Only two more days until release! We can’t believe we’re almost here, and we’re very grateful for your patience as we extended the timeline. Everyone is really busy wrapping up the last bits before we lock down the game for release, but we still want to continue sharing more in-depth info about the game we’ve been working so hard on.
Today, we’re going to talk about some topics related to war that we didn’t manage to cover in much detail in Dev Diary #10, where we discussed warfare in greater depth.
Let's first emphasize a very important point here: To have an army, you need an army base. One army base = one army. Just so there's no confusion! ;)
And to expand on that a little:
- A land army, or a battalion, needs a military base.
- A navy fleet needs a naval base.
- An air force, or a squadron, needs an airbase.
OK? It's really as simple as that. Anything you need regarding an army, you can either select the army, or select that army's military base. The options and information are mostly the same. Naturally, to train new army units, it's always a good idea to do it through the military base interface, its info panel. As noted in the previous blogs, don't forget to deploy your army onto the world map ;) An army won't do much sitting on their hands or twiddling their thumbs 'back home'.
Once you deploy your “51st Freedom brigade”, your job isn't done. The army will do your bidding, but it needs supplies in return, likely plenty of them. All of those supplies you need to make sure you either produce or trade for. They will be automatically transported to your army, provided your army can be reached. If your adversaries manage to cut off your army so you don't have a territorial link to it... no supplies for them, so protect your supply lines. Over time, the supplies they have will dwindle and you can forget about that army being anywhere near efficient. They'll be used for target practice...
There is a way to counter that, even if only temporarily. Outposts, which you can build as region upgrades, serve as supply points. They actually hold the needed supplies (or what you've ordered them to store) and even if they’re cut off or encircled, your army can still use outposts to resupply. It won't last forever, but it can buy you some time at least, maybe just enough to break through the blockade.
The same rules are applied to fleets of ships and squadrons of airplanes. All of them need supplies and rely on you to provide both the resources and a clear supply path. Fleets move across the water, over naval points, and they get resupplied through those supply lines too. Meaning they can also get blocked, though logically, by other fleets. Naval blockades can be an extremely effective tool to harass your opponents.
Unlike fleets however, squadrons can only move between air bases on the world map which you build as region upgrades, so they can be easier to mess with. Keep in mind though that squadrons can attack across the distance of 2, making their attacks very problematic to deal with.
One thing we didn't talk about much however is what happens after a battle. Let's say one of your armies got decimated. It's not completely done yet, but it lost half of its units. What can you do about it? You can send reinforcements. To make it simple, even units that were killed in battle are still displayed in the units list of an army. This is just so you don't have to memorize the composition of your armies. You 'know' what units were in the army and you can then reinforce it, meaning training new units that will replace the lost ones. Simply click on a damaged or dead unit and a nifty little window will pop out with all the info and options that you need.
Even if all units in an army are killed, that's still not the end of it. The army general makes an escape (as one would...) to the safety of the military base. There you can rebuild the army and try again. The commanding general will retain all of their gained experience and traits. Traits are passive bonuses that you pick and choose for your general each time they level up. And trust me, you want to keep those traits...
That’s it for now! Very soon, the game will be in your hands, and we can’t wait! We do hope you enjoyed this more in-depth dev diary and if you have more questions on this topic or any other and would like to interact with us, feel free to join us on Discord or Reddit.
Until tomorrow - Stay well everyone!
Overseer Games
