- Ymir "New Dawn": Alpha completed - 31 March 2026
Contraction HierarchyThe first significant thing I've worked on since the last New Dawn update is something boring and technical called "Contraction Hierarchy", yet a highly important system required to improve battles.It's a pathfinding algorithm which pretty much consists of precalculating all possible paths between all tiles on a map, so that you can then instantly know the cost and path between 2 points without having to calculate it again. This is the kind of algorithm your GPS uses to instantly find the path between two points through the road network.Why is this thing so important in Ymir? During a battle, calculating the path between 2 points isn't just for the movement of troops themselves, it is also used by the AI to decide which enemy and objective to target. This means every troop needs to check the cost to reach EVERY single potential enemy or objective. Calculating the fu…
- Minor patch & New game starting - 8 February 2026
I'm applying a small balancing patch to nerf the efficiency of privileges, in order to make the "full privileges" strategy less effective. The patch will be applied for the start of the new Server 1 game, next Tuesday around 12:00 Paris time. Patch change-logs:population class's wealth from privileges reduced by 50%lowered max leader contribution rate 100% -> 80%lowered max privileges rates for offials and oligarchs from 25% -> 15%reduced leader's contribution factor from x2 -> x1slightly flattened curve of legitimacy derived from oligarchs dominance
- New game starting - 17 December 2025
A new game will start this Friday around 12:00 Paris time on Server 3.
- Ymir "New Dawn": progress update - 9 November 2025
I've invested a lot of effort into increasing the feeling of immersion into the world: Extra work on more biome specific animals, birds, atmospherics, weather, citizens talking, sound ambiance...BattlesFinally it's there: the basic core of battles is functional again. That includes battle resolutions on the server side, and display on the client side. This wasn't just repairing the old code, because the changes in terrain (which now has slopes and not just vertical edges between tiles) also requires an overhaul of how movements and pathfinding works for troops during battles. A big change is that movement speed of troops is now variable: they will slow down proportionally on slopes. That means archers on top of a moat will get much more time to fire at incoming enemies, even if they aren't protected behind a built wall. Cavalry visuals have also been improved compared to legacy: now the…
- New game starting - 20 August 2025
A new game will start this Friday around 12:00 Paris time on Server 1.
- Ymir "New Dawn": progress update - 16 July 2025
Logic display layersThe graphic systems for logic 'display layers' have been completed, allowing players to easily access information about their terrain and city. This system allows me to control, for each display layer, whether to display a specific map as colors on the terrain, or colors on tile edges, or if i want to toggle off the display of buildings, roads, walls etc, or if i want to display built platforms as 'blocs'. This greatly facilitates the creation of easily readable display layers and will make the logic of fortifications far clearer for players.A new "Movement cost" display layer has been added, which specifically focuses on displaying the path-finding grid logic. It clearly shows the tile movement cost, but also the tile edges costs from walls, and the platforms/bridges thanks to the bloc display. That will make complex fortifications much more intuitive to build and a…
- New Dedicated Server - 30 April 2025
Ymir is getting a new dedicated server! For one it's because to be honest i can no longer afford the renting of the previous dedicated server, and it was very expensive for its aging hardware. The new server has a much better hardware in preparation for the needs of New dawn, and even the current Legacy servers should benefit with possibly noticeable improvements in performances. However the downside is that it's located in a less convenient location, which means connectivity will be worse (about 50ms more ping in average). Given the type of game, this should hopefully not matter that much. The client has been updated to point to the new server. However note that your games history ("my games" tab in Join games) will no longer point to the correct IP the first time you reconnect to your games: you will have to rejoin your server from the server list.
- Ymir "New Dawn": progress update - 21 April 2025
Most of the basic required graphic systems are now in place! Fields Fields display is completed. They work pretty much the same way as in the legacy game. Roads & Fences Roads display is completed. A new type of earlier game road has been added: "paths", which are much smaller than the dirt road and will be available right away from the start. Fences now work on a completely new layer: instead of occupying the tiles, they occupy tile-edges allowing you to control intuitively on which edges you want to place them. Because they no longer occupy a tile, it also allows you to combine them with other regular objects such as placing them between a road and a building or creating nice garden separations around houses. Warehouses Resources display using the legacy resources sprites is completed. New warehouses use my new system of asset editor and randomization to make them visually less repeti…
- New game starting - 16 February 2025
A new game has just started on Server 4.
- Adding 5 New resources with new game start on Server 1 this Saturday - 30 January 2025
A new game will start this Saturday around 12:00 Paris time on Server 1. For this occasion, a small update will also be published that will add 5 new resources to the game: Eggs, Milk, Cakes, Silverware and Lamps. Eggs and Milk will be produced by Pastures in the same way wool is. Eggs will require chickens, and Milk will require Cows or Goats. Milk fills the water need. Eggs fills the food need. Cakes will be produced by the bakery and require Flour, Milk, Eggs and Sugarcane, filling pleasure-foods need. Silverware will be produced by the Jewelry with Silver, filling the luxury need. Lamps will be produced by the Potter with Clay and Oil, filling the furnishing need.
- New game starting - 22 November 2024
A new game is starting on Official Server 1 today at 18:00 Paris time. It is on a custom map of Middle Earth made by community member May, and server will be of 120 players.
- New game starting - 26 October 2024
A new game is starting on Official Server 3. It is on a single continent, 100 players, all-biomes random map.
- Ymir "New Dawn": progress update - 9 October 2024
The big visual milestone is that I have finally completed the initial pass on all the biome types, including multiple new ones. Each biome now uses a collection of many more trees, bushes and grass types compared to the legacy game, making the environment look much more visually diverse. There's now hundreds of trees, bushes and grass types in total! Some are still somewhat placeholders that will need more variations/refining, but the overall design of every biome is now well defined. Glacial Sea ice Tundra Taiga Oceanic Continental Steppe Dry (old mediterranean) Savanna (old arid) Desert Jungle (old tropical) Monsoon (new biome, after subtropical monsoon/savanna, SE asia) Humid (new biome, after subtropical humid, asia) Every plant has been modelled after a real-worl...
- New game starting - 7 October 2024
A new game is starting on Official Server 2. It is on a single continent, 100 players, all-biomes random map.
- New game starting - 13 September 2024
A new game is starting on Official Server 1. It is on a single continent, 120 players, all-biomes map.
- New game starting - 17 July 2024
A new game will be starting on Official Server 1, on July 18th around 12:00GMT. It will be on a single continent, 120 players, all-biomes map.
- New game starting - 22 June 2024
A new game will be starting on Official Earth Server, on June 24th at 12:00GMT. This special server runs a giant map of Earth.
- New game starting - 24 May 2024
A new game will be starting on Official Server 3, on May 25th at 12:00GMT.
- New game starting - 24 April 2024
Following community suggestions, I'm going to test posting notifications here when new games are Schedule for a start on the official servers. A new game will be starting on Official Server 1, on April 29th at 12:00GMT. It will be on a single continent, 120 players, all-biomes map.
- Ymir "New Dawn": progress update - 22 February 2024
The new graphics -after being designed as shown in the previous update- are now being slowly 'reconnected' with the actual game, repairing mechanics one by one. This is the slow part. After repairing the basic initialization of client and server, client connection, server lobby and character creation, I finally reached the world map and repaired the core mechanics of it and also completed the basics of the new units display (remaining as 2D animated sprites, but within the 3d environment) used here for formations. For buildings, a new ingame editor has been created to manage 3d models and visually combine them into assets used by the game. 3d buildings and Asset editor A new ingame editor has been added: the asset editor. As buildings will now be 3d based (instead of building types just calling a simple 2D sprite as graphics), buildings will now call an asset file made by this new edito…
