Developer Diary | I hear the drums echoing tonight

Commanders, Seth here...

Has it really been since May since the last diary? Well, that does not mean that the Cold War engineers have not been working hard to bring more features, more fixes, and more design into Terminal Conflict.

If you heard the whistle, it’s because we are fully engaged to deliver even more updates and Dev Diaries. Announcing that production has started of Terminal Conflict version 1.2 with all hands on deck. We’ve also upgraded our equipment to deliver even better streams and content post-launch of version 1.2, when Terminal Thursday’s streams will return. We love our community and so keep engaging with us on Discord, and on the Steam forums as we appreciate and value hearing from you. Join our Discord here!

As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti

It’s easy to say now that both Soviet and US real life policies in Africa were tragic sparking proxy wars and massive conflicts.

The Soviet Union’s goals during the earlier years of the Cold War were to advance the economic system of socialism. Unreliable leaders in the Third World would cause major issues for both sides and eventually led to the Congo crisis, a proxy war where close to 100,000 people lost their lives and that devastated the region for decades to come. We can also announce that a brand new chain of decisions built around the US-backed leader Mobutu soon is in production.

While an independent and nonaligned Africa exists today it was not without paying a massive price.

Still blessing those rains...

I have been teasing this forever, and over the last few months we have been not so secretly dropping in various additions and balance into the policies of a Soviet Sub-Saharan Africa. Here are the new policies that have been implemented into the main game.

African Command Economy

In order to be able to activate this decision you will need to have 10 USSR influence in Sub-Saharan Africa or Domination in one region in Sub-Saharan Africa and 1 FINANCE. It sets your ELITES to 1 and you gain 1 VP for each USSR FINANCE.

Fifth International

For each SOVIET-controlled region in Sub-Saharan Africa gain 3 VP

Eastern Decolonization

PLA Movement, Mau Mau Rebellion, and PAIGC Rebellion activates USSR Eastern Decolonization policy

Spend 3 ELITES. Gain 5 USSR INFLUENCE in SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA.

People's Revolution

Gain 1 INFLUENCE in all local WAR ZONES and trigger a new WAR ZONE in a USA-CONTROLLED region in SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA.

Comecon Africa

Gain 3 USSR INFLUENCE in a SUB-SAHARA AFRICAN region with USSR PRESENCE.

Cold War Balance of Power Bundle

Terminal Conflict is in a great bundle with Gaming At Work’s 1920s grand strategy game Rise of the White Sun taking place in China. I put forth that this time period set in motion the events that lead to the communist movement during the Cold War. You can get both games at a brilliant discount. Check out the bundle here: The Balance of Power Bundle on Steam

In closing

Q4 is a very exciting time for Strategy Mill and Terminal Conflict as the game continues to be patched with fixes, additions, and new content. Looking forward to this fantastic journey in strategy gaming. If you know my work as The Strategy Informer, you also know that is my mission statement as well.

I am writing this on National Mental Health day. A cause we support and are deeply committed to. We love you guys!

Might Cheers! /Seth out
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Upcoming Development

I) Mobutu leader event chain
II) Terminal Conflict version 1.2

CHANGELOG

GAME

• NEW Trigger added for faction Region Domination (5 INFLUENCE)
• Fixed exception when moving unit from arctic to theater not bordering the Arctic
• Upgraded to Unity 2021.3.7
• Fixed ability to navigate to folders outside the wargame in the Editor
• Fixed name of editor image text sprite
• CPU optimization: update focus/policy text in theater com every 300ms instead of checking every frame
• When downloading mods from Steam, report attempt to register the same mod twice instead of throwing an error to the user.
• Attempting to fix an OOS occurring during apocalypse:
• Region scoring takes units into account
• Each faction calculates region scores for both factions, and the score is influenced by the units situated in the region
• When faction A estimates the score for a region targeted by faction B containing units owned by A, faction A will always take these units into account, because faction A is aware of all these units existing
• When faction B estimates the score for a region targeted by faction B containing units owned by A, faction B might not take the same units into account, because faction B's visibility for these units might be different
• This skews the simulation scores, leading to OOS
• The implemented solution is to keep track of unit visibility from the opponent's point of view as well and use that during the nuke simulation process.
• Fixed an issue where units that can do nuclear strikes can still incorrectly launch nukes despite being set to reorganize
• Fixed an issue where Panama had the wrong population numbers
• Fixed an issue where Honduras had incorrect population numbers

FOCUS

• NEW MPLA Movement, Mau Mau Rebellion and PAIGC Rebellion now activates USSR Eastern Decolonization policy
• NEW SWAPO Rebellion and Somali coup d'état now activates USSR People's Revolution policy
• Updated description for FRELIMO Movement to better reflect the gain of 2 Government

POLICIES

• NEW Added USSR Sub-Saharan Policy AFRICAN COMMAND ECONOMY: Set ELITES to 1. Gain 1 VP for each USSR FINANCE. Conditions: (1) USSR must have at least 10 INFLUENCE in Sub-Saharan Africa OR DOMINATION in at least one region in Sub-Saharan Africa AND (2) at least 1 FINANCE
• NEW EASTERN DECOLONIZATION: Spend 3 ELITES. Gain 5 USSR INFLUENCE in SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA.
• NEW PEOPLE'S REVOLUTION: Gain 1 INFLUENCE in all local WAR ZONES and trigger a new WAR ZONE in a USA CONTROLLED region in SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA.
• NEW COMECON AFRICA: Gain 3 USSR INFLUENCE in a SUB-SAHARA AFRICAN region with USSR PRESENCE.
• Fixed an issue where some policies where incorrectly activated
• Activated African Command Economy in Balance of Power Scenario

OTHER

• Fixed a Typo a the Design Dispute decision