June 2022
First of all, I’ve created a patreon site: https://www.patreon.com/empire_and_revolution which I intend to use as a small fund to measure interest / allow highly committed followers to contribute. I’m by no means reliant on external funding at the moment since it’s still a one-man project. I estimate it’ll take another 1–2 years of programming the base game before the it can really start becoming a collaborative effort with other artists. By that point I’ll definitely need to work on some sort of funding to pay for professional artist / designers and the patreon will be more heavily promoted at that point. In the meantime if you’re already excited by development then sign up to buy my monthly coffee!
Lets talk about individual unit mechanics
I’ve been spending a bunch of time on AI and organization mechanics, but there’s still a lot of small-scale mechanics to the game that I haven’t covered. These mechanics don’t really require player interaction but they do add more nuance to unit behavior.
For instance some infantry melee units have the ability to “Brace” when enemy units are approaching them, so long as they’ve been stationary for a period of time. This will give the unit a buff against the directly opposing enemy units.
The mechanic of blocking barriers has been introduced to the game. Currently this is represented by the Cheval de Frise, an early prelude to modern barb wire. All units can demolish these obstacles… but this will take a certain amount of time, leaving the units exposed to enemy ranged fire in the meantime. These obstacles can be emplaced during the setup-phase or during the course of the battle itself by specialty or engineer units.
Other obstacles like fences do not block unit movement but they do slow down unit movement. (cannons may be blocked until they destroy the fence… i haven’t decided yet)
Zones of control have been around awhile in the game, but there’s probably low interest in the mechanic. In short they are a borrowed concept from Field of Glory, which is meant to prevent enemy units from “sliding” past the players adjacent units when in melee range. It also forces the enemy units to attack your unit if they are in the primary zone of control, they cannot attack other nearby units.
The gif below demonstrates some early work of how morale will work within battalion frameworks. The front line has suffered enough casualties that it has been “fragmented” at which point it will fall back to the rear of the battalion. Once the “fragmented” company is safe its morale will slowly go back up, at which point it may rejoin the battalion formation. Companies of infantry that have suffered casualties will also automatically try to reform their line so that its at the proper density.
Morale and fallback behavior I find is very tricky once companies of infantry are part of a greater battalion structure. The system I’ve settled on is that the battalion will itself set where it wants companies to fall back to. If a column battalion formation it will direct companies to fall back to the rear. If a square or tercio formation then the companies will not fallback to the rear but rather stay in the center of the formation.
Allowing for the front-line companies to fallback to safety behind the 2nd or 3rd line in the battalion is a good illustration of historical formations. Friendly companies falling back does not necessarily lead to a general rout, but rather represents the ebb and flow of the battle as units will periodically fallback and advance with renewed cohesion.
