1.306 is out now. This is a small update that mainly includes the addition of nameplates for civilizations. The next update after this one will be 1.310 and will include a saving/loading feature, but that's not in this one.
Changes:
- Added nameplates for nations. The names change size, color, and location depending on the state of their team. They avoid overlapping each other by having smaller nameplates hide if they contact a larger one.
- Changed the default nation borders to use a dotted line instead of a solid line. There are already a lot of solid lines in the game so I think this helps with clarity.
- Balanced border calculations to encourage big civilizations while still giving small ones a chance to carve out their own territory.
- Added some more detail to the way disease immunity works. Now whenever someone is born there is a 1% chance for them to have natural immunity for life (as opposed to gaining immunity by being sick, which has not changed). A parent with natural immunity has a 50% chance to pass it on to their kids. Natural immunity causes a 10% increase in energy use (meaning they need to sleep and eat more). The result is a selective pressure to produce naturally-immune individuals as well as an opposite selective pressure to conserve energy. This means that any continuously-reproducing population will approach an optimal level of collective immunity over time.
- Changed the way disease spreads in order to prevent lag. Sometimes a large outbreak would cause a significant loss in fps due to the inefficient way it was spreading from person to person. Now it has a negligible impact on performance.
- Humidity reduces fire chance more.
- People are about 40% smaller. I felt like they were distracting, especially at high populations. Now they are big enough that you can see what they are doing but small enough that they don't hog all the attention from the player. There is also more variety to people size, with children and elders being smaller and younger adults being larger.
- Reverted default map size from 25x14 back to 15x15. I decided that a wide aspect ratio doesn't necessarily improve the experience and does have drawbacks so it's best to keep the default as a square and let the player choose a wider map if they want.
- Removed weevils entirely. They were distracting and confusing and didn't add much. I'll rethink weevils when I add animals in a future update.
- Simplified farm sprites. Now it just shows the crops without the other details on the ground.
- Slightly reduced music volume.
- Minor color changes for water, dirt, grass, crops, roads, and camps/castles.
- The new game screen now shows a description of the game as well as credits for me and the musical artist (36).