Before version 0.5, Stats were represented as plain numbers on the combat interface. That never sat right with me. Mind you, I’ve nothing against numerical representations in RPGs, but I’ve always felt the peculiar combat system of A Legionary’s Life needed something different. The Indicators below each combat action are an example of this: the early prototypes of the game had raw percentage values, but the current portrayal using the image rotation makes players much more reliant on their instinct and intuition, which is exactly what I’m trying to accomplish. Now I’ve extended the same logic to the Combat Stats. In place of numbers, we have circles representing the current status. Let’s take a look:

Health - Full Health is now represented as a whole circle. As one would expect, the max Health value varies from character to character, depending on their Constitution. For example, a character with a Constitution (CON) value of 60 has a max Health of 60. Another character with 30 CON is stuck with a max Health of 30 and so on. Both have their max Health value represented by a whole circle. If the first character is hit for 10 damage, the circle is reduced by one sixth. Similarly, if the second suffers the same amount of damage, the circle is reduced by one third. When the circle disappears, the character is dead.

Stance - Stance is a percentage just like before: for all characters, the maximum value is 100%. The farther it falls below this value, the more open and vulnerable a fighter becomes.

Fatigue - Like before, there are three levels of Fatigue in A Legionary’s Life: Fatigued, Tired and Exhausted. This gauge will tell you how close you are to the next level of Fatigue. The actual quantity of Fatigue required depends on your Endurance (EDR), so characters with high EDR will see this circle grow at a slower rate.
By the way, if your character becomes a centurion he will be expected to fight at the front of the maniple for much longer than common soldiers; an attentive management of his Fatigue level will get even more important.

Other changes in this update include:

• Added a rank requirement for the most valuable Armillae, as promised in a previous post

• Tweaked some values for a few equipment pieces. Nothing big except for the Caetra shield type, which received a significant boost to its Guard value. It’s still lower than the Scutum and Hoplon, of course, but the Caetrati have been way too easy pickings until now

• New random events

• Minor cosmetic changes