Welcome back to another Suzerain broadcast and get ready for this is a juicy one!

January saw the implementation and the beginning of the first testing runs of our major 1.1 content patch. We are doing some final testing, bugfixing and balancing runs on the build to ensure that the player experience is the best it can be.

Special thank you to our volunteer community testers for helping us out! The support really warms our hearts. Let’s get to what we have in store for you.



Based on the feedback we received, we decided to update the conclusion in a more visual way, outside of the Epilogue. We’ve built a summary screen, featuring three sections that display how your Anton government and the results of your choices. It displays data about the first term and displays interesting details. Images speak louder than words so here you go!



We hope that this gives a better overview of what you achieved or not. We also made the decision to focus the compass to the in-lore version of ideologies and use the spectrum to display Sordland’s political compass only and how these other characters are positioned in it. This addition should strengthen the ending and we hope you share your results with everyone!




After playing Suzerain for more hours than you can imagine, the portrait of Anton at the bottom left corner began to stare deep into our soul. So, we’ve decided to give everyone the option to change it up, and have built an Anton customization system. You can change his hairstyle, facial hair, accessories and background image.

We felt that adding character customisation gave another roleplaying element for you all to enjoy. Here are some images to show you potential variation! Special thanks to İpek Ünal, our talented character artist for creating these assets.



[SPOILERS AHEAD]



We added a brand new election debate at turn 10 to strengthen the election ending. This scene also introduces Denis Stahler of the Communist Party as a character, who can be a potential rival for the election debate. Denis also gets a brand new portrait!



A new election calculation with more detailed voter groups has been added, Early polling have also been included at the political overview scene to show how your election prospects are. These additions come with some new newspapers and reports as well!




The war plans scene has been expanded with new choices. We’ve also added new win and lose calculations for the war, which are affected by several of these choices in the scene and the ones the player has previously made that could relate to the war.

Several minor additions and changes were added to the war win and lose scenes as well. A dozen or more reports made their way into turn 10 to give a more accurate indication of how the war is going to players.




Our sound designer / composer James Spence has made changes to improve the music implementation and make the audioscape more dynamic. We’ve also added two brand new tracks to improve the audio experience. These will also be released for free to OST owners along with the hidden suspense track.

Here is a teaser from the new Diplomacy track!


Yes you heard it right. Suzerain now will have a total of 86 achievements. The new achievements are public for testing runs, but you won’t be able to unlock them until the patch update. Whatever you do, don't try to kill Orso please.

• We fixed a couple of remaining broken links that were super rare but would have stopped player progression nonetheless
  
• Economy balancing was improved and is more in sync with the narrative
  
• Fixed issue that caused people with a good economy to fall to depression instead of stagnation due to high debt
  
• Fixed wrong impeachment variable for owning Sordland Today being mistaken with having a media deal with Marcel Koronti
  
• Made Assembly impeachment very very difficult
  
• Wrong conditions for trialling Tusk after he had fled the country were corrected
  
• Fixed misleading public opinion and war reports
  
• Fixed halfway cut gavel tapping sounds for Epilogue
  
• Fixed escape to menu crash during Epilogue to Credits transition
  
• Other wrong database implementations on several news and reports were mended
  
• And many many more that will be included in the official patch log on release

• Added more details to "convince Gloria" scene
  
• Corrected several conditions and improved flow for "convince Albin" scene
  
• Added nuance explaining the women's rights situation better
  
• Small content addition to Monica
  
• The assembly vote is slightly more difficult - this was intended to be hard
  
• The economic recovery should be slightly more difficult now
  
• General proofreading and editing on a dozen scenes
  
• Closed some small narrative gaps like congress cancellation during future war
  
• Gave limited vetoes new content
  
• Added ACP and SSP codex entries and logos
  
• Fixed several typos and improved English consistency
  
• Dozens of more minor additions and improvements

The second testing run this weekend will solidify our confidence in the build and allow us to make the final polishing. Once we are happy with where we are we will announce the release date to the public. Stay tuned!

Hope you enjoyed this lengthy update. Please drop a positive review if you liked Suzerain! Many many thanks from Torpor Games.

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Glory to Sordland!

Warm greetings to all of you! We had an amazing launch and post-launch period during December with an outpouring of support from all of our players. The Torpor Games team is ecstatic. Our dreams have pretty much come true. Let’s talk about what we have accomplished and where we are headed from here.

As of the time of writing this post we have reached 900 reviews on Steam! Furthermore, we landed in the top 20 releases of December 2020, a massive achievement for our young studio. It was also a great honour to have been reviewed by sites like Screenrant (4 out of 5), Softpedia (85 out of 100), Gaming Trend (85 out of 100) and praised by sites like Rock Paper Shotgun, The Escapist, and even the German Public Radio for an entire four minutes!

Also many thanks to the Templin Institute for awarding us best game!



Our team closely monitored and supported the launch. The efforts were focused on three aspects: analysing the stability and assessing the bugs, applying fixes and improvements to make sure most, if not all players have a smooth experience, and supporting the marketing campaign to reach as many people who could enjoy a niche game like Suzerain.

In a period of 21 days, we have pushed five hotfixes and one minor content patch to make sure the game was sitting on a strong foundation. Our team read all of the feedback and this helped greatly to help us identify issues and fact check the issues. The team also found some time to rest over December to shed off the weight of the intense pre-launch period.

We can’t thank the players who posted detailed bug reports with save games on Discord enough. Currently, we are collecting finished game saves on our Discord server and we would appreciate it if you would post your game saves so we can improve our balancing for the next patch!

Let's talk about the near future. We have finished design and most of the planning around the 1.1 content patch internally named "Rayne Train." This patch will be divided into three core elements: features, new content, bug fixes. Some of the feedback we received noted the lack of a summary at the end of the game which we decided to address.



Here is a screenshot showing a part of the summary screen. The political compass which is based on the background political leaning system in Suzerain. Please bear in mind this is only a concept and is not final. We are also pushing for another feature that is more focused on a visual addition. We don’t commit to anything before it makes it past the testing phase which these haven’t yet entered. Our studio always sticks by the under-promise and over-deliver approach.

There are some other areas we want to address and add new content to the game in different ways to improve the experience. Our main focus will be on the election and our secondary focus will on some of the endings that need further design reinforcements. At the same time we want to address the lower priority bugs such as database errors, typos and unintended balancing problems.

As one can imagine this patch will take some time and we will only commit to a release date and the full content list once we have tested our candidate and are happy with the results. Many thanks to all of you out there who have supported us with a purchase, dropped a review, shared the game around the internet, and even expanded the lore.

A Morgna her coren!


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Glory to Sordland!

Happy holidays to everyone!

We discovered some bugs and performance issues that required a hotfix deployment as the holidays kick-off! 1.0.6 is available to all players now.

If you haven't played Suzerain this is the time to see if you will lead Sordland to ruin or repair.

The Torpor Games team has begun concept and design work on the next major update. The team has assessed the remaining unaddressed feedback points and is moving to improve the game further. As you can imagine certain larger changes are structurally complex requiring more time to develop and test.

Further updates regarding the development of the 1.1 patch will be included with the December broadcast on the week of the 4th of January.

We wish you health, happiness and success in 2021 and beyond. Vectern Sis Da!



[CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT - CONTAINS SPOILERS]
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1.0.6 (23/12/2020)

Performance

• Added object pooling for journal panel
  
• Front loaded initialisation of panel variables
  
• Improved turn initialisation performance

Audio

• Updated notification sound

Bug Fixes

• Fixed some rare broken conversation links in certain sub-branches
  
• Democrat achievement is slightly more attainable
  
• Fixed several reported typos throughout the game

Warm greetings from the Torpor Games team. After some rest following the intense pre and post-launch period, the team set out on to make the first minor content patch. While it still heavily focuses on bugfixing and polishing the core experience, it does add some content for our players to enjoy!

This patch addresses several of the concerns raised by the community and we hope it improves the overall experience for new players! We wish you all a great holiday and as always many thanks for your support.

Remember to drop a review if you liked Suzerain and you can always talk to the devs directly at our Discord and let us know about your thoughts: http://discord.gg/H2F6xxg

A Morgna her coren!



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1.0.5 (18/12/2020)

The changes require a new game to apply.

Features

• Added load previous checkpoint to in-game escape menu
  
• Checkpoint designations are scenes, bills and decisions

User Interface

• Added military strength section to other country panels
  
• Added four different military strength levels
  
• Added allied relation type to other country panels

Balancing

• Reduced starting economy by 1
  
• Improved election calculation and added bonuses to certain actions
  
• Improved war conditions by adding new factors
  
• Made coup conditions more complex
  
• Added negative economic damages of canceling alliance or trade
  
• Added new economic damages to not controlling unrest
  
• Increased the economic and public opinion damage of Black Tuesday and Trade War
  
• Added late-game economic damages to having uncontrollable debt
  
• Made Sordish Recovery more difficult
  
• Made economic bonus checks for combined decisions more complex
  
• Balanced ATO vs CSP bonuses
  
• Some balancing on privatization vs nationalization
  
• Government budget losses for early taxes and trade choices are instantly changed
  
• Balanced conditions of the old public opinion related reports
  
• Increased cost of free public transportation bill
  
• Made Bludish unrest slightly less likely and normal unrest slightly more likely

Dialogue

• Added more hints about the danger the military can pose through Lucian
  
• Improved the convince Gloria flow and addressed some loopholes
  
• Added more feedback to military choices and added a final straw section to the Gendarmerie dispute
  
• Deivid gives more consistent advice on potential dangers and mentions certain optional events
  
• Iosef gives more logical advice to the player about the Rumburg situation
  
• Added a heroic moment with Karl Greiser saving your life
  
• Added feedback about the border reinforcement decision to a scene
  
• Small addition to Turn 02 security overview about Rumburg
  
• Expanded Rumburg diplomatic path flexibility with Television Interview and Alliance of Nations
  
• Added some more content to the coup ending
  
• Added Smolak to the war won ending

Narrative

• Added Unruly Generals situation to the early game for feedback
  
• Added situations for MFI loans, emergency funds, printing money
  
• Added new reports for election to give feedback on calculation parameters
  
• Added missing reports and news for second infrastructure opening
  
• Added news about the negative debt situation in turn 09
  
• Added news and reports about diplomatically alienating the AN and being alienated by AN
  
• Added more hints about the danger the military poses to the administration
  
• Added updates to different military strength variations of Sordland compared to other countries
  
• Improved some journal entry texts
  
• Improved consistency of military-related reports
  
• Fixed some misleading news and reports. Also one should not fall prey to their biased media!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed dozens of wrong triggers on news and reports
  
• Fixed several wrong situation triggers
  
• Fixed condition error on Iosef advice logic
  
• Fixed several wrong dialogue conditions
  
• Added missing conditions to some dialogues
  
• Fixed wrong Valken condition
  
• Fixed dozens of typos and text errors
  
• Fixed accidental time travel in Epilogue
  
• Fixed jailed minister working from jail
  
• Fixed missing Queen article
  
• Improved keyword linking and improved the selection
  
• Fixed wrong Lespia government type
  
• Fixed wrong condition responses in budget meeting
  
• Fixed some wrong journal entries
  
• Updated the description of some decisions to make narrative sense on optional paths
  
• Fixed narrative support error around minority rights
  
• Improved some journal entry text
  
• Fixed wrong situation variable name
  
• Sordland no longer can have two active Vice Presidents
  
• The Colonel won't smile without a reason

Thanks for all the feedback in the past two days! We have made several bugfixes, balancing changes and minor improvements.

If you have issues please send us your save games with a bug report on our Discord which you can join here: http://discord.gg/H2F6xxg

A Morgna wes core!



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1.0.4 (06/12/2020)

• Fixed wrong trigger for Turn 08 VP selection scene
  
• NFP Alliance can now be declared as intended
  
• Term budget panel saves data correctly on closure
  
• Fixed broken Nia link in Turn 10 resignations scene
  
• Purple blood achievement now works
  
• Frugal achievement now works
  
• Turn 10 Queen phone call doesn't trigger if war is declared by Sordland
  
• Balance improvements to nationalisation economic effects
  
• Balance pass on planned, mixed and market economy designation and consistency checks
  
• Balanced pass on election calculation. Now easier for both USP and non-USP paths
  
• Fixed wrong journal entry for health investment
  
• Fixed wrong journal entry for SSC managers
  
• Fixed several typos

Changelogs contain spoilers!

We thank you all for checking out Suzerain! We are currently working through the most outlying stability issues to make sure the experience is good for everyone.

If you have issues please send us your save games with a bug report on our Discord which you can join here: http://discord.gg/H2F6xxg

Thank you for your understanding.



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[FOR YOUR EYES ONLY]

1.0.3 (05/12/2020)

• Fixed wrong Monica conditions in Epilogue lose retirement
  
• Turn 03 budget panel name change to term budget for further clarity
  
• Reduced starting economy by 1
  
• Added missing alliance cancellation tariff damages
  
• Balanced unrest economic results

1.0.2 (04/12/2020)

• Fixed broken link in Turn 07 Convince Isabel conversation
  
• Correct variable is getting set now if Presidential Powers is not possible due to removal of decree powers

1.0.1 (04/12/2020)

• Fixed Turn 09 wrong condition variable name for Koronti Investigation scene

The reviews for Suzerain are coming in, we're delighted by the response. Suzerain is Torper Games' first game as a studio and was four years in the making. We're so excited for you all to get to experience it very soon!

--

Screen Rant - 4 / 5 - Suzerain Review: A Truly Presidential Experience | Screen Rant

Suzerain is a fascinating text-based adventure about the trials and tribulations of politics, complete with engaging characters and twists aplenty.

Those who want more machinations in their strategy games, particularly when tied to some characters with genuine depth, will find a lot to love.

Rage Quit - 96 / 100 - https://ragequit.gr/reviews/item/suzerain-pc-review/

Suzerain has all the backgrounds to form a new Papers, Please of our days…

An immersive political and economic drama that ends in a journey of self-awareness. Fans of Political Sim games and strong narrative experiences should not miss it.

(Quotes translated from Greek)

Third Coast Review - 3.5 / 4 - Review: As President in Suzerain You Make the Tough Choices | Third Coast Review

...the writing is well done, and the alternate-Earth world-building is superb.

Suzerain is an interesting concept with a great execution…

...It’s pretty damn good. Suzerain has a deep, well written narrative with a wide cast of characters and an alternate Earth lore that is phenomenal. I totally recommend it, especially if you don’t mind heavy reading.

--



Interested in Suzerain lore?

The Templin Institute takes you on a deep dive into the history of Sordland, and how the country came to be in its current state as Anton Rayne becomes president!

The people have elected their fourth president of Sordland, and today marks his first day in office.

President Anton Rayne has a difficult road ahead of him. He’s made his plans to reform the constitution clear, but Sordland is behind neighbouring countries in education, welfare, and women’s rights. The responsibility for a united Sordland falls on his shoulders.

Tune in to the following announcement on the Sordish Broadcasting Corporation as they cover the story around Anton Rayne’s presidential inauguration.


Ahead of his inaugural oath, President Rayne spoke to the Sordland Today: “Brothers and Sisters of Sordland. You, the people, have chosen. Together, we will bring prosperity and reform to our nation. It is a time of hope, it is a time of change. Our capacity as a nation has never been greater!”

Thousands of supporters have gathered in the streets of Holsord chanting campaign slogans, waving flags and USP party banners to show support to the newly elected president. The public mood is very positive in the capital from all accounts on the ground.

The people of Sordland wait in suspense for the leadership that will come from Anton Rayne. It’s up to him alone to bring back Sordland from the brink of ruin. His decisions will determine the fate of our great nation. A Morgna wes core.

It’s your time to lead, Mr. President.

Visit Sordland Today to keep up to date on Sordish news:

• Join the Suzerain Discord server
  
• Purchase on Steam
  
• {LINK REMOVED}Purchase the Presidential Edition Bundle
  
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• Sign-up to our newsletter

The inauguration ceremony is nearly upon us. Tomorrow, at 8am PT, Friday the 4th of December Anton Rayne will step into the role of President of Sordland. How will you lead this nation? What will your term entail? Let’s find out!

To put it simply, in November we finished Suzerain “completely”. While finishing a game is not a real thing since no game is truly finished, I would like to call it drawing a line in the sand. We drew the line and here we are in this significant moment. As developers we are satisfied with what we have achieved so far and we know exactly what we can do to keep improving on Suzerain after launch.

We’ve also added 45 Steam achievements! Some are more common than others and the endings are hidden so nobody gets spoiled. Achievements in general are very fitting for Suzerain due to the branching narrative so expect some more to sneak in the future. Let’s see how many you get to unlock on the first run.



While this journey has been a personal one for the team, in the end this game is for you, the players. It is your thoughts that really matter and we hope that you enjoy Suzerain as much as we did making it over these four years. When we set forth on this journey, we had a story to tell that had to get out. It was the circumstances of our surroundings that triggered creating the game, but the message was larger than any circumstance. Than any one person. This is our own Mona Lisa as Torpor Games.



I can’t thank you all enough for being here with us. I can’t thank the team enough for putting thousands upon thousands of hours into this. I can’t thank all the organisations enough that supported us on this journey and believed in our story without doubt or little there of. At the end of the day we are lucky and we just worked hard on top of this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Want to join us for the big moment? We are going live on Steam tomorrow the 4th of December at 4pm CET / 7am PT, where you can directly chat and ask questions to the developers. Daeron Augustus will be streaming the game after the launch section of the livestream has completed at 6pm CET / 9am PT and will be streaming on Twitch, Youtube and Facebook. Special thanks to his passion for Suzerain make sure to check out his channel!

So what does the future entail? It will be a step by step process. We will monitor the launch and apply hotfixes that are critical where necessary in the two weeks following the release. Our team will also take a much needed break during this period to rejuvenate.



For now, we wish nothing but good luck tomorrow President.

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Glory to Sordland!

Congratulations to Gloria Tory, who was re-elected as Speaker of the Grand National Assembly for the second term in the election. She is the first woman in Sordland to hold the position.

Mrs Tory has had a monumental career in politics for a woman. She rose quickly in USP after she was elected to the Grand National Assembly in 1937. She was appointed as adviser to the Minister of Interior in 1938, before being brought as the spokeswoman for Home Affairs in 1942, and the spokeswoman for Education in 1944. In 1949, she was elected as the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly, in protest against President Alphonso's reformist agenda.



She was a strong critic of Alphonso’s presidency, and became famed for her obstructions in the assembly of some of his policies. Regarded as a charismatic politician and a tough negotiator, Mrs Tory is credited for major lobbying incidents within the USP which shifted the political landscape during the last decade.

Keep up with the latest Sordish news:

• Join the Suzerain Discord server
  
• Wishlist us on Steam
  
• Follow us on Twitter
  
• Like us on Facebook
  
• Sign-up to our newsletter