Combat

Combat at a Glance

Combat aims to establish total dominance over an opposing force. To succeed, you must hone your tactical awareness. As commander of an entire nation, you need a deep understanding of the intricate details of modern war. Study the mechanics of close-combat attack and defense, as well as how combat might play out in different scenarios. Victory goes to the prepared.

1. Diligence - Anticipate diplomatic interference and counter attacks, as well as growing insurgent areas.
2. Effective strategy - Think ahead and don't waste resources. Every decision counts, especially when you are investing realtime.
3. Resources - Keep an eye on your resource production. Consider provinces and cities that you require for further Arms Industries construction. If new territory is hard to acquire on your own, ally with someone.
4. Diplomacy - Diplomatic relations will make or break the game and must not be undervalued.

Combat In Detail

Army Stacking Penalties

fig1 - Low efficiency stack

To simulate modern logistics and fire-and-maneuver doctrines, you will notice a strict stacking penalty for units. Expect to see diminishing returns, and even negative modifiers, in combat strength and movement speed.

• If marked yellow, the unit stack suffers from diminishing returns, i.e. every additional unit added to the stack makes it less effective.
• If marked orange, every new unit added to the stack does not contribute additional strength.
• If marked red, every new unit added to the stack weakens its overall strength.

Missile Warfare

Modern battlefields are extremely hostile due to the very high amount of damage concentrated in very small delivery systems, such as Cruise Missiles. In an effort to simulate the use of non-ballistic, tactical missiles on the modern battlefield, CON allows dedicated air, ground, and naval units to fire conventional, chemical, and nuclear cruise missiles at military targets.

Note that only cruise missiles are able to target and track units, while ballistic missiles and ICBMs can only target the centre-points of Provinces.

Terrain Modifiers

Terrain places specific demands on the men and machines in CON. A unit's stats are directly affected by the type of terrain it is currently positioned on. Toggle the Terrain Types overlay from the Settings & Info Panel to aid your planning.

The following unit attributes are affected by terrain. You can view the modifiers for each unit through the Unit Info Panel:

• Attack - A unit will be influenced either positively or negatively by this percentage when in this terrain while on attack.
• Defense - A unit will be influenced either positively or negatively by this percentage when in this terrain while in defensive actions.
• Speed Value - A unit will be modified by this percentage as it travels through the defined environment.
• Hit Points - a unit’s Hit Points will be modified depending upon terrain.
• Field of View - The sight range at which your unit can be visually detected varies by terrain. This is different from radar range, and is shown on the map as the brightest view around your unit

Attrition

Attrition slowly bleeds your unit's HP when they cross certain terrain. It is not severe enough to kill your units, but the Russian winters or the Saharan desert will definitely affect your troops.

• Mountain, Jungle, Tundra, and Desert terrain cause attrition, bleeding a unit for 2.5 HP per day.

Entrenching

Placing a unit stack on a provincial center-point will provide a defensive entrenchment bonus while it remains there. This is automatic and stops once the unit is ordered to move on. The entrenchment bonus can be increased through the construction of certain buildings.

Unit Healing

Ground units recover a small amount of HP over time when in friendly territory, while naval vessels repair over time when in coastal waters.

• By default, ground units will recover +1 HP per day while they are not in combat, and are stationed on cities or urban areas.
• By default, naval units will recover +2 HP per day while they are not in combat, and are stationed in coastal waters.
• Build military hospitals in cities to speed up the recovery time of units.
• Build field hospitals in provinces to speed up the recovery time of units.

Retreating

You can order a unit that is engaged in combat to retreat to the nearest, friendly territory, at the cost of hit points. Only ground and naval units can retreat.

• Retreating units gain significant movement speed.
• Even though retreating units bleed HP, they are incredibly hard to hit by hostile units.

Hardened Bunkers

Bunkers shield your population against weapons of mass destruction. The higher the bunker level, the more of a city's population will survive a serious attack.

• Bunkers can be constructed in cities in order to shield the population from harm.
• The amount of population shielded is twice the level of the bunker. E.g. a level 1 bunker shields a population of 2, a level 2 bunker shields a population of 4, and so on...
• The shielded population takes no damage until the bunker is destroyed.

Crimes Against Humanity

In conflict zones, civilian casualties will often be inevitable. Certain units and weapons inflict more harm on local population than others. Be sure to check the Unit Info Panel to gauge how devastating the effects will be. If your actions indiscriminately cause civilian casualties during your conquest, there can be dire consequences:

• Your own civilian population will be abhorred by your actions, and national morale will begin to suffer.
• Weapons such as chemical warheads and nuclear warheads may be highly effective at destroying soft and hard targets, but decimate local population in the process.
• Your own nation's morale will recover very slowly over time after committing such crimes.

Units sent into enemy cities that are not yet conquered will start decimating the local population. This is considered a war crime and can have severe consequences with the morale of the player’s population – especially if large numbers of civilians suffer from this behavior.

Chemical and Nuclear Warfare

Probably the strongest weapons ever invented, these are the ultimate killers – albeit with a double edge. The resulting loss of life, devastation and contamination wrought by one of these weapons of mass destruction will not go unchecked by other nations and of the perpetrator’s own population. In Conflict of Nations there is the real chance of the world turning into a contaminated wasteland, populated by unhappy survivors. We warned you…

Stealth Units

Stealthed units can have both meeting and offensive/defensive engagements, but on top of this, there is a First Strike / Ambush Bonus Damage.

Anti-Air vs Missiles

When you launch missiles against a target, we distinguish between two cases:

• Point Defense
• AA Envelope

Point Defense

Missile directly attacking a unit stack that contains an AA unit

If the stack that your missile is attacking is/contains an anti-air unit, the combat tick is calculated as Point Defense. This means that the anti-air unit will defend itself every time against incoming missiles, i.e. there is no cool-down.

For example:
You fire two missile against an anti-air unit. It does not matter whether you fired your missiles one second or one hour apart, anti-air will defend against them every time.

AA Envelope

Missile attacking a unit that is standing within friendly AA Envelope

If the stack that your missile is attacking is a unit that is standing within anti-air range, but is not part of the same stack, the combat tick is calculated as AA Envelope. This means that the anti-air unit will go on cool-down before it can defend a close-by unit again.

For example:
You quickly fire two missile against an infantry unit that is standing within an anti-air unit's envelope that is standing close by. You fire another missile directly at the anti-air unit as well:

1. The first missile, aimed at the infantry unit, is shot down by the anti-air unit.
2. The second missile, however, lands a hit on the infantry unit since the anti-air unit's envelope is on cool-down.
3. The third missile, directly aimed at the anti-air unit, is shot down since it is calculated as Point Defense.

Acts of War

Declaring War through the Diplomatic Panel

The Diplomacy Screen from where you set your status towards a nation

To declare war, click the Diplomacy button and select the target player. Then, from the drop-down menu, change your status from Peace to War. You could even be diplomatic about the process and send a note stating your justifications for doing so, but most commanders won’t be so kind.

Declaring War through Invasion

Popup - You are about to declare war

You declare war by default, when you trespass on the province of a nation with which you do not share a special diplomatic relationship. You will receive a pop-up warning whenever your move order would constitute an act of war.

If you want to move units through another nation's territory, you both must be members of the same coalition, or your diplomatic relation with that country needs to be one of the following:

• Right of Way
• Shared Intelligence

Changes to Population Morale

Morale Info

When you declare war, it affects your nation as a whole. This war penalty affects all your provinces' morale, which slows down resource production as well as troop mobilization. You receive a penalty for every country you are at war with.

To see your war penalty, select one of your provinces, and click the i button beside the Morale indicator in the province bar. This will also show you what else affects morale in the selected province.

Combat Mechanics

When two armies are engaged, combat rounds are calculated every hour. We differentiate between four possible scenarios:

1. Meeting engagements
2. Attack/Defense engagements
3. Edge cases
4. Cases where two armies are in movement

Meeting Engagement

Army A and B engaged in combat, outside the province's center-point

Scenario: Army A attacks army B in the open - where army B is stationed outside of the province's center-point.

First Combat Tick (immediately):

• Army A attacks army B using its offensive stats
• Army B defends against army A using its defensive stats
• Army B counter-attacks army A using its offensive stats
• Army A defends against army B using its defensive stats

Second Combat Tick (after 1 hour has passed):

• Army A attacks Army B using its offensive stats
• Army B defends against Army A using its defensive stats
• Army B counter-attacks Army A using its offensive stats
• Army A defends against Army B using its defensive stats
• and so on...

Attack/Defense Engagement

Army B on province's center-point, defending against army A

Scenario: Army A attacks army B - where B is stationed on the province's center-point.

When army B is entrenched on a province's center-point, it is not performing offensive actions. Only army A conducts attack rounds, while army B is just defending.

First Combat Tick in chronological order - first exchange between the two armies, happens immediately:

• Army A attacks army B using its offensive stats
• Army B defends against army A using its defensive stats

Subsequent Combat Ticks in chronological order - hourly after FCT:

• Army A attacks army B using its offensive stats
• Army B defends against army A using its defensive stats
• Army A attacks army B using its offensive stats
• and so on...

Edge Cases

When you give a unit the order to move, and it has to pass through a hostile unit, it will engage in combat before it continues onward to its final destination.

Cases Where Two Armies are in Movement

Army A and army B run across each other while moving on the map. If army A and army B are both moving without an attack order and are within combat range, they will engage.