Fall of an Empire News

[p]Welcome back to the dev diaries! This week we're going to be looking at two closely linked systems: the Imperial Court and the Empire's policies. These are really the highest level of how you govern your realm as Emperor - and as you'll see, governing a crumbling empire is never as simple as just making the right decision.[/p][p]Let's start with the court. Playing as Theodosius V you have five key offices that you fill with characters from your realm.[/p][p][/p][p]The Magister Militum is your supreme commander of the land forces. A character with high Tactics in this role will boost the effectiveness of every army in the Empire. The Magister Nauticum does the same for your fleets. Then there's the Master of Diplomacy, whose Cunning skill helps with the treaties and barbarian neighbours you'll need to navigate. The Master of Economy oversees the imperial treasury - a character with strong Governance here means more gold in your coffers (and you will always need more gold). Finally the Master of Religion (whose title depends on your religion) manages the Empire's various faiths, and a character with high Authority in the role will help keep religious tensions in check across your settlements. Given that only about half the Empire actually follows the state religion of Apsodenian Borgutianism, this can be a very important appointment.[/p][p]Each of these positions also has room for up to five subordinates, who chip in about a third of what a main officeholder would. So even if your Magister Militum is a bit mediocre, surrounding him with talented subordinates can make up for it.[/p][p]Appointing someone to court is a politial decision. Characters gain fame from holding office, and the act of bringing someone to court creates patronage obligations that bind you together. The Foederati Council - one of the political factions within the Empire - may also push you to appoint barbarian leaders to positions traditionally held by Rephsians. Give them what they want and your Rephsian courtiers won't be happy; refuse and the foederati grow more restless.[/p][p][/p][p]If you can't find anyone suitable among your existing courtiers and subjects, you can spend gold to promote a new courtier - essentially sponsoring someone from the provinces to come and serve at your court. Different types of courtier come with different strengths, so this is a useful way to fill gaps.[/p][p][/p][p]The Empire has seven policy areas, each representing a strategic choice about the direction of your rule. Each one is a trade-off, and where you set them will depend entirely on the situation you're facing and the fires you're trying to put out. The most straightforward is the Tax Rate. Crank it up and you'll collect significantly more gold - up to one and a half times your normal revenue - but your governors will resent the burden, and their loyalty will suffer. Lower it and they'll be happier, but your treasury will suffer instead.[/p][p]Religious Toleration is probably the most consequential policy in the game. At the intolerant end, Borgutianism spreads aggressively and heretical movements are suppressed - but religious minorities in your provinces cause far more unrest. At the tolerant end, unrest from religious diversity is halved, but your state religion stops spreading entirely and heresies start popping up everywhere. The middle ground tries to balance both, but satisfies no one completely. The Religious power bloc has very strong opinions about where this should sit.[/p][p]Imperial Bureaucracy controls how centralised your administration is. More centralisation means more tax revenue but alienated governors who resent losing their autonomy. More decentralisation means less money but more loyal provincial administrators.[/p][p]Public Games is the bread and circuses of Rephsis. Funding public entertainment costs gold - quite a lot of it at the higher levels - but it keeps the populace content, boosts governor loyalty, and dampens religious tensions.[/p][p]Imperial Agents are your network of informants and inspectors across the provinces. Expanding the network brings in more tax revenue (they're very good at finding people who aren't paying their share) but makes your governors uncomfortable. Scaling the agents back means less oversight but better relations with your provincial leaders.[/p][p]Military Stance determines whether you invest more heavily in land or naval forces. Prioritising one comes at the expense of the other, and the right choice depends on where your enemies are. If the Neutarnic tribes are pouring over your northern frontier, you probably want strong armies, but if raiders from Neutarnia Ultima are harassing your coasts, a powerful navy is the priority.[/p][p]And then there's Frontier Strategy, which is one of my favourites. At one end you have the limes - a system of static border fortifications. This is safe and predictable: your governors like it, because their provinces are well-protected. But your field armies become much less effective, because they're spread out in garrisons rather than concentrated as a fighting force. At the other end is the comitatenses approach - mobile field armies. This makes your armies more powerful in battle, but provinces near the frontier are exposed to more raids, and governors won't thank you for the risk.[/p][p]You don't adjust these policies directly, though. Instead you issue Edicts - imperial decrees that shift a policy one step at a time. Policy changes in a vast empire don't happen overnight, and each edict takes time to go into effect. More importantly, many policy changes cause short-term unrest across the Empire. Governors and their populations don't appreciate sudden shifts in how they're governed - every settlement takes a small stability hit and your governors' opinion of you drops. Shifting three policies at once in the middle of a war could trigger rebellions across half your provinces (ideal when you're already fighting on one front!). [/p][p]This is where the systems really come together with the power blocs - the political factions within your Empire. Each power bloc has preferred policy positions. The Military Establishment wants strong armies and an aggressive frontier strategy. The Religious authorities want Borgutianism enforced, and so on. When your policies don't, their happiness drops - and if they stay unhappy long enough, they'll rebel against you. [/p][p]Your policies apply to your provinces as well. When you change a policy, it cascades down through your entire hierarchy of subject provinces and foederati. Your subjects can see your policies but can't change them. A loyal provincical ruler on your northern frontier might stay loyal for years - until you shift to a naval military stance and pull all the investment away from his border. The governance decisions you make for the Empire affect everyone under your rule, and not everyone will agree with them.[/p][p]That's it for this week! Next time we'll be looking at the military system and how battles play out. Thank you for reading.[/p]

[p]Hello all! This week we're going to be looking at one of the most important systems in Fall of an Empire: the military. Armies are the backbone of your power - without them, you cannot defend your borders, crush rebellions, or bring wayward provincial governors to heel. But maintaining a military is expensive, and fielding the wrong troops in the wrong place can be disastrous.Viewing and creating a new army template[/p][p]Let's start with how armies are actually built. In the game, your militaries are ordered around formations. A formation might specify that you want three cohorts of heavy infantry units, two of cavalry, and siege units. Once you've designed and raised this formation, your settlements will automatically begin producing the units and sending them to form up into an army. This means that raising a new force takes time, and if your settlements are spread across the empire, your reinforcements will trickle in over days or weeks as they march from their home provinces. It also means that if a settlement is under siege or cut off by enemies, it can't contribute to your war effort. You’ll need to make sure that your settlements meet the requirements: certain units can only be fielded from upgraded buildings or special Fortresses (which entirely convert the settlement into a militarised one).[/p][p]Creating a formation from a settlement[/p][p]Units themselves come in several broad categories: infantry, ranged, cavalry, siege, and special units. Infantry form the backbone of most armies: they're relatively cheap, they hold the line, and they die in large numbers so that your more expensive troops don't have to. Ranged units attack the enemy from a distance but crumble if cavalry reaches them. Cavalry are fast and deadly on the charge, but expensive to maintain and useless in a prolonged melee. Siege units are essential for taking fortified settlements - without them, you'll be stuck outside the walls for months. And special units cover everything from religious figures who bolster morale to elite units who can turn the tide of a battle.[/p][p]Each unit type has three damage values - pierce, crush, and slash - and three corresponding armour values. A unit that deals primarily slash damage will struggle against heavily armoured opponents with high slash armour, while pierce damage from spears and arrows cuts through lighter troops. This means that army composition matters: a force of nothing but heavy infantry will be tough to kill, but slow and vulnerable to massed archery. A cavalry-heavy army can run circles around infantry, but will suffer badly if caught by spearmen.[/p][p]Different cultures field very different units. The Rephsian legions can call upon the Legio Comitatenses (no relation to any historical military units whatsoever) - professional heavy infantry in the old imperial tradition - as well as the Equites Clibanarii, armoured cavalry who can smash through enemy formations. The Neutarnic barbarians prefer shield walls and tribal levies, fighting on foot with axes and spears in tight-packed formations. The Tamasheq of the southern deserts field swift cavalry and light archers adapted to the heat. And the steppe peoples of Tarhania fight almost entirely from horseback.[/p][p]This brings us to battles themselves. When two armies meet, combat takes place in a kind of simulated two-dimensional space. Rather than resolving everything in a single dice roll, your units form up into groups of the same unit type that move and fight together. These groups then manoeuvre across the battlefield, seeking advantageous positions and trying to engage enemy formations on favourable terms. Infantry formations will try to pin down enemies, cavalry will attempt to flank and charge, and ranged formations will seek positions from which they can rain missiles without being engaged in melee.A battle in progress: this UI will see a refresh before release.[/p][p]You have some control over this process. You can assign targets to your formations, ordering your cavalry to ignore the enemy infantry and sweep around to attack their archers. You can set your formations' stances - aggressive for more damage at the cost of taking more, defensive for the opposite, or simply ordering them to hold position and let the enemy come to them. You can also trigger special abilities if your commander has the tactical skill for it: ordering a testudo formation to weather a storm of arrows, for instance.[/p][p]Commanders matter a great deal. Each army is led by a character (it can be leaderless, but will suffer a lot from the lack of leadership), and that character's statistics affect everything from movement speed to combat effectiveness. A general with high Tactics will unlock more battlefield abilities and make better decisions in the automated parts of combat. A general with high Authority can command more troops and provides larger bonuses to the formations under their command. And the military hierarchy itself provides bonuses - a Dux commanding multiple Prefects, each commanding multiple Legates, creates a chain of command where each level provides morale and combat bonuses to those below them.[/p][p]Armies also gain veterancy over time. A newly raised formation of conscripts will fight poorly compared to a hardened force that has survived multiple campaigns. This veterancy is precious - losing a veteran army means losing years of accumulated experience. It's often better to retreat and preserve an experienced force than to fight to the death and have to raise raw recruits to replace them.[/p][p]Of course, armies need to eat. Every month, your soldiers consume food and other resources from your faction's stockpiles. If the supplies run out, your army will begin to suffer attrition. This is where the convoy system from the economy becomes the most useful: if rebels or barbarians cut your supply lines, an army can starve to death on the march home. Armies can carry their own stockpiles to an extent, but for prolonged campaigns deep in enemy territory, you need to plan your logistics carefully.[/p][p]The army sidebar: note the resources and morale.[/p][p]The terrain itself can be deadly too. Armies marching through snow in winter will suffer cold attrition. In summer, the deserts will parch and exhaust your troops. Certain unit types are adapted to these conditions - desert cavalry don't suffer in the heat, and northern barbarians are hardier in the cold - which is another reason to consider the composition of your forces carefully (in this case, foederati can be very powerful).[/p][p]For the barbarian factions and the foederati, the military works somewhat differently. Rather than maintaining standing professional armies like the Rephsians, these cultures rely on tribal levies - warriors called up from the population when war demands it. The levy system scales with population, so a small tribe can only field a small warband, while a large and prosperous one can raise a formidable host. But levies have their costs: calling up their warriors means they're not working their farms, and a defeated levy that suffers heavy casualties will take time to recover. The foederati themselves occupy an interesting middle position. As barbarian tribes settled within the Empire, they owe military service to their Rephsian overlord - you. When war comes, you can call up foederati forces to fight alongside your legions. These barbarian auxiliaries bring their own fighting styles and unit types to your armies, often providing capabilities that Rephsian units lack. But the foederati don't always appreciate being called up, and demanding too much military service will strain your relationship with them. Push them too hard, and they may decide that rebellion is preferable to endless war in your name.Three armies in battle, next to a pillaged settlement.[/p][p]Finally, there are sieges. A fortified settlement cannot simply be walked into - you need to besiege it. This is where siege units are the most useful. Each unit contributes siege power, and the total siege power of your army determines how quickly you can reduce the fortifications and assault the walls. A well-fortified city with strong walls might hold out for months against an army without proper siege equipment, but fall in weeks to a force with rams and catapults. During a siege, the settlement's garrison will defend against any assault, so you need to be confident your forces can defeat the defenders before you order the attack (or just wait until they surrender).[/p][p]Thank you (again) for reading! Next week we'll be looking at the imperial court and policies.[/p]

[p]Hello all, this week we'll be looking at the character system and the power blocs that make up the imperial court.[/p][p]Fall of an Empire revolves around its characters. Unlike many strategy games where you interact with faceless factions, here you're dealing with individuals with their own personalities, ambitions and grudges. These are the people who run the Empire's provinces, command its armies, and scheme in its palaces. Managing them is just as important as defending your borders.[/p][p]Each character has seven statistics that determine their capabilities. Tactics reflects their military ability - how well they can command an army in battle and execute manoeuvres.[/p][p]Authority is their charisma and presence; a character with high authority can command more troops and is more likely to be followed.Statistics in the character sidebar[/p][p]Cunning measures their ability to deceive and manipulate others.[/p][p]Governance determines how well they can run a province or a settlement - higher governance means more efficient tax collection and faster development.[/p][p]Loyalty is how likely they are to follow your orders rather than pursuing their own agenda.[/p][p]Constitution (a hidden stat) affects their health and disease resistance - very important considering that the game has a plague and disease system which could strike down even a younger character.[/p][p]Finally, Fame represents their reputation and renown, earned through victories in battle, in-game events and successful governance. Fame can also be inherited, though at a reduced rate (for example, the children of famous generals start with some recognition of their own).[/p][p]Beyond these statistics, characters also have traits that further modify their abilities and behaviour. An Ambitious character gains cunning but loses loyalty (they're always looking for ways to advance themselves). A Militant character is an excellent tactician but struggles with civil administration. Some traits are permanent once gained; others are temporary (such as diseases or injuries). For example a character who takes a blow to the head in battle might gain the Head Injury trait, affecting their capabilities until they recover after a few years.[/p][p]Characters can fill various roles within (and outside) the Empire. They might be ruling a faction as its leader, commanding an army or navy, governing a settlement, serving in the imperial court, or working as a diplomat or spy in a foreign land. Each role comes with its own responsibilities and opportunities. A provincial governor who rules well will increase your income and keep the populace content but one who rules poorly might spark rebellions.Interacting with a character via actions[/p][p]Relationships between characters matter enormously. Characters form Patronage Networks - a powerful noble might have several client characters who owe their positions to him, and in turn he might be the client of an even more powerful figure. Characters can become friends or enemies, and these relationships affect their willingness to cooperate. Marriages between powerful families can create alliances between those families. Each relationship comes with an opinion value that can shift over time as favours are given and slights come up.[/p][p]Now, beyond individual characters, the Empire contains several power blocs - organised factions that represent different interests at court. Managing these blocs is one of the core challenges of ruling. If you let them grow too unhappy they'll rebel, keep them content and they'll provide bonuses.Power blocs in the game (some of this UI will be changed)[/p][p]There are three institutional blocs that always exist: the Senatorial Aristocracy, the Legions, and the Bureaucracy. The Senatorial Aristocracy represents the old noble families - they want proper appointments (that is, putting high-born Rephsians into positions of power rather than foreigners or commoners), stability, and preservation of noble privileges.[/p][p]The Legions represent the military establishment: they want strong armies, opportunities for glory, and a respected commander to lead them. When they're furious, they might proclaim a rival Emperor and plunge the realm into civil war.[/p][p]The Bureaucracy represents the administrative class: they want a healthy treasury, competent officials, and peace so they can do their work. A happy bureaucracy improves your income and governance but an unhappy one might engage in passive resistance and tax strikes.[/p][p]Beyond these permanent blocs, others can form dynamically. Religious blocs appear for any faith with significant presence at court - the state religion will always have one, but minority faiths might form their own if enough courtiers follow them. Personal factions form around powerful individuals who have the fame and authority to challenge the throne - a successful general, for instance, might attract followers who see him as a potential Emperor.[/p][p]Regional interest blocs represent the concerns of neglected provinces - if you leave a region without troops or governors for too long, its people will form a bloc demanding attention. The New Men represent commoners who've risen through merit rather than birth - they clash with the aristocracy over appointments. Finally, the Foederati Council represents the interests of your barbarian allies within your territory, if you have any.[/p][p]Each character naturally gravitates toward certain blocs based on their traits and background. An Imperious nobleman of high fame will fit right in with the Senatorial Aristocracy, a Militant general will align with the Legions and a low-born administrator with the Administrative trait might join the New Men. Characters can only belong to one bloc at a time, and the bloc they choose affects how they view your decisions.Looking at the player's family tree[/p][p]Thank you for reading! Next week we'll be looking at the combat and battle system of the game.[/p]

[p]Hello all! Welcome back to the third dev diary for Fall of an Empire. As promised last week, today we'll be looking at the resource and economy system - one of the core pillars of the game.[/p][p]In many strategy games, resources are abstracted away into a simple income number that ticks up each turn. Gold flows into your treasury from nowhere in particular, and you spend it on things without much thought about where it's actually coming from. Fall of an Empire takes a different approach: resources are physical things that exist in the world, are produced in specific places, and must be transported to where they're needed.[/p][p]Resources in the game fall into five categories. Food is the most fundamental - your people need to eat, and your armies need to eat even more. Raw Materials include things like timber, iron ore and stone: the building blocks of industry. Manufactured Goods are what your craftsmen produce from those raw materials: weapons, armour, cloth, tools. Luxury Goods are the silks, spices, wine and other fineries that keep your nobles happy (and your tax revenues high). Finally, Strategic Resources are rare materials needed for military purposes - things like weapons and horses.[/p][p]Every settlement in the game has an economy. Farms in the countryside produce grain, mines extract ore, and so on. But a settlement also consumes resources: the common people eat food, the upper classes need luxuries, and any garrison stationed there needs to be equipped and fed. The balance between production and consumption determines whether a settlement has a surplus to export or a deficit that needs to be filled.Above: the resources map mode, showing all the resource production for various settlements.[/p][p]This is where convoys come in. When a settlement has excess resources, it can send them to other settlements that need them. These aren't abstract transfers - convoys are actual entities on the map, moving along roads and sea routes, carrying various goods. That means it can be intercepted.[/p][p]Rebels, barbarians, and enemy armies can all attack your convoys. A successful raid might see your precious supplies carried off to feed a barbarian warband instead of your troops. This means that protecting your supply lines becomes a strategic concern. You might have the richest provinces in the world, but if you can't get those resources to where they're needed, they're worthless.[/p][p]The priority system determines where resources go when there isn't enough for everyone. Armies in the field generally take priority - you don't want your soldiers starving while on campaign. But this can create its own problems: strip too many resources away from your settlements and unrest will rise as people go hungry and workshops sit idle.[/p][p]An army carries a stockpile of food and equipment, which it consumes as it marches and fights. When that stockpile runs low, the army needs to be resupplied - either by receiving convoys from nearby friendly settlements, by capturing enemy convoys, or by foraging from the land (which tends to make the locals rather unhappy). An army that runs out of supplies entirely will suffer attrition: men deserting, dying of hunger.[/p][p]The economy overview. This will get a bit of a refresh before release.[/p][p]Sieges add more complexity. A besieged settlement is cut off from outside supply - no convoys can reach it. The defender must survive on whatever stockpiles they've accumulated, while the attacker must maintain their own supply lines to keep their besieging army fed. A well-stocked fortress can hold out for months; a poorly prepared one might fall in weeks simply because the garrison ran out of food.[/p][p]This all means that the map itself becomes more strategically important. Controlling key road junctions means you protect your own convoys while threatening enemy supply lines. Coastal settlements with good harbours can receive supplies by sea, making them harder to starve out. Mountain passes are important chokepoints and roads can be upgraded at certain locations so your troops and convoys can get somewhere faster.[/p][p]The economy is about more than keeping your armies supplied, of course. Settlements need resources to construct buildings, which in turn can increase production or provide other benefits. A prosperous economy generates more tax revenue, which you'll need to pay your soldiers and administrators. Lack of food causes unrest and kills your citizens. And keeping the luxury goods flowing to your nobles helps maintain their loyalty - or at least makes their disloyalty slightly less likely.[/p][p]Thank you for reading! Next week we'll be diving into the character system and how the people of your empire scheme, plot and occasionally remain loyal.[/p]

[p]Hello all! Today it’s time for the second dev diary, in which we’ll be looking at the world and of the game and its cultures.An overview of the game's factions[/p][p]The world of Fall of an Empire is divided chiefly into two parts: the northern continent Cassa, and the southern continent Sattaria. These lands and the central sea are dominated by the ancient Rephsian Empire, founded a thousand years before the game’s start. Centred on the eternal city of Rephsis, the Empire expanded over the centuries to become the greatest civilisation the world has ever known. The imperial language and culture has dominated the two continents.[/p][p]The cultures of the game[/p][p]In the beginning, the tribes around the capital banded together and began to slowly conquer territory. The first kings of Rephsis and the royal Senate (originally the chiefs of each tribe, now a rubber-stamp assembly made up of nobles from the provinces) worked in tandem, and the Rephsian legions with their military commanders took territory after territory. When Rephsis had conquered the plains and peninsula of Sarmachia, it looked over the mountains and sea and looked for more territory to claim. The title of King became merged with the title of Emperor, originally the word of for the commander of an army.[/p][p]Three hundred years into Rephsian rule, a man from the steppe, Borgutius, came to the Empire. With his followers he preached a new, martial religion of the one true God against the pagan deities of Rephsis. Borgutius and his disciples were mocked by the people - until his band grew, and marched on the capital. After conquering it, he ruled for a month - until he was betrayed by a sect of his followers, who handed him over to the force that had come to relieve the city.[/p][p]Hypocritically it was this more pacifist sect that took over Borgutius’s legacy: with him and his followers dead a new religion came into being, one that believed in submission before God and a natural order ruled by the nobility, with a strict and regimented social system. Naturally this appealed to the patrician class, most of whom converted over the next three hundred years. It took longer for this religion to reach the commoners - even in 784 only half the Empire’s population is made up of followers of Apsodenian Borgutianism.Religions of the Empire[/p][p]However, over the last few centuries the Empire has become weak - constant rebellion, soft emperors unfit for campaign and religious strife have meant that barbarian tribes have found it easy pickings for looting and plundering. The last emperor, Lucius XI - called Vetus for his long reign - ruled more than fifty years, and in this time seeing three tribes take up residence within the Empire.[/p][p]At the start of Fall of an Empire, you, Theodosius V, have finally overthrown Lucius Vetus. It’s finally time for you to end these humiliating centuries that the Empire has endured.The game's Domains[/p][p]The world is split into these various Domains - high-level abstract regions. Of these there are ones that make up the Empire: Rephsia (the empire’s core), Septentria (the northeastern frontier), the peninsula of Oretania, Carnovia - a large and fertile, mostly flat land, and the mountainous, semi-arid Tamarsia and riverine Sarghania in the southern continent of Sattaria.[/p][p]Beyond the Empire: in Sattaria there is the desert domain Amarghan, but in Cassa there are the steppes of Tarhania to the east, and the forests of Neutarnia and Svarania to the north: home to three groups of foederati in the Empire. West of Neutarnia is the peninsula of Neutarnia Ultima - home to raiders who have recently become more active. And in the frozen north is mysterious Boralia. Not much is known of this land.Core territory of the Himmelsvolci[/p][p]Within the empire, these three foederati are Himmelsvolci, who make their home in the land of Savania. Here they rule over a mostly Rephsian population. [/p][p]The territory of the Hervati[/p][p]Near the capital are the Hervati - the most recent arrivals - and who are traitorously rebelling against your rule. [/p][p][/p][p]In Tamarsia the Angharati rule over the Rephsianised Cavalite people and are threatened by the Tamasheq desert-dwellers.[/p][p]The Western Rebels in Oretania[/p][p]In Oretania the Western Rebels have risen up against you under the upstart rule of Aulus Tiberian, a general and loyalist of Lucius Vetus who now has named himself Emperor. To crush them is your destiny![/p][p]There are a lot more factions in the game - both within and outside the Empire - but to go through them all will take a book, so I will have to leave you with them here. Next week we’ll be looking at the resource and economy system.[/p]