New Game?

[mercenarius]

First off, thanks for your kind words! And thank you for purchasing "my"games. I have to say that Glenn Drover is primarily responsible for the design of the "Victory & Glory" games. I did have some input, but Glenn deserves the lion's share of the credit.

You wrote:

Well I maybe on the final years of my life, but this will be glorious!

That is a lot of live up to! I'll do my best, of course.

Now I said that I was done with logistics, but that is not completely true. I decided that an army which fortifies a position will stay in that fortified state until it actively relinquishes it. This necessitates a small change in the army's Operational Command menu:

Fortified Army Ops Menu.jpg (169.89 KiB) Viewed 616 times

Armies in fortified positions will be able to receive regular supply deliveries just as garrisons do and they can function as supply points. It will cost more money, however, than using an established city, fortress, or Vallum which has access to good transport. I haven't programmed this last thing, yet. I hope to do that this week.

The Ops Command dialog for "breaking down" the fortified camp is pretty simple:

Restore Camp Dialog.jpg (189.47 KiB) Viewed 616 times

The "option" here will allow the player to convert any supply units in that army into food stores in friendly garrisons. This is more efficient for - you guessed it! - logistics support in general. In the case shown above, the player doesn't have any friendly garrisons in the province because this is a case of the Romans establishing a toehold in Dacia, as it were.

I'll post a little bit more about this tomorrow, with an extra screenshot or two.

[mercenarius]

OK, so "tomorrow" was about a week long.

I have coded the Ops Command for issuing a Donativum in the field. When the Ops Command is used, the Emperor's current force (only) is paid. For an army-wide distribution, the Administrative Interface must be used.

Here is a screenshot of the relevant dialog in action:

Donative Ops Cmd.jpg (195.9 KiB) Viewed 537 times

This is taken from the Marcus Aurelius scenario. The recommended value for the donative will probably need a little tweaking. The Historia Augusta claims that Marcus actually gave 20,000 sesterces or 5,000 denarii to each member of the Praetorian guard. That is a somewhat difficult to believe, but that's what it says. Cassius Dio attests this figure independently (or, more probably, was the source for the HA) and also provides a figure of 675,000,000 denarii being left to Marcus upon the death of Antoninus Pius.

Well, I haven't adjusted the treasury in that scenario, yet. That gives me the opportunity to introduce the Deficit Spending warning. Here is an example if the player does specify a donative of 5,000 in this case:

Deficit Spending.jpg (159.8 KiB) Viewed 537 times

I'll try to post some more screenshots by next weekend. And I'll have to fish or cut bait about the monetary figures given by Cassius Dio.

[Orm]

What would each soldier be getting on a yearly basis? After deductions?

5000 denarii seems like an error, or an intentional overestimation to make a point back then.

Should not be used, in my humble opinion, for how the program works.

[mercenarius]

I agree with your assessment, Orm. It (5,000) doesn't seem like a realistic figure. Pay for the Praetorian Guard is a subject with a few pitfalls, perhaps. I have them at 1,200 denarii per year in the Antonine period. There is a multiplier for higher ranks of about 1.25 for the pay at that time.

As far as deductions go, I don't calculate those exactly in the game. I assume right now that they pay for their food and whatever upkeep is needed for weapons. New recruits have the cost of their weapons at least subsidized by the state. At least, the player has to pay upfront depending on how new units are equipped. But I have estimated those costs a bit on the low side, I think.

[mercenarius]

Well, I have a couple of small things to show this weekend.

The first is that I revised the Operational Commands menu for ports and naval bases. Here is how it looks now:

Revised Port Ops Menu.jpg (153.2 KiB) Viewed 419 times

It's not that much different. I deleted the command for a "remove port" item in order to make room for the "Order Stores" item (Logistics, again!). Having the "remove port" function doesn't seem that useful, and I hadn't programmed it yet, anyway. There already is in the game the option to remove a naval base from a port. That is available in the Admin Interface (and I had done that already). The reason for a player to do this is mostly to save money. That's about the only real need to do that.

I also moved the "Improve Harbor" command to be next to the "Upgrade Port" command. This is somewhat more logical.

The difference between "supplies" and "stores" is that fleets don't - or won't - have anything like a supply train. After thinking about it, I decided that warships will be able to carry a 1/2-turn's worth of supplies. This is the old "cram everything you can on deck" sort of thing. I haven't programmed this yet, but I hope to be able to show it to you next weekend. You "load" those supplies using the "Gather Stores" command. The other logistics item, "Order Stores" will work about the same way as ordering a one-time supply delivery to a garrison. It will increase the number of strength points supplied by a port, until those extra stores are consumed.

I also finished off the actual implementation of the "Improve Harbor" and "Upgrade Port" items. The "Upgrade Port" will build a naval base (depot) if there isn't one already in place at that port. Otherwise, that command will upgrade the "Depot" attribute of the port, which is the value that corresponds to the naval base itself. This won't be used much, because sea warfare isn't very important in the period. So, a "default" naval base will usually be enough. But it may get used occasionally, particularly to upgrade a river base. Upgrading the "depot" mostly improves the training efficiency of a port. That "training" is done more or less automatically and adds experience points to naval units and allows them to eventually be promoted to a higher level of quality.

"Improve Harbor" will make one improvement to a port and/or its harbor based on the game's assessment of what is needed most. Here is an example:

Improve Port Ops Dialog.jpg (195.55 KiB) Viewed 419 times

In the Admin Dialog you can explicitly choose what you want to do, of course. Improve a harbor, upgrade the docks, add a lighthouse, etc. With the Ops Command, the game will decide what is most pressing. That's why the dialog shows what project you are starting in both the notes and in the details in the bottom left area of the dialog.

[mercenarius]

Well, OK, I have been "guilty" of over thinking some things here. It makes little sense to "gather stores" onto warships because the cost of that is already abstracted into the movement rules when there is a lack of supplies in friendly ports. So, I have gotten rid of that and simplified the Operational Commands for ports:

Port Ops Commands.jpg (150.03 KiB) Viewed 325 times

The "Improve Harbor" item is gone, but the menu was a little too big and that task can be accomplished through the Administrative Interface. It's not too much of a loss.

Similarly, there is no "gather stores" item for fleets:

Ocean Fleet Commands.jpg (125.78 KiB) Viewed 325 times

As you can see, I have revised the fleet commands to allow ships to anchor where there isn't a port. And I removed a command to "maneuver for battle" which hadn't been implemented and was something of a place holder. In its place I have added the command to recruit directly into the fleet.

Finally, I have revised the Ops commands for field armies in a somewhat similar way. The "Prepare to Ambush" item has been removed. It hadn't been implemented yet and was kind of a loopy idea. The player has other ways of using unconventional tactics. The basic idea of "getting the jump on the enemy" is really abstracted into the command ratings of the leaders. Here is what that menu looks like now:

Field Army Commands.jpg (143.35 KiB) Viewed 325 times

Note: some items on the menus are disabled for what might not seem like obvious reasons. For example, the "Activate Leader" in the screenshots is usually disabled because the only leader in that force has already been activated and cannot be activated again. And so on.

I will try to post more about these things before next Thursday, which is the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S., of course.

P.S. Screenshots are a little grainy because these are the smallest size (chosen to fit into this post) and scaling them down has that effect. Most players will see nicer images. At least, a little bit nicer.

[Dual_CoRed]

I've been out of the loop on this for awhile. Can anyone tell me how big the campaign map will be or has there been any pics posted? Super pumped for this.

[mercenarius]

Well, the map at full size happens to be 12800 pixels by 7680 pixels. That's probably not what you were really after, though.

The game's map basically covers the area from "Hibernia" to about the middle of the Persian Empire and maybe the upper half of the Arabian Peninsula. Here is slightly edited screenshot of the overview map:

Overview Map.jpg (63.75 KiB) Viewed 264 times

The map may get a small edit or two before release. I probably won't add any additional islands, even though I'd like to add something in the Adriatic Sea at the least. Cannot have everything, however.

[mercenarius]

Well, it's not the day before Thanksgiving, but here are a couple of screenshots to show the recruiting and replacement scheme in the game. The first shows the choice the player will have when selecting "Cohortes Novae" in the Exercitus Department in the Admin dialog.

It's just one way to "drill down" so that the player can choose to recruit new units or add replacements in a (selected) location:

Recruit Type Sample.jpg (132.86 KiB) Viewed 230 times

You can review existing recruiting orders on the Strategy Map as well as in the Arma Department in the Admin dialog. Here is example of the report dialog when viewed on the strategy map:

Recruiting Summary Example.jpg (180.61 KiB) Viewed 230 times

It's actually pretty self-explanatory, of course. I'll try to post a couple more screenshots in the next few days. Enjoy your Thanksgiving Holiday if you are celebrating that today.

[CSSS]

My holiday just got better! Thank you Sir!

[mercenarius]

Well, now I am going to have to pump the brakes and deliver some unhappy news. And I am sorrier than I can express because it's my sad task to play the Grinch for a second year in a row. I am not going to be able to release anything from The Fall of Rome before the end of the year. So, everyone can plan on spending their holiday money on other things.

I had hoped to make much more rapid progress than I did this fall while working out remaining elements of the logistics rules for the game. The truth is, I am the world's worst software estimator.

I understand the sentiments of what CSSS has written in previous posts and I am unhappy to disappoint. But there it is.

On a more positive note, I did have a productive talk with my investor on the project, and I'll do what I can to get a preview/early alpha version ready as soon as I can. But I don't want to give dates or time estimates, because I have been so off target in the past.

[mercenarius]

It may be thin gruel, but I do have a couple of new screenshots to round out the theme of the last few posts regarding replacement troops in the game.

The first is just a sample of the "front end" used for ordering replacements for land forces:

Exercitus Replacements.jpg (298.18 KiB) Viewed 74 times

The "scope" section is a way to allow the game to limit how much can be done with a single enactment. That simplifies the task of requiring the player to specify which units will be filled out.

The process for naval units is the same with a slight difference in that land detachments of Classiarii (or Marines for the Palmyran player) are usually administered through the Naves department. So the initial menu has a "disclaimer." Here is what it looks like:

Naval Recruits Menus.png (334.54 KiB) Viewed 74 times

The choices from that menu leads to elements similar to the ones used in the Exercitus Department. I hope that the notes concerning naval land detachments will allow the choice of icons to be meaningful and understandable. In and of itself, it's not necessarily logical that you click on the picture of a ship in order to recruit a new unit of Marines.

I will try to post a couple of those and close out this subtopic by next weekend.

P.S. The recruit's pose is not an attempt at the traditional - but fictional - "Roman Salute" but my effort to use the real Roman gesture of salutation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_sal ... l_LXII.jpg

P.P.S. I didn't thank CSSS for his kind words before. Sorry about that!

My holiday just got better! Thank you Sir!

Many, many thanks for your kind words!

[Orm]

Thank you for the update.

Next year looks like it is going to be better. No pressure, but I expect a released alfa version then.

With that said, do not rush an early release version.