ICBM: Escalation News

Hi everyone!

In this dev diary, we’re going to be talking about something that might feel familiar to anyone who’s played the original ICBM. For all the grizzled veterans in the audience, you probably remember the Strike Planner. Well, it’s gotten a bit of a makeover for the sequel, and there’s been a pretty major overhaul in terms of how it works and what it’s capable of now. So, now that the strike planner is old news, for ICBM fans both old and new, allow me to introduce you to the new War Room!

A STRANGE GAME. THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY.

For those of you that are unacquainted, the Strike Planner in ICBM 1 gave you the ability to quickly assign attack orders to your units. You could get every instance of a specific unit type to attack every specific instance of an enemy unit type. So, for example, you could get all your SSBNs to attack enemy cities all at once, or get your missile silos to attack every enemy airport, or any other combination of attackers and targets. However, as handy as it is in a lot of situations, it didn’t have the nuance needed for ICBM: Escalation, now that regions are capturable, conventional warfare is widespread, and killing absolutely everything all at once isn’t necessarily what you want to do. At least not all the time.

The classic strike planner is returning, but the advanced planner is where things get interesting…

So, what does the new War Room have to offer? The short answer is discretion. In the new War Room, you have the ability to specify exactly which units you want to conduct the attack, and also specify exactly who to kill. So, let’s pose a hypothetical. Let’s say you’re playing as North America. Central America just sank one of your favorite aircraft carriers, so in a fit of blind rage, you decide you’re going to invade Mexico. Now, you could use the traditional strike planner and end up starting World War III, but that’s going too far. Right now your limit is only World War 2 and a half. Instead of hitting them with everything you’ve got all at once, you just want to soften them up, show them who’s boss, and then probably destroy your timeshare property in Cancun so you can finally stop paying for it. This is where the War Room comes in.

Introducing the War Room! Isn’t this fancy?

As you can see, like the Strike Planner from ICBM 1, you can now choose to target specific regions instead of entire factions. So, for example, if you’re only focused on attacking Northwest Mexico, your plan won’t end up wasting effort and missiles on destroying Colombia. You can also see in the attacker list that there’s a list of territories as well. That’s because you can also designate specific regions to attack from. So if you wanted all your missile silos in, say, Western Canada to fire at one target and leave the rest of them on standby, you can do that too. You can also get even more nuanced if you want.

Behold, more nuance!

As you can see, you can assign units from specific unit groups to attack targets as well. So if you group together some units, you can turn them into a task force and then direct them using the War Planner. You can also assign attacker locations and target locations by designating points directly on the map, so if you want to get REALLY specific and say that, for example, only missile silos within a 100 mile radius of some random spot in the middle of Kansas should attack, you can do that too.

I wasn’t joking, you can literally do that.

Now, being able to get stuff to blow up other stuff is great and all, but it doesn’t end there. You don’t want to just attack Mexico, you want your troops to invade and claim it as your own so you can watch that timeshare burn to the ground with your own eyes. But micromanaging armies? That could be a lot of work. But don’t worry, the War Planner has you covered! All you need to do is switch to ‘Invasion mode’ and then specify which armies you want to send in and where you’re sending them to. Once you give the order, they’ll automatically mobilize and invade to capture the territories for you.

Sure, they sank your carrier, but deep down, we all know this is all about that timeshare.

On top of all that, you can also stack multiple elements of a plan together, so for example, while your MRBMs are targeting an enemy’s air bases, your SSBNs can be targeting its missile silos, while your ICBMs strike at their cities, or any other combination you can think of, all executed with one click of a button. Endless possibilities! And there’s new options on how to conduct the attack as well. You can choose to bar weapons of mass destruction from the attack if you don’t want things to get out of hand, tell your units to automatically choose the best weapons for the job based on what they’re targeting, and even get your bomber pilots to fly far beyond their return point on a one-way trip, with the aptly named ‘Suicide Mission’ option. Your attack, your way.

If you’re clever, you can devise all kinds of attacks. Like a symphony of destruction.

Because ICBM: Escalation has a newfound emphasis on conventional warfare, slower escalations and capturing territory, the extra degree of control and precision that the new War Room offers is perfect for coordinating everything from low-intensity skirmishes and raids, to territorial invasions, all the way to full-scale thermonuclear exchanges. There’s no substitute for getting extra-involved and micromanaging every single unit in the attack, but now that the War Room is in play, if you can make a plan and press a button, you can do some serious damage…

And that’s it for this dev diary! Hopefully it’s piqued your interest and you’re already scheming about what kind of fiendish master plans you can put together. We love your feedback, so let us know what you think in the comments. There might be another dev diary in the future to look forward to, but we’re also getting close to the finish line. Either way, you’ll hear from us again soon!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2647680/ICBM_Escalation/

Hey everyone, if you’re looking to leave a mark on the world that isn’t a radioactive crater, we need portraits for politicians and military commanders in ICBM: Escalation, and we want YOU.

If you’re interested in making an appearance in-game as a player portrait, take a clear and well-lit shot of your face and fill out the survey below. We're looking for the fittest photos, so make sure to put your best face forward for a chance to be drawn in a uniform and become the face of nuclear armageddon.

Spots are limited, so act fast. We’ll see you in the War Room.

Access the survey from here: https://forms.gle/pS5QmB8tMgHmtCfZA

"Dear Presidents,

Thank you for gathering here today. I am pleased to present to you the latest developments in our strategic project, ICBM: Escalation. This discussion will highlight the significant advancements our dedicated team of developers has made since our previous feedback session. Their relentless efforts have not only addressed past concerns but have also introduced innovative features that elevate the project to new heights. Following this introduction, our developers will provide a detailed account of the evolution and enhancements of ICBM: Escalation, underscoring our commitment to excellence and progress."

Now that the beta test has had a few more waves and it’s picking up some momentum, it’s a good time to show off how it’s been going!

As always with beta tests, hunting down and squashing bugs has been at the forefront, and we’ve been hard at work making that happen. Of course, if all we tell you is “thanks to so and so, we know the game crashes if you do this thing and now it doesn’t” then that’s not really much of a conversation piece. So, what about some of the cooler stuff that’s come out of the beta?

Well, thanks to the balancing efforts of our testers, army divisions have been closing in on something of a happy medium, where they’re deadly in a conventional conflict, dangerous enough to not be underestimated in a nuclear war, and yet also overshadowed by a horde of thermonuclear warheads coming for your cities. Similarly, ABMs and SAMs have gotten a boost to a point where they’re worthwhile, but not so strong that you can just spam them with impunity like in ICBM 1. There have been lots of nice little tweaks to push everything in the right direction, but there’s also been some not-so-little tweaks as well…

Not only are armies better overall, but the AI is also better at using them. Watch your borders…

For those who remember the dev diary we did on Air Power, you’ll remember that a line of high-speed bombers was implemented for players who wanted some extra air power at their disposal. Well, thanks to testing, we now know that that particular pedigree gets a little bit anemic late into the game, so, by popular demand, we’re introducing a final late-game upgrade for high-speed bombers that’s faster, meaner, harder to kill, and would give Leonid Brezhnev nightmares if he was still around. If you want a good laugh, you can read up on his theory that the space shuttle was secretly a nuclear bomber. If you’re more interested in destruction, then you’ll probably be happy to know that there’s a sub-orbital bomber at the end of the tech tree. The culmination of a hypothetical world where the XB-70 made it into service, and somebody decided that hypersonic flight could have made it better. And, with Project Mayhem in the works, perhaps not too far off from the truth…

For when you need to take off and nuke the entire site from near-orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

Now, one of the common complaints from the beta that we have yet to address is the pace of the game. Since conquest mode is the default, games can last for a long time, and since nuclear wars have a tendency to cut things short, players don’t always make it to the end of the tech tree. We don’t necessarily consider this a bad thing - lots of people were expecting nuclear war in the 1960s, so why not keep it as a possibility? But, with that being said, soon we’ll be working on the new game modes, which should allow players to fight a faster-paced game and even start later in the tech tree. But, before we can do that, we need to finish the new strike planner. Assuming we’re still calling it that, it’s gotten quite the makeover. But, we’ll leave that for another time…

Look at this button. What does it mean? What does it do? What is it capable of? Can we even fathom what lies within?

There’s plenty of other things going on under the hood, but that’s all we’ve got for this update. Hopefully it’s piqued your interest, regardless of if you’re in the beta or not… But, as always, we’ll see you next time!

Hi everyone!

This dev diary is going to be covering something that seems to have garnered a lot of interest ever since it was first mentioned, and now that we’re far enough into development that it’s starting to bear some fruit, we think it’s finally time to spill some more details on it. Now, I would argue that ICBM is always better with friends, but a lot of people enjoy it solo. And what better way to complement a single-player game, than with an all-new single player campaign mode?

Now, at a first glance, you’re probably wondering how a single-player campaign would even work for a nuclear war game. You know, level 1, you destroy the entire world, level 2, you destroy the entire world, again…? But, that’s not going to be the case here. Well, not if you play well, anyway.

There’s not a lot of room for continuity if everybody dies immediately. So, the campaign is going to run a little differently from your average ICBM match…

So if you don’t just glass the entire planet in an hour, how does it work? Well, it’s simple. Nuclear annihilation isn’t the goal, it’s a consequence. Let me explain. Firstly, this campaign mode in particular is actually quite unique in terms of its chronology. For most games, a campaign story might span, say, a couple weeks that your hero is in combat, or the few dozen months it takes to complete a military operation, or maybe it lasts a few years if there’s a lot of exposition. Our campaign, however, is going to last decades. That’s right, we’re going to be taking you on a ride through history’s near-nuclear hotspots, from the start of the cold war, to modern day and into the hypothetical not-so-distant future. And it’s your job to 1) Achieve your nation’s goals and objectives and 2) Not accidentally cut all of human history short in the process. Now, you’re probably wondering how that works, so what better way to illustrate it than by taking a peak at the first mission?

The single-player campaign starts where the tech tree does, and arguably where the cold war did as well. 1950. And I’m sure many of the history buffs out there will recognize this as the start of the first confrontation between the East and West: The Korean War.

Ladies and Gentlemen, LET’S GET READY TO RUUUUUMMMBLLEEEEEEE

Players will have to command UN forces to repel the North Korean invasion for an hour of in-game time, ensuring that Seoul is free once the timer is up, and that the communists never reach Busan. Doing so will accomplish the primary objective and lead to (a pretty lackluster) victory.

Of course, things can get more interesting than that… ICBM is a game built by and for nuclear weapons. There’s nothing stopping you from using them other than the consequences of your own actions. If you want to unleash your inner Douglas MacArthur, this is your chance. Just remember, the Soviets detonated their first nuke in 1949, and in the world of ICBM, the Cold War isn’t quite as frigid as real life! Tempers are hotter, nukes are more accessible, and war crimes are less like felonies and more like misdemeanors. You can push the enemy farther than you could in real life, but you should expect them to push back even harder as well. So, if you wanted to take the relatively standard conventional Korean conflict of 1950 and say, spice it up by using mustard gas and nuking Pyongyang, the only thing stopping you is your conscience and whatever mysterious, faintly radioactive deliveries the Soviets have been moving into their airbases.

Just like WWI, If you’re a fan of utilitarian ethics, attritional warfare and human suffering, then chemical weapons can be a great way to stop human wave tactics. Just mind the collateral damage…

On the topic of pushing your luck and poking the bear, the campaign also comes with another neat feature: You decide how hard you want to win. Going back to the Korean War mission, the bare minimum for success is that you can’t lose Busan and you need to control Seoul by the time the smoke clears. You can just repel the attack and keep the war relatively small and contained, but for players that are feeling a little more audacious, you can settle the border dispute once and for all by completely invading and occupying North Korea, if you’re ready to deal with China’s response… And if you REALLY want to make your point, you can invade China itself and force a ceasefire if you succeed, while bearing in mind that the Soviets aren’t going to be happy, and things are probably going to get ugly. The harder you push and the more successful you are, the better you’ll score and the better off you’ll be for the next mission. Just be careful not to bite off more than you can chew, especially once Washington is within nuking distance.

Okay, so MAYBE things got a little out of hand…

Speaking of risk and reward, all the technology you gain during a mission will carry over to the next, so your strengths, doctrine and tactics will ultimately be decided by what you invest in. As mentioned before, your performance in a mission will contribute to your score, which in turn means more technology. Since every mission will require a different approach, it’s probably best to think about your overall strategy carefully. The mission following the Korean War is going to be the Cuban Missile Crisis. A ‘guns-blazing’ approach might work, especially if you’re not a fan of Florida, but maybe something more tactful would be more appropriate…

The campaign is still a work in progress and our testers are poking away at it right now, but we’re excited to see how it evolves as we get more feedback. Right now we’re aiming to have a mission for every decade from 1950 to 2040, so there should be plenty to keep you busy once it’s done. Who knows, if there’s enough interest, maybe we’ll add a second one someday… But, until then, we’ll be hard at work on this one, and we’ll see you next time!