Hello everyone! Man, July was a long month, but we got a tremendous amount of work done, and we got a lot of great feedback about Alliance that we are putting to good use! In this blog, I wanted to talk about some of our feedback and what we’re doing, talk about the final few game play loops that we’ve installed, and showcase our in-game help system. This is a long blog, but we had a tremendously productive July, so here we go!
First and foremost, the feedback from our third beta test showed that we needed to rethink our tutorial. We had a guided tutorial that ran alongside a generated galaxy, but there were 2 main issues with this setup: a) it was buggy - it depended on reading the dynamic generation galaxy and changing some static parameters after the game was generated to ensure that we had workable tutorial conditions. While it worked, it wasn’t perfect, and once in a while it could lead to issues, and b) people didn’t really like all of the reading they had to do. There were about 100 ‘nodes’ that the player had to read - and we’d only installed about half of the tutorial!
It was clear that we needed to go a different direction, and when we asked for feedback, we found that people *really* wanted good tooltips, a good encyclopedia to look up stuff on their terms and needs, and a helper UI that gave them some information about a screen or concept the first time, and then it could either repeat again or the player could turn that information popup off (the information would still be available in the Encyclopedia). So that’s exactly what we’re doing! We’ve created dozens of unique tooltips - in fact, every single element in the main UI has a unique tooltip now! If there’s a number in the game, there should be a tooltip explaining it. We have also totally revamped the look and function of the in-game encyclopedia - basically, we’re converting the manual to be accessible in-game, with lots of pictures and links to related topics, so it’s easy to navigate.
Finally, we decided to scrap the guided tutorial entirely, and replace it with a ‘quick start’ sequence where your grand vizier walks you through the most basic concepts (AP, Turns, Houses, Main UI) while also giving you several ‘tutorial’ tasks (now called initiatives, previously called milestones) that you can undertake at your leisure, but that will show you some of the most basic systems of the game (science, Projects, the economy, Actions with Characters) and then add some intermediate and advanced concepts (exploration, expansion, Challenges between other Houses, the military system, etc). In this genre, people don’t like their hand held, but they do want to have all the tools available to learn at their own pace, so we’re going to listen to the people!
Now, let’s talk about the new exploration and exploitation loops. We have completely rewritten them since June. Basically, you now send exploration expeditions to a System that’s in range of your LGN network (in a constellation that’s fully or partially connected). You assign an Admiral with a high Academic Skill (the higher, the faster the survey occurs) and planets are now explored one at a time to a high intel level. You can recall an exploration fleet at any time now, you just have to wait until it gets to the System (if a fleet is traveling for any reason in-game, you can’t issue it new orders until it gets to where it’s going). Exploration expeditions cost OP (operation points) and allow Systems to be exploited, using the new outpost and auction system!
Once a System is fully explored, all planets are then revealed in the System. The next step, if you as the ruler feel that the System would be a productive part of the Empire, is to connect it to the Empire’s LGN network. So you’ll need to build either a hub or a port (usually a port) to connect the system to the rest of the Empire and allow people and trade to travel to the system. You do this by initiating a Construction expedition to build a LGN hub or node, and it works very similarly to creating an Exploration expedition.
Once a System has been connected, you (the Empire) has de jure control of the system, meaning that while it’s under your eminent domain, you can’t exploit it just yet. When you’re ready, you can present the system (and its planets) to the other Houses for auction - this is how you or other Houses can gain additional Holdings! Basically, there is a three-round auction where each House's Power + Influence in that System equals the total number of ‘votes’ they can spend on each planet and system. The top 3 bids for the system/planets in it move to the second round; top 2 move to the last round, and the winner gets what they bid! Note that each House has to pay for each Holding, even if they don’t ever develop it (the money goes in part to the Empire Budget Cycle upcoming, so exploration is actually a valid way of bringing in money for the Empire if you don’t mind other Houses expanding!).
The most important thing about claiming Systems and Planets is that other Houses will look very negatively on you if you have the most Power of all the Houses and you claim especially the System, but even if you claim one or more Planets you will take a relationship hit with all the Houses. Conversely, if you don’t claim anything, you will get a nice relationship boost from the other Houses (especially the ones that won claims) so often it pays to expand magnanimously, allowing others to take planets and systems - just don’t let them get too big and powerful!
Once a System has been Claimed, it is Exploitable, and an Outpost can be built on a Planet that you hold. You do this by creating an Outpost Construction Expedition (other Houses do this too, but it’s assumed to be using private sector assets and happens in the background). You will select an Outpost type (if you have max intel on the planet, which you can get by doing a surface expedition, you will get excellent feedback on how well this outpost should do for the planet), select an Administrator (a new rank below Viceroy that has no power requirement) to run the Outpost, and a fleet, and within a few turns, your empire will grow a little larger! From that point you can use special Expansion Projects to expand outposts to level II, III, and when they hit a certain pop level, a new colony!
We made these changes for several reasons. First, we wanted expansion to be slower - a colony is a huge deal, or it should be, and for those who have played the game you know that most Houses don’t have that many colonies. Also, we wanted to limit the economic impact of putting a colony in a bad place, meaning one that was hard to reach or a planet that Pops didn’t want to move to. By putting pop thresholds to level up outposts and convert them to colonies, this protects the player somewhat - now if they put an outpost in a bad spot, they have spent a lot fewer resources to discover that fact, and it will cost them much less against their House budget than if they had a full colony with all the built infrastructure sucking down a much larger part of the budget.
We’ve also *takes breath* updated and streamlined our project system. We’ve revamped our entire list of Projects, and significantly expanded system and province Projects - we now have almost 100 Projects, and we’ve tried to strike a nice balance between all types of game play. For example, we added a lot of Intel Projects, and added a few more Military Projects, to try to balance the type of game play a player might want to try.
We’ve also made Planetary Projects cost just 1 AP, and they do not require Contributors - now, regardless of skills, any Project can be done with any Viceroy, it may just take a lot longer and use ADM for longer than with a better Viceroy. Projects have been re-balanced in general to cost less resources but more ADM, so you will have to really pay attention to expanding your ADM pool to do several system or province projects at a time!
System Projects and Province Projects still do need contributors, however, and Province Projects will now take 3 AP to initiate. We want these Projects to really feel larger and more weighty.
Another change we’ve made to Projects is that most of them now impact your Public Reputation - you have 3 values for Honor, Humanity, and Piety that affect how your people see you, and Projects are now a major lever to change that perception. You get different bonuses and maluses empire-wide depending on where you stand on this fulcrum - most Projects that help Pops will increase your Humanity (and maybe Honor) values, while Projects that hurt or surveil Pops will decrease them. We have tried to give both play styles significant choices here, and there is certainly a path to a high-Fear, low Humanity and Honor ruler to win the game!
But wait! There’s more! We’ve expanded and fixed all of the UI/internal issues with the Intel System, and added more missions, including the ability to create informer networks on a planet (basically allowing additional passive intel to be gathered on a planet). Now Inquisitors’ Loyalty rating starts at 100, and if the Intel division is not fully funded, instead of dropping like a rock (as in the previous version) it will drop slowly every turn depending on the amount of funding lack, but what this means is that if you only missed funding fully by a little bit, Inquisitors are much less likely to bolt immediately, but their Loyalty will also only rise if they are fully-funded, so be careful!
Galaxy Generation gets a pass as well. We have eliminated the concept of no-planet systems, so if you see a star on the map, it will contain at least one planet or belt. We have also rewritten the generation so that not all constellations have 8-9 stars - your home constellation, Alpha will always have 8, but others may have as few as 3! This brings more of a 'tasty island' expansion system to the game, and differentiates constellations and their contents more strategically.
More you say? Sure! We are in the process of expanding and redesigning the Milestone system. Formerly, Milestones were passive items that you could attain and that unlocked once certain parameters in the game were met - for example, if you were low on Power, you could get a Milestone to increase your Power, and so on. There were a few major issues with this system, though: First, there was no time limit - no sense of urgency to get them done. And second, there were no stakes. You got no rewards for doing them, and since there was no time limit, there were no penalties for failing them. So we are doing a hard rewrite of this system. Rather than simply being handed Milestones, in future builds you will be able to choose Initiatives, which will come in 2 types: Public and Private. You will be able to select up to 3 total. Public Initiatives are basically goals that you announce to the Empire, usually things like expanding, building a specific Project, finding a specific Tech, meeting a Pool goal, etc. If you succeed, you usually get more Power and Popular Support, and sometimes some PDP, where if you fail, you lose more of the same. Private Initiatives focus more on self-growth, and failing them does not generally involve losing Power or Support, but Spirit and PDP. Private Initiatives are not ‘known’ to the Empire, they’re more like ‘self help’ goals you set for yourself, and the stakes are generally lower than Public Initiatives.
Finally, we have addressed performance and stability in a big way. We have completely rewritten the UI engine and we no longer instantiate large windows in memory prior to the game starting. This has cut down memory usage in some cases by 60%. We have also greatly increased performance across the UI - now everywhere in the galaxy map runs at 60 FPS, zooms are buttery-smooth, and virtually all windows open up in less than a second (we have an interim panel showing while that’s happening, so you know something is being loaded as the player). In addition, the save and load system is now fully functional, including the ability to delete old saves and overwrite existing ones with newer data. Last, but certainly not least, as of the beginning of August, we have eliminated virtually all crash bugs from the game! (fingers crossed!)
So what does August bring? Well, with all game play loops now in (we’ll be doing another pass on the military system and adding a few more screens), and our performance issues mostly solved, we can focus on polish, stability, localization, and adding the help system (tooltips, encyclopedia, in-screen help). We’ll also be adding many more Events to the game this month, and we are also starting to add updated sound effects to the game/UI, hooking up all the remaining tech effects, budget overspend effects, etc. Once we have the help elements in, we will be doing another beta test, so watch this space for more details!! We truly are on the final turn of what has been a very long race, and we can’t wait to share more!
Thanks,
Steve