Chapter 34: Turn-Based Strategy Simulation

Fundamentally, Romance of the Three Kingdoms possessed powerful IP value. Many people, especially those in East Asia, already understood and empathized with its story, setting, and characters through the original novel, which was why it was enjoyable and sold so well.

But the Republic of Smite was a nation with a very short history.

The kinds of sword-and-magic wars that normally fascinated people didn’t even exist here. Ras liked guns and tanks too, but perhaps because less than twenty years had passed since the world war ended in this world, such themes were not especially popular.

That doesn’t mean I can use foreign history either.

There were countries with histories somewhat resembling Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but making a game based on those nations’ histories wouldn’t create any real sense of connection. Of course, immigrants from those countries might feel differently, but he couldn’t make a game aimed only at such a tiny audience. To begin with, Ras himself had little interest in them.

In that case, he decided it would be better to create an entirely fictional history.

“Mr. Aspa.”

“Yes?”

Aspa, who had been hunched over his computer writing something with his massive frame curled up, briefly frowned when his concentration was interrupted. Fortunately, before turning toward Ras, he remembered he was at work and managed his expression.

“Do you think you could also write alternate history stories?”

“Hm? Yes. Well, I’ve tried writing in that genre before.”

Ras would have assigned him the task even if he lacked confidence, but hearing he had experience made things even better. Ras asked Aspa to create a medieval fantasy setting.

“It doesn’t need an extremely detailed story. The act of players fighting and developing their nations will become the story itself anyway.”

“Yes. Understood.”

Aspa looked quite interested. Then again, there probably weren’t many men who disliked this sort of thing. Though perhaps that was just Ras’s prejudice.

After tossing work at the previously idle Aspa, Ras moved on to planning.

At first, he thought about how to create the map. But since this was fictional history anyway, he wondered whether there was even a need for a fixed map.

And perhaps because he already had experience creating scrolling maps by combining fragmented terrain pieces multiple times before, the idea of procedurally generated random maps immediately came to mind. Or rather, it was probably because games he had enjoyed in his previous life used such systems.

It didn’t seem especially difficult. Besides, random maps already existed in this world. Previously, a computer magazine had discussed how the game Dungeon Master implemented random maps and even included an interview with the developers explaining the implementation method.

And even without digging that article back up, Ras could roughly picture how it should be done. By now, he had become quite proficient at coding himself.

But there’s no reason I have to do it personally.

“Mr. Garazt.”

Ras stopped thinking and immediately called over the programmer. When Garazt quickly approached, Ras smiled slightly before speaking.

“I’ve decided to make a game related to the war concept you suggested earlier.”

“Ah! I see.”

His expression brightened, clearly pleased that his idea had been selected. And Ras immediately handed him work.

“So we’re making a turn-based war game. I’m planning to use a system where the map that serves as the battlefield is generated randomly.”

Ras began listing conditions that came to mind immediately: various terrain tile types would be placed, terrain continuity had to be maintained, impassable tiles would exist, and players must never become trapped without pathways. Then he instructed Garazt to write the code.

“...”

Still a beginner, Garazt looked overwhelmed. But true to his highly motivated personality, he didn’t complain weakly and simply said he understood before returning to his seat.

“Understood!”

Unlike him, Pana immediately ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠understood Ras’s instructions and confidently began working. To be honest, Ras wasn’t particularly good at explaining things. But they had already made several games together, so even vague explanations were enough for her to understand.

Moreover, despite this being a completely different game, the work assigned to her — terrain tiles and sprites for warriors and mage characters — wasn’t especially different from what she had already been doing.

After assigning tasks, Ras also began more detailed planning himself.

Fundamentally, the base would be Civilization. Then he planned to take suitable elements from war games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Heroes of Might and Magic and combine them appropriately.

First, he borrowed random maps, various resources, food management, and population placement on tiles from Civilization.

However, he decided not to use complex technology trees. Certainly, rapidly advancing technologically and crushing opponents with superior technology was fun, but it was also too complicated and cumbersome. More importantly, when the technology gap became too large, tension completely disappeared later on.

If the enemy was barely in the Renaissance while you already had tanks, the game became nothing more than boring territory conquest. Even if they had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a hundred cavalry units, a single tank could roll through everything with a beep beep honk honk.

Instead, like Heroes of Might and Magic, players would construct required buildings at bases and spend resources to produce units and supplies. Technically this could also be viewed as a kind of research system since buildings required time to complete, but since everyone remained within the same era, no one would become hopelessly overwhelmed.

And like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he intended to allow players to recruit and employ talented individuals.

However, rather than fixed historical characters, these figures would have randomly generated stats. Players would then use them for domestic affairs, diplomacy, and combat.

The most important part, combat, would involve directly moving armies across the map tile by tile. Armies would consist of up to nine units depending on the commander’s leadership stat. Mobility would vary based on unit type and the talents of the officer, but army movement would match the slowest unit within the formation.

And when opposing armies collided, battles would proceed automatically, with only logs and illustrations of the process displayed afterward.

It might feel somewhat plain, but it was the result of careful thought.

If he used a system ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠where players directly controlled every unit during combat, then without advanced AI, fighting against the computer would become far too easy. With just a little thought, players could completely toy with the enemy. So he intentionally reduced the degree of direct player intervention.

This way, outcomes would depend solely on preparations made before battle: unit composition, commander stats and skills, army training level, morale, and random factors.

And realistically speaking, this made sense. When a ruler started a war, the actual combat was handled by the generals entrusted with the army.

Beyond that, he also intended to create a sophisticated diplomacy system to maintain constant tension.

Diplomacy was necessary not only for reducing enemies and increasing allies, but also for several additional reasons.

The most basic issue was resources. Since resources would be distributed randomly, players would need to trade with other nations whenever they lacked something essential. But if diplomacy was handled terribly, resources would either become vastly overpriced or, in the worst case, impossible to purchase altogether.

Additionally, like Civilization, once the player’s faction grew too powerful, neighboring enemies would form alliances and become hostile, preventing players from casually expanding or easily defeating enemies one by one.

Another aspect Ras paid close attention to was the citizen and race system.

In this game, citizens themselves were treated as resources. When a player captured a base, their own race occupied it, while the original residents would instead be moved into residential facilities generated on adjacent empty tiles. The race name would appear in front of each residence.

Cities with residences belonging to other races would allow players to recruit heroes and units from those races as well.

As long as food supply remained stable, the population used would increase each turn by a percentage of the remaining population.

In addition to residences, facilities such as monster nests and dungeons would also appear. Like in Heroes of Might and Magic, clearing them would allow players to recruit monster units and obtain resources or items.

And fitting for this world, racial traits would also be included. For example, in domestic management, Dwarf citizens assigned to mines and Elf citizens assigned to orchards would produce more resources per turn.

There were also combat-related racial traits. Each race would receive production bonuses for certain unit types. Orcs could recruit warriors cheaply, while Elves could produce archers in fewer turns, allowing them to accumulate rapidly.

Another racial trait was that armies could only contain units of the same race as their commander. This reflected historical realism, since commanding armies of different races was uncommon in actual history as well.

However, this wasn’t absolute. Certain generals with specific skills could command soldiers of other races.

Afterward, Ras continued refining the design by filling in weak points with various ideas until the planning phase was complete.

Did I mix too many things together into one giant stew?

He had planned everything while trying to improve upon the games he remembered, but he still felt slightly uneasy. After all, it had diverged significantly from the already proven original forms.

But thinking about it, creating something and releasing it onto the market always came with anxiety.

If I’m too scared to release even this — a game that isn’t completely original — then I’d just end up making cloned games forever.

At this point, one or two failed games wouldn’t bankrupt the company, so Ras decided to push forward as planned.

Even though he had resolved himself, he still couldn’t help feeling nervous while explaining the concept to the employees.

“This is another innovative game.”

However, no one reacted negatively. In fact, Garazt even sounded impressed. Granted, they couldn’t really be considered objective, but it reassured Ras somewhat anyway.

Ras split the workload apart and handed chunks of it to the employees before diving into logic design himself. Naturally, since this was programming territory, he delegated a large portion to Garazt.

“Take your time. Don’t pressure yourself too much.”

“Yes...”

Since Garazt was already clutching his head while struggling with the random map system, his response wasn’t especially enthusiastic. But that was simply how workplaces worked.

As Ras continued designing the remaining systems one by one, a sudden thought crossed his mind.

I should hire more people.

Delegating even the initial logic design to others had drastically reduced the workload in front of him, and it felt wonderful. Naturally, this led to the thought that it would feel even better if he hired more coding slaves — no, employees — and dumped all the tedious, headache-inducing work onto them.

Besides, the studio would need to expand eventually anyway. And he also had the perfectly reasonable excuse that there was no way he could recreate all the fun games from Earth if he kept making everything personally like this.

Ras temporarily set aside the logic design and began drafting recruitment documents.

At first, he had only considered hiring programmers. But then his gaze drifted toward Pana. Meta Soft had gained a reputation for presenting graphics and game volume distinct from existing titles on the market. Which meant Pana, the graphics lead, had an enormous workload.

Even from the perspective of Ras, who was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hardly a particularly generous employer, she seemed glued to the computer almost nonstop.

Suddenly, he became worried. She already wore huge glasses. Her eyesight could worsen further, and she might develop wrist or neck problems. Naturally, he was concerned on a human level as well, but if she suddenly became sick and unable to work, game development itself would grind to a halt.

Ras alternated his gaze between the recruitment document on the monitor and Pana before quietly rising from his seat.