Development on single-player Skirmish AI continues
Dear players,
I and Imphenzia have reached an agreement that I will acquire his full share of Studio Centurion (the company that develops Line War) at some point in the following month. The agreed price tag is considerable for a company bringing such small revenue. I say this in an attempt to convince you, dear reader, that it would be illogical of me to do so, had I not the intention to continue developing the game full-time until at least the first piece of single-player content, Skirmish AI, sees the light of day.
Praise and applause to Imphenzia for his monumental feat of bringing Line War to this fine state! What are the odds that I would find and hook up with such talent, living in my own city, ready to take on work in as diverse areas as music, sound effects, animation, modeling, programming and PR? Luckily, we have agreed that Imphenzia will continue to assist me in the role of consultant for at least another year.
WHERE THE HECK IS MY SINGLE-PLAYER EXPERIENCE!?
Our first public announcement indicating a complete shift towards single-player development was made in March. To tell the truth, only about 160 hours have been spent on AI since then. The most important reason for such low dedication has been uneven workload. Because of the lack of sufficient funds, working on the project became increasingly hard for Imphenzia (read his post [not yet available] for more information) and I never liked the prospect of being the only one working full-time in a two-man company. This hindrance will now be removed, for reasons explained above.
WHEN WILL SKIRMISH AI SHIP?
My full-time will now be spent on Skirmish AI for at least 4 months. I will post a few reports on proof of progress (or lack thereof) this Autumn. My personal goal is for Skirmish AI to be released before Christmas, but don’t take that as a promise! It will hopefully also contain co-op vs AI and a new handicap system that can be used for boosting the starting conditions of individual players (human or AI). This will enable balanced matches for teams that are uneven, as in 2v1s or symmetric matchups between players of different skill.
SUPPORT THE GAME VIA PATREON
It was always our intention to heavily re-invest in the game if revenue permitted and it became popular. Best way to support the game now is to buy it, of course. Now, you also have the option of becoming a Line War patron.
BALANCE PATCH & TOURNEY AROUND THE CORNER
Stay tuned for information about the next balance patch and an upcoming tourney. It will be published within two days.
Wish you all a happy Steam Strategy Fest!
Sincerely Basantos
Line War at TactiCon 2023 & Single Player News
Line War - TactiCon 2023
We are excited to announce that Line War is one of the selected games to be featured at TactiCon 2023, a digital convention hosted on Steam celebrating strategy video games. This is the second edition of TactiCon and it highlights those who develop strategy games and gathers the players who love to play them. We feel honored that Line War has been chosen as one of the games. There was a large number of submissions for the event hosts to choose from ranging from independent developers to large established game studios.
TactiCon 2023 starts 11th May 2023 at 19:30 CET / 10:30 AM PST here on Steam. We hope that this event will bring new players to Line War that we can all enjoy lining up alongside and against for some exciting Line War matches.
Single Player Progress
Behind the scenes, single-player development is underway and we are making good progress. We have assessed different approaches to develop the single-player AI and we believe that we've found a solid model that we are implementing now. We wanted to find a path that can offer a respectable level of resistance in a seemingly intelligent way and that is also architected so that it can be extended and improved upon over time to give you an increasingly formidable opponent to play against.
The AI model that we are developing builds on clustering algorithms that provides the AI with accumulating knowledge of its own and hostile units, structures, geography, and how they relate to each other. It plays by the same rules as human players and, of course, it takes the fog of war and visibility into account. There is a lot of development work yet to be done and we are not aiming to rush anything out before we believe it offers a sufficient level of quality that can be expected by an AI opponent.
Although our current focus is to build a skirmish AI that plays matches, we can re-use the same technology for single-player mission-based content and community-created challenges.
Initially, the AI will support 1v1, FFA, and possibly human co-op against a single AI opponent. The AI is not yet designed to be able to play as a team player because adding cooperative awareness and the ability to consider allies will require additional work that we will do at a later stage. We don’t have an ETA for single-player mode yet but we will keep you updated here on Steam and in the Line War Discord.
During TactiCon 2023, and while we continue to develop Line War, we hope that you continue to enjoy what the game already has to offer. It has been exciting to see the quality of matches that are being played since the most recent releases with balance updates, and the addition of the aircraft carrier unit.
Have fun and enjoy the strategy focus during TactiCon!
Single-player coming in Release 37
Now that the team modes, the Aircraft Carrier, and the game-play polish is completed (read all about it and watch the trailers here) we will focus development to bring you single-player content in Release 37.
Basic AI Skirmish
A basic AI is being developed so you can play Line War whenever you want, whether you have an Internet connection or not, or if you simply prefer to battle it out against the computer instead of human opponents. It will also work as a practice ground where you can play as much as you want without feeling like you'll be judged by performance or play style.
The AI will play according to the same rules as you, it will only see what a human would see, and it will issue commands based on its observations. It will be a behavioral decision tree-based AI that tries to gather intelligence, and it will act based on what it sees and what it predicts. Creating a great AI is difficult and it is not our mission at this stage to create a masterful expert player, we leave that to the top 100 players of the Line War leaderboard. If you beat the coming basic AI consistently, you are ready to combat it out in the multiplayer world.
We already have a basic AI in the works, but with the risk of it sounding a bit too technical, the new and more performant architecture resulting from the Teams release requires us to update the AI to work in this new architecture.
In the future, we'd like to explore the possibility of Machine Learning AI - but that is beyond our capacity and funding at the moment - which is why Release 37 will begin with the basic AI model.
Missions and missions editor
Imagine missions where you are challenged to eliminate the opponent, destroy a base, intercept an airstrike, defend your base, perform a d-day-like amphibious invasion, or conquer a continent as quickly as possible. You can play these missions over and over again and achieve better and better scores based on your performance. You can achieve gold-level results if you complete a mission within a certain time frame or with minimal casualties or funds.
A mission editor will allow anyone to create and publish missions based on scripted behaviors with triggers, predetermined commands, and actions. Performance criteria for the mission can be set to reward the player upon completion. Maybe your objective is to complete all the missions. Maybe your objective is to get gold-level results on every mission. Or maybe your mission is to be at the top of the mission leaderboards for the best amphibious invasion with the least amount of casualties.
We'll decide whether to design our own, or hand-pick popular community-created missions, as the official set of missions for seasons.
First step towards single-player content
These will be our first steps towards providing single-player content in Line War to make it accessible to everyone. In the future, we would like to explore Machine Learning AI opponents, a map editor for fully custom scenarios or reenactments, skinnable units (imagine ranges of WW2 skins), and even campaigns with a storyline.
We are very happy and humbled by the many positive reviews of Line War praising the gameplay and the command system. We have identified the two biggest challenges of Line War to be:
Small number of concurrent players
Lack of single-player content
These two challenges are overwhelmingly represented in the negative feedback. Through the past year, we added the requested team feature and we've worked to polish the game and lobby experience to a higher level. We hope that adding the single-player content can turn the tide over time to encourage more players to get Line War. Even if people are playing the game in single-player mode, the active player count is an important factor to many when deciding whether to get a game or not.
Line War is being funded through its own sales and we're only two individual developers, so let's take one step at a time. The pace at which we can develop is directly related to the number of sales of the game so please consider buying Line War now if you've been looking forward to the single-player content.
Release 36 - Aircraft Carrier and major updates
If you are waiting for Line War single-player content - make sure to read our next Steam announcement within the next couple of days about single-player content coming in Release 37 - meanwhile we have some very exciting news to share!
Release 36 is now out which brings you not only the Aircraft Carrier but also tons of big improvements to multiplayer lobbies, graphics, camera control, replay control, settings, balance changes, and 100 new in-game video tutorials to methodically guide new players only to name a few things.
Watch the Aircraft Carrier trailer here:
Cinematic trailer to showcase new graphics, camera control & replay features:
We are excited about this release as it is an important step to continue to mature Line War to a stable, enjoyable, competitive RTS game. The beta period was longer than we would have liked which split the already small concurrent player pool for a period so we hope that we can now enjoy some better matchmaking possibilities. The lobby system has been improved so you can create and browse lobbies better.
Release 36 - Aircraft Carrier - full release notes
AIRCRAFT CARRIER
Mobile airbase with a capacity of 3 aircraft.
AUDIO
New UI audio for events in lobby and chats - if game is out of focus, you know when someone joins lobby
Global volume control in settings
Independent volume control of menu music and in-game music
Independent volume control of in-game, UI, and ambience sound effects
Audio listener is better placed in the world depending on what camera is showing
CAMERA CONTROL
Camera zooming now zooms to proper extents without jittering
Added strategic overview camera mode in game, zoom past max distance or press Slash key to toggle
Increased zoom extents allowing closeups
Zoom now moves camera forwards and backwards and changes field of view (instead of just altering field-of-view)
Zooming combines camera movement, field-of-view and tilting at different distances
Camera extent perfectly aligns with navigable areas of the map in north and south
Improved settings for camera zoom, zoom sensitivity, and panning speed
Overview camera always show special sites icons in-game, replay, and lobby
Improved middle-mouse click-drag panning of map for better mouse pointer accuracy
Improved zoom-to-mouse-pointer handling
Added automated smooth camera panning over time in replays for content creation (see keyboard legend)
Free-flight camera mode added to replays
GRAPHICS
Shadows casting on units and structures
Smoothing enabled for many units and structures
Reflective and smoothness settings for units now gives them a higher quality look
Fixed layer sorting, structures, units, commands, territory border, water are now sorted correctly
Improved trees, corrected normal maps, enlarged, solidified
Ambient occlusion enabled
Improved shadow quality with cascading on Very High setting
Added Subpixel Morphological Anti-aliasing SMAA (if you want antialiasing under water)
Improved VSync and framerate handling to avoid GPU running at full speed
Opacity control for borders, icons, commands, and co7mmand decorations
Underwater bubbles and torpedo trails improved and always visible
Improved water trail visuals for ships
Ship splashes are now arced in direction of travel instead of circles
Added under-water bubbles for sunken ships and debris
Added under-water mesh and particles for energy wells at sea
Added energy icon over energy wells to make them easier to find
All aircraft now have rigidbody crash animations as they break apart and crash on land or at sea
Improved water splashes for debris and crashing aircraft
Replaced special sites icons in overview with new colorful ones
New Aircraft Carrier unit mesh
Higher wrapped texture-based damage on units and structures
Changed to neutral color rotor blades on helicopters - they always had blue tips before
Improved mountain-based structures, should never have mountains penetrating airports any longer
Improved deforestation masks for structures and units to make them easier to see in forests
Added normal-based slope shading for mountains to compensate for removed terrain shadowcasting
Increased forest tree density
New unit production animations - they don't penetrate buildings or fling parts at ridiculous distance
Removed tesselation for territory borders as it had minimal impact and caused graphic artifacts
LOBBY
World seed favorites
World seed voting
World seed history
Drawing/collaboration/inspection features on the world of the lobby
Full owner editing support for Public lobbies
Public lobby means passive hosting only (no more auto-merge)
Using 3 600 sec duration for lobby hosting (instead of silent termination)
Full lobby browser support in lobby (i.e. manually connecting to another lobby as a party)
Improved lobby design with more intuitive management of teams and players
New in-game camera mode in Lobby view allowing zooming and toggle between tilt and overview
Tab key toggles full screen and windowed map view
Navigation test tool (Q key) - ensure that narrow straits can be navigated through
Air range overlay tool (W key) - shows the ranges of short, mid, and long range aircraft
Rocket range overlay tool (E key) - shows the range of rockets from launchpads
Energy pipeline range overlay tool (R key) - shows maximum range of an energy pipeline connection
Vote Up / Vote Down buttons to help lobby owner decide which map to player
World favorites functionality with screenshots of world seeds
World seed history with vote statistics
New lobby browser from within a lobby to merge capability to compatible lobbies
GeoSignal (Alt + G) now possible to send in lobby
LOBBY BROWSER
More information in the list
Also lists ongoing matches
PERFORMANCE
Graphics jobs enabled to offload graphics onto separate thread for improved client performance
GPU instancing for many of the objects
Improved VSync-handling to avoid running at unnecessary high framerates
Removed shadowcasting for terrain - it had minimal visual effect for millions of triangles
Removed trees from west and east no-go zones
REPLAYS
Better backward compatibility
Paging when # of replays grow beyond 1000
The overview mode (Slash key or zoom out past max zoom) with territory control highlighting
F key toggles fog-of-war modes between on, off, and hybrid
New hybrid fog-of-war mode showing the shading of what a player can see, but shows all units and structures
Space key toggles between player views
1-8 keys selects specific players
Z key activates the new free flight camera mode (useful for content creation)
C key toggles commands from own (default), none, and all players
V key toggles command routes from none (default), player view (as in game), and all players
T key toggles time and messages (useful for content creation)
R key toggles mouse cursor visibility (useful for content creation)
U key toggles UI (useful for content creation)
Comma (,) key and Period (.) key sets start and end points for smooth camera panning
Shift 1-0 pans camera smoothly between start and end points set with comma and period keys
TEAM
Spectate mode when defeated with 1 or more allies still alive
TUTORIALS
100 new tutorials covering Basic, Intermediate, Advanced techniques
Strategic tutorials added
Improved tutorial navigation
SETTINGS
Settings are always accessible through F10 in any game state
New settings system with categorized and paged settings
New hints in settings to explain what settings do
Reset button for all settings to restore to default setting
Quality presets from Lowest to Ultra balancing performance and visuals
New Audio controls to independently control global in-game and menu music, menu ambiences, and sound effects
Replay default settings
Prepared pages and information about coming keyboard remapping and localization
New player count and status dropdown at the top in menu and lobby screens
Settings are context based and only visible if they can be modified in combination with others
UI
Dialog windows and modals improved for consistency
UI animations
New disconnect and player states in the team view in-game
Picking guide moved to right side to not overlap players
Picking guide hides older steps to not run out of screen-space
New higher quality energy and capital icons
New icons special sites in overview modes
Improved tool-tip appearance and placements
Added confirmation dialog to resign - no more accidental resigns
Added confirmation dialog to leaving lobby
Improved consistency of Esc-key to back out of everything behavior
New Discord information to guide new players to discord to make friends and find players
COMMAND LINE WORLD IMAGE EXPORTER
Use command-line argument to batch export screenshots of world seeds. Usage: LineWarClient.exe -batchmode -export-world -seed
Required paramters: -export-world Exports world(s) as an image file(s)
-seed Specifies which seed(s) to export e.g. -seed 9 or -seed 9,10,11 or -seed 1-1000
Optional Parameters: -path Specifies path to write images to e.g. -path "c:\An Existing Directory" default path is "%appdata%\..\LocalLow\Studio Centurion AB\Line War" -resolution Specifies resolution of image file e.g -resolution 3840x2160 default is 1920x1080 -jpg Forces JPG image insted of PNG -hide-overlay Hides overlay icons -hide-seed Hides seed overlay in top-left corner -batchmode Unity parameter to run silent instead of launching game
Resulting images will be named .png, e.g. 9.png A json-metadata file is written named .txt containing information about the world A log file is written .txt with information about time taken to generate each seed
MISC
Showing number of Line War players currently online
Better AFK detection reducing the risk of "lobby kidnapping"
Very long public lobby host/search process (it used to end silently after X minutes, now it's 1 hour with a clear ending)
Adding unit to production queue cancels current unit production
16-bit integer (short) causes overflow in summary
Tutorial popup not showing when playing for the first time
Bypass password if through invite
Unit production animations now accurately show what is being produced as producers go in and out of fog-of-war
Ships now always sink properly instead of sometimes getting stuck at the surface
Many lobby management bugs addressed with quirky UI and lobby management issues
Enemy command routes and artifacts removed in replay toggling
Capping VSync steps (preferred) or setting target frame rate now reduces framerate to avoid overload
GAME BALANCE
Territory income 12 => 10
Slightly less probability of spawning > 5 Cities
Slightly decreased max in randomization-range for conquerable sea territories
Compensate map eco loss of above with
Industries per City (3,3) => (2,5)
Industries further away from City
Max Towns 12 => 15
20% increase of conquerable water territories
Bomber never drops two bombs on a single target in a single flyover
Bomber speed cruise 2.1 => 2.35
Bomber bombing speed 70% of cruise speed
Bomber bombs 23 x 10 => 19 x 12
Bomber HP 150 => 145
Bomber AA priority slightly increased
Interceptor missile count 4 => 6
Interceptor AA cannon count 8 => 6
Defender's Grenade bonus 15% => 25%
Defender's range bonus 0.2 => 0.3 (absolute)
Rocket blastwave direction taken into account for entrenched units (90 degree rear sector means zero armor bonus)
Tank production cost 50 => 52
Tank conquer rate 7 => 6.2
Infantry production cost 17 => 18
Infantry speed 0.39 => 0.40
Infantry and Commando buffs
Forest firepower 10% => 20%
Forest armor 10% => 20%
4% lower energy consumption for sea units (now same as tanks)
Energy consumption for units in combat is always 25% even if not moving
Entrenching 40% faster
Helicopter HP 125 => 135
If you missed it earlier, Release 35 brought Teams and FFA support for up to 8 players:
We're exited as we begin development on Release 37 - Singleplayer content. We have now performed some of the important architectural changes to the game that needed to be in place before we could fully focus on single-player content. We began to develop a basic practice AI last year, but it would not be compatible with the architectural changes required for teams which is why we prioritized completing that.
For the future success of the game, we hear the feedback and understand that single-player content is desired so it is our focus. If you are excited about single-player modes, you can support this step of the development process by grabbing a copy of Line War now and you will get single-player content in the next update. We are working towards a basic AI to play against and scriptable capabilities for in-house and community-created scenarios and challenges.
Teams & FFA has landed!
Hi fellow gamers,
Yes, you read it: Teams & FFA is now live!
As many of you may already know, we've been working hard this autumn to bring you Line War's next important update. We know that many of you have waited long enough already for these features to arrive, and we sincerely apologize for the delay and missed ETAs.
FEATURES INCLUDE
Gameplay with up to 8 participants
Teams (e.g. 2v2, 3v3, 2v2v2, 3v2 and 4v4)
FFA mode with up to 8 players - last man standing
New lobby and matchmaking system
New menu and lobby UI
Revised Picking Phase
Detailed match summaries with diagrams
Ranked mode (currently 1vs1 only) - this will update your leaderboard position and affect your skill score
Unranked modes - all other team and FFA modes are currently unranked - no need to worry about wins or losses. Have fun 🙂
Balance changes
Please note that any kind of single-player mode (except from the already existing Sandbox) is NOT included in this release.
REVISED PICKING PHASE
The Territory Picking Phase has been updated to support the new team modes. The new picking phase lets players select "Zones of Interest" where they would like to start. When there are conflicts additional rounds will let players continue to pick zones until there are enough territories for players to start in. During the final picking phase you select one or more adjacent territories that you will control when the match starts. A new picking guide UI has been introduced to guide you through the process and new tutorials will come to help you understand this better.
IMPROVED MATCH END SCREEN
After a match, the end screen has been updated with graphs and more team / player statistics.
REPLAY UPDATES
When you watch replays, they will now end to the match end screen and include all the statistics and graphs.
NEW MULTIPLAYER LOBBY
Before you start a new match you will enter a newly created lobby system. You can create, browse, or automatically find lobbies. Use the PLAY button to find matches, or use CREATE to create a custom private or public lobby that can be configured as you wish.
BALANCE CHANGES
Infantry territory conquering rate 2 -> 2.5 (25%)
Commando territory conquering rate 4 -> 4.2 (5%)
Commando HP 90 -> 80 (-11%)
SAM/Missile Ship AA cannon damage 10 -> 9 (-10%)
SAM/Missile Ship missile targeting buff (now targets the weakest unit)
Basic AI: A single-player sparring partner for practicing your skills and testing manouvers
New unit: The Aircraft Carrier
Technologies: Probable candidates from among 30 planned technologies are Tank as Infantry-Fighting Vehicle, Submarine cargo-hold, Cruiser tomahawk missiles, Structure construction duration, SAM/Artillery parachutes
T1 tournament: We are moving from a quarterly to a tertiary tournament schedule. More information will follow in early January.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
The anonymous mode is removed as a result of the new lobby system and the new unranked modes
New tutorials will be created to cover the new picking phase and team modes
Minor polish updates will follow this new teams release to fix minor UI and user experience issues
We hope that you will enjoy Teams & FFA as much as we do.
Anyone up for some games? We're waiting in the lobby! 🙂
Sincerely Basantos & Imphenzia
Teams & FFA
Hi fellow gamers,
We got some happy news for you today!
As many of you may already know, we've been working hard this autumn to bring you Line War's next important update: Teams & FFA. We know that many of you have waited long enough already for these features to arrive, and we sincerely apologize for the delay and missed ETAs (see REASONS FOR DELAY further down).
Now, at last, the beta is open as a Steam opt-in to anyone that has a copy of Line War! In fact, this has been the case since December 12 when we made an announcement on the Line War Discord. If you haven't yet joined our terrific and wholesome gang of intellectuals and gentlemen at Discord, be sure to do so now by following this link: https://discord.com/invite/ZReTqqk4FV.
If everything goes well, the proper release of Teams & FFA could be shipped before New Year.
INSTALLING LINE WAR BETA
Go to the "Manage / Properties..." dialog of your game in Steam
Enter "LineWarPioneer" in the beta access code field
Make sure the dropdown is set on "beta - Line War Beta"
Wait for download to complete
The beta is very stable and all critical bugs have been fixed. Many gamers are playing it on a daily basis, which also explains some of the increased matchmaking duration of the released version (which the beta is competing with).
FEATURES INCLUDE
Gameplay with up to 8 participants
Teams (including assymetric teams like 3v2)
FFA
New lobby and matchmaking system
New menu and lobby UI
Revised Picking Phase
Detailed match summaries with diagrams
Balance changes
Please note that any kind of single-player mode (except from the already existing Sandbox) is NOT included in this release.
Some have expressed their dissapointment or frustration over the pace of development for the various features. Once again, we would like to take this opportunity to apologize for failing to deliver according to our planned schedule as shown on the home page. We can assure you that laziness or general disregard for the game's development are NOT one of the reasons for the delay!
First of all, Imhenzia undertook a permanent move to Australia with his family in October. We failed to fully anticipate how much this would affect the game development in general, the time difference between Sweden and Australia being what it is. But we're getting better and better at organizing our work and daily schedules over time.
Then we have a number of other factors that contributed to this situation. The codebase, for one, was completely unprepared for teamplay but hardwired to 1vs1. The Picking Phase had to be reworked from the ground up to facilitate picking between teams or FFA. Not to mention the lobby and netcode that was plagued by a few really nasty bugs that took the better of us during a 3-week long grind. Special thanks goes to SomeoneSaidThatMyNicknameSucks, akamisc, Dåseåbneren, ElMeheecan, valithor, RoMad, notoriousnubs, CrimsonGiant and all the other beta testers for helping us along the way! We couldn't have done this without your support.
COMING NEXT
Once the Teams & FFA modes have been fully released, we will focus our efforts on implementing a Basic AI to practice against, but also pick some of the low hanging fruits such as the Aircraft Carrier and Technologies. We are also sketching on plans for the future of Line War single-player gaming, involving the development of a Campaign Editor with AI Scripting. This would enable users to create their own content.
We hope that you will enjoy Teams & FFA as much as we do.
Anyone up for some games? We're waiting in the lobby!
;-)
Sincerely Basantos & Imphenzia
Basic AI and Teams
We hope that you all have had a great summer! Last week we returned from our vacation, and now we're back in full development mode, primarily focusing on two major features:
Basic AI (an AI opponent to practice against)
Teams (2v2, 3v3, 1v2, FFA/free-for-all)
Basic AI
The Basic AI is an interim implementation that we have prioritized based on feedback and reviews. It’s important to know that this is not the full single-player implementation, but you can see it as an offline sparring partner where you can practice as much as you want without worrying about rank or feeling uncomfortable about anyone watching. The Basic AI will be non-cheating, and it’ll look at the battlefield and draw commands only using the knowledge that it can see in the clearings of the fog of war. Creating an intelligent AI opponent is complicated, so this first implementation will be used to satisfy the basic practice needs of players and provide us, developers, with knowledge for the future large scale implementation of an advanced AI.
Teams
Team modes are being worked on in parallel according to the road map. We are looking forward to implementing modes such as 2 vs. 2, 3 vs. 3. We're also aiming to include asymmetric matchups such as 1 vs. 2, where a single higher-skill player can play against two lower-skill players simultaneously and free-for-all (FFA).
Implementing teams is a major undertaking. It may not appear that way, but there are many challenges, including picking phase, matchmaking, networking, UI, Fog of War, bandwidth, replays, testing, and scaling so units and UI can support many different team configurations and colors.
We don’t have an ETA on the release of Basic AI and Teams just yet, but Basic AI should come first during September, followed by Teams.
Recent Patches
We've recently also released some minor patches to the current version. Some were well-needed balance changes, and some were bug fixes. The most important bug fix that we published today should eliminate the state that matchmaking could end up for a few hours where no matchups could be made. We had a few instances of that happening during the summer, but we've reproduced and fixed that bug now.
Keep Playing and Stay Tuned
While we are working hard on this behind the scenes, we hope that you play and enjoy Line War as much as possible. We are aware that the player count has reduced following the release, this is normal for nearly every single game, and we want to focus our efforts on continuing to develop Line War rather than allocating time and funds to marketing.
We’ve seen feedback that the release of Line War was premature, but for us two developers, it was essential that the release took place so we could fund the continued development and gather feedback on whether or not the game-play was appealing enough to continue. Nearly all the negative feedback revolves around the lack of players, AI, and additional features, and through the release, we’ve secured the funds to continue development to implement exactly that and then perform a bigger marketing drive when the time is right. The strategic gameplay and command system is receiving excellent reviews, which is exactly why we are super encouraged to continue development and evolving Line War.
Don’t worry; Line War is not dead. We have a community of hard-core players (that are now beating us, developers, in matches big time), and development continues behind the scenes.
Patch 34.13
Bug fixes
Timeout error message displayed upon successful matchmaking: Timeout occurred when waiting for the lobby owner to assign a game server.
Patch 34.12
BUG FIXES
Air units flying non-stop in circles
Unplaceable eco-sites
Infantry animated as running even when not Hasting
GAME BALANCE
Hellfire and Maverick damage vs Riflemen -20% ⇒ -15%
Air units energy consumption (in terms of production cost) 10% ⇒ 9%
Infantry/Commandos capping efficiency reduced by 5%
Tank production cost 52 ⇒ 50
34.11 Long awaited patch addressing the overpowered Artillery blob
Finally!
Here comes the long awaited balance patch that tries to address the issue with "artillery blobs" being too powerful. There has been some debate in the beta testers group over the nature of the various remedies and how far they should go. Several beta matches have now been played using most of these changes, with good results.
Entrenched units 15% extra armor vs Grenade Defending units (whether it's Artillery or any other land unit type) will hold out from incoming Grenade attacks (Artillery/Destroyer/Missile Ship/Cruiser) for much longer. Static, digged-in coastal Artillery defense will pose a serious threshold to enemy Cruisers. Artillery/SAM-blobs will advance slower against prepared defenders.
Entrenched units weapon range buff +0.2 (absolute) Increases the chance of neighbouring comrades being within range of an enemy. Increases the probability of multiple entrenched Artillery being within range of free-moving, engaging enemy Artillery.
Infantry speed buff 3.7 ==> 3.9 (5.4%) It's hard to see any drawbacks with a faster moving Infantry: More agile anti-Tank/anti-Commando response, faster territory cap, general feel of the game speed as being faster, higher chance of outpacing kiting SAMs, and last but not least, higher survivability when assaulting Artillery/SAM blobs.
Hellfire and Maverick damage nerf vs Riflemen -20% The Hellfire (Helicopter) and Maverick (Striker) weapons gets a target-exclusive nerf vs Riflemen. Takes away some of the Strikers and Helicopter squadrons capability to act as a "cleanup party" vs stray Riflemen without SAM protection. Indirectly buffs the Bomber. Also note: Heli/Striker Cannon performance vs Riflemen is NOT modified but stays the same.
SAM/MissileShip Missile range buff 8.0 ==> 9.0 (12.5%) Increases the survivability of SAM "staying in the back". Remember the Missile only fires every 4th second, so it's the "weak" weapon that gets the buff, not the Cannon.
Artillery Grenade VS Land nerf 3.6 ==> 3.4 (-5.5%) The simple solution to nerfing the blob, as it affects all artillery units participating in the blob.
Helicopter HP buff 120 ==> 125 Compensation for 5 above.
Air units energy consumption nerf 8,3% ==> 10% of production cost Air units in general have been too energy efficient in relation to their great speed. They now consume 10% more energy per minute (in terms of production cost) as compared to 8.3% for all other energy consuming units.
Interceptor airbase taxiing speed buff 0.6 ==> 1.2 (100%) Faster response time for Interceptor take-offs.
