WARNO News

Happy New Year, commanders !

In today’s DevBlog, we will look at WARNO’s scope, theater of operation and historical context. With the introduction of Army General campaigns and divisional battlegroup system to WARNO, we are sticking more closely to reality … although still being an alternate timeline. History didn’t pan out the way we know …

[h2]Countdown to the Apocalypse[/h2]
The date is 1989, and for the past two years the Cold War has grown much hotter than we ever got to know.
As soon as Mikhail Gorbachev became the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, his attempts at reforming the ailing USSR brought him on a collision course with the most orthodox, Stalinist wing of the party. The introduction of Demokratizatsiya (democratization) and Glasnost (political transparency) in the Soviet society alienated him from the party’s Old Guard. These hardline politicians started plotting against him.
Gorbachev and his reformist allies were removed from power in a bloodless military coup in April 1987. The position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was replaced by a Troika (a group of three men) representing the Party, the KGB and the Army.



Soon, the Soviet Union was brought back to heel, and any trace of political overture quickly forgotten. Unrest in the Batlic States and Armenia was crushed without remorse. Even neutral Finland, though not a Soviet state but with a press and political establishment press having grown openly critic of the Soviet Union under Gorbatchev’s short rule, was brought back in line. In a covert move reminiscent of Czechoslovakian President Dubček’s forced resignation after the Prague Spring of 1968, the then-neutral Finnish government is forced to include a majority of pro-Soviet members, thrusting the country into Moscow’s sphere of influence - under a very clear threat of arms.

The so-called Helsinki’ Coup” of 1987 was the trigger of a further worsening and renewed tension between the West and East. An outraged U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s annulled the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces agreement, about to be signed, widening the gap between the two major powers. Following the advice of his most hawkish advisors, Reagan initiates a second phase of the so-called New Cold War he devised in the early 80s. An even more aggressive posturing in Western Europe is instigated, which includes the funding of counterinsurgencies, and defense armament deals with old and new allies alike.



Western economic sanctions and rising military expenditures force the Soviet Union into ever worse trade deals, inflating its already crippling debts. Oil reserves are dangerously low and food shortages throughout the zone of influence, including Eastern Europe and Baltics barely averted.

Meanwhile, the Troika and its Warsaw Pact’s most hardline allies strengthen their hold on their respective countries, squashing the rising wave of dissident and peaceful civil groups. East Germany , Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania become even more repressive. In Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski tightens his grip on his country with an even harsher Martial Law.

In 1989, both U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the new U.S. President George H. W. Bush, having succeeded Reagan, greatly admonish the Soviet Union’s violent crackdown on its citizens, and promise a greatly renewed effort in “the fight for freedom and democracy.” New armament deals, support for democratic groups behind the Iron Curtain, mobilization plans, and technological advancements are revealed. The pace of war accelerates rapidly. Overtly, NATO takes an a cautious approach, but in secret rearms and prepares for a potential conflict in Western Germany.



When a larger than ever version of the REFORGER exercise was announced for September 1989 at the beginning of the year, the Troika paranoidly believed it to be an elaborate smokescreen for a land conflict in Western Europe. The Warsaw Pact is deemed to be only minutes away from a full-on NATO invasion. The Soviet Union sees no other recourse but war.

Under cover of its own massive exercise in East Germany announced for the end of June, Zapad-89, the Warsaw Pact mobilizes its forces. The whole month of May and into June sees massive troop movements, chiefly on the eastern side of the Inner German Border. Even after the official conclusion, the armies remain active. Suddenly, on June 20th sees the withdrawal of most East German Grenztruppen (border guards). War is coming home.

June 21, 1989, 07:05 - the offensive begins.

[h2]Willkommen in Deutschland[/h2]
Now that you know more about WARNO’s alternate context, let’s have a look at its setting…
We will focus on the Central Germany’s theater of operations, and more specifically the infamous Fulda Gap.



The Fulda Gap was a natural corridor between the Vogelsberg (North) and Rhön and Spessart (South) mountain ranges, running along the Kinzing River valley. It was the obvious point of passage of any army moving from East and West or the other way around: Napoléon used it as a route of retreat after his defeat at Leipzig in 1813, and the Americans drove through it the other way in the last month of World War II to meet the Soviets “as far east as possible”.

For the same reasons, during the Cold War, the Fulda Gap was regarded as one of the two possible focal points of Soviet invasion in West Germany. The other one being the North German Plains, in the area of responsibility of the the British Army of the Rhine.
As such, the Fulda Gap and this sector of the Iron Curtain, was one of the most guarded and militarized in the world during the Cold War.



NATO’s forward defense was CENTAG, an army-size formation with a mission to hold the Fulda Gap long enough for further NATO reinforcements to be mobilized to counter-attack. It controlled four army corps, both American and West German, with possible additional reinforcements coming from the rear and other NATO members.

On the other side of the Iron Curtain stood elements of the mighty Soviet Western Group of Forces (WGF). More specifically the 8th Guards Army acting as the spearhead of any Warsaw Pact invasion, with the 1st Guards Tank Army earmarked for close support. The East German 3. Armee was also present, although historically wouldn’t have been used as a separate command, but rather his assets used as support force for Soviet armies depending on the situation.

This setting will be the background for WARNO’s featured Army General campaigns and Scripted Scenarios pitting NATO’s CENTAG against the Warsaw Pact’s Western Group of Forces.

While Army General campaigns and Scenarios will focus on historical divisions and formations from both CENTAG and WGF, the multiplayer battlegroups and units will be drawn from a wider area, including REFORGER units, some French and British troops being featured under the NATO banner and additional Western Group of Forces assets for the Warsaw Pact.

[h2]To be or not to be?[/h2]
So, what will you get when WARNO is finally released?

• First, four Army General campaigns set in CENTAG’s theater of operation, featuring all the US, Soviet, East and West German divisions (and yes, independent units too, such as, let’s say … cavalry regiments😉) and units historically stationed in this area. That’s a MASSIVE order or battle, down not just to company level (as currently in Steel Division 2) but now to platoon level! And of course, all of them playable from both sides, in solo, coop or versus.
  
• Several (final number still under review) Scripted Scenarios. These are not strategic campaigns, rather tactical scenarios. Unlike Skirmish, these missions will have a specific briefing with special setting, deployment or victory rules to present a different challenge, and so on. Also playable from both sides in solo, coop or versus.
  
• Although Army General campaigns will focus on CENTAG and Western Group Forces (that is US and West German vs. Soviet and East German forces), 6 nations will be in total playable in multiplayer: USA, West Germany, USSR and East Germany of course, but also including France and the UK. In this way, we have most of the Cold War’s major weapon manufacturers and nations covered.
  
• 16 historical battlegroups, each corresponding to a real-life division or brigade with all its combat equipment, vehicles, units, variants, camouflage patterns, weapons, voice acting, … Both NATO and Warsaw Pact nations were organized and trained to operate together on the battlefield; you can expect allied units to be included in certain battlegroups, be it in air support or the full firepower of a “foreign” brigade. We will return to that matter in detail in a later DevBlog …
  
• Over 600 units, with major improvements in modeling and weapons/FX/combat sounds over our previous games.
  

That’s quite a lot, but we know you … what about Poland and Czechoslovakia are you wondering? And why only CENTAG, what about NORTHAG and SOUTHAG?

They aren’t forgotten. Don’t worry, we won’t skip them. But we can’t do everything at once.
NORTHAG and SOUTHAG will be featured at a later date as Army General campaigns DLC, with their own massive and exhaustive OOBs, AG campaign maps and scenarios, specific units and nations, …

• NORTHAG, under British command, will cover the combats in the North German Plains and focus specifically on the British & Poles (and some others 😉).
  
• Although SOUTHAG didn’t exist anymore since France’s withdrawal from NATO’s integrated military command in 1966, exercises had been held in the late 80’s to anticipate its quick recreation in case of war in Germany. With the First French Army at its core, it would have taken over command of the Southern part of CENTAG with some German & US troops under its control. It will focus specifically on the French & Czechoslovaks (and again, some others).
  

[h2]That’s all for today[/h2]
Let us know what you think! In case you haven’t, don’t forget to wishlist WARNO on Steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1611600/WARNO/

Keep a track of WARNO and join the community. You can check the latest news on the Steam News page or visit the Steam Forums. Join the excellent Discord server, the new Reddit page and Instagram.

See you next week ..

Hi Commanders!

I hope you had a great Christmas!


(you know that one do you ?)

At Eugen, we are obviously in the process of preparing for the new year: prepare the foie gras, the Sauternes, the oysters with of course, some Champagne.
We would like to share with you some information about the IRIS Zoom Engine, Eugen Systems' Engine, since RUSE.



[h2]Part 1 : Engine enhancements[/h2]
We upgraded our deferred engine with full PBR (Physically Based Rendering) support to match current industry standards. We specifically put efforts on our terrain rendering tech, solving the typical "PBR-specular explosion from far" issue gracefully.



Thanks to this upgrade, we also improved our asset production pipeline with a state-of-the-art metallic/roughness/ambient occlusion workflow, replacing the oldschool specular/glossiness one.
We took this opportunity to make brand-new 3D & textures assets for all units : 4K PBR textures, finer modelling & skinning. For instance, there is more variety in infantry modeling.

New tone mapping algorithm now use typical photographic settings for more realism.





Even if the engine is graphically improved, our goal is to always keep it efficient for minimal configurations. Warno will not require a higher configuration than Steel Division 2!

[h2]Part 2 : Improvements to the damage and destruction system for military units [/h2]

To better represent damage, units now lose pieces of armor, equipment....



.... and when they get destroyed, can explode in a realistic and impressive way, for example by projecting their turret after the ammo-rack explosion...



...or lose helicopter blades, turbines and even airplane wings!
The unit textures display their damage with much more realism to better reflect their state of decay.



As for the carcasses, smoke and impact craters, they have also been reworked, giving the impression of a real battlefield, realistic and persistent.




[h2]2022![/h2]
Now it's time to wish you the best for 2022 and Thursday 20th of January is going to arrive soon!

Keep a track of WARNO and join the community. You can check the latest news on the Steam News page or visit the Steam Forums. Join the excellent Discord server and the new Reddit page.

A l'année prochaine (as we say in French)!

Hello!

From the whole Eugen Systems team, we hope you are doing great. It sure feels good to be out in the open! We can’t wait to show off more of WARNO.

Today, in our very first “Hello World” post, we are going to detail some of the new gameplay features and mechanics you can expect in WARNO.



Now, before we dive in deep, a couple of housekeeping remarks.

You veterans out there might know the drill. We will try to have one WARNO blog post, or Devblog, out every week. Not only before the WARNO’s Early Access launch on January 20th, 2022, but also for long, long after. Expect them to drop on the same day, which will be determined in the new year, so sync your watches and set your alarms!

Please keep in mind that we foster a respectful and professional environment around these parts. We know our player base can be very passionate, with a dedicated community across our titles, but we want to see things calm, cool, and collected. Keep it easy, no trolling or flame wars, and respect the development team (very hard at work, mind you) and your fellow players. Simple as that!

With that out of the way, read on for all the new, juicy WARNO details!

[h2]And so it came to pass[/h2]
It’s been almost eight years since the release of Wargame: Red Dragon, and here we are with WARNO, the spiritual successor, ready to launch.

We achieved quite a lot with our Wargame series; a high satisfaction rate on Steam and still attracting new players each day. The whole Eugen Systems team is super proud of what we have accomplished. We have been trying something new with every title, whether to expand or deepen, aiming to add even more realism or a better gameplay experience.

It began with the original R.U.S.E (ah…the memories!), which set up the foundation of our combined arms tactical RTS game. With Wargame: European Escalation, we took this concept even further, respecting the core but deepening the realism and military accuracy (of course, also focussing on a completely new conflict and timeframe). Wargame: AirLand Battle expanded this and brought air power to the battlefield, as well as increasing the number of units, while Wargame: Red Dragon was the pinnacle, further refining the experience and bringing naval combat to the series.

But, as game development can be a tricky beast, sometimes we got it right, and sometimes we decided to go back to the drawing board.

With Steel Division: Normandy 44, we went more intimate, trying to bring out a close-up tactical dimension of combat. And with Steel Division 2, we changed course again and went big, returning to a Wargame scale of the fight. Most importantly, with our World War II RTS, we tried to deliver some profound changes to the available tactical tools, reduce unwanted micromanagement, improve the AI, and increase the pleasure of exercising command on an immersive and detailed battlefield.

[h2]Where do we want to go?[/h2]
Foremost, with WARNO, we want to bring the combined arms tactical real-time strategy genre (quite a mouthful) to a new level. In our opinion, this means making our new game clearer and easier to understand, with a further reduction in micromanagement. This also means refining the mechanics of in-game combat, allowing them to be more natural and intuitive to comprehend. What it doesn’t mean is to detract from the complexity and deep strategy of the game itself. These elements are not mutually exclusive.

Compared to our previous titles, with WARNO, we are bringing a vast range of enhancements and improvements to the tactical experience. Three areas are particularly important to us.

[h2]Number 1# - New Tactical Visual Icons[/h2]
Let’s look at the first new WARNO user interface tool: Tactical Icons. It is a way for a player to check, at a glance, the composition and function of the units under their command. It’s a highly optimized approach to display a unit’s key indicators in a handy UI label overlay on the battlefield.

We can read quickly:

• What is the function of the unit?
  
• What is its strength?
  
• What are they doing?
  
• What is its status?
  

We have redesigned all the unit icons to make their category more explicit. For example, they now show the size or type (infantry squads, half-size infantry squads, tracked, helicopter, etc.), as well as role (anti-tank, air defense, support, recon, etc.).

A unit’s Combat Value is now displayed clearly. The value of a unit is its strength within each category, denoted by a colored triangle (blue, green, etc.)

For example, if you can check the U.S. and Soviet tanks in the image, you instantly get a clear idea of how well certain tank models and variants stack up against each other.



There is more: icons now better merge (the so-called Aggregation system) on the battlefield, which optimizes the screen space available. It allows you to find your units quickly, even when zoomed in or out.

[h2]Number 2# - Enhanced Combat Mechanics[/h2]
A detailed look into how WARNO combat plays out is something we will examine in the future. However, we still want to outline some specific ideas we intend to incorporate.

Let’s look at the new Smart Target cursor. This mechanic allows for more clarity and information at a glance in the heat of combat.

Smart Targeting



You select a unit, hover over the enemy target, and bam! get a whole slew of key details. These will inform how well your unit will perform when engaging the targeted unit.



For each weapon, we will display detailed info on the type of weapon, the damage according to distance, the orientation of the enemy armor, the accuracy, etc. The force ratio indicator will tell you if your unit can destroy the target.

We will also precisely show all the data influencing the firing process when targeting an enemy unit. For instance: the chance to hit is now shown when firing from a stationary position, shooting when moving, without line of sight, etc.

If the weapon cannot shoot, for one reason or another, such as line of sight being broken, the unit featuring an incompatible weapon, or a lack of penetration power, the Smart Target cursor will show this.

Suppression is out; Welcome to Cohesion
Another game mechanic changed is Suppresion. We have updated this element to become Cohesion in WARNO. We found it more intuitive and interesting to include the notion of a unit’s morale coupled to losses or damages suffered, but also to the idea of fatigue linked to prolonged combat.

Cohesion has four states: High, Normal, Poor, and Low. The idea is this: a unit that arrives on the battlefield is fresh and has a high level of Cohesion. This gives them a 25% speed bonus. Then, inevitable degradation due to active combat, a unit will suffer various modifiers such as reduced movement speed, more time to reload, more time to aim. Cohesion levels will drop to a point where the chance to rout will increase more and more.

[h2]Number 3# - New Tactical Control Tools[/h2] Steel Division 2 veterans know this next one: Smart Orders and Rules of Engagement. Expect updated versions of these AI-assisted micromanagement tools in WARNO.

A quick recap but Smart Orders allows you to give orders to units and let the computer execute them. For instance, seizing a particular point, holding it, or managing your artillery with automatic counter-battery strikes or defensive fire missions. The computer considers the group's composition, the terrain, and the visible enemy forces when following these orders. Smart Orders let you comfortably hand off control as you spend your attention on other parts of the battlefield.



Rules of Engagement allow your units to execute their actions more independently and adapt to changing conditions more intelligently. They follow a set of rules closely, such as when to advance along roads or when to seek cover. You can determine these rules at the start of a game or in the options menus.

In WARNO, you get to play with both of these mechanics in a much deeper way. Depending on armament and movement type, you can completely configure a unit’s behavior. It will also be easier to change and consult each unit’s Rules of Engagement set by simply selecting and adjusting the variables on the panel on the right.

We will go more in-depth into WARNO’s new Smart Orders in a future blog post!

Updated unit AI
It is now possible to configure a unit’s behavior when targeting different units. It might be wise, for instance, for a unit not to use its limited missile load-out against a light vehicle, instead of saving them for more dangerous targets. Another example is for unarmed transports to order them to return immediately after disembarking, allowing you to recover their command points.

New Line of Sight Tool
We’ve also updated the important Line of Sight Tool, giving you all the critical details on what a unit can see. We all know the importance of a unit’s stealth capacity (size, type, and the means to camouflage when in cover), as well as its optics levels (the means to detect other units). With the updated Line of Sight Tool, you will now be able to check if a unit can spot hidden targets across various types (infantry, tanks, etc.).





[h2]That’s all for today[/h2]
We have come to the end of our first blog post. Let us know what you think! In case you haven’t, don’t forget to wishlist WARNO on Steam.

Keep a track of WARNO and join the community. You can check the latest news on the Steam News page or visit the Steam Forums. Join the excellent Discord server and the new Reddit page.

Now, as is customary, we will log off for the upcoming holidays; we will be back, hitting the ground running, in the first week of 2022!

From the whole Eugen Systems team: Happy Holidays and wishing you a prosperous New Year.

Eugen Systems, creators of the Wargame RTS series, have certainly noticed that 1980s nostalgia is in full swing: Warno, stylized WARNO, is their next game and it's going all in on the cold-war-goes-hot concept of a 1980s plunging into World War 3. Sporting stylized 1980s aesthetics, Warno will be set in a 1989 of total war in the German countryside...
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I had some fun with the Wargame series of real-time strategy games, although past a certain point I couldn't tell the difference between its umpteen historical tanks. Now developers Eugen Systems are making a spiritual successor called WARNO, which is coming to Steam Early Access next month.

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