with the release date approaching at great speed, we have been very busy in the last weeks, so please forgive me to not have had the time to release more teasers about the game.
Today, I will illustrate Uncle Joe's quote by talking about units which were emblematic of the Russian Revolution: Armoured trains. And I will also explain the units replacement/building system, as I have had many questions about it.
[SIZE="5"]Armoured Units[/size]
In fact there are a few armoured unit types in the game: Armoured trains but also ww1-style tanks, and armoured cars.
Armoured trains and Tanks are combat units, not support units (the main difference with artillery), which means they directly participate in battles at the front line(s).
Their game role is mostly to provide a strong attack punch to your troops, which comes in the form of a high attack factor, and the new ability of ‘Fire Support’ (morale and fire bonus to your participating attacking infantry).
However, as a corollary of the above, both units have a high combat exposure and are bound to suffer losses in priority during those attacks.
[SIZE="4"]Armoured Trains[/size]
Armoured Trains were used extensively by both sides during the conflict. In the game, they are new units made up usually of one 1 element. They come in two kinds, heavy (the green ones on the screenshot) and light (the brown ones on the screenshot).
It was very fun doing research for them. We tried to give each of the armoured train in the game its historical names, which were often grandiloquent or dedicated to a specific leader of a camp. In the screenshot you can see "Victorious Thunder", "Valour of the Knight", "General Kornilov" and "Glory of the Officer".
Armoured Trains have a new move type which is ‘Railbound’: it means they can only move on the map regions that have railroads (i.e. those printed with rail lines on the graphical map). Consequently this means they can only attack your opponent in a region that has railroad.
However, contrarily to standard rail movement (i.e. transport of units by rail), those units can enter by rail movement into enemy-controlled regions.
Also, Armoured Trains are allowed to enter regions with rail lines which have been previously destroyed (the rail destroyed icon is on the map). This will take them 10 times the normal time to enter the region (instead of the usual 1 day/region for rail move in a non-destroyed railroad region), but they will repair the line as they progress (they have a new attribute called *RailRepair* - the same attribute has been given to Rail Engineers in the game).
[SIZE="4"]Tanks[/size]
Tanks were few in number, and their use was very similar to the one they had on the Western Front during WW1: They were used to disrupt and breach enemy fortified lines (i.e. trenches). Most of them were extremely slow and prone to frequent mechanical breakdowns.
Tanks have a new attribute, called *Disrupter*: This gives the attacker a chance to breach the fortified lines of the defender, i.e. to reduce the impact of the defender being in a fortified position (entrenched).
[SIZE="5"]Reinforcements and Replacements[/size]
Reinforcements work the same way as in Rise of Prussia, while Replacements are very similar to the way AACW was working.
[SIZE="4"]Reinforcements[/size]
Reinforcements (new units) are build from a special menu on the main map:
You can build the new units only in special area. Most of the infantry units can be build on any big city, but heavy units like artillery can only be build where heavy industry existed. And some units cannot be build until late in the game (when tankodromes were built by the belligerents).
Also, because of the sheer numbers of the armies during the revolution, you can build whole division directly now, including several infantry regiments plus artillery in one go. Of course it's much more expensive and take more time to build.
[SIZE="4"]Replacements[/size]
Replacements are accessible from the ledger, where you can also see the reinforcements currently being constructed:
Replacement are bought by clicking on the small NATO-like symbols on the bottom right. Here I have no replacement currently available, so I have ordered 2 Infantry, 2 militias, 1 reconnaissance armoured car, 1 cavalry and 1 armoured trains replacement chits. They will be used to bring replacement to damage units in the field, as per the normal AGE engine rules.
Well that's it for today, back to play some more games for me !
Cat
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