Got the minimap working & looking good. For the rest of the UI, there's obviously more work to be done. I'm trying to decide between a thematic/skeuomorphic look or something more minimalistic/modern.

Players start the game surrounded by neutral AI factions. But as soon as you invade they'll ally with your opponent -- handing over control of their territory and troops. You're heavily favoured to win, but your opponent has the chance to put up a good fight.

I've started running private playtest sessions. The feedback has been really positive! I think I have the core mechanical foundations in place (production, combat, etc). So hopefully there's just the fun stuff left: adding more abilities, unit types, techs, and of course, the art.

Working with pre-rendered graphics feels crazy. I'm using free 3D models as static placeholders and even with my very simply Blender pipeline, they come out looking almost photorealistic in the game. I'm really excited to start working with actual custom assets and animations.

Now that I've started filling out the game's unit roster, I realize I'm going to need a lot of placeholder assets. Given my lack of 3D modelling skills, I'm gonna have to scrape the bottom of the barrel and use a lot of random free models Should I use this sexy soldier? Lol

I'm thinking of adding a chess clock option for the turn timer in my 4X game. An issue with multiplayer games in the genre is variance in game length. Even if the average game lasts one hour, the *possibility* of it taking three hours makes it hard for players to set aside time.

Pre-rendered 3D feels like a massively underutilized art style for strategy games. I love that AoE 2 DE opted to go for it. Often, in-game 3D rendering lacks visual clarity (e.g., unit differentiation), while pixel art lacks fidelity.

I'm really not a fan of housing mechanics in RTS. Just have players start at max population. Building houses is one of the most tedious aspects of these games and getting housed can feel really frustrating -- like slow-running in dreams while you're being chased.

I was rummaging through my really old GitHub repos and found this: one of the first multiplayer strategy games I made. It's very tedious and finicky (and honestly boring) with assets ripped directly from Civ II. It was mostly a technical prototype, I think. But I did play a few matches with friends

I'm really curious about how Civ 7's multiplayer architecture works (and the intent behind it). Because it seems like it's a perennial challenge for the series (e.g., de-syncs). I'd love to reach out to Firaxis engineers, but I suspect this is the kinda thing NDAs and such would block...

Hey! I'm a solo dev building a multiplayer 4X game. It's a project I started years ago with the goal of taking what I loved about Civilization multiplayer and making it truly dedicated to the multiplayer experience. It's been a journey... but I'm back on it! martingia.substack.com/p/coming-bac...

Coming Back to the Game I Gave Up On

My Journey Building a Multiplayer 4X Game

martingia.substack.com