Update 8: Bogs and Bagpipes!

Hi Everyone,

Update 8 was all about delivering more Scotland. The biggest additions are the Peat Bogs, Thistle, and Heather fields which totally change the world building and create new building and crafting opportunities. The instrument system was upgraded with Bagpipes and Harps, and 31 more Historic Clans have been added.

On the Quality of Life side, Strict/Non-Strict priorities are now selectable on a per unit basis. Advice tutorials for Fall, Winter, Spring preparation have been added, and there is now Smart Harvest Mode (more details below)

Important Note: For the new world building items (Peat Bogs, Thistle, Heather) you need to start a new map for them to be populated.

Let's Talk About Bog Iron

It turns out that in medieval times, iron was harvested from Bogs. I was quite surprised to learn this as I worked on Clanfolk and wanted to do my best to represent the process in game.

So the first big addition was the Peat Bogs. Peat Bogs have two very important resources. Peat Bricks, and Bog Iron. Both of these replenish over a long period of time.

When Wet Peat Bricks are left outside, they will dry and become Dry Peat Bricks (Keep these out of the rain)

Peat Bricks are harvested with the new Peat Spade. It is an interesting thin shovel with a right angle to extract long bricks of Peat from a peat bank. As you remove the peat from the new zones, you will notice (hopefully) that I even mark the ground such that is looks like a peat spade did a pass there :)

The Peat Bricks are then Stacked for Drying. The new Peat Brick Storage is seen above as well.

There is also Bog Iron in the Peat Bogs. This is found in two ways. It can be collected initially like normal stones, but over time becomes harder to find and must be dug out as part of the Peat Brick extraction.

Bog Iron is a porous impure rather large lump that appears in bogs. This bog iron needs to be processed in the Bog Iron Crusher to convert it into Iron Ore for the the Bloomery. Peat Bogs now give us a permanent, though slow to renew, source of iron.

Multi Purpose Peat Bricks

Once peat bricks have dried, they can be used for both building and heating. Update 8 brings us the Tiled Peat Stove. This is a large ceramic space heater/cooking station that brings along with it the addition of Clay Bowls, the Bowl Stand and Brose being moved much earlier in the Ideas Tree to make it a more viable option, heating in the stove.

Peat Bricks can also be used for building low cost Walls and the new Thatch Roofs which take much less straw.

Thistle and Heather

While I was reworking the world builder, I decided that I better add the Thistle and Heather at the same time, since they all require a new map to populate them. Adding the Thistle and Heather really adds to the Scottish feel in the maps.

Heather can be harvested from the Heather fields which have high natural beauty. The Heather can then be placed on the Herb Rack which is the first decoration item. In the future, both Heather and Thistle will be used for natural remedies as well. Heather can be broken down into branches.

Thistle fields have lower beauty than Heather fields, but also provide a natural barrier to movement. The Thistle will also be placed on the Herb Rack to beautify rooms. Thistle can be broken down into hay as needed.

New Instruments and Skill Levels

I have added Bagpipes and the Celtic Harp to the Instruments that Clanfolk know how to play.

Clanfolk also now have skill levels when they play songs. A juvenile will play poorly, an adult is competent, and a senior will be an expert. Depending on which instruments are played together and the skills of the players, the band's song can sound quite different and is sometimes quite amusing.

New Clans!

I have Added 31 historic Clans based on requests from players. I will be adding more Clans in the future as well, some with generic Clan tartans where players can set their own family name and mottos.

I hope those of you who find your family name in there really enjoy the added immersion!

New Clans names are listed in the change logs below. Ctrl-F is your friend :)

Priority Modes

It seems about half of players really liked Strict priorities for being deterministic, and the other half liked non-strict for being mostly hands off. Well now you can set the mode per unit. So Generalists and Specialists on demand.

I added a tutorial text to better explain the selection when picking the mode for a Clan member. Non Strict works well when a few people are doing many jobs from different skills (like in early game) Strict works very well when you have specialists who focus on a particular job (late game)

Remember, don't over boost. It is for emergencies. Too many tasks and too much boost prevent the AI from completing a wide variety of tasks. I will be adding warning for this in the next update.

Seasonal Advice

There are now reminder tutorials when new seasons start. These are fairly simple things but can really help new players. Like a suggestion to collect mushrooms in fall for example. Or needing to have a LOT of branches for winter. Needing warm clothes, stuff like that which gets missed the first time and then everyone dies.

Smart Harvest Mode

In the Jobs menu, there is now a tick box for 100% harvest only. This will allow you you select grand swaths of land, but only pick/harvest items that are at their max yield. This has been very popular on the testing branch since it went live.

Texture Upgrades

There were a few textures that did not cut it. The gravel paths are much nicer now, and the hardwood floors and wooden walls have been replaced. There is also a new trim system that I really like. Whenever a floor touches a wall or connects with another floor type, it will generate a trim piece. This trim piece is such a simple thing but it really adds a lot of realism for me and I love it.

All Update 8 Change logs

Here is a full listing of everything that has gone in/been fixed since Update 7.

V0.284

• Fixed console spam when crafting objects had a "Wait Until Tomorrow" entry. This did not cause harm, but bloated the log files in some cases making real problems harder to spot.
• Strict Priorities On/Off is now a toggle on a per unit basis. Strict is defaulted to Off, but as the player needs specialists, they can turn it on for specific Clanfolk while leaving others to do general labor.
• Added Strict Priority Selection tick boxes to the Skills Index
• Fixed Low Priority Alerts toggle also turning off Missing Item alerts

v0.285

• Fixed bug introduced in v0.284 that caused crafting stations to stop working.
• Fixed Strict Priority toggle not working on multi-select

v0.286

• Upgraded the initial Camera/Priorities Tutorial to better explain task priority and the strict priority toggle

V0.287

• Added "Keep Lit" Toggle to Fire Places and Torches
• Added Heating Tutorial that activates after Day 12 (Note: Will only show up once it has been translated)

v0.288

• Upgraded Heating Tutorial to also cover the heating overlay.
• Socialization Task will not trigger when talk targets are more than 30 tiles away. Saw a Hermit chase a Cat across the map to talk
• Upgraded the Tartan System to allow from 25 -> 625 Tartan Variations.
• Added Clan MacRae (Many More To Come)

v0.289

New Clans:
• MacLean
• MacKinnin
• Buchanon
• MacGregor
• Stirling
• Lindsay
• Duncan
• Stewart
• Fraser Of Lovat
• Turnbull
• Graham
• MacFarlane
• MacKay
• Gunn
• Keith
• Boyd
• Murray
• Sutherland
• Munro
• Colquhoun
• Kennedy
• Anderson
• MacLaine of Lochbuuie
• Urquhart
• Comyn
• Farquharson
• MacNeil
• Watson
• Fergusson
• Forbes

New Stuff

• Cats will only retrieve small sized animals now. No more stashing dead Grandpa at the foot of the bed.
• Added Bagpipes!
• Flute rack is now an Instrument Rack
• Songs give 90 Fun per sec vs 110, but play time is from 20->30 secs
• Added Senior, Adults and Kids version of Bagpipes and Flutes songs. They play based on their skill level now.

V0.290

• Fixed Tool Racks allowing Bagpipes
• Fixed case where going through a door while having a diagonal roof/floor/wall building task (where N,S,E,W tiles blocked) would cause the task to abort
• New Flax Art to make it easier to find
• Added Harp
• Added Harp version of Clanfok song for Juvenile, Adult, and Senior
• Rebalanced the Clanfolk songs so the instruments are not too loud. Bagpipes are a little loud, but they are bagpipes afterall
• Updated French

V0.291

• Bogs and Bog Iron!
• Added Simple and Iron Peat Spade
• Added Wet and Dry Peat Bricks
• Peat will slooooowly grow back after being harvested.
• Added 12 Slot Peat Stack
• Added Bog Iron Lumps to be gathered in bogs. Harvesting Peat also will find a little bit and this will replenish over time.
• Rock Heaps can take Bog Iron now
• Added Bog Iron Crusher to convert Bog Iron to Iron Ore
• Cooking Fires and Fireplaces will now accept Branches OR Dry Peat Bricks for Heating ans Lighting
• Smoked and Cooked Meat, Fish and Eels all accept Dry Peat Bricks or Branches (FireFuel) as part of their recipe now.
• Added Peat Brick Walls
• Added Thatch Roofs - made with Peat, Straw and Logs.
• Added New Gravel Texture for Paths
• Reworked the Flax Shader to make it look more natural.
• Kittens will no longer Hunt or Retrieve.
• Upgraded Recipe System to allow SubGroups of items to be used as ingredients. This works with FireFuel now, but will be useful for other recipes in the future where substitutions are logically possible.
• Stored items now show the afflictions that are changing their quality per sec.
• Inventory items with zero count now show up so that you can turn off alerts for these items if one has ever spawned
• Fixed objects that are being relocated sometimes showing they had missing items needed.
• Cat Instinct Bar depletes 25% more slowly. They were OP Bunny Murder/Retrieval Machines.
• Fixed bug where when sometimes an item was picked as close by if it was behind a wall instead of picking much closer items right next to the unit.
• Floor Mat 20 -> 40 uses (Note: will need to replace floor mat for them to upgrade)
• Fixed case where when an object is moved, if the mover has a higher Hauling than Building skill priority, they haul the crate then move it to the new position like a silly person.

v0.292

• New Peat Wall that looks more natural and had more depth.
• Added Tiled Peat Stove for Heating and a bit of Cooking using Dry Peat Bricks
• Back to Branches for meat recipes and keeping fires lit. Peat Stove will handle peat cooking/heating.
• Fixed case where a builder could get stuck on clearing a tile footprint with the wrong tool
• Added Clay Bowl (Made at Kiln)
• Moved Brose to a Clay Bowl Recipe that is cooked in the Tiled Peat Stove (Good emergency food)
• Added Bowl Stand for storing Clay Bowls and Soups next to the Tiled Peat Stove

V0.293

• Fixed bug where vents and window blueprints placed on walls were removed when the game was loaded.
• Extended the Senior age period for Humans, Cats, Cattle, Goats, Pigs, Sheep so that pregnancies always complete before death by old age.
• Fixed Water Bowls and Animal Water troughs not freezing in winter if in cold environment.
• Fixed case where hoods for cloaks are showing up in the inventory menu when they are part of cloaks and should not be there.
• Fixed outside fires being left on for heating anytime it got below 15c. For outside heating (radiant heating of nearby tiles) use the new Keep Lit option.
• Fixed pathfinding weight on Tiled Peat Stoves so they are walked around instead of through

v0.294

• Stumps no longer blow in the wind.
• Disabled Hire/Rent Room buttons grey out properly now
• Renters/Workers are Hired at the sign now to prevent them from getting angry when hired out in the woods on cold days
• Fixed arriving units code such that if a sign is taken down or turned off while the traders/workers/visitors are arriving, that they will go into free time mode waiting for the sign to be replaced or being told to leave.
• Babies can open doors like the rest of the Clan now to prevent them from getting stuck. Still possible to take their keys away though as needed.
• Recent optimization may have caused some doors to be seen as passable when units did not have keys in some circumstances. Added new logic to the optimization to prevent this. Please let me know if you see people/animals locked in rooms again. Note it is still possible for workers to get locked in if rescuing a patient or helping a baby, but working on this too.
• When people are arriving or leaving they will attempt to not use doors that should be locked to them (unless trapped from the sign, or the map exit)
• When Visitors/Workers/Traders arrive they will stay at the sign for at least 120 seconds before leaving.
• Added Cat and Kitten ambient noises
• Added Bell when Visitors/Traders/Workers arrive
• Added Heather Fields. They have high beauty and grow slowly. They can be harvested for Heather. Slows movement more than grass.
• Added Heather. Has high beauty and can be placed on the Herb Rack. Can also be broken down for branches (keep dry)
• Added Herb Rack. A place to display Heather and other Herbs as they are added. This can be used as a decoration when Heather is placed on it
• Added Thistle Fields. Thistle is very slow to move through and will eventually also cause some health damage. But it is nice to look at.
• Added Thistle. Currently used for decoration and can be broken down into hay for animal feed. Later will be used for remedies

v0.295

• Fixed bug with the delayed leaving of Workers and Travelers that caused them to sometimes leave after hired

V0.296

• Improved the Thistle and Heather art to make it easier on the eyes when in motion
• Reworked world generation to make the Thistle and Heather integrate more naturally with the grasses.
• Herb Rack 8 -> 5 slots, but Thistle and Heather 50 -> 100 max count.
• Fixed Thistle plants dying in winter and removing themselves from map
• Timbery work skill is now Lumber
• Bog Iron Crusher work skill is now Mining
• Wooden Bowls are now made at crafting benches.

V0.297

• Gave all the Livestock the ability to exit blocked tiles if they get stuck on them like humans do. Sometimes livestock got stranded on walls/mountains and starved
• Fixed issue with Cat respawning where dead cats that had been buried counted toward total population, preventing new spawns.
• Fixed issue with the Exit Blocked tile code that may have caused people to sometimes choose to exit into sealed rooms and starve to death. I am not 100% sure this was the cause of the occasional stuck baby issue, but it may have contributed.
• Fixed case that could cause plants to grow in winter instead of recede if they had been planted shortly before winter. Never saw the case, but a look at the code made the possibility apparent.
• Made Thistle and Heather take less time to grow such that they can get to full growth before the end of the year if they had receeded in the previous winter.
• Fixed Jug Pallet sometimes unlocking at strange times
• Fixed issue where sometimes 2 tools would be auto supplied when only 1 was asked for.
• Fixed case where items in storage objects that had been paused would have their items kicked out if a floor was built under them.
• Fixed Flammable blockers preventing Oats and Flax from being planted on Tilled Soil
• Heather and Thistle can now be planted on Tilled Soil
• Auto Harvest and Auto replant works on Thistle and Heather
• Dens will not spawn in sealed rooms
• Rabbit and Cat Dens will collapse if the grass around them is destroyed or of a floor is built under them

V0.298

• Fixed Critter Doors not working due to change in v0.297

V0.299

• Added Fall Tutorial
• Added Winter Tutorial
• Added Spring Tutorial

V0.300

• Updated Wool dressing description
• Lowered the Wind and Rain volume in large storms
• Lowered price of Iron Peat Spade from 125 -> 62 to bring it in line with other iron tools based on build requirements
• Fixed Cats sometimes hauling around other dead cats as presents
• Upgraded normal wooden floor texture to make it look like hardwood and give it some better definition.
• Upgraded normal wood wall texture because the nicer floors made the walls feel self concious
• Updated German Language
• Smart Harvest Mode! (When selecting jobs, there is a tickbox to only harvest at 100%, also hold Shift while dragging at any time for Smart Harvest.
• Thistle and Heather Full Growth 16 -> 14 Days (at 100% growth rate)
• Reworked the Thistle artwork so that the pink thistle heads show up later in the growth cycle to make the growth progress easier to estimate
• Reworked Heather artwork so the Heather color fills out much more near the complete growth stage

V0.301

• Updated French Language
• Added trim to floor edges where they meet walls and other join-able tiles.

V0.302

• Updated German Language
• Updated Hungarian Language
• Updated Japanese Language
• Updated Brazilian Portuguese

V0.303

• Updated Spanish Language
• Updated Japanese Language
• Removed the "Warmth: 30" attribute from heating objects as it did not make sense
• Added Heat Output/Heat Tiles values for objects that produce heat when in use. Gives a much better idea of their heat output and spread.
• Fixed Sick Animals not being taken back to beds for healing.
• Doctor Skill renamed to Doctor / Baby Care for clarity.
• Fixed a Baby Juggle case where when Non Strict Priorities were active, the baby would sometimes get dropped over and over as a haul task tried to find a stockpile for it, resetting the baby care task.
• Prevented Case where Guests would sometimes steal the Clan's clothing while visiting
• Fixed case where on load, sometimes hundreds of sounds would play when items spawned and were picked up while the sound system was muted
• Fixed case where instruments would play forever if you loaded a game while one was playing
• Fixed bug that caused ALL animals to make their ambient sound when the game was paused or unpaused. Large barns got noisy!
• Fixed case where Clanfolk would transfer items between stockpiles of different priorities one at a time as items were used from the high priority stockpiles. This caused a lot of pointless walking. Now transfers between stockpiles only happen if the receiving stockpile has an empty slot.
• Fixed case where when adding items to a nearby stockpile, Clanfolk could steal from a higher priority stockpile to get a full load for the target stockpile.
• Updated Simplified Chinese
• Updated Traditional Chinese

V0.304

• Fixed tools that are being transported to building/planting jobs breaking down from being hauled. Seen when digging graves and planting Heather
• When bunnies go into holes and have been targeted for as hunting task, that hunting task will re-apply when they exist the hole again.
• When very old senior bunnies go into a hole, they will die and despawn. This prevents the issue of dead bodies with the red x all over the map.
• Updated Animal Sounds to be under the Critter Chatter category for individual adjustment (they were under sound fx before)
• Updated the Human eating, drinking, pickup, drop sounds to be under the Unit Chatter category. Possible to turn down loud chewing now.
• Fixed dead cats showing up in the Male/Female counts when interacting with traders
• Fix for case where clicking the 100% Harvest Only mode while moving with WASD could cause an error that would prevent WASD from working for a while
• Fixed Dead Animals causing Disturbed Sleep. Cat Presents won't cause restless sleep anymore
• Increased Max Auto Supply Limit from 1,000 -> 10,000

V0.305

• Fixed Case where a nursing baby stuck behind an owned door that was owned by the mother could not pass through the door causing the nursing task to abort over and over causing the mother's current task to thrash.
• Updated Italian Language
• Updated Korean Language
• Updated Polish Language
• Updated Russian Language
• Updated Thai Language

Road Map

There is a lot more to come! Please take a look at the Road Map for further long term details as well.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1700870/view/3388412789658793666

Thanks again people on the testing branch. It helps keep the main branch stable. If you like quicker daily updates, come join us in the testing branch too :)

Library->Clanfolk->Properties->Betas->testing

Diving back into the code now.

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.