Barely have the guns fallen silent over Europe when a new conflict looms in the horizon. A very different one, one of proxy wars and infamous spheres of influences. A product of a way of thinking where might makes right and where the large powers decide the fate of the smaller ones.
Focus on the Fight
Introducing Focuses in the game, we wanted to make this core mechanic communicate more clearly what is to come in terms of possible decisions, policies, leaders and more. Leading a superpower, each faction selects a focus and completing its objectives within a set of turns will earn you prestige in the form of Victory Points. Preventing the enemy from completing their focus can also be equally be rewarding.
Let's look, for example, at the Greek Civil War, one of the randomized starting points you can seek to embark on during the first timeline (1946-1950).
The inner workings
It all begins with the focus choice, the leftmost arrow-like shape, both for the USSR (in red) and for the USA (in blue). For "the Return of the King", the colored circle inside the focus's arrow-like shape indicates the interest that is involved the most (green for government).
In turn, they connect a web of black arrows linking events and possible outcomes depending on the choices you make. For this Focus, with Greece in the balance, the US objective is either to gain 3 influence and peace in Greece OR to get the USSR influence lower than 1 while stationing an American Army Command in the country. The USSR is fighting in the short term to prevent that, though thwarting this possibly short term US effort might not be part of their strategy. Sometimes it can be more rewarding to play the long game and use a short term opportunity to align conditions for something better down the line like the focus ‘Balkanic Ambitions’, should it be available in that timeline.
Hexagonal shapes represent narrative events that set the scene and provide both historical context and hints on the course of actions to take.
Rectangular shapes, on the other hand, are those decisions where you get to select between alternative courses of action.
Disarmaments and Arms Races
Decisions alone are only a part of the picture. You will have to act on the field of battle, as to declare peace you need a mutual disarmament. Yet, arms races can be a quick option for making use of Army Commands, Fortify ability to increase your influence by one for the relatively cheap cost of 1 turn. Therefore, going for an Arms Race, declaring warzones, destroying enemy units and with Tito in the picture, the USSR gets another ace up its sleeve.
A seasoned general will tell you, focusing too much on a single zone means winning the conflict and losing the struggle. Remember that objectives are multiples as the different theaters still net you points for control at the end of each timeline. The Cold War is an exciting and interconnected affair and focuses are one of several excellent tools on your way to world domination; also remember there is always the option to make a feint and then move pieces for a mate on this nuclear chessboard
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Upcoming Development
This has been our biggest accomplishment yet in the history of developing Terminal Conflict. We hope to see you as we settle in for a wild Cold War ride that would make Dr Strangelove giggle of excitement.
With all the main features being in we would love to get feedback on the balancing as well as on the content and the main focus for our team next is the 'Greek Civil War'. Keep an eye on the news and expect a full development diary from William Bois 'Thinking Waffle' d'Enghien soon!
CHANGELOG
AI
- AI is now slightly less Assassination happy
- Made the AI slightly more likely to conduct naval invasions
GAME
- Victory/Defeat messages updated to a new format for easier reading
- Fixed an issue that gave players of certain Windows-OS locales huge changes to influence by effects
- Fixed an issue that caused 'End of Timeline' effects to perpetually stall the game in the timeline it was first fired in
- Fixed an issue that caused 'End of Timeline' effects to incorrectly apply to both factions
- Fixed the incorrect shortcut icon being used
- Fixed an issue where nukes would draw out of Africa when being launched out of the Arctic
- Fixed an issue where Algeria and Morocco had support from the incorrect faction
- Increasing POL to a level where friendly POL makes a region CONTROLLED will automatically trigger a warzone if a hostile Land/Air unit is present
- Fixed Interest values being only partially lit (needs verification)
- Fixed Doomsday tracker incorrectly displaying as 0 despite being maxed when navigating from FOCUS MGMT to the world overview
- Any focus that requires you have at least X of any interest now also require that you have Y or less of the counter-interest
- Fixed the notification for dual disarmament mentioning the doubling of turns
- Fixed an issue that caused the disarmament circles to draw in the new FOCUS MGMT screen
- Fixed the max turn counter not updating immediately if increased
- Fixed a rare issue where an exception would occur for specific flag notifications
- Fixed NOT being incorrectly appended to triggers & effects that have a custom description
- Save Games are now saved in LocalLow\StrategyMill\Terminal Conflict (or your OS equivalent)
- Fixed an issue that caused surrendering to not always grant a loss or win to the respective players
- Fixed an issue that causes the sound effect of all travelling nukes to play on top of each other if you skip the apocalypse
- Fixed an issue that was causing Out of Focus movement to cost 2 PEOPLE if a double move was done
- Added Click & Hold notification for focuses, stating the turn and interest gain for it
EDITOR
- Fixed an issue where several triggers did not consider THIS
- Adding a SetFlag trigger in the editor now presents of list of existing flags, instead of a field for typing
- Fixed Interest notification condition displaying #INTERESTNAME with incorrect target faction color
- Fixed Terminal Conflict configuration incorrectly called Arpanet2 Configuration. Please note that this will reset your resolution and window settings
- Fix to buttons not showing up properly in the editor
FOCUS
- Added new focus system, along with editor
- Focuses with 3 turns will now disappear from selection after that selection round. These focuses are indicated by their titles flashing and cycling with EXPIRING
- Focuses will decay at 3 per round of focus selection
- The above 2 points can be edited in GameVariables for modding
- Manually skipping a focus selection will reduce the amount of turns left on all of your faction's focuses by 3
- Added base focuses for all theaters
- Fixed Full Employment giving ELITE instead of the correct PEOPLE interest
- Fixed Ba'ath Party theater being WEEU instead of the correct MIEA
- Fixed Cultivate Relations mentioning CENTRAL AMERICA incorrectly
- Fixed several issues with focus conditions
- Updated PAIGC Rebellion Focus Image
- Several focuses and their related decision chains have had their triggers adjusted
- Fixed the incorrect interest being assigned to Building up the Party
- Fixed FocusMGMT not remembering your Focus/Theater choice
- Fixed an issue that caused 'Expiring' to flash too quickly for focuses
- US Grain sales now has its conditions split into USA and USSR, instead of using target ALL to avoid confusion
- Fixed Détente 501 missing a theater in its condition
- Fixed various typos
DECISIONS
- USSR PEOPLE interest crisis chain added
- USSR ELITES crisis chain added
- Plan of Partition chain now only triggers during a MIEA focus, instead of both MIEA and WEEU
- (WIP) Added USSR GOVERNMENT crisis to MainGame
- Made it so priority decisions now always display before other decisions on the same turn
- Fixed an issue where priority decisions would not fire on turn 1 if a unilateral disarmament occurred
- Fixed a typo in the Long Telegram (805) description
- Fixed Free Territory of Trieste chain firing after it has been dissolved
- Fixed an option in Political Favors 13354 that was extending past the decision box
- Added Return of the King decision chain
- Added Balkanic Ambitions decision chain
- Made several decisions now require a specific focus is chosen to start
- Fixed News portion of decisions being in the incorrect color in certain cases
- Fate of Germany chain now only triggers if the Focus 'Soviet Reparations 456' or 'Building up the Party 451' is chosen
- Many other decision chains that would fire immediately at the start of the game have now been attached to their relevant focus, similar to the one above
- Fixed an issue in the Fate of Germany decision chain where multiple, different versions of duels of fate could fire at the same time
- Fate of Germany 5358 now can also trigger from Treaty of Zgorzelec 454 and An Iron Curtain 458
- Greek Civil War Implemented
- Tito now properly set up and activated by Brotherhood of Unity
- Softcoding code has been optimized
SINGLE PLAYER
- Added missing decision flags in various scenarios
- Fixed most issues with Wargames not working as intended after the new Focus System implementation
- Added the Focus Image for Scen. 8
MULTIPLAYER
- Fixed an issue that could cause the UI to display as the incorrect faction during matchmaking
- Fixed the challenge mode connection counter incorrectly freezing when it runs out
- Fixed an issue that caused the timeout notification to incorrectly appear as soon as you attempt to connect in MP
- Fixed an issue that caused the winner of match to not get a victory screen when the defeated player quit out of the game during focus selection
LINUX
- (Linux) Fixed an issue that caused sound to not play correctly
- (Linux) Fixed an issue that caused the configuration to not display properly
- (Linux) Fixed the incorrect architecture being used for builds
OTHER
- Fixed a typo in MIRVIN's introduction
- Fixed Interest values being only partially lit
- Changed the shortcut to open the console from \ to ^
- Various other smaller bug fixes