Nov 1, 2023

Stella Polaris | Patch 1.13.5 Changelog - Checksum f730

Hearts of Iron IV - PDX Chakerathe

Generals!

Command has sent through the patch for 1.13.5 and with it comes loads of bug fixes, many balance changes to Sweden alongside some to Norway and Germany, plenty of bugfixes and gameplay tweaks!

Read below for the full patch notes!

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# Balance
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- MIOs assigned to research can now be changed in the middle of research.
- Added manpower bonus for RK Nordland focus.
- All MIOs that have participated in a research now get a proportional amount of funds when the research is complete.
- Sweden: Alva and Gunnar Myrdal is now available for all ideologies when completing Stadsbarn.
- Sweden: Hungershield crisis is now active if less than 68% stability (from 65%).
- Sweden: Removing hungershield now gives 120pp as a reward.
- Sweden: Increased Hungershield requirement for removal to 45 (from 40) including trade, or you can remove it by having 25 civilian factories (excluding trade) in your territories, whichever comes first.
- Sweden: Hungershield crisis reduces political power gain by 25% (from -15%).
- Sweden: Värnplikt conscription increased from 0.5% to 1%.
- Sweden: Reduced Gå på Blitz tactics and rapid defense force speed slightly.
- Sweden: Totalförsvar (Total Defense) now requires > 75% DEM support.
- Sweden: The Counter revolution now gives 120pp and neutrality/fascism popularity, depending on what you took before.
- Sweden: Extending the time of preparedness now gives flat 26000 manpower.
- Sweden: Focuses that modify Folkhemmet now Swaps mils/civs bonuses by only 10% (from 16%). War support and stability is still swapped by 16%.
- Sweden: Reduced the bonus speed of Lynx armored cars support companies drastically (no more VolvoVrooms).
- Sweden: Slightly reduced the chance of other Nordics accepting the pressure from Monarchist/Fascist Sweden.
- Sweden: Reduced starting Folkhemmet bonus/malus to +20%/-20% civ/mil speed (from 25%).
- Germany is now slightly happy when Sweden joins the anti soviet pact.
- MIOs: Improved the funds to level up calculation to have a curve and be lower for early levels.
- Sweden: Spheres of influence lasts 2 years instead of 1.5 years.
- Sweden: Increased manpower gained from Nordic volunteers from 2000 per subject to 5000.
- Sweden: Reduced Ebbas law cost factor to 25% (from 33%) and advisor cost to 15% (from 20%).
- Sweden: Swedish volunteer force spirit now reduces required volunteer divisions required by 50% and removes existing neutrality idea.
- Sweden: Deep mining complexes now gives a 1y ahead reduction, reduced from 2y.
- Improved the AI tempĺates for ENG planes to be better.
- Increased base heavy airframe ranges.
- Reduced agility impact of fighter weapons, reduced weight of large airframe armor.
- Norway: Made Monarchist Demonstrations cost Political Power on top of Manpower.
- Norway: Adjusted Victory points so the south has a bigger impact in capitulation.
- Norway: Adjusted the balance for the Monarchist Demonstration decisions.
- Sweden: Getting the 5th late game research slot now requires 50 controlled factories instead of 35 civs.
- Norway: Focus Expand Hæren now unlocks Winter Logistic Battalions so Norwegian troops can now ski their way to victory.
- Sweden: Sweden is now more likely to switch to free trade after 1941-06-01.
- Norway: Increased the cost of Historical Preparation decisions.
- Added Winter Attrition Reduction to New Hæren National Spirit.
- Sweden: Nordic Defence Council puppet now has 0.35% CIC to overlord (from 5%) and 65% MIC to overlord (from 100%).
- Sweden: Reduced requirements for going down the Nordic Defence Council path.
- Sweden: Increased base stability by 4%.
- Sweden: Defense act now gives 3% stability.
- Sweden: Weapons contract now gives 3% War support.
- Sweden: Reduced required mils to complete Standardize equipment from 17 mils to 10 mils.
- Sweden: Fifth research slot now only requires 80 factories (including trade) instead of several late game focuses.
- Sweden: Reduced time for some focuses.
- Sweden: Old enemy stirs requires 8% WS, from 10%.
- Improved agility from jets, jets now cost chromium instead of tungsten, fighter weapons weight balance pass.
- Airframes increase in weight as they get more advanced.
- Slight improvement for germany air fighter presets.
- Norway: Added Army Chief role to Jonas Lie.
- Norway: Added Military high Command role to Henry Diesen.
- Norway: Added Chief of Army and High Command roles to Vidkun Quisling.

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# Gameplay
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- The new order now has a cosmetic tag.
- Sweden: Added a new late game Swedish formable and King Gustaf can now get the eternal trait.
- Sweden: Added strings notifying what variables affect the outcome of Monarchists/Fascists takeovers of the Nordics.
- Sweden: Now starts with heavy ship hull unlocked at game start.
- Sweden: Added conscription trait to Nordic Defense council.
- Sweden: Christian Gunter is now available at game start again.
- Sweden: Beneath sticks and stones no longer requires having the Ranger trait.
- Sweden: Added the king as a high cost advisor if he is not a country leader.
- Sweden: NDC Can now create faction if needed.
- Luxembourg: Germany will now attack the Soviets if Luxembourg manages to survive until the end of time.
- Norway can now get some of the generic political events after a certain point.

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# Stability & Performance
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- Added missing on map buildings, including a missing port in Stralsund that would crash the game if built.
- Fixed a rare crash occurring when a player lagging behind the host in MP tries to interact with a dead Air Wing or Air Group.
- Fixed a CTD on macOS related to large maps (multithreaded pathfinder running out of stack space).
- Sped up hourly move order revalidation by using all work threads.

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# UI
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- Equipment tooltip in the buyer's view of the International Market now also shows which country originally created the equipment (if different from the seller).
- Fix Military equipment production lines with MIO and collapsed making them draggable again.
- Support brigade 3D models now show up in the Division Designer.
- Background of the MIO detail window now changes depending on the MIO type.
- Fixed mission icons for planes being hidden when using filters.
- Equipment stats in legacy designers are now shown the same way as in the new designers.
- Upgrade button in the MIO History tab is now disabled if the latest bonus has already been applied.
- Added more information in the delayed tooltip in the MIO Details screen.

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# AI
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- Changing UK's armor division target templates to fix bugs and generally improve it.
- Adding info about AI target template replace_with chain to ai_templates debug IMGUI.
- Fixed bugs in how the AI selects best templates to produce and design.
- Soviet will no longer try sending every convoy it has to deliver supplies to Vladivostok.
- Task forces will engage faster and AI will cover slightly more naval regions per task force.
- Added better logic for AI buying and selling convoys (now based on ratio of total owned convoys instead of absolute number).
- Fixed bug where AI was so concentrated on constructing buildings in territory they didn't control that they forgot to build other things. (looking at you, democratic Germany).
- Fixed a bug that caused Germany to research airplane modules when they actually wanted to research radar.
- AI strategy 'research_tech' can now take technology name as argument instead of only technology index (which was bug-prone).

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# Modding
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- Fixed the auto unassignment of MIOs on production line when over task capacity.
- The game will now warn you on startup if you forget to setup a port building in the nudger for a coastal province.
- Added optional 'mark_older_equipment_obsolete' argument to add_equipment_variant effect.
- Added debug IMGUI for seeing music player information.
- Added documentation.info file to ai_templates folder.

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# Bugfix
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- Fixed description of the focus Keepers of the North to emphasize the "Nordic" aspect of it.
- Fixed the typos in tooltips related to International Market content.
- Added an event to proclaim Greater Denmark as well as events for Denmark to join democratic or imperial Germany.
- Sweden is no longer known as Sweden when doing RK Nordland and The New Order.
- Fix a bug where resources from overseas colonies do not need convoys to be transported.
- Fixed Steal Industrial Blueprints operations that were giving twice the tech bonuses.
- Fixed missing land policies for some tank MIO's.
- Fixed issue that made Polish Foreign MIOs disappear after completing the focus Adaptive Designs.
- Fix of bug where exiled templates and units were not transferred to host after the exile government ceased to exist.
- Implemented Norwegian tank and plane icons into the tank and plane designers.
- Fixed Rikstanken icon when creating the equipment variant.
- Added a version of the Danish 'Declaration of Neutrality' National Spirit for when 'By Blood Alone' is not activated. Also fixed the focus 'Securing Swedish Steel' so that Denmark doesn't puppet Sweden without sending the appropriate event.
- Fix crash on Mac & Linux when adding Traits to MIO queue.
- Fixed a tooltip showing the wrong number for overlord drift in all languages.
- Showing obsolete branches will no longer overlap each other and the appropriate focuses are no longer available if you are a subject.
- Fixed several issues with description texts for events and focuses for Denmark.
- Added a decision to request the return of Greenland from the USA, as well as tweaked the decision to request the return of the Faroes from the UK.
- Sweden: Made Rickard Sandler remove neutrality spirit, and simplified his requirements.
- Sweden: Swedish volunteer corps no longer gives equipment to Finland if at war with Finland.
- Sweden: Fixed an issue where Germany would not blow up Swedish factories if Sweden picked Allow Landsverk to operate independently, also added a less confusing string.
- Fixed a rare crash when an army group is deleted due to losing the last units in its armies.
- Fix Divisions reinforcement, now they will be reinforced with equipment with better MIO bonuses.
- Finland: Join Comintern Focus name is now more dynamic.
- Fix for the magic school bus counting days badly.
- Finland: Join Allies Focus name is now more dynamic.
- Finland: Join Axis Focus name is now more dynamic.
- Fix of exploit where players in coop could get back more equipment from the market stockpile than stored there.
- Finland: Minor tooltip improvements for Foreign Armor and Foreign Aircraft focuses.
- Finland: The tooltip of the focus Approach the Soviets will no longer mention the Finnish civil war if it has already happened.
- Finland: Finnish AI will no longer accept the Soviet territorial demands in the Soviet Ultimatum when historical focus is on, unless they are a Soviet ally or puppet.
- Norway: Fixed issue where Historical Quisling would start reviving Norgesveldet.
- Added several new state and province names if Denmark (or another "viking" nation") controls certain states.
- Baltics: Estonian and Latvian AIs should no longer cave in to the Soviets on historical setting, ensuring now that they will be totally integrated by the Soviet AI on historical.
- Fixed the bug where showing subsidy tooltip could cause an out of sync.
- Fixed bug where the mechanized infantry battalion wasn't unlocked after researching the technology.
- Finland: Focus Mineral Wealth Development will no longer require Finland to be in a faction, but to control (or have a puppet controlling) any Nordic state producing steel, chromium, tungsten or aluminum.
- Finland: Fixed scope issues in the event chain triggered by Mineral Wealth Development, where it looked like Finland would receive Finnish aid and that Finland would grant resource rights to Finland on a state in exchange. Now the appropriate faction leader should be displayed in the events, and the events would only be triggered if Finland is in a faction but is not the faction leader.
- MIO: Soviet naval MIOs will no longer have both Man the Guns and NO-Man-the-Guns versions of Plant 370 and Mariupol Plant traits when Man the Guns is not active.
- Finland: Fix typo in tooltip in the focus A Cry for Help.
- MIO: Soviet MIO traits can no longer be taken more than once by different MIOs. Each trait can now be completed once by a single MIO.
- Heavy gantry crane policy now targets the correct aircraft and MIOs.
- Norway: Norsk Hydro now has the Industry filter tag.
- Norway: Removed Political Filter tag from 'Expand Military Industry'.
- Balanced the AI weights for countries to accept a Danish event to join factions.
- Fixed crash when canceling a production line while MIO Roster screen is opened.
- Jan Mayen rises to its rightful place on the world stage!
- Norway: Custom decision costs now have the icons in the right position.
- Sweden: Fixed several issues with the Narvik solution.
- Sweden: Fixed an issue where severe lack of ammunition would not give the proper maluses.
- Sweden: Swedish volunteer corps can no longer be taken while at war with Finland.
- Sweden: Scania Vabis Armored Car MIO is now LaR DLC locked.
- Greece: Stratagems no longer show for all countries.
- Norway: Fixed various missing capitalizations in focuses.
- Norway: Power to the Royal Guard now gives proper bonuses to Special Forces.
- Norway: Doctrine tooltips now provide the name for Offensive Doctrines national focus bonuses.
- Norway: Doctrine tooltips now provide name for Rikstaken national focus bonuses.
- If Denmark becomes a puppet through their National Spirit "Declaration of Neutrality" they will not be able to join a faction until the right criteria are met..
- Installing a plenipotentiary in puppet Denmark will no longer switch out the overlord's country leader.
- Tweaked AI weights for some Occupation Balance of Power Decisions for Denmark.
- Sweden: Added localization improvements for Rationing decisions and fixed a bug where Gengas would repeat its timeout mission.
- Sweden: Fixed several lowercase errors that should have been uppercase.
- Denmark no longer switches ideologies before installing overlord's plenipotentiary.
- Adjusted some incorrect Special Forces Cap modifiers in Norway, Switzerland and the Joint Focus Tree.
- Norway: Fixed issue where Quisling coup branch wouldn't hide when going monarchist.
- Norway: Fixed issue where Trotsky would go to the Democratic side when the Communist civil war starts.
- Production Output bonus now works correctly.
- Fixed a bug where Preemptive Invasion of Iran focus of Soviet Union caused Finland to be attacked by Allies.
- Sweden: Fixed the wrong icon being used for Swedish Trucks in the production line.
- Sweden: Liquidate the Monarchy will now liquidate the Monarchy by removing the king advisor as it is supposed to.
- Sweden: Random AI now disallows achievement #SwedishBiasCorrected.
- Sweden: Joining the Anti Soviet pact targets all Soviets countries they have the big Soviet Kerfuffle.
- Sweden: Fixed some spirit issues with the 39 start bookmark.
- Norway: Added a way to remove Christian Laake as the Norwegian Fascists.
- Changed music player shuffle algorithm to weighted random (but avoiding recently played songs).
- Denmark: Field Marshal William Wain Prior's name is now visible.
- Denmark: Tweaked AI weights to make the AI more likely to do certain occupation decisions and event options.
- Forming either the North Sea or the Baltic Sea Empires now only requires that you control the Mainland of Denmark and only gives you cores on Mainland Denmark.
- Added a custom truck production icon for Denmark.
- Added "Will lead to war" warnings several Danish focuses.
- Fixed tooltip saying player could naval transfer to shoreline province without naval base.
- Fixed use-after-free that could lead to CTD on end of peace conference.
- Fixed CTD on resync when international market is open.
- Fixed stat issue with tank designer comparison.
- Fixed repair tooltips estimated time of completion.
- Allow factory conversion map icon during construction view.
- Norway: Trotsky finally goes to the correct side of the Communist civil War.
- Fixed production penalty modifier signedness. Can't be penalized from modifier without having penalty.
- Add mutually exclusive icons only if the trait is visible.
- Fixed CTD on steam callback during session change.
- Fixed issue with disabling music track enable button.
- Norway: Alt Democratic preparations decisions now take time to complete as intended.
- MIO: Fixed the research category of the Submarine MIO so that it can be assigned to research of Submarine tech and related modules only.
- Sweden: NDC no longer transfers its puppets’ armies to Sweden but creates 5 elite divisions for every NDC member joined, to avoid teleporting armies.
- Sweden: Made it easier to invite members to the Scandinavian defense union.
- Sweden: Fixed a bug where subjects would get the generic focus tree if puppeted.
- Norway: Fixed issue where Fascist Branch would disappear if focus 'Arrest Quisling' was bypassed.
- Fixed the American handover of Greenland back to Denmark and the disappearing Greenland Patrol National Spirit.
- The Occupation Law National Spirit for Denmark will be removed when Denmark no longer is a subject no matter the circumstances.
- The Butter Front National Spirit will no longer disappear if the overlord controls mainland Denmark.
- Made the Telegram Crisis Event more likely to happen.
- Norway: Country-wide preparation decisions in preparation decisions for the Alt-democratic path will still be available during war, as long as there's Country Preparedness.
- Norway: Made it less likely the Soviet Union will reject events sent from the Stalinist branch of the Focus Tree.
- Fix of bug where applying effect set_garrison_strength on state without resistance caused CTD.
- Fixed bug which led to players unlock mutually exclusive doctrines.
- Finland: If Arms Against Tyranny dlc is active, when Estonia causes the fascist civil war in Finland, the fascist side will get the Finnish focus tree if they win the civil war.
- Denmark will now be able to join factions, drop their occupation name, and get their original Balance of Power through peace conferences if being released as independent during the right circumstances.
- World tension modifiers for subjects now apply in both directions.
- Sweden: Fixed an issue where wargoal against the Baltics would expire.
- Denmark's Focus Tree will now show all branches, including the Occupation Branch, if the setting to show obsolete branches are enabled and Denmark is a puppet.
- Grumman smooth finish trait now affects CV light aircraft and naval bombers.
- Finland: Keepers of the North focus will now include Karelia if it exists, and states transferred to Finland via event will also get the compliance bonus promised in the focus.
- Norway - Fixed issue where Quisling has a generic portrait without Arms Against Tyranny DLC.
- Germany - Fixed issue where form Reichskommissariat Norwegen decision would require a Swedish State.
- Fixed issue where 'Operation Gunnerside' would not work with Arms Against Tyranny enabled.
- Denmark white peacing every nation its overlord is at war with when it becomes a puppet won't trigger the "You Shall Not Pass" achievement.
- Norway: Fixed issue in Monarchist Decisions where you should use National Interventions while demonstrating in states if more than one was active and any of them was completed earlier.
- Norway: Fixed missing icon for 'Investing in Norway' National Spirit.
- Nordic Shared Focus Tree: Fixed missing icon for 'Economic Cooperation' National Spirit.
- Sweden: Fixed issue where supporting communist civil war in Norway causes the communist side to have a generic leader.
- Norway: Quisling will no longer trigger his coup if the country is in a civil war already, regardless of origin.
- Removed World Tension limit to Rally the Nation for fascist Denmark.
- Norway: Changed the Nasjonale Regjerings color so it's not so close to Soviet Union's red.
- Norway: Focus 'Reawaken the Permanent Revolution' now creates either the Norintern or the Joint Faction depending on conditions.
- Divisions can no longer get citation by performing paratroop order on own territory.
- Fixed marine commandos so they can retreat from coastal areas. Can click on province with naval port to move troops from a naval port. Marine commandos can now path to fallback lines.

That's all for us today, we appreciate all the bug reports and input on changes that continue to help make the game great! You all have a lovely continued week, and an even better day!

Nov 1, 2023

CO Word of the Week #1

Cities: Skylines II - CO_Avanya

Quick note: I'm posting this and future CO Word of the Week on behalf of Mariina.

"Hi Everyone, welcome to our little weekly update, CO Word of the Week, where we share what Colossal Order is doing right now, and what you can expect for Cities: Skylines II as a result.

CO Word of the Week originally ran from March 2016 until early 2018 and was mainly written by me, Mariina, the CEO of Colossal Order, but we also had some other team members as guest authors every once in a while so I can’t take all the credit. Now, in the name of transparency, it’s time to dig this old concept from the toolbox and start sharing!

To write this very first Word of the Week (please feel free to suggest an abbreviation) I needed to go back to the source. I searched the Cities: Skylines forum for the original posts and was extremely happy to find the very first one:

Hi everyone! I'm Mariina or better known here on the forum as co_martsu. I am the ceo of Colossal Order, the developer of Cities: Skylines. We work together with our publisher Paradox Interactive to bringing you the best city builder ever made and the quest toward that goal continues.

Big part of developing the game further is communication with the players and the community. We have been active in reading the feedback but haven't had as much time to comment as we would have hoped for. Therefore the idea is that I will be writing an update on a semiregular basis on what Colossal Order is up to so that you players can hear first hand what is going on in the development of Cities: Skylines.
Disclaimer: Some things are secret and I will try not to get assassinated by the Paradox marketing department so we'll keep this strictly to the points I'm allowed to talk about. I understand you probably don't value my life as much as I do, but we'll make this work, I'm sure!

The mission remains the same: We want to bring you the best city builder ever made!
And as I have grown older I am no longer afraid of the marketing department so no holding back.

As you may have noticed Cities: Skylines II was released last week and we are happy the game is finally out! However, the launch was overshadowed by technical issues which caused disappointment, and rightfully so. We are happy to see that many players do enjoy the game and for those who are currently unable to play, I want you to know that we are working on a number of fixes and improvements to address your reports.

The first hotfix patch was quick to roll out on Steam last week and this morning the patch for Microsoft Store and Game Pass finally made it live. We will have to see how we can speed up the patching process so we don’t have players waiting for these important fixes longer than necessary. The patch included optimization for LODs, or Level of Detail, which means that the game renders fewer details when the camera is far away from the object. Finding optimal LOD levels is a balancing act between visual fidelity and performance, and we’ll be addressing this in future patches. Yes, including the characters and their teeth! We also identified some offenders such as the depth of field, global illumination, and fog, all now tweaked for improved performance. Additionally, the patch included fixes for a few crash bugs and stutter cases.

This week we will continue to go through the forum reports and fix the most urgent issues. The work on the assets and LODs continues, but it’s a task spanning over a longer period of time as there are quite a few different types of assets needing special attention. On top of the performance work, we are looking into gameplay issues you have reported. We have fixes being tested for education, where college/university eligibility is not shown correctly in the UI, and for trading, where it looks like the citizens are not consuming all different commercial types correctly resulting in not enough customers for the local business. We are currently investigating a garbage problem and it seems that some citizens are abandoning their dogs resulting in a huge dog pack just stranded in the city. Not cool, citizens, not cool at all.

The performance improvements and bug fixes take top priority until we have reached a level we are satisfied with. All the performance improvements will benefit the development of the console platforms and we hope to bring the game to Xbox Series X/S and PS5 as soon as possible!

I want to thank everyone for the reports, they’re very helpful and we appreciate you taking the time to provide us with the information we need. We will go through all of the reports as fast as we can. If you are experiencing a crash or performance issue please create a report on our support forum found here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/cities-skylines-2-bug-reports.1162/

I will be back next week to give you an update on how the work is progressing. Until then, thank you to everyone for the patience and support, it means a lot to us.

Sincerely,
Mariina"

Nov 1, 2023

Developer Diary | Combat

Millennia - Firefly

Developer Diary | Combat

Hello, everyone. Ian Fischer of C Prompt Games here again, excited to share another Developer Diary for Millennia. We are heads-down working on our end-of-year objectives but I am going to take a quick break from that to talk about combat.

Goals of Combat

Before we get to specifics, let’s outline some of our goals.

To start with, we want Millennia’s combat to be “inline.” There are a lot of strategy games with tactical combat that we love (how ya doin’, Age of Wonders), but Millennia is primarily about the arc of history and our goal is to keep the focus at that level. We want you thinking more about technologies, government types, the growth of cities, and the course of wars, less about “that archer should take cover behind that tree.”

To support this, combat choices in Millennia are at the strategic level -- you decide who fights who, where, and when, but you do not give orders during combat. Similarly, combat is presented in window atop the world map and provides controls that allow you to analyze or quickly resolve a battle as you want. This is intended to show combat while still keeping you in the flow of the game as much as possible.

Secondly, we want combat to be manageable. In the early stages of a 4X, you tend to have a small number of units. These are important, easy to keep track of, and you often have a specific plan for each of them. Contrast this with not-uncommon mid- to late-game conditions, where you have a multitude of units, you spend a chunk of your turn trying to remember what you were thinking when you sent someone with a club to the other side of the planet 20 turns ago, and “plans” sometimes tend more toward masterful stratagems like “send everything here.”

We want to do what we can to keep things trending more in the early game feel. Some of this is accomplished with core game balance and UI support like the Outliner or the ability to name Armies, but the biggest contributor is having combat built around multiple Unit Armies.

One of the two stylistic approaches to naming Armies...

Armies size starts at three but can grow to seven later in the game. Larger numbers of Units are thus grouped into a smaller number of Armies to command, plan around, and keep track of.

Finally, like almost everything, one of our goals is to have interesting choices at the heart of the gameplay. We like making combat inline and not having tactical choices during the fighting – but we want solid strategic choices about the fighting. Armies are a good structure to focus decisions around warfare – but there need to be interesting decisions about how you build Armies for it to be worthwhile.

Our core combat mechanics (which we’ll talk about next) are organized largely around supporting this objective.

Basics of Combat

Battles in Millennia are generally structured around one Army fighting another Army.

The fighting is resolved during up to three rounds of combat. All of the Units in each Army get to take an action during each round. If an attacker wins the fight, their Army moves into the space that was occupied by their target and the defender (assuming any of them are still around) retreats. If there is no winner after all three rounds, the battle is considered a “push” and both Armies remain in their original locations.

This will go poorly for you, Roman Raiders.

During a round of combat, one Unit in an Army will target an enemy Unit. This causes the attacking Unit’s Attack value to be compared to the target’s Defense value. From the result, damage is determined and applied to the target Unit’s Health and Organization.

Health is something of a “normalized” value, meaning that Millennia uses it primarily as a way to scale lethality overall, not as a differentiating factor -- the majority of Units (but not all) have 50 health.

Organization, which is somewhat related to Health, is a differentiating factor and different Units have different Organization values despite having the same Health.

At zero or less Health, a Unit is destroyed. At zero or less Organization, a Unit is routed and attempts to flee the fight. Damage to Health is recovered over several turns (it is faster if the damaged Unit is recovering within its own territory, including territory held by an Outpost). Damage to Organization is fully recovered at the start of the next turn.

Additional factors, such as the terrain where a fight takes place or an Army being fortified, can further modify combat, but this is the basic arrangement.

Unit Types

Unit Types inject interesting gameplay into these core mechanics by adjusting various rules of the combat system.

With all of the Variant Ages, Crisis Ages, National Spirits, and upgrades through the Ages, there are close to 250 Units in Millennia. While many of these have unique characteristics, almost all of them have one of three basic Types and the Type defines their general operation.

Support Type Units are Units like Archers. In Millennia, Units of this type have the ability to do a lot of damage, but they need protection – they are relatively weak in direct combat.

Support Units go first in each round of combat and they select their targets at random. (If you believe in luck, you can run all Support Type Armies and hope your initial attack is enough to cripple the enemy Army.)

Line Type Units are what is supposed to protect the Support Types. Line Type are Units like Spear in the early game, evolving into Pike, then Musket, then Assault Rifle in later Ages. Line Units tend to do less damage but have strong Defense and Organization.

Line Units go second in each round of combat. From a targeting perspective, if there are Line Units that are valid targets, they must be attacked before other Units can be engaged (when there are multiple valid enemy targets, Line Types select one to attack at random). Hence, stacking Line Units in an Army is a good way to keep damage-dealing Supports alive.

Mobile Type Units represent “maneuver warfare.” These are Units, like Knights or (later) Main Battle Tanks, that are intended to make a mess of things by showing up in places where the enemy doesn’t want to see them.

Mobile Types go last in each round of combat. If there are enemy Line Units present, Mobiles must target these first but, representing their ability to strike at enemy weak points, Mobile Types don’t select targets at random, instead always picking the valid target with the lowest Health.

Additionally, Mobile Types do double the normal damage to enemy Organization, representing the cavalry charges or similar shock tactics. With the focused targeting and shock damage, Mobile Type Units are useful for breaking enemy Line defenders and then chasing down any Supports they might be protecting.

Warfare Domain

Combat, as part of a 4X, generally involves considerations beyond just the actual fighting and composition of Armies – economic factors play a part too.

The typical considerations that flow from that structure, like Unit Production and Upkeep Costs, are part of Millennia’s combat system. Similar to the way that the Types rules introduce an additional dimension to how you think about your Armies, the Domains in Millennia create another dimension for the economic interaction with warfare, beyond the “typical” material.

To begin with, not all Units in Millennia are built at the Capitals with Production. There are a number of Domain Powers that can be used to spawn Units or Armies. For example, the starting Tribal Government includes Raise Tribal Army, which allows you to spawn a Warband at a Capital using Government Domain.

It costs some political capital to raise the tribal army, but it’s a good option for defending Towns when surprises happen.

Units that are part of a particular National Spirit often have ways to earn or deploy these Units that are not the standard “build them with Production.” This allows a variety of economic plan and National Spirit combinations that can produce unique approaches to war.

The Warfare Domain itself has a number of National Spirits that are focused on war (as you might imagine), but even the basic Warfare Domain Powers that all Nations have access to influence combat heavily. Warfare Domain Powers like Forced March and Reinforcements can be used get Armies (of whatever composition) where you want them or to heal them after a fight. These uses also compete with upgrading older Units to more modern (and more powerful) versions when you advance in Ages, which has a Warfare Domain cost.

Get with the times!

In general, a reserve of Warfare Domain represents a Nation’s overall preparation for war. If you’re going to be fighting, you want to have some Warfare Domain in the bank to use Domain Powers, upgrade Units, and make the most of your National Spirits.

Leaders

There are several sources for Leaders in Millennia, but the basic way to get one is to make your own via promotion.

As Units fight in Millennia, they gain experience, which eventually translates into levels of Veterancy. Each level of Veterancy increases the Unit’s Attack and Defense, but Veterancy also allows a Unit to be promoted into a Leader (at a cost of Warfare Domain).

Leaders are reasonably capable Units on their own, but their true value is in the bonus they apply to other Units in their Army.

Leaders have a Tactics value. When combat occurs, the Leaders with the highest Tactics value on each side (you generally do not want more than one Leader in an Army) are compared and the difference between their scores becomes a bonus for the side with higher Tactics leader.

Each level of the Tactics bonus is, essentially, an additional level of Veterancy for ALL Units in the Army, so good Leaders can provide a considerable advantage.

Leaders start with a Tactics value that depends on the corresponding Age of the Unit promoted – an Age 1 Warband will promote into a 1 Tactics Leader while an Age 2 Spear will promote into a 2 Tactics Leader. Gaining levels of Veterancy will further increase a Leader’s Tactics value.

Hence, the total potential Tactics value of a Leader caps out at maximum Veterancy, which means that Units from later Ages promoted into leaders always have a higher maximum Tactics level than Leaders from earlier Ages. Once a Unit has been promoted into a Leader, it can no longer be upgraded, which means it generally becomes outclassed over time.

When Leaders get a little long in the tooth, a Unit ability can be used to Retire the Leader, which provides a Warfare Domain reward.

Agamemnon, heretofore not known to have commanded Main Battle Tanks.

(Overall, this means that Leaders can be very powerful for their Age, and the spirit of what they did can live on productively into the next Age or so, but generally you don’t want the Leader you had in the Stone Age to stick around to the end of the game.)

Thanks!

We hope you have enjoyed this look at combat in Millennia. While we covered a lot of the basics, combat is a deep system and there are aspects we didn’t get into or only touched on at a high level. Still, I hope the basic shape of things came across, especially the interplay of all the decisions – your economy, your National Spirits, how you compose your Armies, and how you manage your Warfare Domain all work together and provide a lot of options for crafting fun approaches to fighting.

We’ll be back on 14th of November to talk about Economy Part one. As usual, if you like what you have seen, please Wishlist us!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/