New Game?

[mercenarius]

Sometimes one or more of these options is also available through the attacker's popup menu. For example, if a besieged garrison wants to attack the besiegers in some way, all three options are also available on the garrison's popup menu. This shows the attack choices in a dialog: you get this if you activate the garrison's commander and drag it onto the besiegers, just like in 'Hannibal':

[mercenarius]

On the other hand, you can also do this with the popup menu, which happens to look something like this for a besieged city:



This is because the garrison can have only one besieging army, so the popup menu can have those functions coded into it. If there is no siege then they are simply disabled, of course.

For an army in the field, such a scheme isn't possible, and attacking an enemy force the usual way is the only way to get that started.

If you use one of the relevant choices from the popup menu, you will open the same dialog, so you have a chance to cancel the attack if you want to.

P.S. The Activate Leader item is disabled because the leader in the garrison has already been activated and cannot be activated again.

[Orm]

Does the besieger have more options than

1) Storm the city, or fort.
2) Starving them out.
3) Abandon siege.

[Orm]

And does attrition, or disease, play a part in the game?

[Orm]

I like what I see so far. So I am slowly gaining hope for a release for Christmas.

But in order to avoid putting any pressure on rushing the game I declare that the release day, whenever that will be, will be like Christmas for me. [:)] [:D]

[mercenarius]

ORIGINAL: Orm

Does the besieger have more options than

1) Storm the city, or fort.
2) Starving them out.
3) Abandon siege.

Yes, but I'll admit that I haven't actually coded it yet. I have only prepared the graphics for the popup menus and the dialogs. You can also use 8 movement points to attempt to advance the siege. When the siege level reaches 5 the besiegers get a storming bonus. I am going to remove the "auto-advance" for a siege so that you'll have to use an activation and try to advance the siege in order to eventually get a bonus. However, not many cities will be able to hold out for more than 4 or 5 turns unless they stored extra food in advance (or have an open port!). Still, having a big army sit for more than a year is undesirable. A garrison will able to do the same thing - try to reduce the siegeworks. How successful they are likely to be depends on the troops and the level of siege ability. Roman troops have high siege ability, Persians not quite as much, most 'barbarians' not very much at all, etc.

I haven't actually removed the auto-advance from the game's logic but I am going to.

You can see the "Counteract the Siegeworks" option in the popup menu above. The besieger's popup menu will the have "Advance" option, of course.

[mercenarius]

ORIGINAL: Orm

And does attrition, or disease, play a part in the game?

In a word, yes. I have coded most of the attrition already, including supply attrition especially for besieging armies. Basically, if an army doesn't have supply sources it suffers attrition if it fails a forage check. The forage check depends on the current forage value in the province and the size of the army. Besieging armies have reduced foraging ability.

Armies can also have supply units in them. 1 Unit feeds 12 strength points. Armies are required to use their supplies first, even if they have friendly cities in the province with supply capability. The only exception are rebels. I figure that they can live off of the land better than anyone else. They get to save their supplies unless they fail a forage check first. And they get a second forage check before suffering attrition.

Sedentary and Migratory tribes have their own food sources, and won't suffer attrition unless their food sources have been damaged/stolen. I haven't designed that yet. But it should not be too hard. Sedentary and Migratory tribes will be susceptible to some measure of famine on a random basis just as cities will be. (Meaning, I haven't coded that yet, either. [:)])

Now as for disease - the game should have something. But I haven't designed it yet. For example: the Antonine plague. A real thing with serious consequences. BUT...if it's just something like 50/50 then half the time you play that scenario it's easy and the other half of the time it sucks. That just isn't very satisfying. I plan to have something in between, depending on the scenario.

[mercenarius]

ORIGINAL: Orm

I like what I see so far. So I am slowly gaining hope for a release for Christmas.

But in order to avoid putting any pressure on rushing the game I declare that the release day, whenever that will be, will be like Christmas for me. [:)] [:D]

Thanks for your kind words! Now, I had intended to post new screenshots on my website, but I haven't been able to get away from work on the game itself to update my site. In the meantime, here is a screenshot that shows some of the additional siege options. This dialog effectively duplicates some of what is available through the besieger's popup menu, but it is activated when the player drags the besieging army onto the city just as in 'Hannibal':



Note: if the player decides to continue the siege as is, the "Cancel" button will close this dialog without deducting any points from the leader. Of course, the leader must already have been activated. But the player can rethink the choices before doing anything. The player could still undo the activation since the leader hasn't done anything yet.

[Drakkon]

I have a feeling this game will be worth the wait.

[mercenarius]

As usual, thanks for everyone's kind words. And I haven't forgotten about you all here!

I have updated - a little - my website but I haven't really posted much new content there. One or two of the screenshots may be new for some of you.

In the meantime, here is a screenshot of how I am working out some of the commands from pop-up menus. This is what you will see when you demand the capitulation of an enemy army, fortress, etc. In practice I think that this will mostly be used in civil war situations. Certain other commands will have the same choice for the "source" (points from a leader or a spare activation) but the other details will vary.

OK, enough talk, here it is:



That is a little rough visually - there will be a better texture for the "control" areas eventually. Otherwise, that it is about what the final version will look like.

I will try to post a couple of additional screenshots next weekend. Thanks for looking (and waiting)!

[mercenarius]

Well, I have one screenshot to post today. [:(]

Finishing the logic for this command has been a little harder than I thought that it would be. But I will post this here and *try* to post some new screenshots before next weekend.



I have this and the "demand recognition" logic to fully implement and then I can start programming the nuts and bolts of the multiplayer capability.

[Orm]

Thank you for the update. [&o] [:)]

[mercenarius]

ORIGINAL: Orm

Thank you for the update. [&o] [:)]

Of course!

I wasn't able to post anything this weekend, but I should be able to before next weekend. After that, I hope to post somewhat less frequently. Maybe monthly. Lately I think that I have given everyone maybe too much trivia and minutiae. [:D]

[mercenarius]

Here is the screenshot that I promised to post "before" the weekend. [:D]

This is the revised Leader Dialog with the leader attributes that I have added. The icon for "Health" (Valetudo) is probably going to be replaced when I figure out something better. It doesn't really fit, even though I think it's somewhat amusing.



The attributes are pretty straight forward when you click on a panel and read the explanation. "Aetas" really just means "Age" and will list the leader's age and family information.

"Opprobrium" means how much hatred among the "better classes" a leader has managed to stir up. In this case Aurelian has a fairly high starting value because of his reputation as a harsh disciplinarian and because of some opposition in the Senate.

[Orm]

Looks awesome. [&o] [:)]

[lecrop]

Amazing

[Alikchi2]

Looking great! Keep it up!

[Nepos96]

Just found out this little gem and now I can’t wait to play it. Hopefully we will soon get more info about a potential release date. I wish you good luck with the development of the game.

[mercenarius]

Here is a small progress update and screenshot. I am finishing some game play features before I start with the multiplayer features.

This screenshot shows notifications of a chain of events roughly as follows: Aurelian invaded Italy and defeated Quintillus, who managed to retreat to a fortress with a small number of survivors. Aurelian then used the "Demand Surrender" pop-up menu item and the fortress capitulated. Afterwards, Quintillus's troops in two operational theaters changed their allegiance to Aurelian. (Other theaters will be tested as the news propagates).



Pannonia is mentioned here because I currently have Legio XIV Gemina in Carnuntum as a hold-out that accepted Quintillus's elevation by the Senate. That may be bogus, so the final scenario may be a little different from this.

Quintillus's forces probably didn't actually fight Aurelian's army, but that is a wrinkle for future development. Probably the AI will try to retreat before battle, with Aquileia being a good choice because it's a major city.

[Nepos96]

This is quite interesting, a cool “defection” mechanic. Reminds me a bit of Alea Jacta Est civil war scenarios. So basically, killing Quintilius is not enough to put an end to the civil war as some armies may keep fighting under another usurper (or join another preexisting faction I guess). I have one question: assuming we are able to play as Quintilius is there anything we could have done to save the game after the battle, either to wait for reinforcements and hope we don’t get betrayed in the meanwhile or just keep playing as “Quintilius’ heir” and avenge his death.
Having lots of fun with Hannibal right now and I hope I’ll be able to do the same with this new game pretty soon.