Open Beta Patch v1.26o2 (12 may 2025)

[CzarKasm]

No, that's not quite it, at least as far as logistics to units goes. Turns out the initial map generation put my one public food source at the end of a long dirt road with only 30 logistics points reaching it. So my food supply got to zero much faster than in previous games.

[FAA]

ORIGINAL: Vic

I am still working full time on fixing and finetuning and "small" improvements for some weeks I think. After I hope to switch time to adding a major feature which will take several months.

Do you think we can get two big features(as per your poll) in the next upgrade or just the most popular?

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

I'm looking forward to the new version! I'm curious -- what game engine and coding language is Vic using?

We know he is using .NET. The strack traces are unmistakeable.

I think it was said he programms in VB.Net as language.

Oddly I saw the WindowsForms.dll in the loaded references.

[Vic]

Expect v1.04 for monday. First time in weeks I am not working the weekend

[ramnblam]

Enjoy it mate.

[Vic]

ORIGINAL: FAA

ORIGINAL: Vic

I am still working full time on fixing and finetuning and "small" improvements for some weeks I think. After I hope to switch time to adding a major feature which will take several months.

Do you think we can get two big features(as per your poll) in the next upgrade or just the most popular?

It will be some months of work at least to add big features. But I am aiming high.

[FAA]

ORIGINAL: Vic

ORIGINAL: FAA

ORIGINAL: Vic

I am still working full time on fixing and finetuning and "small" improvements for some weeks I think. After I hope to switch time to adding a major feature which will take several months.

Do you think we can get two big features(as per your poll) in the next upgrade or just the most popular?

It will be some months of work at least to add big features. But I am aiming high.

Aim high, this is definitely going to be a classic!

[Tchey]

Aiming high, yesssss !

Your game is great already, just waiting to become awesome.

[geforth]

relax vic. [:)] I like the game how it is and the current version will entertain me the next weeks / months [:D] For 30 Euro there is so much game [&o]

[Destragon]

So, by the way, I've been playing a game where I took over every minor regime diplomatically (except for one, because it was locked into war with a major).
The amount of militia I have from unifying with minors is absolutely hilarious. I have not built a single normal military unit yet, but I have enough militia units to flood the map with.
This is not necessarily a problem, because they are just militia, so they aren't good units, but they still are a lot of bodies. Maybe this could be problematic for harder games, because as far as I know, minors have more units on harder difficulty, making the diplomatic annexation more powerful.



By the way, Vic, I still don't really understand why the Unification stratagem costs 10 PP less than the Annexation one and why the Unification one has a -50 difficulty modifier. Shouldn't these be the opposite? Give Annexation the cheaper cost of Unification and also move the -50 difficulty to it? I still think Unification is way, way better than Annexation.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Destragon

By the way, Vic, I still don't really understand why the Unification stratagem costs 10 PP less than the Annexation one and why the Unification one has a -50 difficulty modifier. Shouldn't these be the opposite? Give Annexation the cheaper cost of Unification and also move the -50 difficulty to it? I still think Unification is way, way better than Annexation.

If they rejecet Unification, that is it.

If they reject annexaaction, you can get them via a war. Wich I think is free of the usual "declared a war" penalties. So you get them one way, or the other...

[Destragon]

Yes, that's been said earlier in the thread already. I don't see how this corner case benefit is enough to make annexation 10 PP more expensive and increase its difficulty by 50 compared to unification.
Failing the annexation attempt and getting war means that all the resources you invested into this were wasted. It requires a foreign affairs council and requires the minor to at least be a protectorate. If you don't mind taking the minor by force, then why not just declare war in the first place, instead of going half way through the diplomacy route only to then pick the more expensive, harder to succeed card that risks you losing out on all the benefits of a diplomatic annexation?
If annexation was the easier card to play, it would at least make sense to me as a risk vs reward route.

Benefits of diplomatic annexation compared to warfare:
- Only costs PP, no other resource/ manpower
- A lot faster
- The city population is happy, no unrest
- You get all the militia units
- You get the city governor

It feels like unification is missing some additional cost. Maybe a successful unification should also have a credit cost attached, which would be paid into the private economy of the city, making it feel a little more like you're actually giving the minor regime something, instead of this being a very one sided deal.

[Vic]

ORIGINAL: geforth

relax vic. [:)] I like the game how it is and the current version will entertain me the next weeks / months [:D] For 30 Euro there is so much game [&o]

Thanks. It just I am always slow to finish my plate, but that's partly because i have tendency to put to much on it.

And I actually have other jobs (and another game in the works) as well.

But we'll get there. If you ask me I think there is a very solid basis with the Shadow Empire to build upon. I hope to spend multiple years to come on this title. Especially looking forward to creating the naval addition and fleshing out alien lifeforms in more detail.

Best wishes,
Vic

[Vic]

ORIGINAL: Destragon

Yes, that's been said earlier in the thread already. I don't see how this corner case benefit is enough to make annexation 10 PP more expensive and increase its difficulty by 50 compared to unification.
Failing the annexation attempt and getting war means that all the resources you invested into this were wasted. It requires a foreign affairs council and requires the minor to at least be a protectorate. If you don't mind taking the minor by force, then why not just declare war in the first place, instead of going half way through the diplomacy route only to then pick the more expensive, harder to succeed card that risks you losing out on all the benefits of a diplomatic annexation?
If annexation was the easier card to play, it would at least make sense to me as a risk vs reward route.

Benefits of diplomatic annexation compared to warfare:
- Only costs PP, no other resource/ manpower
- A lot faster
- The city population is happy, no unrest
- You get all the militia units
- You get the city governor

It feels like unification is missing some additional cost. Maybe a successful unification should also have a credit cost attached, which would be paid into the private economy of the city, making it feel a little more like you're actually giving the minor regime something, instead of this being a very one sided deal.

As said above Annexation is really a bit of a Stratagem in disguise.

Before it got created there was no way to go to war with a client/protectorate state without taking a big hit. This stratagem allows you to do exactly this at a cost in PP instead of in happiness,loyalty etc for breaking your Word.

It is basically a zero-penalty declare war on Minor Stratagem.

The difficulty is higher because nobody likes to receive a threat like this.

Best wishes,
Vic

[Pi2repsilon]

ORIGINAL: Vic

ORIGINAL: geforth

relax vic. [:)] I like the game how it is and the current version will entertain me the next weeks / months [:D] For 30 Euro there is so much game [&o]

Thanks. It just I am always slow to finish my plate, but that's partly because i have tendency to put to much on it.

And I actually have other jobs (and another game in the works) as well.

But we'll get there. If you ask me I think there is a very solid basis with the Shadow Empire to build upon. I hope to spend multiple years to come on this title. Especially looking forward to creating the naval addition and fleshing out alien lifeforms in more detail.

Best wishes,
Vic

A solid basis, yes, but first impressions are important especially when dealing with the non-hardcore wargamer crowd that this title has a chance of enticing.

For the love of God focus on UI polishing, reducing turn times, and bug elimination until such time as the game releases on Steam to help get a smooth Steam launch.

[Destragon]

ORIGINAL: Vic

As said above Annexation is really a bit of a Stratagem in disguise.

Before it got created there was no way to go to war with a client/protectorate state without taking a big hit. This stratagem allows you to do exactly this at a cost in PP instead of in happiness,loyalty etc for breaking your Word.

It is basically a zero-penalty declare war on Minor Stratagem.

Yeah, we didn't use to have an easy way to declare war on client states, BUT we didn't use to have a way to peacefully integrate them either.
If annexation was the only card and unification wouldn't exist, then I'd think annexation is fine, but because unification does exist, annexation stands in direct comparison to unification and I just currently don't see a situation where I wouldn't rather use unification instead (other than for roleplaying reasons).

The difficulty is higher because nobody likes to receive a threat like this.

Sure, but they should be scared as hell by the military power of the major regime that tries to annex them, which should reduce the difficulty. Personally, I think lower difficulty makes more sense for annexation than unification, because a diplomatic political process to unify two states sounds like an incredibly difficult and slow process in real life, while I imagine a "join us or die" situation being a little easier in comparison.

[GodwinW]

ORIGINAL: Destragon

If annexation was the only card and unification wouldn't exist, then I'd think annexation is fine, but because unification does exist, annexation stands in direct comparison to unification and I just currently don't see a situation where I wouldn't rather use unification instead (other than for roleplaying reasons).

Well what if you cannot because the roll is too difficult to make in your specific situation?

[Destragon]

ORIGINAL: GodwinW

Well what if you cannot because the roll is too difficult to make in your specific situation?

A situation where the minor has high enough relation with you that it makes you want to bypass the happiness penalty on the declaration of war and able to turn them into a protectorate, but also not enough relation and too high tradition to make unification not feasible sounds like quite an edge case to me.
If the main benefit of the annexation card is an edge case, I still think that it should be cheaper than unification (swapping their prices).

An alternate idea would be remove the protectorate requirement off of annexation. Make it possible to play the card on any minor regime. But maybe then it would be too strong.

[GodwinW]

ORIGINAL: Destragon

ORIGINAL: GodwinW

Well what if you cannot because the roll is too difficult to make in your specific situation?

A situation where the minor has high enough relation with you that it makes you want to bypass the happiness penalty on the declaration of war and able to turn them into a protectorate, but also not enough relation and too high tradition to make unification not feasible sounds like quite an edge case to me.
If the main benefit of the annexation card is an edge case, I still think that it should be cheaper than unification (swapping their prices).

An alternate idea would be remove the protectorate requirement off of annexation. Make it possible to play the card on any minor regime. But maybe then it would be too strong.

No I had this for the entire game once lol (after that I decided just to 'never-peace' with minors in the next game I'm now finishing up).

[Destragon]

Like I said, I was able to unify with every minor regime (except for the one who was locked into war and maybe two who were probably eaten by a major in the early game) in my current game and it didn't really seem that hard to me. I did put a cap 3 leader on foreign affairs and got that meritocracy card that lets you improve relations with other regimes though.

Looking at how the annexation cards are now in the main game with 1.04, I should probably just make a separate thread about this.