I don’t come at these numbers and assumptions lightly. As a project manager by trade, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to map out what it would mean to do a lot of the things this community wishes to see happen. ChatGPT has made this even more detailed.
I have a project within GPT that I’ve been using for over 18 months now and a lot of chats are dedicated to plane sets and how to use them. You would be surprised what it can tell you it’s absolutely helped my ACM and all kinds of other gameplay things.
I also have a couple that do extensive research projects on these things. I’ve been working towards doing a wish list group to put context behind what is being asked. Some things are simple and would just require a couple parameter changes that could easily be done if philosophy were aligned. A lot of things, however, would take a coding push and infrastructure.
A switch to two countries only which is not something I think is a good idea anyway even if numbers continue to dwindle. It’s one of those things that just sounds great on paper.
But let’s say the desire was there and someone wanted to do it whether it was Dale or the next owner if there ever was one. This is what it would take. A play in ten acts…
Rewrite the country-state logic. The core arena code would need every hard-coded three-country assumption changed to two-country logic, including ownership, enemies, switching sides, scoring, country messages, and database records. This is likely a 2–4 month senior-programmer task before map or balance work begins. Also, it’s important to remember that AH is not built on universal code. It is a highly proprietary engine, not a modular commercial game engine.
* Rebuild the strategic system. The current model expects 3 HQs, 3 cities, 3 factory networks, 3 supply chains, and 3 sets of dependent fields. Every strat relationship would need to be reassigned, tested, and rebalanced so one side does not gain twice the strategic depth or leave a third network unused.
* Replace the map-winning formula. Current reset and victory conditions are based on one country taking territory from two opponents while retaining enough of its own. A two-country system needs a new percentage threshold, minimum-base rule, and anti-stalemate logic, followed by repeated simulations to determine whether wars last 6 hours, 3 days, or never end.
* The arduous work to convert and validate every Main Arena terrain begins. Every active terrain would need to be reviewed, redesigned, and rebalanced for a true two-country war because you can’t simply remove one country from a map designed around three fronts, three strat systems, and three starting positions. This would require significant community involvement from terrain builders and an estimated 2,000–4,000+ hours of terrain development, followed by extensive playtesting to validate that each map remains balanced, competitive, and capable of producing healthy arena resets.
* Retune population balancing. With three countries, two sides can naturally pressure an oversized country; with two, a 60/40 population split means 50% more players on the larger side. ENY limits, perk bonuses, side-switch rules, and possibly automatic balancing would all need redesign to prevent repeated steamrolls.
* Modify the user interface and supporting systems. Country-selection screens, clipboard colors, score pages, roster displays, squad affiliations, country channels, warning messages, and victory announcements all currently expect Bishops, Knights, and Rooks. This is not difficult individually, but it creates hundreds of small regression points across the client and server.
* Run a dedicated beta arena and large-scale QA program. Internal testing cannot reproduce how 100–150 live players exploit capture routes, population shifts, and map geometry. A realistic test program would require 8–12 weeks, multiple full map cycles, volunteer players, telemetry, and several balance revisions.
* Build migration and rollback plans. Squads permanently associated with the removed country would need reassignment, historical statistics would need preservation, and players would need rules for choosing new sides. The old three-country system should remain deployable until the new format survives at least 30–60 days without major failures.
* Restart a small development operation to complete it professionally. A credible team would include Dale as system owner, 1 senior gameplay programmer, 1 terrain specialist, 1 QA lead, and part-time UI/community support for roughly 6–12 months. Salaries, payroll burden, hardware, software, testing, management, and post-release support put a realistic professional budget around $400,000–$800,000, with seven figures possible if the company must be fully rebuilt.
* Evaluate the financial return on investment. Assuming approximately 800 paying monthly subscribers (about $144,000 gross annual revenue at $15/month. This was the most latest player estimate by statistical availability of the player base publicly. It’s not even known if it’s correct. Credit to Lusche), a $400,000–$1,000,000 development project would likely require growing and sustaining the subscriber base to roughly 1,500–3,500 paying users over several years to reasonably recover the investment while still covering normal operating expenses, making ROI one of the most critical factors in determining whether a major feature should proceed.
From the extensive research I’ve had completed. This is the best estimate of those things at a minimal or maximum cost and resources. And as any of you know for any project, especially one in the IT world two weeks means two months means hang on a minute.
I don’t like peeing in Cheerios, I just like the thought projects. I wanna see the biggest the best for this game just like the rest of you, but we may have already had it and have as much as we’re gonna get now. I’m cool with that.
