Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Conquest

"The Elysea's Conflict has begun..."

-Balthazar

The Conquest mode is the turn-based strategy game mode of Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict. Players choose a faction, conquer territory, engage in diplomacy, manage cities and direct armies to attack each other, which iniates a real time battle or an autoresolve. The campaign is a combination political and economic simulator, focusing on the broad picture. While battles of the Elysea's Conflict are a test of command and conquer, Conquest tests your broad strategy of world domination. Only some special territories have scripted battles.

World domination is achieved by either destroying all bases owned by the other factions added in the base game (with more added through DLCs), or by achieving a faction-specific goal.

A huge number of towns and cities in Conquest have unique landmark buildings.

Gameplay
First, you must choose a faction and Legendary General's subfaction in the new conquest menu. Each faction has a different starting position and starting difficulty. You can also adjust the overall difficulty slider. At the start of the game, each faction has four bases randomly placed across the globe. Bases provide a place for the player to assemble their armies, called strike forces and can grant them additional support powers, once they've been built up. Strike forces are integral to the Conquest play mode. Each force is a defined group of units that the player deploys from bases to the global map in order to attack enemy bases, engage hostile strike forces, or establish new bases.

In some cases, factions will have dynamic starting positions, this means that their starting position will change depending on which faction you choose to play as.

Conquest is turn based, you perform all the moves you want and then end your turn. Then all the other factions each get a turn, and then it is your turn again. The campaign map is divided up into provinces. In provinces are cities and various types of terrain. The gameplay for most factions (except hordes) revolves around controlling towns and cities. You need to build a base in battle, recruit units, manage money and other resources, fight battles, replenish troops, as well as moving armies around the map to fight more battles! You can also engage in diplomacy and trade, or wage war. When two enemy armies meet (or when an army attacks a base), there will be a battle. If you don't want to play a battle, you can autoresolve it instead.

Landmarks
* TBA*

Honor Guard
Each faction in Conquest has a set of honor guard that can be unlocked by controlling provinces. Some provinces do not grant honor guards such as homebases and scripted provinces. Honor guards start the game with your faction's commander. These can be vital to repel early attacks.

Climates
Each area on the Conquest map has a different climate. Each faction has different preferences for the climate of areas they wish to occupy. One may prefer jungle (like Encantadia), while another may find jungles unpleasant and prefer frozen areas (like Andora). While factions can occupy area in any climate, doing so in an unpleasant/uninhabitable climate incurs various penalties.

Sea Lanes
As the world map of Conquests is extremely huge, there are several Sea Lanes at certain points on the map. Embarked armies and heroes can enter the sea lane to traverse between two waterways, even if they are far apart. Traversing a sea lane takes 2 turns for most races, but some races are considered "skilled navigators", and only take 1 turn. The base game factions Protectorate, Auring and the Heralds are considered skilled navigators. Sea Lanes can be turned on or off in campaign settings, before starting a campaign.

End-game scenarios
New dynamic end-game scenarios: randomised mid- to late-game challenges have been introduced to challenge the late-game steamroll—where the player is so powerful that there’s little-to-no challenge left and less of a reason to complete the campaign.

Endgame scenarios can be customised before starting a campaign (eg: which scenarios can occur, when they can occur, and how strong/difficult they will be - you can even make all scenarios occur together in one campaign).

Diplomacy
Diplomacy happens between factions in Conquest. Diplomatic actions include declarations of war and peace, trade agreements, alliances and more. Diplomatic actions are received or can be proposed on the diplomacy screen.

Some diplomatic actions are unilateral, such as a declaration of war or cancellation of an alliance, while others must be agreed on by both parties, such as trade agreements or alliances. A diplomatic offer may be accepted or rejected outright, or a counter-offer may be proposed. Breaking a diplomatic agreement can lead to lower attitude and lower reliability.

Diplomatic options

 * Non-aggression pact: A mutual promise not to attack each other.
 * Military access: One faction gives permission for another faction's armies to enter their territory without any diplomatic penalties.
 * Trade Agreement: An option to generate income for both sides.
 * Defensive alliance: Promise to defend each other in case one of your factions is attacked.
 * Military alliance: Promise to join future wars that each of you start, and to co-operate.
 * Confederation: Permanent unification with the target faction.
 * Become Vassal: Target faction is subjugated by yours.
 * Declare War: Begin open hostilities with a faction.
 * Peace Treaty: ask to mutually end the war.
 * Join War: ask faction B to join your war against faction C.
 * Payments: Offer a gift to another faction, or demand money from them.
 * Threaten: Threaten to declare war on another faction if they don't accept the deal.
 * Trade settlement: Gift or exchange a settlement with another faction.

War Coordination
War coordination and allegiance is a conquest common to all races and factions that is linked with diplomacy.

War coordination is available if you have a military alliance or defensive alliance with another faction, or if another faction is your vassal. You can access the War coordination screen by opening the diplomacy screen, then clicking the War coordingation button in the bottom center.

Battles (Conquest)
A battle can occur in Conquest when two (or multiple depending on the situation) enemy armies meet on the map, or when an faction attacks an enemy base. Players can choose to autoresolve if they don't wish to play a battle themselves.

Battles are won by destroy the entire enemy base, killing or routing all enemy units.

The strength of a defeated army in Conquest is greatly reduced after a conquest battle, affecting the controlling faction’s ability to continue the conquest. However, the victor's units may also be damaged to a greater or lesser degree.

Ambush battles
Ambush battles are a kind of battle. Ambushes happen when one army launches a surprise attack on another on the campaign map. The defender starts the battle surrounded by the attacker, with no chance to deploy. This is extremely good for the attacker, and allows for otherwise evenly matched armies to fight a very one-sided battle.

If an ambush is successful, the attacker can be reinforced by any armies within range. If the ambush fails, the attacker cannot be reinforced but the attacker can choose to either retreat, or fight 1v1 with no reinforcements on either side.

On the campaign map, an army may lie in wait for its enemies by entering Icon ambush stanceAmbush stance or another similar stance, in which it will remain hidden to enemy armies until they wander into the trap. The cursor tooltip over an area on the campaign map shows the chance that an ambush will succeed there.

Heralds Invasion
The Heralds Invasion is an end-game event that occurs much later in Conquest. It involves the Heralds of Chaos, descending south to attack most other factions.

The invasion can be very destructive. The factions who attack are mostly hordes or similar factions, so they tend to raze a lot of cities and military bases. Additionally, there is a global +2 Chaos Corruption during the invasion.