Developers' Diary: Ageod's Civil War II

[Philkian]

From today on, we are going to share with you some information about features and "behind the scenes" of the upcoming Ageod's Civil War II. We hope you will appreciate this!

One feature a day: the birth of Civil War 2





A question that often arises is "why makes Civil War 2 when American Civil War is already a complete and fulfilling game?".

There are several answers to this one. As most of you know by now, Ageod’s policy has been one of regularly improving their games post release with patches which are not only bug fixes, but also new features based on feedback from our vibrant community. Sometimes these feature requests are game specific and sometimes they are related to the AGE engine and benefit all games using the AGE engine. As American Civil War was released in 2007, it was becoming increasingly difficult to continue updating it without rewriting it from scratch as the engine had changed so much. This is one of the reasons we created Civil War 2, because sometimes the best thing to do is just start again, with all the knowledge and experience you gained allowing you to make a much better overall experience.

In Civil War 2, the interface has been changed extensively. We are not talking about a change in the look, which might or might not please everyone We are talking about changes in the way you use the UI making the game much easier to pick up and play for new users and yet still with all the controls the hardcore players want. The code redesign also allows us to structure things in a way that the development team can maintain it for years to come. Let's just take one striking example: the Load Game interface in Civil War 2 is in our opinion some light years better than the previous one. It displays your game very fast, in a clear and clean way.

While the UI is improved, Civil War 2 has a lot more to offer and also includes a range of new and updated features which were only possible with a complete rewrite of the game. One of the biggest additions is the regional decision model. These add a card like game mechanic that allow us to recreate lots of special case situations and events that it is very hard to model in another way. For example things such as raising partisans or sending the Confederate sub CSS Hunley to attack the US Navy. There are many others features too but we’ll cover those in more detail in a future diary.

So the bottom line is: Civil War 2 exists because it proposes a cleaner and intuitive new interface, with major additions in gameplay that we developed for the AGE engine over the years. Top that with a bigger map for some Western actions, and everybody should find something to like in Civil War 2!

[Philkian]

One feature a day series #2 : The essence of Civil War 2



Returning players, bear with us! Before going knee-deep into the concepts of CW2, we should probably talk of the game in general, so that new people can picture the game more easily.

CW2 is a region-based game, on a map ranging from the Eastern coast of the US to the Rocky Mountains. There is definitely some room to maneuver, although the most intense actions will most likely be east of the Mississippi river.

Your armies will be the tools of your victory, and they make up the core of the gameplay, its essence even. You get many generals to play with, sorted by three increasing ranks. Your units can represent a large body of troops, like a full division, or more humble regiments, partisans even. All have their role though, because combat can be a subtle affair (although the game spares you the details and will roll the dices for you, rest assured). What's nice also, is that divisions are made up of units that can be recruited individually, like brigades, so nothing is set in stone, and you'll be the man in charge of organizing your armies, corps and divisions as you see fit. Some would ask: Is that a never seen feature in a civil war game? Our answer: for a game encompassing the whole war, a resounding Yes! CW2 boosts the more extensive and complete database of units and generals on the bloodiest war America ever faced.

Another unique feature of the game is how the turns are handled. Many games are still using the well known system of alternate turns: You play your turn, then your opponent, and back to square one. That's a good system, quite user-friendly. Its shortcomings start to appear if you want to capture the uncertainties of war though. Because in the real world, you and your opponent move at the same time, and as the famous quote goes: no plan survives contact with the enemy. In CW2 you may plot a move with your corps, to catch a weakened enemy division, but during the execution of the turn, the said division might retreat into a fortress, while a relief force unknown to you smashes your flank. These events happen quite naturally in CW2, thanks to the simultaneous turn scheme. The icing on the cake is that this way of resolving turns is also a very good way of speeding up multiplayer games. Whether you play with one or three opponents, turns can roll at the same pace.

So, a region-based game, where turns are executed simultaneously, where you move armies around a detailed map depicted in extreme historical accuracy thanks to a very talented research team... That's CW2. But even that is only a partial view of what the game is. Tomorrow we will start digging into the others features, one at a time.

Stay tuned!

[Philkian]

One feature a day series #3 : The Map



The map, in all strategy games, has a paramount importance, as it regulates the flow of the game. This is especially true in CW2, as some avenues of passages were favored by the protagonists, while others areas were much more quiet. One of the difficulty we had to face since ACW1 was to represent in an appropriate way, the short distance between the two enemy capitals (Washington D.C to Richmond are only 150 kms away) while keeping the game playable anywhere else, like along the shores of the Mississippi or the vast expenses of the Atlantic Ocean.

These issues, were solved in part by a careful designing of the regions shapes, so that the game favors operations in historical manners. We also have terrains of various practicability, with subtleties like cavalry being generally faster, except in mountains, or anything horse-drawn literally hating swamps or marshes/bayous (we have a lot of different terrains!). Finally, we have this concept coming from boardgames (yes, we are talking of these games made of paper and cardboard!): off-map boxes. An off-map box is like a very big region on the map, that units can enter the usual way, except it represents a whole US State sometime or hundreds of kilometers of ocean. This helps us abstracts a lot of otherwise problematic events, like commerce raiders vs Union shipping, or the French intervention against Mexico (yes, that's a feature) .

That said, the map is still huge, even bigger than the ACW1 map! Some will say: bigger is better! Well, sometime yes, but for CW2 this was not our motive really. We extended the map in all directions. To the north, the map allows the British troops in Canada to be properly displayed, because as you know, they can intervene against the Union (for those not up to date on that, check the 'Trent Affair' in your favorite browser). To the south Mexico is here and the Caribbean islands (admittedly mostly reserved for 'future use', depending of your enjoyment of the game). To the west, the great plains lie, with their (sometime) hostile Natives and precious gold mines (a West campaign is already available with Sibley's Campaign starting in Texas). To the east, the map display much more space, almost to Nova Scotia, allowing a better representation of the northern states of the Union (in the previous game they were abstracted).

What about the graphical aspect of the map. It has changed a lot compared to ACW1. In ACW1, the map had a hand-drawn aspect, because this was the technique used by the artist of the time. This technique is really nice and we like it, but it was almost impossible to achieve on a map as big as CW2. On the other hand, the CW2 map is very clear on aspects that were a bit fuzzy in ACW1, like the terrain of each region, with colors clearly showing where you are stepping into.

Anyway you'll still get all the features of ACW1 from the CW2 map, including the navigable rivers, so important during the Civil War, where ironclads, gunboats and emplaced artilleries exchanged countless blows.

[Pocus]

Anyone, free free to post comments or ask for details, this thread is for you

[Samhain]

As if I wasn't excited enough all these features are getting me even more excited now. I'm ashamed to admit that the graphics alone put me off the original ACW.

[Philkian]

One feature a day series #4: Units and Generals




Units in CW2 are greatly varying in their role and size. When we developed ACW1, some years ago, we really asked ourselves if this was not an error to propose to players units ranging from a few dozen men or large brigades nearing the thousand troopers. We can definitively give the answer now: it works!

But why does it works? Because units are not the smallest entity handled by the game. Units are made of another smaller echelon named elements. These elements are really what matters when you command troops or fight a battle. Elements are much closer in size between each other and this by itself solves a lot of issues in a very natural way. For example takes the concept of frontage or battlefield width to put it in a more understandable way. You don't expect the game to allow an infinity of soldiers fighting at the same time against each other, particularly in cramped places like a fort, a wild and thick forest or in a mountain pass. CW2 handles that pretty well and automatically, because the number of elements allowed to fight is what matters, and not the number of units (imagine 3 divisions against 3 bands of partisans, that would be a short and bloody affair for the partisans in this case!). Command works the same, with bigger units needing more 'command points', so a general will often not be able to command more than 3 divisions worth or alternatively a lot more of smaller units.

Talking about generals, these fellows are very diverse in CW2. Some are Army generals and can command a lot of troops, some are more humble brigadier-generals. They all have three important statistics though: strategic rating, offensive rating, defensive rating. A few also have some special abilities, providing various exceptional effects, like Training Officer, Blockade Runner, Artillery specialist, etc. One of the particularity of CW2 (and the AGE engine series of games in general, pun intended) is that bad generals can't be disposed easily by the player, so that good (but still unknown historically) generals get the best soldiers. If you do so, by removing from command the most senior generals, prepare yourself for a bit of turmoil, as their grumbling will translate in lost victory points and national morale!

There would be much more to say about units and generals. They are one of the pillar of the game and handling them with care and attention, nurturing them even, is one of the joy of CW2. At first you may want to grab troops in huge stacks and throw them at the enemy, to satisfy some hunger for blood... but we really advise you to look at these virtual men in more details, so you get to learn of their strengths and weaknesses. They are definitively worthy of your attention, if only to remember that they are the electronic avatars of people who gave their life for their country, a long time ago.

[Philkian]

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




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.

[Philkian]

One feature a day series #6: New functionalities





We talked in broad lines, in the first developer notes, that Civil War II interface was significantly different from its predecessor, citing as an example the new load game window. But let's talk about the in-game additions, as this will be of great interest both to new players and returning players!
The ledger or strategic atlas got a lot of attention from us. First, there is an alternate view to the well know forces listing (used to check your stacks, i.e groups of units). You can now see all units of your army, one entry per line. So if you are searching for a particular regiment (I need sharpshooters!, I need a commerce raider!, I need a partisan!), you have at last a tool for that.

Then there are the historical options. I'm blurring a bit the line with gameplay here, because they are presented in a new interface (in three categories), but what is mostly new here is that they are much more numerous than in Civil War I. The most striking example being that you now see all productions structures on map, and can order new ones from this interface. Yes, you read it, if you click on Washington (ctrl-click actually ) then you'll see the factories and arsenals of the region, each with its historical image and information on the actual production. We believe this is a great improvement other the abstracted (and gamey) production of the previous game.
Continuing our tour of the ledger, another new kid in town if the Regions list. This window, as its name implies, allows you to sort, filter, check all regions on the map, on various criterias. Questions that you might ask are: Where are the regions producing war supplies. What are the regions with the strongest enemy forces, show me only regions with harbors sorted by descending level of supply (this question is for bean-counters ). In any case, this screen is quite handy.

In additions to these major newcomers, you now get a few extra functionalities. The warmap (the whole game map shown in a single window) has also filters. The objectives screen list you the total combat power of your enemy and how many prisoners you have in your camps. The resources bar give you an history of the expenses from past turn.

And so on!

[Philkian]

One feature a day series #7: Battle Planner




The battle planner is a brand new feature of Civil War II. It should appeal to anyone wanting a bit of control on the battlefield, while being light enough that you won't spend your afternoon reenacting each battle. For people not wanting the feature, there is an option to disable it also.

Battle planner looks and feels is deceptively simple, at first glance. But that's the possible interactions between your plan and the one of the enemy which makes a great deal of its interest. Before a battle happens, you'll be shown a window with a few 'deployments cards'. These are the possible deployments your army can take before starting the fight. These deployments are not always the same, by far, as they depend of the skills of your general, of the terrain and of the overall posture of your army. The most talented generals will have broader choices, and depending if your general is an expert in defense or offense, some deployments will be proposed and not others.

What you see of the enemy also depends of the skills of your general. If your general is more talented, then you'll know about the deployment of the enemy (this is possible because the battle planner only works for solo games, so the AI can tell you its choice as soon as you open the planner window). On the contrary, if your general is bested by the opponent, then you are shooting blind. Knows though (and this is quite reassuring) that the AI will not make its choice based on your, so you still have some opportunities to get the upper hand.

Once you have chosen your deployment (one card among up to five), then you get access to the actual battle plans (the ones who makes sense with your deployment): if you deploy with most of your cavalry in the front, then a battle plan can be 'Massive cavalry charge'. If on the contrary your deployment is 'fighting withdrawal', then one of your deployment will be 'Cavalry cover', and so on. If you are entitled to know the deployment of the AI, then you get the list of possible plans it can choose from, with a color coding to tell you which ones of your plans would be a good idea, if the AI takes plan A, B or C.

Once these steps are done, the battle unrolls as usual. A note though: the planner don't trigger for each battle, as this would become rapidly a chore, but only if you have a two or three stars general and if both sides have some significant troops. As you may know, battles in Civil War II are played in rounds, and each round the battle engine will check if your plan succeed or is countered by the enemy plan. Plans can have a tremendous effects on battles, for example a successful cavalry charge can cripple an enemy plan based on artillery duel, and in this case the artillery can be attacked by your units, even if normally artilleries can't as long as you have infantry holding the line. There is a great variety of effects, ranging from a modifier to a rating, to a special morale check to being able to attack support units...

As with most of the features of our games, you can also mod battle plans. We hope that you'll see all the potential of the planner, because we are really thrilled about it. We plan (sic!) to propose even more on this subject, should you enjoy it... Why not imagine for example that some deployments or plans are favored by some leaders, because historically they often used them (General Forrest is fighting your army, beware he will probably try to flank you!).

[Philkian]

One feature a day series#8: In the Army now!




Civil War II is primarily a strategic war game, most of its features revolving on the conduct of war and winning it, with economy being one of the tools at your disposal, historical options geared toward furthering a military goal or another and politic being limited to enticing the British and French in joining the Confederates (or if you are the Union, making sure they stay neutral). In Civil War II, you can only make peace with the other side by defeating it, period!

This strong focus on warfare could only work well if the military system is deep and historical. We humbly believe we managed to do that on several (many?) occasions, although as CW2 is still a game, we often have to abstract features, because of the sheer complexity of some historical feats and events or simply because a game which is not fun has lost quite of its appeal to many, including us.

In Civil War II, most of your operations will revolve around a few generals (or admirals). Generals can be good or bad, and can have some special abilities, some being drawbacks even. In addition to that, a general on a given turn can be active or inactive. In the second case, he can basically only do defensive tasks in a territory under your control. That's how we have modeled that the Union appeared so lethargic or clumsy at the start of the war, at least in the East. We also introduced a few safe guards, like seniority, a mechanism were some generals will be quite disgruntled if a junior officer gets promoted before them (and unhappy in the game means losing victory points or worse, national morale!). This feature has very strong root in reality, as many generals had strong political connections and friends, and lobbied one against another to reach a new rank or a better command.

Once you have your army all set up, with generals at the head of each large formation, you'll want to move in enemy territory to either defeat opposing armies or conquer objectives. Here, you'll have to take into account the fatigue of your men, moving in enemy territory or difficult terrains. The fog of war (not detecting the enemy) will be a problem, unless you have strong cavalry forces. Some special orders will be at your disposal, like force marching, setting up a new supply depot, moving your forces by railways (should you have enough rolling stock). Each of your force will be commanded by a general, probably, but if they are too large for the officer to handle, you'll suffer a command penalty, that will slow down your forces and make them fight poorly. Juggling between too many small forces and a few large, under-commanded forces will also be part of the equation you'll face.

And then there will be battles. Here too the game engine will compute for your the minutiae, but you'll have to take into account, at least at a semi conscious level, that you just can't expect to line up tens of thousands of men in difficult terrains. Some regions will be restricted in the size of battles, and so small elite forces, or soldiers knowing the land (partisans, skirmishers) can do very well again larger forces. Battles will be conducted over several rounds, and if you organized your armies in corps, then corps can support each other by marching to the sounds of guns. Seeing a whole corps coming at the rescue from an adjacent region is always a great pleasure (or a great dismay, if they are enemies...).
No plan survives contact with the enemy said Colin Powell (admittedly quoting Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder ), and that's quite true, particularly in a game engine where each side move simultaneously. Always keep forces in reserve and prepare a contingency plan.
Expect the unexpected each turn and enjoy, as we do, the thrill of clicking on 'end turn' and see marches, counter-marches and battles happen before you!

[Philkian]

One feature a day series #9 : Unexpected guests




One intriguing feature of Civil War is the foreign intervention of two countries of importance: Great-Britain and France. This interesting what-if outcome is not drawn from thin air either, as Great-Britain and Union had their shares of tensions during the struggle, culminating in late 61 with the Trent Affair, where USS San Jacinto boarded a British ship and captured two Confederates diplomats, on the ground that they were contrabands, as Union did not recognize Confederacy. The affair escalated with Great-Britain demanding that the envoys be released and a formal apology issued. Orders were sent throughout the British Empire in case war erupted, and for example in Canada alone, 38,000 men were conscripted, whereas a significant part of the Gibraltar squadron was being readied to sail to North America.

As for the French, they saw themselves involved in Mexico from early 1862, a war instigated in no small part by Napoleon III of France. With significant ground forces, and the support of both Spain and Great Britain (only in the first few months), while the Union supported the opposite side (President Benito Juarez), tensions rose high for several years, with a peak in 1863 and 1864. By1864 Maximilian was enthroned Emperor of Mexico. Tensions continued with the Union (now again the United States of America) until 1867, when the French pulled out.
In Civil War 2, the intervention of Foreign Powers is called the Foreign Entry, a rating going from -100 to +100. To see both the British and French join the war, the value must reach or exceed +100. Should it crumble down to -100 at anytime, the Confederacy will never be able to get foreign help. This leads to several sub-games within the game, as each opponent try to move the value toward its own safe zone.

For that, you get two tools mainly. The main one is activating historical options, mostly from the Union side. The difficulty here for the Union is that most of the options can have a short term interest too, so it might be tempting to use them without an afterthought, but that would be an error as all may go the wrong way, and so timing is important. For example declaring complete blockade will allow the construction of many blockade ships, that will in turn, once deployed, reduce significantly Confederate trade outcome. As with all Foreign Entries options though, this can backfire, in the sense that it may raise tension with Europe, and thus augment Foreign Entry. The Union can also sacrifice long term prospects (i.e. lose VP) by giving away trade and territorial concessions, in exchange of a lowering of the entry.

The second sub-game is having a better morale than the enemy or more victory points (VPs). In this case, each turn, there is a chance you move the foreign entry value one notch toward your safe zone. So you'll often see players try to beat at least by one meager point the tally of the opponent, either in national morale or in victory points. This means that sometime you'll ask yourself if it is a good thing to produce more paper money or use this additional regional decision. Not because of the absolute cost of the option (for example 5 victory points) but because it might cause you to lose the lead, thus creating a side effect on foreign entry.

Last but not least, and this information will be of great interest to returning players. In CW2, both the British and the French are governed by their own AI. In American Civil War I, this was not the case, and the Confederacy would move, as if part of a unique integrated command (which is not really plausible), all units, in case of successful foreign intervention. Not so anymore, and now each country may have its own agenda and will also protect its own assets. Rest assured though, with a bigger playable area (going up to Quebec in the north!) and some extra reinforcements, things will still be very tense for the Union.

[Philkian]

One feature a day series #10: Wrapping up



Gents,

This will be the last developers’ notes for Civil War II, as the game will be out tomorrow! As such, we don't want to miss the opportunity here to say many thanks to all the volunteers who helped us shape Civil War II into what it is now! Some of you betas really went beyond 'duty', with discussions, historical notes and reports several times a day, even on weekends.

That said, and in a kind of mirror statement to the first notes, we think it is important to remind everyone one more time what were the two avenues of approach we took when working on this awesome project.

* First, we wanted to take American Civil War I were we left it, and then add more accessibility for new players, because new blood is always good (target practice! Oops no, I did not say that ).
* Second, and in equal importance, because our current community is what allows us to continue creating games, we wanted to add extra functionalities for returning players.

Here are a few examples of minor or not so minor additions in Civil War II, compared to the first opus. Bear with me for the mix & match style, as these features are rather diverse.

For newcomers to Civil War, we added several options in the entry menu.
* One of particular importance is the 'easy supply' option. Basically with this option, you can only be in trouble in the case of a siege or if you are in hostile territory. We meant ‘Easy’ as supply should not be a concern to the new player when he is moving troops at home.
* Another helping function is the AI buying for you replacements for weakened units, so that you have one less burden to bear.

Then, there are functionalities that are new and will please both groups of players.
* In Civil War II, contrary to ACW1, you can click on a city and see all buildings there. Simple and yet cool, as it's really easier to remember where are your powder mills and armories now.
* We also have a much better tooltip system that you probably saw in some screenshots. We went from tooltips in single color to tooltips that can be colored as we wish, and with embedded icons.

And last (but not least), there is the third group, i.e. features that are new but will probably be of greater interest to veterans as it was often requested by them.
* The new terrain effect table for example (see the screenshot in this post) that at last give you enough info about each terrain, including effects in battle.
* Another one? You can now promote a single general in an army, without him having to leave it.
* Also, development level in each region will greatly impact move speed in the wild areas (use liberally regional decisions to improve that!).

There is much more than that, and these are only a few examples, but we hope you understand that Civil War II is in essence American Civil War I, but more accessible. There is no 'toning down' here! We streamlined the interface considerably and improved accessibility (and some options can disable many game rules, because we don't want to overwhelm new players!), but in no way we watered down the game.

And that's good

See you soon in the forum, to share your experience of the game!

The Civil War II Team - Ageod.


Structures



Terrain Tooltips

[Pocus]

In others news, Civil War II is now out! You can grab it at Slitherine, Matrix or Ageod