we want to take a moment to recognize you. Your feedback, patience and support have helped carry Kaiserpunk forward. You’ve both taken the time to share valuable insights, challenged our decisions, and stood with us throughout the long development of Kaiserpunk.
[/p][p]We’re committed to keep improving Kaiserpunk, and with Valentine's Day around the corner, we want to show some community love by sharing more information about our upcoming major warfare rework. We’ve been hard at work on this overhaul, and it’s time to show more of what’s changing and how it will affect the way you wage war, Danijel will walk you through it. [/p][p][/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/44749419/0bcf325359670ef3fc5bed8fd6ea191e33de15dc.png"][/img][/p][p]This is Danijel, the Lead designer of Kaiserpunk, and last time I talked about why we’re changing warfare and what we want to achieve with these changes. Today, I’d like to tell you more about what we’re changing and how.
[/p][p]By far the biggest change is that we’re getting rid of armies entirely. Instead, your focus shifts to frontlines. Frontlines are borders between two regions whose owners are hostile to each other. Military units - formerly “Army” units - are now assigned (transported) directly to a frontline, and you’re free to transfer units between active fronts, defend currently peaceful borders, or keep them in reserve, all of which serves a purpose.
[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/44749419/8b46b43656504d7898a98a1198a86e5b68e8782c.png"][/img][/p][p]Producing and providing supplies to these frontlines is still key in order to successfully defend your region from attack or punch through a border to claim another region. This means that your city needs to consistently send reinforcements and resources to these frontlines to keep your troops in fighting shape. We’re also getting rid of “Outposts.” Overwhelmingly, feedback from you ladies and gentlemen has been negative - or neutral at best - when it came to this specific Region Upgrade. Most of you saw it as a nuisance, so who are we to decide otherwise?[/p][p][/p][p]Instead of moving individual armies at their cooldown pace, combat now takes on the familiar "heartbeat" of the rest of the game: the 12-hour cycle and the production cycle. Throughout this process, you’ll have all the information you need on how a frontline is progressing, what the projected outcome is in the next cycle, and more. This allows you to decide whether you’re happy with the current progress, want to push harder, or need to react to an enemy’s new commitment of resources to that front.
[/p][p]Your goal is to collapse the frontline - to punch through it using a sustained push. Once a frontline collapses, the road is open to claim that region for yourself. If you’re able, it will also be possible to attack from multiple fronts at once for added benefits, making it more difficult for the defender as they’re spread thin and making a breakthrough more likely.[/p][p][/p][p]Now, if reading the above makes it seem like combat will become more passive, don’t worry. You won't be moving figurines representing armies around anymore, but you will make important decisions, and your strategy and tactics will directly impact the wars you fight.
[/p][p]Unit composition on a frontline will become much more important due to unit synergies. Assigning infantry alongside artillery will make the artillery significantly more efficient. Pairing infantry with tanks you’ll give tanks a substantial defensive modifier, making them much more effective when trying to punch through a frontline.
[/p][p]Setting doctrines on the frontline is another key decision. For example, you can set a front to the ‘Aggressive Doctrine’. This means your units will output more attack power - they've been commanded to make a major push no matter the cost - But it comes with significantly higher casualties. That means you’d better make sure you have reinforcements ready on that front. [/p][p]
[img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/44749419/7c840a2f2fac2b727e2c1dd1160df53f8adbcfd1.png"][/img][/p][p]Or perhaps you decide to commit to the ‘Attrition Doctrine’ if you feel time is on your side. You’ll take less damage while increasing your enemy’s supply demand.
And these options won’t just be available to you as a player… which brings us to the AI.
[/p][p]Since combat in Kaiserpunk is being completely reworked, that naturally means the existing AI is going bye-bye. The AI is also being rebuilt from the ground up, enabling us to deliver a much better overall experience. This will inevitably "drag" diplomacy with it as well, so while the primary focus is on warfare, other parts of the game will be affected.
[/p][p]Kaiserpunk is a big game - a mind-boggling number of interconnected systems - so implementing these major changes will take time. All we can do is ask for some patience and assure you that we’ll keep you looped into the progress.
[/p][p]Our goal is making the process of war feel like a continuous, gruesome, and bloody affair - not something resolved too quickly. We also want to move away from a rock-paper-scissors dynamic and make it more viable for you to shift gears when war breaks out, scaling up your capabilities during an ongoing conflict.
[/p][p]We want to avoid scenarios where you get steamrolled because you didn’t have the right units available from the get-go. Instead, you should be able to resist an invasion and push back - assuming your city and industrial complex can rise to the challenge and feed the war machine.
[/p][p]Finally we’d like to share a small teaser for the next devlog: there will be changes to units themselves. We're moving towards a philosophy of “unit intended purpose" rather than "just like the previous tier, only beefier". We’re excited to share more of this with you!
[/p][p]As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback on these changes! What concerns or excites you? Let us know! [/p]
Performance - Why is this difficult?
[p]We also wanted to keep you abreast of other areas of Kaiserpunk where you can expect to see improvements. Of course, there’s the lingering topic of performance and optimization - at least it’s very much lingering in our minds. [/p][p]While quite a lot has already been done in this area, we're not yet satisfied. We also want to start sharing more about how that work is progressing, especially for those of you who are understandably displeased with how the game may still be performing on your hardware. [/p][p]There's definitely more room for improvement - but with a caveat. To achieve the performance gains we're aiming for, we need to make much broader changes. For example, faster pathfinding requires we dig deeper into how the grid is structurally organized. However, doing that while leaving the grid rendering as-is would simply create a new bottleneck. So logically, we also need to rework the grid rendering itself.
[/p][p]And once that is done, we'll need to adjust how roads are rendered. Leaving that half-baked would create yet another bottleneck. The TLDR is: We can't change just one thing in isolation. The net needs to be cast much wider.
[/p][p]We've already made headway in some areas, and a great example is the aforementioned roads. Our new system renders the entire road network in a single render pass, regardless of how many road "pieces" you’ve placed. A single road piece or an entire map covered in road - it makes no difference. One draw call, and it’s done! [/p][p][/p][p]Fully implementing this, however, will take more time because of everything else in Kaiserpunk that relies on or is connected to roads. We will get there though![/p][p]
Next time, we’ll dive deeper into how the new front mechanics will work and how military units will change. We’re looking forward to sharing more details, and we’ll continue to provide insights into other parts of development too.
[/p][p]With love. [/p][p]The Overseer Team
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