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Sim/Strategy/War => Games Discussion => Topic started by: Asid on May 04, 2018, 04:28:54 PM

Title: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on May 04, 2018, 04:28:54 PM
Aggressors: Ancient Rome is announced!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/783210/header.jpg?t=1574172841)

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.
Julius Caesar, Shakespeare


Slitherine announces Aggressors: Ancient Rome - the new turn-based 4X strategy game that brings you back to the ancient world. A mix of deep gameplay and rich historical flavour, Aggressors lets you relive history as the ruler of one of the mighty civilizations of the Mediterranean world. Choose Rome to conquer the Mare Nostrum, or Carthage and build an immortal trading empire. Choose one of twenty available factions and conquer the world, changing the course of history, from Egypt to Athens and Sparta.

https://youtu.be/YLMDSTZerng

Be like Gaius Marius, with his exceptional abilities in reforming Rome and its army. You can manage all aspects of your empire: war, trade, internal politics, diplomacy and cultural development. Rule your empire by managing its internal politics and developing its economy. Establish trade routes to reap wealth, ensure the loyalty of your citizens, manage demographics, technological research, internal reforms, and laws; the tools at your disposal are endless and seamlessly integrate with each other. But beware: citizens react to the current situation and they can move to other places when they are not happy.

Be like Caesar, with his unparalleled strategic genius.Experience the incredibly deep combat system, with each unit having its own abilities and traits, with terrain affecting the outcome in a meaningful way. Army morale and the supply system are crucial and need to be considered before any battle. You will need all your guile and strategic mastery to triumph on the battlefield. Vae victis!

Be like Hannibal, play your own way and surprise the enemy. Play on your strengths, beware of your weaknesses. The ancient world is brutal, for no mercy shall be given to the defeated. Twenty factions, from migrating barbarian tribes to advanced empires, which interact with each other through an extremely detailed diplomatic system. Make use of more than ten available diplomatic agreements, including the possibility of forming Federations and Confederations as well as affecting nations and provinces in your sphere of influence.

Believe us, you never played a 4X like Aggressors. Manage all aspects of your mighty empire with complete freedom: you can decide to start with an advanced nation surrounded by newer civilizations, or you can choose to start as a young tribe, ready to take on an older and decadent empire… or you can decide to completely randomize the map and play in a uniquely generated world. The choice is yours!Dive into Aggressor at your own pace: thanks to the tutorial and tool tips you can gradually explore all the options available to you.

(http://slitherine.com/files/games/723/20180504031529.jpg)

(http://slitherine.com/files/games/723/20180504031514.jpg)

Aggressors: Ancient Rome will be available on Steam and PC in Q3.

The Beta is open now! Slitherine is looking for experienced players who want to test their abilities in Aggressors. Join up here! (http://www.slitherine.com/beta/cnda.asp?gid=723)

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Art/Aggressors/A_AR_join-the-beta-banner2.jpg) (http://www.slitherine.com/beta/cnda.asp?gid=723)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on May 18, 2018, 01:15:28 PM
Aggressors - Dev Interview!

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1122_image.jpg)

Matrix interviewd Pavel, the developer

"We had the chance to chat a bit with Pavel Kubat, developer of Aggressors (http://slitherine.com/products/product.asp?gid=723), our epic upcoming 4x game set during Ancient Rome!"

Matrix: First of all, thanks a lot for your time and congrats for the outstanding job with this game so far. What moved you to adopt the Ancient Mediterranean during the period of the rise of Rome as setting?

Pavel Kubat: The Aggressors was initially supposed to be released as a multimod game, but I eventually realized that this was simply not possible. Not just because we had a very small development team, but also because the amount of testing required and likelihood of bugs would not let us finish it.

The Ancient Mediterranean was chosen to be the first mod to finish. Even in this phase I did not want to release just one campaign map. I wanted to give players hundreds of hours of fun straight away. Three different historical periods were attractive for me - the expansion of Rome, the conflicts between Sparta and Athens (and Greek city states in general) and the fall of the Roman Empire. Instead of parallel development of three mods, we started to work on three scenarios in parallel. Eventually we came to a crossroad where a very important question arose. Which is better? Is it three scenarios done well or one scenario polished into finest details? After a long discussion we decided to go for the second option. But not only that. We decided to extend the rules and historical feeling by introducing objectives tailored for each country and other features (which we will reveal soon in one of our upcoming dev diaries). This would simply not be possible to finish for all three scenarios. But don't worry. They were not cancelled, just suspended, waiting for the day when they come back to life.

So, we decided to go for one polished scenario but which one? Don't you think that the first release of Aggressors coincides nicely with the rise of Rome as a metaphor?

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/City.png)

M. What is your favourite faction to use in Aggressors: Ancient Rome and why?

P.K. I have played all the factions, many times. Despite this fact I still enjoy playing it and keep forgetting that it is actually my job. Which is my favourite... Good question. I would probably say Epirus kingdom. I really love the initial setup. Epirus kingdom starts on three different parts of the Mediterranean. The biggest part is located in the Balkans almost in the same area as today's Albania. The second part of the kingdom is in the southern part of Italy called Calabria for which the Romans have their own plans. The third part is in the Eastern part of Sicily, which you share with the Carthaginians and they would really like to take over the whole of Sicily. It sounds hopeless, doesn’t it? Two powerful empires getting closer to each other and you are between them. I enjoy being caught between a rock and a hard place and I have to admit that saving all these parts is a heroic feat which I have accomplished just once. In all the other cases it was an exhausting set of diplomatic compromises and the art of war and at the end you are happy that you saved at least one of these parts.

On the other hand, I really enjoy all the factions – the Spartans trying to reestablish themselves as a military superpower, post-Alexander empires like Seleucid or Ptolemaic fighting between each other or one of the nomadic tribes struggling to find a fertile land and establish their own kingdom.

M. What is the aspect of the game you’re most proud of?

P.K. In general - logic. Everything in the game makes sense and is based on the similar aspects of real life and history. Every rule was added only after we found a similar concept in history with a similar impact. Every decision matters and the number of options between which you need to choose is quite high.
If you ask about one specific feature, I would probably say simulation of crowd behavior. Starting from recruiting units in cities, which depopulate when men are recruited, through to migration where people tend to leave unhappy or dangerous places, to people's attitude which can lead to revolts or even civil wars.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/Epirus.png)

M. Is there any feature or piece of content you definitely want to add in the future to Aggressors?

P.K. There are a number of features that we already have in our "wishlist". Some of them were added to this list in the early stages of development but it was simply impossible to implement them all for the first release. I don't really want to reveal stuff which could arrive in possible extensions of the game. You will see! :)

Apart from features themselves I would like to have the game as open as possible. Starting from sharing custom scenarios created by players through modding support, where players can change the rules of the game, to fully featured scripting. Of course, the last one would be only for advance modders. :)

M. Is it possible to “play tall”, meaning that you don’t have to expand to a very large empire and that you can still play as a very competitive and strong smaller country, if played well?

P.K. We definitely shoot for that. There are a number of winning conditions, starting from the typical conquest and victory points (different for each player) to cultural and technological ones where the size of cities and their level of development, as well as technological dominance and amount of "influence", play the most important role. We tried to create winning conditions which would be in sync with similar historical situation of Constantinople. At the end of ancient history and basically for the whole Middle Ages this city was the centre of the cultural world, despite the fact that the empire itself had been shrinking since the seventh century. We have been trying to implement a similar approach.

M. What do you think of the current situation in the 4x genre? Do you think Aggressors could be a breath of fresh air?

P.K. I think that the 4X genre is on a difficult path. It is true that 4X strategy games are basically the most difficult ones to implement and that is also the reason why not many companies try to go this way. When you compare the number of FPSs or RPGs, the number of 4X strategies is very small. That is also the reason why we hope we can contribute in this domain.

I don't know if I can generally answer the second question in an unbiased way! :) I definitely think, and hope, that players will find some new features in Aggressors that they’ve not seen anywhere else and also some renewed ones which make much more sense than in other strategy games. I don't want to hide that I am a big fan of other strategy games like Civilization (especially Civ I, II and IV), Colonization and other classics. That's actually the reason why I always wanted to bring my own 4X strategy game to life. A 4X strategy game which would really make sense and where all what is going on can be explained through historic examples. I hope that we achieved that and Aggressors is a living dream came to life.
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on May 25, 2018, 02:34:04 PM
Aggressors - Dev Diary #2 - Military Command
by Daniele » 25 May

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1131_image.jpg)


"I am a huge fan of 4X strategy games. I love the whole idea behind it: you start as a small nation which slowly gains the respect of others, you see your economy grow, you advance in technology, build an army… You watch your empire rise and you develop an attachment to your own people. You care about them. If your country is invaded you literally feel betrayed and in danger because you know your people suffer.

On the other hand, I have always liked tactical games like Panzer General where you don't command small units but have a full control of your army. You are in charge of all the important aspects of a military campaign from a macro level.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32720708/95463343a879cbb4124bd02ae52f3d0ca2442d75.jpg)

Being an emperor and a general at the same time - that was what I wanted to achieve when I started the development of Aggressors. In my mind, Aggressors should be a simulation of a real military campaign with the need to balance realistic aspects like supply management, loyalty, army morale, soldiers attitude and other threats like starvation or desertion. Overall, there are many different factors you need to take into account when planning your military campaigns in Aggressors. Remember, winning battles is important but, in the end, you need to win the war.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32720708/2bf7e9ff338a29ed6e09be37cf019f1dd2118261.jpg)

Army morale was one of the concepts that has been there since the very first design document as one of the main factors determining the outcome of battles. 

The pride, courage and readiness to fight and die for the nation and its leader was prized above all else and played equally decisive or even more important role in the battle outcomes of the period than quality of arms or sufficient supplies. Minor incidents that were out of the commander's control could have devastating effects on the morale of the armed units such as bad omens or a negative prophecy.

However, the army morale was also very much dependent on what enemy the units faced and the history of mutual conflicts. The Roman Empire conquered Greece relatively easy but Germania became Rome’s nemesis. And it can be argued that part of this desperate war against Germanic tribes and the inability to reach a decisive victory was also affected by very low army morale when standing against the feared barbarians. Romans felt themselves superior to Greeks and the army morale of units on Greek front was high but the same cannot be said about Germanic tribes. 

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32720708/9d57dd5f15ac208b205202b07afc0ba238f337a2.jpg)

Army morale also changes depending on previous battle results against a specific opponent. Every new tile and territory taken, every mine or city conquered significantly impact armies on both sides. Defeated units will lose courage and willingness to fight which compromises their fighting abilities. The supreme commander has several tools at his disposal to boost the army morale of his units. He can employ an oracle to make a prophecy, hold a motivating speech, use propaganda tools or review enemy tactics and make new battle plans. And, in certain moments, State decisions also might come handy, but this is for one of the next dev diaries. 

In history, stable and reliable supply lines played an extremely important role as traveling both over land and over sea was time-consuming and risky. 

The success of any military campaign was dependent on how well supplied with food, armaments and other essentials the advancing units were. Incorrect supply planning could have been the proverbial Achilles heel of any successful offensive. 

I wanted to translate this important part of military planning into the game and reflect in the design both the distance to which the supply lines have to stretch to reach the advancing units and their safety. 

There are so called "suppliers" in the game such as cities, naval units or wagons that can store and carry supplies to units on the battlefront. The efficiency of supply lines depends on the terrain and the possibility to use roads. Based on these factors a so-called supply area map is calculated. 

If a unit advances too far and gets outside of the reach of the suppliers or if the supply line has been broken, the army morale and strength of the unit deteriorates with every turn. If the situation does not change fast, the unit eventually starves to death, deserts or is disbanded of its own accord.

Desertion is a threat you always have to be careful about. Fighting men are under an extreme pressure and not enough supplies or fear of the enemy can have a serious effect on their willingness to fight, and then you might face massive desertions.

The idea for one of the features implemented later came from playing the game. It often happened that a player conquered an enemy city, repaired it in few turns and immediately used it as for recruitment of new units. But in reality, civilizations that inhabited the Mediterranean region were very different and it would be wrong to think that they did not feel any pride and loyalty towards their roots, culture and nation. It usually took decades to pacify conquered people and have the option to recruit them to your own army, and even more so to trust them that they will not run away in battle..

When Romans conquered Germanic or Celtic settlement, they could hardly hope to immediately start recruiting capable men, as tribal warriors would either refuse to fight under a Roman banner or desert at the first opportunity. Relying on them, even as mercenary forces, was very risky and it could jeopardize entire campaigns.

I wanted the historical reality to guide my thinking and so I came up with yet another concept - loyalty. It is an indicator as to how loyal the city or unit is to its new master and it is determined by the cultural similarity of the individual nations. If Romans took an Epirean city in the south of Italy, the loyalty of the city would be initially low (very few cities welcome conquerors) but relatively quickly the city would become fully integrated in the state structures and the people would put their resentment behind as they went on with their daily business. However, the situation would be much different in a Celtic city at the edge of Alps. It would take them decades to accept Roman customs and pledge their loyalties to the Empire.

Loyalty levels grow relatively slowly and it might take many years to reach 100%. Until then, the units recruited in cities with low loyalty are inferior to other units and it needs to be carefully considered if building such units is even worth it.

This concept brought the whole system of recruiting new units in the game much closer to the historical reality.

The features described here are just a part of those which have an impact on the battle itself. I wanted to describe first those which have an impact on the whole battlefront however there is another side of a coin – the tactical aspect of war. Starting from units’ own attitude and a long list of distinct improvements through the ability to defend or attack on particular terrains to special rules for defending military structures. But that would be a long story again so let's talk about it in one of our next dev diaries."

Get more information about Aggressors: Ancient Rome from its official product page (http://www.slitherine.com/products/product.asp?gid=723)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on June 01, 2018, 03:49:23 PM
Five facts about Aggressors...

Aggressors: Ancient Rome (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome) is a new 4x strategy game developed by Kubat Software. It is currently into beta (click here (http://slitherine.com/beta/cnda.asp?gid=723) 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!



(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/captions/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!



(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/captions/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.



(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/captions/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!



(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/captions/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!



(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/captions/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!
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on June 09, 2018, 12:13:16 AM
Aggressors Dev Diary #3 - Diplomacy

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1144_image.jpg)

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 (http://slitherine.com/products/product.asp?gid=723) 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.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/1.png)

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.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/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.
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on June 15, 2018, 03:45:59 PM
Aggressors Testers Diary - Modding

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1149_image.jpg)

By AlbertoC: Slitherine/Matrix

"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 (http://slitherine.com/products/product.asp?gid=723) 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.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/modding/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) img 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 img (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 urled 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.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/modding/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.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/modding/14.png)

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!"
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on June 22, 2018, 03:20:06 PM
Aggressors Dev Diary #4 - Historical Accuracy

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1153_image.jpg)

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 (http://slitherine.com/products/product.asp?gid=723) 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.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/history/2.jpg)

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 turn their 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.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/history/1.jpg)

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...
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on June 29, 2018, 04:36:46 PM
Units infographics part I

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1159_image.jpg)

Friday is Aggressors (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome) 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!

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Art/Aggressors/A-infographic-6factions_barbarians.png)

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Art/Aggressors/A-infographic-6factions_greeks.png)

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Art/Aggressors/A-infographic-6factions_chartaginians.png)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on July 06, 2018, 10:39:56 PM
Aggressors Dev Diary 5 - Home Politics

(http://slitherine.com/files/spotlight/1164_image.jpg)


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 (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome)' 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.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/home/1.png)

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.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/home/3.png)

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.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/home/2.png)

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!

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/home/4.png)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on July 17, 2018, 06:04:22 PM
Aggressors - Units infographics part II

(http://slitherine.com/files/spotlight/1173_image.jpg)

Today we are releasing our second batch of infographics depicting the units of Aggressors: Ancient Rome (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/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.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Art/Aggressors/A-infographic-6factions_romans.png)

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Art/Aggressors/A-infographic-6factions_persians.png)

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Art/Aggressors/A-infographic-3factions_supports.png)

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Art/Aggressors/A-infographic-3factions_ships.png)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on July 27, 2018, 03:06:19 PM
Aggressors: Ancient Rome - Release date & Preview stream announced!

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1181_image.jpg)


Aggressors (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome) 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 (https://www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup) – 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!

(http://slitherine.com/files/spotlight/1182_image.jpg)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on August 03, 2018, 04:54:08 PM
Aggressors Dev Diary #6 - Combat (Part 2)

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1185_image.jpg)

The other week I started an article about the tactical dimensions of Aggressors (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome) 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.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/Combat/3.png)


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.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/Combat/4.png)


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 readiness is 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.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/Combat/5.png)


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.
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on August 07, 2018, 07:51:47 PM
Aggressors Dev Diary #7 - Customization

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1186_image.jpg)

by Alberto Casulini

I have always loved to tweak games, looking for ways to change the look or even the rules and create something new. That is why modding and flexibility were a priority for Aggressors (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome). We already covered modding in one of the previous diaries together with the experience of one of our testers, so we shall focus on flexibility.

Hand in hand with flexibility goes the degree of customization.

I wanted to have the freedom to change the game to my liking from the inside.  It is not easy to make options of all kind (graphic, audio, visual and other) so flexible that every player can change the look of the game to suit his personal taste and have the feeling of “being at home” in the game.

We have come to a dead end several times during development. One tester likes one feature or game view, yet another wants exactly the opposite.

A typical example might be the preference of many old school strategy gamers to play in 2D game view rather than a full 3D. We wanted to have the game in 3D but we also wanted to make the "old-school" gamers happy. What to do? We introduced a so called "top-view" which is easily accessible with one click (or keyboard shortcut) which basically turns the closer 3D world look to a plain 2D but fully featured view. Player can simply stay in the top view the whole game without any necessity to get back to 3D. All information, hints, etc. are available in both views.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/customization/2d.jpg)


The list of preferences you can tweak is long. For example, when it comes to unexplored terrain, what’s your preference? Having invisible tiles covered by clouds or them just being dark, pitch black? We decided to implement both and let the player decide what he likes.

This is something I appreciate a lot in other games and so whenever it seemed that there are two (or even more!) groups with a distinct personal preferences, we tried to make settings customizable.

There is a great number of settings that can be customized from UI customization (like hiding various information panels, buttons and hints) through adjusting some eye candy effects (such as clouds, fog, trees, unit size, ambient animals or daylight).

For instance, you can change the saturation and brightness of terrain or the level of trees blending with terrain. We also introduced so called terrain "overlays" which allow you to look at the map with different filters to highlight certain information. There is a supply area highlight, player colour overlay highlighting the territories in the colour of the owner, or the terrain colour overlay that highlights types of terrains.

But even this level of customization was not enough. Even all these overlays can be further customized by setting the saturation of the coloured overlays from almost transparent to full opacity. You decide how much you want the terrain to blend in with the overlay.  The default settings were chosen based on the feedback we received but still I am sure anyone will find the right configuration for them.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/customization/overlays.jpg)


I realized that once you adjust the look of the game to your liking, many people start changing the world by adding their own bits and pieces to the game or even creating their own worlds. But you don’t do all this just for yourself; you want to share it with the community.

The community is what makes a game truly flourish. After all, we developed the game for you to play and we want to give our fellow players the chance to create and share their own content.

Steam Workshop was choice number one here. Where else would modders and scenario creators meet in such numbers? That's why we implemented a full in-game integration of the Steam workshop where you can not only download Aggressors items like saves, scenarios, generated worlds or even mods but also publish and republish your own items without the need to edit it further on the Steam website. Just one click in game and you can publish whatever you prefer on the Workshop. It should be easy for anyone who wants to share his work with others.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/customization/workshop.jpg)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on August 11, 2018, 12:13:59 AM
Aggressors Dev Diary #8 - Trade Routes

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1190_image.jpg)


By AlbertoC

One of the things which was pretty difficult to implement in Aggressors (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome) was the way the game handles resources.

Initially, the number and types of resources were hardcoded in the game's core and the only thing which could be changed (or modded) was the amount required for certain actions.
 
I didn’t like this approach. I knew that if there are mods focusing on different eras or genres, something like money or gold would not make sense anymore. And so I decided to define all resources externally in a modifiable file and connect them directly with unit actions that consume them, then the type of resource consumed and also the amount is entirely up to the externally-loaded rules.

Basically, every action in game, whatever you do, can cost you some resources. Building roads, bridges, settlements, irrigating lands, draining swamps, building improvements, healing... I could go on and on. It is entirely up to the rule creator (or modder) to set the resource costs for specific actions.

Aggressors: Ancient Rome itself comes with 10 different resources starting from gold, stone and coal through influence, knowledge and food to very special ones such as citizens and happiness.

Other mods might have a very different set of resources. For example: the Holland mod, the mod of one of our beta testers that we talked about few weeks ago, has two additional resources - cowhide and fish. Both are harvested in a different and very unique way.

But let’s focus on Aggressors: Ancient Rome only.

I already covered some of the special resources, their production and usage in previous dev diaries. I explained the use of Influence which is accumulated by cities and used on foreign towns to incite unrest. I also covered the citizens resource which is the main source of army recruits and the workforce and is therefore the backbone of the economy. Knowledge is another resource accumulated in cities, and is essential for research. But let’s not go into an exhaustive list of the resource types and instead talk about another aspect of the game – trade.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/trade/1.jpg)

All the resources in-game are tradable. The only resource that cannot be exchanged is happiness. You can trade all mined or harvested resources as well as influence or citizens. And you can trade knowledge.

It sounds a bit artificial, but it is actually much closer to reality than it might seem on first sight.

I never liked the way technologies and inventions were traded in the Civilization series. The whole system of “I give you a Chariot technology and you give me Navigation" simply doesn’t make sense. Not only that such "technology-for-technology" deals are extremely rare even in modern history but I couldn’t find a single example in the ancient history. And I am not even talking about the fact that if you are good friends with a very civilized and technologically advanced nation, you could turn a barbarian tribe into a modern state in a few turns.

So, why do I think that the approach in Aggressors is better? Firstly, you don’t trade inventions but knowledge. You trade know-how of the scholars which can help you to understand the work of nature and progress faster to a new level of technological development.

Secondly, research of every technology requires a certain number of knowledge points. If you have excessive amounts of knowledge resource, you can even accelerate the time needed for research. The shorter the time, the higher the resource cost, of course.

Thirdly, even if there is a very generous player who is willing to give you a vast amount of "knowledge", you can accelerate the research process but you will not uncover technologies that are simply beyond your current stage of development. Minimum research time is set for every technology so you cannot just jump over several technologies in a turn. All this means that every player has to research every technology by his own means. The only exception is when you unite with another nation in a federation or you merge together. Then you naturally also get access to all the technologies of the partner player.

So, how does the actual trading work? It was really important for me to come up with such a system that would reflect the importance of trading for the life of all ancient nations.

As I said, you can trade all the resources except happiness. Trade exchanges are not one-off events but they lay foundations to long-lasting business relationships that can last for decades. No wonder that some negotiations can go on for several turns (years) as both parties need to set the right conditions.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/trade/2.jpg)

How to start? You begin by establishing a trade route which is a path connecting your city with a city of the partner. Both partners need to have full visibility of one of partner’s cities meaning that they know where they are sending their merchants to.

The routes are calculated automatically so that the shortest and safest route is chosen. Depending on the length of the trade route, a so called "trade loss" is calculated which are basically overhead costs that will be deducted from the amount of traded goods.

Calculation of new trade routes is determined by many factors. It is not just the distance, but also the terrain types through which the traders will have to travel. If you build a dirt road between the trading cities (or at least connect some of the tiles of the trade route) you make the route safer and decrease the trade loss. Paved roads are even better, of course. If there are no roads, trading caravans usually use sea or river routes. It is indeed better to trade with a partner nearby with a good road connection (or secure sea paths) than with partner on the other side of the map. Sometimes the trade loss can go as high as 50% which you really need to consider before the trade is agreed upon.

With a trade route established, you decide what you want to sell and buy. You can either ask for a very specific deal or make a relatively open offer and give the partner room for negotiations. Another important point is that there is no "good" or "bad" deal. It is all about supply and demand.

The exchange starts when the deal is confirmed by both sides. And then the resources start flowing both ways every turn.

The trade routes might change over time, for example if an enemy blocks them. In such cases a new route is chosen (calculated) and when doing so the overhead costs might change as well, which could render the exchange unprofitable. As one of the trade conditions you can set a "trade stop loss" which defines what overhead costs you are willing to accept. If the trade loss exceeds this limit, the deal is automatically cancelled.

Of course, where there are resources (and money) involved, there are bandits and pirates who live off the loot they manage to get. There are two concepts of raiding in the game: independent raiders, who randomly attack the trading caravans and steal part of the traded goods; and state-controlled raiders, who take orders from their masters (other players) and their loot then goes to the resource deposits of their masters.

Bandits and pirates operate both on sea and land. All military units can turn into raiders when they are close to at least one active trade route. The more units you use as pirates and bandits, the higher the chance of success and larger loot. Of course, there is certain danger involved. Firstly if you use a unit for raiding, it is not fortified and has a reduced defense ability which makes it very vulnerable if attacked. Besides, raiding is perceived as a dirty practice and your diplomatic relations can deteriorate fast, not only with the victim, but with all other nations as well.

But you are free to choose your own path. After all, ancient history knows many examples of nations that survived solely by attacking traders and living off the loot.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/trade/3.jpg)

Well, I hope I teased you enough to try all these aspects of the game yourself. Perhaps, pirates and thieves will rule the world under your command. Or maybe you will stand on the other side of the divide and be the one who frees the civilized world of all bandits on land and sea.
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on August 17, 2018, 12:07:06 PM
Aggressors Dev Diary #9 - Infrastructure

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1193_image.jpg)


We have already covered most of the main game mechanics and features yet there is still one big question   we want to discuss today. How to build up your empire and what to do in time of peace in Aggressors?
It might seem that antiquity was all about wars and conflicts, but people of those times mostly wanted to live in peace and prosperity like anyone else. Emperors might have had great ambitions and pushed the boundaries of their empires still further but at the same time they had to maintain and improve the state infrastructure to keep ahead of other nations.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/Infrastructure/10.png)

I would like to say that I don’t really like micromanagement in most strategy games. I find it either too "micro" or too boring – it just requires me to stay focused on many minor details while I’d rather look at he bigger picture. Another thing worth mentioning is that I feel micromanagement in ancient times needs to be different compared to how it would feel in modern times or in a sci-fi setup for example.
In ancient times most of the time urban centers managed their own things; the natural life of cities was regulated by local situations and needed not to be managed through frequent orders from the capital. Cities, their population and resources were mobilized only during perilous times when necessary war preparations had to be made.
We followed this line of logic as well. The main function of cities is to generate wealth and to build and maintain units which deplete city capacities and resources. Leaving cities “idle” allows them to follow their natural growth and use their resources where needed. When you task the city with work, being either the constructions of improvements or the recruitment of new units, the resource production of the city is decreased. This principle reduced micromanagement from "this is what I have to do" to "this is what I can do" and it seems that beta testers appreciate it.

So you might ask: what to do in time of peace?

Let me first explain the concept of a city. Cities are the backbone of the state infrastructure concentrating large bodies of population and power in one place. Their size and position greatly affect its defense capabilities and its ability to harvest on the neighboring tiles.
Every city has a so called "range" which is basically a set of nearby tiles adjacent to it. This range expands with the size and the number of citizens living there (we covered population growth in one of our previous diaries). Food and wood are harvested on tiles lying within the city range which means that larger cities work larger areas and so produce more food and wood.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/Infrastructure/11.png)

A city itself consumes resources while producing some others but production and usage of resources by the city depends on its size - the bigger the city, the higher the production and also consumption. For instance, a very small city produces very little knowledge because all its people are busy farming, mining, etc. As the city grows and with it its population, more and more people can have other occupations (philosophers and scholars) and so the output of knowledge in the city increases.

City size is nonlinear, meaning that having many small cities is not the same as having a few very large ones. E.g. two cities with a size 2 have together a smaller population (and therefore also production and consumption rates) than one city with a size 4.
However, city size also has a very important side effect. The larger the city, the stronger its defense, and it’ll be more difficult to conquer it for anyone. On the other hand, bigger cities give bigger loot once conquered.

As mentioned above, tiles within a city range are important for harvesting food and wood. Arable lands around cities can be cultivated by building fields and farms to multiply food yields from each tile depending on the technological development of the country. Sea tiles also provide food in abundance. Terrain which is not suitable for agriculture such as forest, swamp and jungle can be “transformed” by cutting down the woods or draining them. However, one has to be careful not to deplete precious sources. Clearing a forest means that you immediately gain relatively large quantities of timber and make more space for fields but you will not be able to harvest wood on that tile ever again. Romans cut down many of their forests and then had to import wood from far away provinces.

As with any centre, maintenance and upkeep are necessary. The concept of city improvements is similar to units improvements as discussed in a previous diary.

Cities can improve their infrastructure by building military (stockade, palisade, city walls), economic (trading centre, economical city), political (amphitheater, obedience, civil service), cultural (academy or schools) or urban improvements (hospital, sewers system) that can have a major effect on the defensive function, resource production, cultural and social life of the city. For example, improving cities with Sewage system protects them from the spreading of infections and diseases, while building Civil service reduces the risk of local revolts.

There are currently 16 city improvements and I am sure you don’t want me to spoil all the fun by revealing them all here.
Many 4X games treat cities as the "absolute centers" where all power and activity is concentrated. However, facilities outside of city walls often were of great strategic importance so we introduced the concept of "buildings" into the game. These are standalone facilities such as blacksmith, temple, shipyard, fort, defensive walls, patrol tower etc. that greatly affect the economic life as well as the military capacities of the state.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/Infrastructure/12.png)

Another very important aspect of state management are good communication lines connecting all parts of the empire. There are two types of roads – dirt and paved roads and they have a great impact on the economic and military development of the country. Just like with anything else in the game, you will have to research them through technology.
Mines connected to cities and blacksmiths by roads significantly increase their resource production. Roads allow units to move faster over all types of terrains and their use also reduces the overhead costs of trade exchanges (you can find more about trade in the previous diary). Roads also allow you to provide constant flow of supplies to your armies. Units left in foreign lands without food, armaments and other necessities rebel and can cause trouble so you should plan your road network in advance to support future territorial expansion. Behind your advancing units should always come road builders to ensure sufficient flow of supplies.
When it comes to roads I should not forget to mention bridges. Rivers aren’t just a map feature but they have an important military dimension. They create a barrier which is not easy to traverse. Some unit types cannot cross rivers at all if the other bank is not already in their hands. Others can cross them but with a significant movement and defense penalty. That's why rivers have a great defensive potential.

You can mitigate all river penalties simply by building a bridge. Should you be forced to retreat, you can always destroy the structure and leave the hard choice to the opponent – either accepting the river as a new border between your states or crossing the wild stream without a bridge and risking a slaughter in an attempt to reach the opposite bank.

These are the most important parts of a micromanagement in Aggressors. I believe that gamers who like the “building” part of 4X games will enjoy the given options to improve their empire without being overwhelmed by repetitive tedious clicking and enjoying the game itself.

Initially this dev diary was planned to be the last one but we decided to give you a bonus one. I already look forward to it because next time I will show you our map generator and its possibilities.

Last but not least, tune in this evening at 8 pm CEST on our Twitch channel for a preview stream of Aggressors: the strategy master DasTactic himself is going to play!


Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on August 23, 2018, 01:28:05 PM
Video of the live stream from August 17 at 8 pm CEST on Slitherine Twitch channel. Played by DasTactic

https://youtu.be/eKxEiSf5ZBw
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on August 23, 2018, 07:21:20 PM
Aggressors - Gameplay video #1 - Intro to Basics

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1195_image.jpg)

The first gameplay video for Aggressors: Ancient Rome. This video, the first of a series, is a good introduction to Aggressors and what the game is about.



https://youtu.be/8D9QOb4IqMQ
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on August 25, 2018, 12:04:18 AM
Aggressors Dev Diary #10 - Map Generator

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1196_image.jpg)

From Matrix/Slitherine

Today we are publishing the last dev diary of Aggressors (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome) before its release next Thursday, but before we get to it, we would like to remind you that today DasTactic will be streaming Aggressors live on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup) at 9 pm CEST, don’t miss it!

Now, on to the dev diary, and as usual I’ll leave word to Pavel Kubat, lead developer and designer for the game.


From recent videos and questions on forums it is quite clear that players are very interested in the Random Map Generator included in Aggressors.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/mapgenerator/generator.jpg)


To be quite honest, the Map Generator was not actually intended to be part of the vanilla release. Despite the fact that we use dynamic terrain even in the scenario setup (it is not a fixed map) as it gives much more flexibility, we didn’t consider this feature to be that interesting for players.

Moreover, the Map Generator would require a great deal of additional work and we had plenty of other things on top of our to-do list.

When alpha testing started and feedback and suggestions started flowing in, I was really taken aback by the staggering number of requests to add a custom Map Generator. I was expecting that players would prefer playing the historical scenario rather than a random map.

And so, as we had done so many times before, we re-thought our priorities and added this feature into our schedule. There was already a raw Map Generator partially implemented but it was a separate tool not incorporated into the game. It was also not that user-friendly and not modular enough to meet the standards we had in mind.


The first phase of the project was mapping out the games already out there. I was looking for the right way to do this, to find the key settings for the map generator and to identify pitfalls of other map generators and how to avoid them. After a couple of months of development the first version of the map generator was ready.

We used a number of standard settings such as map size (ranging from tiny to huge world), map type (ratio between water and land mass), climate type (hospitable to barren) or density of population (how crowded the world is and the distance between players). But that was just the beginning.

From my perspective the biggest issue in the majority of map generators for other games is the fact that they tend to force you to really long and boring early phases once you have begun playing. You have to hit "end turn" around fifty times to eventually get to develop some infrastructure and build a couple of units to be able to actually play and enjoy the game. This was a no-go for me. I decided early on that we needed to add a Development setting allowing players to choose if they want to start with a lonely nomad unit roaming the unknown world or if they would rather start as a crowned king of a state that stands on solid foundations like cities, roads, fields for farming and few trained military units to build upon.

There are five different options to satisfy everyone’s taste.

But soon enough we realized that the basic settings are not quite enough. The worlds we generated were great, some of the maps even surpassing our expectations but we needed more options to modify the gameplay itself.

Some were easy to implement, for example Resource abundance that allows the player to configure how many mines will be available on the map which affects the player’s ability to develop as well as how fast and tough the conflicts over resources will be. Hand in hand with this setting goes the Player’s resource abundance which sets the resources stockpiles the player has at the beginning of the game.

Similarly, the Diplomatic Relations setting defines how (un)friendly neighboring nations will be, and the Independent Cities setting determines the number of standalone independent neutral cities on the map.

Players can also specify which victory conditions they want in their game - overall victory, military superiority, technological dominance and country development.

All the above settings were added to the Map Generator in a natural process following the logic of any world creator. However, what makes every single game fun is the way it unfolds in a different direction every time and forces players to adjust their strategy to current conditions. Sometimes you get the upper hand, yet another time you struggle to keep up with other forces around you.

There are two settings that determine how fair the game will be, determining whether or not one between the player and AI opponents will start in a more powerful position.

The Game Balance setting adjusts starting conditions. Set to max, all players (human and AI) will have similar starting point in terms of number of military units, settlers and cities. Set to minimum, the development span will be quite big – some nations will be already large developed empires whereas others will have to make do with just a city-state.

However, this setting does not really say on which end you going to end up. For this, there is the Player Advantage setting which allows you to choose what kind advantage over all other players you will have. You can decide to create a new world with you leading a mighty and established empire surrounded by younger tribes, or you can take up the challenge and start as the very last runner in the conquest for supremacy. The choice is yours, you can be either Goliath or David.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/mapgenerator/1.jpg)


That said, designing the Map Generator and all these settings was not the most difficult part. The challenge was in finding the right balance. We invested a huge amount of time into balancing so that even if you draw the shortest straw, you will be able to survive at least few dozens of turns to prove your worth.

Now back to the map: there is still one thing left to mention. The historical setup has a contour map that we created tile by tile to make the world feel real. But for the randomly generated map we had to come up with a different solution to have nice high mountain ranges, deep river valleys and open bays surrounded by beaches created automatically from the map.

We designed an algorithm that detects the different terrain types and then creates a sort of contour map based on these.
To tickle your fancy, I will show you couple of screenshots that we took during testing but to see what the map generator can do, you will need to try it on your own.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/mapgenerator/2.jpg)

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/mapgenerator/3.jpg)

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/mapgenerator/4.jpg)


The release date is around the corner. I really enjoyed writing these diaries because I had an opportunity to look back and recollect our long journey. It was full of headaches, doubts and sleepless nights but on the other hand it has been an extremely enjoyable and intriguing ride.

I want to thank you for joining me in this nostalgia and I can only invite you to explore the depth of Aggressors on your own. What else can I say? I hope you’ll have as much fun playing Aggressors as I still have, even after 10 years of development!
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on August 25, 2018, 12:04:28 AM
Aggressors - Developer Stream announced!


We have something special coming: in sight of the release of Aggressors (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome) next week, the developers themselves are going to stream the game on Twitch live next Monday!


(http://slitherine.com/files/spotlight/1197_image.jpg)


Don't miss it - it will be a very informative stream, with the lead designer speaking at length about Aggressors and answering all your questions in detail

The stream will begin at 8 pm CEST on our Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup) on Monday August 27th.
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on August 30, 2018, 03:09:00 PM
Released

£22.99

http://slitherine.com/store/product.asp?gid=723

Slitherine also gives you a Steam key  :thumbsup
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on August 30, 2018, 03:20:22 PM
Aggressors: Ancient Rome is out now!

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1204_image.jpg)

Be ready to lead one of twenty factions in a race for domination of the ancient Mediterranean.

Watch the trailer!

https://youtu.be/F1eiioZN5RE


£22.99

http://slitherine.com/store/product.asp?gid=723

Lead the mighty legions of Rome and expand its civilization with fire and steel. Establish a trading empire with Carthage across the Mediterranean, making it your Mare Nostrum. Rule one of the Successor Kingdoms and conquer a massive hellenistic empire, following on the footsteps of Alexander the Great. Take command of a young tribe, new to the world stage, and make older and decadent empires tremble.

The choice is yours. Aggressors: Ancient Rome is a historical turn-based 4x strategy game that lets you relive ancient history, putting you in the sandals of the great conquerors of those times.

Warfare, economy, diplomacy, trade, internal politics, technology, demography: you have many tools at your disposal to shape your empire and gain an edge over greedy and rapacious rivals. All at a level of depth never seen before in a game of this kind.

The developers from Kubat Software fine-tuned the gameplay for years, implementing mechanics which integrate seamlessly with each other, for a cohese and coherent experience that makes the world you play in feel alive and realistic.

You can read more about the gameplay by reading the Dev Diaries (http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=519&t=87490).

Aggressors is all about customization and replayability. Thanks to the extremely flexible random world generator you'll be able to generate any kind of random map, setting all the parameters you need to completely customize your next campaign. No playthrough will ever be the same.

With the in-game editor you will be able to create new maps and mods to your liking, then you can easily update them to Steam Workshop with the simple click of a button. Modding has never been easier! We are particularly proud of how modding is taking on in Aggressors: many beta testers already developed new mods and scenarios, and at launch you'll already find free scenarios and mods available for download from the Steam Workshop.

For more information about the game please visit its product page (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome).

To celebrate this release, the game's producer Surtur will be playing Aggressors live on Twitch at 8 pm CEST on our channel (http://www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup). Come and stay with us to take part in the release party for Aggressors, as well as to ask whatever you would like to know about the game!

Last but not least: as usual we would love to hear your feedback, and it's great to gather all players in a single place to stimulate discussion and the exchange of ideas - the best places for that are our forum (http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=519) and the newly created Discord channel (http://discord.gg/yVb9q3). They are also the places where you would be able to find advice and suggestions about the game.
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on September 04, 2018, 02:44:36 PM
Aggressors - Dev Stream on Military Command

From Matrix/Slitherine

This Friday we are going to start the first stream of a series of developer streams for Aggressors: Ancient Rome (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome).

The lead designer himself, Pavel Kubat, is going to stream Aggressors live, focussing every time on a different aspect of the game.

All of these streams will be extremely detailed and in-depth, offering deep insight on the game's mechanics.

This time he will focus on Military command: how warfare works, how to get the best performance out of your units, how to exploit terrain to your advantage, how to wage a war from a strategic point of view, and more.

So join us on our Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup) this Friday on September 7th at 9 pm CEST.

(http://slitherine.com/files/spotlight/1207_image.jpg)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on September 11, 2018, 12:14:11 PM
Aggressors - v1.02.1 is out, bringing UI scaling!
Aggressors: Ancient Rome - Alberto


We just released an update for Aggressors, bringing the game to version 1.02.1. It is a big one, and it's been in testing for a week to make sure everything works as intended.

Among many bug fixes and balance improvements, we're pleased to announce that the game now fully supports UI scaling. We know that some players couldn't play the game properly on a 4k screen, so we made it our priority to address that issue.

We really aim at improving Aggressors and to keep making it a better game. We just started our work on it, and now the team can start working on their next updates. It is important for us to hear your feedback and any criticism you might have, so we can make Aggressors the bext 4x game you can play.

You can download the patch here (http://www.slitherine.com/members/privateDL.asp?gid=723).

We hope you'll enjoy this update, and as usual please let us know your opinion on the forum!


Changelog:

Game core

• Autoheal is 2x faster (health increase is higher) when unit is located in it's production building
(military unit in city, cavalry in stable, vessel in shipyard).
• Rules for desertion improved (it takes much more different aspects to the consideration of
potential desertion - power of enemy, friendly units around, etc).
• Recover is now calculated out of model defense and power, not current.


UI

• Statistics about opponent in political map added to the banner tooltip.
• Improved highlight of supplied and nonsupplied areas for selected unit.
• History replay lagging fixed.
• "Simple greeting sounds" option implemented (instead of listening "YES" or "What" you can hear just simple "click").
• Autosave at the end of the turn is configurable.
• Added damage indicator to the unit selector and map item detail window.
• Default fog density lowered.
• Tooltip of local happiness on hovered tile added.
• In editor you can move units even when it is out of movement points already.
• UI fully supports scaling[/b] 50%-200%.


Data

• Number of people working in mines decreased.

Modding

• Msgs.cs file (with modded unit actions) was not loading correctly.

Bugs

• Spacebar was not working during enemy moves to skip currently animated player's moves.
• Weird trade offer was not giving player choice to answer.
• Shield denoting stacked units was disappearing.
• Capital lost window title corrected.
• Few rarely happening CTDs fixed.
• State menu was not flashing (in tutorial) when player was reading about it.
• In generated maps, the first city always had the same first suggested name.
• Issue with pressing Esc when autosaving at the end of turn and after AI moves (main menu was appearing but it shouldn't).
• Editor - Unit properties window had an issue with number of defences for current turn.
• When exporting scenario, it was incorrectly exporting also game resources (this should be only in mod file).
• Number of other small bugs fixed.
• Error handling window improvements.


Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on September 18, 2018, 07:07:50 PM
Aggressors - Dev Stream - Home Politics

From Matrix/Sltherine

After last week's break due to Home of Wargamers, we are ready to continue with our weekly series of Aggressors Dev Streams!

Many players asked for these streams to continue, and we're happy to oblige them. This Friday Pavel, designer and lead developer of the game, will stream Aggressors and focus exclusively on how to handle Diplomacy and Home Politics.

As usual it will be a very detailed stream, and it will be the best way to learn about the subtleties in the gameplay as well as to find out the reasons behind certain design choices.

Tune in on our Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup) on Friday September 21st at 9 pm CEST. Don't miss it!


(http://slitherine.com/files/spotlight/1212_image.jpg)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on September 26, 2018, 02:20:55 PM
Aggressors - Dev Stream - Country Management

Another friday is approaching, and Pavel from Kubat Software, lead designer of Aggressors: Ancient Rome (http://www.slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome), will once again return to Twitch for more live streaming!

This time, after last week's stream on Diplomacy, he will focus on Country management. As usual it will be an incredibly in-depth stream, ideal for anyone who really wants to master a quite complex game. So join us on our Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup) on Friday September 28th at 9 pm CEST! Don't miss it!

(http://www.slitherine.com/files/spotlight/1217_image.jpg)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on October 05, 2018, 12:08:33 AM
Aggressors - Dev Stream - Customization

There's going to be a new Aggressors (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome) dev stream tomorrow!

Pavel, lead designer of the game, will focus on the degree of customization you can experience in Aggressors, as well as speak at length about his design choices behind the UI.

As the other dev streams (http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=519&t=87569) in the past this will be a great occasion to hear straight from the devs and get an insight on how the game was designed. You will also be able to speak with them and ask them anything you'd like!

So don't miss this chance and tune in on our Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup) at 9 pm CEST tomorrow on Friday October 5th!

(http://slitherine.com/files/spotlight/1221_image.jpg)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on October 05, 2018, 04:04:14 PM
Aggressors Dev Diary #11 - The show has just begun

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1223_image.jpg)

It has now been more than a month since Aggressors (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome) was released. We've already released three big updates since then, and we are proud to say that just a minor portion of the changes were bugfixes. We would like to thank our beta testers who did an incredible job during the long beta testing phase with helping us identifying and fixing almost all technical issues.

One thing our players appreciate is our professional customer support. The game itself comes with a simple to use "error window" that pops up when a problem is encountered. This is a quick way of informing us that something went wrong. You can contact us directly either by using this tool, through e-mail or just by posting on our forums. We really do our best to answer within hours every time. In some cases we also do one-to-one support over phone/Skype to fix problems mostly related to PC configurations, old drivers or user permissions.

The low number of bugs allowed us to focus on implementing changes requested by players, either related to gameplay, UI or the rules. So what has been changed since then?

The biggest change in the first update was the introduction of UI scaling. I think we should humbly confess that this is something that should have been already in the vanilla version. Most of our beta players had resolutions up to FullHD, which was the resolution the game was initially designed for, and so it happened that this issue did not really come up during the beta. For higher resolutions there has always been a workaround which enabled change to FullHD. However, this solution proved to be insufficient and we realized it very soon after the release.

We made it our top priority for the first update and we were able to deliver full UI scaling within one week of the release. Players can now take full advantage of UI scaling without any limitations.

However, we wanted the solution to be robust and complex. Therefore, we implemented customizable UI scaling. Players can now decide what UI scaling fits their needs themselves and not have this solely based on their screen resolution. If you prefer to have smaller UI even at bigger resolutions, bigger UI even for FullHD or even play the game in (by today's standard) "obsolete" small resolution like 1024x768, you are able to do so.

The second most requested feature was an alternative mouse control system. Despite the fact that we consider Aggressors' mouse control system to be effective and innovative, players should be able to set it to suit their preferences. We understand that players who play games like Total War or Civilization are used to a different way of mouse behavior and that was also the reason why this was our second priority. It took us a couple of weeks to fully integrate a new player option called "Alternative mouse control" which allows the player to set the mouse controls the way he is used to. However, we still feel that the "Aggressors way" of mouse control deserves a chance. It might take a couple of hours to get used to it but based on the long beta test we can honestly say that most of the players managed to get a hold of it in few hours and they like and prefer it this way. From a quick survey we know that most of these players do not plan to switch back to the previous mouse control system they were used to.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/customization/1.jpg)


We also watched many gameplay videos on YouTube and Twitch. We made notes of their complaints, struggles and suggestions. The list is pretty long and we want to give each of the ideas a proper consideration and eventually implement those that fit the game theme and logic. On the other hand, the number of features already implemented is also quite long. We’ll mention some of the most important here.

Main view changes:

One of the things the players struggled with was the supply management system. Not that they would not understand the concept but the indicators in tooltips about the tiles supply values were often overlooked and went unnoticed. On top of that, only a small portion of the players used the "Supply map" overlay intuitively.

We decided to address this imperfection and extend the standard way of how this information is presented. Players can now notice different highlights for out-of-supply or partially supplied tiles even in the standard view. They can see which suppliers provide supplies for a particular unit and to what extent the supplier participates in the supply level for that unit.


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/customization/2.jpg)


We expanded the settings for map appearance. One particular complaint we noticed was about the fog density. Players found it to be too dense and obscuring the view.

Again, like many times before, we didn’t want to hardcode specific values to the game. We realize that what one player likes might not satisfy another one. We already went through this with settings for terrain saturation, terrain overlay, contrast of highlights or displaying trees. In this case, we simply followed the established level of customization and we introduced yet another player option called "Fog density". This allows the player to set the fog density to his liking. Needless to say, some players were really happy about this.

Most comments we received are on game sounds. We wanted to be a bit different and used quite original "greeting" sounds. Players could hear yawning or bored sounds from settlers, "I'm the man" from military units or shouting soldiers ready for action. The feedback was surprisingly controversial. Some players found it very funny and liked it very much; others found it weird and immersion breaking.
If you have already understood our vision for the game, you probably know what we have done. We added another setting that allows the player to completely turn the greeting sounds off or replace them with a simple "click" sound. Hopefully this will make both sides happy.

User interface changes:

One of the things we constantly improve is the UI. Players ask to have a clear view of information, to get more indicators of what is going on under the hood and to know how can they influence the situation around them.

An area where we needed to improve the UI is Trade. Players seem to appreciate the depth of trading and like the concept but they were missing an indicator of what the opponent might need or what resources he has in abundance.

Last week we introduced the concept of "recommended resources to buy and sell". It is a list of 3 resources suggesting what the opponent needs most and what he might be willing to exchange. This not only accelerates the negotiation of new trades but it also lowers the number of "trade spam offers" (human players tend to send trade offers to many players at once to have a higher chance to get one accepted).


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/customization/3.jpg)


Other improvements were made on the Political Map where the player can now get extended information of other factions’statistics and battle prediction tooltips.

Game rules:

The changes which were made were not only related to the UI and controls. Players already came up with a number of new interesting ideas and suggestions on how to improve the existing rules.
The Player community is priority number one for us. We want you to be in control of the game and tell us your wishes. Of course we have our own vision of the game but every time a new suggestion is received, we carefully consider it and either implement it straight away, log it into our tracking system to be implemented later or we explain in detail our reasons to reject such changes. In this case we advise players on how to make such changes if they decide to create their own mod or scenario.
The list of changes is long but let’s list the ones we decided to implement straight away and that are already part of the latest build:

- When a unit is in the city, it automatically heals two times faster.
- The factors affecting possible army desertion were vastly expanded - overall enemy power, support of nearby units, army morale of enemy, and others are now taken into account.
- Recovery speed is now based on the unit's "base" power instead of the current power.
- Independent cities repair and improve themselves similarly to cities of other factions. The improvements available for them depend on the level of development of the factions around. This should reflect the real world when the "development" level of one country has an influence on nearby territories.
- Rules related to military units withdrawing from battles were improved.
- Factors that influence the occurrences of revolts and civil wars were extended to include loyalty and general morale.

AI players:

We are very happy that the AI player is perceived as very smart and quite unpredictable. Nevertheless, the work on AI improvements is a never ending story and we constantly try to make it better. In the last month we've already reviewed some of its behaviors:

- When the AI rejects a diplomatic offer, it also specifies why.
- Number and types of AI's diplomatic offers were reviewed and made more realistic.
- Changes in AI tactical behavior were introduced making it an even stronger opponent during wars.

It is needless to say that we plan to continue providing you the best player experience. We are happy that you have so many ideas and suggestions; it will keep us very busy in the upcoming months. So which card are we going to draw from the stack next? In the next week or two we want to release a new update focusing on modding and scenario building. We want to give the means to create a new scenario to as many people as possible.How do we want to achieve that? Stay tuned, we will reveal more details soon!

We want to thank all the players for reviews and spreading the word about the game. It is not only extremely motivating to read how you enjoy the game but it is also the best way how you can help us to continue working on it! As per the title of the dev diary…the show has just begun, and we’re looking forward to telling you what comes next!
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on October 11, 2018, 12:53:04 PM
Aggressors Dev Diary #12 - Creators Update

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1229_image.jpg)

Today we released a new version v1.0.5, called "Creators Update". The update was not announced in advance as usual – as it was a small surprise for our fans, especially the scenario creators and modders. We hope that this will also convince other players that creating your own map is so easy and fast that anyone can do it!

Let's first start with the built-in game editor. The feedback we have received so far was very positive. All suggestions and requests related to the editor were given a priority in our change implementation schedule. The game editor is very stable, intuitive and easy to use. You can change pretty much anything related to a scenario - such as adding new units or creating rivers, to defining relations and army morale for each faction.

We also wanted to make the process of changing the existing assets and texts as easy as possible. Scenario creators can now change the banners and coat of arms of each faction, add their own pictures to be displayed in the game windows or game help, change illustrations of leaders and even add their own videos to their scenario! All this without any changes to the mod, create your own map and add assets as you like, no advanced knowledge of modding is needed, it is extremely easy!


(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/modding/sameScenario.jpg) (http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/modding/pila-screenshots-MOD.jpg)


At the same time, we wanted to support the modders and give them as much flexibility as possible. Modders can change anything they like and implement their ideas with a lot of freedom. However,  we have identified a few restrictions/limitations that we wanted to address.

The most obvious one was the strict mapping of one scenario to one mod, meaning that scenarios created for the official mod do not automatically work for other mods. If a modder wanted to use an existing scenario (let's say the campaign scenario), he would have to copy it over and configure this new file for his own mod.

There were two reasons for this - firstly, the scenario has to know which mod to load (as different mods can introduce different rules), and secondly, if you allow a scenario to run for any mod you run the risk that it won't work for many of the mods due to conflicts and the player experience would be ruined.

We realised that it might be confusing for the modders and scenario creators and perhaps even more so for players who download these new items from the workshop and so we decided to change the way mods and scenarios are bound to each other. By default, it works as I described above but from now on, mod creators have the option to marks their mod as compatible with the original mod (if the changes made do not conflict with the original rules) and explicitly allow to run the scenarios of the original mod for their mod as well.

This means that you can now do your own little modifications of the game (starting from different UI, new unit types or unit improvements through creating your own terrain types and kinds of animals) and still let players enjoy all this in the scenarios designed for the official mod.

The second request came directly from the modders. The game already allowed customised maps to be created in different mods but factions, state decisions, victory conditions and other game items were still taken from the original campaign scenario. To make this easier, the modders can now specify themselves what should be the "template" of which the new map is generated from. This allows the player to create random maps for any mod without limitations.

Last but not least is the introduction of a new tool called Map Builder. I am quite excited myself by this tool, as it is really the most significant "gift" to our scenario creators and players as well.

The Map Builder is a standalone application or "tool" which allows you to create your own Aggressors' map out of any picture. You find an image you like (basically any picture with a map), start the tool, crop the picture, define the map size and number of terrains you want to have on the map. The tool processes the picture and "simplifies" it to a number of colours matching the number of terrains. And that's it! It literally takes one minute to create an Aggressors map out of any picture downloaded from the Internet. Don't believe it? Give it a try and let us know what you think!

This is our way of thanking not only players but particularly all those who started creating their own scenarios and mods. We are still amazed how creative and dedicated community we have and the incredibly exciting content that has been designed and added to the workshop.

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/modding/mapBuilder.jpg)

(http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Screenshots/Aggressors/modding/mapBuilder4.jpg)


If you want to see some of these features in action, join us for our regular Dev stream this Friday. Tomorrow's stream will be focused entirely on modding and map creation. Don't miss it! Tune in at 9 pm CEST on Slitherine's Twitch Channel (https://www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on October 16, 2018, 01:36:14 PM
Aggressors - Map Builder Video

(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/spotlight/1233_image.jpg)

From the devs:

We have prepared a short video explaining and showing how the new Map Builder tool in Aggressors (http://slitherine.com/products/723/details/Aggressors.Ancient.Rome) works.

With the new Map Builder tool players are able to import any kind of map (e.g. from a picture) and play it out in Aggressors. Do you want to play on a map of South Africa? Just find a picture of the map of South Africa you want to import, run it through the tool as shown in the video and get ready to play.

It's as easy as that.


https://youtu.be/Wy-E_0mbvks


Many players are already making use of the new tool, as well as of the new changes and improvements that we brought with the latest free update. It's part of our continuous effort to support the modding community, and it's certainly working. There are already several dozens of mods and scenarios available in the Steam Workshop, all available for free. It is extremely important for us to help and support the modding community, and we'll continue to do so.

Please let us know what you think about this new tool, and don't forget to give us your suggestions!
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on November 03, 2018, 03:11:19 PM
Friday 02/11/18 at 8 PM BST Pavel will continue his play-through leading the sons of Sparta to victory in Aggressors!

This time he will be accompanied by a surprise special guest... tune in with us on Twitch to find out who!

www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32720708/99fd4bdfa8d06d00512b62d4754fa9703bd25778.jpg)
Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on November 03, 2018, 03:49:59 PM
V 1.0.6. "Español and more" changelog


Hello Aggressors!
We have just finished a new version v1.0.6. called "Español and more" as a thank you to the translators who did an incredible job and translated all the texts into Spanish. Aggressors has proven to be ready for a multilingual support and even modders and scenario creators can create content in these languages!
We hope that some other languages will follow soon but needless to say - if you want to help us with localization, we would be very grateful for any kind of support!

You can download the patch here (http://www.slitherine.com/members/privateDL.asp?gid=723).

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32720708/0e2e6401d1486445bcf4a89e2b47ba35053fa8be.png)

Apart from this, there are a number of other changes. The most important are:



Here is the complete Changelog:

User interface

Game core

Map builder

AI player

Data

Modding

Bugs



For modders and scenario creators:

Title: Re: Aggressors: Ancient Rome
Post by: Asid on December 18, 2018, 01:20:54 AM
Aggressors - version v1.0.7. "Strategic command" available!


Hello again, Aggressors!

It has been a while since the last update, but don't doubt that we are working as hard as before.
We have prepared a new update for you with many changes that were requested by you - players!

You can download the patch here (http://www.slitherine.com/members/privateDL.asp?gid=723).

The most important changes are:
(https://www.slitherine.com/forum/download/file.php?id=53179)

Here is the complete Changelog:

User Interface
AI Player
Data
Bugs
Miscellaneous