Warlords,

Greetings. I hope everyone had a relaxing holiday season and a good start to the new year. For this development log I decided to skip the last two-month cycle so I could include more interesting information as I began to implement the campaign features in earnest. Instead of the typical paragraph text block, this time I am trying to create a more satisfying article with headers and images. So please enjoy!

Also a quick note, although assets are finished, the following images are of arbitrarily set up scenes which do not necessarily represent the layout of locations in the final game. Trees and ground scatter are also disabled, so the background will look unusually bare.

Buddhist monks praying in a temple's main hall. An armed monk looks on.

Getting back to work after the holidays I quickly set out to wrap up the 3D assets and animations required for the launch of the game. The only items left on my checklist were the religious and civilian animations and character models. Buddhist monks and Shinto priests now bring life to the temples and shrines in the game. Some Buddhist temples are also home to armed corps of sohei, or soldier monks. In the image above, you can catch a glimpse of the iconic headwrap associated with the sohei. This was an important part of their habit, called a kato-no-kesa.

New animations added include of course the praying and meditating poses, as well as some civilian actions like farming and cleaning. The sky is the limit with adding these kinds of details to the game, but I felt like I was able to add a decent amount of life without totally blowing the budget and derailing the schedule. With these final elements added, I was clear to begin work on the "real" Warlord development.

Private dictionaries of the C# class responsible for managing the many factions of the game.

Although I hold a degree in computer science, my program of study did not focus on game development, or even much on object-oriented coding for that matter. I took a few classes on software development, but the bulk of my learning was centered around the lower-level realm of C and x86 Assembly language, as well as the theoretical side of the science itself. All this is to say, when it comes to game programming, I have some bad habits, but my skills have improved drastically since Britannia, and continue to improve as I iron out the remainder of Awaji's features.

When I say "real" Warlord development, I refer to the implementation of the higher level features that actually make a Warlord game a Warlord game. Before now, only the lower level mechanics such as combat and spawning were implemented, so even basic Warlord things like capturing a settlement were not fleshed out for the longest time. You could attack a settlement, and defenders would spawn in and fight, but after that, nothing was set up to happen. Now is when I am wiring in all those mechanics so the Warlord part of game is actually playable.

Maybe not surprisingly, high level features are easier to create than lower level ones. High level features, like adding a settlement conquer menu, are simply the icing on the cake of an already complex, but robust machine, where things like spawning and combat must work perfectly under the hood. This has made progress rapid. New features are added almost daily, and things are staying maintainable and clean. One of these new higher level features is the inventory and item system.

A variety of supplies stored in a village.

In Warlord: Britannia, there was no concept of an "item." You had static resource gauges for things like timber, supplies, food, and money. This was part of the simple design of the game, but it lead to some frustrating limitations. I always thought, "why am I building everything out of just timber?" This was because adding new resource types required non-trivial coding changes. But now, Awaji benefits from a more intelligent, data-driven design.

Item types are numerous, and all resources in the game, including money types, are represented by items. When conquering a settlement, you can gain simple building materials like wood, but also more advanced materials like cloth and tatami mats to trick out your camp. Settlements may have different resources depending on their type and location.

This also applies to weapons and armor. Instead of just spending money to upgrade troops, now you actually have to get your hands on the armaments you want, and give them to the troops, transferring them between inventories like anything another item. More on that below in "A Flexible Force." This means that at the start of the game, the most advanced weapons will simply not be found around you, and you will have to advance deeper into Awaji to attain them.

Since all resources are represented this way, it also allows me to be careful about the "economy" of the game. In Britannia, via taxes and convoy farming, money was an infinite resource, and had little meaning after the opening area of the game. Looking back, this was a big design flaw. Now, since taxation is no longer a thing (see section "Next Up" for a hint as to why), I can control the resources on the island purely by setting the starting inventory of settlements when a save file is created.

Think of this as the "big bang" moment of Awaji's economy. After that, items (mass, to continue the science analogy) are neither created nor destroyed, only converted and moved around. Convoys use these settlement inventories to transfer goods, they do not generate items on their own, which makes for a more believable world.

Farmers head inside after working in the fields.

If all items on the island are created only once at the beginning of a save file and never destroyed, and all items have a converted monetary value, this begs the question, what is the GDP of Awaji? I will attempt to calculate this using my own tools, but I imagine someone will take the actions necessary to seize all items on the island and revel in the resulting sum. Did Smaug the Terrible have the same motivations when he attacked Erebor?

An allied warrior enjoying the sunrise. A retainer rests in a back room.

Factions will play a major role in the sandbox of Warlord: Awaji. Unlike Britannia where it was just Romans vs. the local Brits, Awaji will be home to a number of warrior clans and religious confederations. Some factions in the game will be naturally hostile to you for story reasons which cannot divulge here, but others will simply be neutral. Some factions may even become your ally, at which point they can be called upon to provide military support.

Buddhist monasteries, typically neutral, with their own armed forces, may also become your ally or enemy depending on the actions you take. Buddhist factions have the additional option of providing spiritual maledictions, which can weaken enemy factions. Shinto shrines provide a passive benefit to whatever faction controls them.

All of these interactions rely on your relation with each faction. Relation can be gained and lost in a number of ways, mainly via actions taken during and after combat, and when capturing settlements. For this reason, the concept of unrest from Britannia became a vestigial mechanic in Awaji, and was scrapped. Relation can drive enemy reactions in a similar way to unrest, but also provides the other end of the spectrum, where it can determine interaction possibilities with neutral and allied factions.

A player-created camp. Although small, it contains some luxury items.

In the image above, a small band of warriors and their retainers are resting at camp and awaiting the player's orders. Between attacking settlements and convoys, your army must return to camp to heal and rearm. Like in Britannia, the camp can be packed up and moved at any time, anywhere in the open world. New to Awaji, immersive poses and a greater focus on accommodating your army adds life to these liminal moments in the campaign.

You may notice a variety of objects scattered around the camp. These are not just props, but in fact have a critical gameplay purpose. In an effort to provide meaning to decorating your camp, a new Camp Needs system has been introduced. Each troop in your camp has needs. A place to sleep, somewhere to sit and rest, a tray for food, some sake. More illustrious members of your army require separate, luxurious accommodations, as benefits their rank. Folding screens, tatami mats, lacquer chests, etc.

The great distinction between warriors and retainers becomes apparent with these mechanics in place. Warriors only sit on tatami mats, eat off elevated, lacquered trays, and have a more dignified posture. Retainers are comfortable just crashing on thatch sleeping rolls.

The same camp, after nightfall. Fires are lit and some troops drift off to sleep.

Warriors departing camp dressed for battle. A temple looms in the distance, but it is not their target.

The formation is the key element of Warlord's gameplay loop. It is how you move your forces around the map, and how you confront enemies. In Britannia, the Roman setting necessitated a complex and highly flexible formation system, which sadly, my programming skills could not quite accommodate at the time. Features such as backfilling casualties and rotating groups were just out of reach for that game due to it's inflexible architecture.

Awaji's formation runs on a highly decentralized design. There are leaders and followers, that's it. Leaders drive the structure of the formation relative to the player (or the formation anchor when holding position), and followers simply keep up with and align themselves to their leader. If a follower is killed, his position in the formation is naturally filled in by the other members of the group.

Now when in marching mode, the formation can snake across terrain as it follows the player's path. In battle mode, leaders scramble to get into position, and their followers realistically try to keep up.

These advanced components of the formation also come with some "devolutions" from Britannia, but purely out of respect for the new game's setting. Formation types like the Roman checker pattern or testudo are no longer possible, as samurai in Awaji's period didn't have those concepts.

Part of the army interface. On the right, unequipped items are displayed.

With a new focus on a more flexible formation driven by individual leaders, the army interface is significantly different. The image above contains placeholder icons and names (such as the numerous Heitas and Genjis...), but the mechanics are all there.

Recruits are added to the army "unattached," meaning they neither exist as part of the player's retinue (general's guard), or part of any group as a leader or follower. This number of unattached troops is limited, and if the limit is reached or exceeded, further recruitment is impossible. This ensures that in order to build a larger army, proper command and control must be established to keep all of the retainers in line.

Promotions provide slots for followers to join. At this point, the player can simply right click and drag a grouping line to attach followers to a target leader, this creates a new group. In this way, the composition of the army is 100% player driven. There are no empty groups waiting to be filled in, like in Britannia. You decide what groups you want to create and who will lead them.

Another element of player choice comes in the new equipment system. Arms and armor in your camp's inventory appear on the right side, where they can be dragged and dropped onto troops to equip them. There is even a "batch grab" option to give a certain item to all troops in a group (should you have the inventory for it). This will likely be useful for armor, or to turn a whole group into cavalry.

As mentioned above, the player has their own personal retinue of warriors too, a new feature in Awaji. You can place your favorite individuals directly under your command, and with an option, detach them from the larger formation to perform flanking maneuvers or reconnaissance.

After a battle with an enemy outpost, surrendered warriors are executed by the player's troops.

One area of focus in Warlord: Awaji's design has been to show more possible ending conditions to battles and settlement captures. In Britannia, battles were cut and dry. Two forces confronted each other and one destroyed the other outright. There were no survivors. The settlement conquer menu provided options for that became of the civilians, but the defeated armed forces of any given settlement or convoy never factored into anything after the battle ended.

With the possibility of new animations and poses, surrendering and wounding of enemies has been in the game practically since day one, and was present in the Instant Action playtest and demo. Now, after a battle ends, options can appear for what happens to the survivors. Wounded can be left to die, or put out of their misery. Surrendered retainers can be let go to curry favor with their faction. Crestfallen warriors may be allowed to commit seppuku to regain their honor. These are just some of the possible options.

Settlement and convoy forces may overlap and challenge the player at the same time. This was one of the many charms of Warlord: Britannia. This has been carried over to Awaji, and these new post-battle options are designed to work even in these intense situations.

The outpost's garrison is destroyed.

The following are some new sandbox features yet to be fully implemented, but are coming soon. I will talk more about these in the next development post.

• Settlement Reactions

• Faction Interactions (touched on a bit in this article)

• Land as a Resource Instead of Taxes

• Trade, Conversion of Items

These constitute the remaining higher level sandbox elements. After these are complete, the final stage of development will commence. That is where the map of Awaji will actually be fleshed out, and final elements like the tutorial, quests, and the museum added on.

Thank you all for reading! I hope you found this article interesting and your excitement for the full game has increased. Let me know below or on Discord if you have any thoughts or questions. I am looking forward to showing more of the game soon. It has come a long way and progress is speeding up quick as I get into the final stretch here.

Until next time!

Darkmatter