Welcome to another monthly update post! There are a few topics this month, so I'll dive right in.
Balancing
Now that wars are playable from beginning to end, I ran quite a few to look for problems. I also had the privilege of getting input from a friend who played for a bit. I learned a few things from this: raiding was underpowered, war was too cheap, extorting money from a defeated opponent was a bit too good, battle could be a little more attainable, and small wars could get dragged out to an unreasonable degree.
To buff raiding, county ruin values now can drive defections. County levies provide the bulk of the infantry and tend to be a bit more reliable than the troops provided by feudal elites. Beyond the customary 40 days per year required of them, the latter take a certain amount of convincing, after all. Raiding now provides a way to indirectly attack the county levies. If you ruin their lands and homes, men will begin defecting.
Previously raiding was a good way to get money. Unfortunately this was not especially relevant. I initially balanced the revenues based on the historical data my research uncovered. Wherever possible I want to adhere to history. However this is going to have to be a point of departure in the service of gameplay. Tax revenues are a bit lower now, troops demand higher wages now, and forcing the payment of a literal king's ransom from a defeated enemy is now much more difficult.
As I've mentioned in previous dev diaries, pitched battles in this period were quite rare indeed. The war system I created doesn't envision that every conflict, or even most conflicts, would contain one. That seems to fly in the face of player expectations though. Part of this is a communications problem; I'm planning on writing some ever so slightly railroaded events to teach proper 12th century tactics. For the time being however I did make it somewhat more easy to force battle on an enemy that doesn't want it and very easy to force battle on an enemy who is heavily outnumbered.
To speed wars, especially small ones, along, there is now a war weariness system. After hostilities have been going on for some time, the belligerent who is doing better at sieges gets small by steady gains to war score. The exact algorithm is based on percentage of land under control, so this factor is highly relevant against a small opponent, but only of minor concern against one of the larger kingdoms.
AI Wars
It turned out that I had some work to do to get the AI to properly use its casus belli, especially since this can interrupt whatever else you may be doing. There was also a little bit that needed to be done to allow the AI to present and properly value an initial offer at a peace talk — even if it has understood counterproposals for some time. All that is done; wars are fully playable from beginning to end.
Autosaves
Naturally, any strategy game needs an autosave system. I was going to add this later, but I'm chasing a few annoying bugs at the moment. Being able to load directly to where the problem is (or even the turn before) is hugely helpful! While I was revisting the save code, I went ahead and added some integrity checks and another line to the save file browser to show character name and in-game year.
Art and Music
The final batch of art is almost finished! Once it is, expect a few more decorations on the screenshots where this is now empty space. Also expect improvements to the store page. Despite being quite some time since the last art was done, the style of the new work is wonderfully consistent with the existing art.
Additionally I'm very excited to announce that Dei Gratia Rex has a nearly complete lute-based soundtrack! The soundtrack is composed principally of variations on existing medieval works and is played on a real instrument. More info to come when it's all finalized.
I'm really fortunate to work with such talented people.
What's Next
I'm still mulling what will happen in May. I don't think I am going to make full launch in time for that deadline. I could release into early access then. Some people have strongly suggested this, others have warned against it. It's a hard decision, and there is some pain associated with not launching early access then. That said, I want to give people the best possible experience with this game.
I'll know one way or the other by the next post.