Dev Log: How 0.4.0 Grew From a Small Update Into Our Largest Overhaul Yet

Over the last week, we have made major progress in the development of version 0.4.0. I want to first open by saying that we have drastically expanded the scope of what the 0.4.0 release was originally intended to be.

If you visited our website and looked under our detailed roadmap, you would have seen that we originally planned to include a game menu, the Battle of Princeton with a new map, British units, an Order of Battle, a playable Hessian side, a health feature, an ammo modifier, enhanced AI improvements, a day and night cycle, and line-of-sight additions.

So our original plan was to include a Game Menu, The Battle of Princeton with new British units, Order of Battle, Playable Hessian Side, Health Feature added to the game, adding the Ammo modifier so when your unit fired the ammo count wouldn't stay static at 40, and if that unit reach 0 in ammo that unit wouldn't be able to fire or perform responsive fire (firing on a enemy unit that maneuvers in front of you during The AI Turn) any longer. On the list is also Enhanced AI Improvements, well that improvement is actually a complete overhaul. One that takes The AI from performing simple instructions to a AI that can plan attacks, defensive operations, perform reconnaissance and decide on key battlefield movements. Lastly are the Day & Night Cycle and Line of Sight additions. We decided to not have our team develop the Day & Night Cycle until we develop a scenario that is a multi day battle ie. Battle of Saratoga, New York or Yorktown. There's really no point in having such a cycle for the battles we developed as they are all single day conflicts that didnt and couldn't transition to the next day.

So we implemented 87.5% of our original design, but thats actually not the case. Because behind the scenes we added so many more elements, features, units, into The 0.4.0 release that the difference between our demo, 0.3.0, and 0.4.0 Retail release is night and day.

Now lets dive into what we did add to this release:

• A Complete overhaul of The 2D map to a 2.5D map where terrain height, homes, forts, forests, rivers, etc. are much more apparent drastically increasing the depth of the game, ability to easily identify which terrain stands our, which terrain is depressed, and add a layer of eye candy that our previous map was unable to produce.

  This was a massive and mammoth undertaking as it required a complete rewrite of entire portions of the tactical engine. The development of real buildings and their placement on the map instead of a black box in the demo map that signified a building. Now we have numerous 3D buildings developed and included in the game. A huge thank you to every member of our team Ben, Sophia and James for making the impossible become reality.

• Weapon GUI has been added to the game. In our demo you might of noticed that none of The American or Hessian units had anything in their GUI that highlighted what weapon they utilized in the game. This has changed drastically in 0.4.0. Not only did we include space in the Unit GUI of what weapon each unit used during the battle, but added details on its accuracy at 100 yards. This is the before:

And This is the after:

The Weapon GUI addition also had to include alterations for new units we developed like The Artillery Unit, which you can imagine would need a complete rethink on how a unit would function in our game. The Artillery unit would inflict casualties much differently than Regular Line Infantry, so we had to develop new formulas on how this would be implemented in our game. These new formulas would include different movement penalties to Artillery, as Artillery is much more cumbersome to move than a Soldier walking with a Musket. We also had to include a wealth of different functions such as Unlimbering The Artillery (Detaching the cannon from The Horse & Carriage and putting it in firing position), to Limbering The Artillery (Reattaching the Cannon back to The Horse & Carriage), as well as implementing different firing options, such as canister (close quarter combat where the cannon becomes similar to a large shotgun) or to Solid Shot (long distance cannonade). We had to implement all those factors into our combat formula and develop a GUI that would allow the player to implement those options.

We also had to alter items like how many cannons The Artillery Unit possess and how many troops the unit had to operate those cannons.

Here is a first look at our Artillery Unit GUI:

As you can see many parts of the Unit GUI had to be altered to accommodate these new factors. We hope you like our Artillery design.

• New Units! So as we started working on The Battle of Princeton, we didnt want to just throw in the same old Infantry units, we wanted to ensure that all the units present in the battle like Militia, Riflemen, Light Infantry, Grenadier, Dragoons were all included in the game. This was a herculean task as each would require their own custom unit in the game, differentiating them from the others. Last thing we want is the player to select an Infantry unit and discovering they are actually Militia. Ben and Sophia spearheaded developing and implementing these units into the game and they are doing an incredible job as we finish up incorporating:

  • American Militia Units

  • American Riflemen Units

  • American Artillery Units

  • American Division Leaders

  • British Infantry Units

  • British Artillery Units

  • British Light Infantry Units

  • British Grenadier Units

  • British Dragoon Units

  • British Division Leader

  • British Army Leader

  As you can see from this list we've been very busy. So thankful for our team for going above and beyond to making these units possible in the game.

• Now when we say we added all these units it sounds doable, 8 units, but the scale of incorporating each unit is so immense. So thankful for Sophia & Ben who spreadheaded this project. Having to change uniforms for all these units types, render them out in various directions, then animate them for Moving to Column Formation, moving to Line Formation, Detach Company, Firing, Charging, Marching, etc. is such a epic undertaking.

• Save & Load Game Functionality. This is something we knew we needed because as we learned from played the demo, the game can get time consuming and we live now in a world where we dont have as much time as we used to have. So if your starting The Trenton battle and 20 minutes later you crush the outposts, have your army on the edge of town about to do battle with Hessian Line Infantry but you realize you have to go pick up your kids and run a bunch of errands so the only way to resume where you left off is just to just keep the game running for hours on your screen, which isn't ideal. We didnt want to do that to your laptop battery or electric bill. So we are implementing a Save & Load Game system into The Glorious Cause, so you can save at any point during the battle and resume when you get free and have some time to continue your campaign.

• Now I know we mentioned it on our website, and in previous dev logs but we want to highlight the enormity of how big the AI upgrade is. In our demo, version 0.3.0 of the game, the AI had simple instructions, self preservation, and to attack weaker enemy units, which wasnt difficult considering by the time The Continental Army got to Trenton, they were marching and moving for approximately 24 hours, through snow, freezing winter conditions and navigating a river that had boulders of ice. It gave the player a competitive AI because the players units were tired, exhausted, and low on morale. However we knew this will not be the case in other battles that we plan to create, as well as the ones you make when we release our scenario editor. So James, our lead programmer has been hard at work ensuring The AI is a worthy opponent to the player. This again is a herculean task, because developing a AI is no easy feat. We had to dive into how it should perform reconnaissance, how it should deploy its units, when to switch from column to line formation. Research British sources to see at the time what range were British Units instructed to fire, should they fire at 100 yards? That would waste alot of ammunition and do little damage to the enemy unit. So after researching we found and decided on 50 yards. Then we had to work on well if The AI is outnumbered but needs to obtain an objective with a superior force guarding it, what should it do? What would a Continental General or British General do? This required a great deal of discussion and implementation. And special thank you to James for taking on this herculean task. We will have more on AI in our next dev log, but one things for sure, it will be a system that will have to evolve throughout the course of the game as we add new features and capabilities of units.

• In regards to our new battles, we first have Princeton. We wanted Princeton to be our second battle because it brings with it a number of British units and while not at pivotal as The Battle of Trenton, the ability for Washington's Army to escape certain destruction, overhelm British Regulars, and elite infantry, capture Princeton and escape northward was a huge and monumental strategic victory. I was in charge of preparing the Order of Battle for the Battle of Princeton. We struggled with where to begin the battle, but through our research, we felt that 7:40 AM EST would be a strong starting point. At that moment, the core of Mawhood’s British force would be moving south toward Trenton when elements of the 16th Light Dragoons and Mawhood’s advance troops made contact with Mercer’s Brigade near the Clarke farms and orchard. This gives the AI a very interesting battlefield situation from the opening moments of the scenario. We have prepared the AI on how to respond, and we do not want to spoil its objective, but when we release multiplayer or the playable British/Hessian side, I am very interested to see how players respond. Would they rush to reinforce the Dragoons near the orchard, or would they attempt to cross the bridge and threaten Washington’s force from behind?

• Musket Volley Animations. You probably noticed in the demo that there was no flames or smoke discharged from when units fired, well we fixed that to ensure a more immersive and eye candy experience.

• Responsive Fire Toggle. In the demo, when an enemy unit moves in front of one of your units, your troops have the opportunity to fire on that moving enemy through responsive fire. However, this can create a tactical challenge. Some of your units may already be low on ammunition, or the enemy may intentionally send a few units forward to absorb your volleys. By the time their main force arrives, your troops could be running low on ammo while the enemy’s primary units remain fresh, organized, and fully supplied.

  That is why we added the Responsive Fire Toggle. This feature gives players greater control over when their units fire, allowing them to conserve ammunition, avoid wasting volleys on less important targets, and prepare for the larger threat still advancing across the battlefield. The really cool feature of Responsive Fire, is that evert unit from The Company, to Army Commander has a Toggle that you can turn off and when you do that command will flow down the chain of command. So if you just want 1 Brigade in that Division to not responsive fire, you can just disable it for that unit, or if you want the whole division to not responsive fire, you can click on The Division Leader and turn it off and it will affect every Brigade, Regiment or Company in that Division. You can also select The Army commander and disable it so no troops in the entire army can responsive fire.

• Sound effects. We added numerous more sound effects to the game. From your commander ordering the unit to fire, to charge, to rally, and to retreat. We also made many differentiation so the its not the same voice reciting the same line over and over. We even added a melee sound effect to simulate soldiers in hand to hand combat.

• Other Cool Perks:

  • We added AI Turn Indicator so you can see if the AI is done and its your turn to move

  • We are adding a cover mechanic, which will allow troops your place in buildings not to be visible from oncoming troops, unless you fire on them, or they are one hex next to your troops.

  • No more confusion casualties during Responsive Fire. One thing we noticed if a enemy unit moves, any of your units in its range, lets say there are 3, will all open fire on that unit the causalities inflicted are impossible to see cause they stack on top of one another, now you can see one after another.

  • Better Victory Conditions. If The American player is able to rout all Hessians in Trenton, that will count as a victory. The reason we are implementing this is due having sessions where we routed all enemy units but still lost due to high desertion.

  • Division Commanders of other Divisions can rally units of sister divisions.

  • And much more that we'll add in a upcoming dev log.

We hope you like the modifications we are making to the game. Historical accuracy is one of our paramount concerns with every decision we make, especially with AI. The next dev log will dive into key aspects of how we intend to implement the new units into the game.

And a special thank you to our Paid Patreon Members, the financial assistance you are providing is helping us and we appreciate it very much.

CONTINENTAL GENERAL

MICHAEL STEPHENS

CONTINENTAL OFFICER

BRYAN HAVEN

MINUTEMAN

zhuzhu

MILITIAMAN

Jonathan Young

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