MindLink Studio announces the development of a real-time tactical wargame in a fantasy setting, Telladar Chronicles: Decline . The game covers events of the War of the Seven Nations, which foregoes the storyline of the other game of this series - Telladar Chronicles: Reunion. The struggle for power among the Empire's ruling circles caused the beginning of an unnecessary military expedition. The Telladarian army went far beyond state borders, to the boundless plains of Urdaj-Nagh, inhabited by the numerous and warlike Horchi orcs. But no one – nor men who took part in the campaign, nor those who issued them orders – knew that the expedition would soon become a sparkle, which would ignite the flame of a great war... The player will be thrown into the fantasy world of Miere where he will find himself in the middle of epic battles and tangled intrigues and will guide his heroes through love and hatred, friendship and betrayal, bitter defeats and glorious victories. Feature List * A rich, original fantasy world, inhabited by numerous races and nations, each with its own history, unique magic and military systems. * An intriguing story line with many subplots and several different endings * Original structure of missions, based on several mutually exclusive sub-quests. They are performed simultaneously with the main quest and affect the completion of the whole mission. * Armies of up to 20000 fully polygonal creatures (infantry, cavalry, various monsters and magicians) clash in epic real-time battles on huge (4 square km) 3D maps. * Reserves (army total can exceed 20000 cap) can be engaged in action to compensate potential losses or attain tactical advantage. * Siege, assault and defence of cities and castles using magic and various siege devices (assault ladders, siege towers and artillery, undermining, etc.). * The player can determine so called tactical groups, composed of one or more units under direct control of a non-player character (AI). These NPCs will rely upon simplified player commands, such as move, advance, hold, guard etc. The player can retake full control over any tactical group at any time. * Each creature on the battlefield possesses a set of parameters and traits, based on complex RPG-like rules, unprecedented for mass strategy games. * Heroes and their armies gain experience in the course of the game, thus improving their capabilities on the battlefield. Between missions, the player can compensate for the losses, acquire new units and modify existing ones. * Original army management allows not only choosing from pre-designed units, but also customizing them with 50+ weapons and 30+ armours and shields. The player can also adjust the number and experience of soldiers in each unit. * More than 100 spells will help players achieve victory on the battlefield. The starting point of the plot. It had been several years that the Empire stood at the verge of a severe crisis. The treasury was nearly empty, the army was weak and few, the feeble Emperor was a puppet in the hands of the Council of Governors, the sovereign rulers of their provinces. People grumbled, border skirmishes with the neighboring Ormir were about to grow into a war, and the Grand Dukes of the Borderlands, old allies of the Empire, expressed their resentment against the Governors’ despotism more and more openly. The Council decided that a victorious war would strengthen the cracked authority of Telladar. As the target, they chose Horchi tribes roaming across the steppes of Urdaj-Nag. No one knew at that point what tragical consequences this decision would bring... Game modes Two game modes are suggested: Single Player and Multiplayer. The Single Player mode offers the following options: Campaign, Custom Battle and Historical Battle. The Multiplayer mode offers Custom Battle only, over LAN (TCP/IP) or the Internet. Single Player Campaign The single player campaign includes all principal battles of the War of the Seven Nations where the player acts as one of the three heroes: Waymor Terny-Morell, a son of the Captain of the Imperial Guards; Sander, Count of Ern, a young wizard and one of Waymor’s friends; Ughaj, the Ghan (warlord) of the Horchi nomads (Orcs). The campaign is composed of a sequence of missions (with multiple branches and additional missions). Basically, the gameplay comprises three interrelated parts: choosing a mission on the global map and briefing, preparing troops for the mission and completing the mission itself. Single Player and Multiplayer Single Battle This is a tactical battle with gameplay nearly identical to a tactical battle in a Campaign, but with the following differences. In a Single Player Single Battle, the player is able to: * Select the number of parties. * Choose race and nation for his and any other party. * Designate his opponents and allies; choose who will be the Attackers and who will be the Defenders. * Select a map where the battle will take place, the time of the day and the weather conditions. * Design an army for himself and for any other parties using a limited amount of money. Those not designed by the player will be designed automatically. * Change the composition of tactical groups on the battlefield. * Select the Quick Battle mode. In this mode all customizable parameters will be randomly adjusted, and all armies will be designed automatically. In a Multiplayer Single Battle, the money limit for each army is set on the game server. Players have to select a nation (they can pick random as one of the choices), choose the Attackers’ or Defenders’ side and then proceed to the army design screen. AI-controlled armies may be included as allied or opposing forces. Single Player Historical Battle This is a tactical battle with gameplay nearly identical to a tactical battle in a Campaign, but with the following differences. Each ‘Historical Battle’ reflects one of the battles that took place in The Seven Nations War, but has not been included in the storyline. The player can choose one of the parties. The player can’t change the map, the nation or army size and composition. Nevertheless, if the player is the Attacker he can select the time of day and weather, thus modeling the chosen battle in slightly different conditions. Global map Campaign progress takes place on the map of the world of Miere that shows the global situation in the War. On the global map, the player chooses the next mission from a set of available choices or just confirms that he is ready to continue in the case when only one mission is available. The map serves informative purposes only, visualizing the course of the War, and is an intermediate block between missions. The global map shows cities and other important settlements, economical (e.g. mining and production facilities) and military (training camps, fortifications etc.) objects, current positions of armies and key characters. As the campaign proceeds, the map also shows places of battles that the player has participated in or those that have happened concurrently, according to the story line. The map also shows borders of territories under control of the opposing parties. Marks for battles (missions) that the player has participated in are visually different from those for non-player story-line battles. The player can view detailed statistics for such missions: the number of each army, absolute and relative losses, the completion time etc. The player can also obtain additional textual information on the course of the War of the Seven Nations, e.g. a brief description of battles that have occurred according to the storyline without the player’s participation. Missions In every mission, the player is given primary and secondary objectives. The primary objective is usually rather obvious: to take a city, to repel an assault, to defeat the enemy army etc. Secondary objectives supplement and extend the primary objective. Example An retreating Imperial army under command of Berran Terny-Morell, the Captain of the Imperial Guards, has to cross the Baroh river. The player acts the role of the Captain’s son, Waymor, who commands the rearguard. The primary objective is to hold back vanguards of the Horchi until the Telladarians have completed the passage. Secondary objectives are: to save at least 75% of the troops under command, to enable a supply wagons to cross the river, to destroy the bridge in order to prevent the Horchi from immediately crossing the river. The primary objective has to be fulfilled in order to successfully complete a mission. Fulfillment of secondary objectives is optional. The hero controlled by the player is rewarded for completion of each secondary objective, e.g. with additional equipment, money, traits and skill points. Some missions include sub-quests. Sub-quests suggest small encounters that logically precede primary and secondary objectives and are played under the same conditions as the main battle of the mission. Sub-quests are usually introduced in pairs, and having chosen one of them makes the completion of the other one impossible. There can be several successive pairs of sub-quests in a mission. Successfully completed sub-quests make achieving the primary objective much easier. The player can reject any one or all of sub-quests. Rejected sub-quests are resolved automatically according to the storyline, but with a little randomization. Example When the Horde led by the player as the Horchi Ghan Ughaj, besieges the Telladarian city of Reimy, the player gets two sub-quests. The first quest is to take a small castle protecting the road from Reimy to the Empire’s core and prevents the Horde from surrounding of the city. The second one is to prevent the city garrison from making a sortie to help the doomed castle attacked by other orcish forces. After each completed sub-quest an in-engine movie sequence is shown. It depicts the overall mission progress and the results achieved by other allied units in completion of other sub-quests. During a mission, the gameplay is based on real-time tactical combat with the possibility to accelerate the time or pause the game (it’s still possible to navigate on the map and issue orders to units during a pause). Battles take place on a detailed tactical map, reflecting conditions (relief, vegetation, architecture) of the territory of Miere where one of the battles of The Seven Nations War takes place. Tactical maps can be up to 4 sq. km in size. Up to 20000 fully polygonal creatures and engines (infantry, cavalry, various monsters, magicians and military equipment) can be simultaneously present on a map. Each creature in the battlefield possesses a set of parameters and traits based on an original RPG-like game system. They describe its physical condition, morale, combat and magical abilities. The battle is divided into two phases – the preparatory phase and the combat phase. In the preparatory phase the player deploys his forces in a so called deployment zone. During this phase, the game is automatically paused until the combat phase begins. The player must confirm the end of the preparatory phase to proceed. The player can see only his own and his allies’ troops on the map during this phase.

Telladar Chronicles Decline Movie #2 (49.67MB)