War Planning Overview

Campaigning in Axioms

Inspiration

So I was talking to a very insane CK3 modder the last couple days, turns out that while Paradox isn’t a gameplay competitor to me modders could be if they wanted. Gotta get on the ball before they outflank me. Relevant to this post is he was showing me videos from a prominent Paradox streamer about his mod and I also happened to watch a video about how the streamer would like warfare to work if he had a magic wand. Well, the ideas in that video are substantially similar to how things work in Axioms so I thought that was a sign to talk about planning for wars today.

Very High Level Planning

Axioms is a game with a very detailed simulation compared to any existing commercial game. A major goal as I’ve said before was to have non-combat systems of comparable complexity to combat systems which very few games do, and only by making military gameplay simplistic. Star Dynasties and Shadows Behind The Throne are good examples of this.

Quite a lot of the detail for warfare in Axioms actually relates to sort of adjacent mechanics. Axioms has a resource system and so logistics is very detailed and heavily impacts warfare. Axioms has a very non-omniscient/omnipotent leader character style. There are no unified faction/nation mechanics in the current system. It is all done by treaties and pacts/contracts between characters.

It is this character based system that is relevant today, and to the video by the stream, because a major part of warfare is both which characters get involved, their level of involvement, their style of involvement, and working with a military which is not essentially a modern standing army.

In Axioms you need to coordinate the actions of the leaders of armies, whether these are tribal/feudal/politics leaders or generals in the Roman style. You control your directly managed troops but not vassal troops. Think of the war council scenes in your favorite fantasy story or even historical record. Think of the bizarre path of the Fourth Crusade and why it happened. Well. You’ve never played a game like this before.

Axioms is a turn based game and while this was a decision I made for performance and complexity reasons, especially regarding AI, and the earliest prototype was actually real time, it has important impacts on key gameplay. Both the original campaign council before you start a war and the way that you manage the war each turn with war councils is much more suited to a turn based format.

Pre-War Interaction

So as I have discussed quite a bit a major mechanic in Axioms is Conspiracies. This is basically complex, often long running, connected sets of interactions in private to achieve some sort of long term goal. A Conspiracy isn’t required to start a war but a pre-war Conspiracy will often exist. Building up propaganda about the target of the war, whether a character, population, or province, pre-organizing potential war leaders, perhaps engaging in intrigue to weaken the potential war target. All that kind of stuff. You can also privately make promises about who gets what from the war.

Campaign Planning

Much like in the video from One Proud Bavarian about his dream CK3 warfare system you start with a primary war/campaign menu panel. This has tabs for various things, somewhat similar to the “Gathering Panel” I’m writing right now for Feasts, Hunts, Festivals, Tournaments, and other peacetime social occasions.

You have a panel of people who have agreed to join the war, a panel for potential characters to be invited, a panel for the actual purposes of the war, the division of the spoils and so forth. Some of this can be pre-populated by a linked Conspiracy. There’s also a special panel for connected Conspiracies for linked mechanics. You’ll have a panel based on what each participant has agreed to contribute to the war as well. Sometimes a participant might contribute primarily money, or supplies, or transport like the Venetians often did.

Every turn, or few turns, or perhaps only if a character specifically requests it, you’ll have a “War Council” where characters will look at the updated situation and provide feedback to other characters, especially the primary war leader, which is often but not always the player. Do they want to change objectives, are they tapped out, do they have problems at home, or maybe they’d like to add additional wargoals.

A character might also provide information they have uncovered, perhaps that another group is going to declare war on the enemy or maybe join the enemy, or attack one of the allies. This is possible due to the already existing Intelligence Network and Intel Sharing in the game.

Timeline

A major goal of Axioms is to give the player, and AI as a consequence, advance warning or potential advance warning of major events. This includes not only the Divination Magic system in the first Esoteric Arcana post but from the Intelligence Network system as well. Additionally major game decisions/actions will often take place over multiple turns.

So the potential Conspiracy before the war often builds up over many, many turns during which the activity can be uncovered as part of the Secrets/Intelligence systems, the pre-war campaign council where you are getting other characters on board and organized would usually happen over 2-4 turns depending.

Similarly revolts, and migrations and other major events are possible to detect through proper intelligence work.

Location, Location, Location…

Lots of events, such as war councils, campaign councils, and the aforemention social occasions require particular characters to be particular places. The Intelligence network manages information about provinces as well as characters. You’ll often have missions targeting several important characters tailing them, investigating them, and so forth.

Especially in combination with vague chatter picked up by divination or investigation character location can provide the key to some other information you have. I know such and such character is planning to attack me soon, and I track him to a location with many other characters who could potentially be involved. Now I get really worried.

What Councils Decide

Most of the people who end up following and especially purchasing this game will have read quite a bit of epic fantasy full of campaigns and battles and raids. I’ll discuss raiding in Axioms in a future post. A large percentage of these stories feature war councils. Sanderson, Weeks, Bakker, Martin, etc. Due to the main character and the focus The Prince of Nothing and Second Apocalypse both have lots of this. Or something like Turtledove’s The Darkness series about a fantasy world war. The councils in game generally follow the pattern pretty well.

A major battle has happened, or a diplomatic event that you need to deal with. Some environmental disaster or perhaps disease has impacted the army. Perhaps trouble at homes requires a participant to be absent for a period of time. Or perhaps things have gone very well and you need to decide what to do next. Strike out for a capital, solidify what you ahve just gained, meet an army advancing from a flank that was just discovered by scouts. All of these things are something that in most games the player, or AI warleader if there is no player in an alliance, just gets to decide unilaterally with no consequences or pushback. Not in Axioms.

High Level War Consequences

Whether you win or lose a war there should be consquences. There often are not. Like Total War or some other games you raise troops in Axioms from your population. Unless you are using summons or something. When they die they are lost. Additionally there are civilian casualties and economic disruption. A major war hits hard win or lose. Plus the land you conquered, especially if it is often region of contention, can suffer quite heavily as well. Especially with plundering and enslavement. This was often very relevant in Roman times.

Wars also have lots of reputational impacts. Trust, Fear, Honor, and Respect as well as general Opinion can all be heavily impacted by decisions and actins during a war and this impact can be much more globally felt than most peacetime changes. Too much military success and too much aggressive conquest can trigger alliances and coalitions. Those who gain unexpected significant territorial or financial gains in war can also fall to infighting.

Finally for territorial gains you’ll have to have a policy for securing and integrating your gains. Perhaps you creates vassals like marches or satrapies or tributaries. This often allows for “faster/greater” growth but if you look at the affiliation map which is the default political mode you’ll see the looseness with which your empire is tied together. Other tighter binding of new lands and peoples has costs but also benefits.

In any case this post is a bit too broad and is much longer than I intended so I’ll cut it off here and save anything I didn’t include for a later appropriate post.