WWV©
World War V





Sorry, still writing the documentation. This will have to do for now...

  1. Story
  2. Units
  3. Game Settings
  4. Strategy
  5. Random Events
The Beginning...

The world government which was set up after the last world war has collapsed. The world has fragmented back to a collection of warring nation states. New alliances have been formed, and each is trying to restore their own vision of world order. It is your task to see that they do not succeed. In addition, many nations are trying to restore their ancient autonomy. They need to be persuaded to give up this archaic nationalism and return to the "civilized" world.


Your task is made more difficult because the remainder of the old world government's army still controls the Floating Fortresses which lie in the Atlantic and Pacific sea zones. In order to cross the oceans, you will either have to deal with this menace or take the long way around via an undefended crossing.

NOTE: You may not build a factory on a Floating Fortress


Turn Phases:


Units
Cost
Attack (x/6)
Defense (x/6)
Infantry
4
1
3
Tanks
6
3
3
Air units
8
5
5
Factory - (Cost: 10 GDP) Factories provide you with income (default: 2 GDP) and a place to deploy new units. The default Deployment Method allows you to deploy an unlimited number of troops to any territory with a factory, but places restrictions on deployments out in the field.

Capturing a factory - When you capture an enemy factory, you plunder a small amount of the former owner's production points. The amount is determined by the Capture 1 and Capture 2 values set when the game is created. (i.e. - If the values are set to 10% and 30%, a player will plunder somewhere between 10% and 30% of the enemy's GDP.)

Bunker - (Cost: 10 GDP) Provides protection for defending infantry units. After a melee is complete, each defending infantry makes a "saving throw" based on the value of the Save Rate setting (default: 30%). It is important to note two things:




Game Settings:

Just about every value in the game is soft-coded, and can be modified while creating a new game. Here is a brief description of each setting.

Number of Players - Number of Players allowed to join this game. As soon as this number is reached, the game will begin.

Hide user names? - if set to "YES", the identities of each player will be hidden until they are eliminated.

Number of Attacks per Turn - The default is 6. Setting this value too low will result in a slow moving game. Setting it too high will result in players conquering and re-conquering the entire world on each turn.

Number of Moves per Turn - The default setting is 6. The safety of bunkers is an integral part of the game. Players will inevitably wish to return their armies to the safety of a bunker at the end of their turn. Therefore, setting this value too high will allow players to consolidate all their forces, attack as a massive clusterfuck, then return to their original positions. Setting it too low is a good way to prevent blitzkrieg attacks through the heart of enemy territory. (i.e. If attacks is set to 6 and Moves is set to 3, a player will want to end his attack phase 3 spaces away from a bunker... he can't just cut a swath of destruction straight through enemy territory and return home to safety.)

Max Minutes per turn - Maximum number of minutes a user may spend on his turn before other players are allowed to cut him off. If a player is cut off in this manner, his turn will end abruptly and he will not collect any income!

Turn Method:
One Turn Per Day - Each player may play once per day, according to the time on my server (Central Time). This setting is best for games with many players. It also provides players with a good idea of when their next turn will be.... Midnight.

Sequential Turns - Turns follow a preset order, based on a random order which is set up when the game is created. This allows for very fast games -- as long as each player takes their turn promptly. Otherwise, days can pass before absent players are skipped (explained later).

Min Hours Between Turns - (Only for One Turn Per Day games) Players must wait at least "x" hours after the their last turn before they can take the next. This prevents people from hovering around 12:00am and taking two turns right in a row.

Turn skipped after... (Only for Sequential Turn games) - You snooze, you lose. The default setting is 48 hours.

Player forfeits after missing... (Only for Sequential Turn games) You snooze too many times, your people revolt (all of your territory become "Neutral").

Deployment Method: - The default is By Country Value + 2 - Factory no limit

Trade in game points at... (Default: 100 points) Game Points are awarded at the end of each turn (explained more elsewhere). Once a certain number of points is reached, the player cashes these in for extra GDP (the reward increases as the game progresses).

Chance of a random event each turn - (Default: 05%) Gain extra units, countries, cash, game points, or moves ... or lose them. Most of the time (75%) the events will be beneficial to the player, but not always. Nothing too drastic will ever take place, but it can add another element of uncertainty to the game. Click Here to see a full list of random events.

Note: One of the possible random events is a revolt. If a country is only protected by 1 unit (or no units), there is a chance that the people will overpower this meager military presence and turn the territory into a neutral country (or even join your enemy!). This can be especially disastrous if the territory happens to hold a factory or bunker. To keep this from happening, try to always keep at least 2 units in your important territories, at the very least. Also, try to keep a decent sized army on each continent in order to deal with any possible insurrection.


Minimum Number of Neutral Countries - The program randomly assigns countries as the start of the game. These setting effect how many countries will start off as "Neutral". By default, the game will start off with at least the following number of neutral countries:
- 6 countries worth 1GDP
- 4 countries worth 2GDP
- 2 countries worth 3GDP

The map contains the following numbers of each:
- 2 countries worth 0GDP (Floating Fortresses)
- 27 countries worth 1GDP
- 18 countries worth 2GDP
- 10 countries worth 3GDP

When assigning countries at the start of the game, the program assigns an equal number of each of these to each player. This means that if the program is set to assign at least TWO 3GDP countries as neutral, that would leave EIGHT countries to divide amongst 3 players. Eight is not evenly divisible by three, so the game would round down and assigning TWO 3GDP countries to each of the three players, and the remaining FOUR countries would become neutral.


Helpful hints...



Strategy


#1 - Continent Hopping - Conquering an entire continent will give you extra GDP. Don't try to fight on multiple fronts. Concentrate on taking over a whole continent. Once you've secured one continent, start working on another.

Even though Asia is the largest prize on the map, it should never be your first target. It is difficult (if not impossible) to defend unless you control a couple of adjacent continents.

#2 - Conquer (and hold) the strategic points on the map


In order to facilitate this goal of conquering an entire content, you need to control all of the access points into that continent. Conquer the counties circled in red and stock them with a bunker and plenty of infantry.

For instance, if you build a fortress on Siam (Vietnam) all of Australia is yours. As long as you can hold Siam, all of you territories in Australia will be safe from outside invasion.

Likewise, by conquering West Africa and Turkey/Iraq, you can control all of Africa. By taking Alaska and Brazil, you can seal off both North and South America. (Or course, an enemy can still come in through one of the Floating Fortresses, but...)

#3 - Don't waste your time with neutrals. Troops that are lost fighting against neutral forces would be better served killing off the troops of another player. Try to avoid wasting your troops in this manner if you can.

#4 - Attack with overwhelming force. Battle invariably favors the defender. Infantry units defend at "3" (50% hit rate) but only attack a "1" (16% hit rate). This means that if you attack 8 infantry units with 8 infantry, expect to only kill about 2 enemies while losing all of your troops in the process. If you attack 8 infantry with double the force (16), you can expect to win the battle, but you will most likely lose most of your attackers. Tanks and air units can help improve you army's effectiveness significantly, but even then you should still try to have at least twice as many units as the territory you are attacking. And if you are attacking a well-defended bunker, overwhelming force will be required.

Although conquering territory is the goal of the game, the most effective means of achieving this goal is to find a way to destroy your enemy's armies while keeping yours alive. Once your enemy's forces have been destroyed, conquering (and holding) territory will be far a easier task.

#5 - Protect your factories - Factories allow you to deploy more forces, plus give you an additional 2GDP each turn. However, if you the enemy captures one of your factories he will confiscate 10-30% of your cash reserves (in addition to a obtaining a nice, shiney new factory). Don't let this happen. Always build a bunker in territories containing a factory, and always try to keep those territories guarded by a large army. (Also, see note on random events)




Random Events

A random event sometimes occurs at the start or your turn. The frequency of these events is determined by the Chance of a random event setting selected during the creation of the game (Default: 20%). When an event occurs, the game picks a random number between 1 and 40...
1) Gain 15-50 (10-30 + 5-20) GDP
2) Gain 12-20 GDP
3-4) Gain 2-5 (1-3 + 1-2) Inf
5) Gain 2-4 (1-2 + 1-2) Tank
6) Gain 1-4 (1-2 + 0-2) Air
7) Gain 1-2 Factory
8) Gain 1-2 Bunker
9-11) Gain 5%-20% GDP
12-14) Gain Neutral country.
--- If no neutral available, re-roll random event
--- Also gain 1-2 inf and 0-1 tank on new country
15) Gain Enemy country.
--- Will only take an enemy country if it has 0-1 units defending it.
--- If no such country is available, re-roll random event
--- Also gain 1-2 inf and 0-1 tank on new country
16-20) Gain troops on one of your countries
--- Will only place on country which already has 3 or more units. If none are available, re-roll event.
--- Gain 2-4 Inf, 1-2 tanks, 0-1 air
21) Gain 65-135 (5-25 + 10-30 + 50-80) Game Points
22-25) Gain 10-35 (5-20 + 5-15) Game points
26-27) Gain 1-4 (1-2 + 0-2) extra moves
28) Gain 1-4 (1-2 + 0-2) extra attacks
29) Nothing Happens
30) Lose 1-3 attacks and 1-4 moves
31) Lose half your game points
32) Lose all of your game points
33) Lose a territory/revolt
--- If territory only has 1 unit, country becomes neutral
--- If territory has more than 1 unit, revolt is suppressed but 1 unit is lost
34-35) Lose a percentage of infantry (10% - 33%) on a country
--- Will only effect a territory with 4 or more units. If none available, re-roll event
36-38) Lose 1% - 10% of your GDP
39) Lose 5-15 GDP
40) Lose 5% - 20% of your GDP