Talk:Talvisota: Icy Hell

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The statements about the game's historical inaccuracy may seem odd. I didn't put them there, but I'm going to leave them there since the game apparently claims that the Finns were the attackers in the Winter War. An agrarian backwoods country, attacking a world power, alone.

National pride is a nice thing to have, but this sort of pride is going to get people killed. --Kiz o r  06:31, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The first Soviet mission begins with the descriptor -

"Commander - conditions are very tense following provocative actions carried out earlier by the Finns that were directed at our forces along the border. You are ordered to increase your vigilance and to ensure the safety of our citizens by forbidding the White Finnish army to take one step onto the territory of the USSR.".

"Khvoyna on the north shore of Lake Ladoga, a group of Finnish soldiers from the village of Mainil cross the border and attacked forward elements of the Red Army. The Finns were successfully pushed back over the border with losses."

Whilst the first part of the text could be interpreted as intentionally inaccurate information being provided to an in-game Soviet commander (in reality the Mainil Incident being a false flag operation carried out by the Soviets to justify opening hostilities), the rest of the text and the narrative of the mission itself that is then played has the Finns carrying out the Mainil Incident as though it actually happened (and in under different circumstances than the period claims too - making it a larger event), whilst making no attempt to then state that the mission being played is fictional. So the campaign indeed opens with the Finns attacking Soviet troops within the USSR unprovoked with no notes or counters to these events being fictional - instead having it on the standing of other missions in the game.

Based on that the assertions by Olli Ovaska appear accurate - as whilst other text about the game out there may state that this isn't the case, the actual opening mission in the game makes it clear that the developers want it to appear that the Finns were the ones who started aggressions - by playing out a well known false flag event as though it were a real event.

Any claims to the contrary by the developers here seem inaccurate, and this aught to be recognised in the article - as right now it seems like the article's making out that Olli Ovaska's claims are false purely based on the developer's word without citing any in game content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C7:BB00:FE01:98BF:451E:7B7:A8A (talk) 06:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Edit: Additionally this quote from the game's official website further has the developers stating that the Mainil Incident was a real event - not a false flag. Source: http://talvisota.blitzfront.com/library_about-war.htm

"26 ноября конфликтная ситуация между СССР и Финляндией достигла своей высшей точки. Произошел «майнильский инцидент» - в этот день, как утверждалось в заявлении советского правительства, финская артиллерия произвела обстрел советской территории в районе деревни Майнила."

"On November 26, the conflict situation between the USSR and Finland reached its highest point. There was a " Mainil incident ""- on this day, as stated in the statement of the Soviet government, Finnish artillery shelled Soviet territory near the village of Mainila. "

As such the claim from the forum post made by the developers stating "A little wonderful writing. "At least I don't remember such an interpretation in high school history that Finland had attacked the Soviet Union on the first day of the Winter War. The captain has not followed the game properly, because we have never claimed that ..."

Neither reflects content within the game, nor its official website in either Finnish or Russian, so the developer here appears to either unaware of the game/ site's content, or deliberately obfuscating criticism against the game.

As a further addendum to my above comments. The Russian and Finnish sites actually differ in how this information is presented (my assertation that they were the same is incorrect). With the Russian site making the false claims that the Incident was an act of Finnish aggression - rather than a False Flag -, and the Finnish site having a shorter article defending the game's historical accuracy (stating the all recounts of the events have validity - seemingly regardless of known historic facts to the contrary). Which is to say that despite the developers claiming their critic was incorrect, their own official content disproves those accusations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C7:BB00:FE01:98BF:451E:7B7:A8A (talk) 07:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)