Challenges
Conflict Zone: Modern War Strategy is a real-time strategy (RTS) game, developed by MASA Group and published by Ubisoft for Sega Dreamcast, Sony PlayStation 2, and Microsoft Windows in May 2001.
The story takes place in early 21st century. The majority of the world's countries have created the ICP (International Corps for Peace), an organization dedicated to making global peace a reality. However, a secret organization called GHOST, defending only the economic interests of its members, does not hesitate to create crisis situations, threatening every day a little more the world’s balance.
From the beginning, MASA Group decided to develop a revolutionary RTS game where players’ management skills would be put into good use. Instead of spending their time on repetitive low-level operations, players will have to focus on high-level decisions, relying on their mastery of the art of strategy. This challenge required a new kind of game artificial intelligence (AI) which would provide players with autonomous officers (aka commanders) helping them in their commanding tasks.
Solution
Although Conflict Zone can be played like any classical RTS, its main innovation lies in its gameplay which focuses on global management. Players can rely on commanding agents that will automatically fulfill specific and complex missions, such as attack or defend a position, setup a camp or save civilian populations. Commanding agents can be specialized in some tasks, and have their own personality (for example, aggressive, careful) and make complex decisions that are often compromises between several goals and constraints. As such, Conflict Zone was the first game to fully exploits the DirectIA technology.
Another Conflict Zone innovation is the simulation of propaganda effects, which are crucial in the game. When a players act in a way that bring negative public attention, it makes the game harder for them. Resource management is also particularly complex: players receive continuously funds from their headquarters depending on their results, and higher technologies are made available depending on their popularity. This popularity is defined by the actions taken by the players towards the civilian populations. For example, ICP forces have to protect and escort civilians, while GHOST forces must discredit ICP by sending reporters to tell the world about ICP’s mistakes.
Key Benefits
RTS game focusing on strategy skills, relieving the players from the burden of repetitive low-level manipulations.- Thanks to DirectIA technology, implementation of autonomous commanding agents, helping the players with their day-to-day operations.
- Realistic simulation of operations other than war (OOTW), such as humanitarian assistance, and in-depth modeling of the effect of mass-media on the conduct of operations.
Downloads
Conflict Zone - Intro video
Conflict Zone - Mission video (German version)
Conflict Zone - PC Action review video (in German)