PON dev diary #13: Gameplay options
Hi,
We have added several options in the corresponding game menu. I'll talk only of novelties compared to the previous Paradox France / Ageod game (which is Rise of Prussia), and let veterans of our game system answer questions if need be about previously implemented options.
As you can see from the screenshot, we have added 4 options. They are all aimed toward providing a different game experience, and they try to achieve one of the Holy Grail of gaming, which is to please 2 broad categories of players! As they are options, if they fail to achieve this no small feat, no big loss either!
Extended Force Pool:
OFF means you are playing with the historical allowance in recruitable military units.
ON means you are playing with a +50% to +200% allowance in recruitable military units.
One thing to understand, is that you have a pool of recruitable units for each nation. You just can't decide to recruit 50 guard units, because you have a fetish on them. With this option, you get much more freedom here, at the expense of historical accuracy. But hey, this is your game too and you enjoy it (mostly hehe) as you wish! Historical accurary is not there to annoy you, it is there to have the game runs somehow along historical lines, so be advised that the use of this option can make the game diverges significantly from reality. Just imagine what the US could do if from the start they can decide to conscript massively people and form up a lot of Infantry Corps, then send them on rampage on Canada. Fun? Yes perhaps, historically plausible? Allow us to doubt here.
Extended Structure pool:
It works as with the units pool. If you augment your allowance by 50 to 200%, then instead of being able to build 6 extra coal mines as Great Britain, you will perhaps be able to build 22. No, I don't fail at this basic math testThis is just that all countries have already on map structures, and they are factored in the pool. So if you have 2 structures on map, 6 available, your maximum pool is 8. And 8 times 3 makes ... 24.
(awesome, I managed to explain a game rule before game release!)
Extended Spheres of Influence:
The SOI concept, in PON is only about colonial regions. Basically all colonial regions in the world, for each country, are rated from -5 to +5. -5 means that if you colonize the region, you lose 5 prestige per turn. +5 ... well you guessed! Why this constraint is there? Because again, PON tries to provide an historical game experience, and SOIs are there to orient players and AIs alike toward historical behavior. This is so that you don't see Austria colonize Siberia (can be fun though to have a New Tyrol colony there!). With Extended SOIs, all negatives SOIs become 0. This still orient players toward positive spheres of influence, but you'll be much more able (and the AI too) to colonize everywhere.
Last, but not least, the big gun. Extended Claims. Activating this option will change drastically the game. With extended claims you can acquire during a peace treaty any region that is adjacent to a region you own. Think concentric circles here. Yes... you can paint the world in your color if you are a warmonger. This is totally non historical behavior, as at this time (this is not world war II remember), most countries did not seek to occupy the national regions of others countries. There was no chance for example that Germany could have been persuaded to occupy Russian territories up to Moscow e.g.
Precisions though, we are talking here of 'metropolitan' territories. All countries are able to occupy as they wish (if they succeed in war or crisis) all colonial regions and all regions they have a claim on.
Originally Posted by Pocus
