ZEPHON News

Join our Discord to follow each segment of a reveal as it happens every Monday.


Quests
High replayability and an immersive world are two key aspects for us in ZEPHON. Quests directly enhance both.

All but one final quest will semi-randomly occur during a playthrough. At predetermined time intervals, your chosen leader and your actions in the world—anything from your discoveries, communications, combat or economy—will determine which quest triggers.

At the core of each quest is a large illustration with custom ambient audio and meaningful player choices. Some choices may have an immediate consequence, but many will chain into further tasks.


Choices
Choices will reflect on the world, units and features on the map, your leader traits or what you can subsequently do and how you can interact with others. A number of choices will be locked behind special conditions, come with a cost, or be based on reputation as in other classic role-playing games.

To enforce the survival aspect, replayability and atmosphere, results won’t be shown until a choice is made. Choices also come with a risk of failure. Surviving in the world of ZEPHON is hard—no victory is guaranteed…


The Dream




Design Commentary
You have a weird dream. Grotesque beings are feasting on your soul. What does it mean? Is it a warning? Or are the demons of your past coming for revenge? You can't explain it yourself and no one around you has a meaningful answer.

The ask options only appear if you've met the corresponding leader. And the “Ask your sisters” option is exclusive to when you’re playing as the Furtive Tribunal.

A prime example of interacting with other NPC leaders of the world and getting answers based on who they are. The Fluid Anchorite might teach you how to handle your mind with more prowess. Otherwise ZEPHON might be able to decrypt the enigma. But if these polemicizing NPCs aren’t to your taste, asking the manic Hesitant Reaver is bound to help… somehow… surely?



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to receive regular reveals and exclusive closed betas to your inbox: https://newsletter.proxy-studios.com/

Get a peek at the story for ZEPHON in this cinematic intro trailer for the upcoming 4X strategy game from the creators of Warhammer 40,000: Gladius.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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4X Game Development, ZEPHON, Warhammer 40,000: Gladius | Proxy AMA #3

Wishlist ZEPHON:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/

Wishlist and follow it to be notified of betas and release dates!
Thanks for everyone that tuned in and asked questions. For everyone else, enjoy the recording.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Stay great!

Join our Discord to follow each segment of a reveal as it happens every Monday.

Data Modding
ZEPHON will continue Gladius’ tradition of easy and accessible modding.
All locally installed game files are stored unencrypted so players can inspect the gameplay data, rebalance stats, change graphics and sounds, modify the UI, add new units and much more.
Throughout development we put heavy emphasis on using standard, open file formats. Open formats are easier to inspect, understand and build on top of. Working with them is less expensive than paying for proprietary formats. And best of all, it’s more inclusive for modders, who can use a variety of tools to create or modify assets. Where there are no available open formats, we’ll make sure to supply conversion scripts and tools to interact with our custom formats.
The cornerstone of ZEPHON modding is data-driven XML configuration files. They define gameplay stats, actions, traits, effects and conditions in a way that is easy to understand and change. We’ve seen this being used to great success, and we have a couple of enhancements in store.

AI Modding
In Gladius it was only possible to mod the AI through XML in a few limited ways: faction resource pooling weights, research and production scores, and hero ability level up priorities.

A critical missing ingredient was the capability to change how and when the AI uses leader and unit abilities. This can now be modded in XML by specifying `` inside an action:

```
  
    
      
        
          
            
              
                
              
            
          
        
      
    
  
  
    
      
        
          
        
      
      
        
      
    
  
```

This would make the AI only use the healing action “MendMatter” on units that have less than 50% hitpoints.

We will be using the same system to implement the AI that comes with the game—making the behavior easy to modify and improve. We’re aiming to have as much of the AI be XML data-driven as possible so that it’s available for you to tweak.





Action Blueprints
Modding actions has overall been enhanced, streamlined and simplified.

Previously it was necessary to reuse action tags because they were tightly coupled with the visualization. It wasn’t possible to have a new action and have a new visualization for it. This is possible in ZEPHON by using the new `` or `` actions and specifying the visual blueprints:

```
  
          primaryBlueprint="..."
      primaryEmitterBlueprint="..."
      secondaryBlueprint="..."
      secondaryEmitterBlueprint="..."/>
  
```

Actions can now also be specified in blueprints, so that the same action only has to be written once…

```Data/World/Blueprints/Actions/ClearTile.xml:

  
    
      
        
        
      
    
```

…and reused across many units or buildings.

```Data/World/Buildings/Construction.xml:

  
    
  
```

Faction Modding
To enhance modability and implementation with ZEPHON’s leader-focused mechanics, there are a few improvements to faction modding.

We can now specify `` and `` inside faction XMLs and they will be available to buildings and units that meet the conditions whenever that faction leader is played. This makes it possible for a single leader to have additional production options or unit abilities without having to duplicate buildings or units.

Diplomacy will be covered in greater detail in a subsequent reveal, but specifying which labels a faction leader likes and dislikes will be the primary driver of AI behavior on the diplomatic level. This can be done through `` and `` tags in the faction XMLs.


All of this, and more, will be integrated with Steam Workshop on release.


If you enjoyed reading this, help us out and tell your friends to wishlist ZEPHON—it's the only way we can encourage Steam to show ZEPHON to more people.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to receive regular reveals and exclusive closed betas to your inbox: https://newsletter.proxy-studios.com/

February 23rd @ 18:00 CET we will be running a 60 minute live AMA on Discord.

You are very welcome to join us, to hang out and ask any questions you may have. About ZEPHON, Warhammer 40,000: Gladius, game development in general or anything else.

If you can't make it, or would like to ask your question ahead of time, please use the #ama-questions channel.

Please note that the AMA will be recorded. We'll be sending it to our newsletter subscribers after the event, so you’ll be able to listen to it at a later date if you aren't available at the time of the AMA: https://newsletter.proxy-studios.com/.

You can listen to the previous AMA on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79gDK3u9Kqw