Greetings, emperors!

This development blog will be more personal than you are used to. I intend to discuss how I see the future of the Imperium Sine Fine saga. Where to go? As you most likely understand from the previous development blogs there are massive changes going on with the game. A complete new layer of choices and needs for your empires that I hope, and believe, will make Imperium Sine Fine a far better experience.

I have for quite some time felt that the mobile platforms aren’t ideal for the type of game that I design and create. They are grand strategy, require knowledge of detailed mechanics, on a platform that more and more focus on simple and quick games monetised by huge amounts of ads. It’s hard to compete and get noticed on these platforms. I’ll be honest with you and admit that neither Fate of an Empire, Fate of an Empire – Age of War nor the Imperium Sine Fine saga has performed as well as I hoped at the time. Google is also increasing the demands for publishing on their platform and limiting what is possible to do on Android devices, hampering my wish to create a more open and moddable game experience.

But while I’ve had this feeling I’ve also been scared of changing platform. There is a familiarity with the Android UI and coding methodology that makes it easy to continue using Android as the main, and only, platform. This is why Imperium Sine Fine also became a mobile game. It was a big challenge to bring it to life.

A couple of months ago I decided, why not give it a try? What would it take to port Imperium Sine Fine to desktop and launch it on Steam instead? The code is in Java, which is not a problem for Steam and PC. What was a problem was that the UI and core game mechanics were intertwined and had to be de-coupled. A pure Android UI, and a pure game engine with no UI elements in it.

When I had reached this far there was no turning back. I was hooked! Since then I’ve been working very focused on porting the game for a future launch on Steam. Along the way I also took the opportunity to update lots of the game mechanics, which I’ve discussed in lots of development blogs and will continue to discuss in the coming development blogs (yes, there is plenty more to come). The Android UI has also been updated to support the new game mechanics meaning those of you that prefer this platform will also get to play with all the new fun stuff.

But, there is a limit to how much I can handle. In the future the desktop version will be the main focus for me. I’ll not be able to support all Android apps. I know this will disappoint some of you, and I’m sorry for that, but I’ve decided to remove Imperium: Aeternum Creation from the Play Store. It will no longer be supported. On a positive note, the desktop version will be fully moddable: UI, all icons, data and config files, events. Yes, you’ll be able to make your own version of the game if you wish. There will be Steam Workshop support as well.

The base game is pretty much finished. I need to do some more polishing on the UI. There is even an internal build that I can play on Steam. I’m working on the first DLC which is a full scenario editor. It will be bundled with the base game and free for early birds. When I have this ready I’ll most likely publish the game as early access. Why not go for a full launch, you ask. The game needs to be balanced more, and I hope an early access launch will give me enough feedback to balance the game before launching it fully.

Now you know what’s going on in my head. If you want to help out, test the new features, make a mod and upload to the workshop, find out the optimum grains usage of a foot soldier and more. Send me an e-mail (apps(at)norberg.one) and let me know!

This is the last development blog for a couple of weeks! It’s time to take a summer break. But when we start again with the development blogs in August there will be plenty of new features to talk about.

Take care! Cheers!