Factus Games announces the release of a new content expansion for Making History: The Second World War featuring many of the foremost vessels of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Among the models you get are Fubuki-class destroyers, Fusō-class dreadnoughts and the largest battleship ever constructed, the Yamato, plus many more.
This is a free DLC enhancement that includes some minor system changes and bug fixes. All current and new owners of Making History: The Second World War will see the Japanese fleet models on Full or Medium Model Set options with the latest update, version 1.0.61701.46.

We’ve also added in a newly built British Dreadnought model that was constructed for the upcoming Making History: The Great War Gold Edition. Factus Games intends to provide more models, events and scenarios for The Second World War in the near future.

Release Notes:
- Added new Japanese & British ship models into game
- Fixed error in Japanese Northern Route Event to provide Japanese Mech Infantry instead of German
- Added region control checks for German Unit expansion events
- Put in fix for Japanese Puppet Mengjiang triggering Sino-Japan war
- Communist and Fascist governments will not form an alliance unless they are both at war with the same great power
- Fixed paging issue on sub group selection panel
- Removed some duplicate code that code prevent some events from firing.

Factus Games proudly announces the official release of Making History: The Second World War. We wish to extend a special thanks to all the players who assisted the development team through the Early Access period. The feedback and bug reports were extremely helpful to our efforts. We also received many great suggestions and some we were able to add to the game.

Going forward we will continue to support Making History: The Second World War with updates, improvements and any necessary bug fixes.

Making History: The Second World War is scheduled to release on April 27 2018.

A new version of the Second World War is now available. Update #10 is intended to be our final Early Access Update. The plan is to have the game ready for an official release sometime next month. Many of the previous updates were focused on the AI. In this release we begin to turn our attention again towards features and UI clean up.

Submarine detection behavior has been significantly improved. Now ships and aircraft with sub detection capability only have a % chance to see a sub on a given turn. This allows us to give higher level units improved sub sighting ability and expand the stealth gameplay of the submarine units. Enemy subs can more easily sneak up on a fleet, engage and retreat.

The naval AI received some further attention. Nations will no longer send their fleets to bombard land forces while ignoring Coastal Defense attacks against it. This was leading to some unwise shipping losses in the English Channel. The AI will now prioritize target coastal batteries but generally avoid dangerous sea regions - except when enemy transports appear. We also made changes to encourage naval AI to provide escorts for their capital ships.

A couple of features suggested by a Steam Forum user were added. Aircraft, Missiles and Artillery units can now directly target enemy Artillery groups. Before the attack order applied damages to all land units in a region. And the Strafing Order was changed from only running a single turn to being continuous until canceled. Both these ideas seemed good enough to squeeze in, even though we’re not really in an add new features phase.

The UI has been getting small fixes, mostly tasks like adding missing properties in the Encyclopedia and improving labeling consistency. The Encyclopedia is still missing a lot of description information, as is the lobby. Many of these items have been written but not yet put into the game. They will all be filled in for the final release.

In version 10 we have introduced an in-game, light tutorial for new users. This will mostly present information about the UI and also be some introductory gameplay hints. We are looking at adding a Glossary to the Encyclopedia that will also include more howto information.

The Second World War is almost complete. And while there is a lot of work ahead, the remaining items on our must-have list are dwindling fast. It’s been a long haul getting the game to this point - much longer than we planned for. I’m going to save the excuses for the post release recap. In the meantime, thank you to all the current users out there who have offered us feedback and bug reports. This process would have taking us even longer without your support.



AI Changes:
- Reworked AI rebase logic to be more offense minded
- AI no longer targets undetected subs as bombing targets
- AI will now prioritize targeting Coastal Defenses for shore bombardment
- Updated naval AI to try and maintain group composure
- AI will try to keep Carriers and Battleships with support vessels
- Coastal Defenses only fire upon visible subs
- AI will avoid sending ships to sea regions with enemy Coastal Defense
- AI will always try to send ships to stop enemy Troop Ships from unloading

Game System Changes:
- Can now directly target Artillery through bombing and strafing
- Can now specifically target Artillery using Missiles and Artillery
- Aircraft factory types now require an airbase in region to be able to build Air units
- Units and buildings no longer heal the turn they are damaged
- Fixed issue with Cruiser to Carrier Conversion preventing game saves while active
- Improved ordering and results logic for 3 way engagements
- Check for sub detection before showing subs in the sea region selection panel
- Fixed sea engagements to respect new sub detection rules
- Improved sub detection system, no longer automatic, units have different abilities
- Fixed issue that could remove some escort groups before units could load onto them
- Revised capacity costs to either use all rail or all road, but preferring rail
- Reworked capacity costs for road and shipping capacities
- The air unit Altitude property no longer caps vulnerability to attacks, it now declines
- Strafe attacks now repeat instead running once
- Patrolling naval or air units can now detect subs along patrol path
- Set frame rate to 60
- Fixed bug preventing trade on first turn of a new nation created by a player

UI Changes:
- Fixed UI bug when revising a proposed trade agreement
- UI structure and system for in-game tips/light tutorial mode
- Added persistent game option to enable or disable in game tips
- Added toggle to the options menu to turn on or off tips
- Added button on start screen to enter with tips on
- Disabled keyboard shortcuts while game tips are being shown
- Added Offense and Defense values to terrain tooltips in Land unit Encyclopedia
- No longer show unused Land Unit properties in Encyclopedia
- Added Glider Assault Range to Light Gliders in the Encyclopedia
- Added Airborne Assault Ranges to Air Transports in the Encyclopedia
- Added Firing Range to Ships in the Encyclopedia
- Added Fuel and Coal Carry to Ships in the Encyclopedia
- Added Bombardment Strength to Coastal Defense in the Encyclopedia
- Added Shots to Air Defense infrastructure in the Encyclopedia
- Added new Unit property Icons for Encyclopedia
- Changed Assault Penalty icon for Coastal Defense
- UI now shows correct capacity costs for trade agreements
- Updated labels and icons on Military panels to make more consistent
- Added tooltip information to help explain factory output stoppages
- Revised Mapview labels and Tooltips for consistency

Content Changes:
- Renamed Research Project String from Air To Air Rockets to Air To Surface Rockets
- Fighter Strafe and Bombing properties now reflect Air To Surface Rocket capabilities
- Added Sub Detection capability to most Air units
- Modified Recruitment Building limits for top level Infantry units
- Made Seaplane Tenders use Coal instead of Fuel

A newly updated version of The Second World War is now available. The team lost a week or so to the holidays and there were a few sick days to overcome. Even with those obstacles, we executed a long list of improvements to the game. Again, most of our efforts have been AI related but we are continuing to add new content, events, feature improvements and of course bug fixes.

In this release we are introducing a new scenario called Last Days of Peace. It begins a few weeks before the Invasion of Poland. This allows players to skip the buildup years and get right into the war. Neither scenario is 100% complete so expect to see further balancing and content as we work towards release.

A new big addition to the AI has been to give it motivation to create and maintain contiguous fronts against enemies and potential threats. The implementation for this system took us through several variations. Initially the AI tended to become too narrowly focused on specific regions due to strength evaluations. Rather than spreading the units out along a front, we ended up with big stacks that led to gaps in front. Eventually the big stacks became pockets, often surrounded by Heavy Artillery that pounded them to extinction. It was kind of fun to see but not the gameplay we were looking for.

There were many factors to consider beside just having an enemy on the border. There is the opposing nation’s strength to consider but also the relationship status. We do not want Canada to think they need troops on the US border and vice versa. Some nations like the Soviet Union are so large that their defensive needs are always greater than what they have available. So the defense priority evaluations are especially challenging for the Soviet AI. They became our ultimate test case while we worked out the rough edges.

The AI is also considering potential invasion threats by sea or through bordering buffer states. Support Allies improvements allows the AI to better defend on Allied fronts and fill the fronts throughout their empire. Additionally, we’ve introduced the concept of Secondary Fronts so the AI will now try to create lines of reserves.

All the Major nations now have unique Unit Icon images. So you no longer will see a British soldier or Tank in a Japanese unit panel. We’ll soon have all the images in to match the unit you see on the map.

Thanks again to all the current users out there that take the time to post messages about issues and ideas. This process would be taking us even longer to get through without your support.



Content Changes:
- Added new pre-Poland invasion scenario “The Last Days of Peace”
- Fixed icons for mapview tooltip for food production
- Lowered Militia Hitpoint & Defensive Strength
- Added Italian, Soviet, French & Japanese Unit Icon Images
- Updated Cossack, Huisu & Kyrgyz Communist Flags
- Added missing Soviet claim on Tajikistan
- Updated Initial Diplomatic Influence for Soviet vs. neighbors
- New Soviet-German Axis Trigger
- Added events that can damage German-Soviet Relations pre-Poland Invasion
- Added Spanish Gibraltar claims
- New Argentina Coup and Axis Decision events
- Added Soviet Armistice event
- New Brazil Joins Allies, Nationalists Coup Attempt and Communist Revolt events
- Added German Claims in Africa event

AI Changes:
- Implemented AI to maintain Front against enemies and threats
- Front AI will avoid creating gaps when evaluating regions to invade
- Revised defensive AI to spread along contiguous fronts
- AI accounts loss of defense in a region for moving troops in the support allies plan
- No longer uses attack power from equipment units for offense planning
- Better accounting for support allies in the return home plan
- Support Allies AI has more defensive awareness
- Added group splitting logic to Support Allies AI
- Implemented AI to create secondary (reserve) fronts
- Increased AI defense for coastal regions in other nation's sphere
- Added Amphibious Assault penalty & Terrain modifiers for offense AI evaluations
- End attack plans when desired power can not be deployed
- Add pre-war land Regions to Sphere of Interest target checks
- Great Powers and Superpowers can invade outside their sphere
- Increased desired strength for overseas invasions
- Fixed AI bug sending wrong group when splitting units for defensive
- Modified desired strength estimate and definition of Obvious Targets
- Regions that don't border the enemy but do border an Ally use less defense
- Ignore equipment units when evaluating target planning
- Expand definition of bordering an enemy to include unfriendly regions with troops
- Include Buffer States when evaluating border defense
- AI won't abandon coastal regions when reorganizing defenses

Game System Changes:
- Neutrality Pacts no longer prevent defensive evaluations
- Revised supply access rules to be based on region control
- Troop Transports no longer contribute to Military Totals
- Troop Transports no longer contribute to World Power Points

UI Changes:
- Fixed fuel penalty displays on non-Naval Group panels

Editor Changes:
- Can now edit sea regions for existing cities
- Fixed adding city buildings when no city building of that type existed

The latest version of The Second World War is now live. There's a lot of new AI improvements, fixes and some new content additions. To begin with, we’ve about finished our comprehensive rewrite of the Land Offensive/Defensive AI. For the most part, the changes may not be very noticable. But over the course of a full game, players should experience an AI making wiser large and small scale decisions that will alter outcomes of battles and ultimately wars.

A major effort has gone into making the AI significantly more aware of it’s defensive needs both at home and abroad. They will also now attempt to gather reserves so front line collapses should not always lead to a total collapse. To get the AI to this level of functionality, new logic was required for how they move, split, reinforce unit groups and when to join a battle or consider it a lost cause.

We have a few more elements to complete in the Land Offensive/Defensive AI, including Improving Empire Defense, even better Allied support evaluations and ensuring the US is properly focused on defeating the Axis. The later issue encompasses bolder amphibious attacks and island to island campaigns.

The last update we introduced the new unit hitpoints. This had a fundamental impact on all systems related to the military. Some combat properties became overly powerful like Air to Sea attacks. These have been rebalanced along with other game areas like production times for all ships and the shipping capacity resource. We felt that although in reality a carrier can take a long time to build, reality does not always translate into entertaining. We’ll remain open minded about how best to balance the game and try to settle on a consensus position where possible.

Further adjustments to the overall game have been made to bring the systems in line with the new unit hitpoint mechanics. This is an area we intend to expand on, especially in the UI as we discover better ways to present new combat information. In general, if there something in the UI you feel needs attention, please let us know. Community feedback on this would be appreciated.

There are many new historical and some alternative history events in this update. We are close to finishing the required minimum events spec’d for release on the first scenario, but I keep adding to the wishlist and expect to go well beyond the minimum. The new Ottoman and Turkestan Revival for Turkey fall into that category. They are both in game now and we plan to later incorporate them into the Steam Achievement system. Other events are to be added for most nations that will function in a similar fashion.

As some may have noticed, we’ve shifted from an every week scheduled update to one every 2 weeks. This is primarily due to the type of changes we’ve been working on. AI improvements can take quite a bit of time and results often require additional refinement passes. A week does not give us enough time to properly implement, test and rebalance. Even with a second week, the changes in this update are so comprehensive that some issues are still lingering.

The next update is planned for after the December Holidays and New Year. We’ll be looking to refine and polish Air & Naval AI and begin checking off items from our large but manageable list of smaller tasks that will take us to release. And there’s still Tutorial, Encyclopedia, Achievements and a new scenario to finish. I’ll be starting a 1939 pre-Poland Invasion scenario over the holidays. If things go as planned, it might make the next update.

Please feel free to inquire about changes, offer ideas and provide feedback.

If you have a crash, think you’ve found a bug or maybe just noticed one of my spelling errors, post a note on Steam or email us at techsupport@factusgames.com.

Visit our website to read how to get us debugging information: https://factusgames.com/pages/support.


Notes for Early Access Update #6

AI Changes:
- Major rewrite of Land Defense AI
- Reworked defense requirement calculations
- Improved AI ability to identify regions that need defending
- Revised AI group splitting for better unit to region allocations
- AI defends against units belonging to non-enemy but unfriendly nations
- Moved defensive AI balance numbers to the xml for modding
- Revised defense AI to distribute groups to defense regions while at war
- Incentivize AI to hold reserve troops adjacent to defense regions and engagements
- Reworked Offensive AI land targeting evaluations
- Changed definition of Obvious target to be undefended Artillery/Air units or undefended City
- Don't consider defense when Obvious target is in range
- Fixed overseas AI from constantly picking the same overseas target
- Reworked engagement AI to avoid “piling on” or sending troops to a "lost cause"
- Fixed bug in AI evaluation of enemy coastal defenses in opportunity attack
- Revised offensive AI to consider defense needs when moving troops
- Reworked Support Allies AI to consider allied defense during peacetime
- Improved power calculation in Support Allies AI
- Fix for rare bug in offensive AI searching for region that a group is already in
- AI turn processing now processes independent nations first
- Reordered AI processing to prioritize military plans and ensure specific order
- Turned on Subordinate Nation recruitment AI

Game System Changes:
- Changed rule on Military Access agreements to be Empire wide
- Fixed bug so AI no longer considers landlocked Gulf of Ob a Coastal Region
- Units stuck behind in peace deals can now get supplies to exit
- Tanks no longer limited to moving 1 region a turn
- Movement table now shows MAX movement for transportation level 0
- Updated Movement Table
- Added strict pathfinding rules to Convoy targets and Artillery units
- Fixed calculations on Ranged attack hits to use Power instead of rolling to hit

Content Changes:
- Added more Soviet forces on the Siberian front
- Fixed Decal on British Light Tank II
- Fixed Animation Glitch in Railway Gun shoot
- Swapped Democratic and Fascist flag
- Swapped Nuclear Labs and Jet Labs levels
- Lowered Power of Coastal Defense
- Reduced time for producing Shipping and Airlift Capacity
- Reduced Production Time for all Ships
- Increased Defensive Power of Militia
- Modified Multiple Unit Properties For Combat Balancing
- Significantly Reduced Air to Sea Attack Power
- New City Added in Caroline Islands call Moen for Truk naval base
- Changed China and Japan nation colors
- Added German Unit Icon Images
- Updated HP tooltips: Replaced Health with Strength & Casualties with Reinforcements
- Relabeled UI Auto Trade Title from Trade Amount to Stockpile Target
- Fixed land engagement UI popup showing the same unit multiple times
- Implemented Annex Nation and All Subordinates function for Event scripts
- Implemented Neutrality Pact function for Event scripts
- Increased AI desire to go after regions referenced as target regions in Events
- An Event failure no longer stops execution of all subsequent Events.
- New Events for American takeover of Greenland and Iceland
- New German Atlantic Wall Events
- New Neutrality Pact Events (Keeps USSR & Japan from fighting & Phoney War)
- New Soviet Factory Relocation Events
- New Thailand Events (Franco-Thai War, Alliance with Japan)
- New Turkish Events (Axis or Allies, Hatay, Ottoman or Turkestan Revival)
- New Vichy French Colonial Revolts Events
- New Japan Events (Vietnam, Thailand Invasion)
- New USA Events: Pacific and North African Campaigns
- New Irish Events (Axis or Allies, Blueshirts)
- New Spain Events (Join Axis, Italy, Germany Attack Republican Spain)
- New Italy Event for Invasion of Malta

Making History: The Second World War is officially for sale on Steam as an Early Access title. The game is mostly feature complete and stable. The Early Access process allows us to finish the game with input from the community. For a small independent company like Factus Games, this has many advantages. We do not have the staff for intensive testing so the community does help us find issues that might take longer to find in house. More importantly, the end phase is typically dominated by AI and game balancing. These are areas where players can provide valuable feedback and influence the final product.

There’s still a lot of work ahead for some areas of the game and still more we want to improve before the final release. We plan to get new game updates to the community on a weekly basis. During the pre-release period it’s possible saved games could become incompatible after an update. However, we will try hard to avoid that from happening. It’s difficult to say exactly how long the pre-release period will last. We expect it to be no more than 2 months.

This is the first of what we hope to be many games developed at Factus Games. Thanks for your support.

The following interview of Ralph Gerth (RG), founder of Factus Games was conducted by Patrick Flynn (PF)


(PF) What is your personal background in the industry?

(RG) I started working in the games industry at LucasArts back in 1993. They hired me to create 3D art for games which at the time, were still all 2D. I stayed 6 years, learned a ton and made contributions to some classic Star Wars and adventure games. Then in 2000 I moved to Europe to work for a Swedish developer UDS. There I led a team of talented artist making a Futurama console game. Unfortunately the company went out of business after 3 years. I returned to the US to take a position as the Art Director of Muzzy Lane Software, the original developers of the Making History series. My role eventually evolved and I became the designer on all the Making History commercial games.



(PF) How did you go about acquiring Factus Games?

(RG) I founded Factus Games in 2017 when Muzzy Lane became interested in selling the publishing and development rights to the Making History games. As an educational focused business, Muzzy Lane was never fully committed to commercial gaming and that’s what I wanted to return to. It was an amicable split.



(PF) Compared to contemporary World-War-era, Grand Strategy games, what sets Making History: The Second World War apart?

(RG) The original Making History game began as an educational product designed for classroom use. In that environment, the game needed to deliver a true historical experience for a wide range of users - most with no strategy gaming background. From that initial effort we created the commercial version of Making History. As the lead designer, my goal was to retain the simplicity of the original gameplay while adding systems to increase the entertainment value. Namely, I wanted the game to be unrestrained by strict historical paths and allow users to carve out their own narratives. History is the theme and the setting. Players navigate the world and change outcomes based on how they behave against a collection of AI nations that also react to the varying activity. Two games will never be the same. As long as the AI makes believable choices, the diversion away from actual history is accepted by the player. With Making History: The Second World War we’ve added many historical events but at each juncture, the player can choose an alternative historical option.



(PF) How does Making History: The Second World War differ from Making History: The Great War?

(RG) The Second World War was built on the same engine as The Great War so the game will feel familiar to TGW users. We retained the basic structure and gameplay style but most of the AI and systems code was either rewritten or improved. There are also some key strategic and political differences between the two wars that we needed to differentiate in the AI and game systems. For instance in SWW, ideology has greater influence on AI decisions and the combat is more offensive minded. On the graphics side, we’ve doubled the detail level for the hundreds of new WW2 era unit models. Our aesthetic aim is still to present a simple, uncluttered gameboard experience. The game map has been regenerated and improved over the TGW version. There are a lot of new features and loads of historical and alternative historical events.



(PF) What do Factus Games have planned following its third World War 2 game?

(RG) Our main focus will be on creating a new engine for our future Strategy Games. It’s possible we'll produce a DLC for The Second World War focused on the Korean War, but that has not been officially decided. I’ve also been thinking about ways to make Multiplayer more accessible and easier to play. We'd like to produce some scenarios dedicated to MP play. And after release the game will continue to receive updates and new free content.



(PF) What effort is given to exploring alternate history in Making History: The Second World War?

(RG) Alternative history as gameplay is a core element to the Making history game design. Not only do we allow players to diverge from the path, we encourage it and craft the content and AI to expect it. In The Second World War, Germany left alone will usually go about their business attacking their neighbors as the Germans did in WW2. But the results will never be the same.



(PF) What support for the modding community can we expect going forward?

(RG) Making History: The Second World War will launch with Steam Workshop and a full-featured editor. Beyond that I feel it will be up to the community to let us know what they need. Modding is obviously a good way to extend the viability of a product and expand the user base. So it will be in our interests to continue supporting the modding and the game itself long after release.

Making History: The Second World War is preparing to release as an Early Access title. This offers many advantages to both our development team and the SWW community. For us it's an opportunity to get the game in front of a wider sample of users and systems. The feedback we receive during this phase will help us identify potential issues. This is also a chance for the community to offer ideas on existing features and make requests for additional ones.

At present, the game is feature complete. There's still some content to add and game balancing to complete. We believe an Early Access version should be ready sometime in the next few weeks. I'll post announcements once we have a reliable target date.