User:Jacky 50A/Sandbox 2

"When worlds war, only one may reign."

- Tagline

Worlds at War is a real-time strategy game developed and published by 50A Studios, released on the 4th of August 2025 for Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, and Nintendo Switch. The game revolves around the battles of forces from multiple science fiction media, who clash to attain dominance over a single planet of abundant resources for their own interests.

Summary
Far into the depths of space lies a verdant world of diverse climes and plentiful resources known as the Sphere, which is a planet devoid of any sentient life. The globe's peace would not last, however, as numerous star-spanning dominions and organizations come to discover its existence and exploit its resources. Ultimately, however, not every one of these factions can share dominance over the planet, and it is the player's duty to carry these empires, corporations, and civilizations to victory.

Gameplay
The following details concerning the gameplay mostly pertains to campaign and player vs. artificial intelligence modes.

Overview
Much like typical real-time strategy games, Worlds at War has the player choose their playable faction, gather resources, construct buildings, and amass armies to achieve the specific objectives set within the player's game session. In the case of this game, the multiple resources that are present aren't always usable by every faction in the game due to their differing needs. For example, human-centric factions may always require food and mineral supplies for their efforts, but certain non-human factions may only require minerals to sustain themselves. With these resources, players may construct buildings, which they could use to harvest other resources, research certain technologies, recruit soldiers and war machines alike, as well as defend the player's own holdings.

Resources
In-game, there are several fundamental resources that are available for each faction to make use of as the foundation of their operations. These resources are typically exploitable by every faction, but those who are unable to make use of every resource tends to present challenges of their own. The resources are as follows:


 * Energy : From oil veins to rivers that can be dammed for power, players require sources of energy to keep their faction's structure operational. Energy is usually attained by harvesting relevant resource sites by either using builder units or constructing structures that automatically harvest the site's resources themselves. Factions require energy to maintain their buildings, which will suffer disadvantages if their energy upkeep is unfulfilled.
 * Mass : Mass represents food and other related resources required by biological entities to sustain themselves. Mass can be gained by hunting and harvesting native organisms, building farms on fertile soil sites identified on the map, or even by harvesting slain enemy units, depending on the faction's own nature. Should factions fail to fulfill the needs of mass, then their organic units will suffer detrimental status effects.
 * Materials : Materials are the resources that factions utilize to construct their buildings, such as stone, wood, iron, and others. Materials is also used to recruit or create war machines that require vast amounts of non-organic materials to create. They are attained through similar means to the energy resource, in that they are harvested naturally by either builders or buildings.
 * Requisition : This resource reflects the currencies that the factions employ, should they themselves actually make use of them. Requisition is mostly used by civilized factions to recruit units and enact other projects, upgrades, and resources. Requisition is generated by virtually every building the factions create, though only certain buildings actually generate large amounts of requisition for factions to use.

Natural resources are present in certain resource sites identified to the players within the game map. There may be water bodies that allow factions to fish for mass or create watermills upon them for energy, as well as cave formations where minerals can be mined for both materials and energy. When these natural resources are gathered, they must be retrieved to the factions' warehouse buildings, either by builder or transport units. Structures may be built upon these resource sites to automatically gather the resources players desire, but the resources accumulated must still be moved back to the warehouses. These resource-harvesting buildings have limits to how many resources they can accumulate, but stationing/garrisoning a number of builder units within the structure can increase the limits and grant bonuses to the structures themselves.

Resource sites may experience modifications through various factors, such as weather events or enemy attacks. For example, players may deny enemies access to a cavern full of minerals by destroying its entrance with explosives, whilst floods and hurricanes may damage the players' resource harvesters. On the other hand, players may corrupt water sources with biological weapons should they have access to such armaments or destroy fertile soil by blowing them up. Players need to be careful about this, however, as denying enemies resource sites also deprives themselves of such things.

Buildings
Factions require buildings to achieve their objectives within the map. As mentioned previously in the resource section, buildings require energy to maintain. Should factions fail to fulfill this energy upkeep, their buildings will operate with less effectiveness. While certain factions may use other resources to maintain their buildings, energy is by far the most common resource used to pay for the buildings' operational cost.

Buildings are used for many different purposes, chief among being the harvesting of resources, the recruitment of military units, and researching new technologies and implements that can enhance the factions' capability. They can also be upgraded to better serve their purposes, as well as be garrisoned by units -- mostly military -- to further increase their performance or keep them safe from incoming intruders.

Factions start the game with a single headquarters, which grants them the ability to recruit units crucial to further developments, such as builder and scout units. Headquarters also grants factions the initial number of buildings they can create. While factions cannot build more than a single headquarters within the game's map, they may build outpost buildings that further increase the factions' building capacity.

Every non-resource harvesting structure built will be linked to the closest central building, which is either the headquarters or the outposts. These central structures also possess an energy upkeep, but as long as the other buildings are linked to the central structure, the amount of energy maintenance they need will be reduced. Should the headquarters or outposts fall, then the buildings linked to them will suffer from a vastly increased amount of resource upkeep.

General buildings can be upgraded several times, but to which extent they can be upgraded depends on the central buildings' own level. If a faction wishes to upgrade their military recruitment building to the second level, then the headquarters or outpost must have been upgraded to Level Two, as well. Headquarters can be upgraded up to five times, whilst outposts can be upgraded up to three times. Upgraded headquarters and outposts will unlock new technologies and upgrades, and the maximum range of buildings that can be linked to the central buildings.

By default, resource-harvesting buildings are not linked to any central buildings due to the fact that they tend to be located in remote locations. However, they can be linked to nearby outpost buildings to further increase their effectiveness and efficiency, with the resource-harvesting buildings themselves already having quite a low energy upkeep even when not linked. Resource-harvesting buildings can always be upgraded to Level Five, even if they're linked to an outpost and not a headquarters.

Units
Through the buildings available to the players, units that fulfill a number of different purposes may be recruited to advance their purposes. Units are trained in groups, where a single unit contains multiple entities. Players can only field as many units as the unit population capacity permits, which tends to be small in the beginning of a game but can increase the more buildings that allow for recruitment that players build. Upgrading central structures such as the headquarters and outposts can also increase the unit population capacity, but upgrading the recruitment buildings increases the capacity the most in many cases.

As mentioned before, units are organized in groups or squads. Within these squads, players may upgrade certain members of the unit with specialized weapons that will provide them tactical advantages, such as heavy weapons. These tactical weapon upgrades are only available to particular units within the factions' roster, but they can be done at any time with just a relatively small cost. On the other hand, there are general upgrades that improve the performance of all units on the field in the form of technologies that need to be researched. These technologies are available for research in certain buildings, which players can review within the game's database at any point in-game.

Present in the game are hero units, which are special characters who possess phenomenal capabilities that allow them to support their armies in a number of different ways. Heroes come in the form of either renowned individuals known within the faction, or generic leader-type individuals that are far more abundant than the factions' infamous figures but are weaker overall. Hero units can be levelled up to Level 20, gaining new abilities that they are able to purchase with the amount of experience they have gained. Spending their experience to purchase personal upgrades do not reduce their own level, as players only need to accumulate a certain amount of experience points to level up.

Heroes may be embedded within other units, granting squads or hordes powerful bonuses that mark them as their companions. By themselves, heroes are counted within the unit population capacity, but embedding them within other units do not increase the player's population count by any means. Despite this, heroes cannot be embedded within all units within the factions, as they can only be grouped up with certain types of units, as described by their details.

Units possess these following stats to determine their combat effectiveness:


 * Health: The total amount of damage that whole units can take before being eliminated from combat.
 * Armor: The amount of damage that whole units can reduce from incoming attacks.
 * Morale: The willingness of units to continue fighting in combat. Units with high morale will keep fighting at peak effectiveness, but the more damage to morale they suffer, the more penalties they suffer to statistics aside from health, armor, traits, and abilities. Morale is lost when units suffer continuous entity loses, witness the destruction or death of nearby units, affected by psychological effects inflicted by other units, endure elemental effects either from enemy attacks or the weather itself, or lose their headquarters. Robotic, fanatical, hive-minded, or even mindless units may possess high or no morale at all, granting them immunity to psychological effects.
 * Mobility: The speed at which units move on land.
 * Flight Speed: The speed at which units move while flying in the air.
 * Water Speed: The speed at which units move while mobilizing through water bodies.
 * Melee Damage: The amount of damage units can dish out in close-quarters combat using melee attacks.
 * Ranged Damage: The amount of damage units can dish out in ranged combat.
 * Line of Sight: How far a unit can see through the fog of war and detect other units who are not in stealth.
 * Detection Radius: How big of a unit's size profile is, so that they are not immediately spotted by other units. A lower detection radius generally means that the unit in question is stealthy and harder to detect by enemy units' line of sight.
 * Accuracy: How accurate the ranged attacks of units are.
 * Traits: Special traits and characteristics that give units passive benefits on the map.
 * Abilities: Active abilities that possess cooldown and can be used to the benefit of the unit.

Environment
As mentioned before, the game's maps possess various weather events that can change up the condition of the game. Volcanic maps may feature eruptions that unleash molten lava and hot rocks upon the map, threatening the safety of every faction's asset, while also offering new sites of fertile soil for farmlands in the aftermath of the eruption with ashes. Aquatic maps connected to the sea may feature tsunamis that swipe aside assets located within coastal areas, and snowy mountainous areas may unleash avalanches upon the factions should their combat emit noise loud enough to trigger such an event.

Aside from the weather events, critters in the form of the Sphere's native lifeforms are present in many of the maps, giving players another faction of sorts that they have to watch out for. These critters tend to be harvestable for resources, however, which means that regardless of their level of threat or lack thereof, they will be beneficial for factions to eliminate. In fact, factions in need of mass may be able to herd and domesticate certain lifeforms for prolonged mass requirements.

Conquest
The game's equivalent to a campaign mode, the conquest mode serves to familiarize the players with every faction featured in-game through a semi-narrative mode. In this mode, players command the factions they choose to dominate the Sphere through governing them on the overworld of the planet, similar to Total War: Warhammer and Dawn of War's management of the factions' actions upon their setting. Unlike those games, where the overworld is separate from the 'battle map', the overworld of this game is also the 'battle map', meaning that every choice and decision players make translate to real time. There are no end turn buttons, because every faction in-game can perform their actions immediately without having to wait for others.

Players are able to initiate diplomatic endeavors with other factions they encounter, such as agreeing on non-aggression pacts, military access deals, trade agreements, military alliances, and even creating a coalition of multiple factions that grant bonuses to the factions involved. Players may create embassies that maintain and improve diplomatic relations with other factions, as long as the factions involved have at least a non-aggression deal. Embassies can only be built in the vicinity of headquarters, not outposts, and they are upgraded according to the factions' relationship, up to Level Five. Starting from Level Three, the players' embassies may allow for the recruitment of certain units from other factions. Players can build more than a single embassy, but every embassy must represent a different faction that the players interact with.

Unit population capacity is greatly increased in this mode to accommodate the players' need for projecting force throughout the world, but they still need to create more buildings in order to increase the number of units that they can field in-game.

Other Game Modes

 * Archives: A gallery mode where players are able to access relevant information concerning the game and its contents, from the nature of the Sphere to the intricacies of in-game factions, in addition to certain in-game sequences that players have recorded for replay purposes.
 * Battles: Customizable fights against AI factions that players can do for many different purposes. Players can customize settings such as the number of units allowed on the battlefield, the recruitment time of units, the number of resources the factions receive and use, and even the weather events that can occur throughout the battles. Battles can be fought by up to eight factions, and there are a number of different sub-game modes that can be played through this mode.
 * Devastation: Players must destroy every faction present within the map with every asset they have. Players have to destroy every trace of the enemy factions off the map with every resource they have to gain victory, annihilating them from their headquarters to their most minor units. The last faction standing will be the one who wins this mode.
 * Demolition: Players are given single headquarters to train their units from, as well as create defensive structures and initiate research projects to enhance their units. With these, players must advance and destroy the opponents' own headquarters while defending their own from assaults. Should a faction's headquarters be destroyed, they are considered to have lost the match, regardless of how many other units are present.
 * Team Deathmatch: A combative mode where up to eight factions are grouped into two separate teams and are given a certain amount of time to score the maximum number of points needed to achieve victory. The factions are given requisition resource points that allow them to spawn in new units on to the battlefield, up to a maximum of 50 units. Before the start of the mode, factions are given time to pick the units they wish to begin with, to a maximum of ten units per team member. The first team that hits the maximum points win the mode.
 * Tactical Domination: Relying only on a single type of resource, factions must deploy their units in the areas allocated to them on the map before sending them to capture and hold key points marked on the map to achieve the set number of points required to achieve victory. In this game mode, players don't get to create buildings, but use their singular resource points to spawn units and access abilities that will affect the battlefield.
 * Faction Creator: A mode where players can create their own factions using the game's resources, which can be used to create custom units and even buildings, in addition to the factions' own traits and uniqueness. Players can even create factions that are mixed and matched from other pre-existing factions, as well as upload the custom factions to the game's network for other players' use.
 * Map Editor: A mode where players are granted the ability to create their own map using the game's vast assets. Players can set resource nodes present on the map, the weather events that happen, as well as gameplay conditions, in addition to many other creative settings. Once done, players may save their maps to be used in other game modes aside from conquest. Players can also upload these maps into the game's network, allowing other players to use the map for their own purposes, as well.
 * Multiplayer: A mode where players can challenge other players in various challenges. The modes featured here are for all intents and purposes the same as the ones featured in the battles mode. Players may record and replay the battles fought against other players and download them for future publication purposes.

Base Game Factions
There are 12 factions present in the base game, which are detailed in the tabber below. Main article: Confederacy of Independent Systems
 * -|Confederacy of Independent Systems (Star Wars) =

An alliance formed of star systems disgruntled by the Galactic Republic's perceived corruption, the Confederacy of Independent Systems was led by the rogue Jedi, Count Dooku, who was supported by some major galactic corporations in an effort to topple the Republic. Battling against the Galactic Republic's newly established clone army, the Confederacy of Independent Systems made use of hordes upon hordes of droid armies, supplemented by organic troops from its constituent states to waylay their despised enemies. Though ultimately disbanded with the rise of the Galactic Empire, the Confederacy was such a formidable force that even long after its dissolution, there were still many of its holdouts that resisted the Empire's rule.

At the peak of the Clone Wars, a Separatist exploratory mission discovered a planet within the Wild Space that apparently contained many resources that could be used to bolster their ailing offensives against the Republic. Seeing the opportunity, Count Dooku and the Separatist Council agreed to send an expedition force to this planet led by General Grievous to colonize it. Though initially disappointed, rumors of fleets of grand armies detected within the periphery of the system were enough to spur him into action, inspiring him to test his army's strength against these new foes. Main article: Dalek Empire
 * -|Dalek Empire (Doctor Who) =

Evolved by the scientist, Davros, on the planet Skaro from a race known as the Khaleds, the Daleks were a hateful race engineered to win the Thousand Year War against the Thals. They succeeded in this task alongside revolting against their creators, eventually consolidating themselves as the Dalek Empire, whose quest was to purge all life in the universe, aside from those of the Daleks themselves. Needless to say, their efforts were repeatedly thwarted by outside forces, chief among them being the legendary 'Doctor'. Despite this, the Daleks have established their reputation as among the deadliest lifeforms in the universe, whose hate is legendary amongst all.

The repeated civil wars and conflicts that wracked the Dalek Empire have necessitated the reformation of their government several times, hindering much of their quest altogether. But after centuries of devastation and internal reforms, a new Dalek Emperor has finally risen, and with him comes the resumption of their quest. However, the Empire's resources have been spent in their many conflicts, and they will need to recoup all the losses they've sustained throughout the years. Fortunately, Dalek probes have identified a resource-rich planet on a lonely system, giving the Daleks a major steppingstone to their plans. Main article: Ethereals
 * -|Ethereals (XCOM) =

From the depths of space comes the Ethereals and their legions of slave armies, seeking the genetic material of the universe's races to cure them of their diseased and imperfect forms. Utilizing advanced technology and their mastery over the mind's powers, the Ethereals -- otherwise known as the Elders -- have invaded numerous worlds and processed thousands of beings in search of the suitable DNA that would grant them the transcendence they have sought for so long. They have done this for countless years, and they will not stop until their goals are achieved. Woe to any whose worlds is visited by these creatures, for those who oppose the Ethereals are doomed and the number of those who oppose them are many and are still increasing.

In truth, the suitable genetic material has already been found within the species known as the humans several years ago. However, the humans resisted the Ethereals' domination and drove their forces out of Earth. While suitably enraged at this defiance, the mysterious inner workings of the Elders have driven a new Uber Ethereal to lead a fleet to a planet located on the fringes of the galaxy to harvest its endemic lifeforms' genetic material and many resources, in hopes of compensating for the losses they suffered on Earth. Main article: Geth Consensus
 * -|Geth Consensus (Mass Effect) =

Created on Rannoch by the quarians for labor and military, the geth are a race of networked artificial intelligences who reside beyond the region of space known as the Perseus Veil. Though initially nothing more than 'dumb' artificial intelligences, the geth eventually became sentient and questioned their masters concerning the nature of life within the geth. This prompted panic within the quarians, triggering a dreadful war that ended in the quarians' loss of their worlds, which were claimed by the geth themselves. Their perceived hostilities against the quarians made them suspicious amongst the wider galactic community, which is further exacerbated by the actions of their former members, the heretic geth. Nevertheless, they harbor no ill will towards other races, but if push comes to shove, their consensus will result in the destruction of their adversaries.

Having fought the Reapers alongside the Citadel's forces, the geth lost a considerable amount of their own and the megastructure they have been working on for their final future have been damaged. This wouldn't be a problem for an advanced race like them if it wasn't for how great the damage they sustained. Their megastructure was heavily damaged during the war, setting back their future by a century. With the emergence of new threats from the Andromeda Galaxy rapidly encroaching geth space, they geth seek to recover from their losses while also accelerating the plans for their future. Having identified a planet rich in bounty in an outlying star system, the geth has sent an expedition with Legion II as their ambassador to harvest its resources and jumpstart their future.
 * -|Grineer Empire (Warframe) =
 * -|Interstellar Manufacturing Company (Titanfall) =
 * -|Mental's Horde (Serious Sam) =
 * -|Principality of Zeon (Gundam) =
 * -|Strogg (Quake) =
 * -|Swords of Sanghelios (Halo) =
 * -|United Citizen Federation (Starship Troopers) =
 * -|Xenomorphs (Alien) =

Trivia

 * Each of the base game factions can be considered parallelly related towards one another, which is reflected by their respective lore elements.
 * Confederacy of Independent Systems vs. Swords of Sanghelios
 * Both of these factions were once part of a greater polity before breaking away from them at different points of time. The Confederacy of Independent Systems' members were once part of the Galactic Republic, while the Swords of Sanghelios' modern members were once part of the Covenant Empire.
 * Both of these factions are related inversely to one another concerning their relationship to major galactic empires in their universes. The Confederacy of Independent Systems was founded before the rise of the Galactic Empire, whilst the current incarnation of the Swords of Sanghelios was formed during the decline of the Covenant Empire. On the other hand, the Confederacy possessed a number of holdouts or remnants during the Galactic Empire's era, whilst the Covenant Empire had and still have remnants residing across the galaxy during the Swords of Sanghelios' era.
 * The factions' in-game leaders, General Grievous and Thel 'Vadam, are great warriors wielding energy blades, who hail from species famous for their warrior cultures, respectively the Kaleesh and the Sangheili.
 * On the other hand, comparisons can be drawn between the Confederacy's true leader, Count Dooku, and Thel himself. Both Dooku and Thel wield single energy blades, possess noble origins, and once held prestigious positions within influential organizations.
 * Both factions have a multi-species membership, but most of the combat they engage in are partaken by the majority of their fighting force, which are the mechanical battle droids for the Confederacy and the organic Sangheili warriors for the Swords.
 * While the Confederacy of Independent Systems mostly employ swarm-based tactics using hordes of battle droids, the Swords of Sanghelios, owing to their elite fighting force, uses much more strategic maneuvers to defeat their adversaries. In turn, this makes the Swords of Sanghelios a familiar adversary to the Confederacy due to their similarity to the Galactic Republic.
 * Both factions employ cannon fodder units with humorous antics in the form of B1 battle droids for the Confederacy and the Unggoy for the Swords of Sanghelios.
 * Dalek Empire vs. Strogg
 * Both of these factions possess mysterious origins, owing to multiple contradictory accounts for the Daleks and lack of given information for the Strogg. What is known, however, is that both of these factions were engineered for war. Where the Daleks were created to end the Thousand Year War against the Thals, the Strogg were said to have been super soldiers engineer for a major war in the distant past.
 * Both factions are led by a supreme leader figure, respectively the Dalek Emperor and the Makron.
 * Both the Dalek Empire and the Strogg have harsh home worlds with names that begin with 'S', respectively being Skaro and Stroggos. Both of these planets are also practically wastelands due to their lack of life-sustaining elements.
 * Both the Daleks and the Strogg are a race of cyborgs, though the latter's biomechanical nature is far more explicit than the former, whose original organic bodies are hidden away by their mechanical chassis.
 * Both of these factions originate from influential series that help popularize the respective genres of science fiction and video games in general, Star Trek and Quake. Additionally, both of their series possess relatively active and passionate fanbases.
 * Ethereals vs. Mental's Horde
 * Both factions are quasi-religious organizations who revere their titular masters, the Ethereals and Tah-Um/Mental, as godlike figures.
 * Both factions consist of a diverse range of alien races who are actively deployed in combat against the humans.
 * While the Ethereals conquer and enslave worlds worth of races to seek a cure for their degenerative condition, Mental's Horde traverses the universe to purge all intelligent life in the universe aside from those allied to Tah-Um/Mental himself.
 * Both factions possess high-ranking members who are adept in metaphysical arts in the form of Ethereals' psionic aliens and Mental's Horde's spellcasters, such as Mordekai the Summoner.
 * Both factions have both succeeded and failed to prevail over humanity in their wars against them in separate timelines. The Ethereals were non-canonically defeated by humanity in XCOM: Enemy Unknown (assuming the player is victorious), but canonically won in XCOM 2 before being properly defeated in that game. Mental's Horde managed to destroy humanity in Serious Sam 3: BFE but have been thwarted by the titular 'Serious' Sam Stone in practically every game, with the man himself still surviving by the end of humanity's doom.
 * Both factions have fought against organizations dedicated to countering their invasion, being XCOM for the Ethereals and the Earth Defense Force for Mental's Horde.
 * While the Ethereals' home franchise has a consistent serious tone throughout the series, Mental's Horde's home franchise has a rather humorous tone.
 * Geth Consensus vs. Grineer Empire
 * Both factions' names begin with the word 'G'.
 * The first alphabetical words of the two factions' home franchises are inverse towards one another (Mass Effect, Warframe).
 * Both factions were created by technologically advanced species for military and labor purposes before coming into conflict with their creators for different reasons.
 * However, whilst the geth managed to gain their independence by fighting off the quarians, the Grineer gained their 'independence' when the Orokin Empire collapsed, although they did fight Orokin forces during the Grineer's formative years.
 * The geth are mechanical organisms with a rather sleek and futuristic aesthetic, while the Grineer are organic creatures with the aesthetics of corpses and dieselpunk elements.
 * The geth prefer to keep to themselves, seeking no quarrel with other races, organic or otherwise. The Grineer, on the other hand, are a highly aggressive race who actively raid and conquer outlying planets.
 * The geth have no form of government aside from the consensus they reach as a whole race, while the Grineer are led by the Twin Queens.
 * Both of these factions' present home worlds are located on the birthplace of their creators, respectively being Rannoch (Quarians) and Earth (Orokin). The conditions of these home worlds also contrast one another, where the geth cleaned up Rannoch of the rubbles and toxins left during their war with the quarians, whilst the Grineer never even bothered with restoring Earth's toxic atmopshere, most likely due to their tenuous foothold on Earth.
 * The geth are able to live forever due to the fact that their being consists of many different programs, whilst the Grineer, being imperfect clones suffering from constant degeneration, can only live up to a fraction of a regular human's lifetime.
 * Interstellar Manufacturing Company vs. Principality of Zeon
 * Within the context of science fiction stories involving wars between Earth's united government and its rebellious colonies (e.g., the Expanse), both of these factions fulfill the primary roles in such stories. The IMC represents the 'core' Earth government, whilst Zeon represents the rebellious 'colonists' who have seceded from Earth. Unlike typical stories where the Earth is usually presented as the antagonistic force, the Principality of Zeon is also an antagonistic force, much like the IMC.
 * Both factions make use of various different mechs for military purposes. However, while the IMC's mechs are much more suited for ground warfare, Zeon's mechs or mobile suits are much more suited for space or aerial combat, although they're still capable ground combatants, nonetheless.
 * United Citizen Federation vs. Xenomorphs