Hey Everyone.
With the Tribes of Gaul expansion finishing up a few weeks ago I've been planning the next few months of development and where the game is going.
While I'll still be putting out releases every week or so for small changes (updates to the UI, bugfixes, balancing of buildings etc) I'm going to be focusing on these major upcoming changes
Expanded African Kingdom Campaign - October
The African campaign will be getting extended. Currently the gameplay revolves around an even mix of African and Roman buildings and objectives, this was done because of the relatively small amount of resources and buildings the Africans dealt with.
New Resources
I plan on introducing 10 new resources for the Africans. These will range from simple resources to multi-stage resources that require several steps of processing.
New Buildings
To facilitate these new resources will be the creation of new industrial buildings and chains. I plan to focus more on goods extraction and precious resource creation, to more accurately reflect how Africa was in Roman rule.
Overall Vision
In this revised version, the Africans will play like the Gaul campaign, where they have an extensive range of resources and buildings. You will still build Roman buildings in their campaign, but the focus will be on showcasing the African culture.
Full re-vamp of the Roman Glory campaign - November
I'm going to be revising the Roman campaign in it's entirety. While it's still a good campaign, I feel I can make it much more engaging and enjoyable.
Updated Difficulty
After working on both the Gaul and African campaigns and revisiting the Roman campaign, I can see the scenarios themselves are too easy. Once you reach scenario 5-6 the difficulty starts to increase, I feel that is too late in the game.
I plan on adjusting the difficulty of all of the scenarios. They will ask you to collect more resources, have a higher population and a more fleshed out industrial presence.
For example you may be asked to create 10x Low Income Dwellings instead of 6, or have 50 Stone instead of 30. The overall goal is to make each scenario more involved.
Updated Maps
Both the African and Gaul campaigns have much larger maps than the Roman campaign. All of the Roman maps will be adjusted to allow for larger settlements. While I don't want to make these too large (as the point isn't to spam buildings), I agree that there should be more room for you to build amazing little settlements.
Updated Visual Style
With the Gaul and African campaigns, the visual style has changed. The original buildings in Rome used a very low poly style. The newer campaigns such as Gaul used a higher poly style.
I plan to adjust all of the Roman buildings so that they are higher in quality. They will still retain their overall design, but these new models will allow me to showcase extra features such as banners, statues, wear and tear on the buildings etc.
With these changes I'm hoping to bring all the models in the game inline visually, making it much more seamless when you have to create Roman buildings inside the Gaul and African campaigns.
Introduction of Civic Projects (wonders) - December / January
A brand new feature will be the introduction of Civic Projects. These will be massive, multi stage development projects for your city. After building the initial foundations, you will be tasked with collecting a wide range of resources to upgrade it.
With each upgrade, the resource and labour requirements will increase. It will be up to you to create an extensive industrial system to handle the construction of these buildings.
Each culture will receive at least 1 of these projects which you will be tasked to complete, each of which leverage the industrial strength of it's people.
The Grand Arena
A perfect example of this new system is the Grand Arena, a massive entertainment venue exclusive to the Romans. You'll be tasked with it's construction by the Senate in the later portion of the Roman campaign. It will have extensive requirements, needing hundreds of units of Refined Stone, Refined Marble, Iron and Timber.
The price to create these projects will be great, costing several thousand currency and contributing an enormous amount of monthly expense. You'll need to have a strong industry beforehand to ensure you have the finances to construct and maintain these buildings. However, the pay-off is once they are complete they will provide the single largest amount of income in your city.
Conclusion
I'm going to be hard at work polishing up all of the campaign to the same level of quality. I want each campaign to feel robust, challenging and a joy to play.
I'll keep you all updated with how this proceeds over the next few months.