Warsim: The Realm of Aslona News

Hello everyone, at the start of this week I felt a little intimidated by the looming combat plans and how I was going to make them happen. It's without doubt the most significant and ambitious overhaul that I've had planned while there's still a ton of work to be done a bunch of brainstorming and planning this week has resulted in a eureka moment and I have what I believe to be a solid concept for the new combat overhaul.

I took each planned feature and tried to breakdown the various aspects that would need to be coded for each however during this brainstorm I figured out something which in my opinion if done right has the potential to be a much better battle system. It's going to be quite different to what we're used to, but will allow for much better battles, that are memorable and different and... that's all I'll say for now!

I still need to run some tests and trial the new concepts but by next weeks discussion I aim to have some screens of it.

I've been quite busy in and out of Warsim but now that the plans are lining up and I have a clear path on coding this combat update will start progressing, hopefully with a big chunk of coding being done we'll get it all done sooner rather than later!

Thanks all for your patience and sorry for the vaigueness!

While I've been working on the combat update plans I've been chipping away at the games to-do list and over the last few weeks that's accumulated into enough for an update, it's made up of lots of smaller updates and ideas, most of them player suggestions! Enjoy :)

GOBLIN SLAVER IMPROVEMENTS

Thanks to Ursur from Discord for this idea, we've added personal guards for the goblin slaver so you can actually keep the ones you like around for a lot longer, and well as a few other tweaks to the slaver in general

* Added Goblin Slaver Personal Guard (150gold, 2x less likely to lose goblin slaver)(credit Ursur)
* Added Goblin Slaver Guard group (500gold, 10x less likely to lose goblin slaver)(credit Ursur)
* Added Goblin Slaver Army of Guards (5000gold, never lose goblin slaver)(credit Ursur)
* Slightly reworked screen for talking to goblin slaver
* Added alt screen for ordering goblin slavers death if you have a guard assigned to him
* Added alt screen for ordering goblin slavers death if you have mutliple guards assigned to him

DYNAMIC BANNERS

This is just one thing but it's cool enough for it's own spot. Now if you aren't playing as Aslona you will have a random banner between one of 50 different things instead of the classic 'A', what will you get?

* Added your kingdom will get a random banner if it's name is not 'Aslona'

DIRT DEN TAVERN

I was clearing through old notes when I saw mention of a mutant tavern by Dtyn8 on reddit, I thought it was a funny idea so now we've got a new tavern down there replacing the Dirt Den.

* Added new tavern 'Dirt Den' to the Blackmarket Sewers (credit u/Dtyn8)
* Added Pargo Blargoson
* Added ability to speak to local mutant
* Removed original dirt den from the sewers
* Added ability to drink Upperfolk Ale (4 gold) and Green Junk (1 gold)

DISARMING YOUR MEN

Another solo item category but another feature I thought was too cool to be in the bottom section, now you will notice a new option when in the troop recruitment screen, you can disarm yoru soldiers and have them become peasants if they begin to cost too much or you need a quick workforce, a great idea from u/TheGamingDictator

* Added ability to convert soldiers to peasants (credit u/TheGamingDictator)

BANDIT HORDE BRIBERY

Bandit Horde bribery has been reworked, now you get a sequence of screens once you bribe the horde to disband explaining what's going on. There are also several other tweaks to it making the whole thing a lot better.

* Added 2 sound effects to paying bribe to bandits
* Added 4 new screens to bribing bandits to disband
* Reworked paying bandits to disband text
* Reduced cost of bribing bandit horde to cease decreased 10 fold (from totalmen * land * 1000) to (totalmen * land * 100)
* Added new crossed out version of bribe to disband and for truce options for bandit horde if you can't afford them

MINOR BANDIT FOLLOW UP

Just a few little follow ups to the minor bandit update!

* Added truce indicator on main minor bandit screen
* Fixed spacing of defeated indicator on main minor bandit screen

GAMING DICTATORS TWEAKS AND BUGS

Another bunch of ideas and bugs from the Gaming Dictators reports!

* Reworked screen for buying slaves and slave soldiers from Slavers Fort (show how many you can afford and your gold)
* Reworked skug the slaver in slums to show how many slaves you can afford
* Added last kingdom name when choosing a random name then writing your own in game start screen
* Added gold indicator on each of the kingdom upgrades tabs
* Fixed two demon diplomacy screens with badly formatted text and wrong colour used
* Fixed changing the year of game messed up time games
* Fixed deposited all into the bank saying from instead
* Fixed deposit and withdraw Black Bank screens not including single coin screen and sound effect
* Fixed deposit and withdraw Black Bank not including screens for no gold selected showing 0 instead

FACTION DESTRUCTION EXPANDED

The screens for the final battles of the hardcoded factions really sucked, I've tried to improve them a little and also added a new sound effect under defenders suggestions to all faction descruction victory screens!

* Added new sound for destroying a faction (credit Defender)
* Fixed grammar and text bugs in destroyed faction texts
* Added new screen for final bandit battle (with graphic)
* Added 2 new screens and sfx for final Krut screen (with graphics)
* Added new screen and sfx for final Erak screen (with graphic)

BLUETRII CHANGES

Thanks to Gaming dictator for suggesting this, I ended up working a little more on the magic fruit farm and tweaked a few things.

* Reworked how much bluetrii do I have screen in magic farm (added graphic)
* Added the ability to sell bluetrii directly at bluetrii farm (credit u/TheGamingDictator)
* Fixed layout of bluetrii screen options

MYSTIC HUT TWEAKS

The mystic hut was a little too OP, now it's weaker and less findable!

* Reduced mystic hut reward by 10x (credit AlternateEnding)
* Added mystic hut only visible once every 10 years (OoOoOoH, spooky)
* Added strange green mound location in the north

NEW NAMES

Draig means Dragon in welsh!

* Added the name Draig to men and draconian names
* Added the name Ddraig to men names
* Added the name Ator to men names (reference to the conan rip off b movie 'Ator the fighting eagle'
* Added 9 other names 'Korg, Korgy, Naroth, Zalkar, Zarwyn, Zarren, Maldar, Alg, Vyn'
* Added new name suffix 'The Fighting Eagle' (+40 battlescore) 'same as above reference'

TURN CHECK SYSTEM

Thanks to eharper256 for this idea, when ending your turn you get a dynamic pop up if you still have not finished exploring or dealing with throne room, toggleable of course!

* Added notification if exploration and throne room still undealt with
* Added notification if exploration is undealt with
* Added notification if throne room is undealt with (and you have no steward)
* Added dynamic notifier (diplomat or random courtier if no diplomat)
* Added 9 random descriptions of notifications
* Added ability to disable these warnings if you wish

BUGFIXES

* Fixed head south option being shown when not yet unlocked (credit u/Kerbannog)
* Fixed slum slavers reported in the Blackmarket herald after being destroyed (credit u/Kerbannog)
* Fixed slum slavers still selling slaves to slave fort after being destroyed (credit u/Kerbannog)
* Fixed ugliest face throne room encounter announcers face changing everytime you speak to him (credit u/TheGamingDictator)
* Fixed tar-paved road is 25k but only takes 20k gold (credit u/TheGamingDictator)
* Fixed smoothstone road is 20k but takes 25k gold (credit u/TheGamingDictator)

EVERYTHING ELSE

* Added betting on grand champion fights pays double instead 1.5x reward (credit Defender)
* Added new indicators of grand champion stat increase timer when giving a house to them (credit defender)
* Added Alternate history guild screen for non Aslona kingdoms (Credit Banh Meme)
* Added new option on main menu for people having issues with text size (credit u/GrimmTheReaper76)
* Rewrote text of the options menu text help screen
* Added random quest generator to extras random generators

SCREENSHOTS

New Tavern


Disarming your troops


New generator in extras screen


End of turn notification

So this week has been a little slow but I've been looking at a few different things for the combat update and also been planning out some possible marketing actions to get Warsim more visible, some of the suggestions my earlier post got me were very helpful and I'm still actioning them so thanks guys! (Still open to ideas on getting Warsim more visible btw!)



I've also been working on a little update chipping things off the Warsim to-do list while I've been planning out the combat stuff, I wasn't intending to do this but enough stuff has accumulated that it will make a nice little update so I'll try and roll it out later tonight!



I've been quite sick this last week thanks to a nasty flu so I haven't gotten a ton done, but I am getting the skeleton and bare plans for several combat features planned out!

WELCOME

Hello and welcome everyone to the first of our friday discussions, firstly I'm sorry that I haven't been so active the last few weeks but I've been super busy both in and out of Warsim.

COMBAT PLANS

So I've trawled through all of my notes taken over the past few years from Warsim fans and myself of everything combat related and broken it down to a few categories, before I get into this I don't want to do a Peter Molyneux and overpromise features that won't make it into the game, this list is a bunch of things I would like to attempt to add to the game but in all likelihood it won't be everything, it depends on how I can code it and what obstacles/limitations I come up against, so please take this as more of a concept list of stuff.

- Generals can be instructed to choose best option for combat including who to attack works best with spymaster giving info to you

ARMY COMMANDERS

To send an army you need a commander, their skill will decide the battle advantage
and army size, you can send as many of these as you want, troops on the attack should
not be part of the defence however

* A champion (based on battlescore * 25) ie 159 battlescore = 3975
* General (based on battlescore * 50) ie 159 battlescore = 7950
* Knight (Knight can take up to 1000 men)
* Soldier (Soldier can take up to 100 men) but will not fare well and be prone to issue

They can get up to things too:

* Your captain Ghoso Rhenson and his army of 200 men were defeated on their attempt to raid the Krut Lands
* Your captain Largak the Lofty and his army of 113 men succesfully captured a land from the Red Rovers bandit gang
* Your captain Erynar of the Sands and his army of 25 men have joined the rebellion

TROOP MORALE (credit Omer)

Troop morale being separate to normal public op could allow you to have strong army even if the people hate you
you will need to look at military events that are affected by public opinion and add the morale in it's place
a new variable that grows with victory, payrises, improved equipment. Decreases with losses, firings, etc.

BATTLE HEROES

Heroes can emerge, random units that turn the tide of a battle of complete a great feat
can be knighted and awarded high positions, enemy heroes should be able to be spawned too
it would be awesome to see an enemy champion/lord who was born of a battle where you
were humiliated.

ARMOUR & WEAPONS

Have possiblility of similar to the helmet, have armour and helmet that have aesthetic
and stat based differences, use random weapon generator, find a way to make this work
how much does it cost, how do you find/buy it and change it

BATTLE-LOOTING (all for men, split with men, only for you, no looting at all)

Gain direct gold from looting the battlefield, and decide how you go about it

PRISONERS OF WAR (AND CAPTURED ENEMY LORDS/LEADERS)

Capture prisoners and decide what to do with them, you can execute them to reduce
opinion of enemy, perhaps you imprison them, perhaps you try to hire them.
Also capture enemy leaders and lords in battle with effects

REBELLION

* Independent lords can have their own armies/income/goals/cultural modifications
* Add independent lords loyalty changes based on how well a leader leads (ie battle wins and losses) though some will be permanently loyal or hostile to their leaders based on pre-gen traits
* Lords can rebel and form their own faction (Ie Kingdom of Trog, new faction is Kingdom of Trog Rebels (Rebellion) but if they win they takeover the kingdom and can rename it or keep it same

LORDS AND KINGS IN BATTLE

Lords and kings should show up in battle and give their units perks and bonuses
- code faction leader aggression level and faction aggression (new variable used in the combat phase)
- Lords and kings should appear or flee when you invade

PRE-BATTLE SCREEN IMPROVED

The pre-battle screens can be more unique, Ie you enter the lands of Yagar the Mallet, he sends no envoy and
waits atop the walls for your attack, or you could have a lord who sends an envoy and offers peace, tribute
can be pushed to join you and rebel, can plead with you etc. (ROCK PAPER SCISSORS, TRIBUTE, DUEL)

PRE-BATTLE PLANNING

Choose who leads the army and consider calling on a friend (forts, militia, allies, blackmarket etc)

FLEEING AND SURRENDED

Chance that if a battle is significantly skewed, one side breaks off and flees
or surrenders (figure out how this works)

TROOP UPGRADING (can be enabled or disabled but some troops will rank up) (3 options Disabled, Disabled for peasants, Enabled for all)

ALTERNATE WAYS TO DISPLAY BATTLE (instead of just mash troops vs troops)

Try one screen showing the numbers of your men and theirs disolve
Try doing different coloured stuff
test and allow multiple different styles

WAR STRATEGY

Factions should be able to launch multiple attacks and should recognise weaker enemies to invade, they should
also be able to hire mercenaries and do things with their gold, would be helpful if you could tether
these systems to difficulty and have them far more intelligent at higher levels (ie always invading and sending their full army if it's big enough to ensure not losing all)

ALLIANCES IMPROVED

Alliances should be able to join you in battles, and attacking an enemy with an ally chance the ally will join
also if they are in a league, the league should fight together. You should also be given
alters when allies and vassals and fellow league members are attacked to offer you to join

POLITICS
Factions should be able to make peace, form alliances, go to war and do various things
with eachother and with you.

ARCHERS

RANDOM BATTLE EVENTS

* Lightning strikes (killing x, or causing one side to fully flee)
* Farmers passing decide to join
* Peasant falls on his sword and dies
* group of soldiers turn and join the rebels mid battle
* band of local hunters join the defence
* Big fire divides the battlefield and ends the fight
* Wild bear charges into the fight

ENVIRONMENTAL ABILITIES (NIGHT BATTLES, RAIN, FOG)

SEIGES INSTEAD OF DIRECT BATTLE

Seiges could require equipment built and could take some time (1 year or longer) some equipment could be used in non seige batltes too

POSSIBILITY OF 3 WAY BATTLES SOME HOW



In summary you can see what I mean, there's a huge list of stuff and I'm not sure it can all be done, but that being said I really enjoy playing Warsim and I would love nothing more than it becoming far more advanced and complex in it's core area and namesake (the war simulation aspect) so I will do my very best to deliver as many of these things as possible, but these features are large and intimidating and I'm a one man team so I will be taking my time and may require further feedback and help coming up with concepts and details of these features, still I hope you guys like the ideas here.



Hey everyone, a little bit of my time this week was dedicated to pushing forward on the plans I made previously, I decided to rework the games store page 'about this game' section which was just a this block of text.



I wanted to have it themed and filled with graphics, the main drive was to be more gripping and interesting and to really show off what Warsim is about while also looking professional.

It's not perfect but It took a huge amount of work and during the week I had to take breaks as at least 26 times I couldn't test the store page beta due to http errors on steams servers.

Please check out the new store page about section and let me know what you think, do you guys think it represents warsim well? is there anything I've missed or that you don't like, Or do you like it :)

Your feedback on this is invaluable

https://store.steampowered.com/app/659540/Warsim_The_Realm_of_Aslona/?beta=0



While making the new steam storepage I kept getting errors in chrome and cleared my cookies to resolve it, I resolved the problem but triggered some 2 faction auth thing on discord, discord support tells me without some weird additional code I don't have I'll have to make a new account so that's fun! (currently no discord)



I'm going to continue tweaking and working on the combat plans and get stuck into the more basic of the structure very soon, while I'm open to ideas about the combat plans, I'm most interested in feedback regarding the new store page so please let me know what you think. (or why not feedback on both :P)

Thank you for reading

All the best
Huw Millward (Warsim dev)

Hello Everyone!

I want to start this with a thank you to everyone that has made Warsim what it is. To so many bug reporters and those who've shared their awesome ideas, and to the many people who have followed along the development and motivated me to work on it further. All the support recieved has changed my life for the better and has been the main reason Warsim is where it is today!

I've said this before but when Warsim was in its earliest stages it was never even planned to become a commercial game. I never thought anyone would be interested in it. As I worked on it and shared it online I began getting donations and after a while it opened my eyes to the possibility of Warsim one day ending up on steam.

As you all know that possibility became reality, and for the last two years I've somewhat been able to support myself from Warsim development alongside selling things online and the occasional part-time job, this has allowed me to spend a reasonable amount of time on Warsim.

I'm currently surviving with Warsim but I genuinely believe with a bit of work it could expand beyond its relative obscurity in the gaming community to a more well known Indie title I understand that an CMD Ascii based game is never going to top the charts but I think it could still become better known among RPG players and fans of resimilar games. Over 14000 copies have sold online and our subreddit has over 1000 subscribers so Warsim and it's community aren't completely obscured but I really think it could grow far beyond.


My current plan involves a number of different steps:

* The Trailer [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube] - Warsim's trailer is terrible, it doesn't show any of what the game is about, it just flickers through some screens, I have a plan to rework this trailer with the help of a small team and will hopefully get it finished soon. I think this is important as the trailer in its current state doesn't scream professional legit indie game, it screams crappy indie game that isn't worth your time. The trailer was made when it first went on steam during early access in 2017 and it absolutely doesn't reflect the game as it is today.

* Improve the Quality of Warsim's store pages - I plan to further critique the store pages and try to update them where relevant because I feel it needs to look the best it can.

* Price increase - After the next few big overhauls I will consider increase the price of Warsim from $4.99 to $7.99 or somewhere there abouts, I am not entirely comfortable with the idea as I don't want to appear some scummy moneygrubbing dev but I really feel the game is worth more, having it at a higher price assuming sales mained a similar level would allow me to work on Warsim more so it's something I'm considering.

* Overhauls and a push to Full Release - For the longest time my approach to Warsim development has been just clearing through ideas of mine and other people, and adding stuff that I want to see in game, generally I've not been working on clearing the unfinished parts of the game and bringing us to full release which I feel I should. The goal going forward will be to complete all unfinished parts of Warsim, to add the major planned elements of the game and get it to the point where it can stand firmly as a complete and well rounded game... don't worry though I would most certainly continue developing and updating it for a long time post EA.

I also have some other ideas to expand Warsim's reach that I will try to pursue:

* Android Port - This has been requested by a fair number of people, I will need to work on evolving the Warsim code to be less windows only but if I can try to get the game emulated to the point it could be played on an Android Tablet I think it could really help create a new and fun experience on the platform and would also hopefully add an additional stream of financial support for the games development.

* Mac and Linux Port - This has been something heavily requested for a long time, although its been possible to run it through Wine it would be nice to be able to get Warsim some official Mac and Linux builds.

* A Limited Release of Real Copies - This has been something I've toyed with for quite some time, I may look at doing this once the game is out of early access but I'd love to properly release a limited run Warsim special edition boxed version, It would come with a steam copy, a disked version of the game, and a bunch of limited edition Warsim goodies at a reasonable price

Here are some concept copies:





* Patreon - I'm currently against this as I don't see what I could possibly offer but the thought has crossed my mind, I thought at one point of doing something similar to Toady of Dwarf fortress and sending Warsim concept notes and little sketches as a thank you for donations.


Unlike a lot of bigger studios, there's no PR firm or marketing department, just me

Hello!



My experience marketing video games has come mainly from trial and error but the gist of my experience is that the more people know about it, the more people are likely to play it. I have thus sent 100s of emails to youtubers, streamers, gaming media, blogs and so on with relative success. I have also tried my hand at writing interesting articles about the development of the game and some of its features.

A mix of steam sales, articles, and youtube coverage have been responsible for the bigger jumps in sales and new players but again this is just from my limited attempts at marketing. I've generally avoided massive youtubers as they are very hard to actually get through to, though large youtuber coverage virtually guarentees a giant jump in new players.

So, to the chase and the main point of this, just as I am open to suggestions about the game itself I am absolutely open to any suggestions about increasing Warsim's range online, please PM or comment if you have any ideas or if:

* You have any ideas at all for getting the game more visible
* You know of any youtubers/streamers who would be interested in Warsim
* You know of any websites/forums that would be good to post Warsim on
* You are a youtuber/streamer/blogger who would like to cover the game
* You have any criticisms of the store page and can think of better ways to word the descriptions of the game
* You can think of any aspects of Warsim and it's community areas that could be improved (aside from the trailer because I already know its terrible)
* You have any ideas at all that could help, I am open and I want to hear them

So that's pretty much it, While I working on the Combat update I wanted to address and figure out my plans for moving Warsim forward and here we are, and genuinely there are no stupid ideas, I've spoken to 100s of people in the Warsim community over the years, through reddit and steam comments, pms, twitter threads, discord, emails and so on and have already had so much helpful feedback that has already meant the world to me.

Thank you all for reading this, This will be posted on all of the major Warsim community areas: The Steam page, the Subreddit, the Discord server, our Audiogames.net thread and on Itch.io

All the best

Huw Millward