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4X Aggressors: Ancient Rome - 4X with "incredibly deep combat" and detailed management

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Aggressors: Ancient Rome is a new 4x strategy game developed by Kubat Software. It is currently into beta (click here to apply) and we recently started to publish dev diaries about it. We want to provide as much as information about the game as possible since it is a deep game and many of its mechanics work subtly underneath the surface.

Today we decided to highlight five specific features of the game, facts that all strategy players should find really interesting!

1-You-can-rewatch-the-history-of-your-empire-at-any-time.jpg


In Aggressors you can decide to rewatch the full history of your empire at any time you want. You can't imagine how satisfying it is to conquer Italy as Carthage and rewatching it, savouring your triumph!

2-Aggressors-can-display-a-wide-range-of-statistics.jpg


The game displays all sorts of useful stats and info in very handy ledgers and graphs, so you can take educated strategic decisions.

3-There-is-a-full-in-game-editor-that-lets-you-build-your-own-world.jpg


The in-game editor lets you create and customize your own world. You have complete freedom!

4-You-can-play-as-any-civilization-of-the-ancient-Mediterranean.jpg


You are not restricted to play as Rome, or as a major Empire. You can decide to play as a minor tribe, and get a completely different gameplay experience!

5-You-can-look-back-at-the-history-of-each-of-your-units.jpg


Not only you can rewatch the history of your units at any time, and know what battles they fought, where and how they fared, but their personal history deeply affects their effectiveness in specific circumstances!
 
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Dev Diary #3 – Diplomacy said:
Diplomacy makes strategy games feel alive. No matter how many barbarian hordes invade your borders nor how cunning their attacks are, without a leader who you can talk with to negotiate a potential ceasefire the enemy simply does not feel real.

We wanted to make Aggressors feel realistic, so we tried to bring some "life" into diplomacy. Interactions with an AI cannot replace the nuances of a communication between two human players, but if you give the AI a number of tools that it can use whilst following its own goals then the interaction suddenly feels much more real.

If we look at the diplomatic possibilities in the real world, we see that some countries forge military alliances to protect their interests, other states look for "business partners" to avoid trade barriers, and yet other nations cooperate on intelligence. In short, the forms of these partnerships can be quite unique and they cannot be simply labeled by one or two words like "vassal" or "ally".With this in mind we started to design our own concept of diplomacy.

Diplomacy was for us an extremely important feature right from the start and work on it never stopped. The concept has been modified and expanded throughout the whole development of the game and the possibilities and range of diplomatic actions were greatly expanded over time. We also paid a great deal of attention to historical sources and compared them with our design and the behavior of the AI. The game should follow historical reality as much as possible and therefore mutual relations of individual states were carefully reviewed and adjusted.

There are now 11 types of bilateral agreements called treaties that work independently of each other. These include simple ones such as tile, city or unit visibility or more complex ones such as map exchange, support in supplying your ally’s units or agreement to let foreign traders through your sovereign territory. Each of these treaties can stand on its own or be combined with others which allows both the AI and the human players to create unique relationships with every opponent.

A clever combination of treaties can have numerous benefits. For example, if you want to invade lands that do not directly border your country you can sign a map exchange and shared supply agreement with the country you would need to cross with your armies. This way you will acquire information about the lands and terrains you need to cross and will be able to prepare your units in advance. The shared supply agreement will ensure that you don’t need to spend time and resources on maintaining long and vulnerable supply lines but you can use the hospitality of a friendly state instead.

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Two of these treaties offer a real military and political alliance - Defense pact and a pact called "Brothers in arms". This is far more complicated than a simple agreement that allows foreign units through your country. These two alliances are a pledge that you will stand by each other's sides in defense of your lands as well as in offensive military campaigns. Such alliances can have a profound impact on your foreign policy and the position your empire holds on the global stage.

Treaties and alliances allow states to enter into a number of agreements that suit their current needs and to create very unique and pragmatic connections that can further strengthen their mutual bonds. Most importantly, such agreements are forged between AI players as well, as they also follow their own interests and plans.

Historical sources also inspired another important diplomatic feature - the possibility to merge two or more states. There are 3 options:

Confederation– union created on the diplomatic level where both states follow the same foreign policy but each maintains control over his own army and economy.

Federation– union based on sharing the same foreign policy, military and economy where one state is always a “leader” and the other a “member”.

The quantity of factors the AI player examines when entering into such a union or when considering remaining in one is quite long. Starting from the happiness of citizens and history of mutual relations, through the power of the army, successful military campaigns and territorial gains to abundance of resources and general development of the state infrastructure. Both of these unions can be revoked by either side after which both states regain their independence within the same limits as they were before merging. Therefore, when you misuse the trust of your partner by exploiting his resources, units or citizens to your own goals, friendly cooperation can soon turn into a sour experience with long-lasting consequences.

Absorption– union when one state effectively takes control over another state based on a voluntary mutual decision. This type of union is irrevocable.

2.png


All these features would be useless without an AI that knows how to use these tools to its own advantage and which can react logically and promptly to the actions of other players. In Aggressors you must keep in mind that every action can affect your foreign relations. Signing an agreement does not mean that your back is covered for good. Relations keep developing according to events and personal experiences. Even if the consequences are not immediate or substantial, there might be a slow deteriorating attitude of the other players towards you, and you might suddenly face a situation when you look to friends for help and you get only a wall of silence and rejection in response.

A minor border incident and a painstakingly built peace is shattered, and trust is ruined for decades. On the other hand, friendly gestures and actions can instigate mutual loyalties and trust that can forge strong and lasting bonds.

The attitude of one player towards another is determined by a range of factors. Starting from the philosophy of a 'friend of a friend is my friend' (which applies for enemies, too), through mutually beneficial lasting trade deals, to natural ‘meekness’ or ‘die-hardism’ of some nations.

Deliberate hostile actions (even small ones) resonate through the web of foreign relations and could leave a bad taste in the mouth of other players for a long time. For example, using piracy to steal from your enemies naturally deteriorates already bad relations. Cowardly declaring war to a friendly state by cancelling all agreements and treaties and marching your armies right away into attack is like a warning finger for other states that maintain friendly relations with you. Their trust will be shaken and they will be wary of any proposals coming from you. Similarly, the use of ‘dirty tactics’ such as city sieges when you deliberately leave the people to starve until death or surrender, are considered dishonourable actions.

On the other hand, even gestures that appear friendly on first look, such as negotiating peace after a long war, might not lead to positive results. For example, forcing another state into submission in this way might give you the false certainty that the situation has been contained but in reality, the enslaved nation will nourish their feeling of injustice and when the time is ripe they might hit back with a destructive force.

Diplomacy often mirrors the personality of the sovereign ruler and we wanted to reflect this in the game. We tried to give the nations in the campaign map a "personality" based on historical facts. The personality for example includes natural aggressiveness, which makes the AI courageous and willing to go into risky military campaigns (Pyrrhus of Epirus was a great example).

Another “trait” might be the willingness to join forces and fate with another country. This behavior has two levels – global, which means that the people in general do not have a strong national feeling and seek a strong protector, and player-to-player level which only affects particular relations (e.g. Massilia was an ally and trading partner of Roman Empire and it was opened to many proposals from the Romans, but not so much with Carthage, Rome’s arch-enemy).

The campaign's initial setup also tries to simulate historical relations between states. Whichever nation you choose to lead you will need only couple of turns to realize who your friends are and who are potential threats. The rolling ball of historical events will suck you into action right from the start.

Let's talk about some more historical aspects of the campaign map in one of our next dev diaries.
 
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Modding said:
As a young player I was always browsing game files trying to find a way to change them. It was partially curiosity and partially a wish to modify the rules to my own liking, because no matter how great a game is, there is always something you want to tweak or adjust.

The option of modding was part of the game design from the very beginning as I wanted to give the players the opportunity to create the Aggressors realm with me in an easy and user-friendly way. Over time, the idea was brought even further – I decided to create a framework for strategy games of different worlds and historical eras.



Today, Aggressors allows you to change pretty much anything you want – everything is in an editable, and hopefully self-explanatory, format on both levels – scenario (or game) level and mod level.

To give a taste of all the options you have, you can create your own maps with units, roads, rivers and players (with all related attributes like personalities, relations, development advance), random events, objectives, winning conditions, unit names, etc. Most of these things can be easily edited directly in the In-game editor.

Once you get into it you might want to try to create your own mod.

You can start gently with changing scalar values like defense or attack power of units, defining your own technologies and invention tree, adding your own music, defining your own game resource types or government types.

If you wish to go deeper, you can continue with more advanced stuff like defining your own unit types, adding animals onto the map or creating your own terrain types.

Expert modders can use scripts to change the behavior of unit types, terrain extensions, unit improvements, random events or even create their own unique objectives, winning conditions and actions which units can perform!

Those who want to push it to the limit can even create their own AI algorithms. All this is available in today’s most accessible programming language C# (and the whole .NET Framework base).

I didn’t expect that modding features would get much attention at the beginning. Of course, we hoped that once a small community gathered around the game, players would try to make use of the tools to modify the game to their liking. We were really surprised when one of the testers jumped directly into the modding tools during the beta test and he is on the way to create an extremely detailed and very well-made scenario (and his own mod) about Holland at the turn of the millennia. We think that his opinion and view might be of great interest to all of the players like him and so we partially lifted the NDA and asked him to share his own experiences here.



Hi there, my name is Jean-Marc (aka Cablenexus on forums and Steam). A few months ago, I was invited to the beta for Aggressors.

The “beta” part soon turned into a “Want to play” part. The game was very polished, we had a small but very dedicated team of testers and the developer was active in the forums almost 24/7.

It soon became clear that this game is a gem in the making. Since I'm in beta and under NDA I can't speak much about the game itself yet, but WOW, it's really amazing.

As a 4x strategy addict I have played every game in the genre at least once. Of course, I have my favorites, but many date from years ago. I can barely remember the time I was having such a fun time with any game as I had with Aggressors the last few weeks.

What makes the game really unique and I hope I may say this, is the mid-game and end-game experience that is working as a kind of adaptive algorithm that continuously surprises the player with new content and choices at any moment in the game. Not randomly but reacting to the way you developed your nation and by taking into account every choice you make and made in the past. The game is not getting stale after 400 turns. Actually, that is where it starts to shine.

I participate in smaller game projects now and then with my artwork and so it was a logic step I start to experiment with the scenario editor tools provided. There was no plan to make a real MOD yet, but just a scenario to see if the editor was user friendly and to hunt for bugs. It was my main duty to test after all.

Pavel, the creator and main developer, opted for a Holland scenario since I'm Dutch and so I thought it was a nice idea to experiment with it and stress test the editor tools.

4.png


I searched some books and the Internet for ancient maps of Holland to find as much information about that era as possible. Pavel gave me the option to use their internal tool which makes a map from a bitmap. In short, every tile in game is the same as a single pixel in any (free) image editor tools. This tool is not available yet for public usage but I hope it will be released with the game as well.

I'm used to Paint.net to create the bitmap, but there are some free alternatives like Gimp. So, I painted my Holland map in a simple 89 x 89-pixel image (which in game turns into a huge 7.921 tile map) and I was able to use it in game as a layout for my real map.



Since there are 10 different terrain types (but you can MOD them) available you need to spend some time to edit the tiles to your liking and to represent the real-world terrain situation. If you paint your pixel map in ten colors it takes the right terrain automatically. But you can edit every tile to your liking in the scenario editor itself. After this you can add rivers, roads, bridges, resources and settlements. If you want you can assign ownership and even territory to all tribes.



Since I decided to start my scenario in Holland in 50 BC, the times of the Roman occupation of the Rhyne (Rhenus) area, much of the map in the North existed of sandy water terrain that was directly linked with the North Sea (Mare Frisicum). I choose to use swamp tiles here since the Frisii, the original habitants of the North of Holland in 50 BC, learned to drain them and make use of them in the real world.

The Frisii built “terps” (small hills) on the swamp terrain to survive and their core business was dealing in cow hides so I also added cows to the game as new animals running around the map. With only some minor help from the developer, who was constantly pushing fixes and new features into the game, I was able to add 16 custom tribes in the next few days, add over 300 historical settlement names and reconstruct the full Limes (line of defense around Rhenus) of the Roman Empire with historical accurate fort and army names.

Another 200 fixed names I added to the map to setup the scenario. All kind of names that I found in real world documents and archived in the Peutinger Atlas representing the exact coordinates on the map. And now I started setting up the scenario proper.

11.png


Since the game is originally based on a board game developed by Pavel, you have to imagine that every one of the 7000 tiles has a function. The terrain, the placement of rivers, the towns, the resources. Everything can be easily setup in the editor and the more advanced editor can change parameters in XML documents editable in applications like notepad++.

I'm not a real modder and never made a single scenario in any other game before, except for myself but I share the passion for board games with the maker.

But in Aggressors I was able to setup the exact scenario I wanted to have in the simplest way I ever experienced. All this without any major issues in beta when I was populating my world with hundreds of custom settlements and units and in the night played my own map for a few hours to make it to turn 50.

All Kingdom and Tribe banners and their coats of arms are easy to edit in any paint tool, the parameters and names can easily be edited in a text editor. There is no need for actual scripting to achieve what you want, but if you feel the need for it you have all the freedom to do so.

It is all has to do with the way the game works. Everything in game is based on logic. If you set up the parameters for a scenario, the AI players adapt to their role easily. That means that if you build a few Roman cities next to a coastline, the Roman AI start to make use of this by building the important roads between their cities and resources just like they did in history.

Everything is possible to setup in an easy way. The war/peace (diplomatic) standings between tribes, the starting resources, towns and units etc. but even more advanced parameters like future relationships, loyalty and morale.

I’ve never found a game that lets you setup a scenario in such detail whilst at the same time being so simple to use that it is accessible for everyone who can use a simple paint tool.

I will now start fine tuning the scenario by giving the armies the right parameters, adding army names, adding morale, loyalty settings to settlements and units and strategically placing rivers and bridges. Eventually I will add special triggered objectives for certain events that took place at certain dates like the Batavi uprising or revolt and the war against the two smaller tribes South of the Rhyne named the Usipetes and the Tencteri.

It is possible to play with every tribe at scenario start and because of the diplomatic standings between tribes the game can be played in many different ways.

There will be a What if scenario for every tribe. I still haven’t finished the scenario and mod, having a TODO list for the next days. There is a lot of work that still needs to be done, but as I was invited to write down my experience with the game creation tools so far. I'm very enthusiastic about it.

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The amount of detail offered in the game without being utterly complicated is impossible to mention in one scenario creation log. I can only say that you have to try it yourself. You can setup a scenario exactly the way you want and see the AI adapt to it like a human player in a 7000 + tile board game with smooth 3D graphics.

Even your own setup is nice to play with FOW on since you can still be surprised how the game turns out as the AI reacts and adapts to the choices you made without this being random or absurd. I can't wait for the game to be released and to see what other, better scenario makers, can achieve with the tools.

It is an honor to write about the making of my humble Holland scenario while the developer is creating a BIG FAT 4 X strategy game. Guys, support the developer and wishlist Aggressors already and if you can't get enough from it like I do, I invite you to try out my Holland – Battle over Rhenus 50 B.C. scenario soon!

Thank you for reading!
 

whydoibother

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Codex Year of the Donut
Apparently it's been developed by Czech indie developer for almost 10 years
... and then Paradox show a similar game last month. Shitsux.
At any rate, this looks like it would be interesting, and probably comes out first. I'll follow it and check it out.
 
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Dev Diary #4 – Historical Accuracy said:
We are all big fans and admirers of the ancient era and we wanted this to be visible throughout the whole game. We want the player to relive the highs and lows of the old times with the ancient nations as if they were really there. All the game concepts of Aggressors were designed with the desire to be as close to historical reality as possible.


It started with the historical map and initial setup of course. We spent many weeks studying historical sources, maps and chronicles to set up the map as accurately as we could. It was not always easy - some nations didn't leave any source of information about what kind of life they led, what were they trying to achieve or conqueror even where they were located exactly. We can find only fragmentary information from other nations writing about their enemies or "unknown barbarians behind their borders". Sometimes it was a bit of a roll of the dice as the sources were often contradictory and we had to pick one.

After long time tweaking the map, we are pretty happy about the result and we could finally move on to an even more difficult part - historical context. We needed to setup the nations and goals in such a way that would draw the players in and made them identify with the nation they lead.

Historical summaries are full of big dreams, ambitions and grand plans. We let ourselves be inspired by these great visionaries and we decided to create a set of unique short-term and mid-term goals for each nation that reflect the aspirations and hopes of ancient heroes.

This was even more difficult than the map setup because we needed to "guess" the potential goals of each of the nation despite the fact that in history they were wiped out by their enemies before they reached any of those goals! Sometimes we could be led by history itself (like for example in the case of the Roman conquest of Sicily), sometimes by historical sources of what specific countries and conquerors aspired to achieve and sometimes by our own point of view and we had to think about "what if" situations.

We named these goals Objectives and they include territorial expansion, military campaigns, economic, cultural or political development, diplomatic relationships and many more. But nothing comes easy in life and neither do rewards for achieving the Objective’s goal. Players need to put some effort and thinking into these side quests to reap the bonuses waiting at their ends.



We didn‘t want to create these objectives in a way like many other games do - "conquer this and that and you get precisely this amount of resources as a reward". This doesn’t feel very realistic and thus the feeling of fulfilling the actual goal of a specific country is forever lost.

In Aggressors the player doesn’t know what exactly he needs to do to reach the goal, neither does he know the scope of the potential rewards. The ancient nations worked hard to turntheir plans into reality but events out of their control could shatter their life-long work. Even if they crowned their effort with success, the benefits were not predictable or known in advance. Actually, fulfilling grandiose plans could even bring more problems than profits.

Let's demonstrate how the Objectives system works with an example – the goal is to build a strong standing army. As a commander of all armed forces you want to have a reliable and formidable army. You start recruiting men into infantry and cavalry units and perhaps even expand your fleet. But the strength of your army is only measurable in comparison with armies of your opponents and you can be sure that they do not waste time and build their armed forces just as you are trying to do the same. So, it cannot be predicted how many units or what unit types you need to achieve the objective. It simply depends on what kind of opponents you have.

And in the same way you cannot predict the effects such actions will have. It might seem like becoming a military superpower can result in small and weak states offering you political alliances as they hope to gain a strong protector and the happiness of your citizens will increase as they will feel safe in their homes. On the other hand, once you really accumulate such a power, people might slowly realize that they don‘t really need such a power anymore and the potential benefit might be close to nothing. Moreover the majority of young and able men are now serving in your army and there simply isn't enough men to work the fields. All in all, you cannot see the future until it happens and you can only adapt to its ever-changing flow.

But we realize that the player already gets a lot of adrenalin from all the action in the game and so we have hidden a hint in the description of each objective that should guide the player in the right direction. The information is purely textual like the goals in Ancient times and players must follow this hint till they reach the goal. Apart from that, there is a progress bar showing how far the player has gone in achieving the goal and this can also be taken as an indication if he is going the right way.

The setup of these objectives is not fixed from the beginning. Some objectives unlock other objectives depending on the way the alternative history of the game develops so you will always find a number of interesting side quests to fill your days with.

While working on the Objectives we realized that the ancient leaders were quite creative in using their resources and in creating opportunities. Ruling a large nation was never an easy task and to succeed meant that they always had to find a way out of a difficult situation.

All rulers are eventually confronted with situations that require fast and decisive actions, for example acute lack of resources, crisis or dangerously low army morale. History teaches us that in such moments the ruling elite usually tried to find a quick and effective, even if unusual and risky, remedy which in the game is represented by the so called State decisions. They are solutions that can contain dangerous situations and slow the downfall but their success rate and impact is difficult to predict and you will need to take the leap of faith if you decide to use them.



Take the examples of food distribution in times of a looming famine, organizing games when unrest was stirring in the population or calling tribal meetings when joint action was required. Such actions were not frequently used, rather the opposite. But when the crisis reached its peak and the ruling class was gripped by desperation, they were willing to turn to risky and often expensive solutions.

Nothing is for free and also the State decisions come at a price while their outcomes are not fully predictable even with the textual estimation of potential outcome. It is the choice of the player to choose if he is ready to pay perhaps a high price to buy himself some time to restore the situation in his country.

The State decisions are available only when concrete conditions are fulfilled and only whilst those conditions last. It is only logical, you probably wouldn’t enforce complete obedience of your soldiers by ordering army decimation unless it is the last and only hope you have left to keep your military units fighting.

I think it is good time to slowly dive into one of the most important aspects of the game - country management. It includes aspects like population happiness, migration, birthrate control and influence of adjacent countries on your cities. But this is a subject for our next dev diary...
 
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Friday is Aggressors day, and today we have something special to show you.


It's the first part of a units infographics, showing the special units coming with Aggressors: Ancient Rome. This time we'll focus on three culture groups: Barbarians, Greeks and Carthaginians.

Enjoy and let us know if you have any question or comment! You can click on the infographics to zoom them.






 

Beowulf

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Mar 2, 2015
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Yeah, after the last dev diary/blog/whtever about the historical accuracy, they show "THE AXEMASTERS".

They almost pulled a Black Geyser on me.
 
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Dev Diary #5 – Home Politics said:
Throughout human history it has been expected that those accepted as leaders or emperors would be responsible for bringing the country wealth, prestige and prosperity.

I have always felt that country management has been quite underrated in many other strategy games. The reason is simple, micro- and macro-management can be quite tedious, repetitive and in a way ruining the “fun”.
But sidelining country management has, in my opinion, also provided less realistic experiences. We accepted the challenge and came up with a few new game concepts that on one hand keep the economic, military, social and cultural decisions in the hands of the player whilst, on the other hand, complementing the robust and logical game mechanics. All whilst bringing in surprising elements that deepen immersion. Country management should be mostly automated and decisions should be either made actively by the player or he should be alerted in special circumstances to reduce the boring and monotonous tasks.

So, what is under the hood of Aggressors' country management?

Firstly, it is the choice of government system. Different government systems are established in different societies reflecting the local conditions and have a profound effect on the economic, military and social life in the country. It also greatly affects the resource management or, more precisely, the resource production which applies both for mined resources as well as for those generated in cities, such as happiness, knowledge, citizens and influence of the country. And on top of that the morale of your armies also partially depends on the system of government – the soldier needs to know which master he serves!

The player is free to change the government system in the country to suit his plans and current situation but he should be always aware that such a change will ripple through the country leading to both positive and negative reactions.

But the state is not just the emperor! It is the masses of nameless people whose daily work lays the foundations for a stable and powerful state.

When playing other games, I felt that many underestimate the role the general population plays in the development of the state. This is the reason why I introduced citizens as a special resource from which both the workforce and soldiers are recruited.

Perhaps it is best to explain its unique role with an example. The populace is distributed in the cities which are the main recruitment centers. Building new units means that the city size is reduced as part of the population is taken into army service and at the same time the citizen resource decreases. But the production of other resources that are generated in cities such as knowledge or influence is determined by the city size, i.e. number of citizens. Therefore, once you recruit a new unit, the production of other resources in this city decreases. But supporting a wild population growth is also dangerous as it puts an increasing strain on the state resources as you will need to provide housing, livelihoods and safety for your people. You can regulate the population growth by building new cities, supporting immigration (people tend to move to cities with higher level of happiness) and giving incentives to increase birth rate. This support takes a form of nation-wide and local grants which allows you to “accumulate” citizens in cities where you need them most.

People are therefore one of the most important resources and balancing the population growth with the economic capacity of the state and the need for soldiers and workforce is a task for a real strategist.



Closely related to Birth rate is also the concept of Migration. The history is full of stories of mass movements of people from regions suffering from war, crop failure or natural disasters.

In the beginning we used migration of people as a random event but as the complexity of the game grew, we decided to make this minor side feature into a full-scale game mechanism in order to reflect the real historical events and natural behavior of people of that time.

When the lives of people are threatened or their livelihoods destroyed, they simply try to find another, better place for their families. They prefer locations nearby within the same region and state but when the situation does not allow it, they can also migrate abroad and so the state can suffer from a sudden outflow of citizens. Different events force people to move to different places. When your people are afraid of the enemy behind the borders, they move to the safer parts of your country. When they struggle with a lack of food and are threatened by starvation in your country, they tend to migrate over the border to more prospering places.



This actually brings us to yet another factor that affects the life of every single person. Life in the ancient era was not a piece of cake especially for the lower classes. Although the masses were virtually “voiceless”, we know from the historical annals that when a certain tipping point was reached, the angry crowds found their voice and used their great numbers to demand changes in their favor.

Underestimating this great force would be, if not foolhardy, then naïve to say the least. We call this fragile balance between people´s needs and their satisfaction “Happiness”. It is an indicator of the overall mood of the population and is also another special resource.

On the state level we speak about general happiness which is determined by many interlinked factors such as type of government, lack or abundance of resources, size of the army, number of successful military campaigns or the slave trade. All these and other factors together make the general mood within the country.

But naturally a man living in a border city which is currently under attack and a man living on the other side of the state far away from any potential danger, deal with very different life situations and so their level of happiness will differ greatly. Local happiness is therefore affected by more local factors such as army presence in the region, city infrastructure and the living conditions in the city, distance to a border or proximity of the battlefront.

It is needless to say that the internal political strategy is as important as foreign relations. Higher happiness positively affects army morale and cities and units are more resilient to foreign influences. On the other hand, low happiness is reflected in low army morale, higher emigration rate and could potentially lead to revolts or even civil wars.



Local happiness is also related to another quite original concept – Influence. It was a common practice for states to use subtle force to initiate or steer certain events in neighboring foreign cities in a hope of gaining a foothold in the region.

To allow the player more political action, we created a new resource type called Influence. It represents the prestige the state has abroad and it can be used to incite unrest in foreign cities while persuading the local governs to switch sides. After all, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. This way you can expand your sphere of influence without bloodshed even though reciprocal actions might come faster than you would expect. The usage of this resource and the chance of being successful in such actions depends on many factors like distance from the empire, local happiness of that city, attitude of the populace towards the player influencing the city, urban guards protecting it and many others.

But it’s not just the unexpected which makes the game fun. Even though home politics play a major role in the game, the famous figures of ancient history are more celebrated for their political and military deeds. Heroes are born on the battlefields and so we will dedicate the next Dev diary to the long-awaiting battle and war-related game mechanics!

 
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Today we are releasing our second batch of infographics depicting the units of Aggressors: Ancient Rome!

This time it's the turn of the real protagonists of the era: the Romans, as well as a mighty empire which was Rome's most dangerous antagonist for centuries, the Persians.

We are also showcasing the civilian support units as well as the ships you can build in the game.

We'll be back this Friday for our usual Aggressors' Friday with a new Dev diary.

You can click on the infographics to zoom them.







 
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Dev Diary #6 – Combat (part 1) said:
One thing I have never liked about 4X strategy games is the missing tactics. I never really understood why. Why cannot a game combine both – strategy and tactics? After all, quite a few generals became emperors!

Since the beginning, I planned to create a game that would be a mix of these two worlds. I didn’t want to go into low level tactics like the battles in Rome Total War but rather combine all the important aspects of battle tactics without the need to leave the strategic game map. No matter how grand and thought-out strategy you have, it is the actual battle that gets the adrenaline rushing through your body.

So, how did we go about it? First of all, you should get to know your army and those of your opponents. Find their strengths and weakness and use them to your best advantage.

There are 5 army types in the game: Roman, Greek, Persian, Carthaginian and Barbarian. Their basic characteristics have been already shown in the previous Infographics but to summarize, each army type has 3 infantry and 3 cavalry units. Naval, mechanical and non-military units are the same for players.
Each army type and every unit has a set of unique properties such as attack and defense strength, mobility, terrain adaptability, improvements, maintenance requirements, withdrawal probability, tenacity of fortification, and many others.

Let’s start with the terrain adaptability. Every unit type has a default attack and defense strength but its actual strength can be considerably increased or decreased depending on the terrain where they are forced to fight. Every unit type is suited for certain terrains where they can fully use their training, formations, battle style or arms. The terrain adaptability therefore can give a unit a great (dis)advantage considering that the terrain bonus/penalty span from +60% to -60%. And quite similarly the terrain affects the unit’s movement range.

IMG_19072018_111629_0.png


To demonstrate the differences, we can use the example of Roman and Barbarian units. Barbarians are less disciplined and organized; their training forms strong individuals who excel in a man-to-man close combat in difficult terrains such as forests and hills. This environment is natural for them and they know how to behave and move around there.
On the other hand, the Romans are well trained, disciplined and loyal. The rigorous drill prepares them for perfectly coordinated maneuvers in close formations that are extremely difficult to break. But they need wide open plains to use such formations.

If the two armies meet on flat plains, the Barbarians will most likely be massacred as their wild even if strong attacks cannot break the solid wall of the Roman shields. Yet, if the two groups should meet in dense forests, the hit-and-run tactics of the Barbarians will have a clear advantage.

You should carefully choose the location for your battles. Sometimes it is better to take few more steps around to gain a decisive advantage than jumping at first opportunity to attack. And sometimes it is even better to build a line of defense in a suitable place and wait for the attackers. Set the conditions right and you can pick them one by one when they charge. Even seemingly weak unit can put up very effective defense and inflict serious damage if it can use the knowledge of the terrain.

Saying this, you should never fall in the trap of feeling safe! You can use some natural features of the terrain or the terrain itself to keep strong fall back positions. Rivers, hills, mountains, swamps and jungles are extremely difficult terrains that restrict mobility of units, compromise their fighting abilities and limit the chances of swift and surprising action. Positioning a fortified unit on such a tile means that the approaching enemy has to use extra force to break through which will cost him time and men and give you time to set the next trap.

As you can see, terrain can have a major impact on the outcome of the military engagements if not planned well. You have to build your success on the strengths of your units that create the core of your armies.

IMG_19072018_112018_0.png


Every nation starts with unit(s) of one army type based on the military style they used. Romans start with Milites units and progress to Centurias and Legionaries. Barbarians start with Warriors and progress to Axemen and Elite Axemen. But you are not restricted to use units of your own army type only. If you conquer a city of another nation that uses different unit type, you will be able to incorporate these new units into your army as well. This way you can challenge your enemies on their own ground without losing advantage in unknown territories.

Yet, it is not all as easy as it might sound. Conquering a city rarely makes the people there happy, not mentioning their eagerness to join the ranks of your soldiers. I already mentioned how loyalty works in one of the previous Dev diaries but to give you a quick summary – units recruited in cities with low loyalty are also less loyal, their general morale is low and all this has a great negative impact on their fighting abilities. So, you need to think twice when and how to use these units.

This brings me to another game feature that I haven’t mentioned yet – improvements. There are currently more than 20 different military improvements that vary from the obligatory attack and defense strength improvements or those reducing terrain movement penalties, to some very special ones. Some of them can be gained only in a battle, others can be trained in cities which costs resources and time. It wouldn’t make sense to list all of them here but let’s just whet your appetite a bit.

For example, unit with “Petrifying” improvement scares all enemy units stationed nearby which reduces their strength. You cannot give a unit such a reputation that intimidates the opponent before the battle even starts, the unit has to prove its worth in a war to earn its name.

Another such improvement that you can gain only in a battle is “Homeland defender" which increases the defense abilities of a unit guarding a city or other populated places like blacksmith or temple.
One of those that can be trained in advance is “Discipline” that increases the unit’s resistance to starving or irregular pay which would otherwise cause decrease in morale. Or “Mountain movement” that allows the unit to cross mountains that are otherwise impassable. Although crossing mountain ranges leaves the unit weak and takes very long even with this improvement but it is not impossible!

You should always consider which improvements are needed for your military strategy and use specialized units in situations where you can maximize the benefit of their improvements.

There is still much more that I want to include in this topic but it would be a long reading and I would have to skip over some minor yet very interesting features which would be a pity. That’s why it would be better to split it to two parts and I will continue in the next Dev diary!

20180719111254_1.jpg
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Today we are releasing our second batch of infographics depicting the units of Aggressors: Ancient Rome!

This time it's the turn of the real protagonists of the era: the Romans, as well as a mighty empire which was Rome's most dangerous antagonist for centuries, the Persians.

We are also showcasing the civilian support units as well as the ships you can build in the game.

We'll be back this Friday for our usual Aggressors' Friday with a new Dev diary.

You can click on the infographics to zoom them.







They made the legionary an upgrade of the Centurion?
Asterix has higher historical accuracy...

parc-asterix-trouve-objet-e1478107530224.jpg
 

Beowulf

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Yeah, the naming is weak. They should have just named the tiers something like "Recruit, Veteran, Elite/Professional" and add the appropriate name of the army of that culture.
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Actually, they are pretty responsive:
Hi Galdred,
you are absolutely right. We already renamed centurion to Principes and did couple of other naming changes.
Thank you for the suggestion.
 

Serus

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Actually, they are pretty responsive:
Hi Galdred,
you are absolutely right. We already renamed centurion to Principes and did couple of other naming changes.
Thank you for the suggestion.
That's all good and nice but it still isn't very encouraging when the developer of a historically themed strategy game who claim to have "the desire to be as close to historical reality as possible" do that in the first place and has to be "suggested" by random internet users to correct something that a 10 years old reader of Asterix comics series would know.
 

Raghar

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Today we are releasing our second batch of infographics depicting the units of Aggressors: Ancient Rome!

This time it's the turn of the real protagonists of the era: the Romans, as well as a mighty empire which was Rome's most dangerous antagonist for centuries, the Persians.

We are also showcasing the civilian support units as well as the ships you can build in the game.

We'll be back this Friday for our usual Aggressors' Friday with a new Dev diary.

You can click on the infographics to zoom them.

They made the legionary an upgrade of the Centurion?
Asterix has higher historical accuracy...

parc-asterix-trouve-objet-e1478107530224.jpg

Wasn't centurion leader of groups of legionaries?
I sometimes think that czech schools are providing inverse education.
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Wasn't centurion leader of groups of legionaries?
I sometimes think that czech schools are providing inverse education.
Indeed, the wikipedia page says:

A centurion (Latin: centurio; Greek: κεντυρίων, kentyríōn, or ἑκατόνταρχος, hekatóntarkhos) was a professional officer of the Roman army after the Marian reforms of 107 BC. Most centurions commanded groups of centuries of around 80 legionaries,[5] but senior centurions commanded cohorts or took senior staff roles in their legion.
Centurions were also found in the Roman navy. In the Byzantine Army, they are also known by the name kentarch (κένταρχος, kentarchos).[6] Their symbol of office was the vine staff, with which they disciplined even Roman citizens protected from other forms of beating by the Porcian Laws.

The century was not a military unit, but an administrative unit of 100 soldiers, but initally, the maniples contained 100 soldiers, then their size was made dependent on their unit type(Hastati, Princeps or Triarii), before being brought to 80 during the Marian reforms.
 
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Norfleet

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Wasn't centurion leader of groups of legionaries?
I sometimes think that czech schools are providing inverse education.
Yes, and a LOT of people make this kind of mistake, believing that a "Centurion" is some kind of unit, rather than an officer roughly equivalent on scope to a senior lieutenant or captain. The result is that you get attacked by an army of Lieutenants.
 

Tigranes

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How.... how can they actually be less historically accurate than Total War?

I guess it doesn't even really matter, since these are just 'roman dude 1, 2 and 3' with higher attack and defence values.
 

Norfleet

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Yeah, all of their units are just Tier 1 Unit, Tier 2 Unit, Tier 3 Unit, and then they create cavalry versions by taking the same guy and sticking him on a horse.
 

Citizen

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CLUBMASTER -> AXEMASTER -> CRUSHMASTER

On a side note: why are the cavalry units using the same short swords and yuge infantry shields? Where are the pikes and javelins?
 
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Aggressors is the upcoming 4X strategy game developed by Kubat Software and published by Slitherine. It is an incredibly deep game set in the ancient Mediterranean and it gives players complete freedom to manage their faction as they see fit.

Well, guys, we now have a release date! Aggressors: Ancient Rome will be out on August 30th!

We will keep publishing our Dev Diaries as we have lots to show still, but in case this is the first time you hear of Aggressors don’t forget to check out the old dev diaries.

But there is more: If you would like to watch Aggressors live for the first time ever then tune in next week on August 2nd at 7 pm BST on our Twitch channel – the game’s producer Surtur will be playing the game live while the developers will be in the chat to answer all your questions. Don’t miss it!

1182_image.jpg

http://www.matrixgames.com/news/265...Rome..Release.date.&.Preview.stream.announced!
 
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Dev Diary #6 – Combat (part 2) said:
The other week I started an article about the tactical dimensions of Aggressors and the features that make it quite a deep tactical game. I would like to continue that today as there is still much ground to be covered.

In the previous diary I hinted at one of the very important features called general morale and I should now explain how it works.

In contrast to army morale, which is the same for all units facing a particular opponent, general morale is different for every unit. It is an indicator of how "happy" or "content" the unit is, which is closely related to its history. Has that unit been paid well and regularly, is it supplied sufficiently with food and where does its loyalty lie? All of these matter and general morale is one of the most important factors that can determine the battle outcome. Units with low general morale may not be reliable as their fighting abilities can be limited because they are more prone to desertions or leaving the battlefield without inflicting much damage to the enemy. But time and good treatment heals all previous grievances and if you take a good care of your men, they will once again proudly raise your banner before the next engagement.



General morale of cities is perhaps even more important. A City with low general morale can be easily influenced by other states, it might switch sides of its own accord, especially when there is no military garrison to maintain order.

Cities are the building blocks of the empire and losing one can hurt the state economy, i.e. its ability to recruit new units or to trade. City conquest is usually the most rewarding part of military campaigns as it brings in new resources and people and gives you another strongpoint for your offensive. But you do not always need to use brute force to get the city gates to open.

There is a very cool mechanic in the game called city siege. I already described the supply management in detail in a previous diary. Basically, all cities act as suppliers for military units around them. However, when you cut the city off by encircling it (taking all adjacent tiles) and leave one military unit to keep the blockade, the city will starve and its general moral drops radically with every passing turn. The enemy might try to break through your lines to the city or, if it is a coastal town, he can keep a ship near the port to open an access point. Otherwise the besieged city has only two options - to surrender or starve. This process can be slowed down if a military unit is stationed in the city as it maintains order for a bit longer but it cannot really change the situation, unless it tries to fight its way out of the city.

On the other hand, cities are great places for building a defensive line. Military unit held in the city dramatically increases the city’s defense strength. Additionally, you can build city improvements such as stockades, palisades or city walls to multiply the defense bonus. Build solid fortifications with a guard inside and you might just have a strongpoint that can blunt or even stop an enemy offensive.

But cities are too precious to risk that they will fall into the hands of the enemy. A good defense should not rely only on a few well-protected towns. You can also make use of special structures with both defensive and offensive characteristics that can be built outside of cities. For example, forts and defensive walls can create a solid line several tiles long. Even if only manned by a few guards, it is a barrier that could break the tide of the invading forces.



I can go on but I have already exceeded the planned length of the article, so I’ll describe the last 3 tactical concepts just briefly.

The first of them is unit experience which is gained in battles both won and lost (but more from successful campaigns) and with every improvement. On the other hand, healing damaged units and replenishing the ranks with newcomers naturally decreases the unit’s overall experience. Seasoned warriors are very precious, if you find yourself between a rock and a hard place you will wish to have a few experienced men to carry out your commands rather than a bunch of rookies.

Even though Aggressors is a turn-based strategy, we tried to create a kind of a "time flow" between the turns which can impact the defenses especially.

Defense readinessis a bonus received by a unit that has not yet moved in the current turn and so its men are fresh, prepared and ready for action. If you force your men to march long distance and they are attacked before they even have time grab their weapons, the chances that you will be beaten are logically higher.

Similarly, the fend-off attack penalty is applied if the unit is attacked more than once in one turn. The defending unit gives its full 100% strength to beat the aggressor and it is then tired and perhaps damaged from the fight. But if it is immediately afterwards attacked again, it does not have time to recover and cannot use its full strength for defense anymore. This penalty grows with every new attack the unit has to fend off in that turn.



So far, I have talked only about fighting and how to pit the strengths of one unit against the other but how to deal with damage? There are several ways how to repair and heal your units in different situations.

Every damaged unit automatically recovers a small fraction of its full strength every turn it is not attacked. There is no cost involved. The process is very slow but sometimes you simply cannot do much more than this.

If you need your men near the front, the unit can regain part of its strength out in the field which does not cost anything but the unit is exposed and its defense strength is drastically reduced during the process.

If the unit is not far from a city, you can replenish its strength by recruiting new men from the town which means that the unit heals twice as fast but you need to accept the costs – resources, perhaps also lower loyalty, general morale and reduced experience (depending on the city’s loyalty, general morale, etc.). The defense strength is again very limited during the healing process.

The best and fastest way to heal and repair your units is in the city (ideally with good loyalty and general morale) where you can quickly supply it with new men, weapons and armaments. It means that you need to move the men from the front and the further they have to go, the longer you have to hold the line without their support.

I would like to go into more details but there is simply no space to cover all the aspects of the tactical dimension of Aggressors. Things like city conquest and its implications, naval landings and its drawbacks, plundering cities and its impact on happiness and many others which I had to leave out this time.

Well, I guess you will need to try the game yourself and explore all the possibilities discover for yourself how deep tactical 4X strategy game Aggressors is when it releases on the 30th of August.
 

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