Line War News

Hello everyone!

This is a followup with more information about the tournament. See original post here.

Start of the tournament is almost here! We need 5 more players to form a full 32p tournament. We want you to join the tournament, whether you are new to the game or a veteran from the past!

YOU HAVE 8 MORE HOURS UNTIL SIGNUP IS DUE! ːsteamhappyː

Registration will be open until September 14 6:00 PM (18:00) CEST.
Tournament will start in September 15 6:00 PM (18:00) CEST.
Check-in starts September 14 6:00 PM (18:00) CEST (DON'T FORGET!)

Stage 1:
Participants in group of 4 will play against each other 2 matches each (6 matches in total for 1 player, on 6 different maps). No one will be eliminated during 1st stage - instead N amount of players with most amount of loses will be placed in losers brackets right away in stage 2 of the tournament (They need to be eliminated only once - see it here https://linewar.challonge.com/23T2_1v1/bracket).
If there wont be enough participants to form a full group - they will be placed in reserves or in losing brackets in Stage 2 right away. More information on Stage 2 will be provided later to tournament participants.

Rules:

1. DON'T FORGET TO CHECK IN! It will start in September 14 6:00 PM (18:00) CEST
   
2. If you wont be able to play a match for long period of time - report it to tournament organisers through Discord. If player wont respond to organiser/opponent AND will not play straight for 2-3 days - that player will be disqualified.
   
3. In chat: Act friendly, do not spam, no harsh language, respect your opponents.
   
4. Don't intentionally prolong the match by "turtleling" or by building sneaky buildings. Resign when you are sure that you cant win.
   
5. All strategies and units are allowed in matches (off-shore subpens/shipyards placement, sneaky barracks in small territory behind the line and so on)
   
6. If player disconnects in middle of the match (power outage, connection problems, etc) - match can be replayed if both sides agree. Otherwise the one who disconnects loses automatically.
   

Scheduling and playing the matches:

1. Open match details (click on magnifying glass, look at the picture below) to get name of your next opponent and map seed
   
2. Agree with your opponent on the date and time when you will play your match in ⁠tournament-chat channel. NOTE: During group stage, it will be smart to contact all your opponents immediately at same time.
   
3. On a set time, create or join a public lobby with your opponent. You can utilize password protection in a lobby to exclude other players. Play a match while following the rules. NOTE: If you encountered a problem (opponent is not showing up, cheating, badmouthing and etc) report it to ⁠tournament-problems channel
   
4. Once match is played, report the score on Challonge (look at picture below) and send replay name in ⁠tournament-replays channel of LW Discord server
   

Prizes from Discord moderators:
1st place - Role Tournament Champion + Role icon of choice from list of LW emojis in discord.
2nd place - Role Tournament 2nd + Role icon of choice from list of LW emojis in discord.
3rd place - Role Tournament 3rd + Role icon of choice from list of LW emojis in discord.

Prizes from Studio Centurion:
1st place - 3 LW steam keys (to give to friends, cannot be sold)
2nd place - 2 LW steam keys (to give to friends, cannot be sold)
3rd place - 1 LW steam key (to give to friends, cannot be sold)

Media coverage:
Expect some full-length, narrated tournament matches to pop up in these places eventually

• SodaQuackers (YouTube)
• Line War (YouTube)

Unused Steam game keys will be revoked soon!
All unused game keys won during previous tournaments but still inactivated by September 28 will be revoked.

Hello everyone!

We hereby announce a start of registration for the upcoming 23T2 1vs1 tournament!
It consists of 2 stages - and will go for approximately 2 weeks (1 week per stage). More details on stages will be presented later. Amount of participants are unlimited and everyone can participate. (NOTE: There is a chance that there wont be enough people to form a full group. If that happens, the one who registered late will be put in reserve for 1st stage - to switch those who didnt show up for a long time or cant participate in upcoming matches).

Matches will be played in a free format - DM your opponent and set a time when you can play together. (Similar to 23T1)

Registration will be open until September 14 6:00 PM (18:00) CEST.
Tournament will start in September 15 6:00 PM (18:00) CEST.

To register in tournament you need:

1. Log in or register on the Challonge website.
   
2. Sign up on the Challonge tournament signup page.
   
3. Fill the form for registration:
   
   1. Your Discord name in LW Discord server
      
   2. Your Steam profile ID/link to your steam profile ID
      
   3. Amount of matches you played in LW (approx)
      
   4. When you are available for playing LW (can be skipped)
      

More details will be posted later. If you have any questions - ask them to Nickname (@SomeoneSaidThatMyNicknameSucks) in the Line War Discord.

See you on the battlefield!

A new, dedicated balance patch was shipped yesterday. It's one of the biggest balance changes so far since release. Here are some highlights:

• Various Tank nerfs, adressing the 3 Factory / Tank opening meta
  
• Much greater range bonus for entrenched units, which increases the game's space control element
  
• Commandos always spotted by non-Tank land entities at point-blank range
  

See Release Notes for more info and watch this replay between SomeoneSaidMyNicknameSucks and Plantblock (both of whom are pros) for an example of the new, great gameplay.

Dear players,


I and Imphenzia have reached an agreement that I will acquire his full share of Studio Centurion (the company that develops Line War) at some point in the following month. The agreed price tag is considerable for a company bringing such small revenue. I say this in an attempt to convince you, dear reader, that it would be illogical of me to do so, had I not the intention to continue developing the game full-time until at least the first piece of single-player content, Skirmish AI, sees the light of day.

Praise and applause to Imphenzia for his monumental feat of bringing Line War to this fine state! What are the odds that I would find and hook up with such talent, living in my own city, ready to take on work in as diverse areas as music, sound effects, animation, modeling, programming and PR? Luckily, we have agreed that Imphenzia will continue to assist me in the role of consultant for at least another year.

[h2]WHERE THE HECK IS MY SINGLE-PLAYER EXPERIENCE!?[/h2]
Our first public announcement indicating a complete shift towards single-player development was made in March. To tell the truth, only about 160 hours have been spent on AI since then. The most important reason for such low dedication has been uneven workload. Because of the lack of sufficient funds, working on the project became increasingly hard for Imphenzia (read his post [not yet available] for more information) and I never liked the prospect of being the only one working full-time in a two-man company. This hindrance will now be removed, for reasons explained above.

[h2]WHEN WILL SKIRMISH AI SHIP?[/h2]
My full-time will now be spent on Skirmish AI for at least 4 months. I will post a few reports on proof of progress (or lack thereof) this Autumn. My personal goal is for Skirmish AI to be released before Christmas, but don’t take that as a promise! It will hopefully also contain co-op vs AI and a new handicap system that can be used for boosting the starting conditions of individual players (human or AI). This will enable balanced matches for teams that are uneven, as in 2v1s or symmetric matchups between players of different skill.

[h2]SUPPORT THE GAME VIA PATREON[/h2]
It was always our intention to heavily re-invest in the game if revenue permitted and it became popular. Best way to support the game now is to buy it, of course. Now, you also have the option of becoming a Line War patron.

[h2]BALANCE PATCH & TOURNEY AROUND THE CORNER[/h2]
Stay tuned for information about the next balance patch and an upcoming tourney. It will be published within two days.


Wish you all a happy Steam Strategy Fest!


Sincerely
Basantos

[h3]Line War - TactiCon 2023[/h3]
We are excited to announce that Line War is one of the selected games to be featured at TactiCon 2023, a digital convention hosted on Steam celebrating strategy video games. This is the second edition of TactiCon and it highlights those who develop strategy games and gathers the players who love to play them. We feel honored that Line War has been chosen as one of the games. There was a large number of submissions for the event hosts to choose from ranging from independent developers to large established game studios.

TactiCon 2023 starts 11th May 2023 at 19:30 CET / 10:30 AM PST here on Steam. We hope that this event will bring new players to Line War that we can all enjoy lining up alongside and against for some exciting Line War matches.

[h3]Single Player Progress[/h3]
Behind the scenes, single-player development is underway and we are making good progress. We have assessed different approaches to develop the single-player AI and we believe that we've found a solid model that we are implementing now. We wanted to find a path that can offer a respectable level of resistance in a seemingly intelligent way and that is also architected so that it can be extended and improved upon over time to give you an increasingly formidable opponent to play against.

The AI model that we are developing builds on clustering algorithms that provides the AI with accumulating knowledge of its own and hostile units, structures, geography, and how they relate to each other. It plays by the same rules as human players and, of course, it takes the fog of war and visibility into account. There is a lot of development work yet to be done and we are not aiming to rush anything out before we believe it offers a sufficient level of quality that can be expected by an AI opponent.

Although our current focus is to build a skirmish AI that plays matches, we can re-use the same technology for single-player mission-based content and community-created challenges.

Initially, the AI will support 1v1, FFA, and possibly human co-op against a single AI opponent. The AI is not yet designed to be able to play as a team player because adding cooperative awareness and the ability to consider allies will require additional work that we will do at a later stage. We don’t have an ETA for single-player mode yet but we will keep you updated here on Steam and in the Line War Discord.

During TactiCon 2023, and while we continue to develop Line War, we hope that you continue to enjoy what the game already has to offer. It has been exciting to see the quality of matches that are being played since the most recent releases with balance updates, and the addition of the aircraft carrier unit.

Have fun and enjoy the strategy focus during TactiCon!