Hi everyone,
I'm happy to announce the biggest update (again!?) for the game! It will be released in July (we will share the date later). We are sorry for the delay since our last update.
It's called The Eternal Winter, and it is currently the last planned major update of the game! This means that it will mark the end of the early access phase! A friendly reminder for the ones out there that didn't buy the game yet, the price will increase by 1$ (from 7$ to 8$).
Seasons and Siberia scenario
First, we added a new scenario called Siberia which you guessed it takes place in Siberia. Since it is a pretty isolated and cold place, ships are rarer than on the other scenarios. The temperature is very low (we will talk about it later), making it very difficult to survive!
To counter that, we added a special building called the Expedition camp. From which you can send an expedition to certains locations to try to get some resources from there.
Temperature and Morale
Along with the new scenario, we added two features we had in the roadmap for a long time. In order to properly do the Siberia scenario, we needed to add them. As mentioned earlier, the season system which was very simple was replaced by a temperature system. The resources consumed by the city will depend on the outside temperature, for example, if it is very cold there will be a lot of goods consumed.
Moreover, we added a lot of weather based events (15 new events), with some requiring specifics temperature (or a season) to happen. Also, just to add some cool visuals, we added rain and snow which will enhance the immersion of the game!
Alongside the temperature system, we added the city Morale. This is a value that is between 0 and 100. Around 0, people will strike and protest, putting the player in a difficult situation. Near 100, you will gain more people each month, you will sell your resource at a higher price and employees will be more efficient! The morale changes a bit every day. It is based on the recent events and current situation of your port/city. It will look at the temperature, the quantity of resources stored, the last date of delivery, if someone died... For example, if you recently lost a part of your population, you will probably lose a bit of morale every day until people forgot about it. They might forget quicker if you feed them well ;). Each scenario also have a small bonus/malus to adapt the difficulty to that said scenario.
New buildings and update to existing ones!
To complement the temperature system, we added a new building linked to that called the Boiler house! The Boiler house produces heat in winter which reduce goods consumption and by keeping your people warm you increase their morale! The building also have an upgrade which will increase the comfort of your employees, making them more efficient!
The second building we added is the Recycling center. It produces some scraps or antibug every few days. Moreover, it can specialize in producing one of the two resources to increase the output of that said resource.
Enough about the new buildings,let's talk about the updates we made to existing ones. First, we updated the Security post with a second upgrade called Propaganda that increases Morale.
Then we updated the Pier to improve the progression by adding an upgrade that will increase the size of the dock. By doing so, you will be able to unload bigger ships with more resources! Also, with the newly added Recycling center, we remove the upgrade allowing to produce antibug from the Pier and the one allowing to produce scraps from the Dockyard. You can still convert resources in these buildings like before.
We made a small change to the House, we added one more level for the Capacity upgrade, and we added new 3D models to improve visuals.
Finally, we changed a lot of things in the Headquarters, we added upgrades: Region mapping (will talk about later), Winter clothing, and we moved Clear area from the Sawmill to the HQ in order to improve game progression. But that's not all, we added Policies in the HQ. Policies are decisions you can take depending on your situation and can be reversed at will. You can apply only one policy for each category. There are 5 categories, with at least 3 possible policies for each category.
Progression rework
As mentioned earlier, to improve the feeling of progression of the game, we did some big changes. We added the Dock size upgrade in the Pier, so players will be able to gain more resources from ships with time goes on.
We moved Clear area upgrade from the Sawmill to the HQ, making it more accessible. Forestry tech which unlocks the Sawmill will now require the Clear Area upgrade.
When talking about the new upgrades of the HQ we mentioned Region mapping, this upgrade will allow sending horse/car to other cities (it was previously possible without an upgrade). But more importantly, it allows calling a Mobile Technology Center (the technology boat) with the horse/car in exchange for a lot of time and some money. It fixes a big issue in the game where you could be stuck because the boat was not coming.
To reflect all these changes, we updated the Tech tree to add new technologies about the new buildings and mechanics. We also have updated some technologies to add more effects to them.
The cool little details
Since it is the last update of the game, we wanted to improve every aspect of the game! So, we updated visuals for all maps by adding props, new houses. We also added some new life outside the port that can be interacted with: travelers, people moving around in town, musicians, wolf pack...
For a long time, we wanted to make choices of events with randomness more clear on whats happening/will happen. Before, you were only able to see your resources change if you looked at it. Now there is an animation that shows which option is selected, making it clearer and more satisfying. We took the time to add/improve tooltips to various part of the game in order to make things clearer. You can now hover resources in the UI and you will see information about them.
We had some complaints about the game being too fast, so we added a Slow Mode option before launching a scenario, which makes the game a bit slower.
New Content
As stated above, we wanted to improve every part of the game, and adding more content is important for replayability and immersion.
So we added:
- Moths on ships that carry Goods
- New ship models for the procedural generation
- A bunch of new names, flags, numbers for ships
- New musics
- A few new achievements
- New artifacts
Thank you for reading the patch notes for The Eternal Winter update and have a great day.
As you can see, there are several options you can choose from:
As you can see, we’ve moved the Telegraph to be available much earlier. It now only requires the Basic Construction technology in order to unlock Baudot.
