Growth from use, and medals you sign off on yourself

After a battle the results screen shows what changed for every survivor: accuracy was 41, now it’s 42; rifle skill went up by three; endurance gained one and a half. Sometimes there is a line underneath — “Nominated for an award” — with the name of a medal. Neither works the way it usually does in tactics games with progression, and I’ve been asked about both. This post is about where those numbers come from and why a medal doesn’t pin itself on.

What grows, and from what

A soldier has eight attributes: health, strength, endurance, accuracy, agility, reflexes, courage and perception. Five of them grow in battle, each from its own action:

• accuracy — from hits on the enemy;
• endurance — from running;
• strength — from moving with a load close to the limit or over it;
• reflexes — from overwatch shots;
• courage — from coming under suppressing fire.

Besides attributes there are weapon skills, one per kind of weapon: rifles, pistols, machine guns, sniper rifles, shotguns, launchers, melee and other. A skill grows from shots fired with that kind of weapon. The higher it is, the slower it grows: a recruit picks it up fast, while a seasoned shooter has to work harder for every point.

In one battle an attribute can grow by two points at most, a skill by five. Everything tops out at a hundred. One lucky battle doesn’t turn a recruit into a sniper, and a sniper with thirty battles behind him shoots better precisely because he spent thirty battles shooting. A soldier who dies in a battle gains nothing from it.

What about the level?

The results screen has a line “Level 2 → 3”, and this needs an honest answer: it isn’t experience in the usual sense. The level is length of service — every five combat missions add one. It does nothing for shooting, running or anything else; the attributes don’t depend on it.

Length of service is used in two places. When the level goes up, the results screen says “Recommended for promotion”. The rank doesn’t change by itself: you assign it, any rank you like, and the game doesn’t restrict it. And it is part of a veteran’s price on the mercenary market, together with rank, battles fought and awards.

I didn’t make a level that gives power. A level like that turns a soldier into a container for one number, and gaining experience into a goal of its own. I want a soldier’s worth to be readable from his service record: he became what he did. It also removes the choice between grinding and playing — they are the same thing. For the same reason, gains at the training camp shrink with every training battle: you can’t take a soldier to the ceiling without ever sending him into a real fight.

The game nominates, the commander awards

There are twenty-six awards in the game: some for a single battle, others for a whole career. After a battle the game checks the conditions and, when one is met, nominates the soldier. The medal isn’t given yet. The nomination appears on the “Awards” tab of the soldier’s card, with the reason — exactly which numbers met the condition. Then it’s your call: “Award”, “Reject”, or leave it for later.

A few examples. The Combat Valor Medal: three enemies killed in one battle without a single hit on your own people or civilians — no valour medal for a battle with friendly blood on it. The Sentinel Medal: six overwatch hits in one battle. The Service Medal in three classes: ten, thirty and sixty combat missions. Some are posthumous: Last Stand, for a soldier who killed two before he fell, and In Memory of a Veteran, for one who died with ten or more missions behind him.

It doesn’t work the other way round: you can’t give a medal without a nomination. A rank you hand out freely; an award always has a condition.

So why does the commander get the last word? A nomination counts numbers, but it doesn’t know how things actually went. You saw the battle and can watch the replay. Three kills can be cold work from cover, or luck while a squadmate died covering this soldier. The squad’s honour roll is your judgement, not a counter’s report. A rejected nomination isn’t gone for good: if the soldier meets the condition again, he’ll be nominated again. An approved medal stays in his file — what it was for, when, and after which battle. If he falls, his awards stay with him in the memorial.

A player meets this rule straight away. Baptism of Fire goes to the soldiers who took part in their commander’s very first battle, the tutorial one included. So from the first battle a new player sees that the game proposes and he decides.

Soldiers who fought on the AI’s side have no commander, so there is nobody to decide for them, and their nominations are approved automatically. That’s why veterans with medals sometimes turn up on the mercenary market, and their awards add to their price.

What is still rough

• The Rescue Medal is in the catalogue, but the simulation doesn’t yet record who carried a wounded soldier out. Nobody is nominated for it in real battles; fixing that needs a new version of the simulation.
• Health, agility and perception don’t grow in battle yet — there is no action that would be fair to count for them.
• The reason for a nomination is stored as a ready-made Russian string, so the English interface shows it in Russian for now.
• The plan is that a nomination left hanging for long, or a soldier kept a private for battle after battle, will lower his loyalty. For now loyalty is only stored and affects nothing.
• All growth numbers are a first balance pass. They will change as battles pile up.

The demo battle needs no signup: play it.