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Operations

This page owns the Operation as the decomposable goal-and-plan construct that a Force executes against a target Territory, Route, Site, or Threat. The Operation type list is committed below; the decomposition pattern is the canonical pattern every Operation follows; the demon-specific chain extends the pattern for cleanse, contain, and seal Operations.

Role​

An Operation is a goal assigned to a Force. The player selects a Force and an Operation type; the Operation decomposes into a sequence of sub-activities and policies that the Force executes. The player controls doctrine, optionally assigns named characters as Operation officers, and can interrupt or override at any sub-activity boundary. The Force's policy layer handles routine sequencing without further player input.

An Operation is the canonical handle for player intent at Force scale. A player who wants the Force to "take this Site" assigns an AssaultSite or BesiegeSite Operation, not a string of individual march/attack/garrison sub-activities — those come from the Operation's decomposition.

Design Reference: What This Is Not​

Rejected: HOI4 Continuous Front-Line Micro​

Hearts of Iron IV's front-line model assigns military units to a continuous front line defined by adjacency. Units fill segments automatically at density, combat resolves at the segment level, and the player micromanages which divisions cover which painted segment. This model is rejected for Valenar Operations. Reasons:

  • It produces a unit-density micromanagement workload inappropriate for an idle-cadence game (Valenar's design pacing keeps the player at strategic attention, not at micro-density attention).
  • It obscures the causal link between specific Sites, Routes, and the Operations the player committed to.
  • Continuous front-line geometry has no good representation in a node-and-corridor world where passes, bridges, ward sites, and individual Sites are what actually matter.

Valenar Operations target named Territories, Routes, and Sites; they do not paint segments and they do not auto-allocate detachments to fill a frontier.

Rejected: Victoria 3 Opaque War-Bar Abstraction​

Victoria 3 reduces military Operations to invisible attrition comparisons between abstract population-and-supply pools. The player sees a bar move but has no causal visibility into why one side is gaining. This is rejected for Valenar Operations. The player must always be able to see which specific Sites the Operation has secured, which Route segments have been cleared, which detachments are currently engaged, and how doctrine is biasing outcomes.

Positive Reference: Node-And-Corridor Operations​

The positive reference is node-and-corridor Operations: the Operation has an explicit target node (Territory, Site, or Threat source) and an explicit corridor (Route segment, approach lane, or supply line). The Force executes the Operation by decomposing into sub-activities that work on those nodes and corridors directly. The player can read the Operation as a chain of named, causally-linked sub-activities, not as a moving bar.

Positive Reference: Paradox-Style Macro Readability​

Paradox grand-strategy titles (CK3, EU4, Vic3) present in-flight army orders and campaign plans as macro tokens overlaid on the province / region map: a movement arrow, a siege ring, an active-engagement icon, each attached to a named army and a named target. The macro presentation is readable at a glance; the player drills in only when sub-step decisions matter. This is adopted as the readability anchor for Valenar Operation presentation.

An Operation in Valenar shows on the strategic map as a plan icon attached to its assigned Force and anchored at the target node — an assault ring over an AssaultSite target, a siege ring over a BesiegeSite target, a march arrow following the committed Route for a MarchToTerritory plan, a patrol ring over a PatrolTerritory target, a cleansing icon over a CleanseSite target. At Province / Crown scale the player sees the in-flight Operations as a roster of named plans against named nodes; the seven-phase sub-activity chain is available on drill-in but does not crowd the macro view. The Crown-tier player operates on the plan-icon roster; the phase-by-phase reading is for officer-level intervention when it matters.

Positive Reference: Open-World Strategy POI Clustering​

Open-world strategy and 4X UI patterns cluster point-of-interest markers as zoom-out aggregates: at low zoom a cluster medallion stands in for many underlying POIs; at high zoom the cluster fans out into individual markers. Valenar's Operation pin map UI is informed by this pattern.

Operation pins cluster on the strategic map per the same medallion / cluster / fanout-ring pattern as Site, Feature, and Force markers: at low zoom multiple co-located Operations (e.g. a Province staging four Operations against four adjacent Sites in a single sweep) collapse into a single cluster medallion that summarizes the count and dominant Operation type; at high zoom the cluster fans out into one pin per Operation. The cluster medallion is presentation only — the Operation data row carrying type, target, doctrine, decomposed sub-activities, and tick budget remains the authoritative selection / targeting / resolution surface. Cluster geometry is never gameplay-authoritative; commit, interrupt, override, and preview all operate on the individual Operation data row beneath the cluster.

Operation Types​

The committed Operation type list:

TypeDescription
MarchToTerritoryMove the Force to a target Territory along the safest or fastest committed Route
PatrolTerritoryCyclic patrol of a Territory; generates threat intelligence and suppresses hostile pressure
SecureRouteClear and hold a Route segment between two Territories (or between a Territory and a Site)
AssaultSiteDirect assault on a hostile-occupied Site; resolves combat in a compressed window
BesiegeSiteSustained siege of a defended Site; trades time for reduced casualties
GarrisonSiteAssign a garrison detachment to a Site after the Site has been secured
EscortCaravanProtect a supply or trade caravan along a designated Route
ContainThreatEstablish a containment perimeter around an active Threat source (Demon Gate, taint front, hostile encampment)
CleanseSiteDrive out demonic presence and initiate cleansing work at a Site; ward-team escort required
InterceptForcePursue and engage a hostile Force before it reaches its objective
ReliefMarch to lift a siege or reinforce a besieged garrison
WithdrawOrdered retreat from a Territory, Route, or Site to a designated fallback point
PushFrontCoordinated offensive advance across a Front objective at Crown scale
ReclaimAreaMulti-Territory reclamation sweep including cleansing, warding, and garrisoning
SealGateScarSustained ward-work and cleansing to seal a demonic gate scar at a Site

Operations are generic mechanic templates; specific content (which Site, which Route, which Threat source) is supplied as typed args at dispatch time. There is no Operation_ContainTheBlightFissure style content-row identifier — the Operation row is ContainThreat, parameterized with the target Threat ref. This pattern matches the generic-mechanic-vs-content-row discipline documented in ../../../../docs/design/behavior-vocabulary.md.

Decomposition Pattern​

Every Operation decomposes into the canonical seven-phase sub-activity chain. Not every Operation uses every phase; the Operation's typed args determine which phases are skipped or expanded.

  1. Scouting phase — advance scout detachments clear the Route and probe the target Site's defenses; intelligence updates the Operation's preview
  2. Securing approaches — scout patrols establish approach corridors and identify threats that could interrupt the main phase
  3. Staging camp — the Force establishes a field camp within supply range; Fieldcraft skill biases camp safety and resilience
  4. Screening flanks — patrol detachments guard against interruption during the main activity; the size of the screen comes from doctrine
  5. Main phase — assault, besiege, cleanse, contain, garrison, march, intercept, escort, or patrol as appropriate to the Operation type
  6. Consolidation — secure the gained ground, leave a garrison if needed, absorb intelligence, assess next step
  7. Withdrawal or transition — the Force returns, redeploys, or begins the next Operation

Each phase is itself a sub-activity (or a small chain of sub-activities) on the engine activity layer. The player can interrupt at any phase boundary and either redirect the Force to a new Operation or override the doctrine for the current phase.

Demon-Specific Chains​

Operations targeting demonic content (CleanseSite, SealGateScar, ContainThreat against a demonic Threat source) extend the canonical seven phases with demon-specific sub-activities:

  • Detection sub-activity — ward-team survey of the gate scar, corruption source, or taint front; required before the main cleansing phase to determine cleansing difficulty and resource requirements
  • Ward-work escort — ward / engineer team advances under Force screen; the Force is the cover and the ward team is the actor
  • Cleansing ritual coordination — the ward team performs the cleansing while the Force holds position and absorbs the corruption-pressure response
  • Sealing confirmation — verify gate scar is sealed before the Force withdraws; partial seal leaves an active Threat source
  • Recovery phase — Force recovers from taint exposure before redeployment; Force detachments that exceeded their corruption-exposure threshold are marked for purification at a ward Site

Demon-specific chains slot into the canonical seven-phase decomposition between phases 4 (Screening flanks) and 5 (Main phase) for the detection and ward-work-escort sub-activities, and between phases 6 (Consolidation) and 7 (Withdrawal) for the sealing-confirmation and recovery sub-activities.

Player Control Surface​

The player commits an Operation through this sequence:

  1. Select a Force (Available or already Operating).
  2. Select an Operation type from the committed list above.
  3. Specify the target — a Territory (for MarchToTerritory, PatrolTerritory), a Route (for SecureRoute, EscortCaravan), a Site (for AssaultSite, BesiegeSite, GarrisonSite, CleanseSite, SealGateScar), a Threat source (for ContainThreat, InterceptForce), a Force (for Relief), or a Front objective (for PushFront, ReclaimArea).
  4. Optionally assign named characters as Operation officers; their assigned skills bias the relevant sub-activities.
  5. Optionally adjust doctrine for the Operation (overrides Force default).
  6. Commit the Operation; the Force's policy layer begins the decomposition.

The Operation appears on the Force's queue and on the Province-level operations view. The player can interrupt at any sub-activity boundary, override the current sub-activity's policy, or replace the Operation entirely with a new one (the in-progress Operation is treated as Withdrawn).

Operation Preview​

Before commit, the player sees the Operation Preview surface, which surfaces:

  • decomposed sub-activity chain (the canonical seven phases plus any demon-specific extensions)
  • estimated tick budget per phase and total
  • supply burden estimate vs. current supply state
  • casualty estimate based on Force composition, doctrine, and target defenses
  • intelligence gaps (e.g., "target Site defenses are unknown — scouting phase will refine this estimate")
  • Threat response risk (e.g., "containing this Threat may attract reinforcing pressure from adjacent gate-scar sources")

Preview is causal and explicit. It surfaces known unknowns rather than hiding them behind a single composite confidence bar.

Quest Hooks​

Operation outcomes — secured routes, cleansed Sites, sealed gate scars, failed Operations — are inputs to the dynamic quest pressure system. A completed Operation may resolve a mission candidate; a failed or abandoned Operation may create follow-on quest pressure or Journal consequence entries. The generator contract is documented in gd-dynamic-quest-pressure-model.md under "Pressure And Escalation Triggers".