AI War 2 News

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.800_That_Expert_Has_A_Deathwish.21

This one is huge, considering it's the second one of the day. And the first one had the giant Spire Infused Empire in it!

This one doesn't quite complete Expert Mode, but it's getting darn close at the point. Other than some UI bits, and some stuff for the fallen spire / spire infused route, this handles all of the wishlist items for that mode, although there is more testing and I'm sure discussion needed.

This also includes some deathwish items, although they also may need testing and/or revisions. Deathwish is the extra-expert mode specifically for Strategic Sage and whoever he can convince to jump down that dark hole with him. :)

DLC3 continues to get more balance adjustments, and the Necromancer flagships now have far cooler names.

Oh, and bugfixes! Wow, there's a lot of good ones in here. The sidebar and the galaxy map should both now behave fully, and the galaxy map performs a ton better, too. The "Find Unit" mechanic was entirely busted since I added time-slicing to the galaxy map, and I have a feeling that wasn't all. At any rate, it's all good now, as I switched to multithreading instead of time-slicing.

And a few exceptions are solved, among a few other glitches. Definitely an exciting time, and it feels like we're quite close to exiting beta finally, though I don't want to jinx it.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.799_Spire_Infusion

On the one hand, this is a hotfix because it fixes a stupid bug of mine that broke map generation in the last build (my bad).

On the other hand, this is a pretty exciting build, because it adds the final planned player type to the game: the Spire Infused Empire, part of DLC1. Essentially, a number of people have wanted to play the Fallen Spire campaign, but not have all that business with chasing relics and such. The general feedback is simply wanting to control the big spire ships and do the big battles in more open war, but minus the questing and story bits. That's what the Spire-Infused Empire provides: a spire city right from the start, and the ability to build more simply by taking certain numbers of planets.

It's a way to quickly and dramatically get into open war with the AI, and it pairs well with a lot of other factions. You can't use it and Fallen Spire at the same time (as they are two twists on the exact same thing), but you can pair it with necromancers in DLC3, or giant Zenith factions in DLC2, or scary bois like the Dark Spire in the base game. Major thank-you to Badger for taking this off my plate and implementing it.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.798_Reliability

This one is all about the bugfixes, for the most part. The most serious issues that exist should be resolved now. Hopefully this makes multiplayer even more playable.

This also includes some new features for DLC1, although they are only behind a cheat code right now. Those will be coming out in actual direct gameplay over the next week or so. What's the feature? Why, the return of warheads! A fan favorite from the first game.

Lost Humans also got some updates, and there is a balance update that should make macrophage a lot more active.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.797_Eldritch_Art

This one is a bit different! It has a pretty huge amount of new art for the game, including some revisions to things in the base game and DLC1, and new art for DLC2 and 3. The release notes have videos of a couple of particularly cool items. There's more to come on this front, but it's not going to mean a full halt to work on code or anything like that.

Speaking of code, there's a number of new goodies in this version! Your ships no longer target hostile units you are in the process of hacking (like ion cannons), which is pretty slick -- thanks to Badger for that.

Additionally, a lot of updates have happened for the Necromancer and the Elderlings in DLC3.

More to come soon, including more bugfixes.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.796_Greatly_Thinning_The_Turncoats

This one still has an occasional turncoat unit (grrr), but they are REALLY hard for us to hit, now. Versus after yesterday's build, threads were no longer insane, but turncoats were still frustratingly frequent. There was also a performance regression in the build of yesterday or the day before, and that's fixed now. Occasional turncoat aside, this is running really well right now! Pretty much all of the other recent bugs of notable severity have also been fixed.

If you get an exception in this build, please do give us your log, as it has some direct info and then some info following the exception. A screenshot of the exception doesn't show the whole story.

Necromancer also continues to evolve thanks to Zeus and Badger, and there are now tips of the day and regular tips about the "wait for stragglers" mode.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!