Warnament News

Hey rulers,

This update brings a lot of exciting new features, of which many are related to Monarchic states and army movement in general. But as always, there's much more new stuff on the list of changes below!

Please note: Most of the new features are available in the demo, but you can gain access unlimited game in Warnament's closed beta for as much as $0.99! It includes multiplayer mode, full technology tree, 3 more political institutions, scenario editor & a standalone map editor app.

Head over to our itch.io page or straight to warnament.com to start playing in a few clicks!



[h3]v0.9.11 Released![/h3]

• New political decisions were added for Monarchy: 'Return of feudalism', 'Return of serfdom', 'Abolish serfdom', 'Borrow from Merchants', 'Pay back the debt to the Merchants' and even 'Expel the Merchants' (so you don't have to pay back the debt). Another new interesting political decision: 'Annex a vassal through marriage'
  
• Added a bonus for Communism: increased shooting range for artillery
  
• A small element of randomness was added to the battles: now instead of showing the exact amount of troops needed for victory, an icon showing the chance of victory is displayed before the battle
  
• The Army movement menu was reworked to be more comprehensive and intuitive. All offensive and defensive buffs are now displayed, so that players can assess their chances for success correctly
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

• Pressing 'Alt' + RMB now allows you to move half an army to a selected province without calling for the army movement menu ('Ctrl' + RMB moves the whole army from one province to another)
  
• Added a contextual note on the screen when a player holds 'Alt' or 'Ctrl' key
  
• Improved tutorial, with more explaining text; additionally, all technologies required for completing the tutorial are now unlocked from the start
  
• If a player has a vassal, the latter generates points that get added to the overall victory rating
  
• If an ally frees one of your provinces from enemy forces, it now goes back to you, and not your ally
  
• In the Diplomacy menu, a player can now see requirements for points to sign a pact or alliance, and the conditions on which a vassal can start a rebellion
  
• If you provide another state with a huge amount of resources for free, the discontent among your population now increases
  
• Bots now better handle fighting wars on multiple fronts
  
• Various minor bug fixes of UI, bots, and processing battles
  

If you haven't done so already, please add Warnament to your wishlist on Steam! It is a very important metric for us, which brings the release of the game closer:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1201700/Warnament/

This is the best way to show us that you're waiting for the game to come out, and provides us with superior motivation for releasing the game sooner!

Want some more Warnament? We got you! Here's what you can do:

• Join our merry gang on Warnament's Discord Server to chat with devs and fellow players, and send your feedback straight to the devs
  
• Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and watch weekly videos about the development process
  
• Join our mailing list to get the latest news about the game
  
• Follow Warnament on Twitter

You probably saw the "Add to your wishlist" message several times here on Steam. But what are all the developers asking it for, should you click that green (or blue) button, what is it?

You can add the game to the wishlist right here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1201700/Warnament/

Or you can do it on the game's page just under the video trailer, like this:


[h2]For players[/h2]
If you have a game on your wishlist you will:

• Receive an email on the release day
  
• See news about the game published by its' developer here on Steam
  
• Get notified about the discounts by email
  

You can always remove the game from your wishlist.

[h2]For developers[/h2]
The developer will know nothing about players who added the game to the wishlist. No email, no account name, no ability to send you a message - nothing. The only thing visible for the developers is the total number of wishlists
This number is a thing that can help the developers understand how much players are interested in the game, and how many additional features and level of quality they should consider to work on.

• 1,000 wishlists - almost nobody knows about the game, probably players don't want it or never heard about the game
  
• 1,000,000 wishlists - players absolutely crazy about that and expecting something really really good from the developers
  

[h2]Now you know what to do[/h2]
If you are interested - consider adding the game to your wishlist right now, it's like hitting the subscribe button on social media.
If you are not sure yet (or you waiting for the discounts) and want to see how the game is being developed to decide later - adding to the wishlist is the best option to tell Steam algorithms that you want to be aware of news and updates from the developer.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1201700/Warnament/

P.S. If you want to talk to developers directly, suggest some features, and get more involved in the making of the game - Discord and Steam Discussions are great for that. Or let's chat down below if you have anything to discuss!

Hey rulers,

This update finally adds victory conditions to the game, but that's not it. Better zooming, various QoL and gameplay improvements are listed below!

Please note: Most of the new features are available in the demo, but you can gain access unlimited game in Warnament's closed beta for as much as $0.99! It includes multiplayer mode, full technology tree, 3 more political institutions, scenario editor & a standalone map editor app.

Head over to our itch.io page or straight to warnament.com to start playing in a few clicks!



[h3]v0.9.10 Released![/h3]

• Victory/defeat conditions added to the game. Now the game ends 1) if the player lost 2) after 100 turns have passed 3) after 2 hours in multiplayer, or earlier, if the server admin decides so. Depending on your results, you can achieve Flawless Victory (top-1 by points), Convincing Victory (top-2 or top-3 by points), Unconvincing Victory (top-4 or top-5), Defeat (not in the top), or Crushing Defeat (one of the 3 countries with the lowest score). Points are calculated out on the state of your economy and the number of provinces under your control.
  
• If one of your peace treaty conditions is creating a demilitarized zone, the army in the zone does not dissolve, but automatically moves to the provinces it is allowed to be
  
• Upon creating a demilitarized zone, the participating parties are allowed to one honest mistake: if an army enters the demilitarized zone, it will not be counted as a violation of the pact. Remaining in the zone or entering it again will be regarded as a violation of the terms
  
• Hiring armies during a turn is now guaranteed to be processed before processing the movement of troops
  
• You can now press 'Ctrl' + right mouse button to order the whole army in the province to move to a selected province
  
• Improved hotkey processing, and added tooltips for hotkeys upon hovering interface elements
  
• Improved zooming in and out
  
• Performance optimization
  

If you haven't done so already, please add Warnament to your wishlist on Steam! It is a very important metric for us, which brings the release of the game closer:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1201700/Warnament/

This is the best way to show us that you're waiting for the game to come out, and provides us with superior motivation for releasing the game sooner!

Want some more Warnament? We got you! Here's what you can do:

• Join our merry gang on Warnament's Discord Server to chat with devs and fellow players, and send your feedback straight to the devs
  
• Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and watch weekly videos about the development process
  
• Join our mailing list to get the latest news about the game
  
• Follow Warnament on Twitter

Hey rulers,

This update brings a handful of important QoL changes, both in the main game and the editor, along with a couple of other nice things!

Please note: Most of the new features are available in the demo, but you can gain access unlimited game in Warnament's closed beta for as much as $0.99! It includes multiplayer mode, full technology tree, 3 more political institutions, scenario editor & a standalone map editor app.

Head over to our itch.io page or straight to warnament.com to start playing in a few clicks!

[h3]v0.9.9 Released![/h3]

• After editing a map, you can now use the '/patch_scenario' command in-game to adapt existing scenario to the newer version of the map and avoid compatibility issues
  
• Certain parts of the map can now be toggled on and off in the map editor, so they wouldn't distract you and/or cause performance issues
  
• Added a vignette to the map in the game, and decreased brightness the grid outside the map
  
• An uprising can now happen only as a result of the event with a strike
  
• Highlights for movement options of your armies now take into account the ability to travel through 2 provinces instead of 1, if there are no enemies around
  
• If a player selects 'No diplomacy' option when starting a new game, political institution settings for selected scenario will be disregarded
  
• Undeveloped lands no longer generate income from population
  
• Localization and bug fixes
  

If you haven't done so already, please add Warnament to your wishlist on Steam! It is a very important metric for us, which brings the release of the game closer:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1201700/Warnament/

This is the best way to show us that you're waiting for the game to come out, and provides us with superior motivation for releasing the game sooner!

Want some more Warnament? We got you! Here's what you can do:

• Join our merry gang on Warnament's Discord Server to chat with devs and fellow players, and send your feedback straight to the devs
  
• Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and watch weekly videos about the development process
  
• Join our mailing list to get the latest news about the game
  
• Follow Warnament on Twitter

To read all Warnament's dev logs, subscribe to our official newsletter

Hey everyone! The first question from the title is easy to answer: Warnament is a grand strategy game, which means that players spend most of the time looking at the map. So it not only has to be pretty but also easy to design and fun to interact with.

Today we'll talk about how maps are structured in Warnament, but first here's a quick summary of what the heck is going on - for our new readers.

[h2]The Most Important Things About Warnament[/h2]

When's the release? We're aiming to go into Early Access in 2024

What happens now? You can play Warnament's closed beta for as much as $0.99. It is updated bi-monthly, and includes map editor & multiplayer mode, along with the access to the devs’ eyes & ears

And what if I don't? There's also a free demo here on Steam. It doesn't have all the features but also gets regular updates, including some new content. And don't forget to add Warnament to your wishlist, so you get notified when it is released:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1201700/Warnament/

With that aside, let's get back to maps in Warnament.

[h3]Map Editor Begins[/h3]
To anticipate the importance of the map editor, keep in mind that we started working on it before Warnament was contemplated: we knew we'd start working on a new strategy game eventually, which implies having an editor from the start.

We wanted to make it easy to handle, but also responsive to a designer's actions. Unlike heavyweight grand strategies like Hearts of Iron, there are no rivers, height differences, or terrain types. But at the same time, the editor allows much flexibility when it comes to provinces and their borders.

[h3]How maps work in Warnament[/h3]
In Warnament, each map contains provinces, and each province is a polygon with multiple vertices. You can scale and move vertices, as seen in real-life industrial map-drawing tools, which allows you to shape the provinces on your map any way you like.

Sometimes it's more than one polygon per province - in case you want to create an enclave outside of a country's main territory, which is very easy in Warnament's map editor.



When you're done marking borders, click the ‘Export’ button - and the map is ready to be loaded in the game. At this point, it is not yet fully playable (though you're welcome to try) - it needs a scenario, in which you will also set colors for all the participating countries, among other things.

The map editor was designed in a way to be as much friendly to player-generated content as possible, so handling custom maps is very easy. You can just copy the .map file in Warnament folder, and see it in the list of other maps when you launch the game.

Each map file also contains data of each pixel on the screen corresponding to a certain province, which decreases response time upon clicking a great deal.

Combined together, the scenario editor and map editor provide tools for creating beautiful things:



And a little bit odd but still beautiful things:



Maybe even a tiger, why not:



[h3]The final touch[/h3]
But before a map is loaded, a few things will happen to make it shine!

Each map consists of three layers: polygons, inland effect texture, and coast effect texture. Here they are, taken apart for this picture:



And here they are, united for the greater purpose (serving as playground for your geopolitical experiments):



We also use shaders as a final touch. A shader is basically an instruction for your graphic card to draw an element. In Warnament, we use shaders to:

• Show occupied provinces
  
• Add black and white effect
  
• Add antialiasing
  
• Add gradient and noise effect to a territory
  
• Draw water
  

This black & white effect for lenses was made using shaders:



And do you see those beautiful country names? They were not designed in one day! In fact, it took so much effort, that we decided it's worth a dedicated video:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Have you already tried making maps in the editor? Give it a shot, maybe you'll find yourself another passion: there are players in Warnament's community who spend more time in the editor than in actual game!

If you need guidance for creating maps, you can find them on our Discord server. It is also the place to ask any Warnament-related questions. And if you want to know more about specific aspects of the development - just let us know! Until we meet again.