Sorry for leaving you guys hanging. In our defense, it wasn't our choice to have someone figure this out over the 4th of July holiday weekend So here comes some off-the-cuff responses:
Many months ago we partnered with a Russian developer (not 1C, BTW) whom we have worked with on several other projects. They wanted to make an Afghanistan game for the Russian market. Since the CMx2 engine is designed to be worked on by outside developers *and* almost all of the requirements for this setting already existed *and* it wouldn't interfere with CM:SF and Normandy development... well, it was a no-brainer to do it.
This is not a Module for CM:SF. It is a stand alone Title with completely new forces and a modest number of new features. None of the TO&E in CM:SF is found in this new game, though of course a lot of the hardware is the same. But not everything is familiar to you guys. I'm going to leave it at that for now
There are four forces, two on each side; Soviet and DRA (Democratic Republic of Afghanistan) forces are on one side, Tribal Militias and Islamic Regiments (Mujahideen, as most in the West think of them) are on the other side. In comparison to CM:SF, the Soviet BMP and BTR borne Mech Infantry are the only ones that are relatively familiar to CM:SF players. That is because the Syrian equivalent was based on a slightly newer version of these forces. The rest of the Soviet forces, however, are not similar.
The modest number of new features in Afghanistan are ones which players will get a hold of in Normandy and beyond. The two significant gameplay changes are AAA in ground role and "random" personal weapons variations. By "random" I mean there are defined choices and the game dynamically assigns personal weapons within those parameters. This greatly increases the variety of weaponry found in the hands of any single Tribal Militia and Islamic Regiment unit, which in turn gives them a much less organized feel than the CM:SF Unconventional forces have. You can have anything from a contemporary top-of-the-line full automatic rifle to a surplus WW2 bolt action rifle within the same Squad/Team, then have a different mix of weapons for the next Squad/Team.
The campaigns and scenarios are historically based, thus giving the player a feel for the Afghanistan conflict as it played out. Like everything else in the Afghanistan game, we didn't make these. In fact, most of our beta testers had no idea this game was in development. We tell them almost everything about what is going on, with an emphasis on "almost"
Sooooooooooooo....
The bottom line question I know you have is "if I have CM:SF, will I want to purchase this new Afghanistan game?". Honestly, unless you have a particular interest in the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, or are hankering for some of the new stuff that the game has in it, I'd say the answer is "unlikely". I say that because this is definitely a niche game which appeals to a particular national audience, much the way American Civil War has much stronger appeal to US based gamers and Napoleonics has to Western Europeans. Or, to put it in CMx1 terms, just like many people loved the Western Front and didn't buy into the Eastern Front, or Eastern Front people not buying into Afrika Korps. Which is fine with us since making lowest common denominator games isn't what we are about.
To sum up...
In the end this game was made by Russians for the Russian market. If there are non-Russians outside of the Russian market who want to play this game... great! The more the merrier But if people outside of the targeted demographic aren't interested, no harm done since this hasn't interfered with anything BFC is doing nor will it harm the potential of the Afghanistan game since it wasn't made to please the wider wargaming audience.
We've said all along that CMx2 was designed for parallel and outside development. We weren't joking
Steve
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