Warsim: The Realm of Aslona News

I've been slower than I'd like putting this one out, but it comes with a bunch of little changes and additions!

I've taken into account some player feedback on necromancy, and the player made suggestion to be able to rename staff as well as some other stuff to continue to pad this big ole' game out even more!

[h3]RENAME STAFF (7 features)[/h3]

It's been requested so now it's in the game baby!

* Added ability to change Diplomats name (credit u/nbeguier)
* Added ability to change Spymaster name (credit u/nbeguier)
* Added ability to change Jester name (credit u/nbeguier)
* Added ability to change General name (credit u/nbeguier)
* Added ability to change Steward name (credit u/nbeguier)
* Added ability to change gamemaster name (credit u/nbeguier)
* Added ability to change court bard name (credit u/nbeguier)



[h3]BANK CHATTER (2 features)[/h3]

Just some extra stuff you can do in the royal bank!

* Added ability to talk to a bank teller
* Added ability to speak to a guard about the royal bank force

[h3]NECROMANCY CONSEQUENCE EXPANSION (3 features)[/h3]

Ah necromancy, the sinkhole of feature-creep and balancing issues still not yet solved!

* Added ability to challenge necromancer thief
* Added ability to let necromancer thief go free
* Added ability to accept barter offer from necromancer











[h3]TAX TROUBLES THRONE ROOM PACK (5 features)[/h3]

A little pack of 5 new throne room events!

* Added hovel vs house tax throne room encounter
* Added man in the stinky hole taxed throne room encounter
* Added robbed animals tax throne room encounter
* Added suspcious tax collector throne room encounter
* Added taxed for 2 pigs throne room encounter



[h3]BUGFIXES (4 bug fixes)[/h3]

As always thank you to the legends who report these all the time, I hate seeing them but I love fixin' em

* Fixed Terraton arena not allowing any tournaments (credit Sophia the Golden Touched)
* Fixed ability to raise undead to negative levels
* Fixed necro option text bug (credit Mini Paceed)
* Fixed exiting custom mode starts a quickgame (credit Alcubierre)

If you have any thoughts comments or encouragement leave a comment, I try to always reply! Also check out our discord which is constantly active and has become the defacto hub for Warsim's community these days! Link here - https://discord.gg/YyFAkry98w

Thank you all very much!

Huw

Hello everyone!

As of March 4th just gone, Warsim finally turned 9 (well technically, Mar 4th 2015 was the first mention on the internet of Warsim, and I honestly don't remember when exactly I began before that)

I've written this article to celebrate this awesome milestone and we've got a little update coming out soon after hopefully!



This is a screenshot of Warsim's first mention on the internet, by 2015 me showing off my random little demo project to absolutely no one.

I had no plans or ambitions for it, it was just a cool little thing I was messing around with. If I'd known back then that it would evolve into my fulltime job for years and I'd still be coding in it 9 years on I'd have laughed and said 'SURE'.

[h2]Warsim's Beginning and it's Awesome Community[/h2]

It started as an experiment to learn coding, and I ended up getting extremely carried away and just kept adding to it and expanding to it. I think anyone who scrolls through the dev logs for the last few years and actually manages to make it will agree with me that Warsim is featurecreep the game.

As soon as people started leaving comments and playing it I was hooked. I loved this feeling and I still do which Is why I've tried my best to reply to every comment the game has ever had!

After a few years on reddit and getting lots of awesome feedback, Warsim, which at the time was available for free on itch.io, ended up on steam late 2017. This was a turning point for me and I remember worrying I was being scummy charging for it, especially given It had been a free project for so long.

The community response at the time was really supportive and when the game finally hit steam it was wild seeing people buying copies of it everyday.

Over the years and with a lot of work it grew and grew and so many awesome people stopped along the way to support the development in some form or another.

You guys rock, and I've scrapbooked together some of my favourite comments from over the years

A collage I made a few years ago

And a recent batch of dev fuel

I am not joking when I say these kinds of comments and reviews over the years have brought literal tears to my eyes many a time. It's the greatest fuel I've ever seen so I owe a great thanks to the tens of thousands of you that have been commenting over the years
[h2]Warsim's Codebase[/h2]

Built in C++ and written from it's very first line to it's 600 thousandth, It has become an absolute behemoth that I'd wager is among some of the biggest functional video game single file codebases on earth (mostly cause no one else would be so stupid)

Warsim is a big old beast, and so adding and expanding to it is a tough task sometimes, but I've managed it all these years so far!



As you can see the codebase is massive, which also led to the biggest moment of Warsim's history so far, I shared a post on r/programminghumor talking about how bad the codebase is and lots of people reacted and ended up checking out Warsim causing a gigantic spike in 2022 which was probably the greatest day of my gamedev career so far haha.

Who knows what lays around the corner though right?... Right?

[h2]Warsim over the years[/h2]

Warsim though originally a test project back in 2015, didn't make it's way onto steam until 2017, after which over 176 updates were released! I've managed to get some cool stats on Warsim and it's development, and my lovely girlfriend trawled through all 176 updates to manually count up the features and bugs for this report!

[h3]FEATURES BY YEAR[/h3]

• 2017 - 729 Features (+343 bugs fixed)
  
• 2018 - 3267 features (+450 bugs fixed)
  
• 2019 - 3204 features (+1397 bugs fixed)
  
• 2020 - 4624 features (+746 bugs fixed)
  
• 2021 - 2594 features (+1106 bugs fixed)
  
• 2022 - 1670 features (+95 bugs fixed)
  
• 2023 - 553 features (+89 bugs fixed)
  

Absolutely insane list, you can see where I was going nuclear in the warsim code for a few years haha!

In total since steam release until last year I added 16641 new features to Warsim and fixed 4226 bugs, so thank you for all those many many many many bug reports over the years guys! The worst thing is as great as it is to fix all those bugs I created them too lmao!

[h3]UPDATES PER YEAR[/h3]

• 2017 - 13 Updates (though I joined steam late 2017 so this doesn't include the updates posted on reddit)
  
• 2018 - 29 Updates (picked up steam after giving it a break for a while, revitalised this is when Warsim become a fulltime job)
  
• 2019 - 53 Updates (I was obsessed with Warsim and it's development at this point, I'm pretty sure during this I did two develop-a-thons where I released a decently sized game update every single day for a full week... I thought it would be hard but it was harder than I thought)
  
• 2020 - 42 Updates (The pandemic I kept plugging away and putting my heart and soul into it)
  
• 2021 - 21 Updates (This was a deceptively busy year too with some massive updates including the long awaited combat update) (Also kind of mad 21 updates in 2021)
  
• 2022 - 7 Updates (2022 was a hectic and tough year for me and I'm surprised there were as many as 7 updates haha)
  
• 2023 - 10 Updates (The push to full release finally)
  

[h3]WISHLISTS AND COPIES SOLD[/h3]

Some stats of Warsim's copies sold and wishlists on steam over the years. It's interesting to see this stuff because even as a dev that sees these charts all the time I never know what it's going to do or what tomorrow holds, it's incredible that this many copies have been sold and over the years, to all of you who are part of that I appreciate you!



[h3]The Raw Stats[/h3]

• 2017 - 6370 Copies sold (+1298 wishlists)
  
• 2018 - 3163 Copies sold (+1231 wishlists)
  
• 2019 - 6695 Copies sold (+2532 wishlists)
  
• 2020 - 8072 Copies sold (+2600 wishlists)
  
• 2021 - 6871 Copies sold (+1652 wishlists)
  
• 2022 - 27592 Copies sold (+8834 wishlists)
  
• 2023 - 14486 Copies sold (5772 wishlists)
  

And also while scouring for stats on Warsim for this article, I found this! Now I don't know how many of those are the same people but that is more than 10 times the population of my country... Mindblown



[h2]My favourite updates from over the years![/h2]

It's a really tough one to choose a favourite update over the course of 9 years and 176 total updates in that time, especially when some of them had 100s and one time even 1000+ things in them, but I did it in the fairest manner possible, a tournament!



And after four rounds, this was the final result. Ultimately my favourite update is the one that took the game from 300k races to 50+ million and made it essentially infinite! Still makes me happy thinking about how exciting this was when it first came out and all these wild races first started getting spat out into the game. Bliss!

I've played 1000s of hours of Warsim but I still cannot predict or prepare for the random races that get spat out, and there are still some that surprise me.

[h3]Honorable Mentions to:[/h3]

• The Overwhelmingly Positive Update - This was such a fantasitc milestone and one of the happiest moments in my gamedev career, having a game with such a high rating when the game finally hit 500+ reviews at that level. As a result this update contained 500 features and fixes, including the Gnome Casino! That's right this is the update where that wild place came from and I now literally have it's mayor tattooed on my arm for life haha.
  
• Warsim's Not Dead Update - Made in 2018 when I came back from a backpacking trip for a month and Warsim had been decaying and I wasn't sure what I was doing. This update was a rallying call to myself to work on warsim professionally and it was at this point where I really started putting the work in fulltime
  
• The Lands Beyond Update - A fairly recent one but such a fantasitc addition, the adding of a shit ton of unpredictable locations, a personal favourite to me because like the race generator this is stuff that even I as the dev can't so easily predict, which keeps things fresh and enjoyable even after 9 years and 1000s of hours
  
• The Arena Remastered Update - This overhauled the arena into something way more fun, and as an avid arena fan that's already a big plus, but on the other side of it as the dev, this was a super fun update to make, making the announcer sound effects for the arena and pitchshifting them had me cackling on the floor when I first experienced them in game.
  
• Community Content Update - This was an update adding a bunch of community suggested content, with more than 1000 additions this literally broke steams announcement system and I had to split it up into three of these announcements, for that alone I love it. It was also lovely to have so many people take part and submit their ideas in such a short period of time to make this. I did this over my birthday during the first lockdowns in Covid and it made my birthday way brighter at the time!
  
• Let the People Drink - This update was awesome, a player suggested the ability to drink in taverns so I thought, why not and added it. Since then it's become an area of Warsim I enjoy and that was expanded way more!
  
• Early Access Release - More for the sentimentality, but the update also brought the dunelands and lots of other nice features, but mainly getting the game 'finished' and all the loose ends complete after so many years was a really nice achievement!
  
• The AI made this update - This was super fun, I spent my time throwing heaps of content from warsim into AI tools and having them crunch out weird and interesting additions and variations. It also saw the addition of some really terrible jokes to a brain damaged gnome. 921 features total in this one!
  
• Combat Update Alpha - This update was so long in the making it is painful to think back, I felt tormented by this update, it was such a huge undertaking for so many reasons, took me years in the background while working on other warsim updates and finally throwing myself into it and trying to smash through it still took me months of crunch, but damn it the update came and went and made the game better.
  

[h2]The future of Warsim[/h2]

This is something that I've over the years gotten wrong trying to guess, because being honest I never saw myself working on this game for 9 years, but now I can't truly see myself ever completely putting it away. I mean it's on my body for life now...



But in all seriousness if I locked myself in a room and vowed only to work on Warsim til the end of my days I'd still have 1000s of things to expand and add to it by the time I hit 100 years old. My Warsim to do list is currently over 2000 features long and a constant wave after wave of new bright minds leaving comments with their ideas and thoughts ensures that list isn't shrinking.

I'm currently split between working on my new game project, writing and playing music with my band, and coding and working on Warsim stuff and by god is it tough to manage at times, but hey it's a lot of different dreams all at once so I can't complain.

To you folks who've supported the game in any capacity, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You guys have allowed me to live full time on an ascii game that runs out of windows CMD in 2024 hahaha, I don't know who's madder, you guys or me!

This 9 years Warsim has been a growing hope in my life and it's given me access to opportunities and beauty that my life would have been devoid of if I'd not spent the time with it. Everyone who ever bought a copy of Warsim made it all possible so thank you guys! And no to those asking, I will NEVER do Warsim DLC :)

I don't want to paygate people from more Warsim related fun, all updates for life will be free always, here's to many more good years!

Much love,

Huw

Hey guys, so I've been busier these last few months that usual and I can finally share why!

For years now I have been working on Warsim fulltime but finally a few months ago I began the process of working on another game project which I'm super excited for but wont be officially announcing for quite some time (I want to have something awesome to show for it before I bring it to light)

Alongside that I have been actively practicing with my mates and formed a punk band and we played our first ever gig a few weeks back and another since, been a wild experience so far!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjPOMdgb1uE

So inbetween the new game, the band, and general life stuff I've not been the most on it with Warsim that I have the last few years but that never means that Warsim is forgotten, case and point this update and many more like it! I will never not be indebted to the Warsim community for the support in life it has given me for more than half a decade now :)

So on to the update and it's a juicy one, we've got a new god tier upgrade to the Arena, a new public opinion loss system from battle, new necromancy events, a few new encounters and bug fixes, and finally 4 new challenge modes!!

[h3]CHALLENGE MODE (5 features)[/h3]

The crowning feature of the update imo, a whole heap of new game starts. Warsim a little too easy? Have a crack at these new challenges! I will personally definitely be using the Empire challenge and Deatheater ones for a bit of fun, the races that occupy the deatheater kingdoms are still random so the results will be interesting.

* Added new challenge mode screen on main menu
* Added Empire challenge mode (All rival factions are significantly bigger than default)
* Added 2 year challenge mode (Play the game for 2 years)
* Added Deatheater challenge (All kingdoms are deatheaters)
* Added Deatheater empire challenge (All kingdoms are empires of deatheaters)



[h3]TERRATON ARENA (8 features)[/h3]

If you own the colossal arena and have a terraton of gold spare, you can now upgrade the arena to something even grander than before and with it among a whole host of benefits is the ability to run your own custom fights between any units you want!

* Added ability to upgrade Arena to Terraton Arena
* Added 100 total fights per year to terraton Arena
* Added +100k visitor cap to terraton Arena
* Added ability to host custom fights in terraton arena
* Added custom fighter category with 9 default units
* Added custom fighter categories for all 5 indie kingdoms
* Added custom fighter category for all merc groups and leaders
* Added custom fighter category for custom units of your choice









[h3]PUBLIC OPINON BATTLE LOSS SYSTEM (11 features)[/h3]

A great suggestion by Warsim community legend TJ, Now after any battle you partake in you gain or lose public opinion dynamically depending on the outcome, so a series of bad losses can be all it takes to ruin your reputation, but a series of victories can improve the reputation of any unloved ruler!

* Added public opinion loss of 1 for losing to an army bigger than you (credit TJtheSoundBoard)
* Added public opinion loss of 2 for losing to an army the same size as you (credit TJtheSoundBoard)
* Added public opinion loss of 3 for losing to an army smaller than you (credit TJtheSoundBoard)
* Added bonus public op loss of 1 if over 1000 of your troops were killed (credit TJtheSoundBoard)
* Added bonus public op loss of 2 if over 2500 of your troops were killed (credit TJtheSoundBoard)
* Added bonus public op loss of 3 if over 5000 of your troops were killed (credit TJtheSoundBoard)
* Added bonus public op loss of 4 if over 10000 of your troops were killed (credit TJtheSoundBoard)
* Added bonus public op loss of 5 if over 25000 of your troops were killed (credit TJtheSoundBoard)
* Added public opinion gain of 1 for beating a smaller army (credit TJtheSoundBoard)
* Added public opinion gain of 2 for beating an equal army (credit TJtheSoundBoard)
* Added public opinion gain of 4 for beating a larger army (credit TJtheSoundBoard)





[h3]NECROQUENCES (10 features)[/h3]

Necromancy is still insanely powerful so I've added a few more debuffs in the form of random events!

* Added necro consequence event system (extremely likely with 1mill or more undead, scaling down 500k, 100k, 50k, 25k, 10k, 5k, 2.5k each getting less and less likely)
* Added chance of a loose band of random peasants revolting against your undead (50-550)
* Added chance of warband of random peasants revolting against your undead (550-3050)
* Added chance of scaled army of random peasants revolting against your undead (scaled similarly to your total undead)
* Added ability to tell peasant armies to stand down or die (30/70 success/fail odds)
* Added ability to accept peasant demands and wipe out your undead for public opinion gain
* Added ability to fight peasants immediately upon confrontation
* Added chance of wily necromancer stealing 5% of your undead
* Added chance of cunning necromancer stealing 20% of your undead
* Added chance of arch-necromancer stealing all of your undead







[h3]EGGYMOUNTAIN SURPRISE (2 features)[/h3]

At the top of some proc gen mountains in the lands beyond you may now find an eggy surprise

* Added cracked eggs mountain top discovery (credit LXI)
* Added golden eggs mountain top discovery (credit LXI)

[h3]BUGFIXES (9 bug fixes)[/h3]

As always thank you to the legends who report these all the time, I hate seeing them but I love fixin' em

* Fixed 7 text bugs with goblin fluent human bet (credit Carcassone)
* Fixed Zeefs screen kick bug (credit Clyax)
* Fixed join your text bug in bandit rising encounter (credit Vordan)
* Fixed Bippy Booble text bug (Credit Crabboh)
* Fixed Tispy Tweet text bug (Credit Crabboh)
* Fixed Goblinwood Ogre text bug (Credit Crabboh)
* Fixed Maze Vampire text bug (Credit Crabboh)
* Fixed Blackmarket leader text bug (Credit Crabboh)
* Fixed error in 6 instances of Willy willy wonder king book (Credit Crabboh)

If you have any thoughts comments or encouragement leave a comment, I try to always reply! Also check out our discord which is constantly active and has become the defacto hub for Warsim's community these days! Link here - https://discord.gg/YyFAkry98w

Thank you all very much!

Huw

A few hours til christmas and I've been tinkering with this update all day, thought I'd put it out as a final bit of Warsim for this year! Thank you guys for the constant love
[h3]CALL OF MERCS (8 features)[/h3]

You can roll new merc groups in the debug menu and it's fun, but having the ability to do it in game would be better. You can do it every turn which does mean that in 1 turn you could use up more than one set of mercs.

* Added ability to call for new mercs for 500 gold
* Added ability to call for regional new mercs for 2500 gold
* Added ability to call for new mercs from beyond borders for 5000 gold
* Added ability to call for new mercs from far beyond borders for 10000 gold
* Added ability to call for new mercs from overseas for 25000 gold
* Added ability to call for new mercs from all corners for 50000 gold
* Merc call cools down 1 level per turn, so maxing it out will take 5 turns to return to the cheapest level of 500 gold
* Added system to preserve any hired merc groups from being replaced which also means you can't call for new mercs if all 5 current groups are hired







[h3]WARSIM HISTORY (3 features)[/h3]

After seeing a comment of someones love for the extras menu, I thought I'd give it a bit more love myself! :)

* Added new section to extras menu for Warsim history
* Added ability to read the story of warsims origins
* Added ability to read about Warsim's global reach



[h3]BUGFIXES (5 bug fixes)[/h3]

As always thank you to the legends who report these all the time, I hate seeing them but I love fixin' em

* Fixed grand champion retiring to join the rebels not showing properly 'Heroname (Wins 3) ( in 165)' (credit NotFox)
* Fixed grand champion retiring not showing properly - showing as 'Heroname (Wins 3) ( in 165)' (credit NotFox)
* Fixed ancient plague keeps reporting the final years deaths even when the plague is over (credit Mini Paceed)
* Fixed terraton once being idle one time never being overrideable again
* Fixed text bug in gnome carousel gold quantity (credit Ankr098)

Have a lovely christmas and take care of yourselves :)

Thank you all very much!

Huw

First I love that so many people love this game too, it's been so fun to indulge in development with you guys. Here's another update I've been working on and am happy to put out!

Also, sidenote I've been on a bit of a tattoo kick lately and one that I've been wanting for a while is finally done! IT'S BONGLES THE GREAT, Leader of the cave gnome village... What do you guys think? :) I can't imagine I'll regret it



[h3]GRIMBEES WONDERLAND (10 features)[/h3]

You've all been asking for it, and now it's here! CAVE GNOME DISNEYLA- I mean... Uh, generic theme park.

* Added new location in cave gnome village 'Grimbees Wonderland'
* Added ability to pay 25 gold fee to enter Grimbees
* Added Grimbee's Helpdesk helper gnome (5 dialogues)
* Added Grimbee's Water Hole Tavern (can drink, try to talk to bartender, speak to random gnome)
* Added ability to ride Gnome Carousel (cost 10 gold)
* Added ability to talk to the Big Gnome (5 dialogues)
* Added ability to speak to Grimbee (9 dialogues)
* Added ability to touch Grimbee's Nib
* Added ability to toss a coin at Boopy the Coin Guzzler (1 gold per try)
* Added ability to Watch the Grimbee Goblin Sing (whole song with lyrics!)









[h3]DIFFICULTY SCREEN IMPROVEMENTS[/h3]

Good suggestion that definitely makes things clearer!

* Added new difficulty screen layout showing starting resources (can be reverted) (credit u/wejustsuck)



[h3]CHEEKY BREW (1 feature)[/h3]

I added this in passing... Not much thought here other than, why not!

* Added the ability to slurp a free drink from the gnome brewery in the cave gnome village





[h3]WARDEMON HORDE (1 feature)[/h3]

Having a little look at the unique merc group code and realised I could easily add a stronger variant of the demon warband group that can spawn, this one is usually much stronger! Say hello to the Demonic Warhorde, if one of these pops up in your world your enemies will shiver in fear!

* Added rare 1 in 100 merc group 'DEMON WARHORDE' if there are more than 750 demons in the horde (led by rng Wardemon Summoner)

[h3]FIRST CHAMP DEMOTION (1 feature)[/h3]

Requested and added, now if you want to free up the first champion slot for someone better without firing the current occupant, you can!



* Added ability to demote first champion if other slots are free (credit LXI)

[h3]STRENGTH SHRINE EXPANSION (8 features)[/h3]

Someone reported a bug for strength shrines being able to be infinitely used, and while fixing it I decided to expand the default successful prayer into 7 different possible events that can pop up, the original, 2 new fail chances, and a +1, +2, +5, and +15 battlescore boost event!

* Fixed infinite strength shrine praying bug (credit Robepriority)
* Added new screen for praying more than once at strength shrine
* Added unsuccessful shrine pray at strength shrine
* Added sickness event praying at strength shrine
* Added wave of power strength shrine event (+2 battlescore)
* Added sharp shiver strength shrine event (+5 battlescore)
* Added explosion strength shrine event (+15 battlescore)
* Added light pinch strength shrine event (+1 battlescore)



[h3]BUGFIXES (7 bug fixes)[/h3]

As always thank you to the legends who report these all the time, I hate seeing them but I love fixin' em

* Fixed Huntsman's rest text bug (credit Minipaceed)
* Fixed issue with denland text (credit Minipaceed)
* Fixed an issue with western history question 10 (credit Minipaceed)
* Fixed an issue with east history text (credit Minipaceed)
* Fixed Death text bug when playing biggleroll (Credit Fenrir)
* Fixed sudden death with liches with southern rules using 3 die instead of 1(credit mini Paceed)
* Fixed sudden death with southern rules player using 3 die instead of 1 (credit mini Paceed)

If you have any thoughts comments or encouragement leave a comment, I try to always reply! Also check out our discord which is constantly active and has become the defacto hub for Warsim's community these days! Link here - https://discord.gg/YyFAkry98w

Thank you all very much!

Huw