This is the post reserved for the Manual. Manual is still a work in progress.
The game is turn based, played on a grid map, like in DF. Each player takes his turn in a predetermined order.
Also, various dice are required to play. I use random.org for this, but if you want to use real dice, you'll need
d20
d10
d5
d3
Notes
*The economy is not complete. I'd like to make for research to matter in the economic side of things, where you could research improvements to buildings and then spend resources to upgrade them, but I'm not there yet.
**All prices for things are placeholder. Certain unit stats are likely very OP. This is to be discussed in this forum.
Now onto the mechanics.
Production and Resources
Each turn, the players will gain an income from each of their buildings. This income is not fixed, but instead fluctuates based on various factors that are abstracted out. Each building will produce 1 dice x goods, thus giving the chance for a factory to under produce a market. There are four resources:
1. Manpower, gained by farms, used as labor to staff and produce buildings, and also used to reinforce and as strength for new units. To expand the limit on manpower, build houses and apartments.
2. Industrial Capital, gained by markets and factories, stored in markets and warehouses, used to buy units and construct buildings.
3. Research, gained by schools, labs, and universities, used to create new unit types to wage war with. Also used to create buildings that require smart people, ex factories. Research points don't require storage.
4. Officers, gained by barracks and academies, stored in barracks. 1 officer is required for each unit to be created.
Each turn, players can build or research anything they have the resources for with a limit of 1 building per tile. Then they each move their units and resolve combat as needed. Units are to be created from the unit stats below.
Unit Stats
Units have several stats that are all at least marginally important.
First is Strength. Strength is the amount of manpower in the unit. The more people in the unit, the easier it is to hit them. This stacks with other units in the tile, so expect a higher amount of losses if you have your entire army in one tile. On the flip side, the more people in a unit, the more attacks. Each strength adds 1 attack in combat. This is multiplied latter by rate of fire. So a unit of strength 5 with 3 RoF can fire 15 times in one turn.
Next is Initiative. Initiative is split between offensive initiative and defensive initiative. Each initiative is added to the initiative roll. Defensive initiative adds to the defender's initiative roll, while offensive initiative adds to the attacker's roll. I added this because my friend didn't want the game to have the defender always fire first. The way initiative works is that the attacker's roll is put in a ratio with the defender's roll of Offense:Defense. This ratio is then reduced and determines who goes first, and how many shots before the defenders fire over the course of the battle. For example, say I roll a 15 with an attacker's initiative of 5, that would be 20, while my opponent rolls a 13, with a defender's initiative of 4, then there would be a ratio of 20:17. I get first attack, and the ratio is about 1.17, so every 6 shots I get an extra shot. This is kind of why I want to automate the game, so the player does not have to do these calculations.
Next is Rate of Fire. Rate of Fire is the amount of times one strength can fire in one turn. Each player can fire up to the amount of strength multiplied by rate of fire in one turn. In a battle, the entire stack is considered active. So it might be a good idea to stack a lot of defensive units in a tile. I did this to represent the development of faster firing rifles, development of machine guns, and faster firing artillery.
Accuracy is the ability for a soldier to hit another soldier with their weapon. The game uses a d20 system to determine a hit. The goal is to roll under your modified accuracy stat to determine a hit. Each tile in between the enemy and your shot reduces accuracy by 1. Also, defensive/offensive tactics also subtract from accuracy. The formula for what you need to roll under for a hit is accuracy - (enemy tactics + tile range).
Range is the maximum tiles your unit can fire from. Note, every tile distance lowers accuracy by 1, so it might be prudent to take the risk and move closer to the enemy before you fire.
Defensive and Offensive tactics are the unit's ability to avoid casualties on the offense and defense respectively. Each stat in tactics lowers the accuracy of the enemy by 1. See the to hit formula. I separated them because different tactics were used on the defense and offense to differing degrees of success.
Toughness. There is a chance that a unit can survive getting shot. That chance is toughness. If pierce is less than toughness, there is a chance. To survive a hit, roll 1d20 under toughness - enemy piercing. I added this because I wanted to simulate armored cars, tanks, and naval warfare. It also applies to cuirassiers, lobster armor, and the addition of helmets.
Pierce. There is a chance that a bullet can go through the enemy, striking another unit. That chance is pierce. If pierce is greater than toughness, then the unit is automatically killed, and 1d20 is rolled. The formula for the number to roll under is pierce - enemy toughness
Next is moves. This is the amount of moves a unit can move per turn. Currently, there are no attacks of opportunity. I might add that latter, but for now, I'm not.
Morale. This is essentially the health of a stack. It stacks, but if a unit is entirely wiped out, then their morale is lost. If morale of a stack goes below 0, then the units in the tile have deserted or surrendered, and are considered killed. Morale goes down by 1 for every strength killed. Morale goes up by 1 for each turn not in combat up to its maximum value. In the case of a stack splitting, the morale damage can be distributed at the player's whim.
Note, I may add more advanced morale rules where important territory that is lost lowers global morale by 1.
Recon and Hide are for a version of the game with fog of war. I can't really do that in excel or on a map in person. This will be in the computer version.
Assaults Stats - Assaults are attacks from a range of 0. Instead of using ranged stats, the assault stats are used instead. This is to represent troops going into close quarters combat. Each of these values are the same as their regular counterpart.
Assault Offensive/Defensive - Accuracy in close quarters combat.
Assault Attacks - Rate of Fire in close quarters combat.
Assault Offensive/Defensive initiative - initiative for close quarters combat.
Assault Pierce - pierce for close quarters combat.
Note, because units don't switch armor for CqC, toughness remains the same.
Cost reduction: Every point of cost reduction reduces the cost in Industrial capital to produce the unit by one.
Unit Costs
Research cost: The amount of points total to research the unit. Calculated by the sum of all the above stats.
Production Cost: The amount of industrial capital to create the unit. Calculated by adding all the stats except for cost reduction, and then subtracting cost reduction.
Combat
This is a restatement of all the various formulas introduced above and introduction of the targeting formula.
First units roll for initiative. Initiative roll is initiative + 1d20. Defenders use defensive initiative, while attackers use offensive initiative. Whoever rolls highest gets the first attack.
To figure out who shoots when, initiative is layed out in a ratio or fraction form of attacker:defender, for example, 13:5.
The number of strength that is able to fire relies upon the reduced form of that ratio.
For example, the ratio of 13:5 would mean the attacker fires
twice for every defender shot, with an extra shot on the every 4th shot.
For this, it might be recomended for the player attacking to do all rolls in a play by post system, using the honor system.
Units, when firing will randomly pick targets by rolling 1dX, with X being the number of pops in the tile. Before the roll, each pop will be assigned a die roll. The target becomes whatever you roll. For example, when I have 5 enemy infantry and 3 enemy cavalry in a stack, the infantry become 1-5, and the cavalry becomes 6-8. If I roll a 1-5, I'm shooting at infantry, I roll a 6-8, I'm shooting cavalry.
Then they will then roll 1d20 each for each shot's accuracy roll. The formula for what you need to roll under for a hit is accuracy - (enemy tactics + tile range).
If the attack is a hit, and the attacker's pierce is less than the defender's toughness, then the unit has a chance of surviving. Roll 1d20 for each hit. If the defender rolls less than the toughness minus pierce value, then the defender's armor stopped the hit. One strength for each failed save is removed from play.
If pierce is higher than toughness, the unit dies immediately, and there is a chance the shot went through the unit and killed another one. Roll 1d20. If the roll is less than your pierce minus the enemy's toughness, you get a free attack to be rolled immediately.
Melee charges are the same, except they use replacement melee stats where applicable, and they occur at range 1 or range 0. (Probably useless under the threat of gunfire or other ranged units)
On movement to a building owned by the enemy player simply converts to the capturing player.
Buildings can be destroyed at any time by the owning player for gain of half its cost in materials rounding down.
Units that are damaged can be repaired/reinforced. The repair costs the unit's lost strength in manpower, and the (strength to be repaired/the unit's max strength)*the build cost.
Link to appendix (includes building list):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1irgC6Njv9vRCgx2rh7UPqGywnFESV6D9RBFc5BZsdZ8/edit?usp=sharingNote: The manual supersedes the spreadsheet at this point in time. I have not proofread the spreadsheet other than the buildings section.
I'm not posting the building list on the forum because that would be tedious and redundant.
Don't be afraid to ask for clarification on how a rule works or point out that I screwed up somewhere.
Edit: I've updated the manual a bunch.