Welcome to the kickoff of the very first Contract Corps: Lead your Aces devlog! Going through development I will be sharing regular updates, covering everything from core mechanics over design decisions to world lore.
Today, I want to outline the high-level vision behind Contract Corps.
The Design Challenge
Personally, I have been a big fan of squad-level turn-based tactics going all the way to the Jagged Alliance days. However, it always felt a bit restrictive to act as a completely independent squad of 4-12 units instead of being on a wider battlefield.
Some games try to add allied AI units, scaling battles up to 30v50 encounters - however, because those engines are not natively designed for it, this can lead to long, slow turns due to AI taking its time to decide what to do, and due to visualizing dozens of individual unit actions.
That friction is where the core idea of Contract Corps originates.
The Core Concept: You directly control a couple of elite units (your Aces), but deploy them within a wider, AI-controlled army (your Corps). You can still influence your wider Corps, but do not have to deal with the micromanagement of commanding 200 individual units.
How 200v200 Actually Works
This massive 400-unit battlefield then forces us to solve 2 major structural problems:
1. Simultaneous Execution
If all 400 units acted sequentially, a single turn would take...long. In Contract Corps, your (player controlled) Aces act sequentially, but all the AI units operate in a WeGo model - this means all units plan their individual actions independently (without cheating or knowing the enemies plans) and then execute their actions simultaneously.
2. The Turn Summary
With 400 units moving and attacking at the same time the screen turns into chaos. We now have a system which unravels that action for the player by prioritizing the different events that happen and slices them into:
Highlights: the most important events per turn get played sequentially, so the player has time to focus and understand what is going on.
Summary: after the critical events have been shown, the game plays a generalized summary of the rest of the minor events that happened.
You can see this system in the GIF below, where we have 3 distinct events (Death, Panic, and the Rally ability) being showcased without dragging down the turn time as a whole:
Mission Branching
When controlling 4-12 units, you traditionally use all of your units at the same time, resulting in sequential missions. Commanding an entire Corps allows us to split units more naturally across several missions which happen in parallel and with different pacing, with success or failure in these interconnected missions influencing the final battle mission.
Imagine a standard "Conquer Base" battle, which consists of 3 interconnected missions:
Mission A: Destroy Power Supply (25 units, 1-2 Aces)
A fast strike mission on a 20-turn timer to destroy the base's power grid. It takes about 10 minutes in real time. Achieving the objective means the base turrets will be disabled for the final assault.
Mission B: Free Prisoner Camp (50v50 units, 2-3 Aces)
Running in parallel within the game universe, this is a clash to occupy a prisoner camp before the captives are shipped off. Taking around 15 minutes of real time, success unlocks extra combat units or an army morale boost for the final mission.
Mission C: Base Assault (starts as 100v100, 2-3 Aces)
The final attack on the stronghold. The main force force launches a massive assault, which will be signifcantly harder if the turrets are still enabled (depending on Mission A). A few turns in, your surviving units from Missions A & B arrive on the flanks, interleaved with enemy reinforcements retreating to the main base from the previous missions.
What's Next?
Contract Corps is rooted in traditional squad tactics, but aims to deliver the experiences of "Heroes in a Living Battlefield".
There is no firm timeline yet, but I am aiming towards preparing a first Closed Playtest towards the end of summer. If you want a chance to jump in early and help shape the game, make sure to keep an eye on the Steam page for the announcement.
If you want to support development, the absolute best thing you can to do help Contract Corps gain visibility is to Wishlist the game right now.
Also, feel free to share your thoughts on the Devlog and reach out with any comments or questions - I'd love to hear your feedback!
Until next time,
--J