The latest version of The Second World War is now live. There's a lot of new AI improvements, fixes and some new content additions. To begin with, we’ve about finished our comprehensive rewrite of the Land Offensive/Defensive AI. For the most part, the changes may not be very noticable. But over the course of a full game, players should experience an AI making wiser large and small scale decisions that will alter outcomes of battles and ultimately wars.

A major effort has gone into making the AI significantly more aware of it’s defensive needs both at home and abroad. They will also now attempt to gather reserves so front line collapses should not always lead to a total collapse. To get the AI to this level of functionality, new logic was required for how they move, split, reinforce unit groups and when to join a battle or consider it a lost cause.

We have a few more elements to complete in the Land Offensive/Defensive AI, including Improving Empire Defense, even better Allied support evaluations and ensuring the US is properly focused on defeating the Axis. The later issue encompasses bolder amphibious attacks and island to island campaigns.

The last update we introduced the new unit hitpoints. This had a fundamental impact on all systems related to the military. Some combat properties became overly powerful like Air to Sea attacks. These have been rebalanced along with other game areas like production times for all ships and the shipping capacity resource. We felt that although in reality a carrier can take a long time to build, reality does not always translate into entertaining. We’ll remain open minded about how best to balance the game and try to settle on a consensus position where possible.

Further adjustments to the overall game have been made to bring the systems in line with the new unit hitpoint mechanics. This is an area we intend to expand on, especially in the UI as we discover better ways to present new combat information. In general, if there something in the UI you feel needs attention, please let us know. Community feedback on this would be appreciated.

There are many new historical and some alternative history events in this update. We are close to finishing the required minimum events spec’d for release on the first scenario, but I keep adding to the wishlist and expect to go well beyond the minimum. The new Ottoman and Turkestan Revival for Turkey fall into that category. They are both in game now and we plan to later incorporate them into the Steam Achievement system. Other events are to be added for most nations that will function in a similar fashion.

As some may have noticed, we’ve shifted from an every week scheduled update to one every 2 weeks. This is primarily due to the type of changes we’ve been working on. AI improvements can take quite a bit of time and results often require additional refinement passes. A week does not give us enough time to properly implement, test and rebalance. Even with a second week, the changes in this update are so comprehensive that some issues are still lingering.

The next update is planned for after the December Holidays and New Year. We’ll be looking to refine and polish Air & Naval AI and begin checking off items from our large but manageable list of smaller tasks that will take us to release. And there’s still Tutorial, Encyclopedia, Achievements and a new scenario to finish. I’ll be starting a 1939 pre-Poland Invasion scenario over the holidays. If things go as planned, it might make the next update.

Please feel free to inquire about changes, offer ideas and provide feedback.

If you have a crash, think you’ve found a bug or maybe just noticed one of my spelling errors, post a note on Steam or email us at techsupport@factusgames.com.

Visit our website to read how to get us debugging information: https://factusgames.com/pages/support.


Notes for Early Access Update #6

AI Changes:
- Major rewrite of Land Defense AI
- Reworked defense requirement calculations
- Improved AI ability to identify regions that need defending
- Revised AI group splitting for better unit to region allocations
- AI defends against units belonging to non-enemy but unfriendly nations
- Moved defensive AI balance numbers to the xml for modding
- Revised defense AI to distribute groups to defense regions while at war
- Incentivize AI to hold reserve troops adjacent to defense regions and engagements
- Reworked Offensive AI land targeting evaluations
- Changed definition of Obvious target to be undefended Artillery/Air units or undefended City
- Don't consider defense when Obvious target is in range
- Fixed overseas AI from constantly picking the same overseas target
- Reworked engagement AI to avoid “piling on” or sending troops to a "lost cause"
- Fixed bug in AI evaluation of enemy coastal defenses in opportunity attack
- Revised offensive AI to consider defense needs when moving troops
- Reworked Support Allies AI to consider allied defense during peacetime
- Improved power calculation in Support Allies AI
- Fix for rare bug in offensive AI searching for region that a group is already in
- AI turn processing now processes independent nations first
- Reordered AI processing to prioritize military plans and ensure specific order
- Turned on Subordinate Nation recruitment AI

Game System Changes:
- Changed rule on Military Access agreements to be Empire wide
- Fixed bug so AI no longer considers landlocked Gulf of Ob a Coastal Region
- Units stuck behind in peace deals can now get supplies to exit
- Tanks no longer limited to moving 1 region a turn
- Movement table now shows MAX movement for transportation level 0
- Updated Movement Table
- Added strict pathfinding rules to Convoy targets and Artillery units
- Fixed calculations on Ranged attack hits to use Power instead of rolling to hit

Content Changes:
- Added more Soviet forces on the Siberian front
- Fixed Decal on British Light Tank II
- Fixed Animation Glitch in Railway Gun shoot
- Swapped Democratic and Fascist flag
- Swapped Nuclear Labs and Jet Labs levels
- Lowered Power of Coastal Defense
- Reduced time for producing Shipping and Airlift Capacity
- Reduced Production Time for all Ships
- Increased Defensive Power of Militia
- Modified Multiple Unit Properties For Combat Balancing
- Significantly Reduced Air to Sea Attack Power
- New City Added in Caroline Islands call Moen for Truk naval base
- Changed China and Japan nation colors
- Added German Unit Icon Images
- Updated HP tooltips: Replaced Health with Strength & Casualties with Reinforcements
- Relabeled UI Auto Trade Title from Trade Amount to Stockpile Target
- Fixed land engagement UI popup showing the same unit multiple times
- Implemented Annex Nation and All Subordinates function for Event scripts
- Implemented Neutrality Pact function for Event scripts
- Increased AI desire to go after regions referenced as target regions in Events
- An Event failure no longer stops execution of all subsequent Events.
- New Events for American takeover of Greenland and Iceland
- New German Atlantic Wall Events
- New Neutrality Pact Events (Keeps USSR & Japan from fighting & Phoney War)
- New Soviet Factory Relocation Events
- New Thailand Events (Franco-Thai War, Alliance with Japan)
- New Turkish Events (Axis or Allies, Hatay, Ottoman or Turkestan Revival)
- New Vichy French Colonial Revolts Events
- New Japan Events (Vietnam, Thailand Invasion)
- New USA Events: Pacific and North African Campaigns
- New Irish Events (Axis or Allies, Blueshirts)
- New Spain Events (Join Axis, Italy, Germany Attack Republican Spain)
- New Italy Event for Invasion of Malta

The latest version of The Second World War is now live. There's a lot of new AI improvements, fixes and some new content additions. To begin with, we’ve about finished our comprehensive rewrite of the Land Offensive/Defensive AI. For the most part, the changes may not be very noticable. But over the course of a full game, players should experience an AI making wiser large and small scale decisions that will alter outcomes of battles and ultimately wars.

A major effort has gone into making the AI significantly more aware of it’s defensive needs both at home and abroad. They will also now attempt to gather reserves so front line collapses should not always lead to a total collapse. To get the AI to this level of functionality, new logic was required for how they move, split, reinforce unit groups and when to join a battle or consider it a lost cause.

We have a few more elements to complete in the Land Offensive/Defensive AI, including Improving Empire Defense, even better Allied support evaluations and ensuring the US is properly focused on defeating the Axis. The later issue encompasses bolder amphibious attacks and island to island campaigns.

The last update we introduced the new unit hitpoints. This had a fundamental impact on all systems related to the military. Some combat properties became overly powerful like Air to Sea attacks. These have been rebalanced along with other game areas like production times for all ships and the shipping capacity resource. We felt that although in reality a carrier can take a long time to build, reality does not always translate into entertaining. We’ll remain open minded about how best to balance the game and try to settle on a consensus position where possible.

Further adjustments to the overall game have been made to bring the systems in line with the new unit hitpoint mechanics. This is an area we intend to expand on, especially in the UI as we discover better ways to present new combat information. In general, if there something in the UI you feel needs attention, please let us know. Community feedback on this would be appreciated.

There are many new historical and some alternative history events in this update. We are close to finishing the required minimum events spec’d for release on the first scenario, but I keep adding to the wishlist and expect to go well beyond the minimum. The new Ottoman and Turkestan Revival for Turkey fall into that category. They are both in game now and we plan to later incorporate them into the Steam Achievement system. Other events are to be added for most nations that will function in a similar fashion.

As some may have noticed, we’ve shifted from an every week scheduled update to one every 2 weeks. This is primarily due to the type of changes we’ve been working on. AI improvements can take quite a bit of time and results often require additional refinement passes. A week does not give us enough time to properly implement, test and rebalance. Even with a second week, the changes in this update are so comprehensive that some issues are still lingering.

The next update is planned for after the December Holidays and New Year. We’ll be looking to refine and polish Air & Naval AI and begin checking off items from our large but manageable list of smaller tasks that will take us to release. And there’s still Tutorial, Encyclopedia, Achievements and a new scenario to finish. I’ll be starting a 1939 pre-Poland Invasion scenario over the holidays. If things go as planned, it might make the next update.

Please feel free to inquire about changes, offer ideas and provide feedback.

If you have a crash, think you’ve found a bug or maybe just noticed one of my spelling errors, post a note on Steam or email us at techsupport@factusgames.com.

Visit our website to read how to get us debugging information: https://factusgames.com/pages/support.


Notes for Early Access Update #6

AI Changes:
- Major rewrite of Land Defense AI
- Reworked defense requirement calculations
- Improved AI ability to identify regions that need defending
- Revised AI group splitting for better unit to region allocations
- AI defends against units belonging to non-enemy but unfriendly nations
- Moved defensive AI balance numbers to the xml for modding
- Revised defense AI to distribute groups to defense regions while at war
- Incentivize AI to hold reserve troops adjacent to defense regions and engagements
- Reworked Offensive AI land targeting evaluations
- Changed definition of Obvious target to be undefended Artillery/Air units or undefended City
- Don't consider defense when Obvious target is in range
- Fixed overseas AI from constantly picking the same overseas target
- Reworked engagement AI to avoid “piling on” or sending troops to a "lost cause"
- Fixed bug in AI evaluation of enemy coastal defenses in opportunity attack
- Revised offensive AI to consider defense needs when moving troops
- Reworked Support Allies AI to consider allied defense during peacetime
- Improved power calculation in Support Allies AI
- Fix for rare bug in offensive AI searching for region that a group is already in
- AI turn processing now processes independent nations first
- Reordered AI processing to prioritize military plans and ensure specific order
- Turned on Subordinate Nation recruitment AI

Game System Changes:
- Changed rule on Military Access agreements to be Empire wide
- Fixed bug so AI no longer considers landlocked Gulf of Ob a Coastal Region
- Units stuck behind in peace deals can now get supplies to exit
- Tanks no longer limited to moving 1 region a turn
- Movement table now shows MAX movement for transportation level 0
- Updated Movement Table
- Added strict pathfinding rules to Convoy targets and Artillery units
- Fixed calculations on Ranged attack hits to use Power instead of rolling to hit

Content Changes:
- Added more Soviet forces on the Siberian front
- Fixed Decal on British Light Tank II
- Fixed Animation Glitch in Railway Gun shoot
- Swapped Democratic and Fascist flag
- Swapped Nuclear Labs and Jet Labs levels
- Lowered Power of Coastal Defense
- Reduced time for producing Shipping and Airlift Capacity
- Reduced Production Time for all Ships
- Increased Defensive Power of Militia
- Modified Multiple Unit Properties For Combat Balancing
- Significantly Reduced Air to Sea Attack Power
- New City Added in Caroline Islands call Moen for Truk naval base
- Changed China and Japan nation colors
- Added German Unit Icon Images
- Updated HP tooltips: Replaced Health with Strength & Casualties with Reinforcements
- Relabeled UI Auto Trade Title from Trade Amount to Stockpile Target
- Fixed land engagement UI popup showing the same unit multiple times
- Implemented Annex Nation and All Subordinates function for Event scripts
- Implemented Neutrality Pact function for Event scripts
- Increased AI desire to go after regions referenced as target regions in Events
- An Event failure no longer stops execution of all subsequent Events.
- New Events for American takeover of Greenland and Iceland
- New German Atlantic Wall Events
- New Neutrality Pact Events (Keeps USSR & Japan from fighting & Phoney War)
- New Soviet Factory Relocation Events
- New Thailand Events (Franco-Thai War, Alliance with Japan)
- New Turkish Events (Axis or Allies, Hatay, Ottoman or Turkestan Revival)
- New Vichy French Colonial Revolts Events
- New Japan Events (Vietnam, Thailand Invasion)
- New USA Events: Pacific and North African Campaigns
- New Irish Events (Axis or Allies, Blueshirts)
- New Spain Events (Join Axis, Italy, Germany Attack Republican Spain)
- New Italy Event for Invasion of Malta

Making History: The Second World War is officially for sale on Steam as an Early Access title. The game is mostly feature complete and stable. The Early Access process allows us to finish the game with input from the community. For a small independent company like Factus Games, this has many advantages. We do not have the staff for intensive testing so the community does help us find issues that might take longer to find in house. More importantly, the end phase is typically dominated by AI and game balancing. These are areas where players can provide valuable feedback and influence the final product.

There’s still a lot of work ahead for some areas of the game and still more we want to improve before the final release. We plan to get new game updates to the community on a weekly basis. During the pre-release period it’s possible saved games could become incompatible after an update. However, we will try hard to avoid that from happening. It’s difficult to say exactly how long the pre-release period will last. We expect it to be no more than 2 months.

This is the first of what we hope to be many games developed at Factus Games. Thanks for your support.

Making History: The Second World War is officially for sale on Steam as an Early Access title. The game is mostly feature complete and stable. The Early Access process allows us to finish the game with input from the community. For a small independent company like Factus Games, this has many advantages. We do not have the staff for intensive testing so the community does help us find issues that might take longer to find in house. More importantly, the end phase is typically dominated by AI and game balancing. These are areas where players can provide valuable feedback and influence the final product.

There’s still a lot of work ahead for some areas of the game and still more we want to improve before the final release. We plan to get new game updates to the community on a weekly basis. During the pre-release period it’s possible saved games could become incompatible after an update. However, we will try hard to avoid that from happening. It’s difficult to say exactly how long the pre-release period will last. We expect it to be no more than 2 months.

This is the first of what we hope to be many games developed at Factus Games. Thanks for your support.

The following interview of Ralph Gerth (RG), founder of Factus Games was conducted by Patrick Flynn (PF)


(PF) What is your personal background in the industry?

(RG) I started working in the games industry at LucasArts back in 1993. They hired me to create 3D art for games which at the time, were still all 2D. I stayed 6 years, learned a ton and made contributions to some classic Star Wars and adventure games. Then in 2000 I moved to Europe to work for a Swedish developer UDS. There I led a team of talented artist making a Futurama console game. Unfortunately the company went out of business after 3 years. I returned to the US to take a position as the Art Director of Muzzy Lane Software, the original developers of the Making History series. My role eventually evolved and I became the designer on all the Making History commercial games.



(PF) How did you go about acquiring Factus Games?

(RG) I founded Factus Games in 2017 when Muzzy Lane became interested in selling the publishing and development rights to the Making History games. As an educational focused business, Muzzy Lane was never fully committed to commercial gaming and that’s what I wanted to return to. It was an amicable split.



(PF) Compared to contemporary World-War-era, Grand Strategy games, what sets Making History: The Second World War apart?

(RG) The original Making History game began as an educational product designed for classroom use. In that environment, the game needed to deliver a true historical experience for a wide range of users - most with no strategy gaming background. From that initial effort we created the commercial version of Making History. As the lead designer, my goal was to retain the simplicity of the original gameplay while adding systems to increase the entertainment value. Namely, I wanted the game to be unrestrained by strict historical paths and allow users to carve out their own narratives. History is the theme and the setting. Players navigate the world and change outcomes based on how they behave against a collection of AI nations that also react to the varying activity. Two games will never be the same. As long as the AI makes believable choices, the diversion away from actual history is accepted by the player. With Making History: The Second World War we’ve added many historical events but at each juncture, the player can choose an alternative historical option.



(PF) How does Making History: The Second World War differ from Making History: The Great War?

(RG) The Second World War was built on the same engine as The Great War so the game will feel familiar to TGW users. We retained the basic structure and gameplay style but most of the AI and systems code was either rewritten or improved. There are also some key strategic and political differences between the two wars that we needed to differentiate in the AI and game systems. For instance in SWW, ideology has greater influence on AI decisions and the combat is more offensive minded. On the graphics side, we’ve doubled the detail level for the hundreds of new WW2 era unit models. Our aesthetic aim is still to present a simple, uncluttered gameboard experience. The game map has been regenerated and improved over the TGW version. There are a lot of new features and loads of historical and alternative historical events.



(PF) What do Factus Games have planned following its third World War 2 game?

(RG) Our main focus will be on creating a new engine for our future Strategy Games. It’s possible we'll produce a DLC for The Second World War focused on the Korean War, but that has not been officially decided. I’ve also been thinking about ways to make Multiplayer more accessible and easier to play. We'd like to produce some scenarios dedicated to MP play. And after release the game will continue to receive updates and new free content.



(PF) What effort is given to exploring alternate history in Making History: The Second World War?

(RG) Alternative history as gameplay is a core element to the Making history game design. Not only do we allow players to diverge from the path, we encourage it and craft the content and AI to expect it. In The Second World War, Germany left alone will usually go about their business attacking their neighbors as the Germans did in WW2. But the results will never be the same.



(PF) What support for the modding community can we expect going forward?

(RG) Making History: The Second World War will launch with Steam Workshop and a full-featured editor. Beyond that I feel it will be up to the community to let us know what they need. Modding is obviously a good way to extend the viability of a product and expand the user base. So it will be in our interests to continue supporting the modding and the game itself long after release.

The following interview of Ralph Gerth (RG), founder of Factus Games was conducted by Patrick Flynn (PF)


(PF) What is your personal background in the industry?

(RG) I started working in the games industry at LucasArts back in 1993. They hired me to create 3D art for games which at the time, were still all 2D. I stayed 6 years, learned a ton and made contributions to some classic Star Wars and adventure games. Then in 2000 I moved to Europe to work for a Swedish developer UDS. There I led a team of talented artist making a Futurama console game. Unfortunately the company went out of business after 3 years. I returned to the US to take a position as the Art Director of Muzzy Lane Software, the original developers of the Making History series. My role eventually evolved and I became the designer on all the Making History commercial games.



(PF) How did you go about acquiring Factus Games?

(RG) I founded Factus Games in 2017 when Muzzy Lane became interested in selling the publishing and development rights to the Making History games. As an educational focused business, Muzzy Lane was never fully committed to commercial gaming and that’s what I wanted to return to. It was an amicable split.



(PF) Compared to contemporary World-War-era, Grand Strategy games, what sets Making History: The Second World War apart?

(RG) The original Making History game began as an educational product designed for classroom use. In that environment, the game needed to deliver a true historical experience for a wide range of users - most with no strategy gaming background. From that initial effort we created the commercial version of Making History. As the lead designer, my goal was to retain the simplicity of the original gameplay while adding systems to increase the entertainment value. Namely, I wanted the game to be unrestrained by strict historical paths and allow users to carve out their own narratives. History is the theme and the setting. Players navigate the world and change outcomes based on how they behave against a collection of AI nations that also react to the varying activity. Two games will never be the same. As long as the AI makes believable choices, the diversion away from actual history is accepted by the player. With Making History: The Second World War we’ve added many historical events but at each juncture, the player can choose an alternative historical option.



(PF) How does Making History: The Second World War differ from Making History: The Great War?

(RG) The Second World War was built on the same engine as The Great War so the game will feel familiar to TGW users. We retained the basic structure and gameplay style but most of the AI and systems code was either rewritten or improved. There are also some key strategic and political differences between the two wars that we needed to differentiate in the AI and game systems. For instance in SWW, ideology has greater influence on AI decisions and the combat is more offensive minded. On the graphics side, we’ve doubled the detail level for the hundreds of new WW2 era unit models. Our aesthetic aim is still to present a simple, uncluttered gameboard experience. The game map has been regenerated and improved over the TGW version. There are a lot of new features and loads of historical and alternative historical events.



(PF) What do Factus Games have planned following its third World War 2 game?

(RG) Our main focus will be on creating a new engine for our future Strategy Games. It’s possible we'll produce a DLC for The Second World War focused on the Korean War, but that has not been officially decided. I’ve also been thinking about ways to make Multiplayer more accessible and easier to play. We'd like to produce some scenarios dedicated to MP play. And after release the game will continue to receive updates and new free content.



(PF) What effort is given to exploring alternate history in Making History: The Second World War?

(RG) Alternative history as gameplay is a core element to the Making history game design. Not only do we allow players to diverge from the path, we encourage it and craft the content and AI to expect it. In The Second World War, Germany left alone will usually go about their business attacking their neighbors as the Germans did in WW2. But the results will never be the same.



(PF) What support for the modding community can we expect going forward?

(RG) Making History: The Second World War will launch with Steam Workshop and a full-featured editor. Beyond that I feel it will be up to the community to let us know what they need. Modding is obviously a good way to extend the viability of a product and expand the user base. So it will be in our interests to continue supporting the modding and the game itself long after release.

Making History: The Second World War is preparing to release as an Early Access title. This offers many advantages to both our development team and the SWW community. For us it's an opportunity to get the game in front of a wider sample of users and systems. The feedback we receive during this phase will help us identify potential issues. This is also a chance for the community to offer ideas on existing features and make requests for additional ones.

At present, the game is feature complete. There's still some content to add and game balancing to complete. We believe an Early Access version should be ready sometime in the next few weeks. I'll post announcements once we have a reliable target date.

Making History: The Second World War is preparing to release as an Early Access title. This offers many advantages to both our development team and the SWW community. For us it's an opportunity to get the game in front of a wider sample of users and systems. The feedback we receive during this phase will help us identify potential issues. This is also a chance for the community to offer ideas on existing features and make requests for additional ones.

At present, the game is feature complete. There's still some content to add and game balancing to complete. We believe an Early Access version should be ready sometime in the next few weeks. I'll post announcements once we have a reliable target date.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/462940/Making_History_The_Second_World_War/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/462940/Making_History_The_Second_World_War/