Upcoming real-time strategy game Line War aims to combine a myriad of fan-favorite genres to create a unique new experience for players. Inspired by classic games like Command & Conquer and Axis and Allies, Line War combines elements from 4X, auto battler, war games, and real time tactics to make a new type of strategy game.
Line War lives up to its name when it comes to in-game actions – units are all directed by the player drawing lines on the map, allowing for much more intuitive control during battle. Players will use lines to navigate, form defensive lines, conquer territory and more as they strive for victory against opponents. Resources and capital must also be generated as gamers battle through the use of structures like power plants and established cities, meaning both short-term and long-term strategy are integral to victory.
The two-person development team behind Line War, Christian Ulvaeus and Stefan Persson, took the time to sit down with Screen Rant to discuss the title’s design, mechanics, and how the game came to be.
First of all, Line War is a really ambitious and different concept than a lot of strategy games. It combines so many different elements, it has the real-time strategy, but it’s also 4X; it’s also auto battler and wargames. That seems like a really delicate balance to try to strike. How did you decide which elements to prioritize over others to reach an equilibrium?
Christian Ulvaeus: The game actually stems from a board game called Strategica that I developed for about 20 years, so a lot of the elements come from there. That’s where the mix come comes from: the requirements to go and conquer the whole world and build cities and ports and trade routes and stuff like that.
I knew that the board game was working; we had played that board game for 20 years with constant refinements in iterations, so I knew that the balance from the board game was good. But I also imagined that maybe this board game can be translated into a PC RTS game. And, along with that, came the idea of a unit control that is indirect. You inverse the control of the units, so instead of ordering the units to go here and there, you concentrate on what you want to do; what you want to accomplish. The strategy.
I listened to the Game Dev podcast that you were on, Stefan, and you had mentioned that you wanted to never click on a singular unit; that it was all much broader in terms of control. You also mentioned on your website that you wanted to get rid of this stress on actions per minute that some other strategy games can have. Were there any other elements from strategy games, when you were developing this, that you either wanted to eliminate or make different?
Stefan Persson: Yeah, I think what sold that to me – because when Christian came to me with the idea, he needed someone to develop the game with. He found me because we happened to live quite closely, and he presented how the idea would play out to me. He brought the maps and drew everything, and he had slides prepared for everything.
For me, who was maybe more of a mediocre RTS player at best back in the day, that really appealed to me. Because then I’d be able to play a game myself and really enjoy it, by focusing on the strategic elements instead. I think Christian has had the design in his mind for a very long time, and it’s sort of evolved into these different genres. Not by choice, like we wanted to make 50% 4X, or 30%. It just happens to be that if we were to create a game that would play the way we wanted to, then it would turn out to be this mix.
It was a bit of an issue when we were going to say, “This is the new RTS game,” or something. Because when we tried to find out what category we fit in, that’s when it dawned on us that we don’t really know.
It transcends so many different genres that are all somewhat linked, but you’ve combined them in a really unique way that makes something completely different.
Christian Ulvaeus: Have you tried the game?
Yes, I played the demo. And I’ve been watching some of the skirmishes on the Line War YouTube channel, which has been really fun. I know that the game, as it is now, is as appealing to watch as it is to play and is clear to follow along with. Was that always a goal for you guys, or did it just happen naturally?
Christian Ulvaeus: In fact, we do have a couple of slides from 18 months ago, when we were pitching the game for investors, that that brings this to mind. We have been thinking about the esports potential of Line War since day one, and we imagined when we discussed how this game could play out for observers and spectators and commentators that it should be a nice fit. Because you can see what the units are doing, and you can see the intention of the player drawing his or her commands.
But we were very worried about the game pace. And maybe we still are a little bit worried about the game pace, because at first impression, the movement of the units looks like it can be quite slow. But you also have to consider that many battles are taking place at the same time on the map – much more often than in StarCraft, for example.
[In StarCraft], you might have a very small skirmish with someone harassing just two units in one corner of the map, but the real battle is taking place in the center. But in Line War, it can be five or six multiple battles taking place at the same time. And all of them are really important, and all of them are big. So, that’s something that’s interesting with the game from an esports perspective.
Although strategy is involved, a lot of esports go back to the actions per minute. You see some pro StarCraft or League of Legends players who have insane coordination and speed with which they do everything. But this is a more long-term thinking strategy type of game. Would you say the long term is more important in this game?
Christian Ulvaeus: Equally important, I would say. What would you say, Stefan?
Stefan Persson: Yeah. About the command issuing process, we noticed that if you slow down a little bit and draw more careful commands, that’s actually beneficial. In some rare cases, it could be good if you maybe produce a bunch of commands fast. But I’d say, more often than not, it’s more important to assess and read the situation to carefully draw the comments instead of stressing them out.
But again, it also comes down to some more tactical movements. Especially when you battle at sea. It’s a bit funny, because as you move out to sea, everything becomes a little bit quicker. So, you really have to watch your flanks and be a bit more concerned there and plan it. But I’d say it’s a good balance between short and long-term, and then also trying to read the opponent.
While you’re having to plan where your units are going to go, you also have to focus on your power and on keeping your currency up. You have to balance the conquering and the resources at the same time, which is a really unique strategy combination.
Christian Ulvaeus: And the concept with the energy applies too. Suppose that you have built a naval base producing a lot of ships, especially heavy cruisers, and you don’t have that much energy. Then even if your army or your Armada is much more powerful than your enemies, you might not even be able to get over to the sea, because you’ve spent all your energy on the way over there. That’s a very, very interesting concept.
And the distinction between capital and energies is very [specific]. They play very different roles, and you can be rich in energy and poor in capital. They really have two different roles to play.
And players have their choice between saving up more to get heavy hitters, like the rocket, which takes a lot of time and energy. Or they can put their resources into smaller things, so each player might develop their own way of playing.
Christian Ulvaeus: Definitely. And with the upcoming technologies – there are no technologies in the game right now, we think that we might introduce maybe between 20 to 30 different technologies – will be rather expensive. And that will really be something for the rich player to spend money on, because it will empower and upgrade your units without at the same time increasing your upkeep.
It’s an upkeep-free investment, so to speak.
Do you have any examples of upcoming technology that you’re working on?
Christian Ulvaeus: Should we reveal one or two?
Stefan Persson: Yeah, we can say. Well, we can say that nothing is 100% set. But we’ve got a whole list of ideas that we’ve been spoiling. Without committing to anything, we could mention a few ideas.
For example, we were looking for the cruisers to have a little bit more long range, inland missiles – a Tomahawk missiles type of thing. We’ve discussed the ability for tanks to tow artillery, and maybe some sonar capabilities for helicopters, so they can assist with detecting submarines and things. There’s quite a lot.
We don’t want to introduce new units, because we already have to care about the command system being as simple as possible.
We don’t want to have lots of different types of units or breeds of them, but we definitely want to be able to upgrade them. So, those are a couple of examples.
It’s so awesome that you guys are this two-man team who’s doing everything. You both have experience being the sole creator or developer behind something. Christian, you were the only person developing Humany’s customer service for a long time.
Christian Ulvaeus: For the first five years, at least.
Stefan, you have Imphenzia, which is your solo video game-centric company. And you mentioned in the Game Dev podcast that the two of you have very different ways of approaching problems and developing things. Could you just elaborate a little bit more on that?
Stefan Persson: Yeah, it’s been a really fun journey. Because one of the [reasons] I wanted to take this journey together with Christian is we have such different backgrounds. He’s a professional, really architectural, object-oriented designer. He builds everything robust and tested. I have a very different [method]. I create a lot of smaller games, and I find a lot of solutions to problems, but not in that sense.
I thought it would be really interesting, and a big educational journey, for me to learn a lot about that. It’s funny now, because everything that’s front end – presenting to the player or map generating, or the way the units visually behave and animations and things – that’s all my domain. And then all the heavy architectural stuff – the net code, the AIs, and all that structure – is what Christian does. So, It’s been a really interesting.
I think it’s quite funny that Christian can read a book and understand everything that he reads from it. I cannot do that. I need to test it and just figure out how it works. Then I connect the dots a little bit. It’s been a fun journey, but it works really well.
Christian Ulvaeus: And we have discussed the two methodologies of learning; learning by reading or learning by doing. It appears that Stefan is a typical example of learning by doing, and I am definitely a learning by reading type of guy.
When I went to the lectures for higher education, I often skipped the lectures because it was much easier for me to sit at home and read the book instead. And everyone was just looking at me, “You actually read the book?” Everyone else took just took notes from the teacher, but I didn’t understand anything.
Stefan Persson: And it’s funny, because this whole development journey is not only the game itself but the whole game design concept. Which is really, I’d say, a very big part. I think a lot of people underestimate the game design when it comes to creating a strategy game. If you were to ask me, I’d put a lot of cool-looking different units, but with the design that’s evolved over 20 years, every unit has a distinct purpose and the balance is really, really important.
And then on top of that, it’s not only creating the game, but the the backend. The servers, all the API’s that’s required for matchmaking… Like you said, it’s just the two of us. We were maybe looking at scaling at some point but, at the same time, one of our strengths is that we are just the two at the moment, because then we can keep a pretty good pace within us. If we scale out to a lot of different people, then we’ll have a lot more overlap in things and more communication challenges.
I think we’ll head there in the end anyway, as hopefully the game will gain popularity. Because we really have grand ideas for taking it to the next level as well.
In developing this game, what are some of the biggest problems you guys have had to overcome? How did your different methodologies of problem-solving fit into that?
Christian Ulvaeus: There is a lot of groundwork that has to be in place for the game to even be testable. I think we spent maybe three or four months until we had an actual prototype that we could test even. Getting an environment inside of Unity, or a Unity scene as they are called, that actually contains everything you need to play the game [was very difficult]. We call it the Sandbox, and the Sandbox is a feature that is available in the game today, but this is actually the same Sandbox that we are using when we are developing the game. So, it was difficult to get every little piece together.
That’s one thing I can think of. I can also say that the net code is not the old API from Unity. We’re trying to build that away, because it’s old. And that’s very complicated with net code.
Christian, when you were working with Humany, you were at least in part developing a new customer service UI. Did making that intuitive UI there influence the same intuitive UI that Line War has?
Christian Ulvaeus: I was only the programmer and technical architect at Humany, although the four of us had wild and very creative discussions about product management and refining the product. But the user experience, that was on someone else who designed the user interface and the menus and workflows. So, that was not on me.
So, it was more from your experience developing the board game?
Christian Ulvaeus: Yes, definitely.
Stefan Persson: One of the challenges with this game is that we don’t really have any reference game to look at. So, with what you mentioned about the UI, we’re not sure that this is going to be the final one either. We had a lot of whiteboard discussions before COVID when we had the office. We were drawing like, “We should collapse it like this. How should we present them? How should we make it consistent?”
It’s a lot of first designing it on a whiteboard, and then a lot of trial and error. And we did a lot of that before we actually released any alpha game. We’ve had some feedback, and we’re happy to hear that people are finding it [enjoyable].
We were a bit concerned that it’s going to be such a new thing, that people are going to look back at their old RTS experience and go, “This is not what I’m used to. I don’t like this.” But it’s been the opposite. It’s been a lot of positive feedback about that one. That’s the true strength, and we’re really excited about that.
There’s maybe a small learning curve, just to adjust to a different type of strategy game. But the UI is incredibly clear, and you didn’t do a bunch of really complex designs that would make it harder to differentiate things. It’s a very straightforward experience.
Christian Ulvaeus: It’s a little bit like chess. You only have so many different types of gaming pieces – maybe six or seven – and it makes for a game that has lasted over millennia. So, I don’t think that introducing a lot of new units would have such an impact on the game design or how it plays out.
It’s much more about the planning, the geography, the timing, and the execution.
Stefan Persson: And on top of that, you mentioned the learning curve. What we see a lot is that when new players come in the game, we noticed that a lot of new players tend to create these big armies with the triple lines of defense. They poke a little bit here and there and try different things; maybe they run out of energy. I think we’ll see, as the game gains a little bit more popularity, people learn from each other.
Because when you’ve played maybe 100 matches – or 500, I don’t know – then it becomes a very different game. The defenses are a little bit smaller, and maybe more geographically well-placed, and things like that. It’s a lot more fast-paced, even if it looks slower at first glance.
But the games will look very different, especially as we head to esports. There’s going to be matches that are maybe 20-30 minutes, even down to 10-15. And it’s going to be some quite rapid, smaller movements. I think so.
Most of the matches that are online are 10-15 minutes. Knowing exactly what you’re doing, I suppose, is part of that. Since you’ve developed the game, I’m sure that you might have a little more experienced than the average player.
Christian Ulvaeus: We do. We’re still waiting for someone to kick us down from first place. If you’re looking for it, we’re not on top any long anymore, but that has a lot to do with us not playing so much.
Stefan Persson: But it is fun, because some people are really catching on, We’ve seen a few – maybe a handful of 5 to 10 players – that are really starting to beat this genuinely. I’m really excited about that. I think the potential of the game is so much more. I’m estimating my own capacity to maybe 10-20%, at best, of what the game could offer. It’s gonna be really exciting when we do get a wide range of really experienced players, I think.
Talking a little bit about the sound design, Stefan, you do a lot of sound design in working with Imphenzia. And you also enjoy going out and getting field recordings. Did any make their way into this game?
Stefan Persson: Yeah, that’s true. I do spend quite some time recording. The first iteration of sound effects were all from my recordings as well, and the sound design usually takes the source recordings and twists them into something else.So, the tank is a digging machine I was aiming this big shotgun microphone at to record from a distance as he was rolling over stones. The helicopter is from just down the street here; there was an ambulance helicopter that landed, so I ran out with the [equipment]. All the voices, I spent shouting into the microphone.
A lot of this sounds are original. The cows are from New Zealand, I brought my microphone on a trip there. I’ve got a picture surrounded by loads of cows in the field by the farms. A lot of the sounds are there.
The tricky ones are a lot of the weapons sounds, which are the cool ones, of course. They’re difficult to get in Sweden, because we don’t really have weapons and shooting ranges. So, I bought some libraries from the Recordist – he does really good stuff and is a US-based guy.
One of the things that I really wanted to put a lot of emphasis on is that I play a lot with headphones. Being able to read what’s going on in the game is really important, so I think people will catch on to that more and more. Before you even see a tank, and you hear that sound, then you know, “Okay, I have to stop that production. I need to pull my troops back.” And as soon as you hear the suppressed sound of a commando, you know exactly what to do.
I also wanted to have that all the sounds actually have a good meaning. We’re still progressing on that one, and also on a nice sound picture to see a lot of variations on the sounds. I’ve put a lot of different types of sounds in, so it’s been a fun journey with the sounds.
Christian Ulvaeus: Stefan keeps neglecting the need for more visual impacts when you have the torpedo impacts from submarines. He likes to play with submarines, and he’s done that for one year now. Everyone’s saying, “My refineries and my cruisers keep exploding at sea, and I don’t even know what hit them.”
Stefan Persson: There’s a little bit of visual effects…
Christian Ulvaeus: A little. I am asking him for an underwater explosion or something, just a little – but nothing happens.
Stefan Persson: I’ll have to microphones down in the water and record.
Was there a specific mood or ambiance you were going for with the music of the game?
Stefan Persson: Yeah, we wanted to – especially for the theme, which is not actually in the game funnily enough, but it’s in most of the trailers – keep a bit of a throwback to the retro vibes. I did a lot of music and listened to a lot of demo music back in the 90s, and we played the Command and Conquer game.
That’s a different type of music, but we wanted to keep that. We didn’t really want to go with the traditional or full orchestral theme. A lot of the games do that. And then there’s a mix between some ambiences and some just electronic and orchestral stuff in the moods.
We’ve also programmed the system, so Christian put together [a program] that can detect what’s going on – if it’s a buildup, or if it’s an exploration phase, or a combat with 50-50 units. And it works pretty good. I’m looking forward to adding or composing more music for those different situations. We’ll be adding to the soundtrack over the time to come as well.
In some games, the music can make you feel almost exceedingly pressured. I think it struck a really good balance between stakes in this gameplay but no immediate danger, necessarily.
Stefan Persson: Yeah, one of the tracks is named after the rocket. When I play the game, quite often, when a rocket comes in and hits and a lot of units go everywhere? That song comes on. So, I’m happy about that.
This game has an infinite amount of seeds, correct? Or nearly infinite?
Stefan Persson: We’ve capped it but, it theoretically could have 16 million or 4 billion – I can’t remember. But we’ve capped it at just 100,000 for now. But we could uncap that at some point.
What was the terrain inspiration? I’m sure there was some sort of automated process in making them.
Stefan Persson: Yeah, that was a fun journey. Because initially, when we started to develop the game, we just had a static image that we had created. The first 50 matches that me and Christian played in the build was just the same map over and over again. And it was just a picture of some land and stuff.
Then a couple of years ago, over Christmas, we set out to create the procedural worlds instead. We knew that we wanted a healthy mix between sea and land, and we wanted to have distributions of forests and mountains. We needed to build a procedural world that generates this sort of mix, and we have a lot of threshold values between different ranges. It produces these, and then it places all the resources like energy wells and city sites and trade routes and stuff. It calculates where that needs to go.
And then it was a lot about discussing. We press through a lot of random seeds and saw what they look like. We tried to play a lot of them, so we found a pretty good balance. I think you get some extreme cases still, and we were looking at how to avoid those maybe.
But it’s all mathematically generated, so we don’t really have to do anything apart from throwing in new numbers and looking at what we get. It’s quite funny. We share the seeds, and I think we’re going to build in some sort of a feature to upvote specific seeds. Because some some favorites are coming. We have a discord where all of those are discussed, and some of them offer better matches than other maybe
Christian Ulvaeus: One thing that’s very cool about random seed world generation is that you can play the same game with the same number of units on a land-only map. There are no sea units involved, and you still feel that it’s a proper game. It’s very, very interesting and very exciting to play, and we even see some players that prefer to play on land with only maps under them.
You often see a lot of tanks, and you bring in attack helicopters and a little different mix of unit composition. But on the other hand, you might have some players preferring the maps that have 70% sea, with a lot of sea units and strategically placed airports with strikers. It’s a different kind of gameplay. And then you have the mixed maps, which I like very much, where you have to strategize and find points where you transfer land units from one continent to another and protect that area from my intervention. It’s a wonderful, wonderful mix.
I think that’s really cool that you can play the same game, just play with a fraction of the units, and still have this experience of the complete game. So, what I’m trying to say is that you could actually skip all the sea units, and you would still have a Line War game that many people would find extremely challenging and exciting.
With multiplayer as it is now, there’s a text chat. Is there any intention in the future to add a voice chat feature?
Christian Ulvaeus: It’s not something we have discussed. I don’t know if Steam provides such an API.
Stefan Persson: No, we haven’t actually discussed this. We thought maybe some people would play with Discord, but we haven’t discussed.
Another issue we’d have to worry about if we introduce chats is that I’ve heard when people play another type of game, there’s a lot of issues with people shouting out profanities and stuff. So, yeah, I don’t know. We haven’t discussed it, but that’s a good question, though. I think we’ll see some more requests coming through. That’s a good question.
There’s definitely some pros and cons for a game having voice chat. Is there anything else you guys want players to know about this game?
Christian Ulvaeus: One thing that is a really important message that we want people and players to know is that we are not done with this game. And it’s not because it’s not in a good state right now – because it’s in a very, very good state. But we will publish this roadmap soon, containing all the upcoming features.
And I still believe that, despite the game being so well-balanced and having such great gameplay right now, I think we will add to that. We will raise the bar even further, with these technologies; with the new aircraft carrier unit. We’re planning on introducing infinite west-east scroll. You no longer have map corners, so you can scroll the world around, playing like on a cylinder.
We have many, many other things to come. That’s a very important message. Also, with the graphics, with the audio and everything. We’re really prepared to reinvest in the game, and this will be even more successful and easier if the launch is successful.
Stefan Persson: Yeah, we opted for this route. We could have probably kept it away and kept developing for a few years. But since we have over 30,000 matches that have been played on the demo, we really want people to play the game and enjoy it and learn from it.
A lot of stuff that we will be adding is going to be extra nice to have later on. But we’ve played the game for two years ourselves, and we really enjoy it. Again, like chess, they only have one world – and it’s worked extremely well.
We really want to let the audience mature and play the game and learn from it as we continue to develop it, rather than just waiting and waiting. I think a lot of other games go that route as well, where they release a game and then they build on that. Some of them add DLCs, or some just have different seasons and evolve over time.
We’re going to try to adopt that approach as well. I think it’s going to benefit the players as well as us, and it’s going to be fun to have a lot of people playing the game. We’ll get the visual feedback from it and keep improving it from there.
Line War releases on PC via Steam on May 5, 2022.