War; it’s expensive. Muzzy Lane’s Making History: The Great War will have us balancing the budget as well as overseeing our industrial capacity to feed the war machines. This new dev diary examines the cogs of industry.
The studio has separated the production of hardware, like tanks and planes, from troop recruitment this time around. This is to better reflect a nation’s war-time capabilities, they say.
The ”typical linear production” they had before was a handicap to smaller nations as it took too long to produce anything. Now troops can at least be amassed at all times.
Our capacity to build and support factories in a city is also tied to the infrastructure level, which also boosts production as more resources and manpower can be transported. Muzzy Lane also split factories into ”two different industrial tracks,” meaning they can either support the economy by generating wealth, or chip in with the military effort.
”For example, a Manufacturing Plant can produce either Textiles or Arms, and a Tooling Plant can produce either Machine Tools or Artillery. Like recruitment facilities, each factory can be upgraded from level one to three, which improves efficiency so units are completed more quickly and wealth-generating choices produce more gold per turn,” explained Muzzy.
”We also separated specialty buildings not directly tied to manufacturing. So buildings like hospitals and processing plants can be added without taking up a precious factory slot, as well as buildings to increase national research such as Universities.” Fully developed cities can switch between tracks and still produce troops.
”However, switching between the military and the wealth generation options has a cost, so players should do so judiciously. Balancing wealth generation and military force levels is a core part of gameplay that will get more precarious as the player’s military force grows larger. Not only are the forces you build requiring you to pay maintenance costs each turn, but every factory producing war materiel is not generating wealth, adding to the net loss.”
”A larger military also reduces the pool of manpower for civilian use. How well you can balance the “guns vs. butter” dynamic as the game progresses is critical to a successful strategy.”
Making History: The Great War releases on PC April 4th.
