Golden Morning

Day 34- Overall an unremarkable devlog, all i did today was fix some sneaky bugs and test the game's binaries on windows.
What's remarkable, though, is that for the first time in 34 days there is nothing standing between me and shipping this project.
Thus, it is likely my last devlog before this gets shipped, and hopefully approved. You can be sure I'll bite those shells like gold coins.
Of course I'm not going to stop working on this project; in fact, this is just the beginning. I have lots of things to improve and a mountain of features to implement before my vision for the game is complete; not to mention the bugs i haven't discovered/fixed, there are definitely quite a few of them. This release is an alpha wrapped inside a pilot wrapped inside a proof of concept; for the curious, there is a small roadmap in the README.

I went through a pretty lengthy game as Serbia to playtest this and make sure there are no game-breaking or game-crahsing bugs and i had quite a bit of fun.
I took over the Balkans but the netherlands captured a big chunk of central Europe and declared war on me while i had no manpower, sparking an absolute carnage of a war.
So that will be today's attachment.

Day 33- Coded the part of the AI that handles diplomacy and added a menu where the player can accept or decline diplomatic propositions made by the AI.
Still rough on the edges, but it works.
I'm literally on the verge of shipping, i just need to get my hands on a windows machine to test the binaries, I don't trust my build system :p.
Of course the game is far from polished or even complete. Lots of things are missing and there are a lot of bugs i haven't caught yet, but it's playable, so i guess that'll be enough for me to ship it for the first time.

Day 32- Fixed bugs and started using atlases to improve performance.
Actually implementing the way bonuses are applied was a little more painful than i thought, i ended up settling on applying the bonuses in the getCosts() getter, which does the job but might hurt performance in the long run. It seems fine in the profiler though.
This is a really boring devlog with not much to show for it so for the picture you'll have to content yourself with a picture of the reduced costs in the building menu.

We are SO close to shipping though... Once i pick up the courage to work on AI again we'll pretty much be set.

Day 31- I finished what i think will be the tech tree for shipping day and a few various shortcuts and improvements.
I am hopefully a few devlogs away from shipping

Day 30- We're inching closer and closer to shipping day.
Again, a lot was done. I filled all the placeholders i could find,improved the UI, fixed the population system, drafted the README, fixed quite a few bugs, added UI to change the game speed and pass turns manually, added the minerals resource, etc, etc...
The point is to make this shippable as soon as possible. All I'll have to do after this is finish the AI, test the game on other platforms, ship, and then I'll be able to add non-essential features without fearing that i won't be able to ship on time.

And for the image uhh, i added tooltips! Isn't that awesome?

Day 29- Alongside a few non-noteworthy minor improvements and corrections, I fully overhauled the UI. This isn't the final theme nor is it the best but it's good enough for shipping and i like it.

Day 27-28: Just lots of AI work, the AI can now defend itself and attack if it thinks it's stronger than its opponents. I also added skeleton code for the diplomacy AI and reworked the way armies work so that you can have multiple armies of different countries in a single tile.
I'm really tired of working on AI so i'll do something else until i feel like getting back to it.

Day 26- The AI is now smart enough to expand into unclaimed territory when it needs to (yes i know those borders are abhorrent)

Day 25- Added a VERY rudimentary economic AI which builds stuff and trains troops.

BONUS: Added an ugly but functional pause menu, that's the least of things before shipping.

Day 24- Added a main menu and a menu to select countries.
It's functional albeit quite ugly, but it's fine because I'll polish later (trust).

Day 23- Two major areas of progress today.
- I fixed a bug that caused a crash when running the game from a standalone jar (Needed this fixed for a future demo)
- I added a barebones save/load system. It's not perfect and doesn't save/load everything but it works.

Day 22 - Again, I have quite a lot to show for this devlog so I'll make a list.
- Improved the pathfinding algorithm (so that armies avoid provinces they can't cross...)
- Reworked the modifier system, It's now possible to list every single thing that affects a modifier, which will come in handy later.
- Added a malus when you consume more energy than you can produce.
- Same thing for admin cap.
- Added a button to delete buildings. (Yes i know that's the bare minimum)
- Add a tint to indicate enemy armies and armies controlled by the player.

Day 21- Lots of stuff, I'll just go over it in a list.
- Refactored the economy simulation system to use a data-driven approach instead of hardcoding everything. Much more convenient.
- Improved diplomacy by adding an opinion system
- Added a better interface for armies on the map, you can now see which country each army belongs to as well as its different components (infantry, tanks, artillery, etc)
- Added bandits on the map that defend uncontrolled provinces, which means you need to build a proper army in order to expand.
- Added a new resource
- Added a few technologies
- Miscellaneous fixes and improvements (as usual)

Unfortunately, i can only add one attachment.

Day 20 (i guess?) - I messed with distance field fonts to make city names and troop counts look better on the map. I also switched my fonts' charsets so that they can render special characters.
On top of that, I also learned how libGDX themes work and tweaked the theme i use a little, I'll modify it more heavily in the polishing phase.

Day 19- Map expansion, graphical improvements, and add a marker that shows where an army is headed.

Day 18- I'm back
Slow restart today, i did a tiny map expansion, fixed some bugs, and improved performance by reducing the number of drawcalls.

Day 17- Didn't have much time today, I probably won't be devlogging for a while since i'll be on a trip soon.
Just did a bit of map expansion

Day 16- Just a massive map expansion.
I've pretty much drawn every province that will be in the shipped demo, i just have to code them all in json to be loaded by the game and that process is a pain in the arse. I'll be done with that soon though.

Day 15- I got to actually implementing modifiers (bonuses you get when researching technologies, etc), so techs are now actually useful.
I also refined the tech tree and made it fully functional, you can see which techs you can research, which ones you can't, which one you're researching right now, and all that with a cool progress bar.

Day 14- I coded the UI that renders the tech tree, i also added some basic technologies. (Of course, placeholder icons for now)
I also fixed some bugs that were annoying me until now

Day 13- I added a basic intel system (more decryption than your opponent has encryption = you see more of his stats) and a list showing the different diplomatic relations of a country in the UI.

Day 12- Added the basics of the diplomacy system: War, Non-aggression pacts, military access, etc...
There is no AI yet, so countries auto-accept all proposals for now.

Added pathfinding for armies and add a background when drawing them so that they are actually visible.

Of course map-painting won't be that easy in the actual game, this is just for the show. Provinces will be scattered with bandits requiring a decent army to be defeated. Not to mention the resistance.

Also, please forgive my atrocious recording quality.

Day 11- Added a menu to view info about a country (including your own) and engage in diplomatic actions.
Plus some more miscellaneous fixes and polishing like army troop counts showing up pretty-printed on the map (e.g 1K instead of 1000)

Day 10- (Oops, yesterday was day 9!) Added buildings and an unpolished interface to recruit soldiers (infantry, artillery, tanks, etc...)
+ some details that aren't noteworthy

Day 8-
Added the basics of the military system (how armies move around, how they fight, etc).
Thus, you can now map paint! So R2107 is now officially a true grand strategy game. Can't wait to see the border gore you all are going to come up with.

Day 8- Finish western Europe and begin some of eastern europe.
It doesn't look like it but thats a LOT of json behind the scenes to make sure all of those provinces function properly in-game.

Added a menu to build buildings (click the + button in a province's building list and it pops up)
I know the UI looks chopped, that's because i need to have something shippable ASAP.
After that i will start polishing like a victorian era english child, trust me bros.

Added a menu that shows the currently selected province and info about it

Day 7 -
Made the map bigger and the provinces thinner. Also optimized the loading time (though it might become a problem later when the map is fully complete)
Worked some more on the UI, Mainly reorganized the way it works internally so that i can add more stuff, i also added buttons for the research and construction menus.
I also added the ability to select provinces.

Day 6-
Map expansion in western europe, added a lot of new provinces and countries.
Some visual effects (the names of cities left to anarchy are drawn in gray).
Began to work on the technology system

I expanded the map a little, added some countries, and implemented population growth.
I also did some more polishing, for instance the camera's position starts at the capital of the country you chose.

Day 5-
Added GUIs for resource counters.
Implemented some more of the logic for the economy system.
Visually distinguish cities you own from cities you don't, and capitals from non-capitals

I did even more behind the scenes economy stuff that i will put into GUI soon.
Speaking about GUI, i added some basic widgets like the current time and the flag of the country you're currently playing as.
To top it all off i added a few miscellaneous visual improvements (like city names looking better when zoomd out and being hidden when you're too zoomed out)

Added a cool mouse hover effect over provinces

Day 4- Started working on the business logic for time and economy. I also switched to a JSON format for provinces.
I also added cities :))), though I'm not sure about how useful they will be in the gameplay

Day 3- Today i mainly worked on the camera so that navigating the map isn't a pain in the arse.
Now you can scroll through the map like a globe, which is pretty cool.
I also added kamchatka and alaska to test it.
Next up i'll start working on the economy system, cities, etc, so the game mechanics basically.

As promised, i spent most of today working on the map and the code handling it.
I only drew a few provinces for now, i'll have all of europe done in a few days (maybe).
I also accidentally made a cool-looking 3D effect by drawing the borders 1 pixel off. May or may not keep it but i like it.
The colored provinces belong to their respective countries and the blank provinces are left to anarchy (this is post apocalyptic duh).

Day 1- Started working on the game this morning!

I mainly spent those five hours laying the groundwork for the bulk of the game. I created skeleton classes, implemented a simple map loader using a format similar to HOI4's, and did some miscellaneous work.

I'm aware that my early test map doesn't look very appealing, i will soon set about making the game's map as it is just a map of the world divided into provinces, shouldn't be too hard... right??

I think I'll work on making a good-looking map with borders and everything before tackling the economy system. Wish me luck.
I'll reveal a little bit more of my vision for the game with every devlog, if i'm not too lazy of course.