Community members!
We announced Talvisota in our previous blog, which revealed that we will add Finland and the 3 conflicts it fought between 1939 and 1945.
Along with the release of the Finnish expansion pack - and because the winter war started in 1939 - we will release the free Content Update III which introduces the early war stage.
In this update, we will focus on the definition of early war and how it influences gameplay.

Evolution

With the introduction of early war, the landscape of multiplayer will dramatically evolve.
Early war feels very different from the other periods. Most importantly, Infantry plays a bigger role. In 1939, armor had not yet been developed to the point of being impregnable to anti-tank weaponry. But there were cases - as you will find out - where one needed creative ways to take out a tank or vehicle.
We improved how the AI can use anti-tank grenades in our previous game update, and this is one step of many toward making early war a novel and exciting experience.

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Artillery

Artillery is ever- present in the battlefield; in a wide array of types and sizes, but there are numerous ways to counter it. New units (which we will announce when we finish implementing them) will be introduced for that reason.

We have also taken this opportunity to further develop the artillery in the game and overhaul it. Firstly, we have given artillery units new max ranges with a mathematical model that best adapts the historical max ranges to our game scenarios.
We are also working on a new feature coming to Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: direct and indirect fire switchability. It will make certain units be able to bridge the gap between classic direct-fire weapons and artillery, and therefore make it more accessible to counter long range weapons. It will affect units which historically had indirect fire sights. We will reveal more about this feature on our developer telegraph channel on our Discord server once we have reached the desired results.


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Units

We created lots of units, squads and assets for the early war periods, some of which were used throughout world war 2. From Legendary vehicles like the sd.kfz.222, to beasts like the 280mm Br-5 (the bigger brother of Stalin's sledgehammer) going through heavy haulers like the sd.kfz.6 and the lightest but spiciest of weaponry like the Maxim quadruple machine-gun. There will be much more; we’ll list them in one of our next updates.

With the addition of early war, in combination with the Domination gamemode - which we introduced in Community Update I - the variety and possible combinations for multiplayer in Gates of Hell have already increased by quite a margin.
With the arrival of the Finnish nation, the battlefields will be spiced up once more! There will be all sorts of new units and locations. We won't stop there, and we have plans to add new game modes and new nations in the future. We will reveal these when we’re ready to do so.

Talvisota

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1911520/Call_to_Arms__Gates_of_Hell_Talvisota/

All of the development we mentioned above was required to make Talvisota in the first place. Those that acquire the Talvisota expansion will be presented with a series of unique new units and game mechanics. Finland's military arsenal consisted of previously purchased foreign units such as tanks, artillery and aircraft. Besides this, it had built several defensive lines, comprising a fair number of unique bunkers. During the winter war, they added a lot of captured material to the arsenal; much of it was modified for Finnish use, producing equipment that was used exclusively by the Finns.
Of course, and as you have come to expect from us, we've not simply duplicated the original item; we have implemented all the Finnish modifications and improvements. Finland provides quality over quantity, which can be intensely rewarding and sometimes unforgiving. Above all else, it will be absolutely unique.


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Content

That’s it for our first global explanation on the addition of the early war period.
In our next devblogs we will be more specific on the contents of Talvisota and Content Update III, and how they will be integrated. We also plan to do devblogs about some of the Talvisota SP/ skirmish missions, which are all based on those wintery scenes that made for unprecedented, savage, ice cold and bitter battles.

That’s all for now, thanks for stopping by & see you on the battlefield!