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The huge amounts of money involved in war might be okay for the likes of the U.S but small regions would really struggle to keep a long war going, how is this modeled to the ingame economic's, will a war of attrition between 2 small regions suit the defender..

good question.
Also could you give examples of the ingame "money sinks" that occur during a war ?

The “costs” of war are, not surprisingly, very complex. The first costs are the equipment. This will be a major factor for smaller regions. Sub-US regions will start with a few M1 Abrams and some F-14s/F-15s/F-16s but starting in the African Congo, the initial equipment you get will probably not be of the highest quality. These regions will likely have to buy a lot of their equipment from the world market, which is also a more expensive way of getting the same equipment. To keep initial costs down, the player will usually build the equipment and keep it in reserve until it is needed. This would avoid another key expense; salaries and maintenance. All units have an associated maintenance cost that the player must pay to keep the unit in working condition. Also, the soldiers have a tendency to like getting paid. The level to which a player sets salaries and maintenance affects the overall army “efficiency” rating. A 10% efficiency bonus makes a big difference in a fight (believe me, I’ve seen it turn battles!). Salaries also affect the number of volunteers that player gets each day. If you want to wage a war, you will need soldiers and they all come from the reserves. Invoke conscription and your reserves will increase, but when it is time to go to war, those reservists become active soldiers. The more of your population you push into active service, the less people there are to run the industries. That is another element that will impact the player. You want your people working the industries, not waiting in the field for the next fight. The industries take a hit on production the more people are not around to run them.

There are a few things that will indirectly affect the cost of war. Keeping morale and military approval up will require spending on a number of these elements beyond the bare minimum. However the largest cost is certainly the “Defcon” level. This is an alert rating for the region and it has an attached “preparedness” cost. This is a very expensive element. Players that are actively at war cannot be any lower than “Elevated” (Defcon 3) unless they have a ceasefire with all their enemies. In that case they can go as low as “Guarded” (Defcon 4). Now the Defcon level does have benefits to efficiency and unit build times, but the cost is very hard for players to maintain.

The final cost of not for war is the collateral damage inflicted. As units attack near cities or industries, these upgrades are damaged. Damaged cities will automatically repair at a moderate rate and increase the player’s infrastructure costs. Industries that are damaged can be set to yes/no on auto repair but damaged industries produce less. Even bases produce units at a reduced rate once damaged.

As far as if protracted wars favor the attacker or the defender? I don’t think either has an economic advantage unless they can set the line away from their industries and cities. However, battles do tend to favor the defender.

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com

Understatement of the year. I've always wondered why most games made war relatively cheap.

If you're playing in a relatively large region, prepositioned stockpiles are definitely the way to go. People are a LOT easier to move around than heavy equipment. It makes the transition to war a little slower, but on the other hand, you can definitely scare your enemy if suddenly a few units pop out of nowhere.

Speaking of prepositioned supplies, is there a way to camoflauge it, so that units that don't take time to look at the area won't notice it? It would be pretty nifty to sneak some reserves behind enemy lines, and crank out the RPG's and mortars...

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