New Game?

[CSSS]

Many, many thanks for everyone's kind words!

I will try to post a couple of screenshots at the start of the weekend. Assuming that I can move after Thanksgiving dinner!

YES!!!

[mercenarius]

Well, mostly what I have today is some simple things. I added the option to show an Undo Button in place of the Help Button. Some players may like this. I think most will stick with the default configuration with the Help button.

The Undo is similar to "Hannibal" but will allow for moves within a province to be undone. That's not really very exciting, and I posted something about this a while ago. But being able to undo changes in splitting and joining forces is going to be needed for people using Point and Click. Anyway, here is a sample:

Undo Button #2.jpg (47.56 KiB) Viewed 1153 times

I added the Game Summary or ("Victory Conditions") dialog to the Admin Dialog itself. This is shown wth the 'V' hotkey on the strategy map or within the Admin Dialog. This is in part allows the player to get a reminder, if needed, which contending power he or she is playing:

Game Summary for Admin Dialog.jpg (163.33 KiB) Viewed 1153 times

That might sound funny, but sometimes when I am testing I can forget which contending power I selected. The "Vexillum Imperatoris" is just a way of telling the player "This is what your banners look like."

I am also in the process of revising slightly the treaties used in the game, and am adding a little helpful text in their dialogs:

Tributum Treaty.jpg (179.98 KiB) Viewed 1153 times

Those treaties are reviewed in the Admin dialog.

The "supply units" mentioned in that treaty's dialog are usually added as food stores on the equivalence that 1 supply unit equals 1 food store unit for a minor city. 1 supply unit can feed 12 strength points for one turn. But if there isn't a city or fortress within a province to receive the tribute it can be delivered to an army in the field in the form of supply units.

Admittedly, these samples aren't too exciting. I'll try to have some screenshots next weekend of functions and events from the diplomatic relationships. An example is when a Roman Client State finds that its "Patron" has been defeated or has even been destroyed.

[mercenarius]

OK, I have made progress on the mechanism for treaty proposals. It's still evolving, but there are some things to show.

I also decided that it might be good to be able to review some things from the Strategy Map, so I have updated the "Augustus" Operational Commands Menu. It will now include an item for reviewing recruits on order as well as one for showing "open" diplomatic activity. It might look like this when there are outstanding diplomatic legations or offers:

Augustus Popup Menu.jpg (187.05 KiB) Viewed 1098 times

Clicking on the Active Legations button will show a review dialog:

Legations Summary Dialog.jpg (192.14 KiB) Viewed 1098 times

I'm going to add a button to allow some kind of quick access to the relevant part of the Admin Interface. I am also going to add some hot links to some of the lines in the summary text. I'll program that this week and try to post some screenshots before (or on) next weekend. Those links and buttons will allow the player to accept or reject any of these proposals. The player will also be able to propose a modification in the terms of the treaty.

[mercenarius]

Well, I decided to work on the reply logic before updating the summary dialog that I showed last week. Here is the basic sequence:

The player uses the "Legatio" button in the "Nationes" Department (not shown here for the sake of brevity) and will see this menu:

Legatio Popup Menu.jpg (182.07 KiB) Viewed 1047 times

Using the "Review Diplomatic Offers..." button will bring up an area to allow the player to make a response to any or all of currently "open" legations:

Deliver Diplomatic Response.jpg (289.21 KiB) Viewed 1046 times

As you can tell from the first graphic, there is still some refinement to be done here since I still have some placeholder text (the famous Lorem Ipsum) in that popup menu. And that upper icon definitely needs a little more work!

I'll try to post some more screenshots on this topic by next weekend, including a little bit on how new diplomatic offers, or modifications of existing proposals, will function.

I had toyed with the idea of allowing the players to give a basic "yes" response to existing offers without using an Activation, but I decided that this is potentially confusing and harder for me to program. The player will be able to respond to all "open legations" with a single activation, so that's not too onerous, I think.

[mercenarius]

First off, I hope that everyone is having a good holiday season. I wasn't able to get anything posted last week but I do have something for you now.

The previous post showed the first steps in accepting a diplomatic offer from another power. These screenshots will show the basics of initiating your own diplomatic overtures.

The first step is to select a recipient from the active powers:

Prep Legation.png (1.38 MiB) Viewed 953 times

That graphic has been scaled down to fit and I'm sorry that it doesn't look that great.

The second step is to define the particulars. If you are "beginning from scratch" the next step will be to define the particular type of proposal:

Select Proposal.jpg (175.67 KiB) Viewed 953 times

After defining the type you'll need to specify the particulars. Clicking on a particular type of proposal will bring up another menu and allow you to make the final specifications and put the enactment into force. I'll be working on those menus this next week and I'll post some final screenshots on this subject after New Year's. The choices for the players are going to be fairly simple.

Let me conclude by wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

[Orm]

Happy New Year everyone.

Thank you for the updates. They look awesome.

xxxxxxxxxx

On diplomacy:

So far I have considered the political aspect in computer games close to pointless. Versus other players (wargamers) there is not much point unless they are more or less enforced by the program. Their faction are after all run by a wargammer with no skin in the game. And most AIO opponents they are even more pointless since the diplomatic efforts are both badly scripted, and badly programmed.

However, here I have high hopes for the diplomacy part. Part because it looks good. Part because I think it is well thought out what the AIO is supposed to do. But mostly because the AIO in Hannibal was (is) rather good. Just had an excellent experience with Hannibal. My funest game yet.

With that said. I suspect that diplomacy might be the hardest to get right for the AIO, so one solution might be to script it heavily and limit the options. Or scale back on it and make events instead.

Anyway. Look forward to test the result.

Thank you.

[mercenarius]

Thanks for your kind words, Orm!

And I agree that diplomacy is hard to get right. I used to play Medieval Total War (the first one) and the thing with marriage alliances never really worked. The *more* powerful I got, the more likely offers of marriage were to be refused! I suppose because of the rule that "females can inherit under certain circumstances" and so an offer of marriage is taken as a disguised form of aggression? So, I used to have fun with it. Sometimes, I'd handicap myself in the game by not declaring war first. But if someone would refuse an offer of marriage then I'd use that as an "excuse" to declare war on them. Just a little roleplaying, it had nothing to do with gameplay per se.

...so one solution might be to script it heavily and limit the options. Or scale back on it and make events instead.

I think that makes good sense. I certainly want to limit the options, so I have defined four possible levels for the client states and also for tributaries. With that said, here are some screenshots just to show the mechanism of proposing a treaty or another kind of overture. These are taken from the beginning of the 'Marcus Aurelius' scenario. The first is an offer of truce to the Parthian Empire:

Offer of Truce.jpg (210.53 KiB) Viewed 876 times

The second is a demand for tribute from the Roxolani:

Demand for Tribute.jpg (203.94 KiB) Viewed 876 times

Of course, as it happens, neither of these overtures is likely to succeed because of the conditions on the map, but they show the mechanisms involved.

I'll try to wrap this particular topic up next weekend with a couple of final screenshots.

[mercenarius]

I didn't get quite as far this week as I hoped, but I do have a simple screenshot showing the notification you'll see when you send a legation with an offer or a demand:

Legation Sent.png (825.56 KiB) Viewed 807 times

I'll try in a week (or two) to wrap this up with final screenshots showing how the response to diplomatic offers will be shown to the player after they are received.

[mercenarius]

Well, I have coded the first of the "response" dialog and notification strings, so here are the final screenshots on this subject. This is the dialog to report a rejection of a Diplomatic Overture:

Legation Rejected Dialog.png (555.08 KiB) Viewed 671 times

(The subject matter itself is somewhat "canned" in that it's an offer which was sure to be rejected. That's because the Picts are not in any real way threatened by Roman power in 98 A.D.)

The notification will be a reminder for the players in case they forget what happened:

Legation Rejected Notification.png (640.07 KiB) Viewed 671 times

I'll try to post some screenshots on a new topic in 2 or 3 weeks.

[CSSS]

It always looks great! Can't wait!

[mercenarius]

Thanks, as always, for the kind words!

I have revised slightly the notification scheme and here are some screen shots which show this.

The first simply shows the new "Settings" button (in the form of the Scroll with arrows):

Notifications Dialog.png (625.78 KiB) Viewed 445 times

Using the settings button will bring up a menu in the form of a popup menu within the Notifications Dialog:

Settings Menu.png (589.12 KiB) Viewed 444 times

The "Manual Deletion" is done with a new button that is displayed on "opened" or "extended" notifications:

Notification with Delete Button.png (624.75 KiB) Viewed 445 times

If you do decide to delete a notification, and afterwards decide to restore the deleted notifications, they are marked as unread when they are placed back into your queue. That is how the player will be able to see what was restored.

The screenshot above shows the options for configuring the Notifications. Hopefully most players will find something they like. The "Confirm Deletion" uses a modal dialog to confirm any deletion of a Notification, and it is very "Nanny State" in its feel. I am guessing that most players won't want that, but I figure it's good to have it just in case.

The "Urn" button is itself somewhat intrusive, but it's easy to turn if off if the player wants to.

EDIT: I removed a previous "gear" button which was used for the "Settings" menu because I was finding it very distracting. I also decided that there was no need for a "mark all notifications read" button so I simply repurposed the icon which I had previously used for that. So, for those who read this post before, the icons have been changed slightly.

[mercenarius]

I have been mostly doing map edits and improvements this week. That's not too exciting, but I updated Corsica and added crossing points between it and Sardinia. That is not likely to affect game play very often, it is true. But those crossing points should be there. And Corsica needed a little more development. Here is a screenshot which show this:

Revised Corsica.jpg (135.33 KiB) Viewed 443 times

I also revised Sicily somewhat and added a little color for Mount Etna:

Revised Sicily.jpg (124.16 KiB) Viewed 443 times

I don't plan to add flowing lava to volcanoes in the game, however.

In a couple of weeks, I will try to show some work on the first Tutorials in the game.

[Orm]

Can crossing arrows be blocked for movement? Does one need some sort of ships to make the move?

[mercenarius]

Can crossing arrows be blocked for movement? Does one need some sort of ships to make the move?

They can be blocked by hostile fleets at sea. You don't need ships to make the move. But if you don't control any relevant ports, the cost goes up. It can go up to the point that the move becomes impossible, or nearly impossible.

The idea is that an army could usually scrounge up enough boats to make the crossing, even at the expense of some time. But it helps to control ports because that should make it much easier to find some civilian ships at least.

Otherwise, movement by sea uses transports. Those can be gathered using an activation (or command points) if the player controls sufficient ports. They can also be provided with Option Card play. With transports you make what is in Hannibal a "normal" move by sea. In that case, the crossing points don't matter. You just need transports and a port to embark at.

[Orm]

Thank you. The game seems more awesome by each update, and I didn't think that was possible as it seemed awesome from the beginning. No pressure intended.

When I saw the nice picture of Sicily, and its crossing arrows, then for some reason I thought of the Third Servile War.

[mercenarius]

As usual, thanks for your kind words, Orm! They are greatly appreciated.

I don't have anything to show concerning the game's tutorials this week, I am afraid. I decided to finish a few map edits before doing that.

The edit first is purely cosmetic. I have wanted to do a little more to show life in the area of the Sahara near the Atlas Mountains, and to "explain" a little better how the Berbers survive there. So, I added two oases in that region. Oases in the game are mostly cosmetic. You cannot "possess" them, but migratory tribes will fight for the territory because they are there. And they do add some flavor, I hope. These two oases actually exist, btw, in this region:

Sahara Oases.jpg (176.98 KiB) Viewed 234 times

The second screenshot shows some revision of the Agri Decumates and the addition of three fortresses: Obernburg, Kahl, and Stuttgart to use their modern names. These fortresses all sit on navigable rivers, namely the Nicer (Neckar) and the Moenus (Main). For this reason, they don't need access to a road, and the map would be too crowded to add any minor roads there.

Agri Decumates.jpg (243.56 KiB) Viewed 234 times

As an aside, I also formally divided the Danube into two rivers (in terms of the game's logic) based on the location of the Iron Gates. This solves some admin problems that I just noticed. It doesn't make for a screenshot, however.

With this done, now I will try to get some progress - and screenshots posted - regarding the tutorials in a week or two.

[CSSS]

TY!

[mercenarius]

Well, I haven't forgotten about all of you. I have been adding the final information markers and map labels, since they will be needed for the first tutorial. And I have designed the basic look and functionality of the tutorial panels themselves.

Here is the opening stage for the first tutorial:

Tutorial Panel.jpg (147.11 KiB) Viewed 125 times

I have also implemented "full" Point and Click movement for interface elements such as the tutorial panel, and the option cards. That is only used when "Point and Click" is chosen as a preference on the Controls & Preferences menu, of course.

So, to move the tutorial panel in that manner, the player clicks on the arrows in the panel and then clicks in the map area to move the panel there. I have also provided "arrow" cursors to use for this specific need during tutorials. Those
arrows change direction based on the position of the cursor and give a hint as to where the panel will go when the player clicks on the map and completes the movement of the panel:

Move Tutorial Panel.jpg (250.68 KiB) Viewed 125 times

If the player is using drag and drop, then clicking on the "arrows" in the tutorial panel and dragging the mouse will reposition the panel as one would expect. It's like clicking the Title Bar on a window in the desktop explorer.

Finally, I have added "dual exit" markers for the 5 mountain passes which connect two provinces on one side to a province on the other. Here is what the marker for the Moravian Gate currently looks like:

Moravian Gate with Arrow.jpg (95.28 KiB) Viewed 113 times

I say "currently looks like" because I realize that the special arrow markers can probably use some improvement. I'll post a screenshot or two next weekend concerning the tutorials while I am (finally) coding them.

The map labels and the "pass arrow markers" can be toggled with the L hotkey. The crossing markers and the special marker for the Iron Gates are always visible, because they don't cause any map clutter.

Edit: a previous version of this post mentioned labels for provinces on the map. I have removed that because they were experimental and don't look as if they will work out.

[CSSS]

Is there a possibility or probability of a 2025 release?