Supreme Ruler Ultimate Announcement

[Kristijonas]

Ah, was wanting for a modern-world SR game for a long time. Fistalis has been lazy with his mod. Will definitely buy this. Hope you can fix some of those numerous problems that currently plague the otherwise great game.

For those who thing 1936 should be completed first: As Balthagor mentioned, Ultimate patches will be adapted for 1936, which possibly means even higher lifetime for 1936.

I have questions that I think many would like to have answered:

1. Will there be territory trading in some form?
2. Will there be multiple loyalties for hexes? (I don't like having penalties in annexed Memel as Lithuania for example)
3. Will the world finally be free from allies vs axis, allies vs commintern dualisms and the like?

[Balthagor]

1. unlikely.
2. very unlikely, though controlling the impact of loyalty as a whole via modding is a possibility.
3. hard to say, but we are looking to make the Global Crisis map have the same sort of feel in had in SR2020 so the engine will need to understand when the spheres no longer carry the same impact.

[George Geczy]

While it may not seem like it, Zuikaku, your comments and feedback have received a lot of discussion here at the studio. (though part of that is due to your persistence, of course )

Some of your list has received ongoing gradual improvements - for example, the Land AI has become better and better with each major update. Of course even here there are challenges in how players perceive these changes (for example, insuring less "predictability" means that the AI must be permitted to make bad decisions at times). AI spending and unit production also gets constant tweaking. Naval AI is a target of attention for the Ultimate and the next SR1936 updates.

Some such as territory trading, are just a sticky cesspool of despair and desolation when it comes time to implement them, since there are so many tangential issues (not the least of which is getting the AI to understand the process properly).

The support/oppose features are another example where if they are made too strong then they become unbalanced exploits, but otherwise they become a relatively insignificant element as you point out.

Even your comment about the AI "remembering" actions the player does is interesting - because it turns out that the AI DOES "remember" some of your actions to an extent, and this actually causes more confusion to players in the long term. For example: "Why doesn't the AI accept my transit treaty even though our relationship is uber-friendly green bars?" Well, in many of those cases that have been reported as bugs and I've tested, the reason is because the player has broken a treaty or backstabbed another of his friends in the past, and the AI actually took note of this. The problem is, the player doesn't know that the AI knows, and so the player just things the AI is broken. For quite a while now at the studio we've identified feedback from the AI to the player as being one of the major issues, but there isn't an easy solution to this... it's not really possible in the context of a game engine as complex as ours to have the AI send a message like "I won't accept your treaty because you invaded Romania without justification two years ago after they gave you transit", even though that may actually be the reason.

One of the things about the depth of our simulation model is that things you did way back in the game can catch up with you after it's too late to fix it... many "collapsed economies" are caused by factors such as high taxes or scrapped factories that were done a year or two before the collapse itself happened, making it hard for the player to join dot A to dot B.

All that being said, there are items on your list that are still in consideration, but there are also others that simple cannot be done and have been crossed off. As we've mentioned above, where possible we will be updating SR1936 with engine improvements being made for Ultimate, so for players that are not interested in the post-WWII content that may be all they need. For players that own SR936, Ultimate is more like an "Expansion Pack", which is why we are offering it at discount for SR1936 owners. (For players that have been with us a while, think of Ultimate as the Global Crisis/Gold Edition package for SR1936.)

-- George.

[bvb]

Ya know, I have one, simple request. And that is, to have sharks with frickin laser beams attached to their heads.

[mikeownage]

Just a basic form a land trade would be nice between players. You can also have the AI accept any free land traded to it as well. Could this be abused? sure, however players that really like the game may limit themselves from doing it even if you have trouble creating limits yourselves. Many games have aspects that can be abused and just because you don't have the ability to stop abuse doesn't mean the feature should be ruled out. It just means players who abuse the system will enjoy not enjoy the game as much and when they figure out the games more enjoyable when not abusing the system they most likely won't abuse it.

Supreme Ruler 2010 is still one of my favorite games in the series will it's sandbox and missions be updated and included in ultimate?

i guess zuikaku phrased his comment better than i did seeing as mine was deleted. but yeah i 100% agree with Zuikaku on this one. while i like the idea of "ultimate", it just doesn't make sense to release a new game with the massive void within 1936. though i of course understand that your studio needs funds, as zuikaku pointed out, some of us would be more inclined to spend money if some of the issues with the gameplay were solved.

I agree with this statement though I will most likely get the next supreme ruler game regardless I wish land trade was atleast added in. It worked fine in SR2010.

[Hullu Hevonen]

Onething that has been causing me much bad gameplay experience during SR1936 is Multiplayer. As an veteran player and modder of the game series I know the in-and-outs of the AI pretty well, so thus I have wanted to level up the challenge via multiplayer, so my question is what are you doing in this respect? Steam support, playable multiplayer for larger than 4 players etc.

[mikeownage]

Onething that has been causing me much bad gameplay experience during SR1936 is Multiplayer. As an veteran player and modder of the game series I know the in-and-outs of the AI pretty well, so thus I have wanted to level up the challenge via multiplayer, so my question is what are you doing in this respect? Steam support, playable multiplayer for larger than 4 players etc.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/244410/

the steam store page says up to 16 players over lan or internet for multiplayer.

[Hullu Hevonen]

Onething that has been causing me much bad gameplay experience during SR1936 is Multiplayer. As an veteran player and modder of the game series I know the in-and-outs of the AI pretty well, so thus I have wanted to level up the challenge via multiplayer, so my question is what are you doing in this respect? Steam support, playable multiplayer for larger than 4 players etc.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/244410/

the steam store page says up to 16 players over lan or internet for multiplayer.

As did the previous title's steam etc pages

See (among others...)
http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... ultiplayer

[Balthagor]

...Supreme Ruler 2010 is still one of my favorite games in the series will it's sandbox and missions be updated and included in ultimate?...

Uncertain at this time. Anything that goes that far back has to be essentially recreated from scratch. Some of the other content, data can be moved and cleaned with some effort but it is much easier than starting over.

We would certainly like to "remember our roots"...

[mikeownage]

Yeah, i wouldn't recreate everything from scratch as 2010 didn't really support a full world map like the later versions of the engine do but including the 2010 start date with the same tech levels and unit designs from 2010 along with the same back story would be awesome including land trade

[georgios]

Congratulations! I was long waiting desperately a game with contemporary scenario. I was very dissappointed seeing you going back in the history. I was sure that the next game would be world war 1.. I got really happy with this announcement!

I hope you will update the map with new regions that emerged after 2008: north - south sudan, palestine, isis, crimea..

It could be good if arab spring was simulated as a new playable faction with lands in every place of the world are such movements.

Above all a spherical map would be the real revolution.

[amynase]

I mus also agree with Zuikaku here. Some issues I see with 2020 are still in 1936, but instead of fixing them you start a new game. It is just not the right time for that, I want to see 1936 being finished before you start a new game. And I do not believe that much of the Development time from now on will be used to improve 1936, since Ultimate needs to be different in a way so it makes sense for people to buy it. Please put this Project on hold, finish 1936, and then start your new Project. I must say that I will not buy a new game as long as the old one isn't finished. However, I understand you need money, so why don't you find an Investor or start another Crowdfunding Campaign for 1936?

[Zuikaku]

While it may not seem like it, Zuikaku, your comments and feedback have received a lot of discussion here at the studio. (though part of that is due to your persistence, of course )
.

My intention is not to annoy you but to help you for mutual benefits. But just can not help myself with the feeling that some of your design decisions are wrong.

Thank you for listening, but I'm very sad that my persistance brought no results at all

Some of your list has received ongoing gradual improvements - for example, the Land AI has become better and better with each major update. Of course even here there are challenges in how players perceive these changes (for example, insuring less "predictability" means that the AI must be permitted to make bad decisions at times). AI spending and unit production also gets constant tweaking. Naval AI is a target of attention for the Ultimate and the next SR1936 updates.

I'm happy to know that you did not abandon work on SR1936 like you did with SRCW...

Some such as territory trading, are just a sticky cesspool of despair and desolation when it comes time to implement them, since there are so many tangential issues (not the least of which is getting the AI to understand the process properly).

As I have said befor for selective unit trade - even non-perfect or rudimentary territory trade is better than none at all!!

And there are some rules that coul'd help the AI to do good job (like insisting on loyal hexes during trade, resource hexes or hexes bordering region and refusing isolated, non supplied or stripe like patches of land).

The support/oppose features are another example where if they are made too strong then they become unbalanced exploits, but otherwise they become a relatively insignificant element as you point out.
.

But we can agree that now they are insignificant and need to be toned up significantly?

Even your comment about the AI "remembering" actions the player does is interesting - because it turns out that the AI DOES "remember" some of your actions to an extent, and this actually causes more confusion to players in the long term. For example: "Why doesn't the AI accept my transit treaty even though our relationship is uber-friendly green bars?" Well, in many of those cases that have been reported as bugs and I've tested, the reason is because the player has broken a treaty or backstabbed another of his friends in the past, and the AI actually took note of this. The problem is, the player doesn't know that the AI knows, and so the player just things the AI is broken. For quite a while now at the studio we've identified feedback from the AI to the player as being one of the major issues, but there isn't an easy solution to this... it's not really possible in the context of a game engine as complex as ours to have the AI send a message like "I won't accept your treaty because you invaded Romania without justification two years ago after they gave you transit", even though that may actually be the reason..

I have suggested solution for this 2 years ago. In the form of small notes in diplomacy screen. So, when we are negotiating with Romania, we could see on their side of screen notes like: "Enraged by 1940 invasion" , "happy about our reliable power supply", "wanting tech cooperation in submarine tech", "interested in buying units", "revolted by 1942 cross border incidents", "wanting free flow of labour force".

These notes woul'd fade away randomly as time passes by or when we met their demands (boosting relations by that).

All that being said, there are items on your list that are still in consideration, but there are also others that simple cannot be done and have been crossed off. .

I know by now that "consideration" actually means "not going to happen"

As we've mentioned above, where possible we will be updating SR1936 with engine improvements being made for Ultimate, so for players that are not interested in the post-WWII content that may be all they need. For players that own SR936, Ultimate is more like an "Expansion Pack", which is why we are offering it at discount for SR1936 owners. (For players that have been with us a while, think of Ultimate as the Global Crisis/Gold Edition package for SR1936.)
.

since it seems Ultimate is nearing beta, that means that we can not influence any features at all. And since all the features given in the first post are almost the same given for SR1936 2 years ago, can you ,please, give us some more details. So we can know what to expect and what exactly is improved? Has diplomacy at last got more focus?

And, please, do something with this horrible and unusable unit trade!

[mikeownage]

I am all for land trade and a better unit trading system!

[GIJoe597]

Reading all this, I would like to post an opinion, but with BG and Paradox both chasing the kiddie market of steam, I am instead searching for new fields that have nothing to do with steam.. no more SR or HOI for me :( 07