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#51
Games Discussion / Re: Veterans: Napoleonic Wars
Last post by Asid - April 08, 2026, 05:32:32 PMDev Blog #1 — The Battle of Montenotte
Tue, March 10, 2026
Today we're sharing our first Devlog for Veterans: Napoleonic Wars, featuring the Battle of Montenotte from Napoleon's early Italian campaign. It offers a glimpse of how battles unfold in the game, with armies maneuvering across varied terrain while relying on formations, positioning, and timing to gain the upper hand.
Watch YouTube Video
French forces push against Austrian troops across hills, farmland, and villages under foggy April weather conditions. Terrain, visibility, and well-timed flanking movements all play a role in shaping the course of the engagement and determining how quickly the momentum of a battle can change.
The footage also highlights smaller infantry formations known as platoons (pelotons), which serve as the building blocks of larger formations on the battlefield. We'll be sharing more details about formations and battlefield command in future dev blogs.
We hope you like this first look at the battlefield. More devlogs are coming soon!
Tue, March 10, 2026
Today we're sharing our first Devlog for Veterans: Napoleonic Wars, featuring the Battle of Montenotte from Napoleon's early Italian campaign. It offers a glimpse of how battles unfold in the game, with armies maneuvering across varied terrain while relying on formations, positioning, and timing to gain the upper hand.
Watch YouTube Video
French forces push against Austrian troops across hills, farmland, and villages under foggy April weather conditions. Terrain, visibility, and well-timed flanking movements all play a role in shaping the course of the engagement and determining how quickly the momentum of a battle can change.
The footage also highlights smaller infantry formations known as platoons (pelotons), which serve as the building blocks of larger formations on the battlefield. We'll be sharing more details about formations and battlefield command in future dev blogs.
We hope you like this first look at the battlefield. More devlogs are coming soon!
#52
Games Discussion / Re: Veterans: Napoleonic Wars
Last post by Asid - April 08, 2026, 05:27:03 PMAnnouncing Our Dev Blog Series
Thu, March 5, 2026
The Journey Begins!
Greetings, Commanders! The journey ahead is going to be challenging and incredibly exciting, and we want you to be a part of it from the very beginning.
What's next?
To keep our community in the loop, we are excited to announce that we will be publishing regular Developer Blogs. In these updates, we will pull back the curtain on our development process and share our latest progress, mechanics, and features with you.
For a game set during the Napoleonic era, we know that historical authenticity is paramount. In our upcoming dev blogs, we will dive deep into our heavy emphasis on historical accuracy. We want to show you exactly how we bring the 19th century to life, exploring the meticulous research, the real-world tactics, and the historical ideas and context behind every single battle you will fight in the game. We want each engagement to feel like a true historical reconstruction where your tactical genius can change the course of history.
About Us, Tactical Boar
So, who is the team behind this project?
We are Tactical Boar — a studio consisting of 16 dedicated developers, designers, and artists. Despite our different backgrounds, we are all united by two profound passions: a deep love for world history and an absolute obsession with strategy games.
As gamers ourselves, we grew up spending countless sleepless nights commanding empires and leading armies. We draw our deepest inspiration from legendary masterpieces like Civilization, Total War, and the Ultimate General series, alongside many other genre-defining titles.
Our ultimate goal is to take the best elements from these incredible games and weave them into something fresh and unique. We are striving to capture the massive scale and cinematic feel of thousands of troops clashing on the battlefield, and the intricate, hardcore tactical depth where every flanking maneuver and terrain advantage counts. By blending these beloved mechanics and adding our own ideas, we are pouring our hearts into creating the ultimate strategy experience that we've always wanted to play ourselves.
Thank you for your early support! Be sure to Wishlist the game and Follow us on social media so you don't miss our very first deep-dive DevBlog!
Thu, March 5, 2026
The Journey Begins!
Greetings, Commanders! The journey ahead is going to be challenging and incredibly exciting, and we want you to be a part of it from the very beginning.
What's next?
To keep our community in the loop, we are excited to announce that we will be publishing regular Developer Blogs. In these updates, we will pull back the curtain on our development process and share our latest progress, mechanics, and features with you.
For a game set during the Napoleonic era, we know that historical authenticity is paramount. In our upcoming dev blogs, we will dive deep into our heavy emphasis on historical accuracy. We want to show you exactly how we bring the 19th century to life, exploring the meticulous research, the real-world tactics, and the historical ideas and context behind every single battle you will fight in the game. We want each engagement to feel like a true historical reconstruction where your tactical genius can change the course of history.
About Us, Tactical Boar
So, who is the team behind this project?
We are Tactical Boar — a studio consisting of 16 dedicated developers, designers, and artists. Despite our different backgrounds, we are all united by two profound passions: a deep love for world history and an absolute obsession with strategy games.
As gamers ourselves, we grew up spending countless sleepless nights commanding empires and leading armies. We draw our deepest inspiration from legendary masterpieces like Civilization, Total War, and the Ultimate General series, alongside many other genre-defining titles.
Our ultimate goal is to take the best elements from these incredible games and weave them into something fresh and unique. We are striving to capture the massive scale and cinematic feel of thousands of troops clashing on the battlefield, and the intricate, hardcore tactical depth where every flanking maneuver and terrain advantage counts. By blending these beloved mechanics and adding our own ideas, we are pouring our hearts into creating the ultimate strategy experience that we've always wanted to play ourselves.
Thank you for your early support! Be sure to Wishlist the game and Follow us on social media so you don't miss our very first deep-dive DevBlog!
#53
Games Discussion / Re: Veterans: Napoleonic Wars
Last post by Asid - April 08, 2026, 05:22:35 PMVeterans: Napoleonic Wars - Teaser Trailer
#54
Games Discussion / Re: Veterans: Napoleonic Wars
Last post by Asid - April 08, 2026, 05:18:56 PM
#55
Games Discussion / Veterans: Napoleonic Wars
Last post by Asid - April 08, 2026, 05:15:18 PM
Veterans: Napoleonic Wars
Experience the ultimate Napoleonic Wars Wargame where every volley matters. Command history and turn the tides of war in this immersive Real-Time Strategy experience. Quick decisions and keen tactical formations are the only things that stand between your troops and victory.
Steam
Homepage
Manual: ?
Editor: ?
Theatre: Napoleonic Campaigns
Time span:Napoleonic Wars
Turns: Real time
Genre: Tactical
AI: Yes
Players: 1
Multiplayer: NO
Official Annoucement Teaser Trailer
About
Brandish your bayonet and step into the boots of a frontline general in the Napoleonic era. In Veterans: Napoleonic Wars, there is no need to establish a base. Take charge and focus on thousands of soldiers awaiting your orders and the smell of gunpowder in the air. The drums are beating, and the lines are forming. Are you ready to lead?
Experience History in the Making at a Massive Scale
Command battles inspired by the first Italian Napoleonic campaigns in a grounded single-player experience. Engage in large-scale conflicts with thousands of soldiers and tens of battalions on screen at once.
Command with a Tactical-First Approach
Real-time combat focused entirely on battlefield tactics with no base building. React instantly to enemy movements, flanking manoeuvres, and sudden cavalry breakthroughs. Fire at will. When the ammo runs dry or the line wavers, send your men forward in a desperate, high-stakes melee attack.
Formation Warfare at its Finest
Control vast regiments of infantry, cavalry, and artillery in real-time. This is about the physical presence of your army: how they move, how they fire, and how they hold their ground within historically accurate line, column, and square formations.
Keep Up the Morale of Your Troops
Your soldiers are your greatest resource. Keep your units alive to build a legendary army of veterans that have the power to change history. Choose the right mix of units for the job. Bring heavy cuirassiers to smash lines or nimble light infantry to harass from the trees. Unit morale, fatigue, and line of sight all directly influence your combat outcomes.
Survey Dynamic Battlefields
Battle through rain, mud, and sunshine across diverse landscapes. Every cannon shot adds to the smoke on the field, altering visibility and the intensity of the fight. Survey the flow of battle at a glance through the fog of war, but be ready to take the lead at a moment's notice.
Manage Persistent Army Progression & Customization
Customize your armies and develop veteran units over the course of campaigns. Your troops gain experience for every battle they survive. Every engagement matters, as the losses you take today will be felt in the next battle. Engage with authentic artillery and represent your allegiance in Napoleonic era uniforms.
#56
Games Discussion / Re: Headquarters: World War II
Last post by Asid - April 08, 2026, 05:00:53 PMHeadquarters: World War II - v1.04.13 out now
Wed, April 8, 2026
Fixes and Improvemements
With the release of Headquarters: Cold War, there have been various fixes and improvements within the Headquarters engine.
Work done on HQ: Cold War directly impact on improvements for WWII too:
• Fixed a minor interface bug where the button to learn a unit's ability was available without any level up points.
• A bug was fixed where AI could deploy troops in multiplayer even on flags controlled by other players. AI can also now use the deployment tiles of captured players.
• We've fixed the AI algorithm. Previously, when deployment cells were fully loaded, the AI would freeze and stop responding properly.
• Removed the ability to save in Hot Seat game mode.
• Fixed possible crashes of Skirmish maps if the player had archived files in the Skirmish map folder.
• Fixed the blinking of unit promotion stars. Previously, when a unit gained a level, the stars remained static; now they smoothly blink, improving the understanding of which units can receive additional upgrades.
Wed, April 8, 2026
Fixes and Improvemements
With the release of Headquarters: Cold War, there have been various fixes and improvements within the Headquarters engine.
Work done on HQ: Cold War directly impact on improvements for WWII too:
• Fixed a minor interface bug where the button to learn a unit's ability was available without any level up points.
• A bug was fixed where AI could deploy troops in multiplayer even on flags controlled by other players. AI can also now use the deployment tiles of captured players.
• We've fixed the AI algorithm. Previously, when deployment cells were fully loaded, the AI would freeze and stop responding properly.
• Removed the ability to save in Hot Seat game mode.
• Fixed possible crashes of Skirmish maps if the player had archived files in the Skirmish map folder.
• Fixed the blinking of unit promotion stars. Previously, when a unit gained a level, the stars remained static; now they smoothly blink, improving the understanding of which units can receive additional upgrades.
#57
Games Discussion / Re: Strategos : Classical anti...
Last post by Asid - April 08, 2026, 12:44:18 AMBrythonic Army List
Tue, 7 April 2026
Brythonic
Misc:
Tue, 7 April 2026
Brythonic
- Added Brythonic (Ancient British) army list
- Added new British Units: British warband, veteran warband, slingers and light cavalry (and also uses existing Celtic chariots)
- Added portraits, names, descriptions and translations for above
Misc:
- Added Ptolemaic Cataphracts
- More translations to CAP grid value charts
- Added more Chariot information in manual
#58
Games Discussion / Re: Exanima
Last post by Asid - April 06, 2026, 11:55:26 PMCoffee Diary - April 2026
Mon, 6 April 2026
Hey Exanimates,
It has been a very busy month indeed. Our next test run will basically be a release candidate that includes pretty much everything. Testing so far has gone pretty smoothly, so hopefully the trend will continue, though there are some pretty big changes and additions.
Besides some more content and polish for the Gardens, a lot of focus has been on overall polish and making sure that some core systems are really solid. We mentioned we were working on solving some pathfinding issues, mostly to stop your companions and enemies from falling into holes with your precious loot, but this went really deep with a lot of fundamental improvements and additions to pathfinding systems and features. The smarter pathing is a big improvement and NPCs can now negotiate some seriously tricky paths. In the same vein, we wanted to finally solve issues with characters occasionally getting stuck in objects or the environment. This happens when distant characters stop testing collision to save performance, or when the game lapses time while you're unconscious and repositions them, or when entering a map with followers in tow. All it takes is for a character's foot to be in the wrong place (for example) and they can become permanently stuck inside something. Trying to fully position a character in a way that no part of them is colliding is actually a very difficult problem that requires many things to solve. But these solutions have many uses, we were able to solve various other physics and placement issues and we can now also do a really solid unstuck feature. These aren't the most exciting things to be working on, but the complex nature of the game and developing our own engine means we have to tackle these difficult problems and can't just work on game features and content.
We also did some nice improvements to the new thaumaturgy domain. We were happy with the new core visual effects we developed for it, but some of the supporting effects were letting it down and there were still a few quirks to solve. The effects we wanted to improve seemed like hard rendering limitations at first, but we started to see ways they could be overcome. These were not easy to do though, so we were hesitant to try, but in the end we just had to do it so now we have some really nice new features in our rendering engine that will be useful for many things. We can't really go into specifics without spoiling what the new thaumaturgy domain is, but the changes and additions are about solving some fundamental real time rendering problems and here they provide some nice visual polish.
Some of the new content we're introducing in Gardens put us in need of very fast loading times. We're always trying to improve them, and we'd already done a lot here, but the levels keep getting bigger, more complex and varied. Procedural items and characters also require a bunch of extra processing and resources compared to non-unique pre-made assets. The dream would be for any content to be fully streaming with zero loading times, but in many situations this is extremely difficult to do and requires many clever systems working in perfect synchrony. Very fast loading times would allow seamless travel between zones, entering buildings, sections of maps or falling into pits to land somewhere else, without breaking the flow of the game, but streaming and virtualisation can also be critical to some game features, make many other things seamless and responsive and reduce resource consumption, allowing us to do more. It becomes necessary for large open maps, but also the game can't freeze when NPCs are allowed to move around the world, enter a map you're in, change and interact with things. Or other players for that matter.
Streaming content isn't especially difficult when it's just loading some assets or something specialised like terrain, but all our characters and items go through the same procedural generation that touches on many engine systems and resources that are busy doing something else. If these are accessed the game will crash, if we just wait for work to complete we're back to freezing, or terrible performance. This means everything had to change to coordinate this work, and every little interaction or small change must be carefully scheduled and pipelined, it can't just execute as needed. Characters can wear almost 30 procedural items at once that need to be modified based on how they interact with other items (a single piece of clothing can be dynamically assembled from 100s of meshes), collision volumes and voxels are generated, masses are calculated and all sorts, so generating or modifying a character can take a lot of work and time. A brief pause when using the UI can be forgiven, but sometimes this needs to happen in the middle of the action and the game freezing is unacceptable.
We're not trying to achieve the zero loading times everywhere dream here yet, but just to meet our immediate requirements we had to tackle the most difficult problems, build support for all this at an engine level and change the way we handle every character UI, item interaction and many things besides. It's been a lot of difficult work, but now loading times are up to four times faster and content can be loaded, generated and modified as you play without the game freezing, or even stuttering. As to why we deemed it necessary to do this now, you'll have to wait and see, but the faster loading times are really nice in general, things like opening the inventory no longer freeze the game and a lot of things just feel more responsive and smooth. We didn't realise how much of a difference this all makes until we tried it ourselves. These changes are also very noticeable in arena, where there's constant loading in and out of matches and a lot of character and item screens which could feel very slow and tedious to navigate.
Speaking of procedural characters, long ago we teased some experiments we did with deep wounds on undead exposing flesh, organs and bones. That was just a rough concept and required a fair amount of work to actually make it into an in-game feature, but we finally got round to it. We've made many changes to the procedural decomposition, but this is the main addition. There's a number of decomposition effects that change including the extent of the wounds, and the patterns of the wounds and other effects are unique to each individual. Here's some screenshots showing some levels of decomposition and different examples.
Something else we've been wanting to do properly for a good while is shader compilation. You've probably noticed the stutters this can cause when you first load up the game, especially on a new update. We've been neglecting this as we're constantly making changes to our rendering engine and maintaining this can be difficult. Our engine is unlike most modern engines, we leverage forward rendering for a lot of versatility in materials and effects, but also to implement a huge number of highly specific optimisations. But this requires a massive number of specific shaders that are generated dynamically and predicting which ones will be needed gets complicated. We've just tackled this and added some dev tools that allow us to track which shaders are being compiled when. This makes maintaining things easier and helps us compile most shaders in advance to remove most of the stuttering. We plan to expand on this as we introduce more ways to mask shader compilation, so that you're not just hit with a long wait when launching the game instead. The new streaming features we just mentioned should also help us do this.
While working on various things we also found new ways to further improve image quality. Image quality is kind of our engine's signature thing, we go to great lengths to produce the best possible sub-pixel rendering and produce a sharp detailed image with minimal aliasing. This is particularly important with all our highly detailed shiny objects which are small on screen and also the subtle motion, which would otherwise be a shimmering or smudged mess. Our "supersampling" (for lack of a better word) does most of the heavy lifting, but there's a lot of tricks and processing that go into this, starting at the asset level. We invented a new trick and made some general improvements which further improve image definition and reduce aliasing. We also made some specific improvements to character views and item icons where the difference is most noticeable.
Best,
Bare Mettle
Mon, 6 April 2026
Hey Exanimates,
It has been a very busy month indeed. Our next test run will basically be a release candidate that includes pretty much everything. Testing so far has gone pretty smoothly, so hopefully the trend will continue, though there are some pretty big changes and additions.
Besides some more content and polish for the Gardens, a lot of focus has been on overall polish and making sure that some core systems are really solid. We mentioned we were working on solving some pathfinding issues, mostly to stop your companions and enemies from falling into holes with your precious loot, but this went really deep with a lot of fundamental improvements and additions to pathfinding systems and features. The smarter pathing is a big improvement and NPCs can now negotiate some seriously tricky paths. In the same vein, we wanted to finally solve issues with characters occasionally getting stuck in objects or the environment. This happens when distant characters stop testing collision to save performance, or when the game lapses time while you're unconscious and repositions them, or when entering a map with followers in tow. All it takes is for a character's foot to be in the wrong place (for example) and they can become permanently stuck inside something. Trying to fully position a character in a way that no part of them is colliding is actually a very difficult problem that requires many things to solve. But these solutions have many uses, we were able to solve various other physics and placement issues and we can now also do a really solid unstuck feature. These aren't the most exciting things to be working on, but the complex nature of the game and developing our own engine means we have to tackle these difficult problems and can't just work on game features and content.
We also did some nice improvements to the new thaumaturgy domain. We were happy with the new core visual effects we developed for it, but some of the supporting effects were letting it down and there were still a few quirks to solve. The effects we wanted to improve seemed like hard rendering limitations at first, but we started to see ways they could be overcome. These were not easy to do though, so we were hesitant to try, but in the end we just had to do it so now we have some really nice new features in our rendering engine that will be useful for many things. We can't really go into specifics without spoiling what the new thaumaturgy domain is, but the changes and additions are about solving some fundamental real time rendering problems and here they provide some nice visual polish.
Some of the new content we're introducing in Gardens put us in need of very fast loading times. We're always trying to improve them, and we'd already done a lot here, but the levels keep getting bigger, more complex and varied. Procedural items and characters also require a bunch of extra processing and resources compared to non-unique pre-made assets. The dream would be for any content to be fully streaming with zero loading times, but in many situations this is extremely difficult to do and requires many clever systems working in perfect synchrony. Very fast loading times would allow seamless travel between zones, entering buildings, sections of maps or falling into pits to land somewhere else, without breaking the flow of the game, but streaming and virtualisation can also be critical to some game features, make many other things seamless and responsive and reduce resource consumption, allowing us to do more. It becomes necessary for large open maps, but also the game can't freeze when NPCs are allowed to move around the world, enter a map you're in, change and interact with things. Or other players for that matter.
Streaming content isn't especially difficult when it's just loading some assets or something specialised like terrain, but all our characters and items go through the same procedural generation that touches on many engine systems and resources that are busy doing something else. If these are accessed the game will crash, if we just wait for work to complete we're back to freezing, or terrible performance. This means everything had to change to coordinate this work, and every little interaction or small change must be carefully scheduled and pipelined, it can't just execute as needed. Characters can wear almost 30 procedural items at once that need to be modified based on how they interact with other items (a single piece of clothing can be dynamically assembled from 100s of meshes), collision volumes and voxels are generated, masses are calculated and all sorts, so generating or modifying a character can take a lot of work and time. A brief pause when using the UI can be forgiven, but sometimes this needs to happen in the middle of the action and the game freezing is unacceptable.
We're not trying to achieve the zero loading times everywhere dream here yet, but just to meet our immediate requirements we had to tackle the most difficult problems, build support for all this at an engine level and change the way we handle every character UI, item interaction and many things besides. It's been a lot of difficult work, but now loading times are up to four times faster and content can be loaded, generated and modified as you play without the game freezing, or even stuttering. As to why we deemed it necessary to do this now, you'll have to wait and see, but the faster loading times are really nice in general, things like opening the inventory no longer freeze the game and a lot of things just feel more responsive and smooth. We didn't realise how much of a difference this all makes until we tried it ourselves. These changes are also very noticeable in arena, where there's constant loading in and out of matches and a lot of character and item screens which could feel very slow and tedious to navigate.
Speaking of procedural characters, long ago we teased some experiments we did with deep wounds on undead exposing flesh, organs and bones. That was just a rough concept and required a fair amount of work to actually make it into an in-game feature, but we finally got round to it. We've made many changes to the procedural decomposition, but this is the main addition. There's a number of decomposition effects that change including the extent of the wounds, and the patterns of the wounds and other effects are unique to each individual. Here's some screenshots showing some levels of decomposition and different examples.
Something else we've been wanting to do properly for a good while is shader compilation. You've probably noticed the stutters this can cause when you first load up the game, especially on a new update. We've been neglecting this as we're constantly making changes to our rendering engine and maintaining this can be difficult. Our engine is unlike most modern engines, we leverage forward rendering for a lot of versatility in materials and effects, but also to implement a huge number of highly specific optimisations. But this requires a massive number of specific shaders that are generated dynamically and predicting which ones will be needed gets complicated. We've just tackled this and added some dev tools that allow us to track which shaders are being compiled when. This makes maintaining things easier and helps us compile most shaders in advance to remove most of the stuttering. We plan to expand on this as we introduce more ways to mask shader compilation, so that you're not just hit with a long wait when launching the game instead. The new streaming features we just mentioned should also help us do this.
While working on various things we also found new ways to further improve image quality. Image quality is kind of our engine's signature thing, we go to great lengths to produce the best possible sub-pixel rendering and produce a sharp detailed image with minimal aliasing. This is particularly important with all our highly detailed shiny objects which are small on screen and also the subtle motion, which would otherwise be a shimmering or smudged mess. Our "supersampling" (for lack of a better word) does most of the heavy lifting, but there's a lot of tricks and processing that go into this, starting at the asset level. We invented a new trick and made some general improvements which further improve image definition and reduce aliasing. We also made some specific improvements to character views and item icons where the difference is most noticeable.
Best,
Bare Mettle
#59
Games Discussion / Re: Air Defence RADAR Simulato...
Last post by Asid - April 05, 2026, 09:42:07 PMRoadmap
We're on the way to Early Access on Steam for PC.
We're on the way to Early Access on Steam for PC.
- AWACS/Datalinks functionality
- QRA launch
- Intercept behaviour
- Aircraft redeployment across UK airfields
- Voice-overs for commands
- Internal Comms
- ASMA comms
- Training Scenarios
#60
Games Discussion / Re: Air Defence RADAR Simulato...
Last post by Asid - April 05, 2026, 09:40:37 PM
