Back from the dead :)

[cothyso]

Gentlemen,

Many things happened from the latest FoG(U) Update #30-34, which was posted on 31st July 2017. After spending most of July putting together the FoG(U) v2.6.00.1045 (GM3)(mod) beta build, I had to continue the work the whole August on the other NRS project (previously salvaged by me during the last days of May and the whole June month).

At that point, I've decided that 15 years working for NRS were more than enough, and I've presented my resignation. I've spent the first 3 weeks of the September month trying to teach some other NRS guys to takeover the salvaged project, and before the end of September I've started work as a senior software engineer in some other place (not gaming related). The next following months I've put myself up-to date with the new required technologies (as I've switched working from Unity +C# to .Net ASP MVC +C#), and I'm continuing to do this for the next months too. Due to this, my free time dedicated to any other projects was next to non-existent.

Even though I'm badly disappointed by (indie) game developer's status and payment in Romania (the main reason I've decided to leave game development altogether for now), I'm still loving gaming development and I will continue to stay close to it, keeping me up-to-date with everything game-development (and especially Unity and AI) related. My love for ancient wargaming has not disappeared into the void neither, so I've continued my ancient military history (reading ancient primary sources, secondary source books, magazines and articles) and tabletop wargaming research. I've also had a look at the new FoG II and its first IF addon. It's a great great game (kudos to Richard and to the Byzantine Games guys who worked on it), even though (maybe for lack of time really trying FoGII) it seems I still prefer the old FoG/FoG(U) hexmap approach.

My deal with NRS was to own the code rights and also own 50% of NRS FoG(U) revenue shares (after covering NRS development expenses) in exchange for all my extra work time I did and was continuing to do on this project without any kind of salary remuneration (the normal work hours being covered by my NRS salary). Until this point it means that during all these years I've invested a lot of my own free time working on FoG(U) (overall, probably more than my NRS paid work time), without receiving anything else in return yet.

All of this means that, as I am able to (as I own the code too) and as I am still willing to, I will continue to support FoG(U) and it's development, on my own free time.

I've stared this week, the project's engine to the latest Unity 2017.3.1f1 version (revision 1045 was on Unity 2017.1.0f3) and also changing the development IDE from Mono Develop to Visual Studio. I am also planning to try the new Unity 2018 and see what benefits might bring to the FoG(U)'s game engine. I've fixed all the code problems caused by porting the project to the latest Unity version (mainly some nasty problems dropdown lists related), and I've also discovered and fixed a DAG SP game setting problem causing a crash when trying to pick up a different map setting for it.

After catching up with the game's code, I will continue fixing everything needing fixing, including the Editor (which was working fine last time I've checked it, it was just needing an UI update to catch up with all the game modifications from the lat couple of development years). Further on, I do plan more work, especially on AI but on some different other WIP features (situated in several state of development, from intended to almost completed, in no specific order: double BGs, (dynamic) weather, multi-nation sides, map generation, pre-game map features negotiation, asymmetrical balance, reinforcements, AI personas, real-time MP etc). Other OSes like Steam, MacOS, Linux and tablets (iOS and Android) are entirely depending on Slitherine's intent.

Thank you all for everything,
Dan Antonescu

[Micha63]

Looking Forward for the next update, great to hear development will continue.

[AlexDetrojan]

Glad to hear you are back Cothyso. Thank you for your unpaid work on Unity FOG. I have a couple of questions. If you can, are projectile animations do-able for FOG Unity? They are presently missing. Also can you please slow down the after battle animations? They are so fast that they are hard to follow, even with the settings adjusted accordingly. Just to let you know, the robust map system is great! I wish someone could port it to the old FOG 1 system...is this do-able? The AI is not too bad, but its initial army setup is poor. Not sure any general would set up his armies that way. Is that aspect fixable? At any rate welcome back and we look forward to your continued work on Unity FOG!