Hello everyone! It’s been a few minutes since we’ve posted a longer development blog, but rest assured that we’ve been hard at work on the military system 2.0 (and some associated systems that needed updates as a result). So we wanted to showcase a comprehensive example of the system, from declaring a new challenge to creating and executing a new operation through the final results! So let’s get started! Let's challenge Barwon to an Honor Challenge, since we're lagging in House Power and we feel they could be a target that other Houses wouldn't mind seeing being knocked down a peg (they are not well liked in the Empire and have few friends amongst their other Great Houses)
Note: All screens shown are near-final WIP screens. The final in-game screens may change slightly, but not enough to make this blog irrelevent!
You will still declare a Challenge prior to hostilities breaking out. In 3050, warfare has been ritualized through the Challenge system in order to minimize what remains of the human race and the technology that still powers it. As a result, Challenges have clearly defined goals and once those goals are reached by either side, the war ends, or if the war goes for long enough, the Challenged will win by default. We have greatly expanded the Challenge screen and now it should be very clear what the stakes are, how to win the Challenge, and especially the impact on the Empire as a whole - we wanted to emphasize that Challenges are essentially controlled civil war, and they can act like a sledgehammer that sends shock waves throughout the Empire. Thus, we wanted to reemphasize their danger, effects, and importance, and you will have to confirm this action (this is considered a ‘nuclear action’ within the game that always requires confirmation).
OK. So you’ve taken the plunge. Now you’ll see what the House Leader thinks about it, along with all the other House Leaders and your War Prime and Grand Vizier. You will also see the personal and House Relationship changes that occur as a result of this drastic action.
Next, you will manage your Campaign. When you start a Challenge, an empty Campaign is created. This serves as a ‘box’ that contains your Operations that you will start to (hopefully) achieve the goal of the Campaign. It will show the overall status of the Challenge, how close you are to victory (or defeat), and a reminder of what you’re fighting for. You can go to the tactical campaign view from here, or create a new Operation. Let’s do that, since we can’t actually move any big guns around without creating an Operation.
Operations represent the major change from the current military system. They allow you (the ruler) to have some control over the big picture things, while leaving the bulk of the work to you War Prime and Admirals. In theory, you can accept all of your advisor’s suggestions for fleets and staff, click ‘Approve’, and watch the show, but we allow you to have more control than that should you wish it (and you should).
You’re first taken to the Tactical Targeting Screen. You see the Operation that you’re setting up in the upper-left, as well as some broad suggestions about your situation and targeting suggestions from your War Prime and your Grand Vizier. Keep in mind that your War Prime represents the military view, while your GV represents the political view, so they may be focusing on different targets for very different reasons! Here, you can inspect different Systems and their Planets (you can only target Systems/Planets that are Held by the House you are Challenging).
Once you make a selection, you are taken to the System Target Tab, where you can see expanded info about Planets, see the War Prime/GV’s thoughts about each target, and select a Planet or the System as the target of this Operation. Let’s do that. We’ll select planet Hanin II, since our Grand Vizier recommends it as a strong political target.
Now, we’re on the Operation Type Selection screen. This simply allows you to select a valid Op Type depending on the type of target. For example, Systems don’t have all the options that Planets, do, nor are all of the Op Types valid if a type of target is missing from a Planet. You can hover over a Op Button to see more information, especially the Campaign Impact that this Op would have on your overall War Progress. When you have decided on a Op Type, click the button, or you can go back to the Tactical Targeting Screen. We’ve decided to select a Conquest Operation, since part of our goals is to take a Planet that is significant to the enemy, as well as add it to our own production!
Now we arrive at the Operation Setup Screen. The first thing you’ll need to do is select a Grand Admiral. They are in charge of the overall Operation. If you don’t have any Grand Admirals, don’t worry! You can promote a Fleet Admiral. Fleet Admirals are generated through your Military Command Nexii, special buildings that generate Admirals, and even more importantly, Operational Points.
When you click on the empty admiral slot, you’ll be taken to the Grand Admiral Selection Panel. Here, you can review potential Grand Admirals. Note that the higher their ADM, the more Fleets they can command, to a maximum of 6 and their ADM and Military Skill also determine a reduction or expansion of time it takes to get the operation ready, as well as overall effectiveness of each Fleet (they can confer a bonus or malus to each Fleet). Also a very important attribute that becomes very important in the new Military System is Honor. A High Honor will ensure that an Admiral fights well, even if they don’t like you personally. A Low Honor means that they will not fight as well, if the battle is going badly they may order a general retreat (Caution and certain Personal Traits also apply), or if it is very low, and they also have a poor opinion of you, they may even desert and try to take one or more Fleets to an opposing House!
Let’s select Karl Mercur. Here, you see that he is now a Grand Admiral, and you are now at the Fleet Recommendation Screen. This is where your new Grand Admiral is coming to you to ask for the Fleets he feels he needs in order to complete the Operation. All Operations need certain types of Fleets - for example, a Terror Operation requires multiple Orbital Bombardment Fleets and a Scout Fleet to assist with targeting and prioritization. Beyond that, the GA may feel that they need additional Fleets - this is reflected in their Military Skill, their Caution and Passion traits, and their Intelligence. The GA will have a Confidence based on the Fleets that are currently assigned to the Operation. From here, you can take their suggestions, add additional Fleets (up to the control max of the GA) or remove Fleets. You can also edit Fleets from here.
Let’s talk about Op Points at this point. Moving large military fleets and coordinating large offensive Operations was difficult enough on a single planet - now moving them across interstellar distances is exponentially harder! To reflect this, each House generates Operational Points (shortened to Op Points, or just OP) through their Shipyards, Command Nexus, and Military Nexii. Each Unit (a ship) costs a certain amount of OP to integrate, command, and maintain, and this is propagated up to a Fleet OP cost. If you don’t have enough free OP to maintain the proposed Fleets of an Operation, you can not move to the next step. Obviously, Capital Warships armed with the latest plaser technology are going to be much higher in OP cost than your lowly frigate with a pair of Gauss cannons. This mechanic allows smaller, but more well-run, Houses and Civilizations to wage war against Houses and Civs with larger units and Fleets, but if they are incapable of organizing them all, there is only so much force they can actually bring to bear in this system.
You’ll also notice a few options for the Operation that you can select here. The first one is to put the Operation under Wargames. This adds a few turns to the overall preparation time, but increases each fleet’s Effectiveness (the key metric that determines how effective each Ship is in combat and defense, as well as special effects) by 10%. You can also designate this Operation as a ‘No Retreat’ - you will get a significant boost in Effectiveness across the board (people tend to fight much harder when they know they’re not going home unless they win) but this will generate a lot of Fear throughout the Empire, as well as the enmity of the Grand Admiral - they may even refuse to serve if their confidence in victory is low enough! The final option is to Propagandize the Operation. Basically, while the other House gains a lot of Military Intel on the op (normally, these are secret when they are first created), the House who is leading the Op lowers Unrest on their Pops, as well as decreasing Fear and increasing Popular Support (if the ruling House) for the Emperor. The Emperor also gets a little Power bump. But if the Operation fails… watch your Power and Popular Support crash!
You can also set a Priority on the Operation. Basically, the higher the Priority, the more Ops Points go to this Operation, so if there aren’t enough to support all active Operations, higher Priority Ops will be preserved. High Priority Operations also get first call on Ships needed to fill out incomplete Fleets.
Speaking of Fleets, let’s take a closer look at Charlie III, on the Fleet Detail Screen. As you can see, it’s a Heavy Bombardment Fleet, and will be used to soften up the planetary orbital defenses, as well as the ground defenses and the Planetary Cannon Network that is established on Hanin II. Currently, the fleet has 2 Heavy Command Units (Battleships), 2 Heavy Bombardment Units, and we are building 4 additional Heavy Bombardment Units that will be ready in 5 turns. Fleets can have up to 6 ‘slots’ that contain one or more specific role of ship, with a max of 10 Units total. They also use Command Points, which are generated by Command Ships (and augmented by the Fleet Admiral). Each size and type of Ship uses a certain amount of CP to fully utilize properly, and when there is a higher CP load than CP available, ship Effectiveness starts to suffer, which affects the Fleet. Your Command ships are critical for this reason - you might want to bring along 2, and invest in Command tech to make sure your Fleets are as Effective as they can be!
So we’ve talked about Effectiveness a lot, but what is it? Glad you asked! It’s literally the most important stat in the Military system. Effectiveness is, basically, the percentage that a Unit is actually performing at, based on several factors like damage, command, role type, leadership, fleet TOE, etc. Effectiveness affects every part of a Ship performance, and by extension a Fleet. To use the most basic example, if a Ship’s Long Range Attack value is 10, and the Ship’s Effectiveness is 80%, then it will actually only (potentially) inflict 8 Damage max. Since Tactics value is also affected, it also affects how well a ship can avoid damage. It’s a very elegant way to summarize an overall Ship/Fleet performance indicator in one stat, which is why the Effectiveness bar is so prominent in the Fleet Detail Screen. You can have the most cutting-edge, largest Ships in the galaxy, but if you don’t have the Admiral or the CP to run them, or if they take damage, or if you don’t have resupply auxiliaries in a Fleet and the battle lasts more than a few turns, they are just so much expensive trash. Another potential force equalizer between Houses and Civilizations - it is really, really possible for a much larger Fleet that is poorly equipped and led to be defeated by a small, efficient, well-run, well-led Fleet, and that’s a core design pillar of the Military System: he who has the biggest guns, does NOT always win.
So you’ve made your tweaks, and now you’re ready to start the Operation! Congratulations, you’re almost there! You will come to a summary screen that shows the target info, the current fleet situation, and the Operation Info (this will always be shown on the left). From here, you can edit your Grand Admiral (i.e. sack him), edit your fleets, or change your target. Once you Start the Operation, you will not be able to make many changes, so proper planning HERE is the key to success!
You’re happy with your setup, so you approve the Operation. At this point, the Operation moves into the Preparation Phase. Here, Fleets are created and moved into position to the Op Staging Point, Ships are built that are needed to complete Fleets, and any repairs that may be needed for assigned Ships are done - as long as there are the available Shipyards to do so! Your responsibility as a good Emperor is to make sure that there are enough Shipyards with dock capacity and a steady supply of Ship Components - these are the building blocks of Ships and if you run out, you can’t repair or build new Ships, so watch your stocks!
Once you have at least one Fleet showing ‘Green’ (meaning ready to transit) you can move to the Transit Phase. Of course, if you leave too early, you may not have much of your planned battle power, but if time is becoming a factor, you may have to leave before being fully prepared! Time can be a huge strategic factor in when to launch, and you may even put a Grand Admiral in charge who has little else going for them than administrative ability!
When all Fleets are ‘green’ the Phase will be marked as ‘Phase Ready’ and you can transit with your full battle power at any time you’re ready (but remember that Fleets use Energy and OP whether they’re moving and fighting or not). Let’s go ahead and move forward!
At this point, you can not recall an Operation. You can cancel it at any point prior to this, but once the Fleets start moving, they’re gone. When they arrive at the destination, you’ll get an updated Intel report, along with the opportunity to retreat or continue the Operation.
Each Operation has a series of Subtasks that must be completed in order to successfully complete the Operation. The Execution Operation Summary will show you the progress of the Operation, along with a current turn Battle Report. You can click out a pop-out Progress Popup that will give you more information about what has been done, the current task, and what you have left to do. Each turn, you’ll also get a summary of the Operation Progress on the Sit Rep, and an Alert once a Subtask has been completed (or failed) If a Subtask is failed, the Operation also fails, and you will get a screen with some options (retreat, etc) and the House whose Operation it is will lose some Power.
Here's a look at a Campaign that is well in progress. It is rare that you will have more than 3 Operations going at a time due to Op Point limits, unless you have selected a House with a strong military culture (such as Spartic or Neomerican) From here, you can always check on your active Operations and make sure they are proceeding as planned!
In our next blog, we'll show the tactical side of things - the battle reports from planetside and space, and your options when a Operation ends - what happens when things go well, and what happens when things go badly!
Hopefully you've enjoyed this very long, but hopefully very informative, visual blog!
-Steve
