Making History II Design Report 5: Regions
In Making History II: The War of the World, the game map is divided into smaller territorial areas we call regions. Similar to a province, regions are the primary possession of every nation. One of our foremost goals for MHII was to increase the concept of the nation as a character in the game world. We wanted them to have a greater presence besides just responding to players actions or acting as a stiff scripted entity. Since a nation is defined by both the government and the territory it controls, the regions seemed like the fundamental location for generating and organizing the gameplay. Conceptually, we want the game to be a dynamic space where regions are in varying degrees of flux. The governments running the nations are one force in this equation; the other part is driven by the people who make up the population of your regions.
The regions in MHII are not simply chunks of map space that players vie over. Each of the approximately 1500 individual land partitions come with their own set of properties covering demographics, infrastructure and terrain. All are assigned a value based on a summary of what assets the region contains. Players can make a variety of improvements by starting projects that upgrade transportation infrastructure, defensive structures and production facilities. Food and raw materials like coal, oil and metals are produced and managed at the region level. These vital resources are required to feed your population and your industries. Developing infrastructure increases the value of a region which in turn will add to the overall national score.
Regions also produce the labor needed to run the farms, factories and fill the ranks of your military forces. The population in every region has its own separate identity, growth rate and revolt risk. The identity properties are used to form associations and common bonds between other regions in a nation and those beyond. Identity also determines to a large degree, how easy it is to govern them. Expanding nations that attempt to assimilate regions with different cultures, ethnicities and religions into their realm will face challenges to their national stability. Like mini-nations in waiting, regions can rebel and in many cases form a separate or independent nation themselves. Players will need to be strategic about how they treat the populations they control. Militarizing restless colonies and conquests can be expensive and a drain on valuable manpower. The threats to your nation are now both external and internal. Non-national populations will likely prefer independence over foreign control and it may be in your interest to let them go.
Making History II covers an era that begins in 1933 and extends beyond the historical end date of the Second World War. We wanted the gameplay to deliver the major geopolitical themes of that tumultuous period: industrial progress, western imperialism, warfare driven by ethnic nationalism and political ideology. It's an age when colonial empires ruled and when they started falling apart. World War II on its own offers more gaming potential than probably any other conflict in human history. With Making History II, we strive to offer gameplay that represents not only the war but many of the political, economic and demographic forces that ultimately instigate events. It all begins with the regions and people who reside there.
Ralph Gerth
numbers of enemy army in the other side of region must be unknown , despite spying
No, they 'must' not be unknown.
u 'should' tell me why?
I noted that the regions along the German Polish border havn't changed much. One of the biggest problems for people attempting to make a modern scenario in the editor was that area. Is there anyway those regions could be revised so its possible to make modern nations using the editor or will there be a way in the MH2 editor to modify regional borders?
Also, to comment on firestone's second post. Because its not all that hard particularly with spying and aerial reconnaissance to estimate the size, strength and unit make up on an enemy force, particularly early in the war.
you could have it both ways. aerial reconnaissance can only reveal X number of units (where x is a random number) so the more planes you send the more you see (1 fighter squadron doesn't reveal a massive army) and you get a rough idea of the enemies forces (if you send 5 fighters and see 1 infantry then you can be certain that's all there is but if you send 1 fighter and see 2 infantry and a tank then you might wanna investigate further.
warmans idea seems very good
Though if turns are still a week long you could carpet almost a whole region, depending on the region, with aerial recon. The bigger issue is there should be a camouflage netting tec that protects units from aerial recon and also units in forest regions should receive a camo bonus.
MrHistory, I'll take a look at the Polish/German Regions to see how far off the modern border is. That might be worth adjusting if we can.
The River Oder is the Current border, and the river is visible in the Campaign map screen shot but I cannot tell if it separates the regions it runs through or if it just runs through those regions. If it runs though then the borders would have to change for a modern scenario to be accurate but if not then it doesn't need to be changed.
You can zoom in on the pictures at the strategy infomer site
http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/6388/making-history-ii-design-report-5-regions
From the pictures it looks like rivers always separate regions
Which makes sense from a invasion perspective
Rivers always act as region borders. I did some work on Poland several months back. Can't remember all the changes but I'm pretty sure the borders will work for a modern Poland.
The Polish western border looks good, but how about the eastern border? Previously it couldn't be correct, as if you wanted to give the city of Lvov to the USSR (as it was in reality), there had to be a huge chunk of area cut off from Poland.
Is there a limit for naval bases capacity to store ships? This game is looking incredible. I'd pay 50 bucks for MH1 with a revolt system, this is heaven on earth. You guys went away from the usual WWII theme of war and everything else is pointless, and planned a game in which the world can develop from WWII.
I hope the Beta comes out soon, and if it doesn't I sure as hell hope Feburary comes quickly.
Right now there are no limits on basing levels.
This will be the best strategy game for sure...altough it really WOULD be fun if you can, sorta, create new cities in the different regions under certain circumstances. That would give SOME chance for the weaker nations in the game to compete...that is of course if you wanna go hardcore and turn the difficulty up a noch...the "empty" regions without cities can be preliminarily set up with certain possibilities and preconditions to build a new city, as well as a predefined number of slots so that the infinite and random creation of cities can be avoided.
We want city founding but it will unlikely be in this release.
I think that on this pictures and regions, its to few citys!
The cities have not all been placed yet. We don't even have the new city models in yet either. So the screenshots do not tell the whole story. Remember too that with the new production system the complexity has shot up a lot. Once we get all the components working we will be able to find the right city to region ratio for each nation.
I wish the every region of nation is variety colored like MH 1. it's better like that I prefer.
Ralph has stated that there will be an option in game to color it like that.
What about Lithuania? how it looks like I mean about capital it is Vilnius but i Making history is polish teritory, and culture in region of Vilnius is Lithuanian not polish, are these changes would be bring in the game??
Lets hope so!
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