''People's General'' focuses on modern conflict in Asia between 20 countries, principally the
United States,
China and
Russia. The countries are organized into an Eastern Alliance and a Western Alliance. China,
Mongolia and
North Korea comprise the Eastern Alliance. The USA, Russia, 13 other countries and the United Nations comprise the Western Alliance.
Vietnam is included as a
non-aligned country. The original campaigns and scenarios expanded on this premise with a more detailed
background story provided by SSI via an introductory video. The video narrated hypothetical "future" events occurring from 2000–2004, i.e., after publication of the game and before the start of the campaigns and scenarios. According to this video, both the US and Russia reduce their
military spendings. Russia is in turmoil from food shortages and other internal conflicts. China grows stronger militarily. After invading and
annexing Taiwan it initiates a plan to dominate all of Asia from
Sakhalin Islands and
Vladivostok in the east to
Volgograd and
Kazakhstan in the west; from
Siberia in the north to
Southeast Asia and
Singapore in the south. China justifies this as "reclaiming traditional Chinese territories". The USA sends its
7th Fleet to the
Taiwan Straits to force China to withdraw. Chinese air attacks sink 7th Fleet's flagship
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), claiming it was in Chinese waters. United States denounces this as an unprovoked attack and declares war on China. The US is joined by the
United Nations and most of its members. The game dynamics in
PeG are essentially the same as those in
PG2 and SSI's earlier
Generals games: • The playing pieces are military units which have varied attack, defense and other characteristics. • Play is turn based with unit purchase, deployment, movement and combat occurring throughout each player's turn. • Game play takes place on maps with different types of terrain which affect each unit's attack, defense, movement, supply, spotting results & entrenchment. • Units can be damaged or destroyed from combat but can also increase their experience as a result of combat. • Prestige points are used to purchase or upgrade units; prestige points are distributed at the beginning of scenarios and during game play. Nine campaigns were included in the original release of
PeG. Most of these are based on the idea that China grows increasingly powerful, runs low on resources and sets out to conquer Asia. The Western Alliance led by the USA hopes to stop China but the conflict becomes
World War III covering all of Asia plus Russia. The original campaigns are: • Eastern Long Campaign (18 scenarios): The player takes command of the Chinese forces in their invasion of Russia and later South East Asia. • Western Long Campaign (18 scenarios): The player leads US & allied forces against the Chinese to drive them out of Russia, South East Asia and Korea. • Railroaded (6 scenarios): The player takes command of the UN forces in Russia along the
Trans-Siberian Railway. • New World Order (4 scenarios): The player takes command of the
Vietnamese forces in their invasion of
Thailand and the
Malay Peninsula. •
Korea Revisited (3 scenarios): The player takes command of the US forces in the battle for the Korean peninsula. • Four additional campaigns which vary the length and difficulty of the Eastern & Western campaigns. In addition to the scenarios that are part of the campaigns,
PeG was released with 103 stand-alone scenarios. These can be played against the AI, against other human players using a hot-seat, via e-mail, via the Internet or LAN. The game includes an editor for users to develop their own campaigns and scenarios. == Reception ==