One feature a day series #5 : Card-driven flavor

[Pocus]

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A major difference between ACW I and Civil War II is that players now get access to what we call 'regional decisions'. They were first introduced some games ago, but were only used commonly in Pride of Nations, our game set in the Victorian era. In CW2, they make a major return, and although they will probably not turn the tide of the war, a judicious use of their effects can be a major advantage to your side.


Regional decisions can be played during your turn, but can have a lasting effect or may need several turns to take effect. They all come with a variety of constraints so that they can only be played where it can be logical to do so. What they do is extremely varied, and they are even more powerful and diverse as before because they can now tap into the power of our scripting module (historical events are done with the scripting module, if you have played another Ageod game, you probably understand how diverse and - shall we say - surprising, they can be).


To give some examples, we decided to only allow the levying of partisans through regional decisions, so that only a few can be on the map, and only in certain areas. But that's just the beginning, because now partisans are needed to play several particular and quite powerful decisions, like blowing an enemy depot or harassing the enemy. We also get decisions representing the raid of Confederate submarine Hunley, laying sea mines, setting up a defensive network and many more.


What is nice with decisions, is that they can much more easily and conveniently model a rare event in the Civil War and (in addition to the pure coolness factor of dropping a game card on the map!) this is one of their great strength. Instead of trying to come up with a set of hard rules for a single unit of Confederate submarine, that will probably be used once or twice in a game, we can make a decision, that plays with a set of logical conditions and specific results, in a quite elegant way. The end result is that decisions are fun and simple to play for the player, whereas us the team can design them to represent the uncommon and specific effects relatively easily.

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[Eugene Carr]

This looks like an interesting feature, would the AI run them as well?
S!

[Ace]

Yes, it would.

[Jarkko]

I see partisan raids is one of the possible decissions. How about "regular" raids which are so frequent in AACW1, and especially how do the player defend against the raids? Some sort of a decission (and possible "counter-decission"), or is it the micromanaging nightmare the whole raiding business and esepecially defending against raids is in AACW1?

[Pocus]

You can't prevent a player doing raids (or the AI), but there is now auto-garrisons in CW2, so most of the smaller raids will bump against them without you doing anything.

[Jarkko]

You can't prevent a player doing raids (or the AI), but there is now auto-garrisons in CW2, so most of the smaller raids will bump against them without you doing anything.

Ok, sounds good to me Anything that lessens the unnecessary micromanagement hell when defending against raids is more than welcome

I presume such automatic garrisons will spawn in conquered places only after certain military control or enough loyalty is acquired (or is the auto-garrison available only in home states)?

[Pocus]

yes, auto-garrisons have constraints, like military control, but they can apply anywhere on the map. They represent smaller detachments not represented by units, so there is no need for a test on region loyalty here.