Hello! I am Zwirbaum and in this dev diary I will be talking about new things coming to the game on 20th of November. There are a lot of things to cover, so I will be listing things in a rather speedy manner, without delving too much into details for each and every thing, especially if those things were talked about previously, and didn’t receive much change since the earlier showcase. So without further ado, let’s begin our feature showcase speedrun!

Factions Ahoy!

Since the last time we have looked at the faction screen, visually things have changed quite significantly. However those changes are not visual only, as we have updated certain gameplay elements quite a bit as well.

Updated Faction Window. You can see now that there is an additional element on the top bar, between the country flag and the decision tab, which serves as a shortcut to the Faction Window. For the eagle eyed people, Faction Specific Logo is used. The number below the logo on the top bar, is the number of the faction initiatives you currently have. And the new alert to the right, with two flags and exclamation mark is information that you can select a new Faction Goal - which is in the Short Term Faction Goal Section.

Faction Goals - Update

Goals now are organized in three groups, whether they are Short, Medium or Long Term Goals, and then within each of those groups, Goals are further divided into categories, to what they are affecting, or are linked mostly. You can see there are filter icons, to easily and quickly navigate to the group you are mostly interested in. Additionally it contains interesting information about Unlocking Faction Research for your faction. Note that as usual, what you can see on this screenshot can change, especially rewards, or completion conditions.

Goals underwent a bit of update since the last time, there is no longer a set of rather static goals for your factions. Now you can choose new goals, if you have an open slot for them, completing a goal allows you to select a new one. However if you do not like, or do not see yourself to ever finishing one of the goals you started with, or set for yourself, for various reasons, you can pay with the Faction Initiative, to replace it with a new one. Speaking of Faction Initiatives…

Faction Initiative Gain

In this example we can see that even if we would not get any other Faction Initiative, we will passively generate one within 133 days. Faction Influence, measures how influential, how powerful, and how impactful your position is within the faction.

Depending on how much of your Faction Manifesto is fulfilled, and your Faction Influence, you will generate a passive trickle of the Initiative, thus giving you the option and opportunity to actually use the actions and activities within the faction, without worrying too much about the limited pool of those points.

Factions Rules Touch-Up

The second tab in the Faction Window contains Faction Rules, their groups, and when you want you can view all the potential faction rule groups, and once again, use a nifty filter to quickly get what you want.

Faction Rules instead of being called: “Ideology Rules” or “Joining Rules”, are now a bit more descriptive, and hopefully easier to understand at the glance, with things like: ‘Who can be removed from the faction?’. Some of the rules may also have attached modifiers to them, or have effect on the gameplay, like Faction Rules influencing Peace Cost of specific types of actions in the Peace Conference, thus for example making it cheaper for the Comintern to Puppet Countries.

Example of the Faction Rule that has a modifier attached to it.

Faction Research

One of the new venues of faction co-operation is the Faction Research. At the start of the game, or whenever you will create a new Faction it will be locked behind completing a specific Faction Goal. That faction goal, which is called Develop Joint Research Practices™, represents setting up, and working within the faction, on establishing the cooperation and infrastructure necessary to share all the technological advancements within.Regular research and more experimental one alike, but we will go into more detail for it, a bit later.

Until the effort is undertaken by the Faction, to complete the goal, and the efforts for the faction research program are finished, this tab will remain locked.

What this tab allows you to do is, to spend faction initiative, to add one of your experimental facilities to become a Joint Research Facility. Then other faction members may assign their own scientists to help and conduct research, increasing Faction Research Bonus, as well as helping with any Special Project being developed at that facility at the same time.

In this example, the USA transformed their Naval Experimental Facility in Maryland to become a Joint Research Facility, and the Philippines assigned their scientist to join the Faction Research Program. Now the American Commonwealth enjoys a 5% Research Sharing Bonus, and any special project researched in that facility, will be developed a bit faster, while Philippines will get some of the progress towards that project as well.

Faction Military Operations

The next tab we will be talking about is the Faction Military Operations, and similarly to the Faction Research, is locked behind completion of another goal. The "Institute a Joint Command Structure" goal focuses on establishing and further developing shared allied command structures. This is intended to increase cooperation and coordination among the militaries of different nations united by a common cause. Think of Combined Chiefs of Staff, or Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force.

Until the Faction will prove their will to coordinate their military efforts via completing the Faction Goal of Instituting a Joint Command Structure, this tab will remain locked.

In this screenshot, the USA has selected to contribute 15% of their monthly manpower increase in the pool, storing 376 manpower in the pool, while the Philippines contributed final 15 manpower. Right now there is no need to tap into that manpower pool, but later it could be useful…

Players can adjust their monthly manpower contribution by selecting one of four options, ranging from 0% to 15% of their total monthly manpower increase. This contribution is added to the Faction Garrison Manpower pool, a shared resource. All faction members can draw manpower from this common pool, utilizing the contributions of others as well as their own.

Another way to increase the cooperation within the faction is to unlock Doctrine Sharing. By paying Faction Initiative, you can unlock sharing within one category (Land, Navy, Air). As long as a country has the same Subdoctrines selected and has achieved a higher level of combat prowess, it will share its advancements with countries that have not yet reached that level.

This list shows all the potential Subdoctrines that can be shared within a faction, and what is the highest level that can be achieved with it.

The final new tool for Faction Military Operations is the Faction Theaters feature. A faction can unlock up to four theaters. (This number may change in the future.) Each theater costs one Faction Initiative to create.

Every Faction Theater requires a Theater Commander, who can be either an Admiral or a Field Marshal. The theater must also have an assigned country and at least one selected strategic region.

Units from the assigned country that operate within those regions receive supply bonuses based on the Theater Commander’s stats. Naval units benefit more from an Admiral, while land units gain better bonuses under a Field Marshal.

When the assigned country is AI-controlled, the AI will acknowledge the theatre's creation, treating it as guidance. This elevates the theatre's priority for that AI country, leading it to commit more forces. This change enhances the feeling of coordinated and planned military operations among allied forces.

Additionally, the Theater Commander’s country earns mastery when other faction members fight within the Faction Theater.

Once a Faction Theater has been unlocked, it can be modified, deleted, or reassigned as needed, and it can be reused without paying the unlock cost again.

Example of the created Faction Theatre by the USA. In this example they have assigned Douglas MacArthur to lead it, and assigned only the USA to it.

You can select whether to keep the Faction Theater Displayed as this flag pin on the Default, Navy or Air map modes. When hovered upon, it will display this outline, and list assigned regions together with which countries should participate in the local kerfuffle.

Faction Intelligence

The final tab is dedicated to expanding the intelligence agency's features within the faction. Faction Intelligence encapsulates all efforts to share information and coordinate clandestine operations between allied nations. Historically, this is exemplified by the joint Polish, British, and French work on the German Enigma machine, as well as various other intelligence partnerships, ranging from World War II-era collaborations to contemporary organizations like NATO Joint Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (JISR).

In addition to the Spymaster position, the faction now includes three new roles: Head of Cryptology, Counter Intelligence, and Operations. Assigning an advisor to one of these positions will yield benefits for both the advisor's country and other faction members. You'll need faction initiative to unlock each of these new positions, just like with the others.

Intelligence Sharing Bonus, which in this screenshot is 20%, refers to having a discount on the time your agency will take when selecting upgrade that someone in your faction already had, e.g. Radio Interception Group.

Faction Manifest

Faction Manifests now also provide a certain benefit, scaling with the fulfillment of said manifest. Also, if that percentage is high enough, you will receive additional benefits, as in this example we can see that providing Guarantee on other countries, will also provide Democracy Drift on guaranteed nations.

As a very quick reminder - Manifest is the main ‘goal’ of the faction, what drives them, and how their success is measured.

And now it is the time to move away from the Factions, and sail towards other changes.

Naval Changes

Naval Mission Changes

Newly updated naval mission bar, on the left we have Core Missions, Patrol, Strike Force and Convoy Raiding, and those missions are the only one that have impact on the dominance, with the symbols above the mission icon showing at glance how they impact Naval Dominance in regions they were assigned to.

One of the changes since we last discussed it in the Dev Corner, is that we decided to move Convoy Escort from the Core Mission Set to become Auxiliary Mission, and as such it no longer has any impact on the Naval Dominance, however it will now get benefit from having Naval Dominance Established - in this case, Convoy Escort Task Forces will enjoy having increased Positioning, and thus be more effective in screening the convoys, and effectively fighting off attackers.

Naval Targeting Options

By clicking on the target icon, you will be able to access the targeting menu where you will be able to customize which ships you would like to engage in combat, and which should you avoid.

Players will now be able to specify which ships their Taskforce will want to engage, or if already engaged upon, to withdraw from the fight. This way you could set so your Strike Forces will not sail to every Submarine Raiding your convoys, or that your Light Cruiser Patrols will withdraw from the combat as soon as any Capital Ship would show up on the opposite side of the combat.

Automatic Selection of Home Bases

That gear icon, which is highlighted for your convenience when reading this dev diary, will allow you to use ‘automated’ selection of the Home Bases.

One of the things based on the feedback that we received from the dev corners, was how to address the concerns about potentially having too much of a micro with changing the Home Bases in order to ensure your fleet have enough of a range to reach their designated targets. We have added an ‘automated home base selection’ toggle-system as an alternative to the players that prefer to concern themselves with naval matters less.

New Buldings

Do you remember when I said that the increased cap of naval bases on some islands can lead to having some importance? Let me introduce you to our two new buildings, Naval Supply Hub and Naval Headquarters. Both these buildings will require you to have level 8 naval base in a province, before you will be able to construct those new constructions. Thus increasing the importance of those highly built-up ports, as well, as limiting where they can be placed on the islands.

Naval Supply Hub

Icon, and the description of the Naval Supply Hub. I saw some speculations, and do not worry, you will still be able to have the regular supply ferried over to the Naval Bases, as you were able before.

As I mentioned in the Hydrodynamics Dev Corner, fleets now draw their operational range from the Home Bases, as opposed to the old system, where fleets could operate within the range of ANY friendly port. With the addition of the Naval Supply Hubs, Fleet can operate within the range of their Home Base AND any other ports that contain Naval Supply Hubs, to represent that extra capacity, and capability of the refueling and extra resupply of the navies. Some of those buildings are pre-placed at the start of the game, which should increase the importance of controlling such locations even more, like Singapore.

Naval Headquarters

Naval Headquarters are the second addition to the building roster. What this building does, it allows you to assign an Admiral to it, and all task forces operating within the range from the HQ will receive certain benefits based on the individual skills of the admirals. In return, successfully operating ships within those limits, will provide some experience to that Admiral. Similarly to the Naval Supply Hubs, there are some Naval Headquarters created at the start of the game, including some places you may have heard of, like Norfolk or Pearl Harbor.

Visualization of how far the Naval Headquarters located in Hiroshima can provide the bonus to task forces operating within.

You can quickly check if the task force is operating within the range of any of your Naval Headquarters, and what is the bonus provided for it.

Carrier Stances, Offensive and Defensive Sorties

You can select Carrier Stance by using the dropdown menu. It has five settings, where the first one, Fully Defensive, has 100% Defensive Sortie Efficiency, while having 0% Offensive Sortie Efficiency. Other stances adjust values by 25% each, so Cautious will have 75%/25%, Balanced has 50%/50%, Active has 25%/75% and Aggressive finally enjoys 0% Defensive Sortie Efficiency and 100% Offensive Sortie Efficiency.

Carrier Stances are new settings that allows players to further customize how their taskforces, that contain carriers behave, setting the amount of the planes that should be held in reserve, to protect the taskforce from any air attacks, and enemy fleets that managed to initiate attack, and how many planes should be participating in Carrier Air Missions, or be ready to pounce on unsuspecting enemy fleets, during the initial engagement. If you want to take a gamble and hope that you can initiate naval engagements with the enemy, you can switch to an aggressive stance. Hopefully there will be no enemy carriers approaching from a direction you did not expect…

New Special Projects

In the No Compromise, No Surrender, we have added three new special projects: Support Ships, Escort Carriers and Submarine Carriers.

Support Ships

And the lovely art for the Support Ships special project, that is probably not very surprisingly put in the Naval Special Projects category. In order to start the project, you need to have technology of the Transport Ship researched (first naval invasion tech)

Support Ships special project, unlock Repair Ship and Support Ship. Ships that you can attach to your task forces, in order to provide some task force wide benefits, including Ship Recovery Chance, which is a new effect that allows you to save some of your ships from certain death and destruction.

In this case you can quickly see how much naval dominance this task force provides, and also, how much of the Repair and General Support is provided to them from Support Ships, together with the effect they provide at the current level of the ‘support’. Those ships have ‘AG’ and ‘AR’ designations. Note that the numbers present and shown here are subject to change.

Escort Carrier

For the Escort Carriers special project, you will need to research Basic Carriers, or in other words, what used to be known as the 1936 Carrier.

Escort Carriers are the new carrier equipment that you get after researching a Special Project for them. They are meant to provide you with cheaper, easier to produce carriers that are helpful in auxiliary roles, like escort duties, where attaching a fully built up Fleet Carrier would feel like a waste. While they may lack raw combat power compared to their bigger brethren, they should provide more than enough bang for their buck in their intended role.

And here we have the Escort Carriers Hangar Deck. It provides increased Carrier Sub Detection compared to a regular Carriers Hangar Deck, while providing less deck space. This also means in order to get the full benefits of the ‘Carrier Detection’ values, you will need less planes manned on the Escort Carriers, thus reinforcing the whole ‘more economical’ approach to them, as compared to fully blown-out Fleet Carriers.

Submarine Carrier

And the final new Special Project - Submarine Carriers. In order to research those beauties, you will need to have Basic Carriers and Improved Submarines. (Previously known as 1936 Carrier and 1940 Submarine, which of course now also means it is a 1939 Technology)

Submarine Carriers operate in slightly different manners to the regular carriers. Planes from the Submarine Carriers participate in the Carrier Air Missions, however, during the Naval Combat - they are not participating in the actual combat, and the Submarine Carriers act just like regular Submarines.

Adjustments to the Naval Tech Tree

As you can see ship hulls now follow our usual pattern of naming Early, followed by Basic, Improved and in the end to become Advanced Destroyer. Also we have moved the technology dates for them from 1922/1936/1940/1944 to 1922/1936/1939/1943.

We heard the feedback that the Naval Tech Tree feels bloated, making it hard to stay up-to-date with the Naval Technologies, and making it even harder for any potential naval upstart to catch up with the Major Naval Powers. After some internal discussion, we did some trimming of the clearly overgrown naval tech tree. Below you will find a screenshot that contains a trimmed naval gunnery part of the tree. There are some other adjustments to the tech tree here and there.

Another adjustment we did to the Naval Tech Tree was to move the Ship Hulls one year earlier, so from 1940 to 1939 and from 1944 to 1943, allowing players to research, build and be actually able to finish production of ships of higher tiers, before the war would end.

There has been some tech consolidation in the naval tech tree window. In this example, you can notice that the naval gunnery tech branch no longer has separate medium batteries. This tech now branches depending on the type of the attack: Top line unlocks the Light Attack modules, while the bottom line unlocks Heavy Attack modules. Dual-Purpose Batteries occupy the position in the middle.

Coal & Energy

This is the updated tooltip in the topbar for the factories count. It provides a quick overview of how much energy your industry demands (together with percentage you managed to provide), current energy production and the resources you are currently using for it, and what is your theoretical maximum energy production, with the resources you currently possess.

In the dev corner of ‘Thermodynamics’ we covered the basics of how the Coal operates, our intentions for it and so on. The basic features haven't really changed much since then. We've mostly been focusing on making the related information better, like improving tooltips and adding new alerts.

Lack of Energy remains relatively the same as was intended previously, reducing base output of the industrial buildings (e.g. military factory from 4.5 IC to 4.0 IC), however the previously mentioned scaling of the Factory Output/Construction Speed/Dockyard Output modifiers is now applied in a scaling way on a sum of those modifiers, IF the sum is a positive.

In essence, countries already struggling (e.g., low stability, lack of technology, crippling national spirits) will experience a reduction in basic output due to coal shortages, but no additional crippling effects. Conversely, a country with many positive modifiers, fully researched technology, and so on, may find that a coal shortage drastically compromises the competitiveness of its industry relative to others.

This ensures that coal/energy has long-lasting impact instead of being relevant only early on, or having disproportionately stronger effect in a specific part of the game (e.g. Mid Game).


We have also increased the effect of dams on the local factory energy consumption, to a more respectable -65% reduction, thus making those states that contain dams, quite a valuable place to concentrate your industry.

There is now also an alert that lists how much Coal do you need to satisfy the needs of your ever hungry Industry, together with all the negative effects.

Rangers

This is how the Rangers Doctrine tree looks in the end, as we moved from placeholder art created by yours truly.

Nothing major has changed when it comes to the Rangers, so I will just use this as an opportunity to showcase brand new art for the Rangers Doctrine Tree. And use this as a reminder that they are coming to the game.

New Diplomatic Options

Airbase Access

I should write here something extremely witty and funny, however my brain is refusing to provide anything that would be fitting those requirements. I will take any: ‘That airbase access picture description was super funny’, even if out of pity.

One of the new diplomatic actions available in the foreign relations toolbox is to offer your airbases or request the access to foreign airbases, where you can place your airforce and conduct the air warfare from.

Naval Blockade

I’m out of the ideas for the image descriptions at this point. Naval blockade, something something, icon, represent, chains of the thalassocracy strangling the means of naval recreation, please send help.

The second new diplomatic tool that will be available to the players is to impose naval blockade against other targets. Issuing the naval blockade is of course just a mere statement of intent, and not the actual thing, so in order to make it work, you will have to put some work into it. By building the Naval Dominance, and having it enough to have a control over it (in opposition to a country that is blockaded) potentially blocks that sea zone for trying to have any naval trade run through it. Of course some countries may be easier to be navally blockaded, as in the case of Sweden - successful control over the Eastern North Sea region may prevent it from reaching any of their distant trading partners like the USA. However, blockading the USA can be quite a hard task, as not only you would need to pretty much either blockade all of their ports (and hope that USA with their mighty fleet won’t be able to contest you), or put blockade on any of their potential trading partners.

In this screenshot Sweden is getting successfully blockaded by Germany, and that red shade indicates where Germany has their Naval Dominance accumulated. Sending out your fleet to try to break their blockade, by wresting enough of the control over the Eastern North Sea region, will allow you to restart your own Naval Trade with the rest of the World.

And that is all from this dev diary. I hope you will enjoy what we have been cooking during those long months.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, farewell!

/Zwirbaum


And with the last dev diary done I want to take this opportunity to highlight again all the feedback we’ve gotten from the dev corners, even if we cannot apply all the feedback, just reading it allows us to understand if we are hitting the right points in the design. We intend to continue with them for Thunder at our Gates in January, so you don’t have to wait too long ;).
Have fun with the release tomorrow!

/Niels Uiterwijk, Studio Manager PDS Gold