1975. Total disaster. After years of rising tensions, arising from the cold war, something snapped, something broke, and NATO launched an invasion of the USSR. Her allies responded, and soon the whole thing snowballed into a giant mess of conventional warfare, nuclear Armageddon, and general chaos. Most people still don't know why it began, but the twenty two years of war to follow were a true catastrophe. Hundreds of millions dead. Countries shattered. Lands irradiated from the destruction of nuclear power plants and the detonation of atomic bombs... in the face of this, Governments collapsed. The remaining nations, severely weakened from World War Three, had no ability to halt the uprisings that soon followed, even the once-great powers. Soon, the world was thrown back into the dark ages, chaos and destruction reigning as one government fell after another until none were left. World War Three never officially ended... it's just that all of the aggressor and defending nations fell to pieces and couldn't fight any more. The last skirmish between Government forces occurred in 1997, approximately. 

Mankind almost managed to destroy itself... almost. In the year 2009, even though no one remembered or used the old calendar, people began banding together again. New countries are forming, new nations looking forward... or, at least some. Others are using the pieced-together war machines left over from the great war to aim for world domination. You, my friend, are one of these new leaders. Will you continue the old way of fighting, killing, of destruction? Or will you lead humanity in learning from it's mistakes and turning into a truly mature race? It is your decision.

Because of war time, you may use war machines that come from all the way up to 2000, since wars tend to accelerate advancements.

I want to try an interest check of this idea again, even though I did use it some months ago.