Phase 2.5

Phase 2.5 of Bella Factionum is out, and boy do we have a bunch of changes!

Game Over Stats and Awards

The "Game Over" Screen is now an ingame popup, instead of a separate menu, and also shows interesting end-of-game statistics and awards! The following Awards are given:

• Champion: The Last Faction Standing
• Vice Champion: The Second-Last Faction Standing
• First Blood: The First Faction Defeated
• Butcher: The Faction that destroyed the most Squads
• Tactical Genius: The Faction that had the highest ratio of Squads destroyed to Squads lost
• Meat Grinder: The Faction that had the lowest ratio of Squads destroyed to Squads lost
• Richie: The Faction that earned the most resources
• Savvyness: The Faction that used its ability the most

Secondary Faction Color

You can now set a "Secondary Color" for your Faction - this color will be used in the "Crosses" of a Faction's Squads, and should provide more avenue for customization (it's optional, of course - if you leave it blank, your Faction's secondary color will be similar to what it was in older versions)

A Picture says 1000 Words:

Without Secondary Colors:

With Secondary Colors:

Smarter AI Factions

We've got a whole host of Faction AI Improvements. The most important one is that,  as a last resort, AI Players will send all their squads to the nearest base if they don't have any bases, which should make them considerably more interesting to play against. No longer will they get "stuck" in Resource or Support Points, waiting around to die.

Other AI Improvements:

• Unpredictable AIs will no longer randomly abandon points
• AIs will use Reinforcements on Points with few enemy squads attached
• Aggressive AIs will favor "finishing off" Enemy Factions with Bombardment
• If a nearby base isn't controlled, AI Players will send excess squads THERE, instead of to a Base controlled by them (which could be far away)
• If AIs have no Resource Points, they'll aim to ignore Support Points

Better "Play Map" Menu

Instead of picking the Faction to play as, and the number of other Factions, you can now pick exactly which Factions you want to play against, and even their starting bases (I say "even" like this is a massive achievement - it should've been in much earlier).

Once again, a Picture says 1000 Words.

Old Menu:

New Menu:

It's like a simple Scenario, without the hassle of opening the Scenario editor!

Spectating

Because why not?

Now, you can spectate, either by not having a Human Player when playing a Map, or by pressing the "Spectate" Button when playing a Scenario. Expect timelapses on my YouTube channel!

Furthermore, instead of the game auto-resolving when you are defeated/surrender, you become a spectator, and can watch the rest of the game play out in real time, if you wish (otherwise, you can just exit as before).

Other Changes

Factions can no longer be "built in" into a Scenario

• Creating a new Faction is still possible, it'll just save it on disk as well
• Editing a Faction inside a Scenario is no longer possible
• However, you can view the most important parts of a Faction:
• Its Symbol, Primary and Secondary Colors
• Its Strength, Weakness, and Ability
• As a result of this, the Scenarios you make should be considerably smaller in size

Quality of Life Changes

• If you play as a Faction with no Points, pressing C will instead center the camera on your first Squad
• If you press confirm when Playing a Scenario without picking a faction, a Random Faction will be picked
• Added "Z" as a shortcut for Ability Usage (you hold it down)
• You now TOGGLE B to invert Map Editor Obstacle colors, instead of holding down B

UI Changes

• Added a button (bottom-right corner) to skip the current custom music track (not visible if you didn't add any custom music, or if music volume is 0)
• Update the Splashscreen to utilize the new Game Font and Primary-Secondary Squad Color Systems
• Changed the Search Windows - they now do not hide other elements, just put them after your search query, and are unselectable
• Top Bar information now displays with nicer icons ingame

Fixes

• When you finish editing a Custom Faction, the Scroll for the Faction Rank Images returns to the start
• Shorten some localized text, where possible
• Faction Symbols are visible when searching for Factions
• When you cancel setting a Rank Symbol in Faction Customization, or select an invalid rank image, it will no longer change the rank back to an empty one
• Fix Pause Menu UI Elements being squished
• When you're editing a Point in the Scenario Editor, and have the Faction Management Window open at the same time, adding a new faction will update the Point Edit Window with the new faction
• Disorganized Support Points no longer provide support in combat

Other

• Squads no longer spawn in bases with combat nearby, as a default gamerule (can still be turned off)
• Optimized the game somewhat
• Added Particle Effects to the Disorganization Ability
• Improve Contrast of the Map Editor Polygon Obstacle Draw Line

And that's it!

There might be some more changes here or there, but now I shall start incrementally working on Multiplayer!