Progress Report

Still working on porting to Unity. The world map is up and running, with scrolling, zooming, selection, fog of war, armies, sites, province borders, nameplates, and a new way to show armies without obscuring the site graphics. Basic mini-map is functional. Games can be started up, armies moved around and turns progressed. So that’s pretty much everything, right?

Yes, except for the notifications and dialogs (ie research, city management, etc.).  I expect to have those done within the next week or so. That means a Unity version of the game with equivalent functionality to v0.9.37 is pretty close. Most of the UI will have a similar layout as the old one. Reworking and prettifying the various dialogs will be an on-going effort moving towards beta.

All this porting and reimplementation is not the most exciting of work, so I did take a short break to work on expanded espionage options: sabotaging diplomatic relations of rivals, resource heists, assassinations, and ambushing other dungeon delving parties to steal their loot and catch the champions of rival powers at their most vulnerable. These four mission types should be functional around 0.9.38 or 0.9.39.

Here is a boring screenshot of the new game settings dialog. I could have done a map screenshot, but it has a few really ugly sprite stitching artifacts that I want to get rid of first.

V0.9.37 Espionage, Bug Fixes

New espionage-related tasks for  followers: research theft and research destruction. Sabotage operation mechanics have improved greatly, so that a wider variety of effects can occur. Spells added which create enchanted items for your followers. There is also a bunch of bug fixes related to followers, world spells and world generation. Unaligned AI has been improved slightly. I should go into more detail, but right now I’d much rather develop than write update text, so that’ll be for the future.

I have also been busy working at migrating the game to Unity. Progress is faster than expected, and it is quite possible that 0.9.37 will be last build in the old .NET shell. Here are two screenshots from the work-in-progress (Please note this is not the final layout, fonts, colors, etc. But does give a good hint of it will look for beta):

Wizard Selection (1)

Wizard Selection (2)

I’ll document progress with screenshots until the current functionality is fully available in the Unity port. Still some work with the map to be done, but it has already got one improvement over the old one – zooming. After that is done, I need to create the various dialogs: research, followers, market, military, etc. But the actual guts of the game: the world generation, the mechanics, the turn processing stuff and the AI are all ported over and running fine. I have purchased a few art assets, and while many are production-quality, some are meant as place holders. But the goal is a beta with the UI and game visuals more accessible and with a better game play experience. It feels fantastic seeing the game being reborn with a real “UI” and as developer working with a proper graphics engine is an immense joy after dealing with the clumsy windows forms and gdi stuff for years.

Zip with build: https://wizardsandwarlords.net/files/WizardsAndWarlords0937.zip

V0.9.36 – Dramatis Personae, Squalor, Wall of Text

This update is focused on character mechanics, with a bit of squalor thrown in for good measure. These improvements will make character-based events a lot more fun and interesting and contribute to the narrative framework of the game world. The patch notes below give the full details.

In more general news, I have been working on porting the main game module, the strategic part, to Unity. This is a pretty big task, so don’t expect it to be done in the next couple of builds. It will provide the foundation for a much better UI and more responsive map graphics with proper animation, zooming, etc. The annoyingly long load times for battle resolution and related stability issues will also go away, as the game will no longer be split into two executables. Another awesome effect is that this will make the game compatible with other operating systems than Windows. I will post some work in progress screenshots during the coming week. This means I will not focus on making the current UI more functional and responsive. I will of course, still bug fix it and make sure new features are usable.

Manual battle resolution is also in for a major overhaul, so I will not be doing any more updates to the tactical battle engine until the new design is finalized. It doesn’t make sense to share any details at this stage, but the goal with the overhaul is much more interesting and dramatic battles. Really looking forward to lifting the curtain on these changes, but I will try to avoid the temptation to do so until they are actually in-game. The point with mentioning it anyway, in all its vague glory, is to explain why there are no updates to the battle engine.

Once the game is fully ported to Unity, the new battle resolution is in-game, and game systems have progressed to a more playable and interactive state, there is a good chance I will try to get the game greenlit on Steam for Early Access. This will have a lot of advantages in regards to distribution. Those of you who have been helping out in these early days with encouragement, bug reports, design feedback, ideas, etc. will of course receive Steam keys for your efforts. But for now the Alpha still lives in ZIP files and the walls of text of this venerable blog.

For anyone curious, I did consider a crowd sourcing venue, e.g. Kickstarter, for the game, but I don’t think it is a good fit for this combination of game genre and (my) style of development. If something could be given as a backer reward, I’d rather add it as modding feature for everyone.

So for the near future, Wizards and Warlords will progress as it has done the last couple of months. Following the road map, delivering quasi-weekly updates of the Alpha, adding content and improving game systems. It’s a real joy working on the game and I am quite pleased with the flexibility and power of the core game systems, and how every update lets me breathe more life into the game world. As soon as the graphics and feature set allows it, I will record a video, and rant at length while you have something to look at.

Now to round off this lengthy, lofty and ambitious rant on a more somber note: This is still Alpha days. The game does not in its current state present an enjoyable gaming experience to most people. Playing the game at this stage is an opportunity to get a peek at a stage most developers do not share with the public. Don’t get me wrong: I am extremely grateful for any bug reports, design suggestions, ideas or even a bit of random forum spam (from someone who is not a bot), but please remember that this is Alpha, not Beta or Early Access. There is a lot of fun to be had with the current progress, but a different kind of fun than the one a finished game presents.

Patch Notes:
* Characters can now have relations to each other. This can be a family relation (eg. parent, sibling, distant relative), it can be a rivalry, based on history and emotion (e.g. distrust, hatred, respect, fear, love), and it can be a social relation (marriage, master, servant, mentor, student, etc.). Relationships affect events and tasks.
* The “Trusted Retainers” wizard trait makes the starting bunch of followers start out as allies.
* Rivalries can appear among your followers, or between a follower and a character not in your service. Ambitious and paranoid characters are especially susceptible.
* Cities now have notable characters (can be inspected from the City UI). These can be involved in various events and plots.
* Events can be caused by high city squalor or at random: disease, riots, wealth lost due to repairs/sanitation, and even a fire sweeping the streets and buildings.
* Characters now have classes based on their culture. A demon-worshipping savage tribe will generate different character types than a merchant republic famous for its alchemists or an isolationistic dwarven kingdom. This means fewer arsonists, ninjas and samurai, sadly. Probably have to do something about that.
* Characters age is generated and tracked based on racial characteristics.

Zip with build: https://wizardsandwarlords.net/files/WizardsAndWarlords0936.zip

V0.9.35 – Favored Followers

Choose your favored among your heroes and hirelings, and mark followers as favored. This allows you to choose which skill the follower learns when leveling up. A wizard can have a base of one favored follower. This increases by one for each of the following: Researching Leadership, having the Trusted Retainers trait and/or having the Master of Puppets trait. Currently there is no limit on how often you can change your favorites, so the clever player will notice that setting followers as favored just before they level up is the way to make the most of this feature.

During one of the next builds when the relationship system goes in, changing favorites will fuel rivalries which should deter this strategy, unless you have a cunning plan to turn your followers against each other. There will also be other consequences to changing favored status – as well as more benefits than being able to choose skills.

There is also a fix to the City Management screen, which had an annoying display bug. I forgot to mention in that last update that generals now give a buff to regiments depending on character traits and skills.

Zip with build: https://wizardsandwarlords.net/files/WizardsAndWarlords0935.zip

V0.9.34 – AI, Events, Marauders, Cities, Documentation

As mentioned previously the forums have been given an overhaul, and in addition to being much nicer to look at and use, they now hold more documentation on game mechanics. There is also a road map for March and a progress report for February.

The additions in this build are focused on AI and miscellaneous game mechanics. The world should be a lot more dynamic and interactive now – with the AI factions actively waging war against each other, marauders and pirates being more aggressive. The minor factions still hole up in their cities and cry for help when the barbarian hordes descend upon them. It will be a good patch day for the minor cities when their AI learns to counter-attack those pesky barbarians.

* Marauding armies not controlled by a faction will now roam around looking for trouble or seek out civilizations to attack, depending on type. Previously they just stood around and fiercely defended their hex. Depending on their type they might not conquer cities they defeat. No more rampaging beasts taking control of cities.
* Nomad raiders now return to the camp and recruit new raiders to replace losses.
* More random character names.
* Units of races with natural armor no longer gain the full effect of equipped armor. E.g. Dragonmen in full plate are no longer effectively invulnerable.
* Cultures will have a greater variety and number of unit types generated.
* City buildings now display exactly which units are unlocked by building them, rather than just the general type. If no units are unlocked, the type will be displayed, since it will combine with other buildings. E.g. a Smithy unlocks Medium Armor and a Training Ground Professional-type units – to unlock a Professional Medium Armor unit, both need to be built.
* Templar class added for followers.
* Followers now need to be in or near an Army to be able to join it or become general.
* Some random events which were occuring too often have been made less likely to occur.
* Cities now accumulate wealth.
* City progression mechanics improved to flow a bit more smoothly and give fewer followers towards the mid-game. The display of city attribute progress should also be more intuitive.
* At game start, fortresses now tend to be controlled by nearby minor cities, if no rival warlord controls them, instead of being strangely unaligned fortresses.
* Orcs and Human Barbarians have a greater chance of having nomad camps.
* Similar messages are collected in the notification bar to reduce spam during periods of high world activity.

Zip with build: https://wizardsandwarlords.net/files/WizardsAndWarlords0934.zip