A deep battle simulation with accuracy

 

Let's start with some basic rules, giving you an idea how the gameplay goes:

* you start every round with a war budget (12K), use it to buy troops or attack with troops you already bought

* budget can be transfered to next round, with a maximum of 6K (starting next round with max of 18K)
* there are 3 categories: AIR, ARMOR and INFANTRY
* each category has a DEFENSIVE factor (green) and OFFENSIVE factor (red)
* AIR inflicts DOUBLE damage to ARMOR and TRIPLE damage to INFANTRY
* ARMOR inflicts DOUBLE damage to INFANTRY
* when you are out of defences and the enemy attacks, he will hit your CITY (your flag symbol) lowering your city strength
* you lose the game when your CITY (faction flag) is brought to zero
* SPECIAL cards have their effect immediatly so they can be very important to gain an edge over the enemy
* SUPPLIE cards boost your budget, allowing you to do more within your turn or save up more cash for the next round
* as long as your troops survive, you can keep attacking with those troops when your budget allows the operation costs
* when you are out of cash or done with your current decisions, you hit the 'End of turn' button and the enemy starts taking his steps

 

Your war budget

Since the game is turn-based, your resources and money are capped to a maximum of 18000$ each round. But, you only start with 12000$ each time you use your whole budget previous round. This means that you can save 6000$ for next round to reach the max of 18000$. This can be important to your strategy/management for 3 reasons:

 

* during the whole game you will only get new cards offered you can afford at that moment

* some operations are very expensive (but also very powerful)

* when you bought more troops from the same kind, you can attack with them all in one swipe. For example attacking with 3 tanks of the same type with basic operational cost of 6000$ will cost you 18000$ in total, but could make for a powerful attack 

 

There is one way to raise your war budget above the maximum of 18K: when you receive a 'Production' card (purple cards), you will be able to get extra cash which is immediatly useable in your turn.

 

Defensive VS Offensive cards (grey cards)

There are 2 types of operational cards available. Defense cards are troops, stationary units, constructions,... that only add to your defensive power. These cards can not attack the enemy but are important to strengthen your defensive positions when the enemy attacks.

Offensive cards are troops that can be used to attack the enemy. But as long as they are in your defensive side, they will also add to your defensive power. As soon as they get destroyed, of course your defensive numbers will go down too. Offensive cards have a different number for defense and attack. As in the real war, a unit can have very strong attacking powers, but can be pretty weak when it comes to defending itself (for example a German Marder tank has pretty big firepower against enemy tanks, but is weak when it gets attacked).

 

Special cards (golden cards)

When you get a golden card, you will be able to apply it immediatly. Special cards have a range of possible actions that mostly can have a big impact on the battle outcome. Some special cards will only come up when you pick a card from your air deck, others will only come up when you pick a card from your armor or infantry deck. Example: you can only get a "Carpet Bombing" golden card when you draw an air card.

The actions in golden cards simulate all kinds of operations that where used by your faction during the war. Carpet bombing is one example but there is a lot more: using propaganda leaflets, launching V1 rockets (Germans), heavy artillery, sabotaging enemy airplanes, spoiling enemy armor production, getting special orders from high command,... There is a lot to discover and you get all those historical actions at your fingertips to pound your enemy towards defeat !

 

Units and their attacking/defending power

Each offensive unit (air, armor or infantry) (grey cards) has an attacking strenght (presented as the red number on the bottom right of the card). This will be the basic attacking power used in the calculations when you decide to attack with that unit. But, in war ground troops are generally dominated by air units. Same goes for infantry units which are generally dominated by air units and armor units. Of course there are differences depending on the battle situation. For example any WW2 fanatic knows that tanks where stronger when accompanied by infantry and vice-versa. The tanks protected the infantry with their fire power and machineguns; infantry also used the tanks as shields to move up. Those tanks took profit from surrounding infantry to prevent getting ambushed by anti-tank infantry, or getting blown up by hidden AT mines. These facts are simulated in the game by generally doing as follows:

 

* FRIENDLY AIR units inflict SINGLE (1X) damage to ENEMY AIR units

* FRIENDLY AIR units inflict DOUBLE (2X) damage to ENEMY ARMOR units

* FRIENDLY AIR units inflict TRIPLE (3X) damage to ENEMY INFANTRY units

* FRIENDLY AIR units inflict SINGLE (1X) damage to ENEMY BASE (City)

* FRIENDLY ARMOR units inflict SINGLE (1X) damage to ENEMY ARMOR units

* FRIENDLY ARMOR units inflict DOUBLE (2X) damage to ENEMY INFANTRY units

* FRIENDLY ARMOR units inflict SINGLE (1X) damage to ENEMY BASE (City)

 

* FRIENDLY INFANTRY units inflict SINGLE (1X) damage to ENEMY INFANTRY units

* FRIENDLY INFANTRY units inflict SINGLE (1X) damage to ENEMY BASE (City)

 

Same kind of calculations go for your defences. When an enemy tank attacks your army and you have airplanes available, they will automatically try to neutralize the enemy tank attacks. This can result in a situation where the enemy tank was unable to inflict major or even no damage to your troops. When the defending forces are strong enough, they can even possibly destroy the attacking tank. This is a possible destroy, since calculations can result in a simulated tank retreat or a simulated tank destroy. Again, these situations simulate real war scenario's where in certain configurations, a tank with an anti-air gun mounted on it, have a higher chance to survive the air attack, or even destroy the attacking airplanes.

All these variations in the game brings an exciting battle, especially when you have some knowledge about the different units and their properties.

 

Talking about calculations...

Let's go a bit deeper into the calculations, the simulation of warfare implemented into this game. 

On a macro level, you already know how AIR units can dominate ARMOR, etc.   But we also take the micro level into account. When you attack or be attacked, your units have a certain % chance to survive. This number is displayed in the top right corner when you make a swipe preview (showing you what the effect will be when you swipe the card to the right). This calculation simulates what could be defined as the randomness of war, where the outcome of an attack not only depends on available troops and hard numbers of strenght VS strenght, but also a factor of luck simulating things like: who spots who first, the impact of a bullet (lethal or not), the degrees of impact of an anti-tank shell on a tank (ricochet or penetrate), weather conditions, individual skills, morale of soldiers, the randomness of artillery shells comming in, the randomness of bombs hitting the ground (lethal or less lethal damage), direct impact or collateral damage,...

Same also goes for calculations about supplies. When you purchase troops or defensive units, sometimes you will notice you receive them double, or even triple !  This simulates the 'luck' your faction can have depending on the quality of supply lines to the front, the region you operate in, economic conditions, scientific developments, industrial conditions, current availability of ores and irons for production. 

With confidence we can say that there is a lot more going on under the hood than you might think. Still, you will have a smooth gaming experience, simply swiping cards, knowing the outcome is depending on a lot of configurations and variables.