Everyone,

As you known we've been whipping the TWC English Channel Campaign Server into shape for a new campaign. It has a lot of cool new features now, on top of what it had before.

We're planning to start the new campaign 113 Days on July 10th, which is the 81st anniversary of the start of the actual 113 days of the Battle of Britain.

It will run 113 days until October 30th - or, of course, until one side pushes the other across the channel and thoroughly defeats them.

You know we have been working to make the TWC campaign more real, more war-like, and to have real consequences for real actions that unfold over real time.

With that in mind, here are two final major new features added for the start of the new campaign Saturday:

#1. Big old Boss Fight @ end of campaign

Once you've pushed the enemy all the way across the channel--perhaps even achieving a beachhead on enemy territory--you will have one final huge, super-important, SECRET objective to destroy before the enemy is completely defeated. Destroying this objective will demoralized the enemy and make them incapable of continuing.

On the other hand--if the enemy is able to repulse your attempts to destroy these ultimate objectives, they will gain a reprieve. The front will be pushed back a distance and they'll have a chance to recover, lick their wounds, and perhaps turn the tide of battle.

#2. Destruction of enemy objectives directly affects the enemy's military strength, readiness, supplies, and fuel

We've been setting up a lot of these factors in the campaign over the years, but in the past couple of days I dotted some Is and crossed some Ts to get it all actually operational. Some examples of how it works:

  • When you destroy any enemy objective, it is out of commission for hours, days, weeks, or even months, for difficult/distant/vital/complex objectives. Not just minutes or hours, but days, weeks, and months.
  • The enemy tends to put the most important/vital objectives far behind their lines, so when you manage to destroy these distant/difficult objectives, it will have more of an impact for a longer time period--weeks to a month. Keep in mind, time is calculated in real time. So if an factory is destroyed for three weeks, it will be out of commission for three weeks real time.
  • As long as the objective remains destroyed, the enemy loses that capability. Keep in mind the period any given objective is out of operation is typically several days to a month. The length of time it will take to repair an objective depends on the type of objective, enemy capabilities, etc. Partial destruction of an objective (25% or 60%, say) also has some impact, as does additional destruction beyond 100%.
  • The exact type of objective determines what type of impact its destructions will have on the enemy. Military objectives reduce the enemy's ability to fight, and removing headquarters, leadership, research, intelligence, etc even more so. Damaging production or storage facilities also helps weaken the enemy's military strength. Most of all, damaging fuel supplies and production facilities will cut the enemies aircraft fuel availability.


You'll see a summary of the enemy's current military & production strength on the General Situation Map/online radar near the top. It looks something like this:

Red Military is at 70%
Red Military Leadership is at 65%
Red Military Fuel Supply is at 73%
Red General Production And Supply is at 81%

Blue Military is at 83%
Blue Military Leadership is at 69
Blue Military Fuel Supply is at 42%
Blue General Production And Supply is at 51%
This affects the campaign in several specific ways:

  • Overall strength (the average of all four of the factors) factors into how far you will advance the front when you turn all the objectives and "roll the map". Victory in the air war basically gives the rest of the military an opportunity to move the front forward. Your Navy dominates more of the channel. If the military strength is weak, fuel, weapons, and ammo supplies low, etc, your armed forces will be able to move the front forward just a little. If your military is very strong, it will move forward a lot more.
  • Production and Supply factors into how you aircraft re-supply goes. If you have strong production and supply, you'll receive more aircraft on re-supply; if it's weak, you'll receive fewer.
  • Production and Supply determines how long it takes to repair objectives! If your production and supply is weak, it will take longer to get that airport back online, re-stock the ammo and weapons lost, repair the bridge or railroad yard, etc.
  • Finally and most important for pilots: If your Fuel Supply becomes low, all aircraft will be restricted in the fuel they can take on. This kicks in at 70% Fuel Supply, when HQ takes control of fighter aircraft fuel loads (all set at 80%). Restrictions tighten as fuel supplies dwindle, including bomber fuel, too. When supplies are too low (~40%) then all aircraft are restricted to minimum fuel loads only.

So protect your objectives! It's not going to be fun to be restricted to minimum fuel loads! Or be short on aircraft resupply, be unable to advance the front, and so on.

What objectives will affect which area of military strength?
  • Military % strength: Any military objective, radar, airport, vehicle, buildings, planes, naval docks, military units, armour, military leadership & HQ areas, communications, etc.
  • Military Leadership % strength: Military HQ buildings & areas, military leaders (ie, convoys of high-ranking officers), research facilities, intelligence, weather, communications/radio, and so on. Anything impacting the leaders' ability to coordinate and wage war effectively.
  • Military Fuel Supply % strength: Any kind of fuel dump, fuel tank, fuel supply area--diesel, LOX, hydrogen, benzin, and all the rest. And even more: Fuel PRODUCTION areas such as fuel refineries, hydrogen or LOX production or factories, etc. Production is even more vital than storage. It is more delicate, will be out of commission longer, and will affect the fuel supply situation for longer.
  • General Production And Supply % strength: Any kind of factory, storage, or warehouse for military supplies ranging from ammo and weapons to ball bearings and boots. Transportation facilities such as railroads, bridges, railyards, rail stations, and roads. Manufacturing areas and factories for military needs of any kind.

We'll add more logical consequences as we have time - for example, as military leadership disintegrates, the ability to coordinate accurate information to pilots degrades, the ability to coordinate bombing raids to attack the most important targets degrades, destroying the Spitfire Factory reduces the resupply of Spitfires, and so on.

Stay tuned . . . and please join us for 113 Days starting July 10th.