Pre-CNES: Flowers on the Working Title
- Thread starter Crezth
- Start date
MjM
Deity
As I've said in chat, interested and waiting for this. 
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
@Circuit: I had something similar in mind, whereby players can choose to develop doctrines alongside their normal technology paths as the game progresses. I was thinking, specifically, of a Darkest Hour-style tech tree, which rolls in the doctrines, except that certain technologies would be just plain unavailable until "target year." But yeah, one such doctrinal adoption could allow for +1 infantry per 4 purchased, say, and the notion of allowing these doctrines to impact the game in a way not strictly related to combat had escaped me until you brought it up. So that was a help.
Daftpanzer
canonically ambiguous
Onnnn itttt!!! I need to read through the thread properly and hopefully post some meaningful thoughts later. But I'd love to play this!!
One thought on the map - definitely think we should have the potential for ww2 style shenanigans. IE, a large eurasian-style temperate/cold land mass, a desert theatre, and jungle peninsular/islands. Mountains could be cool too. As much variety as possible?!
Land should probably be about 70-75% of the map? The ZPNESV map had a lot of empty space in the oceans, and on the curving edges of the map, while the land provinces were very crowded anywhere near the front lines.
One thought on the map - definitely think we should have the potential for ww2 style shenanigans. IE, a large eurasian-style temperate/cold land mass, a desert theatre, and jungle peninsular/islands. Mountains could be cool too. As much variety as possible?!
Land should probably be about 70-75% of the map? The ZPNESV map had a lot of empty space in the oceans, and on the curving edges of the map, while the land provinces were very crowded anywhere near the front lines.
Daftpanzer
canonically ambiguous
I didn't know about this earlier! Don't expect you to re-do the whole map on my account but perhaps my feedback can advise future changes. Or if Crezth is not using a province system, that might actually cut down on sprite crowding problems I had in ZPNESV.
I don't know... Think maybe Crezth should do some gameplay experimenting in that area before you commit to much time to the map?
I don't know... Think maybe Crezth should do some gameplay experimenting in that area before you commit to much time to the map?
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
No, I'm definitely using a province system. It's clean and cuts down on moderator bias bad mojo.
Update: All ground and air units and their abilities have been completely integrated into the system, alpha is officially in v0.4. Expect an update post tonight, also with a sneak preview of faction doctrines and the tech tree, as well as rules for movement if I finish them.
Update: All ground and air units and their abilities have been completely integrated into the system, alpha is officially in v0.4. Expect an update post tonight, also with a sneak preview of faction doctrines and the tech tree, as well as rules for movement if I finish them.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
I don't think that there should be no place for naval combat. I enjoyed a lot of the fleet battles in Flowers, though I personally wasn't involved in any.
Am seriously toying with taking an island nation-state if naval support ends up being a decisive factor in land combat.
Am seriously toying with taking an island nation-state if naval support ends up being a decisive factor in land combat.
Daftpanzer
canonically ambiguous
I remember that the sprites for Bombers and Figthers take up the most space actually, in default AW style, but they can be edited and redrawn on a scale that more closely matches the ground vehicles. Happy to help with that task.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
Uber tired. I might edit this post with more stuff later, but I just spent a good long while working on the doctrines tree. Here it is.
Here's how it works: when you unlock a specific tech level, you gain access to the doctrines in that tech level. Per tech level, you may only select one of the doctrines in that tech level to apply to your faction, and you may not change that doctrine in the future. Restrictions apply, results may vary, no these have not been fully tested yet, give me feedback.
Updated unit cards later. I'm bushed. x_x
Spoiler doctrine tree :
Here's how it works: when you unlock a specific tech level, you gain access to the doctrines in that tech level. Per tech level, you may only select one of the doctrines in that tech level to apply to your faction, and you may not change that doctrine in the future. Restrictions apply, results may vary, no these have not been fully tested yet, give me feedback.
Updated unit cards later. I'm bushed. x_x
tuxedohamm
Disguised as crow.
As a player of ZPNESV, I like this.
Not confident in my balancing suggestion abilities, but I hope to help in the cultural department when the time comes.
Not confident in my balancing suggestion abilities, but I hope to help in the cultural department when the time comes.
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
Instead of 20% to ignore 1 EVA when attacking, won't 20% to +1 ATK be the same, and keep the calculations on one side of the battle?
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Just a minor thing but, in Tech1, shouldn't Defense in Depth and Breakthrough be switched? I mean, it just looks odd to me right now.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
Not really, because you can't go below 0 EVA, but you can always add 1 Atk.
Breakthrough doctrine in World War I and the Interwar period traditionally relied on using overwhelming numbers to crack an enemy defensive line by concentrating fire and manpower on one position. It's a subtle thing, but artillery on the offensive are trash without anything covering them - and infantry units are the best fodder there is. +1 Atk and +1 AP makes Artillery more powerful on the attack, but they need to be accompanied by other units to make real use of that ability.
Defense in Depth, meanwhile, while not explicitly reserved to the doctrines of heavy firepower generally imagined as being normalized in the '40s and '50s (thus rendering the entire application of it forthwith as anachronistic, but look a butterfly), is in the Firepower tree because the roots of the NATO doctrine do stem from Western experiences in WW1, where defenses in depth stymied both the Western Allies and the Central Powers. The Germans just got something different out of that than the
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
I didn't know that rule. I thought it will just become -1EVA+1d6, like a EVA penalty.
So Firepower=Western Allies; Mobility=Germany; Manpower=Russia
Sea Power? ("Britain/American" Style)
Spoiler :
Sea Power (Japanese Style)
Spoiler :
All example boosts and bonuses are just examples.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
(These thoughts are random; I believe all criticism is valid, even bad criticism; it makes you think, and if it's stupid enough, you can just wiff it off. I merely wish for your - already seemingly nice - starting point becomes an ever better starting point and that we end up with a completely awesome NES. <3
tl;dr: basically, i criticize for the sake of it here)
The tech tree currently seems to favor infantry hideously. Are all of the bonuses combined? As in you choose 1 doctrine from Tier 1, 1 from Tier 2 etc., and have them all apply to your units?
I understand the game designer wanting to make combinations and synergy possible - I play Magic the Gathering for example, and some combinations and synergies in the game are presented by the developers. This is especially true with Tribal decks; decks that, for example, play a lot of elves that boost other elves.
However, these doctrines are already dangerous territory, and as far as I can see, I can pass through Tier 1-4 and get completely broken infantry units. Now, you can most possibly balance it out by designing hate (for example, making anti-infantry artillery more powerful through tier 4 or something) or the earlier suggested pinaccle of infantry before its decline through, say, poison gas or increased tank effeciency. Those are perfectly valid game design philosophies that can be applied.
However, making design too linear is a dangerous step if we are to make the rules preset and irreversible. For example, Magic made the mistake a number of times with the aforementioned Tribal decks when one particular synergy just became too powerful.
Magic's newer designs favor some linear synergies, but they are much less powerful, forcing the player to select choices out of the box. I can get on chat later tonight and be more concrete; but basically, it means that the doctrines could be spread out among more units than just infantry and then have infantry doctrines force you to lose out on other powerful counters, making you really weak to a select number of unit types.
tl;dr: basically, i criticize for the sake of it here)
The tech tree currently seems to favor infantry hideously. Are all of the bonuses combined? As in you choose 1 doctrine from Tier 1, 1 from Tier 2 etc., and have them all apply to your units?
I understand the game designer wanting to make combinations and synergy possible - I play Magic the Gathering for example, and some combinations and synergies in the game are presented by the developers. This is especially true with Tribal decks; decks that, for example, play a lot of elves that boost other elves.
However, these doctrines are already dangerous territory, and as far as I can see, I can pass through Tier 1-4 and get completely broken infantry units. Now, you can most possibly balance it out by designing hate (for example, making anti-infantry artillery more powerful through tier 4 or something) or the earlier suggested pinaccle of infantry before its decline through, say, poison gas or increased tank effeciency. Those are perfectly valid game design philosophies that can be applied.
However, making design too linear is a dangerous step if we are to make the rules preset and irreversible. For example, Magic made the mistake a number of times with the aforementioned Tribal decks when one particular synergy just became too powerful.
Magic's newer designs favor some linear synergies, but they are much less powerful, forcing the player to select choices out of the box. I can get on chat later tonight and be more concrete; but basically, it means that the doctrines could be spread out among more units than just infantry and then have infantry doctrines force you to lose out on other powerful counters, making you really weak to a select number of unit types.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
@Terrance: Yeah, I thought about a sea power or similar doctrine, but I'm still on the fence about it. We'll see. Neat suggestions though.
@lord_joakim: This was definitely the case before I added splash damage, when unbuffed infantry were tearing up most armies even when they cost $2. However, since AP has been nerfed and rockets/heavy bombers are incredibly effective against masses of infantry, even a large horde of infantry can be whittled down quickly by sufficient firepower. The manpower doctrines are meant to give players the option to bolster their army with a lot of cannon fodder, as infantry aren't too good for much else. They lack the AP to do any serious damage to medium and heavy tanks as well. I... will be giving a more thorough treatise of splash damage and the new units whenever I can find a comfortable spare moment to write about it. But your points have certainly been noted.
EDIT: Also I plan to "patch" rules as the game goes on, if and when I notice obvious imbalance issues.
@lord_joakim: This was definitely the case before I added splash damage, when unbuffed infantry were tearing up most armies even when they cost $2. However, since AP has been nerfed and rockets/heavy bombers are incredibly effective against masses of infantry, even a large horde of infantry can be whittled down quickly by sufficient firepower. The manpower doctrines are meant to give players the option to bolster their army with a lot of cannon fodder, as infantry aren't too good for much else. They lack the AP to do any serious damage to medium and heavy tanks as well. I... will be giving a more thorough treatise of splash damage and the new units whenever I can find a comfortable spare moment to write about it. But your points have certainly been noted.
EDIT: Also I plan to "patch" rules as the game goes on, if and when I notice obvious imbalance issues.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
edit: plz delete
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
Wrote up a first draft for the economy, movement, diplo, and combat rules.
Economy Rules
The economy of your nation is its life-blood: it supplies, grows, feeds, and fuels the army that you better be building. Allegedly, economies have been used for other things throughout history, but that has yet to be borne out by evidence. Economics has traditionally been an incredibly complicated subject, often requiring years of study before even the most ambiguous of rules can be established and understood. Still partially outside of the realm of human knowledge, simulating an economy is a task of incredible difficulty. In CNES, your economy is represented by $.
Provincial Income
Provinces are classified according to three categories: terrain type, industrialization, and urbanization. Each province in your domain will contribute $ to your yearly income based on the amalgamation of the effects of the province’s inherent profitability (its terrain type) and its level of improvement. As a general rule of thumb, improvement is costly at first, and it takes a while to fully reap its benefits. At the start of the game, some provinces may be industrialized or urbanized, depending on the history of those regions.
Terrain Type
There are four general terrain types: jungle, desert, tundra, and temperate. Each province will be defined as being one of these categories. Different terrain types offer a different level of “base” economic profitability, and can offer different combat bonuses to the defender. The “base” economic profitability is essentially how much money the province produces from simple resource gathering operations, or when it is neither urbanized nor industrialized. All the terrain types and their qualities are classified below:
Jungle: $1, defense level 2, cannot urbanize, cannot industrialize
Desert: $1, defense level 1
Tundra: $1, defense level 1
Temperate: $2, defense level 0
Sometimes, these provinces can also have other features, like hills, mountains, and forests:
Hill: Defense level +1
Mountain: Defense level +3, cannot urbanize, units entering mountain provinces must end their movement in that province
Forest: Defense level +1
Each defense level counts as a fortification level (see Movement Rules below), but does not count against the max fortification level permitted by technology.
Improvement
Urbanization refers to the level of settlement in a province. An urbanized province is heavily and densely populated, and generates more income from the commerce generated in the urban area. Generally, urbanized provinces have access to more improvements than industrialized provinces, even though they produce less wealth. It costs $10 to immediately urbanize a province.
[No icon] Rural: +$0
Urbanized: +$3. Allows province to build unlimited infantry-type units.
Industrialization requires a one-time investment of $20 to immediately industrialize a province. An urbanized province cannot also be industrialized.
Industrialized: +$5. Allows province to build unlimited units of any type that province would normally otherwise be able to build.
You may also construct ports and airbases, which mostly provide military benefits but can also provide trade benefits. Ports and airbases both cost $5 to build.
Port: Province must be industrialized or urbanized and coastal. If in urbanized province, gives +$1. Allows province to build naval units (1/turn normally).
Airbase: Province must be industrialized or urbanized. If in urbanized province, gives +$1. Allows province to build air units (1/turn normally).
You may also build research labs, but only in urbanized provinces. Research labs cost $10 to build.
Research Lab: Gives some asyet undecided tech bonus.
Occupied Provinces
Occupied provinces are those that you don’t normally own, but which you have control of due to successfully having taken it during war. In most cases, it takes 1 turn for an occupied province to normalize. Occupying a province has a few effects:
Razing
In any province you control, you can elect to raze some of its assets or qualities. Razing is free but takes 1 turn to complete. Once started, it can only be reversed with an investment of $10 (in the interim period while the razing is occurring; once the razing is complete, it cannot be undone).
You can raze:
Urbanization
Industrialization
Forest
Port
Airbase
Spending
There are three things you can spend $ on: improvements, units, and greasing the palms of aggressive neighbors. In order to buy anything, however, you must be able to afford it. Ordering to buy something that you can’t afford will make me a sad panda, and you an even sadder panda.
Buying Units
To buy a unit, indicate in your orders the province that the unit is to be built in. Keep in mind that provinces cannot build more than one unit per turn, except where otherwise specified here:
Infantry-type units: 1/turn unless urbanized or industrialized (unlimited/turn).
Non-infantry ground-units: 1/turn unless industrialized (unlimited/turn).
Air units: 0/turn unless airbase (1/turn) or airbase and industrialized (unlimited/turn).
Navy units: 0/turn unless port (1/turn) or port and industrialized (unlimited/turn).
Movement Rules
Every unit has a certain amount of movement, indicated by the blue arrow on their unit card. For land and naval units, this is the maximum amount of provinces that that unit can move in one turn. For an air unit, this is the maximum range that an air unit can operate within (to perform combat missions, bombing missions, and interception missions within).
Ground Units
Ground units have access to a certain number of special orders regarding movement and how they can operate on the game board. The orders that every ground unit can access are: move, fortify, and blitz.
Move
Every ground unit can move a number of provinces equal to the value of their movement score, as shown on their unit card. Movement consists of multiple phases: there is the initial phase, and the subsequent phases.
The initial phase details all movements made by all ground, air, and naval units made to the fullest extent possible permitted by their movement score before being forced to stop for whatever reason, be it that they have been forced to engage an enemy army or are stopped due to other mitigating factors.
Once all movement has been resolved in this manner, the initial phase is concluded by the battle phase, where all battles that need to be resolved are resolved. Following this is the retreat phase, where units that have survived and lost a battle retreat into adjacent friendly provinces. After the retreat phase is the secondary movement phase, where units with movement points remaining and an unpingable path forward OR under a blitz order finish their movement as ordered.
Fortify
Any ground unit that chooses not to take a movement order can take a fortify order, where they dig into the territory they are in to obtain a Fortification bonus. Subsequent fortification orders can increase this bonus by increasing the fortification level by 1, so long as tech level permits. Taking a movement or blitz order eliminates all acquired fortification bonuses. By default, the maximum fortification level is 1.
Fortification bonus: +1 Def and +1 Eva per level.
This bonus can also be improved by certain qualities of terrain (and terrain bonuses do not count towards the max level permitted by technology), however the total fortification bonus can never exceed 5.
Blitz
A blitz is a special movement order that allows an army to attack multiple times in one turn. Any unit with a movement score above 1 can take a blitz order. The only difference between a blitz order and a movement order is that the secondary movement phase is now no longer limited by requiring a clear path forward: even if units occupy the target province, units with a blitz order can keep moving ahead, and will keep fighting. The total number of provinces that a unit can move under a blitz order cannot exceed its total movement. Blitz orders can only be given once the appropriate tech has been researched.
Air Units
Air units are always qualified as being “based” in a province, and it is from that province that they can operate. Aircraft can perform any orders within range of their based province, or “base,” their range being defined as their movement score. If an air unit loses its base, or for any other reason must rebase, then it moves its base to another baseable province.
Aircraft can undertake three types of orders:
Ground Support
Aircraft ordered to do ground support will participate in any battles occurring in the targeted territory. The targeted territory must be within range of the supporting aircraft. Note that aircraft ordered to do ground support can and will also fight enemy aircraft in any battle that they are ostensibly participating in for ground support purposes.
Interception
Aircraft ordered to do interception will participate in any battles in range where at least one enemy aircraft is performing ground support. They will opt to participate in the battle with the most enemy aircraft present.
Rebase
You can manually rebase your aircraft in lieu of another order for a turn. Doing so consists of moving the aircraft and its base to another baseable province. Baseable provinces are friendly provinces with an airbase within the range defined by the range score of the rebasing aircraft in question. If there is no baseable province in range, the aircraft cannot rebase. Aircraft that cannot rebase, but which are forced to, are destroyed.
Diplomacy Rules
Diplomacy is when you talk to other nations and stuff, and make agreements and disagreements and write pieces of paper about how much you hate or love each other. In CNES, diplomacy is a mostly unregulated process in terms of who you can talk to and when, but where it affects gameplay there are a few specific rules.
The relationship between your nation and another nation can be expressed as one of three different statuses:
At Peace: Default. No special rules.
Allied: Must be explicitly referred to by both players in orders; units now fight together as allies and can enter allied territory without starting war.
At War: Triggered when one nation’s armies enters the territory of another nation not in an alliance. Units now fight one another when occupying the same territory and can occupy another’s territory.
Combat Rules
Combat is pretty important to this NES, so there are some rules for it. Combat is joined whenever units from unallied factions occupy the same province. An attacker and defender is selected between the sides, and then a battle occurs between both of the armies. The victor of the battle’s units remain in the province and occupy it if their faction did not previously control it, and the loser of the battle’s remaining units retreat to neighboring friendly provinces randomly. The nuts and bolts of combat are discussed summarily.
From this point forward, “army” refers to any consistent collection of units, either all from one faction or from multiple different allied factions.
Stats
All units have some combination of these stats, and depending on if they are attacking or defending, can apply them differently:
Atk (Attack): Determines the To Hit bonus for any unit in an attacking army.
Def (Defense): Determines the To Hit bonus for any unit in a defending army.
Eva (Evasion): Determines the To Hit penalty against this unit.
Arm (Armor): Determines the Pierce penalty against this unit. A Pierce penalty of 0 means that all Pierce rolls automatically succeed.
AP (Armor-Piercing): Determines the Pierce bonus for this unit against enemy armored units.
AA (Anti-Air): Determines the To Hit bonus for this unit against enemy flying units.
Alt (Climb): Determines the altitude of this unit, used to calculate the To Hit penalty against this unit. An Alt that is higher than 0 indicates that the unit is a flier.
There are additionally four icons on the unit card’s portrait that indicate other qualities:
$: The price of the unit, or how much it costs to build this unit in a turn.
Blue arrow: The movement of the unit, or how far in provinces the unit can move in one turn.
Wing: Whether or not the unit is a flier for To Hit purposes.
Explosion: The unit deals splash damage (see Splash Damage seciton).
Before Battle
There are a number of ways opposed armies can occupy the same province. In general there are three scenarios:
Invasion: One army invades a defended province
In this scenario, the invading army is the attacker and any army in the defended province is the defender.
Clash: Two opposed armies both invade an empty province
In this scenario, both armies are considered attackers.
Battle Royale: Two or more unallied armies enter the same province OR invade an unallied province
In this scenario, the invading army with the highest average movement is considered the attacker and any army already occupying the province in question is the defender. Once that battle is resolved, if the invading army is the victor, the invading army now must become the defender against subsequent invaders selected, one after the other, in the same order. Otherwise, the initial defending army remains the defender until dethroned.
Resolving Battles
Battles typically occur across three “heats.” Each heat sees all the units in both armies rolling dice to “hit” units in the opposing armies. For each unit, the process is as follows:
1. Decide target. A unit is chosen in the opposing army to be the “target,” against which To Hit and Pierce rolls will be compared to see if a kill is scored. Generally, attacking units are biased and are more likely to choose enemy units that they will have a better time killing. You won’t typically see an infantry unit shooting at a bomber, for example, when there are militia about.
2. Roll to hit. The shooting unit rolls one six-sided die and adds its Atk or Def to the roll. It compares this value, its To Hit score, to the target’s Evasion score, which is one six-sided die plus Eva. If the To Hit score exceeds the Evasion score, then the To Hit check succeeds.
2a. If the target is aerial, the shooting unit instead adds its AA to its To Hit roll. Additionally, the To Hit roll is penalized by: -2 if the shooting unit’s AA is 0, -2 if the shooting unit’s altitude is 2 less than the target’s, and -4 if the shooting unit’s altitude is 4 less than the target’s.
2b. There is, by default, a 5% chance that the shooting unit’s attack will hit and kill no matter what. This is the critical hit chance, and a hit made in this way is called a critical hit.
3. Roll to pierce. If the shooting unit hit the target, and the target is armored, a pierce roll is necessary (if the target is not armored, the pierce roll automatically succeeds). The shooting unit rolls one three-sided die and adds its AP to the roll. It compares this value, its Pierce score, to the target’s Armor score, which is one three-sided die plus Arm. If the Pierce score exceeds the Armor score, then the Pierce check succeeds.
4. If both the To Hit and Pierce checks succeed OR a critical hit is made, the defending unit is killed. However, all shots are assumed to be simultaneous, so a unit that is killed before its shots are rolled can still kill something.
Once every unit in both armies has taken its shots, the killed units are removed from combat. Once all heats are finished, units that were removed from combat are removed from the game. The victor of a battle is the army with more than twice as many surviving units as the other army, OR secondarily the army with a greater proportion of its starting army surviving.
Special Rules
Medic
Medics do not take shots like ordinary units, but instead have a 25% chance to heal a fallen allied infantry-type unit at the end of a heat, and return it to combat. Medics may heal units that were killed during previous heats.
Doctrine
Your units also benefit from doctrinal choices. For the most part, the effects of doctrines are as described in the doctrine tree graphic.
Fortification & Terrain
Defending armies receive a +1 bonus to Def and Eva for every level of Fortification, to a maximum of 5 levels of Fortification. Certain terrain types, such as hills, mountains, and forests, offer a native fortification bonus to units defending in provinces with those terrain types.
Officers
Officers are special units that do not participate in combat, but follow an army and provide a +1 bonus to Atk, Def, and Eva to every unit in that army for every level of veterancy that Officer has accrued, and these bonuses do not stack for multiple Officers (nor can multiple Officers be promoted as a result of one army’s victory). Any Officer in the same province as an Army that is victorious (to a maximum of one Officer) receives one level of veterancy (is “promoted”
, which is indicated by a small gold star above the Officer’s head on the map. Any Officer in the same province as an Army that is defeated has a chance to be destroyed: for every surviving unit in the victorious army, a 20-sided die is rolled. On a roll of ‘20,’ the Officer is destroyed.
Effects of veterancy:
No Veterancy: +0 bonus (default)
Veterancy I: +1 Atk, Def, and Eva
Veterancy II: +2 Atk, Def, and Eva
Veterancy III: +3 Atk, Def, and Eva
Veterancy IV: +3 Atk, Def, and Eva; +1 AP
Veterancy V: +3 Atk, Def, and Eva; +1 AP and Arm
Splash Damage
Some units deal splash damage. Splash damage can be thought of adding a number of half-power attacks that follow in the wake of the initial strike with no AP and with target priority on softer targets. As such, they often can not kill armored targets, but they can wreak havoc on large numbers of soft targets. The number of additional targets harmed by splash damage is equal to the Atk or Def stat of the unit in question.
Economy Rules
The economy of your nation is its life-blood: it supplies, grows, feeds, and fuels the army that you better be building. Allegedly, economies have been used for other things throughout history, but that has yet to be borne out by evidence. Economics has traditionally been an incredibly complicated subject, often requiring years of study before even the most ambiguous of rules can be established and understood. Still partially outside of the realm of human knowledge, simulating an economy is a task of incredible difficulty. In CNES, your economy is represented by $.
Provincial Income
Provinces are classified according to three categories: terrain type, industrialization, and urbanization. Each province in your domain will contribute $ to your yearly income based on the amalgamation of the effects of the province’s inherent profitability (its terrain type) and its level of improvement. As a general rule of thumb, improvement is costly at first, and it takes a while to fully reap its benefits. At the start of the game, some provinces may be industrialized or urbanized, depending on the history of those regions.
Terrain Type
There are four general terrain types: jungle, desert, tundra, and temperate. Each province will be defined as being one of these categories. Different terrain types offer a different level of “base” economic profitability, and can offer different combat bonuses to the defender. The “base” economic profitability is essentially how much money the province produces from simple resource gathering operations, or when it is neither urbanized nor industrialized. All the terrain types and their qualities are classified below:
Desert: $1, defense level 1
Tundra: $1, defense level 1
Temperate: $2, defense level 0
Sometimes, these provinces can also have other features, like hills, mountains, and forests:
Each defense level counts as a fortification level (see Movement Rules below), but does not count against the max fortification level permitted by technology.
Improvement
Urbanization refers to the level of settlement in a province. An urbanized province is heavily and densely populated, and generates more income from the commerce generated in the urban area. Generally, urbanized provinces have access to more improvements than industrialized provinces, even though they produce less wealth. It costs $10 to immediately urbanize a province.
[No icon] Rural: +$0
Industrialization requires a one-time investment of $20 to immediately industrialize a province. An urbanized province cannot also be industrialized.
You may also construct ports and airbases, which mostly provide military benefits but can also provide trade benefits. Ports and airbases both cost $5 to build.
You may also build research labs, but only in urbanized provinces. Research labs cost $10 to build.
Occupied Provinces
Occupied provinces are those that you don’t normally own, but which you have control of due to successfully having taken it during war. In most cases, it takes 1 turn for an occupied province to normalize. Occupying a province has a few effects:
- Disables income from that province for 1 turn.
- Transfers ownership of province to the occupier.
Razing
In any province you control, you can elect to raze some of its assets or qualities. Razing is free but takes 1 turn to complete. Once started, it can only be reversed with an investment of $10 (in the interim period while the razing is occurring; once the razing is complete, it cannot be undone).
You can raze:
Urbanization
Industrialization
Forest
Port
Airbase
Spending
There are three things you can spend $ on: improvements, units, and greasing the palms of aggressive neighbors. In order to buy anything, however, you must be able to afford it. Ordering to buy something that you can’t afford will make me a sad panda, and you an even sadder panda.
Buying Units
To buy a unit, indicate in your orders the province that the unit is to be built in. Keep in mind that provinces cannot build more than one unit per turn, except where otherwise specified here:
Infantry-type units: 1/turn unless urbanized or industrialized (unlimited/turn).
Non-infantry ground-units: 1/turn unless industrialized (unlimited/turn).
Air units: 0/turn unless airbase (1/turn) or airbase and industrialized (unlimited/turn).
Navy units: 0/turn unless port (1/turn) or port and industrialized (unlimited/turn).
Movement Rules
Every unit has a certain amount of movement, indicated by the blue arrow on their unit card. For land and naval units, this is the maximum amount of provinces that that unit can move in one turn. For an air unit, this is the maximum range that an air unit can operate within (to perform combat missions, bombing missions, and interception missions within).
Ground Units
Ground units have access to a certain number of special orders regarding movement and how they can operate on the game board. The orders that every ground unit can access are: move, fortify, and blitz.
Move
Every ground unit can move a number of provinces equal to the value of their movement score, as shown on their unit card. Movement consists of multiple phases: there is the initial phase, and the subsequent phases.
The initial phase details all movements made by all ground, air, and naval units made to the fullest extent possible permitted by their movement score before being forced to stop for whatever reason, be it that they have been forced to engage an enemy army or are stopped due to other mitigating factors.
Once all movement has been resolved in this manner, the initial phase is concluded by the battle phase, where all battles that need to be resolved are resolved. Following this is the retreat phase, where units that have survived and lost a battle retreat into adjacent friendly provinces. After the retreat phase is the secondary movement phase, where units with movement points remaining and an unpingable path forward OR under a blitz order finish their movement as ordered.
Fortify
Any ground unit that chooses not to take a movement order can take a fortify order, where they dig into the territory they are in to obtain a Fortification bonus. Subsequent fortification orders can increase this bonus by increasing the fortification level by 1, so long as tech level permits. Taking a movement or blitz order eliminates all acquired fortification bonuses. By default, the maximum fortification level is 1.
Fortification bonus: +1 Def and +1 Eva per level.
This bonus can also be improved by certain qualities of terrain (and terrain bonuses do not count towards the max level permitted by technology), however the total fortification bonus can never exceed 5.
Blitz
A blitz is a special movement order that allows an army to attack multiple times in one turn. Any unit with a movement score above 1 can take a blitz order. The only difference between a blitz order and a movement order is that the secondary movement phase is now no longer limited by requiring a clear path forward: even if units occupy the target province, units with a blitz order can keep moving ahead, and will keep fighting. The total number of provinces that a unit can move under a blitz order cannot exceed its total movement. Blitz orders can only be given once the appropriate tech has been researched.
Air Units
Air units are always qualified as being “based” in a province, and it is from that province that they can operate. Aircraft can perform any orders within range of their based province, or “base,” their range being defined as their movement score. If an air unit loses its base, or for any other reason must rebase, then it moves its base to another baseable province.
Aircraft can undertake three types of orders:
Ground Support
Aircraft ordered to do ground support will participate in any battles occurring in the targeted territory. The targeted territory must be within range of the supporting aircraft. Note that aircraft ordered to do ground support can and will also fight enemy aircraft in any battle that they are ostensibly participating in for ground support purposes.
Interception
Aircraft ordered to do interception will participate in any battles in range where at least one enemy aircraft is performing ground support. They will opt to participate in the battle with the most enemy aircraft present.
Rebase
You can manually rebase your aircraft in lieu of another order for a turn. Doing so consists of moving the aircraft and its base to another baseable province. Baseable provinces are friendly provinces with an airbase within the range defined by the range score of the rebasing aircraft in question. If there is no baseable province in range, the aircraft cannot rebase. Aircraft that cannot rebase, but which are forced to, are destroyed.
Diplomacy Rules
Diplomacy is when you talk to other nations and stuff, and make agreements and disagreements and write pieces of paper about how much you hate or love each other. In CNES, diplomacy is a mostly unregulated process in terms of who you can talk to and when, but where it affects gameplay there are a few specific rules.
The relationship between your nation and another nation can be expressed as one of three different statuses:
At Peace: Default. No special rules.
Allied: Must be explicitly referred to by both players in orders; units now fight together as allies and can enter allied territory without starting war.
At War: Triggered when one nation’s armies enters the territory of another nation not in an alliance. Units now fight one another when occupying the same territory and can occupy another’s territory.
Combat Rules
Combat is pretty important to this NES, so there are some rules for it. Combat is joined whenever units from unallied factions occupy the same province. An attacker and defender is selected between the sides, and then a battle occurs between both of the armies. The victor of the battle’s units remain in the province and occupy it if their faction did not previously control it, and the loser of the battle’s remaining units retreat to neighboring friendly provinces randomly. The nuts and bolts of combat are discussed summarily.
From this point forward, “army” refers to any consistent collection of units, either all from one faction or from multiple different allied factions.
Stats
All units have some combination of these stats, and depending on if they are attacking or defending, can apply them differently:
Atk (Attack): Determines the To Hit bonus for any unit in an attacking army.
Def (Defense): Determines the To Hit bonus for any unit in a defending army.
Eva (Evasion): Determines the To Hit penalty against this unit.
Arm (Armor): Determines the Pierce penalty against this unit. A Pierce penalty of 0 means that all Pierce rolls automatically succeed.
AP (Armor-Piercing): Determines the Pierce bonus for this unit against enemy armored units.
AA (Anti-Air): Determines the To Hit bonus for this unit against enemy flying units.
Alt (Climb): Determines the altitude of this unit, used to calculate the To Hit penalty against this unit. An Alt that is higher than 0 indicates that the unit is a flier.
There are additionally four icons on the unit card’s portrait that indicate other qualities:
$: The price of the unit, or how much it costs to build this unit in a turn.
Blue arrow: The movement of the unit, or how far in provinces the unit can move in one turn.
Wing: Whether or not the unit is a flier for To Hit purposes.
Explosion: The unit deals splash damage (see Splash Damage seciton).
Before Battle
There are a number of ways opposed armies can occupy the same province. In general there are three scenarios:
Invasion: One army invades a defended province
In this scenario, the invading army is the attacker and any army in the defended province is the defender.
Clash: Two opposed armies both invade an empty province
In this scenario, both armies are considered attackers.
Battle Royale: Two or more unallied armies enter the same province OR invade an unallied province
In this scenario, the invading army with the highest average movement is considered the attacker and any army already occupying the province in question is the defender. Once that battle is resolved, if the invading army is the victor, the invading army now must become the defender against subsequent invaders selected, one after the other, in the same order. Otherwise, the initial defending army remains the defender until dethroned.
Resolving Battles
Battles typically occur across three “heats.” Each heat sees all the units in both armies rolling dice to “hit” units in the opposing armies. For each unit, the process is as follows:
1. Decide target. A unit is chosen in the opposing army to be the “target,” against which To Hit and Pierce rolls will be compared to see if a kill is scored. Generally, attacking units are biased and are more likely to choose enemy units that they will have a better time killing. You won’t typically see an infantry unit shooting at a bomber, for example, when there are militia about.
2. Roll to hit. The shooting unit rolls one six-sided die and adds its Atk or Def to the roll. It compares this value, its To Hit score, to the target’s Evasion score, which is one six-sided die plus Eva. If the To Hit score exceeds the Evasion score, then the To Hit check succeeds.
2a. If the target is aerial, the shooting unit instead adds its AA to its To Hit roll. Additionally, the To Hit roll is penalized by: -2 if the shooting unit’s AA is 0, -2 if the shooting unit’s altitude is 2 less than the target’s, and -4 if the shooting unit’s altitude is 4 less than the target’s.
2b. There is, by default, a 5% chance that the shooting unit’s attack will hit and kill no matter what. This is the critical hit chance, and a hit made in this way is called a critical hit.
3. Roll to pierce. If the shooting unit hit the target, and the target is armored, a pierce roll is necessary (if the target is not armored, the pierce roll automatically succeeds). The shooting unit rolls one three-sided die and adds its AP to the roll. It compares this value, its Pierce score, to the target’s Armor score, which is one three-sided die plus Arm. If the Pierce score exceeds the Armor score, then the Pierce check succeeds.
4. If both the To Hit and Pierce checks succeed OR a critical hit is made, the defending unit is killed. However, all shots are assumed to be simultaneous, so a unit that is killed before its shots are rolled can still kill something.
Once every unit in both armies has taken its shots, the killed units are removed from combat. Once all heats are finished, units that were removed from combat are removed from the game. The victor of a battle is the army with more than twice as many surviving units as the other army, OR secondarily the army with a greater proportion of its starting army surviving.
Special Rules
Medic
Medics do not take shots like ordinary units, but instead have a 25% chance to heal a fallen allied infantry-type unit at the end of a heat, and return it to combat. Medics may heal units that were killed during previous heats.
Doctrine
Your units also benefit from doctrinal choices. For the most part, the effects of doctrines are as described in the doctrine tree graphic.
Fortification & Terrain
Defending armies receive a +1 bonus to Def and Eva for every level of Fortification, to a maximum of 5 levels of Fortification. Certain terrain types, such as hills, mountains, and forests, offer a native fortification bonus to units defending in provinces with those terrain types.
Officers
Officers are special units that do not participate in combat, but follow an army and provide a +1 bonus to Atk, Def, and Eva to every unit in that army for every level of veterancy that Officer has accrued, and these bonuses do not stack for multiple Officers (nor can multiple Officers be promoted as a result of one army’s victory). Any Officer in the same province as an Army that is victorious (to a maximum of one Officer) receives one level of veterancy (is “promoted”
, which is indicated by a small gold star above the Officer’s head on the map. Any Officer in the same province as an Army that is defeated has a chance to be destroyed: for every surviving unit in the victorious army, a 20-sided die is rolled. On a roll of ‘20,’ the Officer is destroyed.Effects of veterancy:
No Veterancy: +0 bonus (default)
Veterancy I: +1 Atk, Def, and Eva
Veterancy II: +2 Atk, Def, and Eva
Veterancy III: +3 Atk, Def, and Eva
Veterancy IV: +3 Atk, Def, and Eva; +1 AP
Veterancy V: +3 Atk, Def, and Eva; +1 AP and Arm
Splash Damage
Some units deal splash damage. Splash damage can be thought of adding a number of half-power attacks that follow in the wake of the initial strike with no AP and with target priority on softer targets. As such, they often can not kill armored targets, but they can wreak havoc on large numbers of soft targets. The number of additional targets harmed by splash damage is equal to the Atk or Def stat of the unit in question.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
Doctrines (latest draft) (this will undergo extensive graphical remodeling in the future):
Units (latest draft):
----------------------
The code is just about finished (just need to do the naval combat module and its done). Im still working on some of the economy rules and the like, but so far as content goes all that really remains to be done in terms of the rules is the tech tree.
Please give comments and criticism, and outline sections of the rules that are unclear or dont make sense. Also make balance suggestions and the like.
Spoiler :
Units (latest draft):
Spoiler :
----------------------
The code is just about finished (just need to do the naval combat module and its done). Im still working on some of the economy rules and the like, but so far as content goes all that really remains to be done in terms of the rules is the tech tree.
Please give comments and criticism, and outline sections of the rules that are unclear or dont make sense. Also make balance suggestions and the like.
Similar threads
[Extension]
Naval Capital Units for VP
