Grand Strategy Stellar Monarch 2: Feudal space empire builder - v1.00!

[Chris Koźmik]

Are you making this in Unreal?

/s

Not exactly A custom engine which I call "Cyber Dreams Engine", the same I used in all my games. Perfectly suited for the kind of games I make.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Please, you can surely find some extra good artist working for peanuts.

The art is fine. It has a simple charm to it, distinguishable without being unnecessarily distracting. "Guess Who" seems like a very good point of reference, as each of the Guess Who characters is meant to be visually distinctive from one another.

Female portraits added:
https://twitter.com/SilverLemur/status/1341056611884953601
(still low variation, like two hair types for now)

 

[Galdred]

Are you making this in Unreal?

/s

Not exactly A custom engine which I call "Cyber Dreams Engine", the same I used in all my games. Perfectly suited for the kind of games I make.

You used the same custom engine for Stellar Monarch and Legends of Amberland? Nice work

 

[Chris Koźmik]

You used the same custom engine for Stellar Monarch and Legends of Amberland? Nice work

Yup. I have a folder called "engine" and I copy paste it (except for a single config file used to customize it) between projects. It holds all low level stuff and some generic frequently used stuff. This is the only part of the game code which is allowed to contain a platform specific code, direct file access code and other tricky stuff. It also is backward compatible.

So it's no brainer coding wise: "Is it in engine folder? If yes then it's not allowed to know anything about the game and must be compatible with older versions." or "Does it require access to Windows specific functions? It must go to engine folder then."

The nice part of it is when a new version of Windows breaks something I need to only fix it in one game and then copy paste the code to other, older, games. Saved me a few times already Plus it makes mainining older games (critical fixes wise) quite effortless (since I can do it even if I no longer have the clue how that game worked :D).

I also use modules for generic stuff (which is sort of like engine but it does not guarantee 100% compatibility and is not allowed to directly access OS stuff, so it might be shared between games but games can use different versions of those). For example Stellar Monarch had no localization, Automobile Tycoon introduced localization which was later improved in Legends of Amberland and now I start Stellar Monarch 2 with fully functional, tested and polished localization system (including tools like source parsers) which really makes things easier.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

The Steam page is in the review queue. I think it should be up somewhere next week or so.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.silverlemurgames.com/2021/01/08/you-can-wishlist-stellar-monarch-2-now/

You can wishlist Stellar Monarch 2 now!

The day has come, the Steam page for Stellar Monarch 2 has been set up. You can Wishlist the game now!


The game is a sequel to Stellar Monarch and the core premise is you are the emperor and do stuff from the heights of your imperial throne. In short, instead of building farms or factories on planets you deal with the court, imperial officials, noble houses, assassins, admirals, etc.

The game will undergo a traditional development cycle of mine. If you participated in the early days of my other project you should know what to expect, it will be handled quite similarly. First an early access with me being quite active on the steam forums fishing for ideas, feedback, comments. Then release and afterwards quite a long period of smaller improvements and of course fixes as needed. Maybe an expansion or two later (much later, also no promises here, my focus is on making the base game fully playable and finished and only after it’s done I would be thinking what’s next).

The game is scheduled to enter Early Access somewhere in 2021.

The primary means of communication will be via Steam Forums Discussion or our Discord.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Looking for testers. If you want to help, pop up on our Discord https://discord.gg/Xs6x7qj and shout (in general channel) "I want to be SM2 tester".

 

[Lagi]

should I wait for second, or first one is basically the same (just without naked chicks)?

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Dev Diary #1:

http://www.silverlemurgames.com/202...ary-1-colonies-core-worlds-and-megalopolises/
also on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/4Xgaming/comments/lnciz9/stellar_monarch_2_dev_diary_1_colonies_core/

Description of some mechanics and a progress report.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The premise behind the game:
You are the emperor, not a logistics officer. You don't deal with low level stuff like building farms, factories or individual ships. Instead you focus on the grander scale of things. You grant audiences, make edicts, appoint imperial officials, deal with noble houses and assassins, crush rebels, decide on production priorities.

In the game there is no micromanagement, late game does not drag on forever. You can play a relatively fast paced game on a huge galaxy without late game slow downs. You own hundreds of planets, thousands of ships and all this is managed on the high level by edicts, fleets system and by appointing imperial officials to do your bidding. The whole premise was to make the player make only the important and interesting choices leaving everything else abstracted.

Has my interest.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

I'm looking for ideas for "noble scandals":
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1437750/discussions/0/3171072251344098961/

(you can also post those on Codex if you prefer)
(you can also propose some other events relared to the mood of the game if you like)

 

[Catacombs]

A close heir has used treasury reserves to fund an illegal {trade,sex,slave} ring that's become one of the most dominant organized crime syndicates around.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Your grand son and fourth to the Throne marries a space trailer-trash ex holoporn star and then they besmirch the Monarchy name on Holovision show.

 

[Demo.Graph]

My liege! It seems that [you] are not your father's son after all, but a heir of [our noble house]!
It also means that [your uncle] is the true emperor.

1. Kill [the uncle]. <legitimacy hit, diplomacy hit>
2. Launch a propaganda campaign against [the noble house]. <roll something then get legitimacy hit, big one if fail>
3. Purge [the noble house]. <legitimacy hit, diplomacy hit, noble relations hit, but you can nationalize something or get resources>
4. Kill [the uncle]. And your mother. Then purge [the noble house]. And everyone who believes these lies! <trigger rebellion, increase legitimacy>
5. Abdicate. <game over>

 

[coldcrow]

On a potentially rebellious coreworld a signifact technological breakthrough in beam weapons was made. If the game allows for different stages of detection of plots:
a) in the early stages possibilty of dealing with it through covert means
b) tech just left prototype status, ultimatum and show of force
c) tech is adopted widely on planet, open war fighting a smaller but powerful force

 

[Nutria]

Kill [the uncle]. And your mother.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Quick preview (alpha):

 

[Chris Koźmik]

ABOUT SHIPS

There are 3 light hull classes (Corvette, Frigate, Destroyer) and 2 heavy hull classes (Cruiser, Battleship). Lighter ships provide recon and screening from fighters & missiles while heavier ships provide bulk of the firepower and command bonuses. Both light and heavy ships can provide various abilities.

Ship hulls are predefined but come with a decent customization. Also, there is a semi random system of unlocking those so you will end up with different ships each playthrough. The idea is you can't control it 100% and that each game will feel unique, with different assets at your disposal, but you will still have a great influence over it. Maybe you will not end up with your dream ships setup but you will be able to come quite close to it, assuming you made some correct but hard choices along the way.

First, you need to unlock a ship hull blueprint. Which can be done via technologies. But you are not told which exact hull you will get, only how many hull blueprints and of what kind and size. For example, a typical technology looks like that "Gain 2 (Assault style design) blueprints (Corvette, Frigate, Destroyer)" which means you will get 2 blueprints of a light size hull (but you don't know the exact hull size) and that those will be good for general purpose Assault (since those come from the Assault design pack). Now those two blueprints will pop up on your list of ship types. But you can't produce them yet.

Next, you need to make a prototype, you can do so by technologies. All hull technologies not only unlock hull blueprints but also increase prototypes cap, like this: "Promote 1 blueprint to a Prototype". The tricky part is that, on average, you get 2 blueprints but only 1 prototype each time you research a new hull technology. Which means, that you won't be able to use all your blueprints, but like half of them and you will need to choose. There are other ways to increase number of prototypes and events that outright grant you a specific blueprint but on average you will be forced to choose which ship hulls would enter the production.

Once you decided which ship hull blueprint is worthy of promoting to a prototype you will be faced with a choice of three variants of that hull type. For example you could go for one with a bit more firepower, better thrusters, additional electronics, etc. Which variants are available to you depends on the imperial ship designers, so you again have some choice but you can't adjust it 100% to your desires.

When you accept the prototype and its variant the ship type is ready for production. But before you do, you might want to make upgrades (install Data Link, better armor, etc), which again can be unlocked via technologies, but this time you have a full control which upgrade will be installed on each ship.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Dev Diary #2:

http://www.silverlemurgames.com/202...-diary-2-the-creation-of-the-building-blocks/
also on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/4Xgaming/comments/n180du/stellar_monarch_2_dev_diary_2_the_creation_of_the/

Description of some mechanics and a progress report.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Demo (barebone but should give you the feeling of the game) available for the duration of the Steam Festival.

Check the small "Download Demo" button:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1437750/Stellar_Monarch_2/

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Dev Diary #3:

http://www.silverlemurgames.com/202...uadrons-fleets-and-the-imperial-high-command/
also on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/SilverLemu...tellar_monarch_2_dev_diary_3_ships_squadrons/

 

[Demo.Graph]

Dev Diary #3

If you're interested in feedback, here're some things that caught my eye.

Predetermined number of fleets looks lazy. It also implies that there would be 7 predetermined noble houses. Since the focus of the game seems to be on internal politics, it also implies a decrease in replayability compared to procedurally generated factions.
Also, if each noble house has an associated fleet, does it also mean that each house has some associated planetary real estate to support that fleet? How their property rights would propagate with imperial conquests? Via %-based grants or something? What about imperial demesne?

The shipyards work always at the full capacity and produce only one, the latest squadron you designed.

This is a bad decision, IMO. Like, japanese visual novel female psychology level bad.
Same goes for blueprints system. It would be much better if there was some arbitrary increase in development cost for each successive blueprint, Shadow Empire style.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

If you're interested in feedback, here're some things that caught my eye.
Predetermined number of fleets looks lazy. It also implies that there would be 7 predetermined noble houses. Since the focus of the game seems to be on internal politics, it also implies a decrease in replayability compared to procedurally generated factions.
Also, if each noble house has an associated fleet, does it also mean that each house has some associated planetary real estate to support that fleet? How their property rights would propagate with imperial conquests? Via %-based grants or something? What about imperial demesne?

There are 7 noble houses (6 + 1 royal house lead by the player). Those are partially predefined and partially randomized. The part that is about "flavor" is predefined (like the theme of the house), the part about "gameplay" (how it affects your options) is randomized.

There is no imperial demesne per se, or to be more precise all houses have assets but those assets are part of the empire (for example all core planets are fiefs of certain noble houses but at the same time, they also have an imperial governor assigned (two "rulers" of a planet are displayed, one noble born and one imperial servant)).
There are also two treasuries you have access to, imperial treasury and your private house treasury (with limited transfer between those possible, where transfer from your private chest to the imperial one being much easier). Where imperial treasury is used to run the empire and your private treasury to persuade noble houses, pay for agents or pay for things that are better paid from your chest for PR reasons.

As for squadrons production, I think it would be best shown in-game than explain. The warfare system is pretty abstract and high level (like you deal with fronts, not individual battles, not to mention single flotillas or ships). Producing just one squadron at a time is best for various reasons (you would not be able to tell which squadron should be moved where anyway since you are not operating at that scale but on an Emperor's level scale). Again, that part would be tricky to explain but it's pretty strightforward when it's seen in the game (I hope :D).

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Early Access starts 6th December 2021 (in two weeks).

http://www.silverlemurgames.com/202...2-enters-early-access-6th-december-this-year/