The Campaign
The Dark Crusade layer — and the reason ASHFALL exists as its own game. A single continent, a turn-based war against three rival factions, and a persistent map where nothing resets. Every battle is one move. This is the real game.
Coming online at M3–M4
The campaign is designed in full but arrives after the battle systems are proven — the continent skeleton at M3, persistence (hero, wargear, honor guard) at M4. This guide describes the intended shape so you know where the war is headed.
The map of Vael
Vael was the crown of a world empire until the Sundering cracked it into provinces, killed the imperial line, and woke things beneath the ruins. The campaign map is the continent: 24 provinces, four faction capitals in the corners, and one dead imperial city, Vael City, at the center that everyone wants. You pick a faction and fight a full-map conquest war against the other three, run by campaign AI.
Provinces & traits
Each province has a terrain type (which selects the pool of battle maps you'll fight on), an income value, a fortification level, and — for about a third of them — a named trait with a battle-visible effect. Traits are what make the map read like a board game: you form plans around acquiring specific provinces. Examples:
| Province trait | Effect |
|---|---|
| The Iron Quarry | Owner gets +vehicle armor in all battles; its battle map has capturable heavy turrets. |
| Shrine of the First Flame | The Kindled ignore its fear/dread effects; the owner's hero gains +1 wargear slot. |
| The Grand Causeway | Owner may attack across it as if adjacent to two extra provinces — a reach multiplier. |
| Vael City (center) | Enormous income, a unique cathedral-ruin battle map, and a hard requirement for some victory conditions. |
Terrain also matters tactically: a quarry map plays differently from a shrine plateau or a ruined street. You're not just taking income — you're choosing the ground your future battles happen on.
Turns & a world that moves without you
The strategic layer is turn-based. Each campaign turn you take one action:
- Attack an adjacent enemy province (this triggers a battle you play).
- Fortify — spend to raise a province's fortification level or station garrison units.
- A special faction action — the Kindled's extra attack, the Companies' mercenary buy, and so on.
Then the three AI factions take their turns — including attacking each other. Wars you're not part of are auto-resolved by army-strength math with randomness, and you watch them land as headlines in the turn ticker: "The Kindled have burned the Iron Quarry." The world genuinely moves without you. An enemy weakened fighting a third party is your opening; a rival snowballing unchecked is your problem to solve before it's too big.
Campaign AI has personality
Each AI runs the same rules you do — no fake teleports. The Legion consolidates contiguous territory; the Kindled chain-attack; the Hollow turtle then surge; the Companies snipe weakly-held trait provinces. They hold grudges, too: hit one recently and it prioritizes counterattacking you. Reading each rival's temperament is part of grand strategy.
Attacking & defending
Attacking a province means fighting a Control battle on that province's map, with the defender holding pre-placed fortifications scaled to its fortification level. Defending is the asymmetric thrill: when the AI attacks your province, you fight with that province's garrison army (units you stationed there) plus whatever you spend, holding positions you built in advance.
The stakes are real but not brutal:
- Lose an attack: your army survives at reduced strength and retreats home. Attrition matters, but it's not a restart.
- Lose a defense: you lose the province and its garrison. This is the loss that stings.
- Overwhelming defenses can be auto-resolved at your option, with a garrison-risk warning — you don't have to play every one-sided battle.
Persistence — what carries between battles
This is the retention engine, and the whole point. Everything you win, you keep; everything you lose, you feel.
The Commander
Your hero levels from 1 to 10 based on battle performance. Each level, you pick one of two perks — ability upgrades or aura improvements. Death in battle means the Commander is wounded and misses the next battle — never permadeath. You'll come to know this hero by the name the game gave them, not one you chose.
Wargear
Roughly twenty named pieces per faction, earned from specific conquests and campaign milestones, slotted onto your Commander across weapon / armor / trinket / relic slots that unlock by level. Each piece is named, changes the hero's sprite visibly, and carries a mechanical effect. Wargear can be freely re-slotted between battles — friction there would just be un-fun.
Honor Guard
Conquering trait provinces and achieving battle feats grants elite named squads that deploy free in every battle, above your normal slot cap. They persist as long as you keep them alive — and a dead honor guard squad is gone for two campaign turns while it recovers. Up to four or five by the endgame, they're the "my army" attachment mechanic: you will protect these veterans like nothing else on the field.
This is why battle tactics matter to the war
Everything in the Battle Primer — finishing runners, not over-committing a veteran squad, breaking instead of trading — compounds here. A squad you keep alive across ten battles becomes legendary. A squad you lose to carelessness is gone for two turns and hurts for days of play.
Garrisons, fortifications & unlocks
Spend campaign resources to station units and raise fortification levels in provinces — these become the pre-placed defenders and structures in your defense battles. And spend campaign currency (from province income) on global unlocks: start battles at Tier 2, gain an extra generator slot, grenades for all line squads, and more. A long campaign steadily makes your battles start from a stronger place.
Capitals & victory
Each faction's capital is a bespoke, scripted set-piece — a unique map with special defenses. Taking a capital eliminates that faction and grants you a permanent campaign boon. Note the Hollow Court's twist: their capital can't even be attacked until their outer provinces are broken first.
Campaign victory comes two ways:
- Total conquest — take all four rival capitals (as your own faction, you already hold yours).
- A faction-specific alternate condition — for example, the Kindled win by holding Vael City plus twelve provinces simultaneously.
A full campaign runs roughly 8–15 hours. You can save anywhere; there's one autosave per turn with a 3-slot history — protection against a heartbreak loss without letting you re-roll individual battles. Prefer no safety net? Full ironman is a toggle.
The skirmish is one move. The campaign is the game. Fight every battle like the veterans you bring into it have to walk out again — because they do, and you'll fight the next war with them.