Factories are an incredibly powerful feature available to board designers that is unique to WarGear. The concept was conceived by designers here on the site, and subsequently implemented in brilliant fashion by Tom, who runs the site. The limits and potential features of factories are relatively untapped; yet the basic concept is a simple one, and it all starts with the notion that..

A Factory is nothing more than a special type of continental bonus.

The 'Standard' continents that we are all familiar with have assigned “members” (e.g. Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina), which give bonus units to the player who owns the continent at the beginning of their turn, and let's them “place” (the factory part) those bonus units on the board.

A Factory is created by first assigning it members just like a standard continent, but instead of giving bonus units to the player to place anywhere they want, the factory places bonus units on the board at a pre-determined location. Put another way, a factory is a continental bonus that doesn't let the player decide where the bonus units go.

Key terms:

Member – The territory or territories that must be held by the player in order for the factory to be called. Members are more commonly known as “continents.”

Factory – The target of the allocated continental bonus. A factory can only be a single territory.

Normally, units would be put on the factory (the target territory) if the player already owns it (see: Standard Factory), but the WarGear Designer offers designers a powerful and versatile palette of factory types. For instance, if the designer not only wants the bonus to apply even if the player doesn't own the target territory, AND he also wants that enemy or neutral territory to be re-assigned to the player who holds the continent's members, he can use an “AutoCapture” factory.

The list and chart below show the range of different continental bonus types (factories) that can be specified by the designer.

Disabled – The standard continental bonus that we all know and love - it puts units “in-hand,” which players can place on the board anywhere they want.

Standard Factory – Specifies where the bonus goes and adds the bonus units to the territory ONLY if the player owns the territory. Standard Factories check to see if you own the factory that is linked to the continent bonus. If you own the factory, the continent bonus is automatically placed in that location.

AutoCapture Factory – Assigns the territory to the player and adds units. AutoCapture Factories ignore who owns the factory territory. No matter who owns it, ownership is transferred to the player who owns the continent at the beginning of their turn.

Universal Factory – Adds units to territory no matter who owns it. Ownership is retained by the original holder of the territory. All Universal Factories check to see who owns the factory, then places the continent bonus in that factory, and the player who owned the factory gets the bonus and retains ownership of that factory.

Universal Factory -N – As above, but adds units to territory ONLY if it is NOT occupied by Neutral

Universal Factory +N – As above, but adds units to territory ONLY if it is occupied by Neutral

Not only can factories put units on a territory, but they can also take them away. Factories can be assigned negative bonus values. Negative bonuses assigned to a factory territory can reduce it to 0 in a game with abandonment on.

(click to enlarge)

In the above screen shot..

• Iceland, Scandinavia and UKraine have been selected as the members of a continent named “Trifecta.”
• Peru has been selected as the factory - the target of the bonus.
• The factory type is Universal, so it doesn't matter who occupies Peru.
• A negative bonus has been assigned. If at the beginning of any player's turn, they hold the the members of the continent Trifecta, 2 units will be taken off the factory (Peru) no matter who owns it.