Oy rulers,
It’s the final stretch before the 1.0 release! We’re working on all the final tweaks and tests to prepare for the update. Before you can explore the new content, let’s take a look back at some of the biggest changes made during Early Access. We cannot stress enough how impactful your feedback is to us, and we encourage you to keep sharing them to help us improve the game!
Biggest Early Access features
Civil War
This addition coming with the 1.0 update will please the community, as it gives much more purpose and deeper meaning to your decisions, while adding a significant twist to the late game. It starts by slowly building up over the midgame while you and different Houses progressively choose sides. You can decide whether to embrace the old or the modern, as well as the kind of Calderia you desire. This also adds to the game's sense of urgency. Other Houses are also moving forward, so if you want to be among those who shape the future, you must hurry! Try to rise in the ranks so that you may be one of the primary actors in the end-of-war conflict, rather than a pawn in other people's games. During the Civil War, the Emperor would send out large armies to defend his rule over the lands, with the army composed of troops that are entirely unique to the Emperor. This conflict cannot end with a Calderian victory before the Emperor is cast out, and the Calderian side must also win the overall conflict. We have been designing tradition features and perks with your various playstyle preferences in mind, as well as how they will play out during the Civil War.
Traditions & Winning paths
During Early Access, we progressively added over 25 Traditions and two alternative winning paths to complete the game.
- The first one, the Scholarly path, is a more peaceful and scheming option using both Schemers and Scholars Traditions. This playstyle is for those who wish to build rather than fight. It is still heavily involved in politics with other Houses, and relies on good diplomatic relations with others to spread your network of schools to their fiefdoms. So it allows you to build something for other fiefdoms, giving them improvements, starting by building your own School of Wisdom for your Fiefdom.
- The second, the Isolationist path, relies more on war and seeks independence from the Empire, it combines Warriors and Isolationists Traditions. You abandon the idea of a unified Calderia and will much rather rule a smaller part alone and be left alone. So this winning path is for those who prefer to play more hermit-style gameplay and keep both enemies and friends away.
To make these paths, we designed and implemented a handful of Tradition nodes in the Traditions Tree menu which unlocks various bonuses like: unique delegations and actions, additional points in war or social conflicts, new units or companions, for example.
Character customization
In September, we added this feature for more freedom on your nobles’ creation. You can rename and customize your characters’ appearance with a set of portrait parts (head, hair, clothing, background) when you create your House and at any other moment in the game.
Bandits, safety, & map events
In December, we implemented Bandits and the Safety features. This addition led to the appearance of bandits on the roads of the world map. They appear if your fiefdom’s safety is not high enough. No path is as safe as it used to be for merchants and soldiers. This feature came with a series of brand new and unique events you’ll have to deal with when they appear. With your help, we balanced how bandits attack fiefdoms and the way AI handles them. Bandits used to attack you too often and affected the beginning of your rule by starting their raids quickly after you created your fiefdom. To make sure that you had the time to prepare for them, we made a few changes: fiefdom starting set to 2 (instead of 0), preventing bandits from sieging repeatedly, and adding more outcomes, choices, and dynamic costs to bandits delegations and events.
Siege
The Siege feature, as well as the military unit overhaul, have made war more complex and strategic. We gradually introduced the Siege feature in December. For this mechanic, we added perks to some building upgrades, affecting both siege duration and speed. Attacking the city of a fiefdom at war will start a siege. When besieged, the defender must establish a garrison (without the expense of forming an army, although upkeep is still required). With your help, we introduced the ability to adapt your garrison to match the approaching army. The attacking army begins constructing siege equipment and, when completed, attempts to invade the fiefdom. The siege tower symbol shows the progress of the siege equipment. While under siege, the defending army loses health, and all production and trade resources are temporarily halted. The defense may try to lift the siege at any moment. To improve the clarity and information regarding siege, we worked on the garrison view UI and tooltips. The AI has been tweaked so that it handles sieges much more effectively and is less likely to lack defensive forces. We also created an event for when a siege begins without defense to provide information.
War and military units
February was busy with the rework of the military units thanks to your constructive criticism. We focused on improving the new military unit logic. While the battle system will remain fundamentally unchanged (a mini-game with a board and soldiers to manage), we have worked to make it more exciting and tactical. We chose to make battles and social conflicts (negotiations) completely skippable when we published the game in Early Access in August. If you aren't keen on playing the mini-games, you are free to select your units as well as the objectives and outcomes that are most relevant to you before clicking the "auto-resolve" option.
You can read more about the changes we made in this devblog:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1812910/announcements/detail/7356139324008352974
Player-based additions highlight
Difficulty settings, AI & Balancing
Balancing the game proved to be challenging, with the more experienced members of the community finding it too easy in the end game, while newcomers faced the intended level of challenge. So, also with the 1.0 update, to adapt to various skills and experiences, we kept improving AI behavior and will implement three difficulty levels: Apprentice, Bourgeois, and Maester. Apprentice AI operates the same as before, AI manages production and worker efficiency slightly less effectively than you. Bourgeois AI maintains efficiency when moving workers and receives a small production boost. Maester AI, similar to Bourgeois, enjoys a larger production bonus and a head start with the buildings. To compensate, we've made the economy more challenging. We advise less experienced players to start with an easy fiefdom and Apprentice AI. We've reduced production bonuses and adjusted food production to 2.5 per farmer instead of 3. Building upgrades are now considerably cheaper, with costs remaining stable across levels and fewer resource requirements. Traditions have also been made more accessible. Your save files have been invaluable in these adjustments, providing crucial insights. Thank you for your continued support and feedback!
Character skill training
In March, we added one of your suggestions: the ability to train your characters to improve their skills (Diplomacy, Economy, Intrigue, or Military), one level at a time. The duration of the training depends on the skill level, the higher the skill, the longer it will take to improve it. Based on your feedback, we've adjusted the skill Exp. distribution to narrow the gain gap between training and other tasks by respectively reducing training Exp. and boosting Exp. from the other tasks. Skill training is considered a task, this means characters won’t be able to undertake additional ones while training, and it cancels their current assignment. Upon reaching a new skill level, the training automatically ends. To initiate training, navigate to your Fiefdom's Diplomacy menu and select the desired skill category. Additionally, we've introduced a Character skill preview accessible via the Left ALT button in Settings > Input Settings.
UI and map filters (“modes”)
UI has been an important part of the game and feedback. We’ve added many tooltips and icons, improved the tutorial for the 1.0, and the map clarity with filters (modes), while adding clearer army icons to identify allies and enemies better. These modes provide critical knowledge by activating them and clicking on each region, such as the relationships between Heads of House, and we added the ability to view unmarried characters using this map option. It is also possible to examine each House's feudal status (vassals and lieges), resources, spies recruited, ongoing wars (and who is at war with whom), and alliances. We've implemented an active map mode indicator for better clarity and as a reminder. For the “Resource” mode, you can select multiple resources from a window that opens above the map mode toggle.
Optimization & memory leak fixes
We have been testing and improving the optimization of the world map, its textures, and the simultaneous events happening on the map and for all the Houses. Thanks to your reports and save files, we were able to investigate and fix the issues and calculations which led to crashes.
The 1.0 update is just a few days away! We can't wait to hear your feedback on the Civil War, the difficulty settings, and all the features we refined over the course of Early Access. Thank you for being part of the journey and for your help!
- Great Houses of Calderia Team -