Notoris 2 : Warlords | Dev Update

February was another foundational month.

We had a good balance of under the hood updates with actual player facing visual and gameplay changes.

Here’s what changed:

Core Modifier System Reworked

I dramatically rebuilt how modifiers function at a foundational level. I’ve called this the Dynamic Effect Modifier System or DEM for short.

The system is now modeled much closer to Total War: Three Kingdoms, where officer stats can affect multiple scopes in a scalable, layered way:

• Self (personal stats like duel/escape/capture/retreat chance etc)

• Building Output (Gold / Food / Weapon productions etc)

• Town Administrative scope (efficiency, recruitment, growth etc)

• Faction-wide scope (Faction Leader can affect all the above)

All modifier definitions have been moved out of Unity ScriptableObjects and into JSON.

Why This Matters:

• Fully data-driven & modular

• Easily expandable for future content

• Designed to be exposed for modding

• UI reads modifiers dynamically, making it inherently scalable

• Supports deep role specialization (economic admins, military admins etc.)

This base layer is what makes strategy games actually work long-term.A scalable modifier pipeline that can be injected into at multiple scopes without hardcoding logic.

It Allows:

• Meaningful skill trees and traits that fill unique roles

• Clean extensibility without engine changes

• Balance iteration via data instead of code

Town Administrator Gameplay Added

A much needed feature has been introduced:

If Player is Faction Leader:

• Can appoint or replace Town Administrators

• Officers assigned as Admins apply their administrative modifiers to that town

If Player is Not Faction Leader:

• Can formally request to become Administrator of a specific town

• Logic setup for other officers to vote for/against this based on variety of factors such as relationship.

Both actions cost the core strategic resource: Influence and can be accessed via the Greathall.

Territory Map Art Overhaul (90% Complete)

We’ve completed the full paint-over of the Territory Map background panels.

The old v1 terrain has been replaced with:

• 4 Distinct Biomes

  • Northern Mystical

  • Northern Mountain

  • Central Plains

  • Southern Jungle

• Improved biome color separation

• Cohesive tone mapping across the full map

• New Art Style

• New Foliage assets (trees) for 3 of the 4 regions

Inner Town Art (90% Complete)

We’ve done a visual overhaul of the Inner Town view.

One full layout is now basically complete in the new style.

Note: The buildings slots are still being updated to match the new style.

Terrain & Grid Rework

Built out a proper terrain type system and tied to grid tiles.

That allowed me to:

• Make diagonal movement respect rivers and natural block paths

• Align gameplay logic with the actual map art

• Add a terrain-color debug grid view

• Add terrain stat effects for things like elves in forests

• Improve debug/starting army placement logic

• Fix a save/load race condition

Foliage Rework (Engine)

• Foliage editor tooling built

• Central Plains foliage added

• Northern Forests added

• Southern Jungle added

• Began experimenting with Hills terrain concepts

• Fixed world-space UI being blocked by mountains/foliage

The campaign map is finally starting to feel like a world instead of a prototype board.

Character & Misc Updates

• 5 new officer added with unique portraits

• 3 new officers added with placeholder portraits

• Reworked several officer portraits with minor adjustments

• 27th Town added

• Added a togglable player UI log window for generic info that's not important enough for popups, banners, or side bubble notifications.

• Added UI for searching all factions/towns/officers

• Added ability to resign from a faction

• Improved AI pathing behavior and integrated with new terrain costs

• Added capture/escape chances for officers when defeated

Bug Fixes

• Fixed lighting in build scene

• Fixed an