I have a lot of fond memories of Liberation. I met a lot of friends in Liberation and have honed my abilities in Liberation more than any other mode. It’s a unique game mode that features what Arma 3 is capable of. So the question; what exactly is Liberation for Arma 3?
Arma 3 Liberation is a CTI (capture the island) game mode. The scenario has objectives all over the map like cities and military bases. You can take these locations in any order, and have to manage your logistics and base building.
Liberation has great base-building mechanics, Logistics. Liberation is a dynamic war that unfolds depending on a lot of variables. Each play-through will be different. It’s a unique way to run a war simulator in the Arma 3 engine. It’s similar to Invade and Annex in how you approach the combat. Where it differs is there’s a visual front line on the map that you move. You can open the map and see your progress unfold.
History
It all started with GREUH and his version of Liberation. This had the basic gameplay, load-outs, and logistics. The familiar door-to-door taking over cities was there. This version hasn’t been updated in years. A version that people are a lot more familiar with is the KP Liberation. A commander gives permission to everyone.
KP Liberation
The KP Liberation is a branch from the GREUH version. There is a lot of quality of life improvements. A lot more customization and variables to change. The unit compositions are also dynamic based on the type of equipment you’re using. The AI will send more AA teams if you use too much air or AT teams if you prefer tanks. An anti-infantry team can be especially nasty to face on the ground.
KP Liberation Link: https://github.com/KillahPotatoes/KP-Liberation
KP focuses a lot more on spawning AI in buildings. The AI account will depend on the player count(all bluefor) and aggression. Then AI in buildings spawns on top of that. So large cities can be a really heavy and slow progression. KP also has a civilian reputation system, which punishes people for bad behavior. Destroying or damaging buildings, killing civilians, or commandeering vehicles all have a negative impact.
A major improvement is an AI logistic system. This system allows you to have AI move supplies back and forth, so you don’t have to manually transfer them. Meaning you can spend more time on the front line. But that was one of the things that made Liberation great was taking a break to deal with logistics and base building.
A feature that KP has been playing with is an enemy commander AI. The commander would counter-attack better and attempt to make the opposition more intelligent and act like a real defending army.
KP Liberation is what most people are into, but it requires a skilled commander, tasking and taking care of the mission as it unfolds. I’ve seen a lot of people get burned out taking the commander role. That’s where another major version comes into play.
RX Liberation
While KP is in active development, RX Liberation is newer on the scene. It takes a different approach to Liberation. This is based on GREUH’s Liberation, a fork from the original.
RX Liberation link: https://github.com/tbox1911/Liberation-RX
RX is a different approach, where KP Focuses on a team war, RX focuses on the individual progress as well as the team progression. You have your own experience and rank, as well as your own money and supplies. Once you rank up, you can get better vehicles and equipment. Eventually, you can do some high-level commander operations.
This is a lot better for a public server, as you can run the operation without a commander. The game will punish the individual instead of the whole team for civilian kills. Wasting resources just affects you rather than the whole team. So the dynamics are a lot different.
Depending on your needs, RX is great for a public server, whereas KP is better for a tight Unit on a private server.
Playing (KP)
Liberation starts off in a small base or on a carrier. You can start out with a pre-established FOB if you want to. Most of the time you set out and establish your first base where ever. Any open space away from an objective will do. During the beginning, the most important thing to do is establish a base near as many resources as possible. The resources will be your lifeblood and change how the rest of the game flows. When you have low aggression you can take a lot of objectives quickly.
Focus on taking factories and avoid large towns and bases because you can slow the aggression rate. By doing this, you can take a good chunk of the map before things really heat up. During the mid-game, you have to deal with counterattacks and manage your intel and aggression.
I generally find that the aggression is meaningless if you have a large skilled player base. With a large player base, you can have dedicated CAS, tank crews and special operations work with the main infantry to a devastating effect.
As a commander, your main job is to keep the players on task and focus on providing which objectives are a priority and managing logistics. I find the most effective way to operate is to have leaders on the front lines while the commander and his team do other things as necessary.
Tips:
- Concentrate on one area at a time, don’t let players do their own objectives.
- Be picky on resources, don’t let players go spend crazy on planes or tanks and just waste them.
- Be picky on who flies.
Depending on your player count, you may want to have a dedicated logistics team move prisoners and supplies, if you have a low count you should pause the action and take care of logistics after a few objectives.
RX Tips
RX plays a bit differently in the way it manages missions and resources. The most important thing in RX is to rank up and focus on that. In the beginning, missions can help you rank up, after that it’s only good for resources. As for ranking up, the best way is to bring back prisoners and destroy/recycle vehicles. Carrying AT/AA is critical for ranking up.
Once you rank up, you’ll be able to handle and purchase better vehicles.
Look out for easy-to-do objectives, early on, they’re great to rank up with.
Some objectives are not worth doing later on as they don’t have a net gain of resources.
My Liberation Version
I used to maintain my own version of Liberation based on KP Liberation. The difference was the resources were greater. 400 per container vs 100. This allowed you to focus on the battle more. The other was custom units, and a vastly improved array of buildings to use. That, and I included things like towing and rappelling in the mission file itself. So players could connect vanilla and have some advanced mods/features. Logistics slots that could do commander-like things to help out.
Overall the RX version runs faster but the KP version has had a lot more dev time, and it shows.
If you haven’t tried Liberation yet, I recommend finding a server! It’s a great way to introduce someone into Arma.
If you need a server to Host Liberation, check out the host provider blow.
