Dear generals,
some time has passed since our last revamp update but that does not mean that the team has been idling: On the contrary, we have polished the new map and in-game UI to a state where we feel confident to release it to beta soon. This means that all frontline pioneers will be able to test the new map and interface in late September already! Stay tuned for the exact dates and make sure to stay active in beta games to not lose your frontline pioneer status.
In the meantime we would like to discuss a few changes in the overall feature set of Supremacy 1914 with you, which will take effect once the revamp goes live in the last quarter of 2018. Some of them were already announced (like the removal of the province view) but will be listed here again for the sake of completeness.
Single-page application: We will release the new website as a single-page application: Different content (including the game rounds) will not be loaded as an entirely new page from a server but dynamically integrated into one browser page which behaves more like a desktop application. This allows for very smooth transitions between your game rounds and the website and will enable new features like background loading of recently played game rounds, accessing the chat directly on the website and more.
New rendering technology: Using WebGL as a new map rendering technology we will be able to bring a whole new level of detail as well as different strategic views to the map. Stepless zooming will allow you to finetune your interaction with the map, and overall performance improvements will make map navigation and unit movement way smoother than before.
New forum: We will set up a new forum using a more up-to-date forum software. You will have to sign up anew but will be able to enjoy a bug-free, functional, and visually appealing forum again.
Province View: We will remove the province view and make buildings directly accessible in the province bar on the bottom of the screen instead. Higher visual detail in the map itself will also compensate for this.
Alliance Warchest: We will remove the Alliance Warchest from the game. By freeing up the number of potential alliance members and the range of available alliance maps we want to foster alliance growth and their overall attractiveness. Players who have spent Goldmark on the Warchest in the past will receive a compensation which will be detailed out in a future update.
Share your Map: We will remove the “Share your Map” feature since it was rarely used by players and positioned way too prominently in the main view of the game.
Support our Troops: We will remove the “Support our Troops” feature since it had become quite error-prone lately and could even be exploited for an unfair advantage. We are looking into options to bring back a proper daily login reward but it will not be in the initial feature set. As a consequence, blueprints will be removed as a resource and the Heavy Tank costs adjusted accordingly.
AI Trade Offers: We will remove the automated Goldmark trades issued by AI players in certain intervals. We felt that they were too much of a distraction in the Diplomacy section which should be focused on player-to-player communication.
We understand that some of you still feel attached to one or more of these features and we haven’t taken these decisions lightly. However, we are still confident that removing/replacing them will ultimately make the game more consistent and enjoyable for all players.
We look forward to hearing your feedback on the forum and can’t wait to share the results of our work with you in the near future.
