++++NOTICE++++

The Seasonal Clock is Ticking!

 

The end of Season 8 is coming up soon with just 4 days to go, and with it, your last chance to permanently unlock the Elite Attack Aircraft, as well as the Elite UGV from Season 6.

 

Remember that you need to:

 

Have the required amount of points at the end of season (2000 points for the Elite Attack Aircraft and 1000 points for the Elite UGV)

 

You need to have Security Council when the Season ends, so make sure you have access now to avoid disappointment!

 

The Season 6 and Season 8 units will become yours once you meet these conditions, allowing you to use them in future games! You may find more information about seasons here.

 

Season 8 ends on Monday, 19 September at noon (CEST).

+ + + + UPDATE + + + +

Introducing: World War 3: Squadron Cycle! This new scenario puts a big twist on your regular World War 3 map, where the starting unit setup gets changed every couple of weeks, providing you with new experiences every time you play. Our first variation on the starting setup will include a spec ops and UAV in every capital city. This covert setup is perfect for some stealthy invasion early on, with the Air Superiority Fighter being removed to let the UAV fly unimpeded in the early game.

 

But that’s not all. Check out our other changes and fixes coming with this update!

 

Changes:

• 
  Air Assault can now be cancelled before it actually lands
• 
  Coalition names must contain at least 3 characters and are limited to only letters, numbers and whitespaces
• 
  The Amphibious Vehicle now has its own independent tech tree for all 3 doctrines
  
   

Fixes:

• 
  Fixed an issue where planes could patrol outside the boundaries of a map
• 
  Fixed a bug allowing units to be mobilised with only partially constructed buildings available
• 
  Fixed missing coalition names in forwarded diplomacy messages
• 
  Miscellaneous sound fixes for buildings

+ + + + DEV LOG: 22 + + + + 

Commanders!

It's your local friendly Community lead here - Yak. When I'm nowhere to be found on our platforms, it's safe to say we're all giving headaches to the developers and producers! (They are happy to oblige) Why you might ask? Well! The designers are cooking up quite some spicy dishes, with an entree of assorted (and exquisite) taste breakers; I'm excited to disclose what's on the menu for the coming months from the rag tag bunch over at Dorado. Without further ado, let's get cracking. 

• Amphibious Fighting Vehicle:
  • After looking at the stats behind Amphibious Fighting Vehicle, the general consensus was that they are relatively underused, but not exceptionally so. We suspect that the research tree path might be an influence here, and for a first iteration we we are updating the Amphibious Fighting Vehicle to be separated from the Armored Fighting Vehicle research path, along with all the respective upgrades irrespective of each other. This is coming very soon.
• Air-Assault can use Carriers:
  • In real world scenarios, carriers are used to launch air-assault operations regularly. A function absent from the current implementation of CoN, adding this change is an interesting proposition given that Air Assault can definitely benefit from it along with Naval skirmishes.
    
    Thus, changes to Air-assault units are coming! We will soon allow Air-Assault able units to use carriers as launch points, extending the range they can use to Air-assault. We anticipate this to be available before the release of Season 9.
• Helicopter Carrier:
  • The aircraft carrier is pretty expensive, and serves a pretty important role. We want to emphasize that. As a naval player, this is your capital ship. However, there's some aspects of the aircraft carrier which the Heli Carrier should be able to handle in the early game, or at least serve as a way for naval players to put pressure on their foes beyond their coastal cities. Moreover, this helps make helicopters more attractive as an option.
    
    With the current implementation of Carriers, it is a more attractive choice to focus on aircraft rather than helicopters (at least in some instances). In light of this, we are working on a new unit that will act as a cheaper-costing variant of the Aircraft Carrier. The Helicopter Carrier is able to carry helicopters and act as an HQ (base of operations) for the helicopters, like any other airport would. This unit will not be a seasonal unit. This update is also expected sometime after Season 9.
• Ship carry-capacity
  • Carry-capacity is something that we haven't really touched in CON previously. Transport ships fill that role. But units like the Heli Carrier and Aircraft Carrier regularly carry compliments of troops to engage in ground operations. This is the most experimental feature/idea until now, and as it stands we are exploring options and brainstorming ideas on expanding gameplay in this domain. We don't have a lot of specifics here as the feature is in it's infancy production-wise. The general idea is to give ships the ability to utilize carry-capacity for units. This will allow them to transport units faster than if they were transport ships. Eventually, it will allow units like the Airborne infantry to 'ferry' to the aircraft carrier. This will require a fair bit of development, definitely will be after Season 9.

--

In other news, just in case you missed our last Dev log, we officially announced our plans to give a much needed facelift to the Desktop client of the game, updating the user interface and graphics style. You can see previews and ask questions here.

Since our last log, players have come forward with some questions which I am going to be sharing here as well for everyone.

Player question: Does this mean that the Desktop client (http://conflictnations.com/) will become like the Mobile (Android/iPhone) client?
Answer: Not exactly, no. We will be updating the graphics (Sea, provinces, user interface art style) to look much closer to mobile. But, we will be doing more work to make sure that user interface and experience is adapted and reworked to keep desktop in mind. This means widgets such as the command dial, will not be on the new client.

Player question: Are the User Interface differences between Desktop and Mobile going to preserve the best elements of both?
Answer: That is the best case scenario, yes. Truthfully though, on launch there won't be all the features/implementations done yet. It will be a tiered approach, of course, keeping in mind community/player feedback. As I said in my original post. Players, have the option to opt out of the new client for months (if not year) after Beta launch, so you will be in a position to voice your feedback while being relatively unaffected using the 'classic' client.

Player question: Do our accounts reset to level 1?
Answer: No. Your account will remain untouched and fully functional without losing anything.

Player question: Will this change game mechanics?
Answer: No. The base game remains exactly the same, unless an update states otherwise to improve the game.

 

And with that, this log is at an end. Until the next one! GLHF!

+ + + + ALLIANCE LEAGUE + + + +

In case you've been living under a Carrier, today we've been dedicating the day to Discord, with a flood of Community Managers taking the front to give you maps, and entertainment. Antarctica and Able Archer will be open for the Discord-republic for a limited time. The keen eyed of you also should have seen that we officially announced collaboration with the Alliance League. Today, I am also happy to further announce details of the League - without further ado:

DATE: 

The CON League has a tentative start date for November 2022 for the upcoming Season.

IS MY ALLIANCE READY?

The CON League tries to include all Alliances possible in its organized events. However, proper competition requires Alliances to have certain prerequisites to join in the Seasonal competition. These include:

1. A minimum of 7 players within the Alliance (less than 7 is eligible to join the Beginner's Circuit, but not the Seasonal competition)
2. Have played Alliance Matches within the last 6 months (in order to determine if they understand how Alliance Matches work)
3. Have the player capacity to participate in Elite Matches (enough players with the rank 25+)

HOW TO APPLY:

The CON League is open for all Alliances to apply. They only need to fill out a Dyno Form which submits their application directly to the League server to be reviewed. Here is a copy of the Form: https://dyno.gg/form/e9d3358f. Alliances can also find the League directly in the League server, if they are already on the server.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Alliances participating in the CoN League receive points when they defeat another alliance, allowing them to move up in the rankings of their particular division. The more you win, the more points you will score as the season goes on.At the end of the Season, the top two Alliances move up to the next Division, while the bottom two Alliances drop down to a lower Division. This system is in effect in order to naturally move Alliances based on their skill, performance and ability.

PRIZES

Prizes for the CON League is thanks to our wonderful association and partnership with the parent company Dorado. The prize for the top Alliances in the Seasonal competition includes the choice of whatever Season badge that they desire. Possible future prizes are in discussion.

 MISC.

Alliances participating within the CON League have the ability to negotiate with their opponent about map type and other rules in a mutually agree ruleset. The most standard map utilized within the League is the MED map, although all other map types are available for use.

The League hosts occasional tournaments, Battle Royales, and roleplaying games. The League is officially open for outside organizations/individuals, regardless of membership status within the League, to partner with the League to host their own tournament, BR, or RP. Details of the Tourney/BR/RP would be regulated by League rules/regulations, and would be monitored for quality assurance. This allows those who have trouble running their own special events have an outlet, and it allows the League to further nurture the Community and expand its outreach.

Changes:

• 
  Red vs Blue General Update
  
  • 
    Fixed a map border issue that was causing the Map to break
  • 
    Added river Vardar in North Macedonia
  • 
    Updated leader names
• 
  Implemented virtual scrollers for Coalitions, City, Achievements list, and Diplomacy messages [Mobile]
• 
  Inactive Beta testers will now have their rights automatically removed
• 
  Updated News section preventing Spam and promoting better quality Articles
• 
  Beautified UI layouts for consistency [Mobile]

Fixes:

• 
  Coalition names can only be filled with letters now
• 
  Fixed an issue where Aircraft-fired Missiles were able to target Sea Provinces [Mobile]
• 
  Fixed a notification issue when a Missile is fired at an empty province
• 
  Fixed the case where conquering a province cancels Aircraft Patrolling command
• 
  Fixed the issue where clicking the Season badge opens the Player’s profile [Mobile]
• 
  Fixed instances of broken UI [Mobile]
• 
  Added missing Fire Control icons [Mobile]
• 
  Fixed an issue where queued Buildings will not start if the previous production is cancelled
• 
  Fixed an issue where Target Morale was incorrectly modified when the Population was low
• 
  Fixed issue where incompatible maps became available resulting in broken layouts [Mobile]

 

Commanders, please note that our Team is looking into the Rank and Stats delay some of you have been experiencing. For the time being, make sure to give your game a refresh or two until you have the right Statistics shown.

GREETINGS FELLOW CONMANDERS! Yak here!
(my colleagues hate when I do that, maybe it's because they aren't morning people? or maybe exclaiming it at 160 decibels isn't to their tastes, go figure)

I come bearing news! Much of it actually. So I hope you have some hours time set aside for the fun process that is reading our dev log! This one is a lengthy one, we've been very busy on a number of fronts and I want to make sure that I can contain as many responses to common player sentiments as possible.
For a while now we've been seeing a very nice uptick in players adopting CoN, lending to an increase in demand which, naturally, means our technical systems have more people to keep up with. There have been many optimizations in past months, and there are more to come. More on that in this post below.

Naturally this meant Dorado needed to bolster forces through employment of developers, and managers from all walks of life, to add to our repertoire of special forces-like staff. In due time I would like to host Q&A/AMA sessions to introduce the new(and old) blood behind Dorado.
Feedback on the Season 8 unit has been plentiful, and discussions hot to the touch. As I type this - the designated game designer (Codename Lunar on our Discord) is revisiting the balance for the Elite Attack Aircraft, bearing in mind the discussions held on our forum and the data we have available.

As it stands our analysis indicates that; Air Superiority Fighters are now the most built aircraft (not by a lot) - which is good to see as it is part of our intention with the unit feature of Season 8, to promote viability of the Superiority Fighter. Speaking of Strike Fighters, the base unit is built more than its Elite counterpart, the Attack Aircraft. (This being said, the Elite Attack Aircraft has a higher total construction count in 4x maps). Looking at the data holistically, there seems to be a nice spread between Air Superiority fighters, Strike Fighters, and Elite Attack Aircraft, indicating to us that a conservative balance is the right way to go.

We are also looking into tweaking the Elite Helicopter unit, but this is still early, right now the main priority is Elite Attack Air.
I anticipate this project will worry some of our veterans, but I want to address any concerns here as clearly as possible to avoid any misunderstandings.
Firstly I want to explain; what is the new Desktop client going to be?

For a bit of context, as it stands, we are having to maintain and update two projects independent of one another: Desktop(Web i.e. http://conflictnations.com/) as it is right now in its current state, and the Mobile Application.
Many issues and updates need to be developed for each platform, costing us at least twice the time and resources it would otherwise.
Naturally it is very inefficient use of our time, especially when you consider that bugs or problems can be introduced on platforms independent of each other, meaning we also need to fix said issues twice at times.
This is also stopping us from adopting new features and implementing new systems since we know that it will need to be ported to mobile and vice versa. Once the process is done we will be on a much more efficient schedule of infusing brand new content and changes on a regular basis.
To fix this, we are working behind the scenes to merge the two platforms, Mobile and Desktop. This does not mean that a simple port to Desktop will be made. We are working on entirely overhauling the User Interface, and User Experience, especially tailored to Desktop and its use case.
There are also a wealth of changes which will come along, modernizing the look and feel of CoN more inline with 2022 standards. Graphics will also be getting a major overhaul similar in similar fashion to Mobile in it's current state. With this being said, Mobile will not see any changes. The unification will largely leave Mobile audiences unaffected with the exception of getting the benefits from the better efficient developer team working behind the game!
We understand that people are afraid of such a big change. We are working very closely with the community to address any issues for the Beta launch, to ensure that the new transition is seamless and pleases our core playerbase, which is found on Desktop(Web).
I want to make it absolutely clear, we are not simply porting Mobile to Desktop(Web). Unit control, interface popups, dialogue options etc. will all be revised from the ground up to cater to the platform and player needs.
Worry not! We are going to give all players the option to keep using the old client for a time period. Be informed though, that we will not be updating the old client with brand new interface features and quality of life changes, save for some critical bug fixes.
Internally the title for this project is Unified client. The Beta release is slated for release on the fourth quarter of 2022. As I mentioned above, if you do not find the initial release to your liking you will be given the option to revert to the old client, unaffected by the new changes.
As of writing this, the most fleshed out portion of our overhaul has been done on the main menus. You can find early mockup previews for the first time ever! -here. It is crucial I mention that this is not final at all and everything you see is subject to change.
I understand there will be plenty of questions, post any and all questions you have here so that we can address them.
That's not all! We have a lot ongoing tasks and projects.
You read that right! We are working on finally getting an official Conflict of Nations merch store up and running. The good news? It will be live very soon. In a matter of weeks if all goes according to plan. Our resident artists worked hard on pitching exclusive designs you're sure to love. As the times roll on, we will be updating the availability of designs and products, so make sure to be quick to buy anything you like as items are likely to be there for a limited time only.
That's right! Our official Discord server reached 40k members! A number many of us are very fond of at the office, being Warhammer geeks.
To commemorate this special milestone - we have a very special day planned. Keep your eyes peeled for all the details next week.
Also, in case you've been living under an Abrams, we host weekly events on our Discord server and Twitter!
We are doing a lot of work on the player-facing portions of the game, like UI/UX, client etc. This is not to say we are neglecting the underlying foundations entirely. Far from it. We are working extensively on refactoring and adopting bug fixes on our game engine. This will involve optimizations, with benefits having an effect on performance and loading times, as well as much needed bug fixes.
We are working on the way victory points are updated, right now they update at the end of ingame day. This will change to update dynamically as soon as a change is required. This is WIP.

+ + + + UPDATE + + + +

 

Changes:

• 
  Introduction of community submitted coalition flags
• 
  Update to various scenarios:
  
  • 
    Antarctica General Update:
    
    • 
      Implemented regions for the cities: Ellsworth Archipelago, Wilkes Island and Queen Maud Island
    • 
      Added harbors at Latina and Gijon provinces so Spain players can easily access their cities
    • 
      Improved some nation colors, nation name positions, and connections
  • 
    Middle East Conflict General Update
    
    • 
      Added in North Macedonia and Vardar River
    • 
      Set Nigerian doctrine to Russian
    • 
      Updates to leader names and province names
  • 
    Overkill General Update:
    
    • 
      Added in North Macedonia and Vardar River
    • 
      Set Nigerian doctrine to Russian
    • 
      Updates to leader names and province names

  

Fixes:

• 
  Fixed a scrolling issue on the Search tab, where only one page of games is displayed
• 
  Fixed an issue where strategic air transports do not return to base when a right of way is cancelled
• 
  Fixed an issue where missiles did not display the ‘out of range’ message
• 
  Fixed an issue where player profiles were not opening correctly
• 
  Fixed notifications where defeated army name is missing
• 
  Fixed various issues concerning rendering of circles:
  
  • 
    Patrol circle now displays for stacks containing units with different patrol radiuses
  • 
    Patrol circles now represent the actual patrol radius of aircraft
  • 
    Airplane and helicopter ranges now also visible when they are grounded

Commanders,

As everyone gets set for the fireworks to go on 4th July, a new map is being introduced to celebrate.

Presenting Battlegrounds USA Apocalypse 4x, bringing some speed and renewed excitement to your favorite theater of war in America. Take control of one of the playable American states, or another country close to the fray, and vie for dominance of the continent.

The Battlegrounds USA Apocalypse 4x scenario will have the following features:

- 4x speed
- All research unlocked from Day 1
- Start with some nukes at the start, relative to the number of starting cities:
- 5 cities: 12 nukes
- 6 cities: 14 nukes
- 7 cities: 16 nukes

Keep your eyes peeled for this special map in the New Games tab as these aren't frequent. Don't miss your opportunity to try out this map! It will only be available for a limited time!

It isn't Thanksgiving, it's Independence day! Claim what's yours.

+ + + + UPDATE + + + +

 

Changes:

• 
  Alliances can now challenge other alliance to a 2v2 Able Archer challenge (both normal and 4x speed) 
• 
  New Quick Join button makes it easier for new players to find the maps they want to play
• 
  The vote to end game button will now appear when only 7 active players are left in the game
• 
  Removed ceasefire from the diplomatic relation options
• 
  Additional performance improvements
• 
  Various updates and changes to your favourite scenarios!

 

Red vs Blue General Update

• 
  Various bug fixes
• 
  Fixed harbor in Bethel, Alaska
• 
  Changed all starting units to 1 National Guard, to have a slower and more competitive start to the game

 

WW3 General Update

• 
  Various bug fixes
• 
  Removal of Quebec as an independent nation, it is now part of Canada, to have a more realistic world view
• 
  Addition of North Macedonia into the map, to have a more realistic world view
• 
  Map wide city reduction, various nations have been reduced by one city, to have a more competitive and balanced experience

 

Global Conflict General Update

• 
  Various bug fixes
• 
  Addition of North Macedonia into the map, to have a more realistic world view
• 
  Map wide city reduction, various nations have been reduced by one city, to have a more competitive and balanced experience

 

Fixes:

• 
  Clicking on a unit notification now takes you directly to the unit in question
• 
  Fixed an issue where a change in diplomatic relations caused the messages window to not open
• 
  Fixed an issue where your own achievements are displayed when looking at another player’s profile
• 
  Fixed an issue where the diplomacy button on the enemy army panel didn’t work
• 
  Fixed an issue where the diplomacy bar was missing when clicking on an enemy unit

+ + + + SEASON 8 + + + +
Season 8 is officially live!

Featuring: Elite Attack Aircraft.

The Elite Attack Aircraft is an aircraft designed to engage ground forces in combat zones. Capable of taking hits and still completing it’s assigned mission, the aircraft is ideal for targeting ground forces guarded by Anti-Air units. It’s slow speed makes it a vulnerable target for other aircraft, so maintaining air-superiority is important to keep these units from being destroyed.

Note: The new unit will only be available in NEW games which are spawned after release.

The Season 6 Unmanned Ground vehicle make a comeback - for a limited time!

For details on the unit and requirements for deploying it, click here.

Those of you who haven’t had a chance to permanently unlock this destructive unit before can now have another crack at it during Season 8! Security Council members need 1,000 Points in this Season for permanent unlock of the Elite UGV.

In case this is your first Season, here’s a rundown how Seasons work:

• Earn Season Points by killing units in any of your games - they all count!
• Try out the unique Seasonal Units, available to everyone! (NOTE: Only available for new games starting now)
• Season 8 and 6 Units can be researched from a new tab in the Research Panel. Any Elite units you have already unlocked from previous seasons are fully able to be mobilized in any game of your choice!

In order to permanently unlock the Seasonal Unit and use it after the Season ends you must earn at least 1,000 Season Points for the UGV, 2,000 Seasonal Points for the Elite Attack Aircraft, and have also valid Security Council Pass.

You will find all the details here