Greetings, Civvies!
We are ready to launch the first, limited playtest of Civitas in anticipation of our Early Access release! Since our Demo launch in January 2022, we have implemented core features that we will build upon during our early access development period. We have received valuable feedback from our community regarding what you want to see in the game and we look forward to continuing to improve the game with you and for you!
Our design approach is to research from academic and primary sources to design gameplay mechanics that make sense for the material but also within the genre conventions. We want to explore new ideas and not just remake what other games do. We hope Civitas can differentiate from other games in the City Builder genre - hardcore medieval builders are typically about survival, but Civitas is a softcore game about thriving! We look forward to hearing testers' feedback on these new systems and are ready to improve them.
The current state of the game is not perfect. There are a few bugs, and we need your help identifying and replicating the steps that caused them. Please post feedback on our forums, or submit a bug report from in-game by pressing the F12 key.
A preview of the major features you will play in Civitas at the Early Access launch, currently available in the playtest build:
Civvies:
We now have Civvies, the people in your world you need to make happy. They will harvest the resources, construct the buildings, and consume your resources.
Progression:
The Civitas progression tree contains all the buildings that can be constructed, grouped by their purpose: Common, Labour, Law, Faith, Arts and Trade; and by Civitas level: Boro, Hamlet, Village, Town. To advance up the tree, all buildings in the node must be constructed to access the next node level.
Plotting:
Plots are areas where buildings are placed manually in any unique shape. There is no fixed grid in Civitas, the player crafts the grid. Creating every plot by hand can be a bit tedious. You can plot buildings much quicker now with the new selection menu that automatically generates the plot area when placing your building of choice. There’s also a way to automatically snap new plots to existing plots. Overall, building a city is quicker!
Resources:
Civvies will harvest resources from the landscape when you instruct them to do so.
UI is WIP
The user interface has been completely overhauled, and now the in-game menus display Resource and Population data, Tools, and more.
Map View:
Zooming out of the world will enter the Map View, a top-down view of the city, where plots and roads can be placed.
What is currently NOT implemented or planned to change while we are working in Early Access:
Fewer Bugs!
The number one goal of this play test is to squash as many bugs as reported.
Road Tool Overhaul
This system is leftover from our original prototype, and we’ve been meaning to overhaul it entirely.
Wall Tool
We need to design a way to construct walls far easier than currently placing each segment.
Progression Balance
With feedback and statistics, we will optimize the progression rates.
Multiple Cities Per World
The ability to load a new world tile and construct new cities.
City and Capital Levels
Increasing the prestige of buildings and the style closer to Tudor and Renaissance-era architecture.
Intercity Trade
With multiple cities in your world, having the ability to trade resources automatically with others in the same world.
World Generation Improvements
Two major features of world generation that we would like to implement include heightmap import and manual heightmap creation.
New Biomes
Support for tropical, desert, arctic biomes and more!
Mod Support!
We want to open the game up for new content by the community, with full mod support.
What is planned to come as paid DLC once core features are implemented:
New Eras and Cultures:
Ancient Rome, Feudal Japan, China Dynasties, Indigenous Americas, and more! Each DLC would come with an entirely new set of architecture, progression and biomes to support the theme.
Community-made content:
We are open to releasing community-made content as paid DLC if there is enough value built in!
Since we are a self-funded indie studio, our Early Access launch is critical to help gain enough development funding to keep us going. Your feedback will help us attain this goal! So please don’t hesitate to post comments and suggestions about how you feel the game is at the moment.