Part 2: Staging A Prison Break At REVOLT

Stage 1 - REVOLT

Today we make our first steps toward taking back the moon.



In a small military complex, a group of prisoners has broken free and stolen some Axis weapons. If they succeed here, it will be the beginning of the war to save Earth.




And here we are.

The blue units are ours, and the green units are the enemy's. From a glance we can see we've got an extra tank on our side, so that's encouraging. Note for later that those glowing blue and green buildings are prisons.



Before we can start issuing orders, we need to know what our weapons are capable of. This tank looks pretty powerful, so we select it (indicated by it turning red) and pick GUIDE from the menu. You can see in the lower left that there are eight tanks to a unit; this holds true for all full-health units.



If the Bison looks like a bog-standard battle tank, that's because it is. Makes sense, the game's not going to throw anything too complicated at us for our first mission. It can move six hexes per turn, it's got 40 defense, and its attack does 50 damage against land-based units with a range of 1. Since there's not much to say about the Bison itself, I'd just like to comment on how strange it is that the game uses "shifting" to refer to movement.

But these numbers don't tell us much without something to compare them to, so let's have a look at our other units, those little soldier guys.



No, I don't know why they're called Charlie. Vietnam reference? Hey, if the sides are called the Allies and Axis, why not?

Looking at their stats, you can see Charlies aren't very impressive compared to the Bisons. They're slow, they're armed with popguns, and they have next to no defense.

They have two advantages over Bisons, though. They can attack air units, but on this map there aren't any to attack. More importantly, though, they can capture prisons. Parking a Charlie on the enemy's prison is an instant victory, and we'll be relying on that often, especially as the maps get larger and the enemy gets numerical superiority over us.



First order of business, let's move the tanks up. Now, I could move this tank I've selected up onto the bridge...



...but I don't want it to have to fend off two enemy tanks by itself. Better to let the enemy come to us.



Moving up the other tanks gives us a nice defensive line.



The Charlies are next. They can't move very quickly...



...but, as you can see, they can climb onto mountains while Bisons can't. With the enemy's prison camp nestled into a corner there, that might give us a chance to sneak around and capture it.

That's all our units moved, so there's nothing more to do for now. Our turn's over.







Looks like the AI had the same idea I did, trying to sneak a Charlie south so it could get to my prison camp. Not a problem, He's outnumbered two to one.




Then it recklessly rolls a lone tank unit onto the bridge and fires the opening shot of the war.



Before units attack each other, the game has to crunch a few numbers. First, it has to check if the attacker gets a bonus for surrounding the defender. I'll elaborate on this later, but since our tank it attacked wasn't surrounded by enemies, this bonus doesn't apply.



The next bonus is the Support Effect, which gave us a reason to park our tanks where we did other than "so we can shoot back twice."

The mechanics behind the support effect are simple: if any units on the attacker's side are next to the defender, the attacker gets an attack bonus equal to half their combined firepower. If any units on the defender's side are next to the attacker, the defender gets a defense bonus equal to half their combined score.

In this case, I had another Bison next to the enemy attacker. A full-strength Bison unit has 320 defense, so my defending Bison got a +160 bonus to its own defense for a total of 480. That's a pretty good boost, and it demonstrates why we'll need to use the Support Effect for all it's worth.



And for the last step before they fire, the game calculates terrain defense bonus. Roads don't offer any cover from fire, so nothing changes.



Not bad! We took out two for the price of one.

Bisons usually hit a bit harder than that, but Military Madness's damage is randomized.

Also note that each unit now has an experience star. A unit gains one of these when gets in combat with another and survives, up to a maximum of eight. Each star gives a small boost to attack and defense, so combining this with the fact that you can't build anything, this game heavily emphasizes getting the most out of each unit.



Nothing else interesting happens this turn, just the AI moving a Charlie towards the ravine. Like mountains, Charlies can cross them, but Bisons can't.



Our turn again. The obvious first move here is to try to finish the battle on the bridge. Now that we're on the offensive, we'll get attack bonuses, so that should be enough to do the job.



Still no Surround Effect, but note that four of the six hexes are filled in, even though we only have two units nearby. This is because, when the game is determining if a defender is surrounded, it counts the positions of nearby hostile units and the hexes adjacent to them. Together these hexes form the unit's "zone of control," something that will come up again.



This time around we get a terrain bonus from being on a plain, in the form of a small defense boost. Also note our firepower boost from the support effect.



Even with the numbers heavily stacked in our favor, we still only killed one enemy tank. This is nowhere near the most the RNG can get.



Ah, well. Even at this rate of attrition, we'll win.



Our first whole unit kill! Comparing this attack to the last one demonstrates pretty clearly just how random battle outcomes can be. It can really screw you over if you get enough bad rolls, but for the most part you should be fine if you plan carefully and play well.



Also notice that our tank unit gained two experience stars instead of one. This happens to a unit when either it destroys an enemy unit, or is attacked but takes no damage.



With the bridge held, our infantry to the south advance on the enemy's infantry there. I can attack it, but I won't, because I'm unlikely to do any damage and I don't want to give it free experience.




Not having learned its lesson the first time, when its turn rolls around the Axis army decides to attack across the bridge again.



My tank unit survives and dishes out as good as it gets, but it's definitely looking worse for the wear.



The Axis move their north infantry into the ravine, and then it's our turn again.



Right. First things first, I don't think this tank is going to survive another attack. Let's have it retreat.



Much better.



Now, why would I attack an infantry with an infantry when earlier I said it probably wouldn't do any good?



Why, because we've got the Surround Effect bonus now, and it's pretty nice! Surrounding an enemy unit causes their attack and defense to halve when you attack them, so using this gives us a huge advantage, and will be necessary against some of the stuff the game will throw at us in later missions. The AI loves to exploit this whenever they get the chance, too, so we'll have to keep an eye out and make sure our own forces can't get surrounded.



This is what Charlies do to other Charlies when they have them surrounded. It's also why you should pretty much never attack with them.



With that done, we move our full-strength Bison up and attack the enemy's. Let's see if we can finish things on the bridge.



For their disadvantage, these enemy tanks are hitting back hard.



Not hard enough, though!



We're the only ones with tanks left, and their infantry would have to get past them to capture our prison. This battle's as good as won.



In desperation, the surviving Axis forces go for a Banzai charge.



This is our first time seeing Charlies vs. Bisons, and it goes about as you'd expect. To be honest, though, I'm surprised they managed to knock out even one tank.



Turn 4 rolls around, and it's already pretty much over. Now, while it would be easy to mow down the stragglers, one of our Charlies is close enough to the enemy's prison to capture it.



No sense dragging a battle out any longer than we have to, right?



Our first victory! We only captured a small prison complex, though. We've got a long way to go before we can stop the Axis superweapon.



At the end of every mission, we get a neat little graph detailing how long the battle took and how many kills each side scored. I actually don't know what the "S=(1/1)" means. Anyone who can enlighten me on this?

Next time: More tanks and less chokepoints at ICARUS.