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We always try to keep track of how the game is playing with resepct to some of the things that determine the basics of strategic gameplay. A lot of this is tied to how battles play out and what is asked of both sides in conducting warfare in the search for the win.

One of the things that is often brought up is how long should a battle last ? There isn't one definitive answer to that question but over the years we have found that, under trial and error, something along the lines of around 3-4 hours duration seems to be the most popular guesstimate.

Player populations can shift a lot during the course of a day, from heavy to light and all the way through moderate and back again. We cannot tie equipment (supply) levels dynamically to population although that is the obviously best approach. At some point in the future we hope to do exactly that. In the meantime, we instead run the estimated "middle ground" between too much and too little and try to find the average.

Next campaign we are going to drop the size of brigades aomewhere near 50% ... with battles in recent campaigns lasting almost twice what has in the past (with a higher game population average) worked well, this would seem an appropriate change to have a shot at currently. It won't be a uniform change, and obviously some units probably won't see much if any change at all because they already exist in tiny numbers. Think of it as a rough sketch since I can't give any line by line detail right now. A ball park figure if you like.

Naturally all systems in the game do not operate in a vacuum, as all things are interconnected in various ways, some subtle and some more obvious. This will mean we are going to shorten the resupply timer by 50% at the same time. So while you have in effect, something like half as much in a spawn list as before, it comes back in half the time. This should see a greater variety of big battle experiences, it will still be possible to have huge battles that go on forever before a winner steps out of the smoke ... but a smaller faster more "lightning" style of battle will also be able to be experienced. A lot will depend on strategy and tactical operations and this is always what the game relies on to determine the true winners. RDP bombing will still have the capacity to extend resupply timers out as high as 100%, we aren't changing that.

Finally, we're going to have an alternate path to victory be possible. Always in past campaign, the winner had to occupy the "whole world" in order to win the campaign. This "whole world" was in reality 93-94% approximately ... at which point there wasn't a lot of point in continuing until there was nowhere left to fight.

Next campaign (#94) there will be an alternate victory condition so that either of the 2 methods can signify a win. This new alternative is as follows:

EITHER SIDE WHICH CAPTURES ANY NINE OF THE ENEMIES RDP FACTORIES (by owning the cities they are in) WILL BE DECLARED THE WINNER EVEN IF THEY DO NOT "own the whole world".

You can still win by the old method. It's just that now you can win by a slightly different method as well. Strategically this gives campaigns a little more variety. We think this is a good thing and might even revitalize a few of the more jaded individuals out there on the battlefield.