Men of War: Assault Squad 2

Men of War: Assault Squad 2

Nation of Snakes -- Counter-Insurgency V6.2
affenkonig  [developer] 24 May, 2018 @ 3:32pm
New Expansion Pack (Playing as insurgents)... Maybe
At game start, you have a single, unarmed, disguised civilian under your control. The enemy has a defended base and two squads patrolling the map, favoring urban areas. Your main objective it to destroy all enemy in the AO, including the base. There is no loosing condition other than "giving up".

There is no H&M score, no central/main units (like the officer), and no allied AI. I'm going for a completely new game feel, not just a copy/paste transition.

1. Income
You gain MP by selling captured weapons on the black market. This is represented by dropping these weapons into black market crates. For example, you might get +10 for a garand, +30 for a LMG, +50 for a 50 cal. The items do disappear when they have been sold.

You can have up to 5 black market crates, deployed in similiar manner to caches. Most enemy units will leave these crates alone. You deploy the crates by simply clicking the ability and clicking anywhere on the map.

The crates also generate a slow trickle of MP by themselves (more for more of them), and you get MP from destroying enemy vehicles.

Additionally, you can "extort locals" for additional income, but this will hurt your standing with the locals, making recruitement more difficult.

2. Logistics
You spend MP by purchasing caches. There are 5 different tiers of caches, with five different random possibilities for each tier. Higher tiers may randomly include crewed weapons or even a light vehicle.

Just as an example:
T1 - Handguns, molotovs, IEDs, suicide vest
T2 - Bolt action rifles, basic SMGs, flares, AP mines, AP grenades, bandages
T3 - SMGs, semi-auto rifles, basic MGs, AT grenades, AT rifle, AT mines
T4 - Panzerfausts, MGs, crewed weapons, flashlights, binoculars
T5 - Sniper rifles, STGs, panzerschreks, light vehicles

Caches are moveable crates, and the enemy will destroy them if they get close enough to them.

3. Manpower
Out of the civilian population, a handful of them will become recruitable. Which ones are recruitable will change out periodically. You will need to have a player controlled unit nearby and hover your mouse over to see if a particular civilian is recruitable. (This is using the vanilla recruit functionality)

Most civilians are just civilians, but about 6% are "Civilian - Veteran", these have 2 star weapons skills and 150% health and stamina.
About 3% are "Civilian - Crack Veteran", these have 3 star weapons skills, 175% health and stamina, and can use a the rifle grenades and rocket launchers effectively.
About 1% are "Civilian - Elite Veteran", these have 4 star weapons skills, 250% health and stamina, and can use the binoculars, rocket AT, binoculars and sniper rifles effectively.

All civilians have a mild stealth bonus. You can hover over owned or neutral civilians to see if they have any veteran status.

3a. Civil Relations
Starting out, 10 civilians on the map will be recruitable (out of about 200-250). This number is displayed to the user in place of the H&M score. Which specific civilians are recruitable randomly changes periodically.

When a neutral civilian is killed, this number lowers by 1. Extorting civilians, for a sizeable and immediate income boost, lowers this number by 2-3.

Paying reparations (for injuries, property damage, etc) is pricey, but can increase this number by 2-3.

Any player controlled unit can be assigned to civil relations duty, where they will automatically travel around and distribute propoganda. This has a chance of increasing the number of recruitable civilians over time. Only one unit can be given this task at a time, and they will continue it until the task is cancelled.

4. Troop sustainment
You have to keep your guys paid. Based on the number of player-controlled units you have, you will have a negative MP bleed. If your MP reaches 0 and you are unable to make payroll, units will randomly turn back into civilians periodically until you are able to make payroll.

This means you will want to keep your force small and efficient. Don't have guys standing around doing nothing but still collecting a paycheck.

5. Covert ops
You can build up to two safehouses anywhere on the map. When your recruited civilians visit the safehouse, they will "change clothes" so that they appear as a civilian to the enemy. They will be disguised until the enemy sees them with a weapon in hand. This is how you can post covert units for intel or recon, launch surprise attacks, etc. Once revealed, the civilians to return to the safehouse to be re-disguised. (this is using the vanilla masking functionality)

This safehouse includes an automated medic unit (that appears as a civilian to the enemy). This is your only way of reviving friendlies.

6. Combat
If any of your units remain in contact for too long, the enemy will bring artillery to bear. Do not get caught up in prolonged engagements.

Clumping your units together too much and too long, may also attract enemy air attacks.

Enemy QRF can be brought in (airborne drop or mechanized squad) if you really mass your units together.

Hit and run with fast, clean engagements is the name of the game. You'll have a number of special tools available, including command detonated IEDs, suicide vests (that actually work), and more.

7. Enemy base
The enemy bases, size, defenses will vary based on mission/map difficulty and desired features. There will be a few common elements:
Radio station - Destroy this to prevent the enemy from calling in QRF
Howitzer - Destroy this to prevent the enemy from artying you
(As a side note, foul weather and nighttime will prevent enemy air support)
MG positions - These will recrew periodically if their gunner is killed.

8. Enemy patrols/behavior
Starting off, there are two squads of 6 infantry each that will patrol the map randomly. If an enemy squad is less than 3, they will return to the base to get plussed up. If a squad is completely wiped out, the enemy will make a single attempt to replace it. Periodically, a third squad will attempt to enter.

Any time a squad is getting plussed up, or a third/replacement squad attempts to enter the area, an enemy supply vehicle will spawn in an attempt to make it to the base. If you can stop this vehicle, then the new squad will not enter, or the existing squad will return to patrolling without being plussed up.

Temporary patrols include mobile, mechanized, and armor units. These spawn in, travel the roads randomly, and then randomly exit. You can avoid or attack, up to you.

9. Polizei
This is the enemy counter to your covert ops and primarily threaten your logistics.

Polizei squads are small and poorly armed, but will randomly spawn in and patrol randomly. They can spot your disguised units more easily, they will destroy your black market crates if they get close to them, and they will call for artillery or air support on your safe houses if they get close to them.

Polizei stations are similar, but are not mobile. They will spawn in randomly at key areas, such as the enemy supply routes, chokepoints, etc. These are hardened positions with a bit more firepower.
Last edited by affenkonig; 25 May, 2018 @ 11:02am
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Showing 1-11 of 11 comments
Sigmar's Troll 25 May, 2018 @ 1:03pm 
i ADORE this idea
Bloody10th 25 May, 2018 @ 6:59pm 
The ideas sound clean enough to start something up. Count me in for all of my usual assistance if you decide to start working on it. The old lady will give me time to work.
Mogelix (AU) 26 May, 2018 @ 5:24pm 
yes please
Meat Man Anthony 27 May, 2018 @ 10:18am 
please
Marquis 27 May, 2018 @ 5:04pm 
Awesome idea!
Kaiser Waffle 29 May, 2018 @ 9:32pm 
sounds great
it sounds awesome
clump 4 Jun, 2018 @ 6:21am 
Sounds great!
affenkonig  [developer] 4 Jun, 2018 @ 12:11pm 
I have started dinking around with this, and its actually coming along quite nicely. In fact it is basically just in bug-hunting and blance-tweaking mode at the moment. There is some deviations, and several additions to what was posted above, but the core idea is the same.

VERY different gameplay and feel from the original NoS. Many different potential strategies and tactics to use. I've made the enemy smart and responsive, but still have to follow strict rules that the player can influence. Many many base-game additions and changes, all of wich will be available in the original NoS (although not all of them practical in that arena).

Planning on doing the same thing I did with the original. A single map/mission to get feedback on, then port to more maps. It will be a seperate download/workshop item that will require the original.

One thing I am struggling with is how to format the tutorial. There are a lot of little niche things that need to be covered now, but at the same time I feel like the player should learn these on their own, I mean, insurgencies don't have feild manuals (not at the beginning.)
I feel that the tutorial should only teach the essentials of managing an early insurgency (recruitment, black market, etc) and leave the rest to be discovered by the players.

One question though, will there be events where enemy soldiers can break down and go rogue?
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