Dev Diary #35: Imperial regimes, rebuilding the Dark Empire, some personal news...
...and a powerful new tool for submodders.
I’ve tended to focus on big themes and features in recent Dev Diaries, but today I want to focus on some of the day to day work I’ve been doing and what it will mean for v1.34. The focus of this will be on Imperial leadership mechanics - which I have been working very hard on in recent weeks.
But, firstly, I’m very happy to share some personal news with subscribers that over the weekend my baby son arrived, and that he is doing very well.
Now, what will this mean for the mod?
Well, thanks to the support of paid subscribers and donations small and large, the mod and the accompanying Essential Guide have become a part of my income. So it’s fine for me to continue devoting so much time to Age of Legends: in fact, doing so is helping my family. Thanks to your support this passion project of mine can continue just like before. You can become a paid subscriber to support Age of Legends, and for full access to all exclusive Essential Guide content.
If you’re able to you can also donate here one-off to support my modding and content creation and help keep this viable for the long term.
I’m a one-man mod team and every donation and subscription is greatly appreciated in supporting my work for this brilliant community. Thank you!
Imperial leadership and regimes now in ACTIVE development
My post last year on Imperial leadership succession was the most popular article I’ve ever written. And I know players are really keen to find out more.
Despite the fact that this system was originally slated for a later release, I am very happy to report that first iteration of the system, focusing on canonical Imperial regimes from the Expanded Universe, is now in active development for v1.34.
Ultimately, you will have a dizzying array of ‘what-if’ leadership choices, with rejected rival regimes spawning as hostile emergent factions in some cases, and a huge raft of new story options. Each of these regimes will bring their own set of heroes and, often, units to the Galactic Empire’s roster.
I have been building this system in chronological order and the following Imperial leaders and their regimes are now fully coded in and ready:
Grand Vizier Sate Pestage
General Paltr Carvin/the Tribunal
Director Ysanne Isard
Ars Dangor/the Imperial Ruling Council
Grand Admiral Thrawn
The Imperial Coalition
Clone Emperor Palpatine (I)
Clone Emperor Palpatine (II)
Carnor Jax
Burr Nolyds
Xandel Carivus
Xandel Carivus (Black Sun-affiliated clone)
Building the Dark Empire and Crimson Empire regimes has been hugely complicated, so I’m very glad it’s done and I have so much progress to report!
The following regimes are still to be added:
Admiral Natasi Daala
Vice Admiral Gilad Pellaeon
Grand Moff Disra/the Sinister Triumvirate
Grand Admiral Pellaeon
So, as you can see, in recent weeks I have added a huge amount of leadership content and the system is now coded and working, and being fully fleshed out.
This has meant going through every single Galactic Conquest (there are more than 50…) and stripping out Imperial leadership-related story events, and putting them in a single GALACTIC_EMPIRE_REGIMES.XML.
Most readers, I imagine, are more interested in playing the mod than in coding it. But this has some exciting implications. Because it now means that a vast trove of story content is contained in a single file, which is used by every Galactic Empire campaign. So it will be quick and easy to add new regimes, which then become accessible in all relevant eras, and thus a huge new range of scenarios will become possible.
How does this work? Well, each galactic conquest for the Empire will contain two leadership events in their code: 1) a ‘Designate_Imperial_Leader’ event to choose which regime you start with, and 2) a ‘Time_Limit_Imperial_leader’ event which tells the campaign who is the last possible Imperial leader in a scenario.
In historical GCs, this range of leaders will be determined by the years the campaign takes place in. A GC set in 10-11 ABY will include the two iterations of the Clone Emperor. Depending on when the cut-off point is it might also include Carnor Jax; but a historical GC won’t go beyond the leaders (or potential leaders) available in the era it focuses on.
The big Total War-style GCs I have planned to cover decades of EU lore will have the full range of Imperial leaders. Those are the scenarios where you might well end up with Director Isard leading the Empire into the Yuuzhan Vong War in 25 ABY!
What has this got to do with submodding?
Age of Legends has a thriving (and growing) submodding community: in fact v1.34 will be launched alongside some new official submods. And the new leadership system will offer some exciting possibilities: