- Español llega a Gerente de Gladiadores! - 20 August 2023
Many thanks to community member and player Pokesus who volunteered to translate the game into Spanish. Here is the first implementation. Rough around the edges and very incomplete, but you can now select 'Spanish' from the main menu. Most of the UI has been translated, as well as the odd bit of coded text. It's a good start that should make the game more playable in Spanish. The irony of making this announcement in English hasn't escaped me. Here's a Google translate: Muchas gracias al miembro de la comunidad y jugador Pokesus que se ofreció como voluntario para traducir el juego al español. Aquí está la primera implementación. Áspero en los bordes y muy incompleto, pero ahora puede seleccionar 'Español' en el menú principal. La mayor parte de la interfaz de usuario ha sido traducida, así como un poco de texto codificado. Es un buen comienzo que debería hacer que el juego sea más jugabl…
- Minor fix patch - 12 April 2023
Thanks to the community for spotting a few (hopefully) final rare bugs: Fixed a rare instance of some short term injuries sometimes 'healing' a fighter in their transition residual phase before disappearing. This only ever lasted one week before being auto-fixed anyway, which is why it has gone unnoticed so long, but hopefully now squashed. Fixed an issue with some permanent damage to agility not saving properly between saves. Fixed the display of 'expected crowd' in the selection screen to properly show the crowd.
- Minor Bleed Out Fix - 28 September 2022
Thanks to dltoaster for spotting a rare edge case involving bleed outs spreading to an opponent. Now fixed for v.2.08.
- Roman Name Update! - 19 September 2022
Thanks to Kobrelo for doing a lot of the legwork on this one and giving me some useful information on Roman naming conventions. Roman names are now a lot more various and sophisticated. Citizens, veterans and criminals will now be named using praenomen-nomen or nomen-cognomen conventions. Slaves will now have single names from a wider pool. Either way there should now be a lot more variety and even a few more of the somewhat mad combinations for those of you who enjoy the 'Totally random' setting like me! :)
- Minor fixes and QOL - 14 September 2022
A minor update today. Fixed 'Distract' not triggering on quick strikes. Fixed 'Distract' not triggering on undefended flank attacks. Added league positions to the results screen so that you can more easily see when a major upset occurs, and makes it easier to track the progress of rival teams.
- Minor Fixes for Distract and Inspire, and Season Awards - 24 July 2022
In response to popular demand I have agreed to return to this project for polishing and fixing purposes. No promises on the future, but I'll try to knock off any remaining bugs people locate (seems like it is running at 99% now but there are one or two left over) and maybe will consider any simple QoL / feature things that are sufficiently simple. I am primarily focusing on a new project so no further major changes likely. Thanks to the community for the continuing love for the game! v2.03 Fixed 'Distract' perk totally nullifying (or even negativing) opposing fighters - instead the opposing team will now recover 'inspiration' over time, and if you try to overload them with the perk then they will recover all the faster, so that it works as intended now - i.e. if you use it once every 3-4 turns it will keep the enemy team distracted, but not wiped out. Ditto for enemy team 'formation'. F…
- Anniversary Update! - 28 January 2022
Tomorrow is the one year anniversary since the release of Gladiator Manager! I can't thank the player base enough for a really wonderful year with sales that exceeded my hopes, and loads of fantastic feedback (mainly positive, but also very helpful constructive criticism too). I won't say the game is quite a polished article (I'm not exactly AAA, operating out of my basement in my spare time) but it's very close to bug free (in fact I'm only aware of one minor outstanding bug in the whole game), and certainly in full working order. I've therefore decided to call this latest release v.2.0 in honour of the anniversary, and how far the game has come since those dodgy early days before the players helped me wipe out a plethora of bugs, and refined the gameplay to its present awesome state. Now that it's all working so well I'm going to call it complete. I could let feature creep keep me goi…
- MAJOR UPDATE: AI MANAGERS! - 9 January 2022
An exciting new feature in this update: each team now has an AI manager with a name and a personality! This feels like a key part of world building and story telling, that I know a lot of you are keen on. I hope that it should result in more of a unique vibe to the different teams as they get slowly molded to the image of their manager. New Feature - AI Managers! AI Managers have names and personalities; you can see this information under the enemy fighter table in the team selection screen. AI Manager traits affect all areas of the game, from in fight decision making to team selection and financial management. Teams that get sacked will replace their manager with a random new manager. This new feature is save game compatible. The first time you load up after downloading the patch, the game will populate managers for all teams. However, the impact on an already existing save might take…
- v.1.4: Love is the air! - 12 December 2021
Miscellaneous fixes and improvements this week alongside a brand new relationship type: Lovers! Gameplay New relationship type: Lovers! Lovers will appear by way of random event like the other relationship events. Lovers get a HUGE bonus to Bravery and Toughness when fighting on the same team (30%), DOUBLED if they are fighting adjacent (60%). This means lovers fighting alongside one another could be really difficult to take down, very difficult to do serious injury to them, and unshakeable morale. Lovers also get the same greed and morale bonuses as Best Friends. Lovers also get the same nerfs to morale when their lover gets injured, dies or gets sacked. Increased the prize money for winning the top division from 15k to 20k. Fixes Fixed a bug that sometimes caused a crash when player started a match with convicts in their own team. Fixed a bug that was causing low mood or condition to…
- V.1.39: League History - Brand new geek-out data screen! - 26 November 2021
Loads of stuff in this latest patch. The main item is a brand new data screen - League History. Details below! Also - Brand new relationships and events! :) UI / Presentation Added a new League History screen. Accessible from the ‘League’ tab this screen will display the winners of the league, along with their basic stats like points, wins, kills etc. So now over a multi-year game you can check out who’s been dominating in your division – and vie for the whitewashing of the board with your name! The new ‘League History’ screen will start recording results from the end of the next season in your current saves, but I’m afraid won’t contain the history up until this point in existing saves. Added a note confirming the effect of sparring partner bonuses on training. Added the option to make the main player-character a Freestyler during character creation. Gameplay Added a new relationship t…
- v1.38 Minor Fixes and Balances - 13 November 2021
Thanks to the community for the ongoing reports, which are responsible for most of this week's minor improvements. Gameplay / Balancing Trebled the financial prize for having the most successful fighter each season (most wins), so this is now between £3,000 (div5) and £15,000 (div1). Added a financial prize for winning promotion – same amounts as for best fighter in the case of play-off winner, and slightly more for 1st place. Fixes / UI Improvements Fixed a bug causing rare crashes in cup simulations Fixed a bug that could result in the first place team being overtaken by the second placed team during the play-offs if they had otherwise been tied on points. That could have the unfortunate side effect of the 1st placed team not then getting promoted. Fixed ‘Rage’ attacks from non-barbarian classes causing blunt damage when that was inappropriate. Fixed a bug sometimes causing enemy figh…
- V.1.37 Maintenance Patch - 30 October 2021
This week's patch is packed full of less exciting but important minor fixes and balance changes. Thanks to the community for the help and suggestions getting these sorted. Gameplay / Balance Increased the condition gain/loss from easy/hard training by 50%. Decreased the chances of getting gains to max Potential from training focus. Increased crowd attendance in divisions 1 & 2, hopefully leading to more money for top division teams and thus more chance to afford higher quality veterans etc. Making those divisions more challenging, but more rewarding too. User Interface Added a column to the barracks table to show training focus and intensity. Added a battle log which can be found in your Steam Gladiator Manager directory in the folder “GladiatorManager_data”. The file is called log.txt and records only the text of the most recent battle. Fixes Fixed a bug causing top division simulation…
- Major Update - New Class! v1.36 - 23 October 2021
A very exciting update this week with a brand new class joinging the fight! THE FREESTYLER! Brand new fighter class: the Freestyler Freestylers have a similar chance to generate as Gladiators, and will more commonly be Citizens. They will start to appear in current save games as well as new games. Freestylers typically have much better Initiative, as well as higher bravery and weapon skill They will often have very bad discipline and poor leadership Freestylers fight with a sword AND a club! They can use horizontal cutting attacks as well as vertical overhead smash and crush attacks They have average leather armour (same as Gladiator and Leader) Freestyler perks are completely random - you will get three random options to choose from instead of just one Freestylers have no advantage over any class, and are not vulnerable to any class so they are a good buffer in any line up to prevent b…
- v1.35 Released - New Training Intensity Options! - 26 September 2021
Development continues apace with a new training intensity feature this week, along with new relationships and various other minor improvements! New Features / Gameplay Added a new training feature: intensity! Intensity can be set in the barracks screen by the dropdown next to the ‘focus’ option. ‘Easy’ training will result in roughly 25% less frequent gains; ‘hard’ will result in roughly 25% more frequent gains. ‘Easy’ training will result in roughly 25% better condition recovery, so fighters should stay in good condition more easily when on easy training. ‘Hard’ training will result in 25% worse condition recovery, extending into the negative, so fighters with a poor ‘Recovery’ attribute are likely to degrade condition on hard training even when not fighting. The Recovery attribute is therefore much more important for long term training – which is appropriate given that it is usually h…
- I'm back! v.1.34 and more on the way... - 11 September 2021
Thanks for your patience over the summer. As explained in the forum this game remains very much in development but I took the summer to walk from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean across the Pyrenees, so not much time for game dev! I'll be back on it over the next six months at least, continuing to track down those last bugs, provide further QOL and continue to develop the events side of the game as well as adding in the odd new feature here and there. This update includes the following: Features / Gameplay Added a ‘golden boot’ award for the fighter with the most wins in each division – and a news item to report the result. Added a very basic season summary pop-up. More info in due course. Added another event. Added a new relationship: Blood Brothers – a rare progression from ‘Best Friends’ with extremely powerful bonuses for fighting together. Doubled energy loss from low condition du…
- V 1.33 Fixes and QoL - 5 June 2021
Hi. Sorry for slower progress in the last fortnight - the day job has been very demanding. Some nice little improvements in various areas of the game with this edition. Current ability now goes down when a fighter is permanently injured (and already did so on aging) so now fighters in decline are more accurately represented. This also helps the AI make better management decisions. Fixed a bug causing multi-choice events to break. Fixed start of battle stats not to show when the leaders are on zero (i.e. beginning of game). Fixed a bug allowing defenders to sometimes use a shield even after it had been shattered (i.e. when using the guard perk). They will now correctly dodge. Fixed incorrect kill bonus reporting in the weekly news. Greatly improved damage modifier reporting in normal battle view, separating out and more accurately reporting class advantages, relationship effects, difficu…
- 1.32: More Relationships! - 24 May 2021
Some new relationships, and some general updates. Gameplay Added a new relationship event - > ‘Friends’ progresses to ‘Best Friends’, with all associated bonuses (and nerfs) doubled. (i.e. in fight attack, defence and damage bonuses, morale loss on friend injury/death/sacking, greed reduction). Added a new relationship type! -> ‘Sparring Partners’. This relationship can come up as a random event, giving the two partners a permanent double chance to make normal (non-combat) training gains at least so long as their partner is not killed or sacked. Any bonus gains will be reported in the usual training reports. Added a new relationship type! -> ‘Enemies’. This relationship can come up as a random event, giving the two partners a nerf to attack, defence and damage when fighting in battle alongside their enemy, as well as a mood reduction. Mood increases if the enemy is injury, sacked or kil…
- 1.31: Friendships! - 16 May 2021
This update brings the first fully functional relationship: friends. Gameplay - Friendships Following the last update in which fighters could become friends in chance events, those relationships now have real in-game effects: Added 10% defence, attack and damage bonuses when two ‘friends’ fight in the same battle, doubled to 20% if they fight in adjacent slots. Friendships, and their consequences, are now reported at the start of a fight. Added a +10 mood bonus for friends when fighting together, that takes effect in fight and persists afterwards, subject to other effects. Friends will however lose up to 10 mood if their friend is injured during the fight, possibly cancelling the bonus out. Added a -50 mood nerf if a friend is killed. Added a -25 mood nerf if a friend is sacked. Reduced greed of friends by 10, meaning they will demand lower salaries and fees, for so long as their friend…
- v.1.3 Bounties and first signs of relationships! - 6 May 2021
Steady progress. A few miscellaneous bits and pieces in this update, showing general advancement across the board and working towards a few good goals. Gameplay Added bounty payments for taking out league stat leaders, doubled on kill. The bounty up for grabs (if any) is reported on starting the game and again if it is achieved. The bounty amount depends upon league and fighter current ability. Typically will vary between a couple of hundred pounds up to £10k in top division. Added a couple of limited friendship events, which at present are proof of concept and aesthetic, but don’t change gameplay – yet (the data that they are friends will stay saved though, so once implemented the effects will kick in). Added another ‘choice’ event. UI / Display Added reference to the division of dead fighters on news screen so player can see at a glance who died in their div. Added an armour toughness…
- Events &c. - 1 May 2021
Some good infrastructure work in this update to lay the ground for the future. The major news here is that I've started to add events to the game. At present they are so few in number, and so rare, that you might not see them at all unless you get lucky. I will be adding more over time so that in due course they should start to be a regular feature in the game. But I want to keep them relatively original and non-repetitious, so it'll take a while. My philosophy here is that the events should be relevant to what's actually going on in some way. That means the events will be triggered by the personality/attribute scores of fighters on the team, or by something that happened in the match, or an achievement of some sort. Of course some will be truly random. There is also some code in place now for fighter relationships, although it's not fully implemented yet. Relationships will be an event…
