Click here to read the previous dev blog (#3) - TownyBuildings

In the first dev blog, I introduced CampaignWar - a custom war plugin being developed for a test gamemode. If you haven’t read it yet, you should do that first. We introduced the world, which is divided into provinces, and how individual provinces are captured during wars (through “province attacks”).

Today we will discuss wars themselves: how they are started, fought and concluded. Our intention is to make wars purposeful and have defined objectives, and to have them initiated through diplomatic means.

Ultimatums

Clausewitz famously said, “War is the continuation of policy with other means.” And so in CampaignWar, war is not inevitable; it is one of two possible outcomes of an ultimatum—a diplomatic process that begins when one nation (A) attempts to impose demands upon another nation (B).

A demand is something you want another nation to give you. Currently, there are three types¹ of demands of implemented:

• Occupying an enemy province
• Liberating a province from enemy occupation
• Forcing the enemy nation to pay you a percentage of their national wealth daily ("reparations")

Let's suppose Nation A demands to occupy a province owned by Nation B. The demand costs victory points - more on that later.

Upon receiving these demands, Nation B has two choices: either peacefully yield to the demands or refuse and present counter-demands to Nation A.

Let's assume Nation B chooses the second option. If they wish, they can now escalate the ultimatum to the international level. This gives both nations one day to call their allies for support. If the ultimatum becomes a war, allies that accept the call will participate in it (though calling all of your allies isn’t necessarily a smart decision, as we will discover.)

Now Nation A faces a similar choice. It can yield to Nation B's counter-demands to avoid war, or refuse. If they refuse, the countdown to war begins. With both nations steadfast in their demands, and neither willing to yield, war becomes the only means to determine whose demands will prevail. The war will begin on the next scheduled war day (Friday), and will last for 48 hours (it can end earlier if one side surrenders.)

Here's a flowchart of the whole process:

Victory Points

As mentioned earlier, demands cost victory points (VPs). During the war, capturing enemy provinces earns VPs for your side. However, if the enemy recaptures a province, your side loses the VPs it gained from it. Provinces containing more claimed land or the nation capital are worth more VPs.

Wars aren't actually 4 days long - they're 2 days. This is just a screenshot from a test version.

To impose your demands on the enemy nation, your side must win at least as many VPs during the war as the total VP cost of those demands. For example, if your demands cost 100 VPs, you need to have at least 100 VPs at the end of the war. Therefore, it is in your interest to avoid making unrealistic demands during the ultimatum.

All nations involved in the ultimatum can have their provinces attacked during the war. Yes, that even includes allied nations that accepted calls for support. So, if you decide to call in allies, remember that they can become a liability—their provinces can be captured, giving VPs to the enemy.

What if both sides win enough VPs for their demands? In this case, both sides “win” - they impose their demands upon each other. This leads to some interesting strategic choices. For example, should you focus on securing your own demands by attacking instead of defending, even if that means the enemy side imposes their demands on you?

Battle Sessions

In CW, wars are still divided into battle sessions. During a province attack, if the attackers do not control any captured chunks at the end of a battle session, the attack fails, and the province cannot be attacked in the next session. Outside of sessions, provinces do not lose HP, and chunks cannot be captured.

Vulnerability Windows

During testing, we found that CW battles can be intense and hard-fought. We do not want a “nightcapping” meta where provinces are only captured or recaptured while the enemy side is offline, as this rewards avoiding battles.

Preventing this is the purpose of vulnerability windows (VWs). A nation’s VW consists of the battle sessions that its provinces can be attacked in. Right now, we think VWs should last for two consecutive sessions, although this may change before release. The VW can be chosen and viewed through a GUI. There are safeguards to prevent exploitation of the system, like changing VWs mid-war.

If a nation attacks an enemy province outside of its own VW, that nation will be vulnerable for the remainder of the enemy nation’s VW. The logic here is that if you are able to begin an attack, you are also able to defend.

Truces

Wars need a reasonable conclusion. CW addresses this by expanding truces. When a war ends, all participants enter a temporary but unbreakable truce with each other. The truce prevents them from beginning ultimatums against each other, and being called as allies into ultimatums against each other. This same kind of truce is also formed if an ultimatum is settled peacefully by one side yielding, preventing them from being spammed with more ultimatums.

Conclusion

As always, if you have any questions, feedback or concerns about the features presented here, feel free to reply. Your input is valuable and may reveal areas for improvement or change.

The next dev blog may come later than usual as new features are still being developed and pre-announced features are being polished.

¹ Internally, demands are implemented in a flexible way, so it is likely more will be eventually added (e.g. forced vassalization? Forcing the nation to ally or drop enemies? Feel free to share your own ideas in the replies.)

do wars go on for more than 2 days in weekend?? if not i feel wars should be able to go on for weeks if not months as it is realistic but yah fighting/capturing can only happen on weekends but wars should be able to go on for a long period of time.

What happens once a province is captured and the war ends? Does the attacking nation get to occupy it like n2 where the province would be forced to pay occupation taxes? Or would the province be forced to join the attacker's nation or what

Another banger blog, great stuff 

" not i feel wars should be able to go on for weeks if not months as it is realistic"
Wouldn't that just be more draining? Though if tuned properly it could work but it would need a lot of details you know

Otherwise great stuff!!

_dogster:

What happens once a province is captured and the war ends? Does the attacking nation get to occupy it like n2 where the province would be forced to pay occupation taxes? Or would the province be forced to join the attacker's nation or what

By itself, capturing a province just gives you victory points. Captured provinces stop being captured after war ends.

Whether you occupy a province after the war depends on the demands you have chosen: was one of your demands to occupy the province, and did you win enough victory points to impose them? If the answer to both questions is yes, then you occupy the province. So you don't necessarily have to capture a province during the war to occupy it. Your demands and number of VPs decide that.

Your second question is pretty interesting. In short, I'm still deciding. It is possible both options will be available, so "occupy a town" (like on Nations) and "annex a town" (forcing the town to join your nation) are both potential demands. If both exist, annexation demands will cost more VPs than occupation demands.

Such a cool development

So, forgive me for the long list of questions that I have here, but I am curious and intrigued from the last test and I do have a few questions.

1. How close are we to an open beta testing of the game mode 

2. how big is the map going to be, as well as an oddball of provinces that will be present

now time for the nitty gritty stuff

3. as in the second dev log, there has been talk about adding in modifications for armor, if possible to ask is there a way to obtain them in the game (either through crafting, or as some sort of war trophies for victories against other towns/nations

4. will money still exist in this gamemode, and if it does, what purpose will it serve (will it be used for the construction of houses and Production buildings, or is it just there to act as a soft block when it comes to paying taxes. if it will exist that is)

5. in the 3rd dev log, there has been mentions to production buildings and how they will work. i'd assume that there is a yield increase if the building gets upgraded, but i am wondering about the production times, if it is only by daily, or if there is a set time that it takes to produce an order from a mine and or other building, like 75 minutes for an order of 64 iron or something along those lines

6. with the introduction of these production buildings, one might as well ask if slimefun will be present here, and if it is, to what degree will slimefun have in the world, if we are able to use machines, make food, armors, etc. or if the plugin is getting scrapped in this server

7. There has also been mention of Utility buildings that will provide some assistance to how the province can operate, with that being said. will there be buildings that will allow the construction of aircraft, or be able to use it in the province as well as in neighboring provinces, or is the idea still in its infancy to even think about specifics?

8. With the introduction of ultimatums and the war system that is to be implemented here, will towns be able to be fully occupied, (meaning that they switch sides to the nation that captures them during war, or will it work similar to nations where the town is occupied, but still a part of its home nation

last question (i swear)

9. with a few of these plugins being really interesting and game changing, will we see some of them make an appearance to nations, or are these exclusive to Campaign wars.
(ex. the house system in dev log 3, or more recently as of the last test, the battery system)

lot of questions I know, I would be grateful if you are able to shed light on any of these. and I eagerly await the day that we are able to test this fully.

AlmondNine00:

So, forgive me for the long list of questions that I have here, but I am curious and intrigued from the last test and I do have a few questions.

1. How close are we to an open beta testing of the game mode 

2. how big is the map going to be, as well as an oddball of provinces that will be present

now time for the nitty gritty stuff

3. as in the second dev log, there has been talk about adding in modifications for armor, if possible to ask is there a way to obtain them in the game (either through crafting, or as some sort of war trophies for victories against other towns/nations

4. will money still exist in this gamemode, and if it does, what purpose will it serve (will it be used for the construction of houses and Production buildings, or is it just there to act as a soft block when it comes to paying taxes. if it will exist that is)

5. in the 3rd dev log, there has been mentions to production buildings and how they will work. i'd assume that there is a yield increase if the building gets upgraded, but i am wondering about the production times, if it is only by daily, or if there is a set time that it takes to produce an order from a mine and or other building, like 75 minutes for an order of 64 iron or something along those lines

6. with the introduction of these production buildings, one might as well ask if slimefun will be present here, and if it is, to what degree will slimefun have in the world, if we are able to use machines, make food, armors, etc. or if the plugin is getting scrapped in this server

7. There has also been mention of Utility buildings that will provide some assistance to how the province can operate, with that being said. will there be buildings that will allow the construction of aircraft, or be able to use it in the province as well as in neighboring provinces, or is the idea still in its infancy to even think about specifics?

8. With the introduction of ultimatums and the war system that is to be implemented here, will towns be able to be fully occupied, (meaning that they switch sides to the nation that captures them during war, or will it work similar to nations where the town is occupied, but still a part of its home nation

last question (i swear)

9. with a few of these plugins being really interesting and game changing, will we see some of them make an appearance to nations, or are these exclusive to Campaign wars.
(ex. the house system in dev log 3, or more recently as of the last test, the battery system)

lot of questions I know, I would be grateful if you are able to shed light on any of these. and I eagerly await the day that we are able to test this fully.

1. I can't give a date this early, unfortunately. It would be dishonest of me to pretend that I have a goal for release in mind. There are two great complications here: my IRL job, and the complexity of writing these plugins. On some days, an excellent amount of progress might be made; on others, very little.

2. Nations-sized at a minimum; possibly larger. However, the beta map may be considerably smaller than the one slated for release.

3. Armour mods are critical to PvP, so they must be easily obtainable. They will most likely be manufactured via Slimefun.

4. Money will exist and serve the same role as it does on Nations.

5. The length of the production cycle varies by building and chosen production method. Some may produce once daily. Most will produce every X hours.

6. The current thinking is that Slimefun will exist in some capacity, though it is fairly certain that the feature of silver being a source of money will be dropped in favour of other (and hopefully more engaging) money-making methods. I am conscious that this change alone is a significant change and appreciate input on the utility of Slimefun without silver farming. TownyBuildings is not intended to be a substitute for Slimefun, in the same manner that TownyResources on Nations is not either. Several of the planned production methods will consume Slimefun items.

7. It is unlikely that aircraft will exist on this gamemode. I haven't made a final decision on the matter, but the reasoning against their inclusion is that we want to encourage the development of maritime travel and ground-based infrastructure such as railways. Aircraft, particularly zeppelins, would displace a lot of potential maritime and ground-vehicular travel.

8. Possibly both. See my reply to _dogster early in this thread.

9. The smaller features such as artillery batteries are far more likely to be added to Nations than the game-changing features such as TownyBuildings. The latter are still untested (e.g., it may transpire that the whole concept of TownyBuildings is rubbish in practice) and their impact on server performance has not been assessed.