Feature

Geography is a weapon

Most strategy games give terrain a soft +/- on a defense roll. NationFall makes geography decide battles. Mountains punish armor. Jungles hide defenders. Deserts favor maneuver. And then the calendar shows up: winter, mud, monsoon, typhoon - every climate has a season that breaks something.

The same army that crushes plains will bleed in the Caucasus. The same fleet that owns the Mediterranean in July is in trouble when the typhoons hit.

Terrain modifiers, by type

Every region has terrain. Every battle resolution multiplies attacker effectiveness, defender bonus, and insurgency potential by the terrain's profile.

Mountains halve attack power and concede +18% defense. The insurgency multiplier (1.60×) means even a successful occupation hemorrhages stability - every guerrilla campaign in history begins with the same line on a topographic map.

Seasons, by climate zone

Climate zones have their own seasonal cycles. The same date in two regions does not mean the same conditions on the ground.

The Wehrmacht's eastern offensive does not bog down in November because the engine remembered to. It bogs down because mud is 0.6× and winter is 0.5× and a tank that crawls in March is not a tank that takes Moscow in October.

Training offsets, but not stacks

Specialized training halves the matching penalty. Cold-trained troops fight at half the winter penalty. Mountain-trained units halve altitude effects. Desert-trained, jungle-trained, arctic-trained - each halves its own.

But training does not stack. One match equals one halving. A jungle-trained, cold-trained, mountain-trained division does not get triple credit when it fights in jungle in winter on a mountain - it gets the relevant halving for the relevant condition. Specialization beats generalism, but you have to know what you are specializing for.

The combat formula

Territory shifts in battle resolve as:

shift = forceRatio × BASE × terrainMult × seasonMod × breakthroughMult

Force composition is not the only thing on that line. Terrain and season multiply directly. A 2:1 force advantage in plains in summer is a different war from the same advantage in mountains in winter - and the formula reflects it.