1. Intent and Scope

This proposal offers an experimental take on FIA gameplay, focused on playable non-combatant civilian roles that are both purposeful and engaging, addressing the common critique of FIA as just a platform for lone wolves, griefers and saboteurs. It aims to give civilians meaningful tasks that drive coalition-building and influence, moving beyond aimless trolling. At its heart, this solution captures the dual struggle of occupation and resistance, where both sides rely on clandestine operations, and trust networks. Logistics and intelligence shape the battlefield as much as combat, reflecting the complex movement of arms between partisan fighters and occupying forces.

• An experimental ruleset designed to:

  1. Be implemented as a separate GM scenario to allow for isolated testing and feedback

  2. Be trialed on experimental, community and stress-test servers to gauge stability and player reception

  3. Be gradually integrated into HQC only if it demonstrates both stability and engaging gameplay

• A partisan victory framework for FIA that:

  • Plays beyond being just “outgunned and outmanned”

  • Rewards endurance, disruption, and logistics

  • Reduces supply trolling and other grief-causing behavior

• A civilian role and clearance system that:

  • Enables FIA and coalition forces to engage in meaningful, non‑combat gameplay

  • Enhances supply infrastructure, intel gathering, and overall server health

  • Emphasizes the rich, often untapped cultural themes that define each map’s atmosphere

The goal is to build upon the cinematic foundation laid by the campaign, adding much needed depth in areas like civilian resistance, and guerrilla tactics and to create more opportunities for “emergent behavior” without breaking the sandbox. This approach provides BI and community servers a clear, staged path to test these ideas in. It aims to expand HQC with a novel PvP combat-op or campaign-like experience grounded in a richer historical context that makes gameplay more immersive and meaningful.

2. High‑level Concept

2.1 FIA as a Partisan Faction

FIA should not “win” by dominating the map like BLUFOR or OPFOR. They win when:

• The occupation becomes logistically and politically unsustainable

• At least one main faction’s supply collapses

• FIA has enough supply, radio coverage, and civilian leverage to sustain resistance

This is a partisan victory, not rules for conquest.

2.2 Civilian Infrastructure as the Backbone

A small, controllable population of non‑combatant civilians:

• Makes the island feel alive

• Provides supply, intel, and RP hooks

• Acts as a pressure valve for base/AI limits and server health

• Gives FIA and coalition seeking forces someone to protect or exploit

These civilians are not just skins for FIA. They have limited but valuable lives, defined jobs, gameplay loops, and progression paths. Their roles offer a blend of “safe” driving simulation, impactful logistics management, unique building opportunities, potential for conducting complex espionage and smuggling operations, and a challenging permadeath experience for RP enthusiasts. This provides a fresh contrast to their cultural counterparts, who often favor lone-wolf tactics but lack the cohesive support and resilience that should define a truly partisan approach.

3. Civilian Clearance and Core Operational Sectors

Civilian clearance levels should serve not only as progressive “Ranks” but as behavioral guide rails, reflecting the trustworthiness and professional "character" of players. This system encourages players to complete meaningful, non-combat tasks related to progressing their career before gaining access to a chosen factions sensitive equipment, helping to foster believable civilian behavior and reduce disruptive trolling.

These ranks can be seen as analogous to FIA’s Volunteer → Partisan → Captain, but focused on civilian influence through allegiance shifts and cooperation rather than combat XP.

1. Civilian

   • Untrained, and unarmed

   • Killing others grants no XP (see section 4)

   • Not meant for frontline combat; but may serve as human shields, so caution and communication are advised

   • Can leave the conflict by exchanging their “Personal Documents” for an “Exit Visa” or “Passport” or signing a “Declaration of Resistance” (see sections 5 & 6)

2. Auxiliary

   • Earned through completing non-combative tasks related to the chosen characters group/sector

   • Trusted by coalition forces with access to their “encrypted” radios, and potentially other spy gear like listening devices (see asset ideas and reference mods in section 6)

   • Industrial goods and other useful compositions that could be built from a special cargo/work truck/van:

     • Deer stand

     • Duckboard

     • Wooden ladder

     • Squad management point (limit 1 per group with choice of faction for AI escorts/bodyguards)

   • Allowed basic pistols from arsenals for self-defense

3. Liaison

   • High‑trust civilian collaborator with access to special emplacements, and tools

   • Can spawn non-standard technical vehicles at other factions depots (see asset ideas and reference mods in 6.1)

   • Still not a soldier, but a key asset

   • Industrial goods and other modular compositions that could be built from a special cargo/work truck/van:

     • FIA supply cache (limit 1-2 per fraction, requires proximity to materials site)

     • Weapon rack

     • Lockable doors for interior buildings

     • Window and hallway or wall barricades

     • Base management point for building a “Liaison Office” for a chosen faction (only 1 per faction with limited building options, allows for the chosen faction to spawn in buildings)

This path gives civilians a progression loop for working with other factions, gradually earning trust and access without becoming full combatants immediately. They may evolve into skilled saboteurs, spies, or covert operatives, reflecting the shadowy roles civilians play in asymmetric warfare.

3.2 Core Civilian Groups

Despite the ongoing conflict, the map is far from abandoned. The presence of FIA operatives in civilian clothing and the early stage of the conflict—evidenced by each faction starting with only one base and minimal infrastructure damage—indicate that many sectors remain operational.
For example, the Port Operations sector clearly continues to function, with port workers and truck drivers maintaining supply and aid routes. Dedicated facilities like the ENP building on Everon could believably support these activities.
The Consumer and Industrial Goods sector, however, may be winding down production, with workers finishing quotas or bring temporarily stranded, offering creative opportunities for roleplay and gameplay. Countdowns for delivery and production tasks could help with adding a challenge and sense of urgency.

For a 48-player server, a baseline of 3 civilians is suggested, with 6 preferred for a 64-player server to ensure effective staffing across sectors. More could be added as simple loitering or sheltering-in-place AI to serve as stand-ins and backup “lives” if it is desired to add a little more population density without overwhelming the server.

The civilian groups represent core business sectors or essential industrial functions vital to maintaining supply and intel operations that could become available for all factions, not just FIA. Each map should feature distinct group names that reflect their specific roles instead of generic faction callsigns. The following overview remains generalized for brevity, a detailed sample scenario may be attached at the end upon request.

3.2.1 Port Operations Sector

Character Roles: Port Clerk (Businessman) or Dockworker

Role Overview: Manage the flow of goods, materials and supply through ports, ensuring shipments comply with inspections and coordinating logistics with other sectors and factions.

Assets:

• Shipping manifests and/or ledgers for tracking imports and exports

• Secondary tools like pens, stamps, or correction fluid for document editing

• Landline telephone for coordination

Tasks:

• Verify and manage shipping documents

• Coordinate pickups and deliveries with drivers and production managers

• Ensure compliance with occupying forces during inspections

• Modify shipments to smuggle contraband if so desired

Gameplay Impact:

• Provides critical intel on faction supply levels and routes

• Enables smuggling operations to support FIA or coalition forces

• Acts as a coordination hub influencing supply regeneration and faction logistics

3.2.2 Logistics Delivery Unit

Character Roles: Drivers (Civilian)

Role Overview: Responsible for transporting materials and goods between caches, depots, ports, and worksites according to manifests and schedules. They ensure safe, compliant and quick deliveries while coordinating with other sectors.

Assets:

• Copies of the shipping manifests from the port clerks and production managers

• Personal or business trucking licenses to show at faction checkpoints

• Communication devices (landline telephone, and/or prototype/smuggled CB radio)

Tasks:

• Confirm delivery schedules and safe routes with port clerks and production managers

• Load and unload cargo crates at designated locations, signaling civilian status for protection

• Navigate routes using maps or military personnel

• Follow escort instructions and traffic rules

Gameplay Impact:

• Known as the “Little Tsars of the Road,” they command respect and priority, especially from FIA

• Timely deliveries sustain faction supply chains and operational capacity

• FIA may impersonate drivers to smuggle supply, infiltrate bases or disrupt operations

3.2.3 Consumer and Industrial Goods Division

Character Roles: Civilian, Construction Worker, or Manager (Businessman)

Role Overview: Oversee and operate the entire workflow from reviewing work orders and gathering materials to coordinating transport and fulfilling production quotas. The position requires as much hands-on involvement in tasks as well as organizational oversight to ensure smooth operation of the sector.

Assets:

• Work orders detailing material requirements and locations

• Production workstations, could be made from existing objects, pallets or tables found in the factories, or other shops

• Consumer or industrial materials, could be in crates or other containers or other piles and sites scattered about the map

• Consumer goods with real gameplay usage as a source of bribery

  • Beer/Wine/Spirits from Everon (as a cheap alternative to saline and morphine, or as molotovs)

  • Clay/Coal “Cleansing” Mask from Kolguyev (as urban face camouflage)

  • Canned Fish from Arland (as a way to disguise or make improvised AP mines or grenades)

• Landline telephone for communication.

Tasks:

• Gather materials at markers, searching place names for obvious sites rather than coordinates

• Communicate with port clerks and drivers to confirm delivery schedules

• Use workstations to produce goods or supplies should a faction “order” it

• Generate goods that can influence soldier behavior, and/or build emplacements to help defend FIA safehouses or Liaison offices

Gameplay Impact:

• Vulnerable to exploitation or recruitment due to isolated work environments

• Production as well as compliance is critical to civilian faction success and achieving FIA victory

4. FIA player flow and anti‑troll design

4.1 Civilian‑first unlock

To address the current rush to FIA:

• At match start, Civilian and FIA slots are linked 1:1:

  • One civilian slot filled unlocks one FIA slot

  • Minimum of 3 civilians (one for each group) must be filled before the full FIA roster opens

• Civilians are not permanent, they should have limited lives set by server, with a base number of lives set to 1 and an additional pool of lives allocated per group and dependant on surviving AI to balance gameplay and respawn mechanics:

  • Though it is not advised for those wishing to assist partisan forces as an impactful Liaison, players can choose at any time to:

    • Switch to FIA by signing their “Declaration of Resistance”

    • Or join coalition forces by exchanging their personal documents for an “Exit Visa” or “Passport”

This ensures FIA’s supply and intel loops exist before the lone wolves predate and multiply.

4.2 Punishment for killing civilians

To add actual Rules of Engagement and more depth to war crimes and prevent FIA and other factions from griefing civilians:

• If an occupying faction kills a civilian:

  • The killer will receive a severe XP loss, potentially enough to completely demote them to Renegade regardless of their previous rank.

  • The faction found responsible will lose one count for each civilian killed from their max AI limit.

  • If casualties wipe out an entire sector, the faction's base limit will be reduced as well as a supply regeneration rate reduction.

• If an FIA player kills a civilian:

  • They are forced into a Civilian Holdout or Guerrilla role and member of the Civilian faction:

    • Wears civilian clothing

    • Equipped with only a bayonet and smoke grenade

    • One life only (subject to balancing/feedback)

    • Only way to gain XP is through assisting and protecting the remainder civilians

  • After they die:

    • They’re given a long respawn time or,

    • They go into Armavision until they leave

    • Another player can join FIA or Civilian normally (if necessary for balance)

Accidents happen, but this makes civilian murder a clear waste of resources, and not a viable strategy for acquiring a disguise and conducting perfidy.

4.3 Random & Tent Spawn Control

A current exploit allows FIA players to deploy tents near contested bases, enabling constant spawn and harassment that disrupts gameplay balance. To mitigate this, FIA tents and faction encampments (a new feature suggestion to be detailed in the separate HQC feedback linked at the bottom of this section) should require friendly radio coverage, but they shouldn’t be as restrictive as the base establishment doctrine. Instead they could be built under a manpack’s coverage that could be deployed in enemy territory as long as it’s >500m from an enemy base and <1000m from friendly radio coverage; which should enable clandestine spawning without it feeling like an exploit.

If the radio manpack is destroyed or coverage is otherwise disabled, the spawn capability from those tents is immediately lost, forcing FIA to defend their communication assets strategically. Multiple tents can be deployed within a single radio coverage area, but no tents can spawn outside of it.

Rather than allowing FIA to randomly spawn directly on top of occupation forces at any time, spawning should be weighted to occur near purple objective points or along the edges of radio coverage zones. It better simulates guerrilla sleeper cells hiding along the fringes in foxholes or under floorboards, waiting for the right moment to strike.

If this system revisal proves too harsh, new roles should be introduced for FIA, such as a basic Ammunition Bearer role with an SA-58 and M70 backpack, and possibly an RTO-type role with the RF-10 manpack radio.

This approach promotes better spawn balance by encouraging tactical placement and defense of radios, fostering teamwork and reducing base trolling through uncontrolled tent spawns. It also reinforces the game’s emphasis on radio coverage as a key factor in spawn control, while laying the groundwork for expanding fog of war mechanics and providing additional controls, tasks and tools (such as RDF) for Commanding Officers. These changes will be detailed more in my HQC feedback post found [here].

5. FIA lose & partisan victory conditions

Currently games with a skilled FIA team can drag on indefinitely, which often leads to people leaving the server to find a healthier one. Once FIA have lost their bases, and tents and are only left with random spawning it makes for a fairly miserable experience for players who have waited in queue to join the server as FIA, only to find themselves wandering towards a pointless death cycle. So because of this it would be absurd to think of a win condition without a potential lose condition. FIA should simply become un-joinable for new players, and existing players should be forced to join another faction once they have lost all their bases and tents and have failed to reconfigure a tower within a time that only they should see.

5.1 Victory by Surplus and Legitimacy

FIA victory is triggered when:

FIA Total Usable Supply ≥ Total Average Supply of Both Factions

And the following conditions are also true:

1. FIA maintains radio coverage at a tower and/or at least one base or hideout

2. One or both factions are at or near the base or AI limit (subject to balancing and possible timer or other server health signals)

3. Most civilians must join FIA by signing an declaration given only by an FIA Captain. If civilians are killed by other factions, FIA’s majority is maintained as long as at least one remains loyal. FIA cannot win if civilians split evenly among factions. Killing more than one-third(/sixth?) of the civilian population(/tickets) by FIA disqualifies them from victory.

5.2 Timer visibility

• Occupying factions see/hear a series of notifications (one every 5–10 minutes)

• Only the FIA should see an actual timer

HQ messages for the occupation faction might say:

• “Our logistics reports indicate we are approaching unsustainable levels of expenditure.”

• “Local resistance appears to have secured enough resources to continue fighting indefinitely.”

• “If we cannot restore control and supply soon, we will be forced to withdraw.”

If they fail to:

• Recover supply

• Loot FIA caches

• Reconfigure or destroy radio towers

• Rescue or evacuate civilians

Then High Command will order a general withdrawal and FIA will win.

5.3 Debriefing logic

FIA:

• “FIA secured enough supply, civilian support, and radio coverage to sustain long‐term resistance. Occupation forces, facing shortages and mounting insurgent pressure, have withdrawn. FIA has denied the island to the occupiers.”

Weaker faction:

• “Our logistics chain collapsed. Resistance forces matched our supply levels and disrupted our infrastructure. Command has ordered a withdrawal to prevent further losses.”

Stronger faction:

• “Although our forces remained combat‐effective, the collapse of our coalition partner and the entrenched insurgency made continued occupation untenable. Command has ordered a full withdrawal.”

6. Technical and asset considerations

6.1 New Assets

Civilian personal documents

• Employee Record or Driving License: Doesn’t need to be any more detailed that the personal documents, just more specific to the occupation and region.

• Work Order: Should only need a short description for the materials so it could be as basic as the FIA Shopping List, but instead of grid coordinates it should be place names because these are made for civilians after all. The task markers could do a better job at locating them.

• Shipping Manifest: These should be made editable but only in certain boxes where numbers and signatures are concerned. They should be able to be inspected and held in hand like the ballistics manual, to allow for greater RP when having to actually count the number and type of crates in the back of a truck/van or at the port or worksite.

• “Declaration of Resistance”, “Exit Visa,” and “Passport”: These items don’t need detailed information; they act as keys or triggers to signal a player’s intended faction change. The “Declaration of Resistance” is obtained from an FIA command tent, where a civilian player receives it from an FIA member of Captain rank and then submits it into the same box. “Exit Visas” and “Passports” are available from USSR and US command tents, respectively, but require the CO to be present and must be exchanged at a port or their MOB.

6.2 Repurposed Assets

• Crates

  • Wooden for Materials

  • Blue could be for Finished Goods

• Goods

  • Beer Bottles

  • Camouflage mask

  • Tinned Fish

• Construction Van

• Can build Base/Squad Management Point (?So FIA could perhaps build a base in a hideout or safehouse, but they should be limited to only 1)

  6.3 New Assets

• Non-Standard Civilian Technical Vehicle

  • Lightly armored against small arms and mines

  • Mounting points for guns

  • Radio Transceiver

• Radio Listening Devices