Firestorm

''This article is about the 2004 video game. For the series which it is the first entry of, see Firestorm (series)''

Firestorm is a 2004 Aquizireikigs strategy videogame set in an alternate future, where the Brotherly Wars which plagued the Serpentine countries for the latter half of the 20th century were never resolved, resulting in a localised nuclear apocalypse after an unspecified country escalated the tension by trying to reunite the Ex-Aquizi-Martic Commonwealth lands. The game itself was the fourth game developed and published by the then fledgling studio Blacksands Entertainment, and was their first major hit, and the franchise it eventually lead to continues to generate the best selling games of the company, despite limited attempts to diversify their products.

The game, although somewhat controversial at the time, was seen as a warning call advocating for peace in the region. Although many saw it as noting more than an overly pessimistic and unrealistic inflammatory piece, many of the youth seemed to resonate with its message.

Of note, while the video game itself was comparatively limited in terms of graphics and engine when compared to games developed in other Alutran countries at the time, which initially hindered its spread outside of Serpentine countries, it has nonetheless become famous and generally rated well by critics.

Setting
In 2071, after decades of increasing tensions between the Serpentines countries, an unspecified country (likely Martland or Aquizireiki) invades its neighbor by controversially using tactical nuclear weapons, thinking that it would go unopposed by the other powers due to fear for potential escalation. It is implied that a preemptive strike was also fired at an unspecified Sedic nation (the region as a whole is referred to as the "Sedic Fraternity", likely a reference to the real-world Aarnieu Fraternity) prompting a mass retaliation by the Sedes, causing a cascade of hostilities which eventually resulted in the Seven-Hour War, which finally marked the end of the century long conflict, as all sides had been essentially destroyed in totality. Firestorm's gameplay begins roughly 18 years following the events of the war in 2087.

Although the situation outside of the Serpentine Valley remains unclear in the official lore, it is alluded to that the local nuclear exchange set off a number of other global conflicts and a period of increased tensions between several nations, though the fate of the wider Alutran continent and the world at large of 2087 is unspecified. It would later be revealed in the Blackest Wastes Expansion Pack that the rest of the world began infighting over how to deal with the situation, especially the humanitarian disaster caused by the nuclear fallout crossing the Penguinnes into the Alutran Steppe, causing nations to close off their borders and economies, cascading to an implied global economic crisis and failure of the World Forum, with much of Lathadu being found in a state of total devastation, though it is uncertain if the high levels of radiation present there are due to direct nuclear exchanges in the area during the Seven-Hour War or due to nuclear fallout in the area. A number of items the player can pick up during exploration are believed to reference cities elsewhere in the region, including Catobon, Merser, and "Castle Godenhaven", among others, largely seen in item description text.

Gameplay
Firestorm was unique for incorporating elements from the distinct genres of 4X, base-builder strategy games, and turn-based isometric action RPGs, laying the groundwork for what would become the "A-Strat" genre in the following years. The gameplay of Firestorm is thus primarily focused around four core elements: travel, polity management, diplomacy, and combat.

Start
The first prompt you get once the introduction cinematic is over is to choose chose a character, a faction type, and a home-region, presented to the player through a text-based narrative experience which details their personal history up to the events of the game. These choices have an impact on the gameplay from both a narrative and mechanical standpoint, as it affects your character's base statistics and what locations you have access to. Your character will be assigned values in the game's five core statistics: In addition, these stats allow access to skills and perks that affect the character's specializations and abilities, as well as providing possible benefits to other members of the character's society.
 * Physical - Your character's overall physical ability.
 * Body - Your character's health and resilience to damage and hazards.
 * Mental - Your character's overall mental acuity, intelligence, and ability to learn. Affects your character's gain of experience points.
 * Spirit - Affects your character's ability to withstand hardship and distress, as well as your character's ability to lead others.
 * Social - Your character's ability to interact with and "read" other people.

The game also informs you as to the advantages and inconveniences of certain locations. In the base game, factors included resources, habitability, irradiation, local population, faction presence, and other hazards. Following the release of the Blackest Wastes expansion, a climate and industrial capacity mechanic was introduced, both of which can be improved or degraded by the player's actions through the course of the game. The above factors create a local difficulty estimate on a scale from 1 to 5 (difficulty increasing with number). The which all vary based on a randomly generated number, the selected difficulty, and/or the faction type chosen.

Blackest Wastes also adds a number of additional options at the start of a new game. These include:
 * A character creation menu outside of the game itself which allows the player to create NPCs which populate the world space
 * The ability to to select a global map seed, which randomizes the factors present at each given location in the world space
 * Additional difficulties geared towards playstyle, including base-builder, which significantly dials back the combat difficulty and chance of attack; hardcore, which increases the overall resource needs of the player characters; and nightmare, which immensely increases all difficulty factors for the player
 * New unique start locations

Based on your previous choices during the narrative character-builder, you will start with a set number of citizens (classified differently based on your faction type), various different resources (such as metals, plant-matter, rations, water, power, seeds, medicine, scrap electronics, slaves and karma), placement on the game's technological progression, and several randomly generated leaders (specialized citizens able to lead expeditions or manage settlements, which can include custom leader characters in Blackest Wastes). Additionally, your choices establish the baseline relations with different neighboring polities based on your previous choices (if any such polity is present in your home-region). While traditional starts always provide a settlement to begin with, the Blackest Wastes adds the option to start as a nomadic group, which comes with its additional challenges and bonuses.

Leaders
Leaders are special citizens with pre-assigned stats similar to those of the player's main character. As such, they have an array of core statistics unto themselves. In addition, each leader character has a starting reputation and opinion of your character, both of which can change throughout the game. These leaders can often be recruited through quests, or hired for a one time fee when found in the world (this fee can often be lowered through doing quests). Some, but not all of these characters have narrative paths unique to them.

A leader is necessary lead and automate caravans, non-capital settlements, and conducting quests, diplomacy, trade deals or research. Moreover, if the player's character is captured or killed, a predesignated leader will become the new player character. In the case where there was no designated leader, or of the new leader having a low reputation, the polity may go into revolt, potentially being subsumed by a different faction or dissolving outright.

Travel
Travel is a unique as a mechanic, as it can be either entirely ignored via automation of caravans (which was the only option upon initial release), or become the main focus of the game, depending on the player's preferred playstyle. The Sands of Time expansion introduced the possibility to directly control leaders on exploration missions, as well as the quest mechanic, while the Deserts of Glass expansion introduced automated base management via the use of a leaders with a high spirit stat. These caravans are pivotal to actively conducting trade, hunting roaming raiders, conducting offensive wars, collecting resources, resupplying caravans or outposts, and reaching quest locations.

Travel is the primary way to obtain more resources outside of the local area in the early game, as trade is only viable once your polity has grown enough to become influential, your diplomatic ties good enough to invite traders to come over, and your area free enough of roaming raiders. To travel, you need to create a caravan by selecting in a settlement by choosing its leader from the settlement's leader pool, and assigning it citizens to work as caravaneers and/or security, alongside resources and equipment to sustain and protect it. Once a caravan is formed, it can be moved across the world map, which will exhaust rations, water, and possibly weaponry or ammunition, based on the size of the caravan, road and weather conditions, its leader, the faction type of its owner, and random events or modifiers.

Occasionally, traveling caravans will encounter random or preset events based on their location and various other factors, such as time, caravan size, faction type, etc. These events can be either useful for the player, or a detriment, and sometimes require making hard choices. Possible events include ambushes, loot stash discovery, random encounters, and many more.

Polity management
Very early on, the player will be asked to make choices relative to their polity (the faction that they control), which can result in various beneficial or detrimental outcomes. The player aims to expend its influence over the wastelands via either conquest, negotiation, trade, or religion, while at the same time trying to grow their faction through recruitment, population growth, or enslavement. However, many choices have detrimental effects on the aforementioned mechanics, via modification of polity stats (unity, prosperity, development and health), or by triggering in-game events, such as raids, famines, plagues, civil wars, slave revolts, and other such catastrophes.

Moreover, the chosen difficulty will also impact the frequency and severity of random events (both prompts and in-game events). The Blackest Wastes Expansion Pack also added the option to set a distinct difficulties for each polity stats, which is a feature that has been long requested by the fans ever since the initial release, and served to alleviate issues with game balance.

Diplomacy
Diplomacy is quintessential to the game when not playing on basebuilder difficulty, as it the principal way to deal with other polities. It is used to broker trade agreements, non-aggression pacts, alliances, peace agreements, and technological exchanges. While diplomacy is instantaneous in lower difficulties, caravans are needed to conduct diplomatic missions for difficulties above medium, which introduces a delay in diplomacy which the player has to take into account.

Trade is a subsection of diplomacy, centered specifically around the exchanges of resources, exploitation rights and economic guarantees. Trade is primarily conducted via the exchange of lengths of copper wire, which acts the currency of this world. The fact that it is also a requirement for creating and maintaining structures and equipment that uses electricity also adds an additional component of tradeoffs for the player, as once the wire is utilized it cannot be converted back into currency without losing the benefits of that structure or item.

Combat
When two caravans are within range of each other (which is determined by sight and equipment loadout), one can start a battle with the other, assuming they have any action points left. This forces both caravan into a local map, in which they each have deploy the caravaneers and their equipment. Battle itself is conducted in a turn-by-turn fashion, and allows the option to surrender, starts negotiations, or attempt to run away. Each caravan has a specific amount of organization at the beginning of the battle (which can be changed via policies, training, or based on the faction type), which is affected by how well the battle is going. Once organization passes bellow the specific threshold of the caravan, the caravaneers will begun to route based on how far bellow the threshold organization is. The lower the organization score, the more likely one side will attempt to surrender or flee.

Sieges
Sieges are a variation on combat, whereas only one side is a caravan, while the other is a settlement. Sieges require more caravaneers based on the size of the settlement, and the game will warn players if they attempt to start a siege without enough manpower of resources. Sieges can turn into battles if the caravan is made to assault the settlement, but it is generally preferable to simply await for the settlement itself to surrender or force the fight, as the siege itself cuts the settlement from receiving resources, and will thus slowly lose morale as its resources dwindle, similarly to how a caravan can lose organization during a combat.

Sieges are often ended via negotiations, which includes many possible demands, such as a tribe, the handing over of the settlement, the execution of defending soldiers, much more. If breached without negotiations, a settlement can be sacked, which gives a strong morale boost to all caravans and settlements, at the cost of diplomatic relations with the enemy's allies. Sieging a capital is generally viewed as the most efficient way to for an enemy to accept terms of a negotiations, if one has the resources to do so.

Settlements
Settlements are the backbone of most polities, with the exception of nomadic type factions. Settlements are where citizens are housed, where production occurs, and where most resources are extracted. There exists 3 types of settlements; outposts, towns and capitals. Outposts are significantly reduced in their options, and are used as supply depots, watchtowers, resource extraction points, and to delimit claims. Capitals on the other hands are a polity's primary center, and the only settlement that cannot be fully automated. Capitals function as normal settlements, but are also the only locations that can host religious centers, research centers, courts and palaces.

Ecology
Can be affected by carious polities actions and policies, such as making corehabilitation plants or creating pollution or devastation.

Technology
Technologies re unlocked throughout the game by doing research, analyzing artefacts, or trading.

Artifacts
Artifacts are dispersed throughout the world, especially around ruins, in bunkers, or in loot stashes.

Machinery
Can be restored from some artifacts or created once the necessary technology and infrastructures are available. Can be used to improve a colony or attached to caravans, depending on the type. They also required maintenance, and can often be upgraded.

Blackest Wastes expansion pack
The Blackest Wastes expansion pack, set in the ruins of Lathadu, was released in 2016 as a joint effort between Blacksands Entertainment and Laaghey Studios. While called an expansion, it was more akin to an overhauled edition, as it more than quadrupled the size of the game files, and allowed any owner of one of the previous editions to upgrade to the latest edition for a small fee while purchasing the expansion. The official statement inquiring as to the reason for the peculiar name of this seemingly "new edition" was that this was done in order to avoid backlash from the fanbase, as many had speculated that the project would "betray the spirit of the game" due to the contribution and financement from Laaghey Studios.

The expansion itself served to modernize the game significantly while adding significant amount of roleplay content and graphical assets, notably around the presence of other Alutran countries' nationals and their presence in the world. It also served to significantly increase the size of the map by adding various scale options and the Lathadun Wastes region, and also addressed a myriad of issues with the previous three installments, notably via bug fixes and implementing long requested balance changes.

More importantly however, it reworked multiplayer, which had been barely functional since its introduction in Deserts of Glass, and intruduced two distinct modes; Competitive (with each player controlling a distinct polity) and Cooperative (with many players in the same polity, each controlling their own leaders and the polity leader having more control overall) which made large scale events possible such as the firestorm tournament. This decision has been often praised by fans as a perfect example how developers can gain by listening actively to their fanbase's wishes and ideas.

The expansion itself was the first official content to have been published after the signing of the Kandi Accords, nearly five years earlier, and was initially pitched in 2013 by Laaghey Studios as a way to capitalize on the now exploding popularity of the game, as it had rapidly become a cult classic in neighboring East Alutran nations. Overall, it was seen by the fans of the franchise as a massive success, and marked the beginnings of Lathadu-Aquizi cooperation on various projects related to the media industry.

Easter eggs

 * Located in Calleebane in the Blackest Wastes expansion pack, there exists the boarded up and fortified remains of the Myrish embassy; including a tripwire near the front door and spike traps lining the perimeter of the foundation. Once the building is entered, several friendly armed personnel will greet you in Myrish, stating that they only kill Martics. Once talked to further, the men and women will reveal that they were Myrish embassy workers and peacekeeping personnel prior to the fallout, and that they will hold out in the fortified embassy until "The Myrish government comes to sweep us up". If spoken to more, the Myrs may give you an additional quest to recover two more of their men who got attacked whilst searching for food 2 days prior, their names being Kjell Sorem and Tom Kallevig. Once found, Kjell will reveal that he is the only survivor and that Tom was killed by bandits. Kjell will follow you back to the embassy while you defend him from more raiders. Once you give Kjell back to the embassy, the Myrs will give you between 16 and 64 salvaged components and a pre-war Myrish flag. If you chose to scrap this flag while in sight of the personnel, they will become hostile, no matter your prior interactions. It is also possible, by using a leader with a very high diplomacy stat, to recruit the Myrs as citizens, depending on your faction type and your actions. Notably, a flaw in the event related to the recruitment, refer to as "Myrsplosion" by the community, made it possible to recruit the Myrs over and over via opening the caravan inventory at specific times. This as been patched after it was infamously used in the official Firestorm Tournament of 2019.


 * If a caravan is traveling in the wild regions of the northwest of Martland, there is a 0.4%% chance that an event will appear mentioning an explosion sound being heard in the distance. If the player chose to investigate further, the they may discover several burnt, dead bandit corpses, as well as a dead bull and several sticks of explosives nearby. It can be inferred that aforementioned bandits attempted to blow up a cow, but failed miserably.