Warfare
Let’s not kid ourselves; war is one of the major interests of players, and Kingdoms tries to represent it with the right balance of complexity, realism, and fun (never forget that the project is a game; making concessions in this regard when there are decisions to be made would be a mistake). AGEOD has a long tradition of wargames and strategy games, having started 20 years ago with American independence and then followed with a large number (over 15) of turn-based games on different conflicts (all WEGOs). Early on, we decided to show that a war is won not by sheer numbers but by qualitative superiority. This ranges from the training and logistics of the basic soldier to the competence of your generals and even your ruler, and by extension, the player. This means that with the right approach, it should be possible to win even when significantly outnumbered. Everything is, of course, based on military history in general and thus well-grounded on a concrete basis.
However, this can be frustrating for new players or those used to more casual games where accumulation leads to victory. On numerous occasions, we’ve seen rage on forums where, for example, in Empires, the valiant Roman legions struggled against the nations of the Apennines or later in Dacia or Germania (Varus, give me back my legions!). The same goes for Kingdoms, where players might believe that their very (very) costly knights are the ultimate answer to everything. Or, more moderately, that piling up a large number of heavy infantries will suffice. This is, of course, false (unless your nation is so powerful that you can field a knight for every opposing peasant, perhaps), and this is where the game becomes an intellectual exercise, trying to find the right combination of troops to fight the enemy at the least cost. This creates a game with multiple levels and thus replayability, even in solo play. Initially, unfamiliar with the system, you might choose an easier nation and win in a relaxed, pressure-free way. Later, instead of increasing the difficulty level, you might choose a more challenging nation (for example, Wales, often up against England, or even the Abbasids, a small decaying entity facing the powerful Seljuqs), requiring you to play all your cards cleverly.
Blood on the snow … the integrated battle system
To talk more practically about what we’ve done to favor quality and strategy over brute force, the integrated combat system, a kind of automated chessboard, deserves some explanation. We needed to achieve a completely hands-off battle module where very different parameters resulted in very different ‘flavors.’ The worst would have been to combine unit power, experience, fatigue, and commander competence arithmetically into a single number to determine an outcome. So, we developed a three-dimensional system, where pushing the slider on one aspect does not increase more than that aspect without affecting the other two. This is what we called the triangle rule, which deserves attention. First, the unit has a base combat value, easily imagining that a knight is worth much more than a quick levy. This value is, however, modified by the terrain, where the optimizer player can already act by choosing battle locations, for example, luring the enemy into a swamp or forest.
Italo-Normans knights will stay put in this city assault, while their spearmen lead the charge
Secondly, troop experience and fatigue are very determining factors in the outcome of a battle. These values do not increase combat value but will generate better dice rolls. This is the second dimension of this triangle rule.
Lastly, the commanders are also crucial. How do they impact without improving unit power or dice outcome? By allowing a general to roll multiple dice (and you take the best, knowing that the best is already improved by the unit itself!).
Thus, we create rather realistic battles where inexperienced but numerous troops can be defeated by a tactical genius with a few seasoned troops on chosen terrain.
Standing army units will need a backup of levies to perform optimally
Moving away from the battlefield level and discussing how armies were raised and demobilized during the medieval period, we also wanted to introduce a marked difference between medieval levies, drawn from the population with very rudimentary combat training, and permanent units always ready for combat and regularly trained (mercenary corps, nobles, nomadic warriors). One difficulty was to make players accept that the game's tempo was not that of reality, as military campaigns often stopped in winter and population levies could last only a few months. Therefore, one of the things players must accept is that your units are levies but can be present on the map for the equivalent of several years. The same goes for the famous movement speeds, which are heavily abstracted. Some players point out that an army doesn’t take two years to cross France and that one should be able to embark in Venice and arrive in Jerusalem in a few weeks, not six months. These are compromises necessary for this turn-based strategy game to work, as we cannot stress enough; it’s not a simulation but an abstraction and simplification of reality. Again, the main point is not to evaluate each subsystem in isolation but to see if, when combined, they most often yield a plausible result in line with historical accuracy. For the more skeptical, it’s possible to rationalize some rules. For example, saying that the ability to disband a levy unit and recover most of its initial cost simulates a constant flow of new soldiers while the older ones return home. It’s also interesting to note that some concepts are never questioned, although completely impossible, such as having an immediate view of the map (at a time when most people had no idea of Europe’s shape) with instant communication between armies (radio technology was not very widespread ). In a way, players have blind spots; they accept what has become a game convention (and a sacrifice to playability) over the years but still struggle with the rest.
Castles and Fortresses are built progressively thanks to the Fortifications system, with temporary buildings enabling more permanent structures
The last point to address is the construction of castles and fortresses. This was a major element defining the medieval period, with the creation of hundreds of fortified sites. We had to solve the problem of making these tasks both titanic and progressive. We didn’t want to ask players to invest hundreds of infrastructure points without seeing any result and then suddenly have their castle appear. On the other hand, the system had to integrate naturally with Kingdoms' existing system of buildings classified by category and tier. This is where we introduced the concept of fortification points in each region, a value from 0 to 100. Based on this value, a more or less powerful fortified site is offered, but with a relatively modest cost compared to all the advantages it provides. The system’s beauty lies in the prerequisite of these fortification points, which you can increase via temporary pseudo-buildings representing castle elements. Indeed, it would be rather anecdotal (and would clutter the military buildings line too much) to ask the player to build and maintain elements as modest as a guard post, a drawbridge, or machicolations. However, defining them as temporary modules that improve the region’s fortification points allows you to propose and illustrate them appropriately and immersively.