so having an interesting plausible turn of events. Any help would be appreciated and feel free to let your minds go wild, and put fourth any information you like. Any questions or information I can give, just ask.
 
Yes I understand.

However, what kind of situations could arise if Russia/China were to get involved helping out the North Vietnamese forces fight the U.S in vietnam. Would America need to up the troop level or have the need for any other countries to get involved? Could the war be taken to China, or start in other areas aside from Vietnam?
 
No, not at all.

The act of careful Geo-political maneuvering doesn't include INVADE EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING

It does for an RTS. At least it can for an RTS. I have seen it on more than one occasion. Do I support it when games just take the ball and run into implausibility with a scenario? Not really. But whatever floats your boat, and it's not like it's the end of the world. Unless it's totally heinous, in which case I won't even excuse it.

Yes I understand.

However, what kind of situations could arise if Russia/China were to get involved helping out the North Vietnamese forces fight the U.S in vietnam. Would America need to up the troop level or have the need for any other countries to get involved? Could the war be taken to China, or start in other areas aside from Vietnam?

They did help out. They supplied North Vietnam with materials to make war. If you mean what if Russia and China sent in troops, that's a more complex issue. You'd be creating a shooting war directly between the US and USSR and China. That situation is somewhat similar to Korea when the Chinese intervened there, but keep in mind that China has nukes post-1964. Russia has nukes. So you have three nuclear powers all going at it. That is, at least, if it's open and not like special forces and a battle here and a battle there where no one admits to anything. If it is just open warfare where the USSR/China takes a role like the US in South Vietnam, then the Vietnam war becomes a flash point for atomic exchange. In such a scenario, yes troop levels would be increased and you'd also have troops on alert around the world and men mobilized before things likely went to total hell on earth.

You also have the issue of the Vietnam being very independent, not wanting to be a lap dog of anyone, and having a history of conflict with China which was only temporarily stalled because of a collective ideology in Communism (Vietnam and China would go to war in 1979). They would likely either not let a US style troop effort by the USSR and/or China in, or they'd keep it very limited, and if the two powers tried anything, the reaction and dynamic amongst those powers would be interesting in the Chinese sense. You also have the issue of the Sino/Soviet split becoming increasingly more volatile, which is what lead to the Vietnamese-Sino relations cooling as Hanoi refused to cut off ties with Moscow.

The US tried to get more countries involved in Vietnam. It didn't work beyond what you saw actually happen. One such case was Britain, which didn't get involved although President Johnson privately pressed the issue to see if it would. That's one of the more major criticisms to be had: our allies did not support us or our policy in Vietnam, and we were lacking backing, which should have made us reexamine and reassess our policy in Southeast Asia.

I'm a bit confused on the scenario purpose. Do you want World War III? If so, do you want a conventional World War III? May I also suggest in lieu of that a wider spread and more populous number of proxy wars around the world with varying degrees of involvement and assumption of duties by either side, as well as secret operations by special forces. Even that would have a strong possibility of leading to WW3 by major tensions mounting, and you'd have major tensions back on the domestic front, but I think it'd be a more likely scenario.
 
Well for the game it's probably pretty important to know the tone you want for the game and where you want to take this plot, because making World War III would be both easy to write but boring to play (unless it's a post nuclear rebuilding simulator, that actually is kinda an awesome idea but I doubt what you plan on making, it's a bit too Paradoxy). We could probably help more if you made your end goal more clear and the tone you wanna go for.
 
Thank you for the replies! Great!
Well, I don't really want to do a WWIII. Like you say, it would be a bit boring to play.

a wider spread and more populous number of proxy wars around the world with varying degrees of involvement and assumption of duties by either side, as well as secret operations by special forces.
This might be a more plausible scenario, being that the super powers with nukes would in theory be scared to use them in fear of destroying the world. Fear of world destruction would be the perfect reason to take nuclear weapons out of the equation.

The main motivation for all of these smaller battles could be a fear of nuclear attack from China/Russia/U.S. I can imagine Russia and China wanting to influence as many countries as they can to spread out their communist regime and the U.S and other powers wanting to stop it from happening, but neither wanting to destroy the world in the process with devastating nukes. I like the idea of Russia and China following in the footsteps of the U.S in South Vietnam. It's the super powers almost playing a game of chess... and sending in the pawns first(North and South Vietnam) before the potential checkmate battle at the end between U.S and China/Russia.

In the game you have a large pool of conscripts/soldiers to use in the missions/levels/battles, the immediate player goals are to push back the enemy and rescue prisoners etc, where as the End Goal of the game would be mainly for the collapse/prevention of the communist regime that threatens other parts of the world. Being able to have wider spread battles being fought in various locations around the world suits the game very well.
 
Would be cool if it was set up like X-com and you had to face increasing well armed proxy (Viet Congh/ NVA / Chinese / Russian) forces with corresponding increase in technology (e.g. T34/85 - T-54 - T-55 - T-62).

As your squad progresses it earns "resupply" priorities to "upgrade" its weapons. Not realistic at all but potentially good fun.
 

Devvy

Donor
At the end of the day, it's a game, not a (AH) documentary.

Go with whatever scenario you can make fun and enjoyable for the player. You're going to be more successful with a fun scenario then a plausible scenario.
 
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