Minds of Nations
Full Release
Today, Minds of Nations, has successfully completed it's Early Access phase. We have entered Early Access on February 20, 2020 and today, 3 years later we exit that phase.
I would like to thank everyone who has helped us develop the game. Every bug report and feedback helped improve the game. THANK YOU. Everyone who has downloaded the game on steam during Early Access will keep it.
Based off of your reviews and feedback we switched the game from online-only to a focus on single-player and added multiple features.
In this time we have added numerous updates including: single-player, resources & industry, economy & trade, vassalage, win conditions, souls, influence, centralization, unforseen consequences effect pack, chat, rankings, stories, maps, music, help videos, thousands of bugs fixed and numerous other small updates.
So what's next ?
Well, a BLITZ version of the MMO is currently being alpha tested. It should be released early next month.
After that, I'm hoping to complete Crises and new unit types.
If you are new, welcome to the game, I hope you will enjoy it and let me know if you have any issues. We have a community discord, an in-game forum and the steam forum where I regularly check for reports.
Thank you.
More Bug Fixes, MMO's Blitz = SOON, Full Release
- "Population from other sources" would not affect total pop
- Population growth beyond 5M would yield lower growth per turn than it should have.
- Fixed 12 bugs with ideology effect presentation. Missing % etc.
- Loading heraldries was bugged on steam.
- Heraldries would lose color on some pages after the first war was declared
- Casus Bellis effects were hidden
- Trading with vassals was not possible
- Discord link was broken
- When starting a single-player game, choosing a manual spawn twice would hide the map the second time.
- Maunal spawn map was not showing for Quakia and another 2 maps [only the province].
- There was a rare instance when you could get 2 stories instead of the 2nd chapter of a story.
- There was an island on Alangakara that was incorrectly labelled as archipelago.
- There were three other provinces on Alangkara with a bad tag.
- There was an issue embarking on an MMO continent [misconfiguration at sim start]
- There was an issue with food decay on the MMO version.
- There was an issue with sim setup. It caused the embarkation bug and another issue.
- There was an issue with sim destruction.
- One question was tagged as multichoice when it was single-choice.
Since I tagged the previous update as "small patch", people may have not seen the update on BLITZ and the new SIM system. So I'll reinclude the information here and this update as regular update:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1117160/eventcomments/3818530649095705827/
New MMO Sim System Launched Two Weeks Ago:
New sims start every 3 days. The system automatically adds AI nations if needed, awards winners etc.
Blitz MMO:
The faster version of the MMO is ready. It is being tested. We should release it sometime next month.
8 years / minute.
Full Release
The game will exit early access very soon. It will become paid. Everyone that got the game on steam, will be able to keep it.
Thank you.
New MMO Sim System, Single-Player Bug Fixes, Blitz, Full Release
FULL RELEASE
The game will be fully released in the coming days.
Everyone that got the game on steam during early access will keep the steam game.
SINGLE-PLAYER BUGS
- Quality of life improvements with 4k displays at 100% scaling.
- Forum links when not logged in.
- UI display unpleasantness on treaty pages.
- New Stories broke some bonus expiration. It is now fixed.
- You were unable to select capitals on the omnemia magna by estris map.
- A few ideological effects were not working properly.
- Texts and other minor fixes.
NEW SYSTEM FOR MMO - AUTOMATIC NEW SIMS
New MMO sims will start every 3 days and end after 2 weeks [2,000 years]. When the year is 0 to 300, we usually retain more players. Thus we should maximize this period. First day will always last for 24 hours, after which you can join and start playing instantly within a 3 day window. After those 3 days, games that are not completely filled with humans will be filled with EASY Level A.I. nations.
I think it might be more competitive to have shorter MMO sims. We can extend this period of play after some feedback.
Some continents will have victory conditions, others will not.
The system now automatically starts new continents, pauses the game, unpauses the game, decides winners [when there are win conditions], ends existing games, moves results to your rankings page, fills continent with A.I.'s freeing me to focus on developing the game .
MMO BLITZ
Blitz MMO is a faster sim for online games. It will last for 4 hours at a speed of 8 years per minute. For reference: On the single-player version you can customize speeds from 1 year / 30 seconds to 10 years / 30 seconds. While the current MMO slow version is 1 year every 10 minutes.
The BLITZ system is also done pending implementation on the live system. I'm currently considering to hold BLITZ games only on weekends due to the size of our current player-base.
I'd like to test it a few more times before releasing it into the wild.
Thanks
Music. Help Videos. Stories. Full Release IMMINENT.
1. Full Release Coming SOON !
Probably late next month or in April.
As mentioned in the previous 4 months, the game will switch from free early access to one time payment.
2. Music.
We've added about 1 hour and 20 minutes of music.
You can switch music on/off when you start the game or by pressing ESC/Music/OFF.
Songs are grouped in two catalogs. One is white, representing celestial life and the other catalog is black, representing the vicisitudes of living a human life.
Songs alternate from white to black simulating reincarnation. You can change this to "shuffle" or you can have the system play only one of the catalogs.
3. Help Videos.
We've added about 50 minutes of help videos that are likely to help new users understand the game.
Selective Breeding: https://youtu.be/Csuh7Q-XuJ0
Earn Gold via Trade: https://youtu.be/jXuCFJmRsGY
Elite Military Corps: https://youtu.be/vhrelB2o7QA
How to Make an Alliance with A.I. Nations: https://youtu.be/mlZpsuDlRho
--
Ideas & Effect Packs: https://youtu.be/N3cLBr8rIYk
Resources: https://youtu.be/eEd6Snlj61o
Specialist Groups: https://youtu.be/OIqKNxTzx6M
Energy: https://youtu.be/SbKWyLYzCFs
Influence & Centralization: https://youtu.be/wfZGwsXKKW4
How to attack/colonize islands: https://youtu.be/9tP0egID-Pw
-
The "Soul-Thing" Explained: https://youtu.be/RC3jdzK3PXo
Victory Conditions: https://youtu.be/HTUiAJVBYP0
4. Stories.
We've added 15 stories with about 60 chapters. Those give out some neat bonuses and add flavor to the Minds of Nations experience.
What's next ?
Working on BLITZ and a lobby system.
Thank you.
Microtransactions removed. +150 Souls Added. +3 Maps. +Graphics.
I have removed in-app purchases. The game will switch to a one-time payment upon full release.
Thank you all who have supported development. Either through your presence or financially.
3 LARGE MAPS HAVE BEEN ADDED
- Alangakara of 49 nations.
- Quakia of 77 nations.
- Omnemia Magna by Estris of 80 nations. This latter map has been created by Kaiser Estris.
One of our valued community members. Thank you !
152 GREAT TALENTS
We've added about 152 Souls [researchers & commanders]. Each has it's own backstory, effects and... portrait !
Courtesy of Midjourney for all the graphic updates in this release.
Their portrait features their last incarnation:
- "Former Copper Smelter"
- "Former Ottoman Admiral"
- "Former Pyramid Engineer"
- "Former Phoenician Trader"
etc
I've written a little backstory for each. I'm hoping that will add a little bit of flavour.
WONDER GRAPHICS
All wonders now have their own graphics.
VICTORY SCREENS
The victory screens for single-player have been redone to include graphics.
GRAPHIC PACKS
There are 3 graphic packs that are randomly chosen when a nation starts. Based on this wonders and victory screens will look differently.
LOADING SCREEN
- I've added a cool loading screen for single player. It includes graphics from the game and even some memes from our community.
SINGLE PLAYER FIXES
- Some heraldries were missing.
- There was a rare issue where the A.I. would stop colonizing islands.
- An issue with the land tax answer.
v 1.3.20. "Gryphon".
LETS GOOOOO !
Single Player: "A.I. is thinking", "Can't save game", "Conquest Customizations"
Single Player: "A.I. is thinking", "Can't save game" & New Customizations
Version: 1.3.9.
Changes:
1. [BUG] There was a gigantic bug when your windows username had accents. The game was unable to save. It is fixed now.
2. [UPDATE] Now, you can also change your save-game folder.
3. [NEW CUSTOMIZATION] You can now change how much environment degradation nations get every 144 years.
4. [Single-Player BUG] Changing game speed would not always translate in faster sieges.
5. [Single-Player BUG] The 0 provinces for allies conquest customization would be game breaking for peace deals.
6. [BUG] Conquest Customization +1 every X years would add more often than that.
7. [Single-Player BUG] On game creation, the map would sometime be reshuffled after your initial choice. Usually, a manual spawn choice.
8. [Single-Player BUG] Declaring war on a nation that had no interest in any of your provinces would lead to an inifnite war. The A.I. would siege all your provinces and just stall. It would not sue for peace because it did not want anything. Essentially siege-locking the human player.
If a second war was ongoing this could sabotage the other A.I.'s war effort by essentially sieging a majority of your provinces without suing for peace.
9. [Single-Player BUG] Annexation would say it costs 5 influence. It costs 5 influence per province !
10.[Single-Player BUG] There was a rare bug when the single-player game would not start and you'd get the "AI is thinking" error. Should be fixed. Only happend when a % conquest customization was selected and there was 1 expansionist AI..
11-15 Minor UI bugs and other tweaks. Small spelling errors etc.
16.[NEW CUSTOMIZATION] You can now increase the starting fertility of all provinces using the "VERY HIGH FOOD AVAILABILITY" customization.
17.[Single-Player Tweak] The A.I. would not create enough trade agreements between themselves. Adjusted this a bit.
18.[Single-Player BUG] Adding civillians units every X years, was also an iffy customization. Sometimes working, sometimes not.
Single-Player "LIVE PORT" error, Heraldry Error
- The notorious live-port error for Single-Player SHOULD be fixed. There was an artefact from the online version that was affecting some computers.
- I've updated the entire heraldry library for the A.I.'s and I've decreased the sizes of those files by half.
- This should have a moderate effect on performance on large, crowded maps.
- A second error with heraldry has been fixed too. Thanks @Jackal for reporting.
- Privacy policy has been updated to reflect this change: Heraldries will be instantly processed via mindsofnations.com's system.
- This way I don't have to install about 100 megs worth of aditional software on everyone's machine. There's too much software and 3rd party libraries.
- We will also log anonymously the map, colors, effect type and some customizations people create their single-player games with.
- This way I'll be able to figure out the best default options and how to tweak the game for a better experience. Nothing else is logged: ip/location/username/gam e results/performance or options etc. Just the starting settings without names. See Privacy Policy.
- A second [fourth by now?] live-port issue was fixed. This made some aspects of the game a tad slower when using custom ports.
- And finally, when disbanding units there was an error thrown if the unit was selected. This sometimes stopped the system from drawing orders on the map for newly selected units until the next refresh.
Thank you.
Single-Player is BACK, MMO is also BACK
Single-player is now back and playable. After the launch yesterday, there were many reports that the game wouldn't run correctly. There was a nasty configuration issue which basically made the game unplayable. If the folder where the game was installed had a white space " ", one of the backend tools was not working. The bug took many hours to find and recompilations ad nauseam, but the game is now back.
It also seems that the MMO failed for a few hours, well that's back too.
Thank you for your patience !
Appreciate all the support.
One hotfix for single-player and one for multiplayer
Multiplayer: [colonization broken after update]
Single-Player
After quite a bit of time.. single-player is finally here !
Most of the update has been completed by June if I remember correctly.
Since then however, I spent quite a lot of time debugging and tweaking settings. There have been 1,210 bugs and tweaks to the A.I., game-play, UI, backend etc. Lots of the bugs crossover with the MMO too. So that's a plus.
This is why development has taken soooo long.
There are many settings you can adjust. From karmic years / siege, unlimited conquests, spawn province, multiple levels of difficulties, game lengths, win-conditions, etc, etc. All these had to be tested properly. Default settings for multiplayer were not fun enough, so they had to be adjusted for single-player. Win conditions were affected by those customizations so I had to continously tweak them a bit with gameplay.. The A.I. had lots of questionable decisions for a while. A.I.'s movement had to be improved.
Anyway, it's here. I hope the wait will have been worth it.
Have fun, and let me know if you encounter bugs.
A few technical notes:
PORTS
The game runs two parallel services. One for the backend where the A.I.'s decision and internal works and one for the stream that connects to the U.I.
You will need ports: 24931 & 24932 open. If those are not open [or for some other reason the game cant run the server], you will be greeted with a window to choose other ports.
SAVE FOLDER AND DEBUGGING
Games are saved in the following folder:
C:\Users\[YOUR WINDOWS USERNAME]\Documents\My Games\Minds of Nations\saved_games\
Each sim creates its own folder with several .db files. If the game can't save the files there it may fail.
Also, if you encounter a bug, a good way to get it debugged by me, would be to zip the folder and send it via wetransfer.com to me.
Thank you,
I'll probably make a better announcement in the future.