AI War 2 News

New AI War 2 build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.603_That_IS_A_Moon

This has some balance changes to the base game, as well as new features to the sidekick mod, including Dyson Moons, which are quite cool.

Enjoy!

Heart of the machine has been a part of this NextFest, and there's a couple of days left for you to try the (massive!) demo, if you want: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

PC Gamer has called this game the most exciting thing happening thing happening in the 4X genre right now, and in general the feedback from demo players has been hugely useful for me to work on making the onboarding even smoother.

There's also some cool coverage of the game emerging around now, such as this one from Splattercatgaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jLw0TgJ31Y

If you've been a part of the demo and you'd like to join the private testing that will be ongoing after the demo concludes, or if you missed the demo and would like to do the same, be sure to stop by the Arcen discord and sign up here: https://discord.com/channels/240637654717300736/1248015123382276217

New AI War 2 build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.602_Planetcrasher

There were a solid pass of bugfixes, my favorite of which is that if you crash a planet into the AI homeworld, it now properly kills them. Hence the name of the update.

The Dyson Sidekick mod got a bunch of reworked units from Zeus, and the Dark Zenith can get its Resources from killing enemy ships, allowing you to manage your economy more closely. These changes do break save compatibility with savegames using that mod, so if you're using a modded version of the game, you can use the most_recent_stable branch to continue until the next patch. But it sounds like this is worth restarting for, with that mod.

To be clear, unmodded games have no issues with save compatibility, and mods other than the sidekicks one also don't have any issues.

Enjoy!

Heart of the Machine private testing is ongoing, and you can sign up on our discord if you're interested. It's also going to have a public demo very shortly, so be sure to check that out and/or wishlist the game. ALSO, finally, for the first time in a year, the store page has been fully refreshed with updated graphics and visuals, and a killer new trailer: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

There's also some cool coverage of the game emerging around now, such as this one from Splattercatgaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jLw0TgJ31Y

Just a small patch with some more Sidekick mod content.

https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.601_More_Sidekick

There were a couple of bugs in the prior build, which messed with the Fallen Spire. Those are now fixed:

https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.600_Hotfix

Two exciting pieces of news today!

[h2]AI War 2 Itself[/h2]
First up, AI War 2 has a large new patch: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.599_Sockets_And_Sidekicks

Badger and Zeus have really outdone themselves here, with a bunch of clever ideas.

In particular, there is a new Socket Increaser structure that is possible to find in the galaxy when you have the Sidekicks mod enabled. This then allows for a lot of fun new objectives for sidekicks, necromancers, and similar to go get in order to have more sockets.

The Dark Zenith have also been rebalanced to be more... well, balanced in all respects. A lot of thought from these two went into it, and it was carefully implemented.

There are other more-minor balance changes, comparably, and a bunch of other mod updates. Good times!

[h2]Heart of the Machine![/h2]
It has been just over a year since there were last people outside of Arcen or Hooded Horse able to playtest this game. I had thought many times that testing was just on the horizon, and I must have been an awful tease about that -- it was completely unintentional, apologies. But testing is not just soon, it's NOW.

The first batch of about 30 testers (18 returning and 16 new) got their hands on the game today. The next batch of 15 people will get the game on Monday, and those are already locked in. But there are still some openings on the batch for Thursday, and there will be more waves following on after that every few days.

The reason for the staggered waves is to continually collect fresh first impressions, after people's feedback from the wave before. So don't worry about missing an earlier wave if you want to be a tester; that just means you get a more-polished version to start from in the near future.

The store page is in dire need of a refresh (the visuals and text are a year out of date), but be sure to wishlist it if you haven't already: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

And if you want to sign up for testing, be sure to stop by our discord! https://discord.gg/arcengames

Cheers,
Chris