On September 9th, 1943 the Allies landed at Salerno. They were met with heavy resistance from German forces but after several days of fighting they established a beachhead and the enemy retreated north. What followed was a German defensive line built up along the Volturno river intended to delay the Allied advance for 1 month before falling back to the formidable Gustav Line and its centerpiece, Monte Cassino. 

(These are Pre-Alpha shots from very early in development and not representative of the final state of the Campaign Map.)

The Objectives

If you have read the Narrative Arcs post from last month you will have seen how they are intended to create branching storylines and gameplay rooted in historical events. The setup is historical, but the outcome will vary depending on your actions. We are building the objectives and designing the map with a similar philosophy. 

These events from Salerno to Monte Cassino represent part of the Primary Objective flow through the campaign, but we have to ask:  

What happens if the Volturno River is easily blown past before a defensive line can be truly established? The Primary Objective may not appear, instead focusing on the unprepared Gustav Line. 

Or what happens if a southern threat like the airfield complex of Foggia has been ignored? Historically the airfields were abandoned before the allies arrived at the scene but left unchecked Foggia could remain a major air threat, stabbing at the Allied flank as they try to advance. 

Using just those two influences as an example, one playthrough may be a stiff fight to break through the Volturno Line and reach Monte Cassino whereas another playthrough may be a swift strike straight to Monte Cassino while swatting away angry Luftwaffe and defending thin supply lines. 

Supporting Gameplay

Approaching Foggia is an example of non-objective gameplay where the enemy will slowly transfer aircraft north as they abandon the airfield. Get to Foggia quick enough to prevent this effort through a mission, but take too much time and the aircraft will bolster the defensive lines to the north and, with no defending forces, the Foggia mission will no longer be available. Some of these events occur regardless of player interaction so ignoring certain threats can have its own outcomes. 

(These are Pre-Alpha shots from very early in development and not representative of the final state of the Campaign Map.)

Dynamic secondary objectives also spawn throughout the campaign along the front lines. These provide compelling distractions from the primary threats and are intended to make you question if you can do it all. Many events are contextual to actions on previous turns. Bombed a munitions depot? Now it’s on fire and munitions are popping off, damaging the town. Do you redirect a company to repair it? Or do you leave it be, hoping the Partisans can forgive this decision. Other secondary objectives can lead to missions like hunting down General Taube as seen in the Pre-Alpha Preview from July. 

The Map

The other major piece of the puzzle is of course the map itself. Same as the objectives, this starts with a heavy historical and geographical basis, taking from real world terrain data, satellite images, battle maps, and intelligence reports from the time period. All together this collection of research helps us design the terrain, roads, and towns in a way that challenges the player in a similar way the allies were challenged. Whether those scenarios actually occur is up to the way the campaign progresses and the player’s decisions. 

(These are Pre-Alpha shots from very early in development and not representative of the final state of the Campaign Map.)

This research also helped us define the key locations: Ports, Airfields, and Partisan Hubs. These locations are where most of the support abilities can be used, making them vital to capture when advancing into new regions. Key airfields like Foggia provide extra-long range air abilities, Ports like Anzio and Termoli keep nearby towns in-supply, increase resource rates, and allow production of new naval and land units. These can be tide turning benefits, but smaller towns still have their role. On top of providing fuel or munitions bonuses, smaller towns each have a chance to be revealed as a new Partisan Hub, with their locations varying from playthrough to playthrough. 

There are many more combinations of events and objectives and we are excited to see each player’s unique scenarios. As always, this is still being assembled and is subject to change, but I hope this gives some insight into our process for building the Italy campaign map world and the possibilities within. 

If you have any ideas for historical events you’d like to see as objectives, please post them here! 

I don't know if it would be possible at this point but a fight of the allied force against the Italian before they switched side. This happened before monte cassino.

I am thinking about a mission where the Italian force are getting constantly reinforced by German with ground troops/ tanks. And the player is also getting reinforced every X minutes to hold the attacks. The player get bombed by air or strifed almost constantly. The game would last like 45 min or an hour and end with something like 400 kills / 400 death. The fight taking place in a city and of course at the end its all rubble.