The Travel Update: What We Know, the Backlash, and the Future of War✈️

"War. War never changes." - Fallout

Well… it just did. And not slightly.

If you play on the dev server, or you've heard the rumors, a new mechanic is on the way. And it's going to change how we fight.

We used to live a good life. You'd open the battles tab, see 90 ongoing wars, and can do a hit in every single one of them like the true warlord you are. That'll no longer be the case…

What We Know

You now have an exact location on the map, and travelling somewhere else has a cost.

Location

• Location: you are physically located in a region at all times.
  

  

• Home: you have a "Home" region that you can change by spending concrete. (I haven't figured out exactly how Home affects travel yet - it's possible each region will have a limited number of residents?)
  

  

Travel

• You move from one region to another by spending a brand-new point called Stamina , which works like all the others (energy, hunger, etc.).

• The Stamina cost depends on how far the destination is from your current location - like, actual kilometers (or miles, if you count in feet 🦶 and love freedom). The rate is 1 Stamina per 100 km.

• If you don't have enough Stamina for the trip, you pay in Oil instead - same rate, 1 Oil per 100 km.

  
  

"But T3mya, why should I care about all this? This isn't TouristEra."

That takes us to the next point.

Battles

• Now for the actual reason you'd want to travel.. Drum roll 🥁🥁

• You have to be present in a region to fight in a battle there.
  

  

• And not just either of the two regions involved - the one for the side you want to fight for. So in the battle above, if I travel to Alexandria, I can only attack on Egypt's side.
  

  

The Backlash

Some people met the new mechanic with interest, and some purely hate it. Things like "damn you vatou, we already pay a ton playing a war build, and now you want a mechanic that consumes even more money AND limits the wars we can fight in?" have been heard a couple of times in the halls of discord.

Finally

I believe this mechanic does the opposite. It rewards countries with disciplined citizens and good organization, while punishing reckless governments - and to be honest, I hated the whole "war build" thing anyway (but that's an article for another time).

Now that we have an good idea about the mechanic, we can start dissecting it.

In Pt. 2, we'll go over my humble opinion on how travel reshapes both war and economic strategy: how nations can utilize it, how it can be utilized against them, and whether it actually makes for better, more enjoyable gameplay. Stay tuned.

also

😶‍🌫️𝒮𝓉𝒶𝓇𝓉 𝒽𝑜𝒶𝓇𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝑜𝒾𝓁😶‍🌫️

TLDR; You're placed on the map, you pay in Stamina (or Oil) to move to another region, and you can only fight in battles in the region you're physically standing in.