FACTIONS
Men of Cold War will initially be comprised of 3 playable factions; the USA, the USSR, and the UK. Each faction will use faction and period-specific weaponry and equipment that were used in the 1960s. A complete unit list is available in another tutorial here in ModDB.
An important planning effort going into MoCW is the differentiation between each faction, so that each faction plays differently, while maintaining a careful balance between them. Based on experience this is an incredibly difficult thing to do in a multiplayer-focused game.
MEN OF WAR: ASSAULT SQUAD
Overall gameplay will be most reminiscent of the Men of War: Assault Squad expansion that is due to release sometime near Christmas 2010. This expansion includes several new and improved features over other Men of War titles that, in my opinion, make for a much more enjoyable game. The core of these changes are both behavioural and gameplay-related; in short, weapons in MoWAS are faster, longer ranged, more accurate and more powerful than in other MoW titles. This makes for a more violent, faster-paced game that provides more feedback to players' actions. This is the template we will pursue with MoCW.
There will be some changes, notably the addition of "Strategic Assets". These will function similar to the Air and Artillery strikes available in the Skirmish gamemode of MoWAS; you will use Command Points to buy an air or artillery strike that will originate from "off-map".
REALISM
Realism is an important factor for us but not one that should override basic gameplay principles. Men of Cold War will essentially be as realistic as MoWAS with some minor, mostly aesthetic differences; for instance, field artillery will be replaced with a selection of mortars up to 120mm in caliber. Functionally it will be almost identical to the roles performed by field artillery in MoWAS; the decision to replace field artillery with mortars is due to mortars having ranges similar to MoW artillery -- the largest 107mm and 120mm mortars have ranges around the 4km mark or roughly twice that of the basic tank guns of the era.
One other noteworthy change will be preventing individual soldiers from picking up .50 caliber heavy machineguns and running across the map with them leaving bloodstains and hole-filled light vehicles in their wakes. While often hilarious, this is both contrary to realism to a serious degree and fairly harmful to gameplay balance. Also we plan on having some vehicles with even heavier 14.5mm machineguns and that would just be ridiculous for a human to be firing from the hip.
AMMUNITION TYPES
MoWAS introduced the concept of tanks and other vehicles having three types of rounds; HE, AP, and HVAP. In MoCW this feature will be utilized to introduce the paradigm of HE, AP and HEAT.
HEAT (High-Explosive Anti-Tank) was a very prevalent ammunition type with mosts large-caliber weapons post WW2. Bazookas, Recoilless Rifles, ATGMs all used HEAT warheads. Most vehicles with cannons had a mix of all three types. HEAT generally gives better, more dependable performance since things like range and angle of impact do not affect its penetrative power. However in comparison to APFSDS rounds, HEAT shells are rather inaccurate, especially at longer ranges. Thus they are generally better to use against close-range targets. They can also be used for long-range attacks (where AP ammo will lose its kinetic energy and not be able to penetrate) but will suffer extreme inaccuracy. HEAT rounds also allow lighter-armed vehicles like light tanks to threaten larger tanks by using HEAT rounds at close range. HEAT is also useful against fortifications and reinforced buildings.
