Eugen Staff

DevBlog #14: Naval Support

This DevBlog is intended to explain the way Naval Support is integrated ingame.

Every deck type, whatever its nation, coalition or specialization, now has a 9th “Naval” category. However, as you can see below, slots in this category cost … no activation point. Zero. Walou. Nada.

This mean that every deck should make sure to have as much Naval Support troops in reserve as possible!
The reason for that is that not all map will be “naval friendly”, that is: including the possibility to bring in naval support. Some maps will be, as in previous instalment, purely ground maps. So there would have been no point to make people spend activation points in slots which might be useless depending on the map.

Therefore, decks shall be composed as usual, spending all activation points in the 8 “traditional” categories, with naval support as a free “bonus” to be used on appropriate maps. On the example below, although every activation points have been used up, I can still fill all my naval slots.

The Naval Support roaster is composed of three types of units:
- SHIPS: of various sizes and firepower, some specialized in air defence, some in ground support, … to secure and cap naval reinforcement zones and bring in the assault barge.

- ANTI-SHIP PLANES & HELOS: they are dedicated ship killers, armed with powerful missiles able to inflict crippling damages to the most powerful ships. Their role is to bring the fight to the ennemy’s vessels without risking your owns in firing range.

- LANDING TROOPS: the bulk of the naval support troops are landing troops. Once a naval reinforcement zone is controled by one side, he might bring in more troops to land them and open a new front on the beachhead. Those troops are made up of all those you can find in a Marine deck (infantry & transport, tanks, support troops, …), plus some Army units.

Although landing troops remained tied to their original country/coalition (RIMa will be only available in a French or Eurocorps deck), purely naval elements like ships and anti-ship planes & helicopters are considered part of a multinational BLUFOR / REDFOR fleets. They are thus available (in decks) to support ground/landing troops from any of the nations composing it.

Ships will have their own dedicated “armory background” in the form of a “caldera lake”:

All in all, Red Dragon will bring about 600 new units (more than ALB after two free DLCs), among which are 100 naval support units (ships, planes & helicopters).

DevBlog #13: Lafayette, nous voilà!

Eugen Systems & the Chantier DCN de Lorient are proud to present the first-born of their frigates: the gorgeous Lafayette class.

But you have all seen it before, don’t you remember … ? :)

The Lafayette will be armed with one 100mm rapid-fire gun (78rpm IRL!), two four-tubes Exocet (ASM) launchers, one eight-tubes Crotale (SAM) launcher and two 20mm autocannons. That is: six weapons.

Yet, as for vehicules, naval units will feature only 3 weapons slots to avoid confusion.
But that doesn’t mean the extra weapons will be lost. Part of the ship’s weaponry will be automated, starting with AA ones, which will provide, depending of their type and performance, a level of “point-defense” against incoming enemy missiles. The more CIWS (Close-in Weapon Systems) a ship have, altough not listed as armament, the better it will be at automatically stopping waves of missiles coming its way, or engage aircrafts.

In the case of the Lafayette, it will therefore be armed with twin Exocet, Crotale & a 100mm gun (identical weapons being “linked” together) while the AA 20mm will be automated.

DevBlog #12: Queen of Battles

With Wargame’s timeframe extending from 1975-1985 to 1975-1991 in Red Dragon, infantry units won’t be able to remain the same for the whole era without evolving like their armored counterparts.

In AirLand Battle, the deliveries of late-era infantry weaponry, such as the Sa80 or the widespread of the FAMAS, were not taken into account for they would have prevented some mainstream infantry units to be available in all era. In Red Dragon, it won’t be the case anymore.
Some (not all!) infantry units, usually combat troops/rifle squads will come in two variants: the “vanilla” one representing their weaponry in 1975, as per ALB’s standards, and a second variant dated ‘85 or '90 (depending of the nation and the real-life evolution of its weaponry) with improved weaponry.

Small arms might change, especially in terms of accuracy and close-quarter efficiency, but the main boost to infantry which this infantry improvements will provide will be with their anti-tank capacity: US Riflemen switching from M72 LAW to AT4/M136 in the mid-80’s, while the Soviet troops will drop their RPG-7 to get their hands on the dreaded Vampyr at the turn of the 90’s.
Thus, with nations’ infantry forces evolving at different dates, this will make era-deck more versatile: a nation which might have been “underdog”, infantry-wised, in 1975, might transitionned to its modern weaponry earlier than other nations, and thus get an edge in mid-era decks.

Let’s take one of the most extrem evolution, for in this case, it will bring the unit from 1975 weapons to prototype 1992 ones : W-German Fallschirmjäger.

(stats are not meant to be final)

W-German Fallschirmjäger(en?) will come in '75 flavor in most era-decks, but will be available in their 90’s flavor only in late-era ones, and to W-Germany or Coalition decks.
The G11 was the Wunderwaffe supposed to replace the G3 as the main Bundeswehr assault rifle, but although it proved successfull in field testing in the late 80’s, it was dropped in the early 90’s for cost reasons (there were no more ennemy) and NATO ammo standardization (it used a unique 4,73mm caseless ammunition). But had a war broke in 1990, the G11 would surely have been mass-produced and widespred …
The Panzerfaust 3 was the Panzerfaust 44’s successor. Also ready for field testing by the late 80’s, it actually entered service in the Bundeswehr in 1992.

Most other “improved” infantry units won’t be “prototype”, but be unlocked in era decks depending of the nation and the date, as any other unit variants …

DevBlog #11: Apex inbound! Break! Break!

Red Dragon will introduce a popular feature request from ALB players: jets releasing flares when being targeted by enemy missiles.

The better a plane’s ECM, the more intense and numerous the flares it will launch to lose the missile(s) trailing it.

So, when two planes with good ECM are engaged in a missile fight, especially when they’ve got 50 years of scores to settle, it soon start looking like 14th of July’s firework!

DevBlog #10: Set sails!

First, let’s put us in the mood for some serious talk about ships. :)
IN THE NAVY!

Many questions have been asked about the way the ships will be featured in Red Dragon. Now isn’t the time to answer them all, but here are some clarifications …

Boats are divided (gameplay-wise) into three types :

- Destroyers & Frigates (over 80m long) will be the flagships by taking the role of naval command vehicles, hence being able to seize control of naval reinforcement zones. Covered with weapons, the destroyers will be the mightiest ships to sail in Red Dragon. The Japanese Kongo & Soviet Udaloy II destroyers, respectively 161m et 163m long, will be the Kings of the High Seas.

- Corvettes are smaller combat boats (30-90m), either designed for pure naval warfare (anti-ship missiles, …) or with some ground support weaponry (MLRS, mortar, …). Usually faster than their bigger brethen, they will be the scouts and main frontline ships of the naval forces. The South Korean Pohang corvette will be among the biggest of its kind, while the ubiquitous Soviet Osa (used by pretty much every communist state in the world) will be among the smallest.

- Patrol boats (under 30m long) will be the smallest boats, with light weaponry. Like ants among giants, they will, unlike the bigger boats, be able to leave the sea to penetrate inland through rivers, and thus act as support weapon platforms for the ground troops. My personal favorite being the Vietnam-era Monitor “Zippo”.

Boats will be armed with a wide array of weaponry, ranging from mere MGs to anti-ship missiles, autocannon, howitzer, SAM …
But a major new game mechanics will be introduced by point-defense weapon systems, designed to engage and intercept enemy missiles before impact. Thus, the biggest and best protected ships shall withstand a volley of missiles by shooting down most of them!

Dev Blog #9: Campaigning in Asia …

Today, let’s talk a bit about solo campaigns …

Red Dragon will feature a dozen solo campaigns. They will be distributed over the timeframe and sides to give the players the opportunity to experiment a wide array of situations, armies and equipment.

Unlike AirLand Battle, which has a single strategic map over which different battlegroups and scenarios were set, each of Red Dragon’s campaigns will have its own strategic map. Size, lenght and number of battlegroups involved will also vary greatly depending on the campaign.

Some campaigns will be individual scenarios, while some will be linked together into an operation of larger scale.

And like in European Escalation’s old days, each campaign will have its own context and even dedicated art. Such as this:

“Bear vs. Dragon” will, chronologically, be the first campaign. As one can easily imagine, this campaign will pitch China against the USSR in a limited border war in 1979, when the former’s intervention in Vietnam triggers the latter’s reaction.

Other campaigns will take place in and around the Korean peninsula, featuring some old Empire fighting for its jewelry, DMZ-incidents-turning-hot, … or manga inspiration:

Dev Blog #8: With a little help from my friends ….

While AirLand Battle focused on alliances (NATO & Warsaw Pact) and individual nations, Red Dragon will include a new layer of military brotherhood: Coalitions.

Uniting together several pre-determined countries in a kind of “super nation”, Coalition decks will have access to all of its members’ prototypes, but will grant less activation points available than individual nations would.

Coalitions will be (some names are still subjected to change):

COMMONWEALTH:
UK + ANZAC + Canada

NSWP:
Poland + CSSR + E-Germany

SCANDINAVIA:
Sweden + Denmark + Norway

EUROCORPS:
France + W-Germany

RED DRAGONS:
China + North Korea

BLUE DRAGONS:
Japan + South Korea

And finally, USA & USSR will stand alone …

Dev Blog #7: AI improvements & decks.

Hi,

With Red Dragon project running, the time has come to revive this dev blog.

The first new feature we wish to talk about is AI improvement. And especially its ability to “play” with decks.

In European Escalation & AirLand Battle, the AI had been “trained” to play with some specific, pre-defined decks.
In Red Dragon, the AI has been entirely reworked so to be able to play with whatever deck it is given.

Now with this new AI, new possibilities are open :

¤ in skirmish or multiplayer, all your decks are shared with the AI.
You can create, customize, and assign decks to every AI slots individually. Therefore, you will be able to create AI decks that serve your strategy as an ally… or fight against an enemy which you have designed yourself ! Just like a sparing partner. :)

¤ in campaign, the AI will be able to combine play different battlegroups’ strenght & weaknesses to get the best out of them.

The AI’s behaviour regarding the rules of vision has also been improved. The AI will no longer react to units it doesn’t see, allowing effective sneaky or flanking tactis like against any human player.
It won’t be able to spot your units witout proper recon, and thus being able to bomb (or smoke :)) your position “blindly” like before.

DevBlog #6: User Interface

For those of you whom have heard about the new UI customisation but haven’t been able to test it on the beta, here are some details.

The UI concentrated most of the critics during the beta, therefore we put in increased efforts to address most of the reported issues.

1) GUI / HUD options.

- company labels, which were very much criticized (“too big”, “NATO icons”, “merging is annoying”…etc) : all these aspects are now tailored to your will. Wether the labels are big, small, use icons or not…is up to you. Even the merging can be toned down or even suppressed. You can even get very close to what W:EE was, if you wanted to, by twisting these options. They will come with 2 default settings called “Airland battle” and “European escalation”, and a third one “custom” which allows you to set various parameters for the labels.

- HUD size “too big” : now you can customize its size. Same for minimap size. Wanna have a tiny minimap? No prob. You can even hide it if you feel like it.

2) Aircom menu understanding and productivity :
it was requiring way too many clicks to use and some must-have functionalities like ability to select and give order to multiple planes at the same time were missing. It has been entirely reworked into a new Airport panel and feels very comfortable now. It is displayed nicely and is quick to use :

- first you buy your planes in the production menu like any other unit, in the AIR category

- the airport panel automatically opens and displays your newly acquired plane. You can store up to 9 planes in this panel. Each can be included in a selection like any other unit on the battlefield. You can give them orders directly from the airport: right click to move, fire on position or attack on target. Ctrl+click to select all planes of a kind, and maj+click to select multiple planes also work that way.

3) production menu: same as aircom menu, it was hard to use in the first beta, now one click equals one production, like it should be.

4) the navigation in the menus have been re-organized so that everything can still be accessible from the lobby while you waiting for your game to start. You will be able to modify your deck while you way, or keep an eye on the games list, or scroll through the leaderboard (yes, rankings are now fully integrated in the game in W:ALB).