I AM SUPER HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THE NEXT VERSION OF ENEMY NATIONS (aka Second Chance aka Battle for the Last Planet aka the Best game you Never Played aka "what??")!!!
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SDL2 migration complete! MFC and DirectDraw are completely gone
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64 bit compilation complete! All inline assembly has been replaced
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Mac/Linux (and windows) all build!
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TCP/IP networking between all builds!
SDL2 unlocked a lot of doors. After getting 64bit building, I went right for Linux and Mac. While I was at it, I fixed a lot of bugs. Then I started getting bored... so... I added new technologies and features...
What's new in 3.00
Free of MFC say hello to SDL2
64-bit an important step towards my goal of a 100 player game- as 32 bit would run out of memory
Cross-platform Windows (MSVC x64), Linux (gcc x64), and macOS (clang ARM64). Ohhh myyyy.
Farm visuals When digging through the old code I found unused field art for farms. It looks great!
Bridges render This one used to bug me so much! They look much better now.
Combat effects Combat before was hard to see- the projectiles were so small. Added trails on bullets and glow for explosions.
Minimap radar fidelity Previously in 'map' mode before you get radar, it was difficult to read. Now map mode has a "map" aesthetic making your buildings/units easier to find
Stability Several memory leaks fixed, an AI event storm has been fixed, and pathing has been significantly optimized to support multi threading.
Fixes cargo ships no longer get stuck under bridges, cargo ships dont get stuck in seaports (or if they do, not as often), improved multithreading, optimized pathing, optimized ai performance (was testing at 32 ai's and it ran ok),
New features??
Several new techs (longer bridges, better radar, logistics, vehicle speed, fuel efficiency, biofuel from farms), Building Info Windows for almost every building showing things like stats/weapon dps/cargo/productivity.
The biggest new feature is Edicts. My idea here is that in the late game you often over-produce some resources while starve for others. There's a fundamental limit on many resources in the game, so if it's a long war you run out of oil, then gas, and things come to a crawl. There are also some races that get cool population growth bonuses, but no meaningful way to make use of them.
Enter: Edicts (and info windows).
Edicts are policies or options you can enact to change your civilization or building bonusses. Some can even convert the manufacturing process of the building, for example 'Coal Liquification' converts Coal Powerplant from generating energy to generating oil. Similarly, the Charcoal Kiln on a sawmill can turn it from lumber production to Charcoal (coal). And the Bio Fuel edict turns the Refinery from Oil->Gas to Food->Oil.
There are also civilization wide edicts such as Fortify the Border (+ fortification build speed at the cost of power use and workers). This affect the base stats for your civilization, allowing you to further customize beyond just race selection.
Edicts are implemented on info windows as a checkbox. There are currently 5 civilization wide edicts, and 3 building edicts. Edicts are on buildings of appropriate type- fortify the border is on the command center. Nutrition Program is on any apartment. The rocket also has edicts (only 1 for now) which you lose access to if your rocket is destroyed, making them a bit unique. I hope to see everybody's ideas and suggestions for more edicts going forward!
Here you can see several info windows, some of which have edicts.
Line movement:
Moving units was painful. They would get stuck and group up in bad ways. So I added line movement, inspired by Total Annihilation (mod), BAR, ZeroK, Supreme Commander, and others.
linemovement.webm
AI Improvements:
The AI had a lot of problems. It still does- but it had a lot more before. I fixed several issues with Cargo Ship routing (used to get stuck in Seaports), AI Goal Setting (basically ignored water before), AI Bridge and Road Planning (after fixing rivers I noticed the AI got stuck on rivers..), Trucks getting stuck in buildings (still happens for humans, but ai can recover), Cranes getting stuck trying to build impossible buildings, and lots more. In general, the ai does better late game. There are still problems on some worlds, especially with lots of water, where the ai can still suffer brain death.
Also, it's not really an in-your-face work, but getting the multiplayer to work between different mac/linux/windows clients was a lot of work. GCC, Clang, and MSVC do not always behave identically or implement the same features in the same way. I probably didn't get everything, so more multiplayer testing is needed (and welcomed!).
There's still lots of bugs! So please, make gh issues when you find them.
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A few things I have no tested and would appreciate feedback on:
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Linux/Mac Performance
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Linux/Mac multi-window/multi-monitor support (should be able to drag any window to any screen)
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Extended multiplayer games
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More than 35 AI players in a game
Platform builds
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Windows (MSVC x64)
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Linux (gcc x64)
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macOS (clang ARM64)
Install
Unzip anywhere and run enations.exe. Everything is included, keep the files together.
Windows (MSVC x64), Linux (gcc x64), macOS (clang ARM64).
Since the first 3.00 release
3.00.006 was the first public 3.00 build. Everything after it is bug fixing plus a few features
that got lost in the SDL2 port and are back now.
Changelog / fix history
3.00.009
- training grounds runs the campaign now, before it was just a skirmish
- mission briefing plays again, Mission button in game options to re-read
- window X, alt+f4, ctrl+s, ctrl+p and f2 did nothing, fixed. also on linux/mac
- world map keys e/r/u/v and ctrl+f4 work
- area bar shows selected unit name, damage and cargo again
- fixed ai planning bridges the game would never accept, it kept replanning the same crossing
- fixed issue with bridges being built onto shore instead of buildable land
- fixed cranes getting stuck at bridges when the landing was water
- roads can continue off a finished bridge now, before the ai just stalled
- fixed crane going in and out of a building instead of repairing
- fixed cranes getting assigned then dismissed over and over
- fixed crash during player elimination with lots of ai
- ai builds cruisers on water maps now, never did before
- ai can win while youre spectating, and the winner gets named
- fixed instant victory at game start with 1 ai or in multiplayer
- projectile trails scale with zoom, they were too big zoomed out
- removed the 20 ai opponent cap
- debug builds are not cheat builds anymore
3.00.008
- rolled everything back together, 3.00.007 was cut from the wrong branch and missing about a
month of crash fixes - fixed blank text windows on linux and mac, including the invisible player has died popup
- removed diagnostic logging that was causing lag
- ai picks a different target instead of cancelling the attack when it cant reach
- fixed linux/mac build blocker with scrollbars
- sound and music default to 50 percent
3.00.007
Withdrawn, cut from the wrong branch. Use 3.00.008 or later.
- fixed "unknown error loading the game" when creating a new map
- crash dumps save to a folder that exists now, so crashes leave a dump
- renderer defaults to SDL2 gpu on fresh installs, software still selectable in options
- fixed radar blips near the map seam drawing outside the radar
Known issues
- ai trucks can still stall a construction site for a few minutes
- very high ai counts make world generation slow, window looks frozen while it works
- multiplayer needs more testing, please open issues
Bug reports welcome. Include SDL2Panel.log for map creation problems, or the newest .dmp from
%LOCALAPPDATA%\EnemyNations\crashdumps for a crash.