Never Second in Rome is out!

Before getting into the details of this update, I want to thank all the players who have expressed and shown their support during these years. Without you, a solo developer such as myself would never be able to create and publish games.

Ironman mode and meta-progression

Version 1.0 introduces a new optional Ironman mode, featuring both permadeath and meta-progression. It is unlocked after finishing the standard game at least once.

In Ironman mode you earn points after each game according to your rank, the awards won by you and your subordinates, and whether you survived until the end. The top five games generate a combined weighted score that allows you to buy improvements for the next run.

Other changes

• Several Bonus Features available during character creation have been tweaked to make them more useful.

• Drill, Share Hardships and the training of physical Attributes improve Endurance to a larger degree than before.

• Accordingly, the Endurance level of most enemy Roman units has been slightly increased.

• The enemy formation of the second battle will start with 100 less points of Cohesion. Also, the Primary Goal has been eased by 50. Now the initial distance between the opponent's Cohesion and the Goal is only 44 points. After all, your century is still in its first year and not much is expected of it.

• The Primary Goals of the battles in Parts 3 and 6 have been eased by 100, while those of the second and third battle of Part 10 have been eased by 100 and 200 respectively.

• At the end of the first battle of Part 3, if you have remarkably reduced the enemy's Cohesion to 0 and your century's Combativeness is still negative, it will be restored by up to 10 points.

• If you reduce the enemy’s Cohesion to 0 ahead of time, each unused Melee phase makes armillae a little easier to win, both for you and for your legionaries. This is only to compensate for the fewer fights which can help win the armillae, it is not an additional prize.

• Computer-controlled fighters should no longer use Soft Spot Strikes on unarmored parts unless the target's Stance is low.

• A hint panel that appears every other Melee phase has been added to the Battle UI.

• The weight of a formation's Melee Skills is shown in the tooltip of the currently selected Commitment along with the other components.

• The extremely negative mini-events for letting Administration or Other Duties drop to -100 are a lot more likely than before.

• The harder of the two Discipline checks on the day before the battle against Ariovistus is slightly easier than it used to be.

• The transition from the epilogue to the end credits should be smoother than before.

Fixes

• Fixed a crash right before the second battle of Part 3. The crash could happen if the signifer died during the first battle and was replaced by one of the existing notable legionaries or by the tesserarius.

• Fixed a few typos and other mistakes.

Demo

The free demo is also up to date. It is here to let you evaluate the game for free and at a comfortable pace before you buy it. The demo saves are compatible with the full game.