Hello commander!
We hope you are well. Recently, we released the much-awaited Destruction mode, which dropped in WARNO courtesy of our post-SUCHET update.
A bit of a mea culpa. It was brought to our attention that while various of our veterans were happily tearing through the Destruction mode-enabled WARNO battlefield, seeing those lovely little points pop up left and right, many players not familiar with Destruction felt out of their depth.
Our apologies! This DevBlog is dedicated to newcomers and veterans alike in explaining what Destruction mode is, a brief history, and how it is different compared to Conquest mode.
Keep on reading!
A Short History of Destruction
Destruction mode has been around for a long time. We first created it when we developed RUSE. That was a mighty 12 years ago!
Our goal for RUSE was to create a “pure” strategy game, where neither hardcore micromanagement (think clicks per second) nor forced game rules would prove to be a path to win.
As both fans and developers of real-time strategy games, we concluded that a match was typically over when one side had inflicted a critical amount of losses on its opponent. When this happened, it would be almost impossible for the latter to reverse their fortunes on the battlefield.
So, we thought, what if we display the losses for each side? Furthermore, what if we showed it as direct feedback on player actions (destroying units)? This would be useful as an information tool AND a special kind of motivation. Those little counters really want to make you… destroy more stuff!
When the spiritual ancestor to WARNO came around, Wargame: European Escalation, not only did we decide to keep the Destruction game mode, we put it at the heart of our game! Since then, although we moved towards Conquest as being the default play mode of our subsequent titles, we retained and updated Destruction mode in all our games. See it as a legacy of a legacy!
What is Destruction?
To make things clear: within WARNO, Destruction and Conquest modes are not exactly modes, but instead, they are labelled as game rules in a game’s lobby. We’ll keep referring to them as modes for all intents and purposes.
Counterintuitively, Destruction mode is a game mode where conquering terrain is vital to winning. Indeed, your in-game economy depends on it. Within the mode, each command zone captured increases your income by a certain sum per second. The income increase revolves around how many and which zones you control. The more command zones you control with a Command Unit, especially the ones that net you a higher income, the more units you can field… and, thus, a player’s ability to apply pressure on the enemy.
In other words, controlling real estate on the battlefield brings a definite economic advantage. This will eventually shift the power in favor to the player or team who controls more zones and, therefore, income. So where Destruction mode control zones give you extra income, in Conquest mode control zones give you victory points.
A little bit of destruction
In Destruction mode, these victory points are won by destroying units. Each time you destroy a unit, you earn its deployment price in points. This means the bigger and more expensive units you destroy, the more victory points you’ll gain. So now we have an interesting gameplay dynamic where the player controlling more zones can deploy more expensive units. Still, if you don’t take care of these units, they might run the chance of being destroyed and giving your opponent more victory points.
Destruction mode is about applying overwhelming destruction in a local area to smash as many valuable units as possible while retaining the greatest economy of force for your side. A marked difference between Conquest and Destruction mode is that the latter has a different rhythm, often more brutal and intense.
When reintroducing the mode to WARNO, we also took the opportunity to make sure Destruction makes each existing map feel unique. Deployment and reinforcement routes are different, as are command zone locations. As we already mentioned, we are updating more maps to host Destruction mode. A whole bunch of them are being tested by the Strike Team. Get ready for some more sneak peeks soon!
New units coming with the next patch
So, before we leave you be, some more news: we will feature two new units (with new models) in the next patch. Both units will find their way into the Warsaw Pact’s VDV 35th Guards Air Assault Brigade.
- 1V119 REOSTAT - an airborne recon radar on a BMD-1 hull.
- Mi-8MTV - a Mi-8 modified based on the Soviet Army’s Afghan War experience, with better protection (ECM and flares) against AA, specifically Stinger MANPADS.
The upcoming OUDINOT milestone is ready to be tested. The major update will soon run the gauntlet of the Strike Team before its full release.
See you on the battlefield
That’s it for this week. Don’t forget to check the latest news on the Steam News page or visit the Steam Forums. Get together with other players on either the excellent Discord server, Reddit page, YouTube or our Instagram.
See you on the battlefield, commander!
