FAQ

[Galdred]

Release date
The game should be out in Early Access in early 2023.

Roadmap
We plan to flesh out the campaign layer now, and then work on semi randomized levels (like in OG X-COM and XCOM 2). We will release the game in early access when all elements are in place, and all our efforts can focus on adding content.

Team and development history


The work on Zodiac Legion began because the team shared the vision of a game that would combine the tactical combat and strategic campaign of X-COM with the fantasy aspects and dungeon crawling typical of most roleplaying games. Hence, some of the defining characteristics of Zodiac Legion include difficult combat where units are precious but expendable, the management of a kingdom under global siege, and the gradual development of the player’s technology and practical options on the battlefield.
We also drew inspiration from tabletop classic dungeon crawlers, as the resulting core gameplay is pretty different from X-COM, with a stronger focus on melee and exploration.



Engine:
Moai, because Invisible Inc is awesome. Also, I like being able to tinker with the engine.

How exactly has X-Com and Jagged Alliance been inspired you and what similarities are there?
Is base building in and how does it work?
The two most influential games for me were Heroquest and Laser Squad(the game Julian Gollop made before X-COM), so I started prototyping a game that would mix both.
X-COM mostly inspired the "meta" element of the game: the focus on research and base building. I also want the game to be close to its spirit by letting you throw endless warriors into the meatgrinder to solve problems.
Territory control will work a bit like in JA2: once you get a region (by first weakening its opposition through some raid missions, then assaulting its castle), it produces resources for you, but it can be retaken.
The map will also feature minor factions, that will work a bit like the ones in X-COM apocalypse, with a relation meter measuring their attitude towards you and your nemesis.
Military operations will be abstracted, through the use of "army assets":
Basically, a campaign operation is 2 armies scoring "hits" against each other over time, but these will also create mission opportunities that will let your heroes turn the tide (or turn an indecisive campaign into a crushing victory)
You will also mostly be able to do some assault missions proactively.

Your main base will be the only one with magic reasearch and enchantment capabilities.
Think of the other ones as outposts (or interceptor bases), that provide a teleportation relay, and let you see mission opportunities around.
Both the main bases and the outpost can be fortified, but only the main base will let you place facilities like in X-COM.
The opponent may raid your stronghold, which will trigger a defensive battle using the layout of your stronghold.
Outer defenses will be more standardized, and be used for more decisive actions.

How will tactical battles play? (explanation how many actions a hero can do in one turn, initiative?)
There is no initiative in the game: One side moves entirely, then the opposing side does the same.
Each character can move and perform a single action per turn.
As in XCOM, there are two movement ranges. The standard one allows you to perform most actions, and the extended movement range cost stamina, limits the actions you can perform, and gives you an ATT and DEF malus for the turn. It also removes your zond of control.
Some actions (like shooting with a bow) get a penalty as soon as you move. Other require you not to move at all. Some spells require you to concentrate one turn before being able to cast them.
There is no facing, but characters have a zone of control: trying to leave a ZoC results in an interception check, and if it is failed, the character is locked in place, and exposed (with an ATT and DEF debuff).
Characters that are not in an opponent Zone of Control also support each other.
Flanking works a bit like in D20: a character is flanked when he is between two opponents.

What stats/attributes will the heroes/enemies have?
We decided to use a limited number of stats, and offload most of the bonuses to perks and skills:
Stats are:
- Health
- Stamina/Mana
- Move
- Attack
- Defense
- Damage
- Magic potential
Weapons and armors also have similar stats: (max stamina/health modifier), and have the following stats (some characters/creatures may have natural pierce and armor).
- Pierce
- Armor
- encumbrance

How will level up work in the game?
In Zodiac Legion, your characters start as novices of the order. Novices don't use a class system, but follow a customizable "profession path".
Basically, you choose once how each of the profession (archer, knight, sergent...) will develop, and the characters will follow this path until they become full brothers of the order.
Brothers have a more open ended leveling system, and you can choose how they train at each level.
They can then be attuned to one of the 13 Zodiac signs, and get access to the special abilities of the sign.
Their ascending and moon sign will let them access minor abilities from other signs.
Each sign can have one grandmaster and one champion. Think of it as the ranks in OG X-COM. Once one of these dies, another brother can take his place.

Do heroes have skills and how do they work?
There are no skills in the PnP RPG sense. These are rolled into stats (like melee). Skills work more like feats/character class abilities.
Passive skills can do things like add flanking damage (or limit it), give passive stamina regeneration, encumbrance reduction, or improve some of the base actions.
Active skills cover special attacks (some will only work with certain weapons), spells, and utility.

How are damage and armor going to work?
During an attack, the attack and defense rolls are compared. If attack < defense, it is a miss. Each weapon also has a critical hit threshold, which is the number of excess success over the defender needed to score a critical hit.
The weapon stats, and the margin of success determines the damage and penetration of the attack.
Armor is substracted from the damage, but it can be partially negated by penetration. The attack maring of success has a higher influence on penetration than damage.
Encumbrance is deducted from max stamina, and can also limit your movement range.

How is magic going to work? Does every of the thirteen different zodiacs go accordingly to the four elements and how do they differ? What is the 13ht zodiac?
Spells cost an action and mana to cast. Some will only trigger on the next turn (the delayed fireball has a larger AoE and damage than the regular one, but only lands one turn later).
The 13th sign is Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer.
Each Zodiac sign will have access to a few sets of zodiac discipline, spells of its element, and some skills that are only available for this sign.

How will leveling be handled? (skills, perks, traits, increasing stats)
Every level will provide a perk or trait. Some level will also let a character improve a stat. There will be some randomness on level up (like in Blood Bowl: you always have access to your regular skills, but you can also pick other skills instead depending on a random level up roll).
Stats and skills will stay in the 1-13 range.


How is mana working? How is it connected to stamina?
Spellcasting and special attack both cost stamina to use. The level of magic of the character determines how much stamina is needed for a given spell (like in Dominions 5).

How many weapon classes will be in the game and how many in total? What stats do they have? Can you enhance weapons? Are there unique/legendary weapons? How many weapons has the game in total?

The weapons currently in game are:
axe/greataxe (versatile weapon against both unarmored and armored targets).
sword/greatsword (mediocre penetration, but good attack and defense values)
hammer/polehammer (good armor penetration, can stun targets)
bec de corbin (very good armor penetration)
halberd (reach, and supporting bonus to nearby friends).
flail (havles shield bonus)
cudgel (low tech/improvised weapon)
bow
scepter (grants casting benefits)
Shield (buckler, round, knight, kite, and tower shield).
As I said in the stats/Attributes, they have the following stats:
ATT/DEF modifier (def can be specific to melee, ranged or magic too).
Damage
Pierce
2 Hander usually have better attack, damage. They also have a good melee defense, while one hander+shield give better generic defense.
encumbrance (most weapons don't have any, but the heavier shields do).
they also have critical effects, and can be enchanted (to provide on demand elemental attacks).
Unique/Legendary weapons will be split in several parts that will need to be reforged.

The factions
This part is still evolving a lot. It will basically play a bit like Star Wars Rebellion (or Twilight Struggle):

There would be 2 "sides" on the map:
- The "league of Chimera"
These are your main opponents. They will try to ally or subjugate the neutral kingdoms and destroy your organization. They don't rely on Zodiac Magic, but use more dangerous raw magic themselves, which has the unfortunate consequence of drawing demons to this plane of existence. The league is an uneasy alliance between several wizard organisations.
- The Zodiac Order
The Zodiac Order is based on the Teutonic (being summoned by local lords to deal with pagans, trying to turn into a local superpower in the process) and Hospitalier orders (because it is split between its 13 signs, like the Hospitaliers were organized around its langues).
They use a more controlled form of magic (which is heavily tied to their artifacts).

There are other unaligned factions
- The neutral kingdoms
These are your regular feudal kingdoms that are ill equipped to deal with magic and demons. The task of the Zodiac Order is to protect them, but some might be tempted to join the League, especially if you do a poor job of protecting them. Other might be directly invaded by the league.
- The guardians
When magic started to wane, the mages who controlled the places of knowledge and power sealed them, making them only reachable through teleportation portals.
During the age of steel, the guardians who kept vigil over these places became dormant, but they are now back and will keep making sure that no one trespass.
These include skeletons, metal golems and gargoyles.
- Raiders
Some factions don't have territories, but will launch raids on various locations on the map: the orc raiders and demons both are drawn to places of magic.


The strategic layer
Gameplay wise, things will be "Roughly similar" to Star Wars Rebellion/Supremacy, or Twilight Struggle, but simpler:

You deploy resources (envoys, agents and armies) to regions.
Envoys allow you to sway minor factions.
Spies allow you to find mission opportunities (h to assassinate, facilities to sabotages, vaults to raid...), and to prepare them(ie get some benefits during the mission itself, like delayed reinforcements, sick guards, starting with the map of the mission...).
And armies are there to control territory. When armies face each other, they get slowly grinded down by attrition, but some mission opportunities will appear, letting you influence the combats.
Most armies will be static, and will represent feudal levies and garrisons.
So basically, instead of the usual dice resolution you'd have for ground combat in Star Wars Rebellion (or coup attempt in Twilight Struggle), the outcome of opposed challenges will be determined by tactical missions (if you decide to send a party to do it).

Events will either trigger missions, alter some ongoing non combat missions, and usually present you with either a moral choice, or a choice between several options.
We try our best to make sure all options are reasonable under some circumstances (so that you can really choose to take option A because you need more manpower now over option B which would have given you more resources, at the cost of some of your soldiers and workers for instance).

In order to avoid making the management part explode into a newish Total War abomination, the number of resources (envoys, agents and armies) will be limited by the territories you control, your technologies, and the facilities in your stronghold.


How is research going to work?
It won't be overly original. You find scrolls or tomes, that can either reveal other mission locations, or help you advance your knowledge of magic/enchantment/alchemy.
Magic gives you more options for skill up.
Alchemy allows to to brew potions and explosives.
Enchantment allows you to improve your weapons.

One use items are still free to use (the in universe reason for that is that potions have a very short lifetime, so what limits them is your access to alchemical resources and your number of alchemists).

How far is game development? May there be big/drastic changes like features getting cut or completely changed?
There is no functionning geoscape to really show, but a tactical module that works relatively well. So the strategic part can still change a lot, but the tactical part will mostly get added content and balance.

How many different mission types will the game have and how do they differ?
This can still change, but the following missions are planned:
- Assassination
- item retrieval(artifact, scroll...)
- Take and hold
- Sabotage (ie destroy something and get out)
- escort
- Assault/Defense
- (Dis)Activate objective
Most missions have a soft timer (increasing enemy reinforcements over time).
Some will have a hard one (Hold objective for X turns, or kill opponent before he can get out).
Some will also give you friendly cannon fodder.
Retrieving an artifact obviously requires the character who took it to get to an exit.

How many different enemy types will be in the game? Are there bosses?
There will be 3 types of opponents:
- Humanoids (which will have character classes similar to the player), guardians (skeletons, golems, gargoyles), and demons (minotaurs/satyres, winged beasts, shades, fireball scorpion).
Humanoids threatens your borders, or defend them from your operations.
Guardians keep watch over old ruins and other places to loot.
Demons raid your own territory.

All of the enemy also have access to every weapons and most armor, so two sekeleton warriors can differ if one is in heavy armor with a two hander, and the second an archer without any protection.

Opponents also have color-coded elites.

Bosses would play like the lieutenants of Descent: They will give a bonus to their warriors for all battles happening around them, and can sometimes physically be present during missions.
But we don't have unique non humanoid characters yet (and all humanoid characters are paperdolled).

Are the maps (tactical and strategic) handcrafted or procedurally-generated?
They are currently handcrafted, but the goal is to make them like in UFO or XCOM 2: a procedurally generated map but from handcrafted presets.


How much story-driven is the game? Is it open ended / can you chose to not advance further in the story?
It is mostly a sandbox, so it is as story driven as JA2.

As long as you and your opponent both have your stronghold, the game should continue.

How is loot / loot-dropping handled? Will "dungeons" have treasures?
Most opponents won't ever drop anything. Some champions might drop something cool on death, but not the enemy fireball fodder. I hate when games bury the player under a mountain of useless loot to sell to the shopkeeper.
Most of the loot will come from chests.
Most chests won't be on the most direct path to complete the mission, so it is a risk Vs rewards tradeoff.

There will be different kind of loot:
- Items that need to be studied like scrolls and grimoires that will either unlock mission locations, or allow you to do some research.
- Zodic "runes" that will work a bit like XCOM 2 add-ons/PCS (or Diablo 2 gems), and allow you to add some properties to items.
- Generic magic alloy that will allow you to craft enchanted arms and armors.

Will the tactical maps have buildings and to what extend? Will there be different height-levels?
There are only 2 tilesets at the moment.
Grasslands/forest and dungeon.
I plan to add buildings, and fortifications but that would require additional funding.
There would be elevation(for fortifications, hills, and cliffs) but only one height level per tile.
I don't want to have to deal with multiple height levels on the same tile UI wise. I find it always hard to get a good overview of who is where when there are.

Is demo Steam only?
I will make the demo downloadable from the game website too.
Do you plan the EA and/or the final game drm free?
Certainly for the final game. I am not sure about it concerning the EA. It might not be convenient to have EA split among too many platforms when it comes to gathering feedback.

Mac/Linux? (looks Moai supports it, in case of gathering some statistics - at least one linux fan over here)
The game used to run just fine under Linux, but I stopped compiling/testing under Linux quite a few builds ago. I will definitely try to make a Linux demo too.
Regarding Mac, it should be "easy" with moai, but I would need a mac to compile and test it, so I cannot promise anything yet. I will definitely try to support MacOs for the release, but I cannot promise anything for the demo.

What is the state of the neural network AI?
It has sadly been postponed, because there is a lot of UI work to do first, and then, the geoscape needs a lot of work too. It is something I would really love to do, but it will probably have to wait for another game.

[Green11ndy]

Any progress on the demo? This game sounds really cool so far!

[Galdred]

Thank you! That means a lot to me.
I overhauled the UI again, and have reworked the way level building works to make it more intuitive. I still need to add some QoL elements to the game (attack chance preview for instance), and teach the AI how to use magic, and it should be good, so a few more weeks of work.

[DarkSlayer]

Hi! your game looks amazing and very interesting, and as someone who likes Battle Brothers very much can't wait to get my hands on the demo. Any updates on when it will be available?

[Galdred]

Hi! Thank you for dropping by! The plan is to release the "prologue" demo for Steam Winter festival. The prologue itself will come later this year and will be free (it will be a "static" campaign, with a very limited strategic layer).
I still need to sort some issues (Line of sight mostly), improve the game stability, and add out of battle roster and equipment management.

[Saeko]

Added on wishlist ! but i probably wait for the full release to buy, i'm done with early access since so many devs give up if the game not sell well and abandon the game incomplete or full of bug !

[Galdred]

Originally posted by Saeko:

Added on wishlist ! but i probably wait for the full release to buy, i'm done with early access since so many devs give up if the game not sell well and abandon the game incomplete or full of bug !

Thank you. That is quite understandable. I also sometimes prefer to wait for the full release to not get burnt out!
However, I poured almost 8 years and all of my savings into the game, so abandoning it would not be very wise for me at this point!

[Saeko]

Originally posted by Galdred:

Originally posted by Saeko:

Added on wishlist ! but i probably wait for the full release to buy, i'm done with early access since so many devs give up if the game not sell well and abandon the game incomplete or full of bug !

Thank you. That is quite understandable. I also sometimes prefer to wait for the full release to not get burnt out!
However, I poured almost 8 years and all of my savings into the game, so abandoning it would not be very wise for me at this point!

If the return is very good on the demo, maybe i will jump, but i would not play and wait release regardless, i want keep interest for when the game have full feature ! you from france ? since i see the " mag canard pc " ? if yes, bon courage pour la suite !

[Galdred]

That makes sense. I plan to have the game feature complete on EA launch, but not with all content (the end game powers, missions, and items will be missing).
Merci! Yes, I am French, but I currently live in Germany, probably for one year or so.

[Hillhome]

I did not happen upon this in the above postings so perhaps I missed it but is the battle map able to be rotated or does it remain angled from just one perspective? I am curious on this point in particular.

[Galdred]

It will be fixed in one perspective. These are the limitations of our isometric 2.5D (also, we put most props on the 2 walls "opposite" to the player's point of view, but if we rotated the map, they would be against the closest walls in a room, and difficult to see without making all walls transparent.

But there is a key to make walls transparent, and I will make them automatically transparent close to a character if it is not enough, so it should not be a huge issue.

[Saeko]

Originally posted by Galdred:

That makes sense. I plan to have the game feature complete on EA launch, but not with all content (the end game powers, missions, and items will be missing).
Merci! Yes, I am French, but I currently live in Germany, probably for one year or so.

Suisse qui vis au philippines !, when you feels ready with the demo, try to show your game to 2-3 youtuber, like koinsky or dan field for french and for every language, i discovered many game tough the 2 and buy them when not sure about how is the game ! can help to make your game know ! and since that look you communicate well, its probably good & publicity, they tell many time if the devs is good at that and express what the game is about and what the planning etc.. !

Being honest, i don't read anymore any video game web site or magazine, so youtuber can help reach people like me too !

[Retro]

Can your champions be seduced into betraying you? Like could you have a BERSERK situation where one of your champions turns on you and sacrifices half your army for more power.

lol I would love to see something like that happening since ive never seen it before in a game like this.

[Galdred]

Originally posted by J🅾JI:

Can your champions be seduced into betraying you? Like could you have a BERSERK situation where one of your champions turns on you and sacrifices half your army for more power.

lol I would love to see something like that happening since ive never seen it before in a game like this.

I don't think we would do that. It is very hard to make it not feel too random or frustrating. We were thinking about making some characters that could be very unhappy with some of your decisions desert or oppose you, but that too could be difficult to implement in an interesting way.

Another thing we were considering would be to make members of other Zodiac Signs unhappy if you give too much influence to a few Signs, especially if they are from opposite alignment:
For instance, if the signs of Air (Libra, Aquarius, Gemini) are given too much power (artifacts, offices,...) compared to the signs of Earth (Taurus, Capricorn, Virgo), the latter can become unhappy, and maybe take reckless action.

But at this stage, it is only theorycrafting, so I don't know whether it will make it into the game.

I think Forged of Blood had mechanisms that made your characters leave if their personality clashed with your decisions. But I remember players complaining a lot about it.

[Saint Scylla]

I've noticed you plan to offer Steam Workshop support. How easy to mod do you think your game is? What kind of content do you expect the community to create?

[Galdred]

Map "sectors" (like the plots in XCOM 2) should be easy to add.
Changing/adding units, skills, and weapons characteristics will also be relatively easy for someone versed in lua.
Adding new sprite parts may prove quite difficult though:
The sprite animation creation process itself is very complex, as there are a lot of frames to add for a given piece.
On top of that, there are quite a few tedious parts in the process, but I will do what I can to explain it as best as possible.
Adding props should be much easier though.