Ludus Magnatus: Gladiator Manager Simulator news & patch notes

Salvēte Lanistas! Another day, Another update and another all-time concurrent record has been broken. No less than 1117 of you are playing the game right now which honestly I wouldn't even had dared dreamt about a week ago! Thank you a million times for this, I promise I will do everything I can to make this game as good as it can possible be!

As for the update, I actually was planning to wait and not release one today, but instead make a larger one, but some rather critical bugs was discovered, so I figured you would appreciate those fixes were deployed as fast as possible.

Patch notes:

• Fixed a critical bug, that unequipped inventory could get wrongly deleted when loading a save

• Improved savegames being saved as Singleplayer and loaded in Multiplayer and vice versa

• Disabled the \ hotkey for the next day button, when the rename panel is open

• Renamed the header saying "Club" to "Ludus" in the league panel

• Fixed an issue with a client joining a Multiplayer game, when they were already registered in that specific session

• Improved season stats synchronization in Multiplayer

• Fixed a rare visual bug in the Post Match Screen for Multiplayer, where clients wouldn't see any values under earnings / renown gain (They did still get the correct amount)

Patch 0.92.7A:

• Made additional Multiplayer stability and synchronization improvements

• Fixed a bug that in rare cases would make an equipped helmet dissapear if a gladiator wearing it got the Legendary trait

• Fixed that Doctores could wrongly teach Legendary and Demigod traits

Furthermore, after quite a few comments and feedback from players from specific regions in regards to the price of the game, I decided to conduct a thorough review and comparrison. It turned out that especially in Poland the game was priced way too high, and when the Polish zloty was converted to EUR it was more expensive than the EUR price. This was of course not the intention and I have therefore decided to decrease the price there as well as in some other regions, where when factoring in local purchasing power it was significantly more expensive compared to Europe and the US.

I do want to note I don't plan any other price changes/decreases in the future, as I don't think that's fair for the players that already bought it, but on the other hand it was simply at a level where it wasn't reasonable either that the game was more expensive in Poland than it is in Denmark.

Price decreases:

Currency

Percentage

Russian Rubles

-19%

Ukrainian Hryvnia

-19%

Polish zloty

-34%

CIS - USD

-19%

SASIA - USD

-19%

LATAM - USD

-19%

MENA - USD

-19%

As always please remember to report any bugs you encounter in the appropiate forum which can be found here: Bug Reporting

All the best, and may Mars bring your gladiators favour in the arena! Mathias

Salvēte great citizens of Rome!

I know I am 100% repeating myself here, but earlier today the game hit a new all-time peak of no less than 931 concurrent players! This is honestly surreal for me and I am really grateful for the level of support so many of you are showing! And now without further ado, lets move on to the reason why you are reading this ;) Patch notes for today are as follows:

• Fixed a lot of UI elements not being aligned correctly to the top when playing at a 16:10 aspect ratio

• Updated the 3:2 aspect ratio to align fully to the screen width, preventing UI elements from extending out of view

• Added \ as a hotkey for the Next Day button

• Fixed benched Gladiators incorrectly receiving an energy boost after training matches

• Fixed a multiplayer issue where starting a training match immediately after a PvP match could cause you to face the other player’s Gladiators

• Removed the requirement to wait for other players to finish training or exhibition matches before progressing to the next day in multiplayer. These matches are handled locally, while synchronization occurs at the next league, Champions Cup, or end-of-season gate anyway

• Made significant improvements and optimizations to multiplayer synchronization

Patch 0.92.6A

• Fixed an issue for Ultrawide monitors caused by the latest update

It does seem that there's less and less bugs being reported now, which means that soon I can move on to focus on making the more fun content for you all to enjoy. But once more, a kind reminder to please report any bugs you find in the appropiate discussion forum as it makes it much easier for me to keep track of. All the best! Mathias

Salvēte Lanistas!

A couple of hours ago a new all-time peak of 748 concurrent players was achieved. Amazing to see so many of you around in the stands!

For the ones of you that read the patch notes for version 0.92.4 you might recall I mentioned that the AI is not cheating even though a lot of you kept reporting that it heavily felt like that. Well, turns out you were right and due to the user Arcadius performing a deep dive into the data in one of his save files, it lead me to the cause of the issue which was that in AI vs AI matches, the dead gladiators' equipment would get duplicated and they would then sell these duplicates at the market earning them much more denarii than they should have - Great work there and happy this got fixed!

Here's the full patch notes:

• Fixed AI clubs incorrectly receiving duplicate equipment from dead gladiators

• Added Multiplayer support for saving each client’s previously controlled ludus, allowing them to immediately resume control when rejoining an existing save. For existing saves, this will take effect after the next autosave

• Fixed an issue that could cause desyncs when returning to the Main Hub in long-running multiplayer games

• Added that Roster sorting will now carry over to the Pregame Selection scene

• Fixed Gladiator combat sounds not respecting the SFX volume slider

• Added an attack cooldown for unarmed Gladiators to prevent them from stun-locking opponents

As always thank you so much for the continued support, it is truly appreciated and encouraging! Mathias

Hello dear Lanistas! A couple of hours ago another milestone was hit when the game hit its all-time peak of 619 concurrent players! Truly thank you for all the support - It's honestly overwhelming in the best possible way! Furthermore, I really want to highlight how great it is to see so many of you helping out each other answering questions, and discussing ideas / suggestions in such a civil and polite manner, even when you have different opinions which is so refreshing.

Now regarding these suggestions, there's been a lot of very good ones so before we get to the patch notes I wanted to emphasize which ones I have already added to my list and I will be adding in the future:

• Custom Ludus Designer (Logo & Name)

• Roster view QOL improvements

• Historic stats of Gladiators

• Being able to view other Ludus details, information, history etc. Makes sense to combine with the one above

• Market improvements - Will likely add a new Ludus Upgrade that allows the player to focus on certain categories e.g. you focus on Tier 4 and the next week more Tier 4 items will show up. Kind of like how the scout works for the Ludus Exchange

• Tactics improvements and additional instructions

• Posibility to see "possible" opponents in the pregame selection. I was thinking about adding a spy character who would be able to provide intel like this for the player(s)

• News section improvements to make messages overall clearer

• Decisions in regards to Ludus Management - Small random events / decisions the player has to make on the non-match days. But I think it's important it doesn't become too spammy and will probably even make this optional for the players that want a more focused playthrough

• Rework the Champions Cup and have higher division teams enter the competition at later stages/rounds

Now for this patch I see there's quite a lot of threads / reviews / comments about the current balancing, and let me start out by just stating that the AI in the game does not cheat nor do they have any starting equipment or other advantages. They play by the exact same conditions as players which means that for the AI controlled Ludi starting in higher tiers, they will have gotten the higher earnings from matches, end of season rewards and so forth. This is why quite a few players experience a significant gap when they get promoted to a higher division, suddenly facing these teams which had a headstart. Now I generally dislike dumbing down AI, but on the other hand they are currently min-maxxing everything, spamming training/exhibition matches as often as they can and so forth. So I might do this in the future and make them behave differently according to the difficulty. However, for now due to a brilliant suggestion on the forum I have changed so that the Medicus gets 1 attempt per gladiator instead of per match, which means that it should be a bit more forgiving loosing matches in terms of less gladiators dying depending on your Medicus level of course.

• Buffed Medicus so that they get 1 attempt on each Gladiator

• Added missing voice announcement for Emerita Eagles

• Fixed the Scout tooltip to make it a bit more clear what the next upgrade provides

• Fixed a bug that if you change the tactics, clicked save quick and moved to another panel it didn't save that change

• Added the new translation system to the PostMatch Panel so it should now be all nicely translated

• Fixed an issue that Cyrillic and East Asian letters would not format correctly when characters with those letters in their name was shown in the Cup Panel

• Fixed a bug for Multiplayer games where when loading a save, it wouldn't correctly register which teams were previously player controlled and have the AI take over

• Added several improvements to Multiplayer save / loading

Also kind reminder that if you do encounter a bug, please post it in the "Bug reporting" channel and try to be as detailed as possible as it makes it so much easier for me to fix after all.

All the best and remember Rome wasn't built in one day, but it became quite great ;) Mathias

Hello everyone, First and foremost thank you so much for the continued support! 514 players are playing this game now which is a massive achievement for me and I can't stress how proud I am! Furthermore, the review score also seems to slowly be going up towards a more positive one which is equally great! However, that doesn't mean I don't read and try to address all the feedback provided and hopefully this patch like the one yesterday will slightly improve a small part of it for the better.

Patch notes:

• Added the heavily requested "unequip all gladiators" button to the game (It actually is by far the most requested one)

• Fixed a rare bug that could reset gear & tactics between saves

• Fixed a bug that could make Heavy Training status leak over to other saves

• Fixed a desync bug for Multiplayer when a client was leaving a training match / Exhibition match

• Boosted the Easy difficulty from 1500 to 2000 starting Denarii, and +10 stats to +15 stats for starting Gladiators. Should provide an easy start for new players, while still providing a proper challenge later on

• Added text that shows which stat is currently being trained by the Doctore in the training panel to make it a bit more clear besides the icon

• Added missing blood effects for the portaits in the Division 1 & 2 Arena scenes

• Fixed Legionaires not correctly wearing a shield in Exhibition Matches

• Increased the HP for the Praetorians by 200 HP

• Fixed a bug where if a Doctore had the "Showman" trait, gladiators gaining it from him/her would keep their helmet on and not have it automatically added back to their inventory.

• Fixed translations not always correctly applying when retiring a gladiator as Doctore, selling them or starting heavy training

Patch 0.92.3A Patch notes:

• Fixed the new Training text not being translated correctly

• Fixed translation for "Blocked from training"

• Fixed a minor bug that prevented players from starting a training match if they clicked next day while having the Ludus Panel open

I want to thank the ones of you who helped reporting these bugs / QOL requests, and if you find a bug please report it in the Steam forums! See you all around in the Arena stands :) Mathias

Hello everyone, First and foremost thank you so much for the overwhelming support, I can see a lot of you are currently playing which is amazing to see! However, this was not the smoothest of launches and that's entirely on me - Hopefully this first patch addresses some of the difficulties players are facing with the game.

• Boosted the "Easy" difficulty by giving the player's starting Gladiators an additional +10 to all stats

• Added new "Disable Permanent Death" option, which makes gladiators become "injured" instead of dying

• Attempted a fix for "Hold Formation" tactic instruction which seemed to occasionally make Gladiators act weird

Furthermore I released a bugfix earlier that fixed the following 2 issues:

• Added a button to minimize the tutorial window

• Fixed ESC not correctly closing the settings menu in the MainHub

If you encounter any sort of bugs/odd behavior, please post them in the Steam forums and try to be as detailed as possible. I want to fix them so it helps me a lot :) Best regards Mathias

Patch: 0.92.1A is out now! Please restart Steam if you don't already see it available in your downloads Fixed the following 2 issues: -Settings in MainHub can now be closed with ESC key -Added new Minimize button to the Tutorial Apologies for this one!

The gates are open, the crowds are roaring, and your journey as a lanista can finally begin.

Ludus Magnatus: Gladiator Manager Simulator is now available in Early Access on Steam!

The Beginning of Early Access

Reaching Early Access is a huge milestone, but it is not the end of development.

During Early Access, I will continue improving balance, performance, usability, multiplayer stability, and the overall depth of the game. Player feedback will be extremely valuable in deciding where Ludus Magnatus goes from here.

Please share your experiences, suggestions, balance feedback, and bug reports through the Steam Discussions. I will be reading everything closely.

Furthermore, I would also like to know if there's a demand for more translations as there's a couple of languages I am considering to add. For now these are listed below, but I am not sure if there's a big enough demand for these to justify it, so kindly let me know!

• Chinese (Traditional)

• Serbian

• Croatian

• Greek

• Czech

• Hungarian

Thank You

At last I just want to say thank you to everyone who followed the development, helped me test, played the demo, shared feedback, reported bugs, created videos, joined discussions, and added the game to their wishlist.

Your support made this release possible, and I am incredibly excited to finally place the game in your hands.

Salvēte future Lanistas!

In around 24 hours from now, the game officially releases in Early Access! As I know a lot of you are travelling to Rome from all corners of the Empire, I figured I would provide you with an overview of the different release times:

For Content Creators: I am currently receiving request for keys at a pace where I am unable to keep up with it, and sadly there's also a lot of impersonators trying to get free Steam keys. Therefor, from now on I will only accept requests submitted via Keymailer: https://www.keymailer.co/g/games/d4cfd961

FAQ: I also wanted to answer a few recurring questions, to manage expectations of what to expect of this Early Access Release. Q: What is the current state of the game? A: The game is fully playable and is not missing any content, this goes for both Singleplayer and Multiplayer. The way I see it is, I built a strong fully working and cohesive foundation for the game, and through Early Access the intention is to add additional features. This was the reason why I took my time with this Early Access Release after the Steam Next Fest participation back in March.

Q: Do you control the Gladiators yourself? A: No, you don't directly control the Gladiators in this game. Instead you control everything else around them like training, equipment & tactics. The camera angle from the trailer is just a new "Action Cam" I added to the game, where if you click their portait in a match the camera will focus on that single gladiator. Q: How does Multiplayer work? A: Multiplayer is session based, meaning other players will control different ludi/clubs in the same game. Think of it as instead of another AI controlled Ludus in your game it's just a player controlling it. Matches between you are then synced so you see the same battle live and of course also to ensure that stats and results from it are synced. For full transparency, I do want to emphasize that Multiplayer in this game is designed for people playing with friends as it's rather slow-paced.

Hope to see a lot of you in the Arena stands!

Salvé Lanistas!

Today I am very excited to show you what I have been very busy with lately, and as you can probably tell from the title, that is Multiplayer!

I will be honest and say that this was by far the most difficult feature that needed to be added to the game. Especially because, at the time, I had made the mistake of not building many of the systems with multiplayer in mind. On the other hand, I am also very proud to announce that I have achieved it — and more importantly, that it is actually working great and is a ton of fun to play!

Before I show you how Multiplayer works in practice, I also want to highlight that all the reworking and refactoring had a very positive side effect: a lot of the code has been optimized as well. This means everything now runs smoother in Singleplayer too :)

So, let’s start with what it looks like when you are hosting a new Multiplayer game.

For those of you who played the demo back when it was active, you will notice that there are a few new settings here exclusively for Multiplayer. The most important one is probably “Club Selection”, which has three different options:

• Division 7 only - New players can only select clubs from Division 7.

• Host's Division - Players joining can select any team from the same division as the Host.

• Unrestricted - All players, including the host, can pick any team from any division.

These settings are especially useful when hosting saved games. For example, if you as the host are already in a higher division, your friends will not be stuck in Division 7. That is also why it is possible to change this setting whenever you host one of your saved games.

As for joining games, there is a basic lobby list showing the kind of information you would expect. I have also integrated Steam multiplayer, so you are able to invite your friends directly through Steam.

For now, I have set the maximum number of players per session to 8, but this can be increased to 16 if there is demand for it. And honestly, it could be really fun to try a full season where every team is player controlled!

After you have designed your Lanista, you move on to Ludus Selection. This is where I had to overcome quite a few small but important issues — for example, what happens if two players select the same Ludus at almost exactly the same time?

Thankfully, after a lot of testing, this issue has been solved. You will now see that Ludus already selected by other players are shown as unavailable in the list.

Once you are in an actual game, you will see that other player-controlled Ludus are marked with a special colour in the League panel. The same also applies to their Gladiators.

I have also implemented it so that if you join a new game on Day 1, you receive the same starting conditions as the host. However, if you join an ongoing game or a saved game, you are essentially taking over the existing club, including all their equipment, assignments, and so on.

When you play against AI-controlled teams, it functions much like Singleplayer, except the results are sent to the host so everything remains synchronized.

Player matches, however, work a bit differently. As you can see in the screenshot below, once you submit your selection, it is synced to the other player. This is why you need to wait until both players have submitted their selections.

Once you get into the match, both players also need to click the “Start Match” button before the fight actually begins. This ensures that both players are watching the match play out “live”.

Please keep in mind that there can be around a 0.5 second delay for clients compared to the host, but aside from that, everyone sees the exact same match.

Multiplayer is honestly a ton of fun in this game. Even during testing, where the main focus was finding bugs and desync issues, we still ended up having a great time playing it.

I know it all looks pretty straightforward, but as you can imagine, there are a lot of small things that need to work together to make sure everything is correctly synchronized in a setup like this. After extensive testing, I am pleased to say that all known bugs have been fixed so far, so hopefully you will be able to enjoy a smooth release with limited to no issues.

That being said, if you do encounter a bug, please report it as soon as possible here on the Steam forums so it can be fixed.

I am very excited to see you all getting to enjoy the game just one month from now!

Best regards, Mathias

Salvēte future Lanistas!

The time has finally come, Gladiators from across the empire are doing their final preparations, the officials are finishing up the arenas and the crowds impatient for when the league kicks off!

Ludus Magnatus: Gladiator Manager Simulator will release in Early Access July 21st!

So with the big news out, lets take this opportunity to take a look at some of the new features that's been added to the game.

Gladiator Variety

I believe this might have been one of the very first suggestions made on the Steam forums, and with good reason. Until now all Gladiators shared the same height and facial features. Only variety was eye, skin and hair colour as well as beards for men. With these changes, height, build and facial features will now differ per Gladiator to create more variety to make them feel more unique. Furthermore after doing VERY extensive research aka watching Spartacus: House of Ashur I realised they would often shave, so body hair has been toned down for the males, but will differ slightly. At last eye textures has also gotten a major visual update for both Gladiators and Lanistas alike.

Lanista Customization

I believe we've all tried at some point in a game to regret some of our customization choices in a game at some point. However, fear not - It's now possible to change your clothes, hairstyle and accessories at any time for your Lanista.

Ludus Renown

You might have noticed that next to your Denarii in the menu there's a new field showing with a number. This is your Ludus Renown and essentially an indicator of how "famous" your Ludus is. And while such a metric is of course fun to have, it would be a bit boring if it wasn't tied to any gameplay, which creates a natural transition to the next feature added I want to show you.

Exotic Trader

The Exotic trader is a new addition to the game that allows you to purchase different kind of contracts. These contracts are mostly tied to Exhibition Matches, but it's also a way to unlock new armours in the market.

Exhibition Matches

So what can probably be considered the biggest "new" feature is that of Exhibition Matches. Not only does it allow you to setup special matches against all sorts of exotic enemies (As long as you've unlocked them), it also acts as a way to boost your Gladiators' fame and Ludus Renown additionally. Because of this I've decided to add a 30 day cooldown to them. And to be honest, I might increase this further or make it an option as I don't want it to distract too much from the core gameplay loop. Furthermore, it also prompted me having to redo a lot of the code behind how matches are done, as to support the new wave system.

Besides these things, a lot of smaller QOL changes and improvements has been added, a bunch of which was suggested by players of the demo - So really appreciate the feedback once again! For the ones of you interested in these kind of things I've added my internal "patch notes".

(DONE) Added Ludus Renown

(DONE) Added "battle cam" to Gladiators in matches

(DONE) Added new hairstyles

(DONE) More variety with body hair

(DONE) Added more Gladiator variety

(DONE) Added new Eye textures

(DONE) Added Multiple favourites icon + making them show in pregame selection

(DONE) Added Barbershop

(DONE) Fixed background characters spawn for training and tactics on Ultrawide monitors

(DONE) Improved Combat

(DONE) Fixed new hairs with helmets

(DONE) Added Exotic Market

(DONE) Improved Market Scene

(DONE) Champions cup now show division of the teams in the pregame selection

(DONE) New Loading Screens

(DONE) Changed Dirty Fighter

(DONE) Made AI use more varied equipment and weapon loadouts

(DONE) Added Exhibition Matches

(DONE) Added New Armours

(DONE) Fixed Dirty Fighter text

(DONE) Fixed trait gains

(DONE) Combat experience now always show as number 2 trait

(DONE) Added trait list for Gladiators with more than 5 traits

(DONE) Pregame - Fixed start match text

(DONE) Trait gain from training has been decreased from 1% to 0.5% daily chance

(DONE) Fixed Doctore(s) spelling when singular

(DONE) Added Blood effects to portraits of dead gladiators

(DONE) Changed so duplicate items now show a counter in the Stash instead of being multiple entries

(DONE) Added Localization support to the game and started translations

Now the focus before release is to finish/polish up a few minor things, but otherwise solely on Multiplayer and Translations.

All the best

Mathias

Salvēte Lanistas! In this little developer blog I would like to show you all of some of the things I have been busy with as of late :) First of all, I want to give a huge thank you to the players reporting bugs, suggestions and just general feedback on the game in the Steam forums. And also just to say that I truly appreciate the positivity and kind comments - Even when people are providing constructive criticism, it's being done in a very mature and polite manner.

With all that being said, now lets move on to probably the biggest new addition that has been added to the game!

Training Overhaul

This is probably the single most requested features / feedback I got from the demo, and you were all right. Honestly I should've done this one from the beginning.

My concern back then was that I didn't want players to be able to just keep training up their best Gladiators without putting them in any danger, but I do think the system I've come up with is kind of cool and creative and makes the player have to take some difficult decisions. Doctores

Each Ludus can now retire one of their Gladiators as their Doctores. This is where the difficult decision comes into play, as you can't reverse this decision and call them back from retirement. However, you can of course replace them with another Gladiator if you find a better fit and lets just say your former Doctores won't like this, and might consider coming out of retirement for another Ludus. As you can see from the screenshot above, the Doctores stats and trait acts as your cap and what they can teach your other Gladiators. This means that if you Doctores has 50 in each stat, this is the maximum cap your Gladiators can train to, furthermore, they all have a 1% daily chance of getting any positive traits that the Doctores has or loosing a negative if it's the opposite to it. E.g. Loosing unathletic if Doctores has Athletic. This cap also goes for the "Heavy Training", which I've kept but changed so it's now fully reliant on the Doctores and not your Drillmaster. This means the gold per upgrade for drillmaster has also been reduced by half.

Training Matches

You will now see there's a new "Decisions" tab in the Ludus Management - More on those other decisions in another blog later :) But the first of them is "Setup Training Match". So a much requested feature was to be able setup sparring / training matches between your own Gladiators, and your wish has been heard.

First of all, you have full flexibility in what kind of match compositions you like here, they can even be asymmetrical so 2 vs 4 or whatever you really like.

Training matches of course won't provide you any income nor fame. But your Gladiators will be rewarded with combat experience as if it was a normal match. Because of this I have also added a 1 week cooldown on training matches so they can't just be continously spammed. However, while your Gladiators can't die from training matches, they can be injured. When Gladiators get injured they will get a special temporary trait named "Injured", which put them at 0% energy for 1 to 14 days. Effectively making them unavailable for the important matches, so while training matches doesn't have any fatal risks associated with them, you should probably still consider not making your main guy go 1 vs 5 before that important Champions Cup Match. So I believe these 2 were probably the most requested features I've been getting.... Or wait more indepth tactics was also a request I believe - Oh well, I'll add that as well!

Tactics overhaul

So improved tactics is something I wanted to do for quite a while, and I am very pleased to present this new feature to you all. You will see that first of all you're able to setup a "stance" for each slot. Being Aggresive, Balanced & Defensive. Balanced is the default which everyone was using before, where as with Aggresive the Gladiator will take more risks and defensive show more caution. Furthermore, you can now also assign an individual instruction to each slot, which is honestly a ton of fun to see play out in the actual matches!

Combat Experience

So with a new training system in place, it was also suggested that actual combat experience should be a thing. And I actually really liked this, and honestly implemented it in a very simplistic way.

So combat experience will be tied directly to fame, as that's anyway a stat only obtainable through combat, so made sense to just piggyback off that one. You'll also notice that Block and Dodge baselines has been decreased, and the way those then increase are by improving your combat experience. There's 8 levels of combat experience - And lets just say that reaching 400 fame might make your Gladiators "Legendary" ;)

Internal patch notes:

I started out this blog by saying how much I appreciated the bug reports, and I wasn't just being modest because I honestly would've never found some of those myself. But I do believe that I have now fixed every single one reported (please let me know if I haven't). I do know some people are reporting long loading screen times, and I am trying to figure out why this seems to happen for only some people. But I am of course committed to get this fixed as I totally get it's not a great experience (even though my new loading screens are cool!). In case you're curious on what has been fixed/added/changed, here's my internal patch notes. Some of them might seem a bit weird as they were fixes to things that was never released in a public build. But figured, it's still interesting for some of you to see. (DONE) Fixed some code in regards to how stat changes are updated

(DONE) Resolution 2560x1600 / 16:10 aspect ratio fixed

(DONE) Sound Settings will now save correctly

(DONE) New traits added

(DONE) Fixed error with Champion trait not instantly applying its effects

(DONE) Female Slave Master Chest fixed

(DONE) Added training matches

(DONE) Fixed stats in pregame selection not showing correct values

(DONE) Training Match overwrite when playing cup / league fixed

(DONE) No Fame from training matches fixed

(DONE) Training match bug fixed

(DONE) Roman spear gold adjusted

(DONE) Selling Gladiators now maintain the correct sorting

(DONE) Clicking a trait when tooltip is showing, no longer disables it

(DONE) Number hitbox in tactics view no longer blocks mouseclick

(DONE) Adjacent trait bug fixed

(DONE) Hide tactics UI for Cup matches

(DONE) When a Gladiator dies, their name instead of ID will now show in news

(DONE) Added combat experience to the game

(DONE) Added multiple pages for equipment in stash when exceeding 30 items

(DONE) Made items in the stash stack

(DONE) Different music at the end of season screen depending on Promotion/Staying in league/Relegation

(DONE) More impactful tactics

(DONE) Ambient music added to MainHub

(DONE) Added Prize pool window to Champions Cup

(DONE) Fixed layout of past winners in Champions Cup panel

(DONE) Redo training system

(DONE) Change Drillmaster costs and function

(DONE) Added blood effect to the portraits

(DONE) Added Steam Status flavour text

(DONE) Added new Combat text events for DoT's and Unyielding effect

So on that note, this blog actually became quite a lot longer than I intended it to be. But I am actually very happy with the progress so far, and the ETA for a summer release still stands. But I am concerned with setting a final release date yet as I don't want to rush things and I also believe most of you will also appreciate waiting a few more months if it results in a better overall product. All the best! Mathias

Hello everyone, Happy to share with you that the new Demo version 0.8.2 is live for you all to hopefully enjoy! This demo update will likely be the last for a while as I prepare for the release this summer. The reasoning behind this is that I don't want the Demo to potentially end up being more or less the full game, so the line has to be drawn somewhere. Furthermore, to fully benefit from these new features, it is recommend to start a new game. With that being said I am happy to provide you with the full patch notes here:

• New Game Options

• Introduced a difficulty setting

• Added "Random" match composition gamemode, meaning league matches will be anywhere from 2vs2 to 5vs5. A 5vs5 gamemode option has been added for the players that prefers this. A new game is sadly required for this to work.

• Added optional setting for Legendary Gladiators

• Added Loyalty system for Gladiators (Placerholder and has no game effect for now)

• Added 24 new block sounds

• Added the option to delete saves

• Fixed and improved the Save and Load format and list

• Fixed female nipples from clipping through some armours

• Fixed navigation for the columns in the Division 4 Arena scene

• Fixed Legendary/Demigods Gladiators not maintaining their ID after being recruited by another Ludus

• Fixed AI matches including number of alive Gladiators in their score so it now matches player results

Steam Next Fest recap

First and foremost I want to thank everyone that tried out the game and decided to engage in the forums, either by providing feedback, suggestions, reporting bugs or just simply sharing that they enjoyed the game! As a solo developer it can sometimes be a bit "lonely" sitting alone with your project, having no idea what people will actually think about it, so as you can imagine it was extremely encouraing and motivating. Also want to say thank you for the suggestions that was given be they big or small, some of them I was even able to add in smaller updates through the next fest, and a bunch of them was added to my "to do" list for the release. Personally, the biggest highlight was seeing the game reaching a concurrent player count of 49 players. I know in these days with all these large games, it might not sound like all that much - But for me this even exceeded my previously launched game "King of the World", so a milestone was reached!

Future plans

I will admit when I started this project I had no idea where I was really going with it, and the initial scope was much smaller than what the current demo already includes. This is however not an issue, as I don't have any deadlines, budget or anyone pushing me besides myself. This also means that I will take whatever time is needed to make this the very best I can.

So without further ado, the following list includes the overall features planned for the full release:

• Posibility to speed up matches

• More Arena scenes

• Lanista interactions

• Decisions in regards to daily Ludus Management

• New traits

• Arena deployables

• Exhibitions Matches / Exotic trader

• More Gladiator variety

• Voice acting for all announcements

• Multiplayer

• Localizations/Translations

• Option to spare opponent Gladiators/Yielding (Likely tied to Lanista relations)

• More impactful tactics

• Add camera focus to Gladiator in matches

• Full rework of training mechanic

• More history, stat views etc.

Some of the bullet points above obviously has a lot more and deeper systems behind them, but I think it gives you a good idea of where this game will be headed. As always more than open to any kind of Suggestions / Feedback / Comments. All the best Mathias

Hello everyone, Final update before it all goes down for the Steam Next Fest tomorrow ! :) If you enjoy the game, please consider Wishlisting and help spread the word as this is really the best opportunity It'll ever get to gain traction. The patch notes are as follows:

• Added new Division 4 Arena scene (Also placeholder for the divisions above). With this one I tried something new with adding a platform in the middle to spice things up a bit. While doing it, I also realised that the suggestion several of you have come up with in regards to Arena Deployables is a great idea and ton of fun with the new Ragdoll physics!

• New Ragdoll death animations. Regret not doing this earlier - It's a ton of fun. For now I kept collision on with other Gladiators while they are dead, which makes them being dragged at times. It's kind of fun, but not realistic, so let me know if you think I should keep it as is or change it.

• Improved Strafing - In 1vs1 they shouldn't do dance routines any longer :) And also when attacking a target with their back to them, no longer try to move to their front before attacking them as well.

• Fixed Audio value not always being saved. Seems like for players that had set values before I remade the settings system that it would at times revert to the old one. Added a small migration script to the new system so now it should hopefully work.

V 0.8A patch notes:

• Added posibility to rename your Gladiators

• Added colliders to doors in the Arena scenes

• Adjusted so the Spectator cheering scales proportionally with your SFX volume setting

I really want to also give a huge thanks to the players that have already tried out the demo and given truly valuable feedback/suggestions and reported bugs (Believe I managed to fix all the bugs reported). And of course also the players that took their time to provide some positive comments - It's extremely motivating to see that others are genuiely enjoying something that you've created :) Best regards Mathias

Hello everyone, Pleased to announce that the v 0.79 is now live for the Demo! this demo introduces the much requested 1vs1 Champions Cup where every Ludus has to send their best Gladiator to participate in classic knockout tournament structure. Winner even gets immortalized with a special "Champion" trait, which makes them behave like Legendaries and ensure greater variety between your playthroughs. I also realised I actually hadn't posted any patch notes on Steam since the demo launched, making it difficult for players to get an overview of what has been added so far. So here's a list of some of the most important features added in this update as well as some of the previous ones.

V 0.79B Patch notes:

• Added the ability to see opponent team's stats in the Post Match Panel

• Included your team's stats for the current season in the End of Season window

• Did several improvements to the Champions Cup

• Fixed the Champions Cup not correctly starting at the beginning of a new season

V 0.79A Patch notes:

• Added new full calender view to the home panel

• Decreased AI starting denarii from 1500 to 1000

V 0.79 Patch notes:

• Added New 1vs1 Champions Cup Tournament

• Added New "Cup" subpanel under the League panel

• Added Season Counter in the top panel

• Added Lanistas to the game

• Added Lanista customization

• Added new Arena scenes for Division 6 & 5

• Redid the whole Options/Settings system

• Improved Save Game functionality

• Reduced Healthbar names font size

• Increased height for Healthbars

• After multiple threats of being fed to the lions, the announcer in the Division 7 arena scene agreed to put his clothes back on :) (Should I keep this bug though?)

• Several minor fixes and adjustments

• Increased player starting Denarii from 1000 to 1500

If you are already having a great playthrough but want to experience the Champions Cup, fear not! It's compatible with existing saves, you just need to finish your current season for it to start :)

Hello everyone, As you can see from the store page the demo has now been released! Important to note that this won't be the final Steam Next Fest build, as I am still adding and polishing stuff for it. Regardless, I figured it is in a presentable state right now, so I would give you all the chance to enjoy it a little bit before. Please let me know if you encounter any bugs! And feel more than free to provide any kind of feedback as well, be it positive or negative. Best regards Mathias

Hello everyone,

A lot has happened lately, and the game is starting to feel like a proper “manager sim” instead of just a match loop. This update is all about depth and clarity: better progression, stronger identity for gladiators, more meaningful downtime choices, and a ton of polish across UI + combat.

1) Steam Next Fest – February 2026

The game will be part of Steam Next Fest (February 2026), running from 23 Feb – 2 Mar. As you will see most of the things below were purely added due to feedback, so with Steam Next Fest it’s a huge opportunity to gather feedback and hopefully some momentum as well before release. And hopefully also an opportunity for you all to get to enjoy the game :)

2) Traits – More personality to your Gladiators

Until now there were only the cultural traits as well as the "Talent" trait in the game. But feedback from early testers was that they would like to see more of these, but negative, positive & neutral ones alike. So lets start with the most unique ones which are reserved for a few designated Legendary Gladiators at the start of the game.

Legendary

• +30% damage

• +30% max HP

• +50% fame gain

• Cannot wear helmets

Demigod

• +50% damage

• +50% max HP

• +50% fame gain

• Cannot wear helmets

And then lets move on to the new regular traits (the main system) Here are the new core traits and exactly what they do:

Talent

• Gains stats 50% faster

• A long-term investment trait. Your “training monster”.

Slow

• Gains stats 25% slower

• The opposite of Talent. Still usable, but takes longer to develop.

Strong

• +10% damage

• +10% max HP

• Straight up power. Always good.

Weak

• −10% damage

• −10% max HP

• A real drawback — and one of the main negatives Heavy Training can potentially remove.

Weapon Master

• +10% damage with all weapon types

• Great on anyone, but especially strong once you start swapping weapons around and building “loadouts”.

Lucky

• +15% crit chance

• One of the most fun traits because it creates highlight moments. Big swings, clutch kills.

Athletic

• +20% dodge chance

• Makes a gladiator noticeably harder to hit, especially when combined with the improved dodge system.

Unathletic

• −20% dodge chance

• Makes a gladiator feel heavier / slower in combat, a clear downside.

Reckless

• +10% damage dealt

• +10% damage taken

• Very “high volatility”: amazing if you’re trying to snowball fights quickly, dangerous if you’re already fragile.

Big Game Player

• +15% damage

• +15% dodge chance

• +50% post-match energy loss

• This is your “star performer” trait: insane match impact, but it costs you more downtime.

Showman

• +25% fame gain

• Cannot wear helmets

• Pure economy trait with a visual tradeoff, more money, but you don’t get to fully armor-tank with a helmet.

Brawler

• If wearing Tier 1–3 gear: +10% damage and +10% Defence

• If wearing Tier 4–5 gear: −10% damage and −10% Defence

• This one is intentionally “early game bully”. Great while you’re poor, but fades (and even turns negative) once you’re geared.

Fragile

• +25% post-match energy loss

• It doesn’t necessarily make you weak in the fight, but it makes scheduling harder. You’ll feel it across a season.

So that's it for the traits for now! The Cultural ones have also been redesigned to match the same artstyle and have the same border so it all feels consistent.

3) Heavy Training

So it was long a requested feature to introduce "training", however it never really appealled to me as I was concern players would be able to send 5 cannon fodder each week while their "real" best 5 would just be training forever with no risk nor action. But I think I managed to find a good compromise. So let me introduce to you "Heavy Training".

Core rules

• Only 1 gladiator at a time for the player club (AI clubs also use it).

• Duration: 21 days

• The gladiator is locked out of matches (energy is forced to 0).

• Daily training gives flat stat XP, not random tiny boosts.

• Training speed is affected by traits like Talent and Slow.

Drillmaster scaling (this is the big part) Your Drillmaster level determines the stat cap Heavy Training can reach:

• L1 → 40

• L2 → 45

• L3 → 50

• L4 → 55

• L5 → 60

So it’s not just “train forever”, it’s controlled progression, and you upgrade your Ludus to train higher.

Daily Drillmaster “breakthrough” roll Every day there’s a chance to improve traits (remove negatives first, then add positives at higher levels):

• L1: 1% daily chance to remove Weak / Unathletic

• L2: 2% daily chance to remove Weak / Unathletic

• L3: 3% daily chance to remove Weak / Unathletic / Fragile OR gain Athletic

• L4: 4% daily chance to remove Weak / Unathletic / Fragile OR gain Strong / Athletic

• L5: 5% daily chance to remove Weak / Unathletic / Fragile OR gain Strong / Weapon Master / Athletic

So Heavy Training isn’t just stat gains, it’s also a way to fix gladiators that rolled badly… or turn a decent one into a monster.

4) New Armours (and more meaningful gear decisions)

The armour catalogue has been expanded with more armour pieces to add more flavour to the game, as well as a new Tier 5 Armour set.

You can see a more or less fully equipped Tier 5 Armour set in the screenshot below.

5) New Home Screen + League Panel

The Home flow has been upgraded to feel more like a proper club-management hub:

• Cleaner navigation

• League overview has been given it's own panel

• Less “spam” and more meaningful info

The League Panel now gives a clearer view of your tier + league position, and it’s easier to keep track of how your season is actually going.

So this is the new homescreen, and yes the scroll will close and open when you click on messages to the left ;)

And this is the new League Panel! I want to expand it in the future so it allows the player to click on every club and gladiator to view more details about them.

6) New Arena Backgrounds

The arena map has been given more atmosphere with a new background to make fights feel like actual events, less empty, more alive, more “gladiator spectacle”.

This also helps the game visually: it feels more like a world, not just a combat test scene.

7) Dodge + Block animation improvements (plus better logic)

Dodge and block have been tightened up and feel more readable in combat.

A few key improvements behind the scenes:

• Block and dodge chance are now calculated consistently based on weapon type, shield rules, and traits.

• No weapon = no block (so you can’t magically block while unarmed).

• Spears reduce block, dual wield improves dodge, two-handed reduces dodge, so weapons feel mechanically different, not just visually different.

• Crit bonuses (like Lucky) are properly applied as part of the gladiator’s combat identity.

Result is that fights look better and make more sense.

8) QOL improvements + lots of fixes

A bunch of smaller upgrades that make the game feel more polished day-to-day:

• Player team is always shown as blue in matches (no confusion, consistent readability).

• Stats show different colour when maxed out (instant clarity: “this stat is capped”).

• Doctores renamed to Medicus (purely cosmetic, but fits the current system way better).

• Save/load reliability improvements, fewer edge cases, fewer “weird states”.

• Tons of small bug fixes and stability work across UI, equipment, season flow, and training.

• Probably tons of other small things I have forgotten I fixed myself.

Basically: fewer annoyances, more smoothness.

At least half of the stuff you just read above was suggestions / feedback from players that has now been added to the game. So If you get the chance during Next Fest: please play the demo and send feedback. Every suggestion helps me polish the game and make sure it delivers the full Gladiator Manager experience that we all hope to see and experience.

Hello everyone, And welcome to this very first developer diary for Ludus Magnatus! Today I want to show you some of the new features I have been busy adding to the game. As always I am more than open to any kind of suggestions as I want this game to be the very best iteration of it, that it can possible be. But without further ado, lets move on to the first feature that has been added, which is Ludus Upgrades.

Between matches you can now invest directly in your Ludus with four permanent upgrades:

• Scout

• Doctores

• Drillmaster

• Physician

These are long term investments bought with denarii. Each upgrade has its own level cap and gets more expensive as you rank it up. The cost for the next level is always base cost times current level plus one so it scales up as you commit to a path.

Below is a quick tour of what each one does and how far you can push it.

Scout

The Scout upgrade is all about improving the quality of future recruits and giving you more control over who shows up at your door.

Max level for Scout is 10

What it does: At level one you hire a proper scout for your Ludus This unlocks recruit focus in the Ludus Exchange so you can gently steer the pool toward either female fighters or a specific culture Roman Barbarian Hellenic Egyptian or Carthaginian.

On top of that every scout level gives your future recruits a little more potential.

Each level adds two points to the potential stat cap for strength endurance and agility and one percent extra chance for them to roll a Talent trait. At max rank that means plus twenty to the cap and plus ten percent Talent chance for new blood coming in.

In simple terms, if you plan to live in the Ludus Exchange and constantly cycle your roster the Scout upgrade slowly turns that pool into a much more reliable source of stars.

Doctores

The Doctores upgrade is your answer to permanent death feeling a bit too final all the time.

Max level for Doctores is 16

What it does: After each match if one of your gladiators goes down and would normally die your Doctores can step in and attempt to save them. This is a single roll per match day and it only works if you have at least one level in Doctores.

Each level adds five percent to the save chance up to eighty percent at max rank, if the roll succeeds the gladiator survives and you even get a little news item about your Doctores pulling them back from the brink.

Doctores gives you a way to grow attached to your favourites without feeling like one unlucky match instantly deletes your whole long term plan. It does not make death trivial but it makes those close calls feel dramatic instead of just frustrating.

Drillmaster

The Drillmaster upgrade focuses on energy and squad rotation, it does not change what happens inside the fight. Instead it changes who you are allowed to send into the arena.

Max level for Drillmaster is 5

What it does: By default any gladiator under fifty energy is considered too tired to field, they are locked out of selection until they recover above that mark.

Drillmaster slowly lowers that lock threshold but only for the player club. Each level reduces the required energy by five points down to a minimum of twenty five at level five.

• So at level one your fighters can step in from forty five energy

• At level three the lock sits around thirty five

• At level five anyone at twenty five or higher is fair game

Practically this gives you more freedom to push a tired star through a rough schedule. You can gamble on a slightly drained hero instead of being forced to field only the fresh bench every time.

Physician

The Physician upgrade deals with the other side of that energy system, instead of changing the lock it improves how quickly your bench recovers between matches.

Max level for Physician is 2

What it does: After every match the game gives resting gladiators on the bench a chunk of energy back, Physician applies only to that bench recovery and multiplies it

Each Physician level adds five percent to the amount of rest energy your benched fighters gain after a match, at max rank that means ten percent more recovery for anyone who sat out.

In other words if you like rotating your squad a lot Physician turns the Ludus into more of a recovery machine. Your key fighters bounce back faster and you feel less punished for long seasons where every match day matters

All four upgrades are meant to pull on different parts of the loop

• Scout makes future recruits stronger and more tailored to your taste

• Doctores protects the careers of the fighters you already love

• Drillmaster lets you push tired gladiators into important fixtures when you really need them

• Physician helps everyone on the bench recharge so the whole squad feels more alive over a long campaign

You can of course mix and match, nothing stops you from going deep into Scout first to secure better long term talent then pivoting into Doctores once you have a couple of favourites you do not want to lose. Or you can play a very intense schedule focused build with Drillmaster and Physician so that energy becomes something you manage rather than something that blocks you.

Tactics

Next up you will see a new Tactics panel has been added as well. For now it allows you to setup the starting positions of your Gladiators as well as who start where. You can have up to 5 different ones saved at a time which should provide players with more than enough room for flexibility. The way you move the Gladiators to the different positions are very much like how it works in an auto-battler game - You click on and then select the tile you want it to be positioned in and it moves there.

In the actual pregame selection you will now see that there's a dropdown, with the numbers added so it's more intuitive which of your Gladiators start in which position. You will also noticed I have added the numbers below their feet as well as a button to easily switch the positions as a QOL feature.

When an AI club starts a season they are assigned a random favourite formation from that playbook. During the season the AI watches how that setup is doing. If a club keeps stumbling and collects several losses in a row with the same formation, the director behind the scenes gets nervous and tells them to try something else. The club switches to another layout from the playbook and keeps going. If they start performing better with the new idea they stick with it for a while. If not they will eventually change again.

On top of that, the AI also looks at who should stand where. Before each match it scores its own gladiators based on how tanky they look. Those with big health pools and solid protection are more likely to get pushed into the three central slots where the pressure is highest, while lighter fighters naturally drift toward the safer edge positions. So even without you seeing it the AI is trying to do the same thing you are doing in the tactics room put the right body in the right place.

Closing remarks

I hope you have liked what you've seen and read in this developer diary, and that it's adding more depth and actual management to the game, as well as making the player able to leave their mark on how matches turn out without directly controlling the Gladiators. Next up the plan is to add a couple more QOL features, and then work on Multiplayer starts :)