It’s been some time since I wrote a post for this blog – mostly I tend to post updates on the Twitter account or directly to the game’s Discord server (link to join is in the Steam discussion board for the game) – but the end of 2021 seemed like a good opportunity for a longer post on my plans for the game in the new year.

Armoured Commander II was released on Steam out of Early Access in September of this year and since then has gotten quite a few updates. My current plan is to finish the game by the end of August 2022, although I’ll continue to provide bug fixes and general maintenance after that time. My hope is that by then I’ll be able to add everything I wanted to the game, and will have at least laid the groundwork for further additions in the form of community mods.

There are nine general areas where I will focus my development work over the next few months, presented here in no particular order:

Bugfixes

I have at the moment a list of a few bugs that need to be addressed in the next minor update, and I expect that bugs will continue to be reported through the new year. The Discord community has been especially helpful in this, since they can report an issue quickly and I can usually address it in a hotfix in fairly short order. As new features get added, new bugs appear, so this will be an ongoing task for me throughout the new year.

Quality of Life Improvements

Again, this is an area where the Discord and Steam communities have been very helpful, since they have suggested interface and display changes that have ended up greatly improving the game. Even minor things like changing a display colour can greatly improve the overall experience of the game. This also includes minor changes to gameplay, such as a recent change where I removed Overrun as a separate command and turned it into an action under the Drive command. The player can still perform the same type of attack, but now it’s much more flexible in terms of when and how it’s used. I’ll continue to make these sorts of changes wherever possible.

New Units

There’s still a number of unit types that have been suggested on the Discord and/or have portraits ready to go but still need to be added to the game. Many of these were historically quite common, while others were very rare, but all of them have a place in this expansive game.

Gun Towing

This is a mechanic that I’ve been working on for a while – to have gun tractors spawn with gun units, and give them the ability to tow the gun around the scenario map if needed. I’ve already added some elements of this but still need to finish it off. This will bring in some interesting game choices, such as whether it’s better to target a gun tractor first and thus remove the gun’s mobility.

South Pacific

I’ve already added a new region and two new campaigns set in the South Pacific, but there’s much more to do in this area. Although tanks were not very well suited to the terrain of the Pacific islands, they still played an important role in many important battles. Already the unique features of the region and the forces involved have created a new type of game experience in the Battle of Luzon campaigns.

Late War Campaigns

There’s a few important areas of the war that are not yet represented in the game, such as late-war Italy, and the Finnish-Soviet front. I definitely want to add these before I can call the game complete.

Campaign Random Events

This is something I may or may not end up adding, but I had an idea to have a random modifier apply to some or all campaign days. For example, you might be told that today is a decisive battle, and so receive a VP bonus; or you might be offered amphetamines for your tank crew, which reduces fatigue but increases the odds of critical failures. These would add a little more variety to different campaign days, even if you’ve played the same day mission before.

Sound Effects

There’s many aspects of the game that are either missing sound effects altogether or are still using rather generic effects. I’ll continue to add these as needed, and hopefully in time the soundscape of the game will be much more mature.

Map Panel

This is a feature from the original Armoured Commander game, which is to have a visual depiction of the region and your location within it. All campaigns currently provide a geographical location for each campaign week, so adding this should just be a matter of creating the PETSCI consoles for each region, and providing the game with the appropriate geographical references.

There’s also a few other areas that I would like to work on, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to before the end of the summer. The Second Sino-Japanese War, the Spanish Civil War, and the Korean War are all settings that would fit well within the game. Some work on these has already been done on the Discord server, so perhaps the players will have already completed these before I can get to them myself.

In any case, it should be an eventful first half of 2022 as I continue to develop Armoured Commander II, and hopefully help it grow into the completed game that I had envisioned years ago.

It’s been one year since I released the first stable version of Armoured Commander II on this blog, which was version 1.0.4. Today the version on Steam is 8.0.7, having gone through seven major updates and dozens of smaller ones since then. The game has been more popular than I had ever imagined possible, and I am grateful to all the brave players who took a chance on the Early Access version, and sent me suggestions for improvement, as well as bug and crash reports.

My original plan when ArmCom2 was released on Steam in May 2020 was for the full release version to be completed by summer 2021, and right now I am still on track to meet that goal. There are quite a few gameplay improvements, changes, and enhancements that I want to add before that happens, as well as a handful of key campaigns, mostly from the late-war period 1944-1945. The game has come a long way in just a year, and I’m looking forward to these final months of work to deliver a complete game.

Even after its full release, however, I plan on continuing to add to the game. Limited mod support is already in place, with full Steam Workshop support planned for the near future, and some intrepid players have already started creating their own mods. Some of these are posted on the Discord server, which can be accessed through the link on the Steam discussion boards. I also post preview images there of my work in progress.

Many players have helped out with development over the past year, but I have to thank one in particular, flori2412, who has created dozens of new units, several new campaigns, and generally provided invaluable feedback and suggestions for the game. Without him and the other enthusastic players, ArmCom2 would not be half of what it is today, so many thanks to all of them.

Update 7.0.0 has now gone live on Steam, bringing a significant new gameplay element in the form of Unit Support. Full changelog follows:

Changelog for 7.0.0

ADD: New Commander skill: Improved Recon, Recon reports on enemy resistance will be more accurate
ADD: LoS highlight on scenario map when AI units are attacking
ADD: Unit Support: Player can call in friendly groups of units before entering an enemy-held zone
ADD: If player is attacked in own zone, chance that some support units will be nearby and will join the battle, no support level cost
ADD: Rare ammo types: APCR, APDS, and HEAT; added to units where historically appropriate
ADD: Some unit types may have limited amounts of HE or AP depending on calendar date
ADD: Ammo Scrounger skill: Increased number of rare ammo available at start of day
ADD: Acclimatized (Desert) and Acclimatized (Nordic) skills: Reduced chance of gaining fatigue from Extreme Hot/Cold conditions
ADD: Panzer IV F1 to Barbarossa to Moscow (Germany) campaign
ADD: Panzerfaust; Germany riflemen squads in mid- and late-war will randomly be equipped with them
ADD: Demolition Charges and Molotovs; riflemen squads randomly equipped with them
ADD: Weapon stat for AA MG allowing operation when not CE (will be used for eg. AA MG on M3 Lee)
ADD: Display of air/artillery unit portrait when doing support attack
ADD: Conceal/Reveal Self movement command
ADD: Crewman fatigue now modifies weapon attacks and bog chance
ADD: Crashes now output a timestamped crashlog to the {home}/ArmCom2 directory
ADD: Player crew may be Shaken if a fellow crewman is KIA
ADD: Friendly reinforcement (either a possible player tank or a unit from unit support) random event for scenarios
ADD: Steam Acheivements for 8 of Diamonds to the Ace of Diamonds
ADD: BT-5 M34 and BT-7 M37 as player tanks to Barbarossa to Moscow (Soviet Union) Campaign and as enemy units in Germany campaign

CNG: Enemy units are now spawned into zones on the Campaign Day map, player can get a rough idea of enemy presence during recon
CNG: If player withdraws from a scenario, surviving enemy units will still be in that zone
CNG: Support levels now reduced by 5, 10, or 15 points (equal chance of each) upon a successful request
CNG: Support Weapon Teams now defined per nation and included as part of enemy spawn table
CNG: Units transported by enemy units like trucks and APCs are now defined by the campaign rather than being generic for that unit type
CNG: Enemy air and artillery support units now divided by nation
CNG: Reorganized Ammo Load menu
CNG: RoF slightly harder if no target yet acquired, slightly easier if target acquired
CNG: Reduced AP of Grenades
CNG: All AI attacks are now indicated with a pop-up message, not just those targeting the player
CNG: Unjam weapon attempt no longer automatic, crewman must be on correct command to attempt, and Mechanic and Gun Maintenance skills each give a bonus to this attempt
CNG: Scenario map hex highlight colour to yellow
CNG: Minor changes to bail-out action modifiers
CNG: Base crewman fatigue level to -2
CNG: Change to how Campaign Day map zone control is handled for campaigns set in North Africa
CNG: If player withdraws from a scenario and has to cross a river during the subsequent move on the Campaign Day map, automatically finds a crossing point
CNG: Advancing fire with no HE or with limited HE (using MGs only) is possible, but less effective
CNG: Poppy display on main menu is now generated rather than loaded from .xp file; different appearance from 1st-11th November

FIX: Player bail-out will now end if only crewmen not yet in safe location are dead
FIX: Rounding error in display of player tank VP modifier in After-Action Report
FIX: Crash when Player Commander returned to action during a refit week
FIX: Zone control being reset after moving into a new Campaign Day map area made some objectives impossible to complete
FIX: Crash when crewman’s critical injury worsens and leads to death

Update 6.1.0 has now gone live on Steam, bringing a ton of new content and a number of fixes to the game. Changelog follows:

Changelog for 6.1.0

ADD: Western Front Campaign – late-war German forces on the Western Front, June 1944 to March 1945 (thanks flori2412!)
ADD: Monty’s Best Campaign – late-war British forces on the Western Front, June 1944 to March 1945 (thanks flori2412!)
ADD: Churchill IV, Churchill V, Churchill VI, Churchill VII, Churchill VIII, Churchill AVRE, 3in SPM M10, Achilles
ADD: Cromwell I, Cromwell VI, Challenger, Valentine XI, AEC II, AEC III, Otter, Sexton, Staghound I
ADD: M7 and M7B1 Priest, M3 halftrack, M3A1 halftrack, Ford F15, Willys MB, M29 Weasel
ADD: OQF 6-Pounder, OQF 17-Pounder
ADD: Free French nation definition
ADD: Quick Reflexes, Lightning Reflexes crewman skills
ADD: Support for arrow key input for WASD key inputs
CNG: Additional enemy units and support for Patton’s Best and Canada’s Best campaigns (thanks flori2412!)
CNG: When enemy units attack the player’s zone, guns and armoured train cars are now much less likely to spawn in the battle that follows
CNG: Minor changes to unit spawn chances for Soviet enemy units, class spawn chances in the Barbarossa (Germany) campaign
CNG: Message in contextual console when in Command Phase and selected crewman is dead
CNG: Crew menu default activation key now E
FIX: Number of scenarios fought was not being recorded properly for Steam achievement
FIX: Concealment check now skipped at end of scenario if all enemies have been destroyed
FIX: Crash when resupply arrived and tried to take away the body of a dead crewman
FIX: Crash after end of a scenario when there is an empty position in the tank
FIX: Bug where crewmen would not recover from Shaken, Stunned, or Unconscious status after a Scenario
FIX: Bug where crewmen could close a hatch that had already been opened in the bail-out minigame

A new major update for Armoured Commander II, 6.0.0, has now gone live on Steam. This update brings a much-needed revision of the enemy AI system, which should make combat quite a bit more challenging and unpredictable. Full changelog follows:

Changelog for 6.0.0

ADD: Saved campaigns are now automatically backed up, and if a save is corrupted, the player will have option of restoring the backup
ADD: New campaign options, revised campaign options menu
ADD: Optional creator field for campaigns
ADD: Advanced versions of skills can remove obsolete version when purchased
ADD: Message with info on how many advances surviving crew receive when continuing in a new campaign
ADD: Moon phase calculated for each combat day, no game effect yet but is displayed in end-of-day screen
ADD: King Tiger as enemy unit in Canada’s Best and Patton’s Best campaigns
ADD: New bail-out procedure with its own rounds and crew actions
ADD: More details after-action report after each combat day
ADD: Display of number of maps traversed, direction arrows for direction of new map area, to Campaign Day interface
ADD: Animated transition when entering into a scenario from the Campaign Day map
ADD: After a successful move action on the scenario map, player can try to move into a particular type of terrain (similar to the reposition menu), squadmates will also attempt to move into this terrain type
ADD: Dust status for units on the Scenario map – only possible in dry ground conditions, doesn’t stack with Smoke but has similar effects, more likely when moving and in sand/hamada terrain, much less likely if not Vehicle
ADD: Game option to have all messages require keyboard input to be dismissed; gives players as much time as they need to read the message
ADD: Lake terrain type for Campaign Day map, impassible
ADD: New Skill: “Eye for Terrain”: for drivers, increases chance of moving or repositioning into desired terrain type
ADD: New Skill: “Explorer”: increases chance that a crossing will be found when fording a river on the Campaign Day map
ADD: New Skill: “Tactical Retreat”: bonus chance to withdraw from a battle when Directing Movement
ADD: New Skill: “Mechanic”: decreases chance of engine stall when moving on the Scenario map
ADD: New Skill: “Shell Tosser”: increases RoF chance bonus from Pass Ammo command
ADD: New Skill: “Gun Maintenance”: reduces chance of weapon jam and breakdown when Loader is reloading the weapon
ADD: Option to keep current tank after a campaign is finished and continuing into a new campaign
ADD: Reassign crewmen menu, used for when crewmen return from the field hospital and when transferring to a new tank with fewer positions than previous model
ADD: “Fixed” turret type for vehicles that don’t have a rotatable turret but still have a superstructure location where the main gun is mounted
ADD: Confirmation step before abandoning tank

CNG: Final VP score also added to player records regardless of campaign options
CNG: Campaign options apply a modifier to VP score instead
CNG: Start and end time for combat days is now automatically calculated based on calendar day and geographic location
CNG: Class for all small team units to “Support Weapons Team”
CNG: Rivers on the Campaign Day map are not no longer impassible, but require move travel time,
and there’s a chance that the time will be spent but the player is unable to find a crossing point
CNG: Zone capture across rivers much less likely now
CNG: Ballistic weapons (eg. mortars) cannot be used in close combat defensive fire
CNG: Smoke and Dust in attacker’s location affect fire attacks much less than when smoke/dust are in target location
CNG: Smoke Grenades and Smoke Mortar Rounds now tracked over each Campaign Day, replenished after a successful Resupply attempt and at start of new day
CNG: Message pop-ups can now display crewmen names with full extended characters
CNG: Hull MGs only blocked if facing same direction as HD
CNG: Reorganized campaign calendar menu to display longer week descriptions
CNG: Player Commander names now displayed in gold color
CNG: Revised AI system
CNG: When resolving firepower and a Reduced result is rolled for, Small Teams are Destroyed instead
CNG: Player can now abandon tank when any weapon is broken

FIX: Crewmen who swap into a position that has no hatch will no longer bring their CE status with them
FIX: Incorrect calendar week dates in Patton’s Best
FIX: Incorrect visible hexes for crewmen in open topped or always exposed positions
FIX: Guns on Jagdpanzer IV and 38(t) now reloaded by Loader
FIX: Campaign week not being updated when Player Commander returns from a Field Hospital stay
FIX: Was possible to continue an incompatible saved campaign from the main menu, even though the key command was greyed out
FIX: Continuing into a new campaign no longer possible if a Player Commander is dead
FIX: Withdrawing from a battle did not correctly trigger end of the Campaign Day if sunset had already arrived
FIX: Artillery attacks now correctly apply firepower on vehicle targets (including player)
FIX: Scenario will now end right away if all enemy units destroyed by initial air or artillery support attack
FIX: Player gun will now switch to general stores right after last shell in Ready Rack is fired
FIX: Rear-facing AA MGs will now have their covered hexes set properly

The original Armoured Commander, released in 2017, is now available for free on Steam. Right now I’ve uploaded the last released version, but I am also working on porting it to Python 3 and SDL 2, which will make minor fixes possible in the future. The original game was written in Python 2 and used Pygame and py2exe, and getting all of these to work together again seems to be impossible. The Python 3 version is on the alpha branch for now, and will be moved to the main branch once it’s stable.

Update 5.2.0 is now live on Steam adding a new campaign covering the British and Commonwealth Desert Rats between September 1940 and December 1941. Full changelog follows:

Changelog for 5.2.0

ADD: Desert Rats campaign, September 1940 – December 1941
ADD: German Unit definitions: 15cm sIG 33, 10.5cm leFH 18, 10cm sK 18, 15cm sFH 18
CNG: Fate Points campaign option is now optional for entry into campaign records
CNG: Removed breakdown check during reposition move actions (including overrun)
CNG: Close combat attacks now use rear armour value of armoured target
FIX: Animation locations when unit is on overrun

Update 5.1.0 is now live on Steam, bringing a number of fixes, improvements, and additions, most notably a new campaign covering the German Afrika Korps during 1941. Full changelog follows:

5.1.0 Changelog

ADD: Afrika Korps 1941 Campaign
ADD: Display of relative facing of enemy units in unit info console
ADD: British AI Units: Bren Gun Carrier, AT Rifle Carrier, Humber II, Crusader I CS
ADD: Hull-mounted weapons can be set to have a larger field of view than just the front facing (eg. Crusader I Hull MG)
ADD: Random scenario event: enemy infantry or HMG teams may fire at player to harrass them, can cause injury to exposed crewmen
CNG: Capture VP value for a zone only displayed if it can be captured (eg. not for most zones on desert maps)
CNG: Capture VP calculation for zones in Spearhead mission
CNG: Changed odds of weather change, should avoid odd weather developing during the day
CNG: Close Combat hits on armoured vehicles also apply firepower
CNG: HE hits on armoured vehicles also apply firepower
FIX: Enemy units could dig-in when they were already entrenched or fortified
FIX: If player withdrew from a battle and there were no adjacent friendly-controlled zones, they wouldn’t go anywhere
FIX: Enemy units now moved to top of their hex stack before activation
FIX: Crash when Player Commander was sent to field hospital for a period beyond end of campaign calendar
FIX: Incorrect handling of Grazing Hit injury result

I’ve just uploaded the new 5.0.0 version of the game to Steam, after the version was tested in the alpha branch for a few days. Full changelog follows:

Changelog for 5.0.0

General

ADD: North Africa region and terrain types for Campaign Day map
ADD: “Delete Saved Campaign” command in Load Campaign menu
ADD: Player Tanks for Italian campaign: L3/35, L3 cc, M11/39, M13/40, 105/28 gun for arty support
ADD: British AI units for North Africa: Stuart I, A10 Mk IA CS, 2 pdr Portee
ADD: French AI unit for Battle of France (Germany) campaign: Autocanon de 75mm
ADD: Indication of ‘None’ for injuries in Crew Menu
ADD: Interpreter exception catching and writing error message to boot log before exit
ADD: Crewmen Grit stat will reduce average length of stay in Field Hospital
CNG: Modified front facing to now be between 330 and 30 degrees
CNG: Crewmen no longer have a ‘Normal Position’, instead a skill is required to work a commander/gunner/driver position without penalty, and another skill required to gain skills specific to that position
CNG: Greatly increased chance of crewmen being sent to field hospital for Heavy or Serious injuries
CNG: Increased base firepower destruction odds for unarmoured vehicles
CNG: Minor display changes for clarity
FIX: Bug where returning crewmen from Field Hospital could not use their Advance Points
FIX: Crash when trying to change master volume level with sounds off

Campaigns

ADD: Option of playing a campaign of fewer days
ADD: Option of adding a chance in campaign weeks for combat days to take place along coast
ADD: Check to make sure that saved game structure is sane, and display a notification if not
ADD: Check to make sure no repeated dates are added to the combat calendar, which leads to time loops
ADD: Display list of crew positions in right column of tank selection menu
ADD: Display of current progress in the combat calendar (Day x/y)
ADD: Display of Day Ended in main panel
ADD: Player has a chance to swap crew positions after getting a new tank but before fresh crewmen are assigned to empty positions
ADD: Campaign option to ignore rarity factors of units
ADD: New Campaign Skill for early-war Italy: “Audacia”
ADD: ‘Natural Leader’ skill for Commanders
ADD: ‘Cautious Driver’ skill for Drivers
ADD: Can tag unit types as ‘captured’
ADD: Can set earliest date that enemy unit types can spawn in campaign
ADD: Display of renderer used, automatic disabling of fullscreen if SDL2 or OPENGL2 not in use
CNG: The final day of a refit period is now used for the calendar, in case a tank model only becomes available to the player later in the refit period
CNG: Player tank selections can now be restricted to only after particular dates, in addition to regular unit rarity factor restrictions
CNG: National Skills now called Campaign Skills

Campaign Day

ADD: Maximum number of certain terrain types on CD map can be limited
ADD: Maps in North Africa now have neutrally-controlled zones, only some zones can be captured by either side
ADD: Zone capture VP values in North Africa increased
ADD: Check when generating map that it can be traversed
ADD: Ocean zone type, only spawned when combat day is along the coast
ADD: Chance of being attacked while waiting for resupply, random time required before resupply arrives
ADD: Key command to clear the current default command and hatch status for a crewman
ADD: Chance of landmines present in a map zone
ADD: Pop-up message if player tank was immobilized, ending combat day
ADD: Temperature for day: hot/cold influences crewman fatigue, extreme heat or cold makes weapon and vehicle breakdowns more likely
ADD: Notification of number of HE rounds used during Advancing Fire
ADD: Loading screen before starting a battle on the tactical/scenario map
ADD: Fatigue check on player crew when moving on Campaign Day map
ADD: Crewman can rest, have chance to lose fatigue, if player Waits in place
CNG: Slight change to map generation procedure
CNG: Minor changes to how certain zones on the map are displayed
CNG: Made display of extra ammo in Ammo Load menu more clear
CNG: Reorganized display of crewmen slightly
CNG: Removed Targets of Opportunity, replaced with Objectives
CNG: Depiction of zone control no longer obscures rivers and bridges on hex zone borders
FIX: Bug where enemy strength levels would not be generated after moving to a new map area
FIX: Bug where player location may be set to enemy control after moving to a new map area
FIX: Advancing fire no longer possible if gun is Broken

Scenario

ADD: Unit destruction VP values in North Africa increased
ADD: Target line turned grey if targetting an enemy out of Line of Sight
ADD: New hex depiction for North Africa
ADD: Woods and Hamada firepower effect for HE hits, display in attack console
ADD: Can set a default hatch status and command for crewmen at start of scenarios
ADD: To-Hit bonus when firing Smoke
ADD: Units cannot test to recover from being pinned in the same turn as they took an effective firepower attack
ADD: Player can choose target terrain type when repositioning
ADD: AI units now take into account chances of armour penetration when choosing attacks
ADD: Console display with info about current map zone
ADD: Type of gun used in artillery support attack now displayed to player
ADD: Sound effects for when player pivots tank, rotates turret, landmine explosion
ADD: Additional detail to decriptions of crew commands
ADD: Nickname or common name of unit displayed in unit info console
CNG: Button Up command now Button/Close Up command
CNG: Ground cover and fortified etc. firepower modifiers no longer stack for HE hits
CNG: Hull Down now only effective 95% of the time for hits incoming from same direction as HD, 80% for one sextant to each side
CNG: Targets hit by HE now only have one of the following applied (if any): Fortified, Entrenched, Dug-In, Airburst Effect, Hamada Effect, Deep Snow, Muddy/Snow
CNG: Targets hit by Area Fire now only have one of the following applied (if any): Fortified, Entrenched, Dug-In, or Terrain Modifier
CNG: Concealed enemy units no longer have a sound effect played when moving
CNG: Adjusted RoF chance calculations slightly
CNG: Withdraw command can now be used when 1+ enemies are within 2 hexes, but the more enemies that are still nearby, the greater chance that action will not succeed
CNG: Slightly increase odds of crew injury if CE when tank is hit by a firepower attack
CNG: New procedure for resolving HE hits on unarmoured vehicles
CNG: To-Hit and To-Effect chances can now range from 0.5% to 99.5%
CNG: Critical Hit / Effect not possible if original odds were <= 3.0%
CNG: Fate point use no longer allowed for AP rolls
CNG: Enemy AI units more likely to attack player if the player has Acquired Target on them
FIX: Smoke hits no longer have possiblity of being critical, and Hull Down save against Smoke ammo is not allowed
FIX: Enemy units being spawned dug-in in terrain where digging-in is not allowed
FIX: Hull Down restriction for firing hull-mounted weapons more precise now
FIX: Operation of AA MG no longer possible while crewman is BU
FIX: To-hit bonuses for Very Long guns at medium and long ranges
FIX: HD can no longer save against Close Combat attacks
FIX: Rare crash when player’s selected target was not cleared properly
FIX: Player’s moving status not being update properly in Player Info console
FIX: Pivoting now maintains order of unit stacks
FIX: AI units not losing Fortified status after moving

I’ve uploaded a build of 4.0.0 to Steam, available now for closed beta participants, and to everyone from Thursday 14th May onward. Full changelog is available on the announcement post.