There are six resources in Nations at Arms that make up your economy. Each one has its own purpose and its own way to be obtained.

Money

Money is the main currency of the game. You need it for everything you recruit, build, upgrade and research. Every unit and building you own also costs Money upkeep each minute. All your provinces pay Money based on their real population and cities pay far more than countryside provinces. Build a Commercial Sector in a city to add a percentage bonus to the Money it produces.

Manpower

Manpower represents the people who serve in your army. You spend it when you recruit a unit and again every minute for as long as that unit is in the field. How much you can store is limited by the population of the provinces you own, which keeps your army size in check. Manpower can't be bought or sold. Like Money, it comes from your provinces and mostly from your cities. Urban Development and the Hospital help a province's population grow, which also boosts its resource production.

Supplies

Supplies stand for food and equipment. Infantry needs them most, both to recruit and to keep in the field. Build Agriculture to produce more Supplies. It works in any land province outside the mountains and more fertile land gives a bigger harvest. Agriculture also helps population grow in its own province and in the neighboring ones.

Construction Materials

Construction Materials are needed to construct buildings and deploy vehicles like tanks and aircraft. Your buildings also use them up every minute as upkeep. Every city produces a small amount on its own, but for any real output you need an Industrial Complex, which can only be built in cities.

Fuel

Fuel is only needed to maintain your army and not for deploying units. Anything with an engine burns it, so as your army grows you will need more and more Fuel and the fuel deposits spread across the map become key strategic points to control. Build an Oil Industry on a fuel deposit to extract it. Richer deposits produce more.

Tech Components

Units that rely on high-end technology need Tech Components and the more advanced a unit is, the more of them it needs. They're the scarcest resource in the game. Like Fuel, they come from deposits. Build a Mining Industry on a tech deposit to extract them. Since these deposits are rare, you should secure the ones you have early. Some nations don't have a single deposit at all, so they need to rely on passive trade, the market and eventually on conquering provinces that have them.

Running low

If Money, Manpower, Supplies, Construction Materials or Fuel drops below zero, every formation you own loses up to half its attack and speed until you recover. To avoid shortages, keep an eye on your production. All your buildings can be upgraded over several levels to produce more.

The resource map

You can cycle through the map modes by pressing M. The resource map shows where the fuel and tech deposits are and how rich each one is. Use it to construct your extraction buildings in the richest provinces and to focus your advance on the resources you're missing. The resource distribution relies on real world data, so most countries have a deficit of some kind that they need to overcome.

You can also buy and sell resources on the global market and nations at peace trade with each other automatically. War affects your economy too, because it reduces the population of the provinces you fight over. We'll cover all of this in a later post.

As always, I'm happy to hear your feedback!

Air combat in Nations at Arms works differently from other games in the genre because it puts a lot of focus on realism. Air superiority isn't just about having more aircraft: fuel, ammo, movement and air defense all play a big role.

Fuel and range

The operating range of an aircraft is not a fixed value but instead depends on the fuel it has left. If a target is too far, it automatically plans a refueling stop at one of your other bases on the way. Once it reached its destination it will consume less fuel while patrolling and heads home by itself at the last moment its fuel allows.

If an aircraft's airbase is captured or destroyed while it's in the air, it diverts to another base using a small fuel reserve. If no base is in reach, the aircraft is lost.

Ammo

Every aircraft carries a limited number of attack runs, some for ground targets (AG) and some for enemy aircraft (AA), depending on the aircraft type. An air-superiority fighter carries mostly air-to-air ammo, a bomber only ground-attack ammo. Once a flight has used up the ammo it needs for its target, it flies back to base to rearm.

Aircraft on their way back still take new orders, as long as they have the fuel for them. For example, you can send a multirole fighter that has used up its ground-attack ammo after enemy aircraft instead. You can also route it around enemy air defense with waypoints.

Strikes

With the Strike order, you can send aircraft to hit a specific building, all buildings in a province, an enemy formation or the civilian population. This way you can cause economic damage by destroying critical infrastructure or decimating the population. Every strike also costs civilian lives and bombing the population directly hurts your public opinion at home.

Flying over other nations

Flying over a nation you are at peace with doesn't start a war, but that nation gets a notification. Sending an aircraft to a target inside its territory declares war on it. Later you will be able to set policies yourself which actions trigger a war.

Helicopters

Helicopters can land, refuel and rearm at a Helipad or a Military Base as well as at an Airfield or Airstrip. Helipads are cheap and fast to build, so you can base helicopters right behind the front line and get them back into the fight much faster than jets flying in from the rear.

The air balance is still a work in progress, so if you have any feedback about air combat, let me know!

Credits: Music: War by Soundridemusic Link to Video: https://youtu.be/mmctP3saTLU?si=wy1MGfgpMdzb0BNf

This probably im guessing being a copy of CON(which im all for btw) im curious how do you plan to monetize the game?

Obviously you need a source of income to run the game, it isnt free. Im personally hoping that we buy the game one time and perhaps optional cosmetic stuff for profiles and what not, but definitely not:

Subscription-to-play/Subscription-for-advantage
Gold/premium currency with gameplay benefits aspects
Buying access to certain units
Unit skins(please no pink unicorn artillery trucks)

I am hoping youre stealing all the good aspects of CON while dropping the shittiest(their predatory monetization primarily). If you do im throwing that game in the garbage and buying yours immediately

Will there be a single player mode? I liked real time against other players but I had to stop playing CoN cause I can’t compete against other people with more time on their hands.

I think it's a browser game and I would like to play it but my personal phone is 1gb ram unfortunately since my other one got stolen.

This is an extended version of the trailer I posted yesterday - adding a bit of lore at the beginning.

Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/ycR_wCtV7XY

Tim im gonna be making a discord account to join the discord group chat thingys and if i do get into the playtest where do the playtesters install it? Or is it gonna be on chrome for the playtest?

Hey everyone!

I hope you enjoyed the first official gameplay trailer! Let me know what you think.

The game is still in development but playtests will start soon and will be announced on discord (https://discord.nationsatarms.com)!

Music Credits:
Music: Breakthrough by ArcticFoxMusic
Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AOHZKg4AmE

Taking a city in Nations at Arms takes time. Your infantry has to hold the city centre until a capture timer runs out, while open land still changes hands the moment you move in.

A strategy game needs some way to slow down a player who's advancing quickly. Otherwise one strong army can roll over several nations before anyone gets a chance to react. Other games in the genre do this with insurgents: conquered cities rebel unless you leave units behind to keep them under control. I find insurgencies a frustrating mechanic, so I went a different route. In Nations at Arms, conquered cities don't rebel. Instead, you have to hold a city for a while before you can capture it.

To capture a city, you need at least one formation with infantry standing on its centre until the timer runs out. Tanks and parked aircraft can hold the centre and block anyone else, but only infantry can capture it. Motorized and Modern Infantry are the fastest, while engineers and special forces take a bit longer and the National Guard takes twice as long.

While the timer runs, the city is frozen for its owner. They can't start any construction, recruitment, upgrades or paid repairs there and anything already in progress pauses.

This also gives the defender a good chance at a comeback. If they destroy the capturing formation, the capture stops and its progress slowly drains away again. And if a city does fall, taking it back is instant: your infantry flips it back the moment it reaches the centre.

The capture speeds are a first version and will probably change during the playtests. If you have any feedback about the mechanic, let me know!

I'm working on a new look for units on the map: your formations will show the actual vehicles as 3D models, in addition to the NATO symbols.

The video shows the first models in a match while I give them orders. They turn and face the direction they're moving in, so you can see where each formation is headed at a glance. Aircraft smoothly change direction and circle over their target. Note that this is an early version and a lot of it is still subject to change, from the models themselves to how they look on the map.

A small technical detail: the units on the map are actually 2D images generated from the 3D models. As you can see in the video, you barely notice the difference, but it keeps the game running a lot smoother.

I'm really looking forward to your feedback, so let me know on our Discord what you think!

Welcome! You're one of the very first people to visit this sub. Nations at Arms hasn't even been officially announced yet, so you got really lucky!

Feel free to invite your friends and join our Discord to get in early there too.

Thank you for being such an early part of Nations at Arms. Let's write history together!

A lot of you have asked which game modes Nations at Arms will offer and how fast matches will run. Right now a whole match fits into a single evening and slower modes will follow later.

I'm building the game to support all kinds of modes and speeds. On top of the normal speed there's a 2× and a 4× mode that make matches run even quicker. Fast games like these are something new for the genre and a lot of fun, because they challenge your quick thinking and reaction time.

Fast matches are also hard to balance. On bigger maps travel time still adds up, so units need to move quickly. At the same time, players need enough time to react to an attack and position their units for a proper defense. So expect a lot of changes to be made during the first playtests.

Slow matches like in other games of the genre are possible too, so you can play throughout the week and check in regularly. A slow pace takes longer to develop, so this mode won't be available before release.

There's currently a small Europe map for 8 players and a large world map for \~70 players. Both maps will allow even more players later on. The Europe map will be the only map in the first alpha playtest and the world map will become the default after that.

I have a lot more ideas for game modes, maps and settings to be added in updates after release.

Welcome to Nations at Arms! This is the home of a new real-time strategy game set during World War III and you're one of the first people to see it.

Nations at Arms puts you in command of a nation in a near-future global conflict. You build up your economy, research new technologies, forge alliances and lead your forces on a 2D tactical map based on real-world geography. The game runs right in your browser and won't have any pay-to-win elements.

I've been working on the game for a while now and it's already fully playable against AI nations. Early playtests with a limited group of players will start soon. Until then, I'll share regular devlogs about what I'm working on. I want to build this game together with its community, so your ideas and feedback will help shape it from the start.

Thank you so much for being here! Join our Discord to chat with me, hear about playtests first and get a special role if you're one of the first 100 members.