Revolution under Siege: Russian Civil War Game with Ageods's RoP engine planned

[CatLord]

ORIGINAL: CatLord

We made a small teaser trailer inspired by a famous propaganda poster:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHUwG4eHnn8

Will someone find which one ?

Someone found out the answer in another forum.

It was inspired by El Lissitzky "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge":



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_the_W ... _Red_Wedge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Lissitzky

The Communist Revolution was not just a struggle for power. Its leaders were convinced, at the beginning, that they really were inventing a new man and a new world. They draw a whole lot of artists who thougth that such a new society needed to break up with the previous art forms (those must have been, of course, "bourgeois") and that art needed to reinvent itself. It was, from an artistic point of view, a vey rich period of daring trials of new way to express ideas and slogans.

Which was in phase with one of the other main problem the Soviet leaders were facing: They where trying to explain their marxist ideas, sometimes ones that were fairly complex, to a mass of analphabetic peasants. That's why they used so many propaganda posters, and with such different and modern styles: They were trying to find a way to reach the people and communicate with them in brand new ways.

One of the inheritage of the Russian Civil War is this very rich iconography of so much different artists and styles.

As soon as the "stalinisation" of USSR begin, the avant-guardist artists were driven away and replace by the "Socialist Realism" style...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_realism

Cat

[rhondabrwn]

I still have a copy of the old SPI "The Russian Civil War" game. The situation makes for a tense competition so I'm sure the AGEOD version will be one I'll want to own.

[CatLord]

Hi guys,

we are doing a lot of graphic polishing at the moment, so it is hard to post any screenshot doing justice to the game right now (but soon ! Very soon !).

So in the meantime, I will post here the main game logo and the smaller one (for forum banner use). [8D]

Here you go:

[center]

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Cat

[jomni]

Nice mix of Tzarist and Communist symbols.

[CatLord]

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=18715

The first two events of the game, from the two camps point of view, in an introductory Scenario called "Ice March" [8D]





Like the other AGE engine based games, in RUS, events will happen during the course of the game; some will be multi-choice events (like in Rise of Prussia), some have an influence in the game (e.g. getting reinforcements, etc...) and some are Flavour events, to let the players follow the course of History. [:)]

Cat

[anarchyintheuk]

Dammit. Another game to buy.

[CatLord]

Hi everybody,

let me present you a new feature of RUS, the Strategic Map:



The Strategic Map is like a giant minimap.

As well as being more readable, you can notice some differences with the minimap:

* Armies are represented by squares. Fleets are represented by triangles.
* Squares and triangles come in 3 different sizes. The game allocates these sizes using a 3-tiered system, depending on the relative size of the forces on the map. So, if your army is among the smallest forces on the map, you'll get a small square. If your army is among the strongest, you will get the largest sized square.
* Hovering the mouse over the squares and triangles gives you a tooltip naming the forces they represent. Here I am pointing at the French fleet: We are in 1919, the French and the Greek Expeditionary Forces have just disembarked on the Ukrainian coast !
* As you can see, the minimap shows many colours, since it displays the forces' nationality. The Strategic Map, on the other hand, is displaying the factions, so there are fewer of them. This is because some factions control more than one nationality.

Multi-factions is the second new feature I want to explain a bit more about in this post :

In the previous AGE based games, they were only 2 playable factions (E.g. The Blue and the Grey in AACW). In Revolution Under Siege, during the main Russian Civil War campaigns, there will be more than two factions at a time on the map.

There is always the Communists, of course (the red squares and triangles, on the Strategic Map), but the White Russians, for example, are divided in two factions: The Southern Whites and the Siberian Whites. Each of them can be played by a human or an AI.

The Southern Whites' faction controls the Southern Whites (obviously), the Don Cossacks (same faction, another nationality), the Northern Whites (Yudenich), and all western power forces that where sent into these areas (such as the French and the Greek Expeditionary Forces, but also the US Polar Bear and the English forces at Murmansk). On the Strategic Map, they are the light grey squares and triangles.

The Siberian Whites' faction controls the forces of Kolchak, and in general, all the forces on the East side of the Urals, allied with the Whites. On the Strategic Map, they are the white squares and triangles.

In a solo game, playing the Whites, you generally control only one of the two factions, and will have to let the AI play the other.

In a PBEM game, you can have up to 3 players: One for the Red, and two for the Whites.

Finally, some factions are not played by any human: The Greens, for example, are always played by the AI (the green squares, on the Strategic Map).

Some nation may change faction depending of events or of player's choices in the ledger. Makhno's anarchists, for example, may be an AI non-playable faction like the Green, or may join the Reds. The Whites can recognise other nations' independences and have them join the war at their side (The Finnish for example). Of course, getting those allies will not come for free !

Cat

[CatLord]

Here is a new feature of RUS, that I hope many of you will love.

Look what we got here:



That's right ! It looks like General Mannerheim has mustered a Finnish Air Force in Lahti. But it seems one of the elements composing it, is in a pretty bad shape. Let's have a closer look at the different elements independently:



The first element is the Air Base personnel itself. The second is composed of reconnaissance planes. And the one which has been bloodied is in fact our fighters squadron.

Can we see in the Log what has happened ?



First it looks like there has been some fighting over Lahti, to prevent an air reconnaissance mission from the communists. No casualties though.

But on the next line:



Damn ! They have intercepted our reconnaissance mission over Tampere, and there was a fierce air battle: We lost 9 fighters against only 5 of them.

Well. Air combat won't revolutionised the war yet, but it is a nice addition to the game. How does it work ? Let me quote the manual.

Air Warfare

Air units, and their support units, are a new feature in RUS. The game represents air forces via squadrons attached to an air base. This air base is a land unit consisting of all the staff necessary for the maintenance of the planes.

The air missions are implicitly made, if the air base is capable of operating its planes. There is therefore no specific order to give during your turn, but it is up to you to position your air bases in places adequate to the air missions, or to remove them from the front-line if your squadrons need to rest and receive replacements.

Activation

Air units can only be active if they are operating from a structure. Setting up an airfield, even in the early XXth century, requires a minimum of ground staff, fuel, engine parts, etc... Therefore, you need to have you Air Unit in a region with a structure for it to operate missions. Note that any structure will do and that a simple depot is sufficient.

Air Missions Type
There are three types of possible missions for your air squadrons:

• Reconnaissance
• Air fight
• Bombardment

Note that Air fight only occurs as an interception of one of the two other mission types and never for another reason. Note also that bombardment only occurs in support of a land battle.

Each squadron, represented by a single element, consists for simplicity of a single type of aircraft. These are generally capable of fulfilling at best one of the mission type but they can provide support in a secondary role. For example if fighter participate in a bombardment mission, they will strafe enemy columns with their machine-guns; if they participate in a reconnaissance mission, they will bring a slight bonus to its chances of success.

Mission range is at most on an adjacent region. It is unnecessary, even foolhardy, to stack your Air unit directly in the region a battle is occurring, although if your land units are attacked, planes in the same region will provide some support in the battle. Similarly, planes can intercept enemy planes performing missions in any adjacent regions to your air base.

(...)

Air Advices Remember that your air units represent both aircraft, pilots, ground staff and maintenance equipment. This means that you can move your air units by train or, more slowly, by wheeled carts or trucks (they would then move like a land unit, but with a speed penalty). Remember to place them in a structure if you want them to conduct air operations (you may want to build a depot specifically yo use them somewhere, to represent the effort of clearing and installing an aerodrome).

The planes are fragile, and quickly destroyed or damaged, so do not hesitate to switch the air unit posture to passive or even to withdraw it completely to the rear, to give time for your pilots and equipment to recover. Don't forget to buy replacements for them!

The basic concept of air units in RUS, is that your planes will operate automatically if an opportunity arises at a distance of at most one region away. They are easier to use in defence than in attack, but the period saw aircraft with a very limited range, and the military concept of the Blitzkrieg had yet to be invented. So, if you nevertheless want to use you air units in an offensive, do not risk them by moving them with the army your are committing to storm a region; rather, prepare your offensive against a strong opposition by setting a depot first in an adjacent region, and then move to go to battle, leaving your air unit (and a small protection/reserve force) behind. This will ensure, first that your attacking units are well supplied for the combat, and then, that the air units will help from a distance, taking off from this newly built aerodrome.



Cat

[CatLord]

Hi all,

with the release date approaching at great speed, we have been very busy in the last weeks, so please forgive me to not have had the time to release more teasers about the game.

Today, I will illustrate Uncle Joe's quote by talking about units which were emblematic of the Russian Revolution: Armoured trains. And I will also explain the units replacement/building system, as I have had many questions about it.

Armoured Units

In fact there are a few armoured unit types in the game: Armoured trains but also ww1-style tanks, and armoured cars.

Armoured trains and Tanks are combat units, not support units (the main difference with artillery), which means they directly participate in battles at the front line(s).

Their game role is mostly to provide a strong attack punch to your troops, which comes in the form of a high attack factor, and the new ability of ‘Fire Support’ (morale and fire bonus to your participating attacking infantry).

However, as a corollary of the above, both units have a high combat exposure and are bound to suffer losses in priority during those attacks.



Armoured Trains

Armoured Trains were used extensively by both sides during the conflict. In the game, they are new units made up usually of one 1 element. They come in two kinds, heavy (the green ones on the screenshot) and light (the brown ones on the screenshot).

It was very fun doing research for them. We tried to give each of the armoured train in the game its historical names, which were often grandiloquent or dedicated to a specific leader of a camp. In the screenshot you can see "Victorious Thunder", "Valour of the Knight", "General Kornilov" and "Glory of the Officer".

Armoured Trains have a new move type which is ‘Railbound’: it means they can only move on the map regions that have railroads (i.e. those printed with rail lines on the graphical map). Consequently this means they can only attack your opponent in a region that has railroad.

However, contrarily to standard rail movement (i.e. transport of units by rail), those units can enter by rail movement into enemy-controlled regions.

Also, Armoured Trains are allowed to enter regions with rail lines which have been previously destroyed (the rail destroyed icon is on the map). This will take them 10 times the normal time to enter the region (instead of the usual 1 day/region for rail move in a non-destroyed railroad region), but they will repair the line as they progress (they have a new attribute called *RailRepair* - the same attribute has been given to Rail Engineers in the game).

Tanks

Tanks were few in number, and their use was very similar to the one they had on the Western Front during WW1: They were used to disrupt and breach enemy fortified lines (i.e. trenches). Most of them were extremely slow and prone to frequent mechanical breakdowns.

Tanks have a new attribute, called *Disrupter*: This gives the attacker a chance to breach the fortified lines of the defender, i.e. to reduce the impact of the defender being in a fortified position (entrenched).

Reinforcements and Replacements

Reinforcements work the same way as in Rise of Prussia, while Replacements are very similar to the way AACW was working.

Reinforcements

Reinforcements (new units) are build from a special menu on the main map:



You can build the new units only in special area. Most of the infantry units can be build on any big city, but heavy units like artillery can only be build where heavy industry existed. And some units cannot be build until late in the game (when tankodromes were built by the belligerents).

Also, because of the sheer numbers of the armies during the revolution, you can build whole division directly now, including several infantry regiments plus artillery in one go. Of course it's much more expensive and take more time to build.

Replacements

Replacements are accessible from the ledger, where you can also see the reinforcements currently being constructed:



Replacement are bought by clicking on the small NATO-like symbols on the bottom right. Here I have no replacement currently available, so I have ordered 2 Infantry, 2 militias, 1 reconnaissance armoured car, 1 cavalry and 1 armoured trains replacement chits. They will be used to bring replacement to damage units in the field, as per the normal AGE engine rules.


Well that's it for today, back to play some more games for me !

Cat

[CatLord]

Just a quick update to say we are currently aiming at releasing the game for the 23rd of November.

Wish us luck ! [:D]

Cat

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: CatLord

Just a quick update to say we are currently aiming at releasing the game for the 23rd of November.

Wish us luck ! [:D]

Cat

Nah, you don't need luck, just a good product [;)]

Will there be a demo ?

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[Anthropoid]

Loved Rise of Prussia. Will definitely be picking up this one too [:D]

[SlickWilhelm]

ORIGINAL: CatLord

Just a quick update to say we are currently aiming at releasing the game for the 23rd of November.

Wish us luck ! [:D]

Cat

I'll have the credit card ready to go, Cat. [8D]

[Terminus]

Can we see a screenshot including some ships?

[martok]

Awesome, Cat Lord! I'm looking forward to it. [:)]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Can we see a screenshot including some ships?

I'll probably regret asking this, but what the heck....

Why do you want a screenie showing ships when it's a game that featured mostly combat between armies? It's not like navies played a prominent role during this conflict.

[redcoat]

Warships did not play a prominent role, but the Royal Navy helped the Baltic states to gain their independence. They denied the Bolsheviks the ability to move troops and supplies by sea, bombarded Bolshevik land forces, sank Bolshevik warships and landed supplies.

[Terminus]

No special reason. We've seen land and air units, so why not ships?

[Erik Rutins]

Just FYI, we are aiming to have Revolution Under Siege available here on November 23rd as well for those who are interested.

Regards,

- Erik

[Lützow]

Just 8 months after RoP. That's fast.

I'm going to wait for the demo.

[SlickWilhelm]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Just FYI, we are aiming to have Revolution Under Siege available here on November 23rd as well for those who are interested.

Regards,

- Erik

Thanks, Erik. I will wait and purchase it from Matrix Games, of course. [:)]