Making History: The First World War will be released as an Early Access title in the near future. Visit the The First World War Steam page to get updated game information and participate in the Community Hub here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/959150/Making_History_The_First_World_War/

Factus Games announces the release of a new content expansion for Making History: The Second World War featuring many of the foremost vessels of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Among the models you get are Fubuki-class destroyers, Fusō-class dreadnoughts and the largest battleship ever constructed, the Yamato, plus many more.



This is a free DLC enhancement that includes some minor system changes and bug fixes. All current and new owners of Making History: The Second World War will see the Japanese fleet models on Full or Medium Model Set options with the latest update, version 1.0.61701.46.

We’ve also added in a newly built British Dreadnought model that was constructed for the upcoming Making History: The Great War Gold Edition. Factus Games intends to provide more models, events and scenarios for The Second World War in the near future.

Release Notes:
- Added new Japanese & British ship models into game
- Fixed error in Japanese Northern Route Event to provide Japanese Mech Infantry instead of German
- Added region control checks for German Unit expansion events
- Put in fix for Japanese Puppet Mengjiang triggering Sino-Japan war
- Communist and Fascist governments will not form an alliance unless they are both at war with the same great power
- Fixed paging issue on sub group selection panel
- Removed some duplicate code that code prevent some events from firing.

Factus Games proudly announces the official release of Making History: The Second World War. We wish to extend a special thanks to all the players who assisted the development team through the Early Access period. The feedback and bug reports were extremely helpful to our efforts. We also received many great suggestions and some we were able to add to the game.

Going forward we will continue to support Making History: The Second World War with updates, improvements and any necessary bug fixes.

Making History: The Second World War is scheduled to release on April 27 2018.

A newly updated version of The Second World War is now available. The team lost a week or so to the holidays and there were a few sick days to overcome. Even with those obstacles, we executed a long list of improvements to the game. Again, most of our efforts have been AI related but we are continuing to add new content, events, feature improvements and of course bug fixes.

In this release we are introducing a new scenario called Last Days of Peace. It begins a few weeks before the Invasion of Poland. This allows players to skip the buildup years and get right into the war. Neither scenario is 100% complete so expect to see further balancing and content as we work towards release.

A new big addition to the AI has been to give it motivation to create and maintain contiguous fronts against enemies and potential threats. The implementation for this system took us through several variations. Initially the AI tended to become too narrowly focused on specific regions due to strength evaluations. Rather than spreading the units out along a front, we ended up with big stacks that led to gaps in front. Eventually the big stacks became pockets, often surrounded by Heavy Artillery that pounded them to extinction. It was kind of fun to see but not the gameplay we were looking for.

There were many factors to consider beside just having an enemy on the border. There is the opposing nation’s strength to consider but also the relationship status. We do not want Canada to think they need troops on the US border and vice versa. Some nations like the Soviet Union are so large that their defensive needs are always greater than what they have available. So the defense priority evaluations are especially challenging for the Soviet AI. They became our ultimate test case while we worked out the rough edges.

The AI is also considering potential invasion threats by sea or through bordering buffer states. Support Allies improvements allows the AI to better defend on Allied fronts and fill the fronts throughout their empire. Additionally, we’ve introduced the concept of Secondary Fronts so the AI will now try to create lines of reserves.

All the Major nations now have unique Unit Icon images. So you no longer will see a British soldier or Tank in a Japanese unit panel. We’ll soon have all the images in to match the unit you see on the map.

Thanks again to all the current users out there that take the time to post messages about issues and ideas. This process would be taking us even longer to get through without your support.



Content Changes:
- Added new pre-Poland invasion scenario “The Last Days of Peace”
- Fixed icons for mapview tooltip for food production
- Lowered Militia Hitpoint & Defensive Strength
- Added Italian, Soviet, French & Japanese Unit Icon Images
- Updated Cossack, Huisu & Kyrgyz Communist Flags
- Added missing Soviet claim on Tajikistan
- Updated Initial Diplomatic Influence for Soviet vs. neighbors
- New Soviet-German Axis Trigger
- Added events that can damage German-Soviet Relations pre-Poland Invasion
- Added Spanish Gibraltar claims
- New Argentina Coup and Axis Decision events
- Added Soviet Armistice event
- New Brazil Joins Allies, Nationalists Coup Attempt and Communist Revolt events
- Added German Claims in Africa event

AI Changes:
- Implemented AI to maintain Front against enemies and threats
- Front AI will avoid creating gaps when evaluating regions to invade
- Revised defensive AI to spread along contiguous fronts
- AI accounts loss of defense in a region for moving troops in the support allies plan
- No longer uses attack power from equipment units for offense planning
- Better accounting for support allies in the return home plan
- Support Allies AI has more defensive awareness
- Added group splitting logic to Support Allies AI
- Implemented AI to create secondary (reserve) fronts
- Increased AI defense for coastal regions in other nation's sphere
- Added Amphibious Assault penalty & Terrain modifiers for offense AI evaluations
- End attack plans when desired power can not be deployed
- Add pre-war land Regions to Sphere of Interest target checks
- Great Powers and Superpowers can invade outside their sphere
- Increased desired strength for overseas invasions
- Fixed AI bug sending wrong group when splitting units for defensive
- Modified desired strength estimate and definition of Obvious Targets
- Regions that don't border the enemy but do border an Ally use less defense
- Ignore equipment units when evaluating target planning
- Expand definition of bordering an enemy to include unfriendly regions with troops
- Include Buffer States when evaluating border defense
- AI won't abandon coastal regions when reorganizing defenses

Game System Changes:
- Neutrality Pacts no longer prevent defensive evaluations
- Revised supply access rules to be based on region control
- Troop Transports no longer contribute to Military Totals
- Troop Transports no longer contribute to World Power Points

UI Changes:
- Fixed fuel penalty displays on non-Naval Group panels

Editor Changes:
- Can now edit sea regions for existing cities
- Fixed adding city buildings when no city building of that type existed

A newly updated version of The Second World War is now available. The team lost a week or so to the holidays and there were a few sick days to overcome. Even with those obstacles, we executed a long list of improvements to the game. Again, most of our efforts have been AI related but we are continuing to add new content, events, feature improvements and of course bug fixes.

In this release we are introducing a new scenario called Last Days of Peace. It begins a few weeks before the Invasion of Poland. This allows players to skip the buildup years and get right into the war. Neither scenario is 100% complete so expect to see further balancing and content as we work towards release.

A new big addition to the AI has been to give it motivation to create and maintain contiguous fronts against enemies and potential threats. The implementation for this system took us through several variations. Initially the AI tended to become too narrowly focused on specific regions due to strength evaluations. Rather than spreading the units out along a front, we ended up with big stacks that led to gaps in front. Eventually the big stacks became pockets, often surrounded by Heavy Artillery that pounded them to extinction. It was kind of fun to see but not the gameplay we were looking for.

There were many factors to consider beside just having an enemy on the border. There is the opposing nation’s strength to consider but also the relationship status. We do not want Canada to think they need troops on the US border and vice versa. Some nations like the Soviet Union are so large that their defensive needs are always greater than what they have available. So the defense priority evaluations are especially challenging for the Soviet AI. They became our ultimate test case while we worked out the rough edges.

The AI is also considering potential invasion threats by sea or through bordering buffer states. Support Allies improvements allows the AI to better defend on Allied fronts and fill the fronts throughout their empire. Additionally, we’ve introduced the concept of Secondary Fronts so the AI will now try to create lines of reserves.

All the Major nations now have unique Unit Icon images. So you no longer will see a British soldier or Tank in a Japanese unit panel. We’ll soon have all the images in to match the unit you see on the map.

Thanks again to all the current users out there that take the time to post messages about issues and ideas. This process would be taking us even longer to get through without your support.



Content Changes:
- Added new pre-Poland invasion scenario “The Last Days of Peace”
- Fixed icons for mapview tooltip for food production
- Lowered Militia Hitpoint & Defensive Strength
- Added Italian, Soviet, French & Japanese Unit Icon Images
- Updated Cossack, Huisu & Kyrgyz Communist Flags
- Added missing Soviet claim on Tajikistan
- Updated Initial Diplomatic Influence for Soviet vs. neighbors
- New Soviet-German Axis Trigger
- Added events that can damage German-Soviet Relations pre-Poland Invasion
- Added Spanish Gibraltar claims
- New Argentina Coup and Axis Decision events
- Added Soviet Armistice event
- New Brazil Joins Allies, Nationalists Coup Attempt and Communist Revolt events
- Added German Claims in Africa event

AI Changes:
- Implemented AI to maintain Front against enemies and threats
- Front AI will avoid creating gaps when evaluating regions to invade
- Revised defensive AI to spread along contiguous fronts
- AI accounts loss of defense in a region for moving troops in the support allies plan
- No longer uses attack power from equipment units for offense planning
- Better accounting for support allies in the return home plan
- Support Allies AI has more defensive awareness
- Added group splitting logic to Support Allies AI
- Implemented AI to create secondary (reserve) fronts
- Increased AI defense for coastal regions in other nation's sphere
- Added Amphibious Assault penalty & Terrain modifiers for offense AI evaluations
- End attack plans when desired power can not be deployed
- Add pre-war land Regions to Sphere of Interest target checks
- Great Powers and Superpowers can invade outside their sphere
- Increased desired strength for overseas invasions
- Fixed AI bug sending wrong group when splitting units for defensive
- Modified desired strength estimate and definition of Obvious Targets
- Regions that don't border the enemy but do border an Ally use less defense
- Ignore equipment units when evaluating target planning
- Expand definition of bordering an enemy to include unfriendly regions with troops
- Include Buffer States when evaluating border defense
- AI won't abandon coastal regions when reorganizing defenses

Game System Changes:
- Neutrality Pacts no longer prevent defensive evaluations
- Revised supply access rules to be based on region control
- Troop Transports no longer contribute to Military Totals
- Troop Transports no longer contribute to World Power Points

UI Changes:
- Fixed fuel penalty displays on non-Naval Group panels

Editor Changes:
- Can now edit sea regions for existing cities
- Fixed adding city buildings when no city building of that type existed

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.