Version 1.11 released

This version is intended to address various points raised in the “What do you find confusing” forum topic. While I tried to explain various concepts, I got a few times an idea how to better implement the thing that was confusing. For example governors’ statistics were adjusted heavily (instead of an unintuitive security rating boost now competence of governors simply adds a bonus to cities output and infrastructure points generation). There are now more descriptive tooltips and extended manual with more details. In addition, several changes were made which were at the border between a feature and a fix (mostly related to aliens). The last thing is an improvement of the interface, mostly aimed at better visibility on high resolutions (bigger fonts and dynamic sized fonts where possible). Overall, there is a bunch of changes but all those are very intuitive.

– [feature] Mechatrons implemented (can activate at an unspecified turn).

– [misc] Updated in-game help (added Rebellion chapter and listed all effects of all statistics of personnel).
– [misc] Arachnians will no longer wake up if their homeworld is lost, they will also instantly hibernate in such case.
– [misc] CyberMarch will become inactive (no more offensive operations) if their capital is lost.
– [misc] Governor’s Competence grants a bonus to cities output and infrastructure points generation. Governor’s Competence no longer affects Security rating of the planet.
– [misc] Fleets Loyalty affects SpecOps during rebellion.

– [balance] Extra defenses for CyberMarch near their capital. Also increased their power.

– [interface] Help improved (back buttons on all pages, bigger default font size).
– [interface] Ministry expansion naming unified (in some tooltips it was called level, in some called expansion and in some extension). Also added a better explanation that it increases effective Competence of the minister.
– [interface] Improved Aliens overview (list peace/war status, bigger fonts, more colors, etc).
– [interface] Bigger font size on Aliens description screen (will auto shrink to a smaller one if does not fit on the screen).
– [interface] Bigger font size on aliens portrait name (will auto shrink to a smaller one if does not fit).
– [interface] Bigger font size on Resources and Astronomy minimap planet highlight.
– [interface] Governor’s tooltip lists all effects of all statistics.

– [fix] Charisma of governors had no effect whatsoever. Now it’s added properly as a source of happiness from government. For clarity, the happiness from government on the happiness tooltip was split into two sources, one for Court and one for Governors.
– [fix] CyberMarch marking all planets as ready for conquest after losing their capital.
– [fix] Incorrect display of research points from blue sun on the Astronomy minimap tooltip.

Version 1.10 released

This version is intended to address the early v1.00 feedback, mostly related to things which are confusing when playing the first time and some minor features. In addition AI was fine-tuned and it contains one fix which altogether will make Admirals and Imperial High Command react to your orders better. There was also reset modernizations button added.

– [feature] Reset modernizations option (on ships screen) to let experiment freely with ships setup.

– [misc] Emergency reinforcements for planets under invasion made a higher priority than conquest/retake lost planet orders.
– [misc] Improved Admirals & High Command AI to better prioritize targets.

– [interface] Made granting honorary titles more intuitive (now all noble born have “Grant honorary title” button, but greyed out if ineligible, also with a tooltip explaining who and why).
– [interface] Rename noble house option (on houses screen).
– [interface] Help supports colored “bold” text.

– [fix] Admirals AI not sending emergency reinforcements to planets under ground invasion.
– [fix] Small spelling fixes.

Reminders
You can follow my Steam Developer Page if you wish to be notified each time a new game or expansions is being released.

Also, if you have a moment to leave a Steam review of the game it would be appreciated. It makes a big difference to an indie developer like me. Thanks!

Version 1.00 released

Finally, the day has come. The final version 1.00 is out! It does not mean the development has ended, but from now on the focus will be different. No more experimental drastic changes and crazy ideas, but more polish, balance adjustments, interface improvements and so on. This version has very few changes compared to the v0.90 since almost no bugs were reported in the meantime.

I would like to thank the early access community, all the people who provided comments, saves, bug reports, etc. It was a pleasure making this game with you all! Thanks!

– [feature] In-game manual (replacing the old encyclopedia).

– [balance] Event with 10’000 administrative points cost adjusted to make it cost less.

– [fix] Rare Absolute Monarchy bug not removing “red” agendas when those triggered the same turn the Absolute Monarchy went into effect.

Compatibility note: All savefiles from Early Access are incompatible with the full release version. Note that all E.A. beta branches will stay for around a month to let you finish any potential game in progress and then those E.A. betas will be deleted. From this point on saves compatibility is considered a high priority and it’s very likely those will never change.

Version 0.90 released

The long, long adventure of Early Access is coming to an end. Unless something drastic happens this will be the last Early Access version. This version focus was on finishing various unfinished parts, redesign of planetary orders, redesign of strategic weapons and command and control redesign. Overall, a lot of smaller but interesting tweaks were introduced.

Early Access is planned to conclude at the beginning of the next month with release of v1.00. This, of course, does not mean the end of the development. It’s more like from now on the priority would be on content, balance and interface improvements rather than addition of major features and experimenting with what would be most fun. Just like with my previous games.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank all participants of the Early Access adventure. For all the posts, feedback, sending me saves, testing, etc. It was a pleasure!

– [feature] Planetary orders redesign. No more “Conquest” orders, now you just “Claim” the planet and the military will do the rest. With additional prioritization options, withdrawal orders, etc.
– [feature] Strategic weapons redesign (chemical and biological weapons merged into bio-chemical weapons, heavy radiation effect reduced, no need for orbit control to drop bombs now just space forces presence suffices, made strategic weapons cheaper). Overall, those are now less potent but can be used in many more situations.
– [feature] Encyclopedia (basic but functional, contains essential information and beginner tips).
– [feature] New event “Absolute Monarchy” triggered at Centralization 11 which adjusts some game rules (Votes counting procedure, Reasonable political agendas, Fiefs supervision). You will be presented an option to take those or not.

– [remove] Removed context help, instead Encyclopedia is used (hotkey “H”).

– [misc] New effect for Centralization, now it decreases slightly Opinion of noble houses.
– [misc] Authority and Monarchism can never fall below 1 (to avoid negative voting power and other strange side effects).
– [misc] Glorious achievement “Crush rebellion at least once” and “No rebel worlds” replaced with “Never let any rebellion to happen” and “Do not let rebellion to happen more than once” (in order to reward preventing the rebellion in the first place).
– [misc] Final score now also takes Centralization into account (not that anyone actually cares about score).
– [misc] Redesigned Command & Control (max active squadrons). Now houses provide squadrons command directly to their fleets and Border Guard and Strategic Reserves use separate Commands with separate pool of C&C. This makes it a bit more complex but more intuitive and easier to explain.

– [balance] Adjusted honorary titles generation chance to make the higher titles more likely to be generated.
– [balance] AI technological level now have a cap (useful for very long games at high difficulty levels).

– [content] All science perks implemented.
– [content] Added 3 new glorious achievements related to noble houses.
– [content] Additional mid and late game events.

– [interface] Military section of planet screen redesigned.
– [interface] Combat starmap markers redesigned.
– [interface] Improved crew skill tooltip to make it more intuitive.

– [fix] Various small fixes.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.84+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.84 released

Finally, the game is feature complete. Every mechanic that was meant to be implemented before v1.00 is there. It does not mean that there won’t be new mechanics in future, but those would be done as regular updates after full release, if needed. Although I would rather resist making completely new mechanics after this point and rather focus on content, balance and possible tweaks of existing mechanics (for example secrets could use a redesign). There is still a bit of content still missing (like science perks) but overall it’s quite similar to what there will be in v1.00.

If everything goes according to plan there will be also v0.90 version and after that the full release somewhere next month.

– [feature] New game dynasty customization (house name, crest and color).
– [feature] All diplomatic stances implemented (some were removed in order to simplify).

– [misc] Experimental feature (needs to be enabled via options): ethnic customization (for now it supports only commoners).

– [balance] Rebalanced technologies levels.
– [balance] Rebel points generation rebalanced (to make rebellion more likely to happen).
– [balance] If rebellion was crushed at least once all future rebellions require double number of rebel points to prepare.
– [balance] Starting at difficulty 6+ additional rebel points are generated per turn, also difficulty affects rebel suppression points.

– [content] Most science perks implemented (all except two).
– [content] Additional technologies (usually two per tier).

– [interface] Assured that ships stats and squadron statistics always fit on the screen (auto resize fonts if needed, etc).
– [interface] Many tiny interface tweaks and improvements.

Compatibility note: INCOMPATIBLE, this version will not work with old saves (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.83 released

Another step on the quest to the feature complete version. We are almost there. Civilized races can declare war or ask for peace, scenarios enabled, etc. The big change is redesign of planetary infrastructure, which now makes infrastructure points quite valuable and useful even at the late game. A lot of changes aimed at rebalancing the game on a more fundamental level (like no more free Opinion of noble houses from taxes, tools to fight off bureaucracy via courtiers traits, etc). Note that due to mechanics redesign this version might have wrecked the existing balance and it most likely will need to be readjusted in the next version. Same for civilized races which might declare wars quite chaotically since it’s the first version which introduced this feature for them.

As usual, I count on your comments and feedback on Steam forums or Discord.

– [feature] Game Scenarios (Conqueror of Stars and Unifier of the Empire) for people to control if they prefer to focus on external or internal threats.
– [feature] Planetary development level and infrastructure redesigned. Now infrastructure of a certain level is constructed using infrastructure points (maximum level can be increased by researching infrastructure technologies). Infrastructure is then used to calculate planetary development level. Strategic weapons and xenos devastate infrastructure instead of development level. This change made infrastructure points relevant through the whole game (since you will be gradually unlocking new infrastructure levels which need to be constructed) and therefore made infrastructure bonuses/penalties from tax/budget quite important.
– [feature] Civilized races declare war/ask for peace.

– [remove] Removed Public Works since it made no sense with the new infrastructure system (plus, I never liked it in the first place).

– [balance] Slightly fewer sources of rare resources.
– [balance] Tax effects flattened slightly (lower tax giving decent income), also overall base tax increased.
– [balance] Tax effects rescaled, now “Low” is considered neutral and “Average” starts to give penalties.
– [balance] Aristocracy Tax effect on opinion adjusted, now it is a “percent chance of Opinion -1” (so it has a much smaller impact and can not be used to improve opinion anymore). Previous numbers very way too high here so using anything below Very low was unsustainable.
– [balance] Totally changed how infrastructure points are being generated (flattened greatly, now huge population does give a boost but is not enough, so tax setting affecting infrastructure points is important).
– [balance] Trait: Professional bureaucrat impact increased drastically, also made the trait more common (to give you more tools to fight off bureaucracy upkeep).
– [balance] Banquet cost is now based on the average income of noble houses.
– [balance] Noble Houses impact on legislation points gain (positive and negative) halved.
– [balance] Laws cost is no longer affected by in which row the law is (all laws now have the same cost, increased only by the number of laws passed and not by their position).

– [content] Additional technologies to unlock maximum infrastructure levels (8 technologies total).

– [fix] Rare resources availability was not cleared between games (so if you started a new game several times you could have extreme rare resources abundance).
– [fix] Fixed slightly incorrect taxes display.
– [fix] Rebel points gain using illogical modifiers when rebel points are negative (now modifiers get reversed in such situation to make it work as intended. Note it still displays the usual non reversed % values in a tooltip for simplicity).

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.80+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.82 released

This version is one big rebalance. Overall, now economy is easier to handle at the beginning and more tricky later. When you load an old save with a well established Empire expect to immediately adjust your finances (bankruptcy danger). The overall goal was to get rid of mid-late game excess money and manufacturing. There is also a new feature some of you requested a lot. Now you can give a directive to the Imperial High Command to retake lost planets. This is done by marking a planet as claimed by the Empire. In addition more forces were allocated to strategic reserves, which combined with shipyards output rebalance, makes the imperial forces being utilized at a much higher pace. The last thing is experimental orders priority which let you control which planets should be conquered first.

– [feature] Claim/Unclaim planet button on planet screen. It marks the planet as target for auto conquest/reconquest/outpost construction. It can be set/unset manually or automatically (if such directive is given to the Imperial High Command). Withdraw order overrides claims. Claims on non owned planets are shown on the starmap (similarly to orders).
– [feature] Experimental feature (first needs to be enabled via Options) High Priority conquest order. It allows you to control which planets should be conquered first. Note that it does not fit well with interface (that’s why it’s marked as experimental feature), so if you have ideas how to rearrange that part of UI let me know.

– [balance] Homeworld gets +100% to cities output for being Capital of the Empire and additional +30 max cities.
– [balance] Salaries doubled.
– [balance] Trade value halved.
– [balance] Bureaucracy upkeep adjusted.
– [balance] Taxable economy points are now non linear (which means relatively higher taxes per economy point when fewer economy points but still it’s better to have more economy points). Also increased base taxes.
– [balance] Shipyards output is now non linear (effective manufacturing output being lower than nominal value). Made to reduce massive stockpiles of squadrons in storage for very economically potent Empires.
– [balance] Forces allocation percentages adjusted (more forces allocated for strategic reserves at the expense of fleets forces).
– [balance] Space combat made faster (especially vs weaker enemy).

– [misc] Noble fiefs income simplified (now just a % of total economy, not just from core worlds). It’s a minor thing, intended more to make it simpler to explain, since most economy comes from core planets anyway.
– [misc] “Bureaucracy” renamed to “Bureaucracy upkeep” for clarity.
– [misc] “Squadrons in reserve” renamed to “Squadrons in storage” to make it more distinctive from strategic reserves.

– [fix] Missing level 8 electronics technology on Total Control ruleset.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.80+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.81 released

Just a quick update to address various bugs and imbalances introduced in the previous version.

– [balance] More turns need to pass before squadrons start being decommissioned due to an old age. But very old squadrons fall apart (get decommissioned) much faster now.
– [balance] Rebalanced manufacturing and minerals so in general you need less minerals.
– [balance] Added a free quota of raw minerals (especially useful for Young Empire starts), listed as “Mining from asteroids”.
– [balance] Space borne creatures attack pattern and power redesigned.
– [balance] Cyber March made much less aggressive.

– [interface] Improved squadrons tooltips. Added number of squadrons decommissioned last turn (individually per squadron and globally as a summary).
– [interface] Biohazard tooltip improved (mentioned Slugs spread it).
– [interface] Rare resources tooltips unified and cleaned up.

– [fix] Stalemate on leftover existing forces when an alien race was annihilated while attempting to conquer imperial worlds (now all annihilated races have all their forces disbanded).
– [fix] Grand Legislator online achievement not triggering properly.
– [fix] Datalink upgrade incorrectly possible to install when the ship already had Datalink as standard.
– [fix] Space borne creatures being spawned only on a single planet at once instead of on all planets on the galactic rim.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.80+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.80 released

Originally, I planned to make this a feature complete version but, well, I didn’t make it in time. There are still some features missing related to military and aliens but other than that, in this version, most features are in place. So, let’s say it’s an almost feature complete version. Numerous small things were finished (all laws, all effects of all reforms, ruins, etc), all Xenos are active, steam online achievements can be unlocked and so on. Note that by features I mean game mechanics, not content (so not all technologies all there yet for example) and that those features are in the basic form in some cases and might require further refining and redesign. Still, it’s a pretty solid version. In addition I decided to change the font, I decided to prioritize readability over the aesthetics. The new font is simpler, and kind of less sci-fi like, but definitely much more readable. As a bonus I managed to rearrange the UI a bit which allowed me to make the default font size slightly bigger, so it’s even more readable. I also made many adjustments to the game rules, and many rebalances, that make it more logical and playable and a few smaller features (like administrative points being more widely used, courtier starts redesign, allowed replacing ministers during rebellion, ground combat made faster, rebel points from audience events increased, added option to persuade courtiers to change house affiliation, etc).

Overall, if there are no major setbacks, I estimate the game should reach v1.00 in no more than 3 months.

– [feature] All political agendas implemented (Desires Ministerial Positions, Desires Court Influence, Desires Honorary Titles).
– [feature] Option to persuade courtiers to change the house affiliation (except closely affiliated ones). Useful for managing new political agendas of noble houses.
– [feature] Redesign and cleanup of courtiers positions effects. Ministers and Advisors have their stats impact x3 (listed in tooltip), no more Competence boost for Advisors. Removed Inspectors.
– [feature] All laws implemented.
– [feature] All projects implemented.
– [feature] Online achievements.
– [feature] High Command Directives which allows you to alter how the High Command operates, especially sending reinforcements to planets under invasion.
– [feature] Spawn Space Borne Creatures on rim planets. Also now imperial border guard will station space units on planets with cosmic radiation since those are considered permanently in danger.
– [feature] Slugs and Cyber March basic behavior (those races will launch attacks now).
– [feature] Slugs spread biohazard (-5 Habitability) on planets they control (note that the biohazard icon is a placeholder and will be replaced later with a proper one).

– [remove] Unused Artifacts tab removed (it might be back in future if I get a good idea how to use it).
– [remove] Removed unused Goals tab.

– [misc] Technologies tiers adjusted.
– [misc] All court and ministers actions (appoint, dismiss, etc) now also require Administrative points in addition to Emperor focus points.
– [misc] Allowed Ministers and Courtiers actions during rebellion but at much higher cost and no option to banish from the Court. Traitor Ministers can be purged for an extra Stability hit.
– [misc] Added a flat bonus to rebel points generation based on houses relations below neutral (listed as “Nobles secretly supporting rebels”).
– [misc] Ruins increase the chance and rarity of the Archeology audience event.
– [misc] Enabled production of bio bombs. Bio bombs are cheaper than chemical bombs but spread biohazard.
– [misc] Adjusted ground combat rules. Now you take over the planet if you have more ground power (not twice more) and control orbit. This should speed up ground battles and make the rules more intuitive.
– [misc] Default Minimum Offensive Power Difference increased to 300% (to take into account defensive installations). Also removed global M.O.P.D. setting (really no need to clutter the interface when it’s just a few clicks to adjust it for all races anyway).
– [misc] Adjusted ground combat rules. Ground troops are started being dropped when the attacked has twice more squadrons (regardless of quality of those) on orbit than defender (note that you still need to control the orbit to take over the planet, so ground situation alone is not enough, but since ground troops can destroy defensive installations it also impacts the space battle).

– [balance] Reduced communication range increase from budget (now it should be more tricky to assure a decent coverage).
– [balance] Audience rebel options increase/decrease rebel points by at least 100 each (everything below 100 is insignificant by audience standards).
– [balance] Increased modernization points gained from the Ongoing Modernization science perk.
– [balance] Start with extra I.S.M. and bombs (because it’s fun to be able to use those from the start).
– [balance] Reduced ground defensive installations for aliens (more in par of how many the player has).
– [balance] Fine-tuned battle loses to make space battles faster when one side is clearly inferior.
– [balance] Increased ships manufacturing cost.

– [content] Archeology audience event gives more options to choose from.

– [interface] Manage officials button moved from experimental features to regular.
– [interface] Finished all research bonuses/statistics tooltips (also rearranged order of those those).
– [interface] Displayed ruins and research points gain per turn (with proper tooltips) on Technologies screen.
– [interface] Font changed to a more readable one. Also adjusted the UI so a bigger default font size can fit (so it’s even more readable now). (maybe with an option to keep the old font for people who like it but let’s see if people request it; Also, as a bonus I somehow managed to rearrange stuff on the UI and the base font could be enlarged as well (so the average font size will be also bigger!)
– [interface] Display total power of ground units on the planet view and on reports.
– [interface] Many other smaller interface improvements.

– [fix] Load button was only greyed out but still allowed loading a wrong save file if you clicked (BTW, no one ever reported clicking it).
– [fix] Bug causing excessive reinforcements for aliens.

Compatibility note: INCOMPATIBLE, this version will not work with old saves (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).