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[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Ultima Ratio Regum is a middle-ground between roguelikes, RPGs and strategy games. It has no fantasy elements and seeks instead to be closer to a realistic history simulator, and a strategy/4x game which just happens to be in ASCII. Combat is rare and deadly – whilst these mechanics are modeled in detail, exploration, trade and diplomacy factors will have just as much effort put into them.


A generated world – coastline, ocean, volcanoes, mountains, hills, biomes, rivers…

URR aims to eventually be a fusion of roguelike and strategy genres – rather than a strategy game where you command with omniscience (even in ancient eras), you instead command as an individual character also in the game. Orders must be issued in person; you can lose contact with distant armies; but the same mechanics affect the AI players who also lack omniscience and depend upon the knowledge of situations they themselves can garner.


There are 16 utterly different skill trees, ranging from Heavy Weapons to Subversion, and Navigation to Linguistics.

Worlds can be generated over a vast array of sizes, climates and types, but all ultimately with no fixed objective but a world full of civilizations and factions to be allied with or battled against. It aims for depth in character development and world events, but with stuff in the ‘middle’ – constructing buildings, city growth, resource management – abstracted out (as many other games exist which cover those). Political and social dynamics will be modeled via a complex system that aims to generate both a history for the world, and the current state of political affairs when your game begins.


All outdoor areas change colour and shading according to season and time of day.

Fundamentally, URR aims to have six key aspects:

Army Command: Unlike other roguelikes, URR has a major strategic military focus. You will be able to serve in, or command, military forces numbering in the hundreds, ranging from pikemen to siege weapons, and cavalry to archers. Commanding a squad or an army will have a number of complex options, and these military mechanics will influence global politics, territory, and military campaigns.



Art Generation: Ultima Ratio Regum will feature significant amounts of complex generative graphics, ranging from planetary atmospheres to ancient temple murals, landscapes to military rankings, and from sword designs to family coats of arms. The game aims to explore what can be done with ASCII graphics to detail and explore a deep generated world.

Ancient Exploration: Set in the 16th/17th century, the game contains a number of relics of earlier civilizations, which can be explored. These temples and tombs will be full of murals generated according to ancient myths (see the art generation objective), but these murals serve not just an aesthetic purpose – they will give clues to the locations of artefacts, or catacombs containing great wealth. They will also contain procedurally-generated puzzles, mazes, and other challenges.


Some of URR's generated ANSI art.

Navy: URR aims to feature a lot of naval mechanics, including exploration, trade, and ship-to-ship combat, involving both boarding and gun batteries. Ships will take up a large number of squares, and ship-to-ship combat will take place involving potential fleets of vessels. Piracy and customs will also be included, and you will be able to both serve on, or lead, a ship, or a fleet.

Linguistics: Different civilizations – ancient and contemporary – will have different languages you may not necessarily be able to speak at the start of the game. Ancient languages can be learnt to give greater insight into murals or ancient texts, whilst contemporary languages enable you to communicate beyond your empire’s boundaries, trade with others, and handle yourself in other empires.

Multi-Square Units: Ultima Ratio Regum will include a large number of units that span many squares, a significant break from the rogulike norm of one-square-per-unit. Catapults, ballistas and other siege weapons take up around 5×5 squares and behave accordingly, whilst ships range from around that size up to filling half the screen.


The ever-increasing Guidebook, full to brim with URR knowledge. Which is not to say there aren’t some secrets lurking out there…

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I've added this week's blog entry about the huge variety of weapons available in the game (roughly 200,000+), and the way they are balanced. I'd love any feedback on whether they seem appropriately balanced or not:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/10/17/weapons-lots-of-weapons/

[Majestic]

Interesting idea Ultima.

Do you need game music? I am a music composer. I can portray any mood to immerse the player in your game and I can do a wide range of genres

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Thanks for the offer! I'm still uncertain whether I'm going to have any music in the game at all, but I may be in touch if I decide to put some in

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

This week's devblog entry talks about how the character creation system works! I've tried to do something unusual with it by letting you start with items, not just stats, skills, and the like. Would love any feedback - http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/10/24/character-creation/

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Massive improvement in the map genearation!

Previously, the map was 1,000,000 squares, and took up about a Gb of RAM. I know, horrifically inefficient, but I couldn't find a better storage method. It was far too small for my purposes, but I couldn't find a way to deal with it.

Now, the map is 1,600,000,000 squares - a 40,000 by 40,000 grid - and takes up only a few hundred MB at the outside. Now the world is vast, and has more than enough room for all the civilizations, dungeons and castles you could want...

[SP9000]

This sounds really cool, complex, and highly ambitious.  Good luck with finishing.  I can't wait to see how this turns out! :D

Also, the Commodore PET is awesome.  Best computer of all time.
(for archival purposes note that I am referring to your avatar).

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

This sounds really cool, complex, and highly ambitious.  Good luck with finishing.  I can't wait to see how this turns out! :D

Also, the Commodore PET is awesome.  Best computer of all time.
(for archival purposes note that I am referring to your avatar).

Thanks! Made a lot of progress on world generation today, too, and will probably end up showing it in my devblog at some point in the near future.
I never had a PET (this image is one I simply like a lot), but I did have a Commodore 64, and I still have it and a couple hundred games for it! Some are pretty obscure, but I'm not someone to sell off (or keep) intact the older, more obscure things; why have them if you're not going to play them? Some truly outstanding games on that machine...

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Here's a spoiler of the World Map:



It's... pretty big. A lot more information can be found http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/11/01/world-map-and-battlefields/ in my latest devblog entry. Contains stuff about world generation, battlefields, and how the player actually moves around the map!

[Paul Jeffries]

This looks pretty cool.  How is the strategy side of things going to work?  Will you have direct control over individuals or will it work in a more indirect dwarf-fortressy kind of way?

[sublinimal]

This has potential to be very interesting given the right execution.

[RCIX]

A game that aims to target an unused niched within a sub-niche of a niche game?

  Niche-ception

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

This looks pretty cool.  How is the strategy side of things going to work?  Will you have direct control over individuals or will it work in a more indirect dwarf-fortressy kind of way?

Thanks! You can give orders to those below you, and they will carry them out to the best of their ability. If you control two battalions, and each one contains squads, you can give orders to the battalions, and those in charge will then issue appropriate orders down through the squads. You cannot literally tell Unit X to move to Square Y, both for the reasons above, and because they have a sense of self-preservation and will not just blindly follow your orders

This has potential to be very interesting given the right execution.

Cheers - hopefully it'll work out how I envisage it.

A game that aims to target an unused niched within a sub-niche of a niche game?

  Niche-ception

Yep! But then, I think roguelikes (and similar games) have way more appeal these days than they did in the past, strangely enough.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

New devblog entry - the role of bosses in Ultima Ratio Regum! Which is to say... well, you'll have to read and find out. All manner of weird and probably-not-wonderful creatures await...

http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/11/07/on-bosses/

[happymonster]

Sounds good!