Hello,
In this update I will continue where we left in the previous month. So in case you missed the last update, be sure to check it out here.
Having a solid foundation for Map grid and the ability to choose your starting location, the next step was to introduce Starting Civilization traits.
What are Civilization Traits?
Civilization traits let you configure your civilization every time you start. They work in similar manner as your equipped Heroes, but you can only change them at the start of each run. Then you're stuck with your selection until you ascend.
Same as with Heroes, there is a limited number of Civilization Traits slots. In the beginning you will have access to a limited selection of traits and as you progress you will unlock more and more. Each time you start you can chose the best traits that fit the starting location.
Civilization Class
The first and foremost trait to be picked is the Class of your civilization. You can always only select one Class trait. The class trait changes the looks of your buildings as well as some core economical and play-style features. In the 0.9 there will be total of 3 Class traits (more will come later). I'll share the details of each as soon as it is possible. But here are two early drafts:
An early draft of a highland Civilization Class
Another early draft of an arid Civilization Class
Each class will significantly affect your economy. Some classes will push you towards a specialization (similar to Hero factions). There will also be a generalist class which will provide the same play experience as the current version.
What other Civilization traits are there?
The rest of the traits will further specialize your economy and play style. You can increase your focus on for example expansion (speeding up quests, increasing army size), gold production, research, trade, diplomacy and other areas.
Civ Traits will get unlocked from Ascension tree and some more advanced traits will only be accessible in later Tier 2 and 3.
What is new on the Map?
A few missing details were added since the last update and overall I think the map is now playable. Majority of work was done on the Adjacency bonus system.
Adjacency Bonuses are indicated by silver/gold hex medals indicating 2 or 6 compatible adjacent tiles. See below for how adjacency is determined
The Two Adjacency bonuses
As explained in the previous update, adjacency system will cause your tiles to produce more if they're setup in a specific pattern. The rules are relatively simple:
If at least two other compatible tiles are adjacent, tile will double its productivity.
If the tile is surrounded by 6 compatible tiles around it, it will gain a second more powerful bonus.
Compatibility
As a base rule all tiles of the same type are 'compatible'. So for instance placing three Farmland tiles next to each other will grant 2 compatible adjacency points to each - gaining the first bonus (double productivity). At the same time a Forest will not be compatible with a Farmland so placing them next to each other will not make your land more efficient. The motivation is to build in 'clusters'.
Adjacency setup illustrated.
Villages & Fortresses
To make things more flexible, Villages & fortresses are compatible with all other types of tiles (except themselves). This means that a Farmland adjacent to two villages will get the same bonus as if surrounded by two Farmlands. This applies the other way around as well - a village surrounded by 6 non-village tiles will receive double production as well as a special bonus (added Workers).
Economy changes
Having a new Map Tile economy allowed me offloading some of the functionality previously held by Workshops onto the Tiles themselves.
One example is Unit caps granted by Barracks and Granary. Instead the Barracks will now grant a Cap Multiplier, while granary does what granary should - increase food storage.
Granary Food storage
One of the core changes in this version will be increase in Food storage size. With active Granary, you get a ton of food space. Enough to last a long drought.
As consequence Food can now be used for two things:
1) Paying for Quests and Festivals
2) Paying for Units which are over capacity (thereby introducing an over-capacity unit concept)
3) As a buffer to prevent overpopulation.
Additionally it will make more use of food generating traits and thus more crises and debuffs can now affect food production. Starvation will as a consequence have a more important (interesting) role in the future economy.
Resource Hero swapping
One of the annoying features reported by players is the need for constant hero swapping for different construction materials.
To solve this partially I have changed the primary trait bonus on heroes to all three construction materials at the same time. So now Economy heroes simply boost % of Wood Stone and Metal always. Non-primary hero traits however still can specialize you in one material or another.
Another part of this solution will be slight rebalance of resource generation between workshops, map tiles and trade. What this means is that you will have to adjust production economy based on the geography of your current game.
For instance not having access to hill tiles will limit your stone and metal production so you will need to obtain it by trade and/or boosting your workshops(or play as a civilization class which does not need as much stone/metal)
Third part of solution is allowing Hero Builds. You will now be able to have multiple equipped sets of heroes and swap between them.
Three hero equips will be enabled, allowing to swap by hotkey/button. Also I have added a search functionality (layout and style are still just in mock-up phase)
Roadmap update
As mentioned last time - I have got a few new ideas of mechanics for Tier 2,3 and 4. Additionally I finally thought up a reasonable way to add two additional technological eras that could work well with the new Tier 2 and 3. Part of this will also be two new Lotus types and a sort of progression of corruption and nemesis system.
The unfortunate part of this is they will be rather difficult to build with a plenty of artwork and functional features. I did my best to estimate the work needed on this new stuff and it seems to be somewhere between 4 to 12 weeks time. For this reason I decided to move the Tier work further down the Q1 2025 potentially moving the Early access as well. So apologies for the change in plans.
Feel free to check out the new updated Roadmap here.
What comes next?
In the next four weeks my plan is to wrap up all stuff from this and previous update. There's is a lot of artwork to be done, balancing configuring and testing. Part of this is also a massive rework of all the World Wonders and the system in which they are built. I also plan to finally fix the Unit progression (along with Stun) and also redesign fort Shield ability.
This is all from today's update.
Have a nice day,
Ondrej