It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Two months later, one month to go, and the world’s changed, mostly for the worse.
On the bright side, development of Tyrannis has been largely unaffected. If anything, development is going faster.
Now, while most of us are still stuck at home, how about we take a look at the updates for Tyrannis?
Interface Improvements
This technology may be cutting-edge, but that doesn’t mean jack if the users can’t understand it.
-Matthew Lightman, Project Lead of the Military Intelligence Data System (MIDaS) Interface
After a good amount of testing, it went without saying that the interface for Tyrannis was, for lack of a better term, clunky. Attacking Units did not appear in the States alongside the movable and immovable Units, instead being in a toolbar on the right. Not to mention the need to go through a sidebar to see how many allied Units are in each State.
For starters, attacking Units now appear alongside non-attacking Units in the States, instead of being placed in the corner of the screen.
Next is a number of map filters added to show the State owner, Region owner, estimated enemy presence, Infrastructure levels, State Income, Unit construction, and Infrastructure construction.
And finally, the elephant in the corner of the room. Whenever a player selects a State, this box in the lower left-hand provides relevant information on the State.
In the first row, from left to right, players can see the Region’s owner, the State’s owner, and the Base Income for the State.
In the second row, the box on the left shows the Infrastructure of the State. Meanwhile, the box to the right shows the player’s expected Income from the State for this Turn.
The left-most box in the third row shows the allied Unit presence in the State. And to the right the current progress on Unit recruitment. Hover over that box to see the costs (if not recruiting) or the potential refund (if recruiting).
And in the bottom row, we can hover over the boxes with the icons to see how many of each type of Units to see the amount of Units that can be disbanded, should the need arise.
Fair and Balanced Skirmishes
Some would say that we are ‘Backstabbers’ and ‘Assassins’ who can only win with our ‘Latin Hordes.’
And they are right. Partially. We are trained to be backstabbers and assassins when necessary. But when we win, we win with tactics and strategy, not with numbers alone.
-Agent Zenobia “Zen” Lawrence, Office of Strategic Actions
In previous versions, the Recruitment System allowed Rebel players to rapidly expand, leaving Mercenary players in the dust and waiting for every tenth turn for a single Unit of reinforcement.
It went without saying that it needed to be balanced out. For starters, getting rushed by enemies on Turn 5 doesn’t make for fun gameplay, unless there’s a horde mode.
Besides, the last thing we need is creating the Latin American equivalent of the “Asiatic Hordes” myth. So, good riddance.
Instead of set-reinforcements with every conquest or every tenth turn, players and the AI will need to effectively manage their economies to keep their forces supplied and their armies reinforced.
Economy System
Is that what all this was about? Money? I’ve lost my family, my childhood, and even my name. And for what? So that you and your enablers could have an extra thirty pieces of silver on your quarterly reports?
-Anonymous Letter to Caesar Justin J. Washington
Originally planned as part of the 1.4.0 Update’s Insurgency Skirmishes, the Economy System replaces the previous Recruitment System to balance Skirmishes by encouraging players to balance combat, development, and economy in their gameplay.
A successful player will be one who can maintain a balance of the three. A player who neglects combat will lose their developed states’ income. A player neglecting development will be unable to expand their economy and their Units. And a player neglecting the economy will see their states stagnant and their units deserting.
Income and Expenses
They can cry all they want about the body counts, inequalities, and countless lives destroyed. It doesn’t matter to me, and I know that it doesn’t matter to any of you.
We all know that the bottom line is what you’re worried about. And as long as I am Caesar, you can rest easy, knowing that you’ll always be in the black.
-Caesar Justin J. Washington, “Speech to the Business Council”
In each State, there are two ways to earn Income every Turn: Control and Raiding.
Controlling a State gives you an Income of the Infrastructure Level multiplied by the Base Income (Base Income * (Current Infrastructure * 0.25 + 0.5) every Turn. Note that the Base Income is multiplied by the Current Infrastructure, not the Infrastructure Level, which means that a State with damaged Infrastructure will receive a lower Income than a State with the same Base Income but undamaged infrastructure.
Raiding a State requires a player to have at least one Unit present in an enemy State. If there are fewer than five Units in a State, a player will raid half of the State’s Income per Unit they have in the State. If there are three or more Units in a State, a player will receive up a fraction of the Income directly proportional to the number of Units they have in the State.
When it comes to expenses, for each level of a Base remaining, the owner of the State will be charged $2.50 Million in expenses per Turn. Meanwhile, every Unit a player has in the field will cost them $1.25 Million per turn, except for a Rebel player’s starting Units, which have zero maintenance.
Should either side have more Units than twice the number of States in play, then the offending side will be penalized $1.25 Million per Unit, which is then distributed proportionally among all the players on the offending side.
And if a player’s funds are in the negative at the end of the Turn, at least one of the player’s Units will desert due to lack of supply. One additional Unit will also desert per $125 Million a Mercenary player is in debt, while a Rebel player will lose one random Unit per $75 Million of debt.
State Development and Unit Recruitment
Julian, I like you. Hell, I agree with what you’re doing. But if you two are going through with this, you’re going to need guns. I can get them for you, but you’re going to have to make it worth the risk of getting tossed into a labor camp. Or as you people call it, ‘Prison.’
-Pierre Delaporte, Diary of a CSA Arms Smuggler
If you want to grow and maintain your Units, you’re going to need money. While raiding is all well and good, controlling a State is a good way to get a steady Income per Turn.
If you want to keep recruiting Units, you’re going to need to build Infrastructure in your States. To do so, select a State and tap on the box with the infrastructure to start constructing Infrastructure.
Players can do something similar to this when recruiting Units. Select a State and tap the right box in the third row to start recruiting a Unit.
If a player wants to cancel the Infrastructure or the Unit, they can tap on their respective boxes to refund what money has not yet been spent.
Of course, it’s worth noting that if a player loses a Battle in the State, their progress towards constructing infrastructure and recruiting Units will be deleted, and any money they have spent will be lost.
Tutorial
If you have the means at hand, you have the responsibility to act. Once we’re done here, you’ll have both.
-Anonymous
The Tutorial has been fully-implemented into the game, with four lessons on the Interface, Deployment, Combat, and Endgames. In addition, the Help Menu has been updated to support the new features.
Profiles
Know yourself and you will win all battles.
-Sun Tzu
Player Profiles are also fully-implemented, allowing you to keep track of your stats between battles. Tap on a player in the Skirmish Menu to add or remove a Profile.
Road Map
I wish that I could just snap my fingers to get things done, but it is never that easy, is it? I guess we’re going to have to do things the hard way, Zen.
-Agent Julian Reyes, Office of Strategic Actions
Stretch Goals
Forms have been received. Stretch Goals will be implemented by Day One.
Gameplay AI
Continued polishing and balancing before launch day.
Bug Testing
Will continue so that Tyrannis can have the smoothest launch possible.
Open Beta
How did I achieve my rank and position? Practice. Five continents and almost forty years of it.
-WIlliam C. Lawrence, A Hero of War: My Time As Director of the CSA’s Office of Strategic Actions
Right now, you can play with all these updates in the Open Beta. Click here to play Tyrannis with up to three other human or AI-controlled players in five Regions across Central and South America. And if you experience any errors (or just want to give us some feedback), you can report them here, so they can be fixed in time for next month’s launch.
With that settled, I would like to thank all of you for following Tyrannis.
In these trying times, stay safe, stay home (if you can), and play video games.
Preferably Tyrannis.
-Chris
Be sure to follow us at cGhone.com, @cGh_ONE on Twitter, cGh ONE, our YouTube channel, and our Kickstarter.
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