Hello Great Leaders!
It is finally time for some news, we are working on it for several months, thank you for your patience so far!
First part of the post we will give some explanations of the direction of the game and later we will present the new good stuff!
Sim Colony x Grand Strategy
This isn't a Traditional Sim Colony:
The Traditional Ones might be focused on "survival", with a lot of natural disasters and surviving rounds of bugs, zombies, or invaders or it can be about logistics management, space planning, building pipes, conveyor belts, waterways, etc., in order to efficiently move goods around and expand production.
Primitive Society Simulator will be a "Building Society":
We have currently incorporated "competition with other peoples," essentially merging grand strategy gameplay with "map coloring" mechanics.
Players must prevail in this fiercely competitive world.
We hope our friends maintain realistic expectations regarding our development progress. We will gradually create a work centered on shaping and building society within the context of human conflict.
Management remains a crucial cornerstone – you must develop your tribe effectively, then exert influence over neighboring tribes, turning them into vassals to achieve greater expansion.
Here, war will serve as an extension of politics, though not the sole method; cultural propagation and trade are equally viable paths.
This game is not the traditional way of playing colony building, and that competition, i.e. war, diplomacy, commerce and trade will be very important, and that just building on your own in silence will not win you the game.
Important Differences Compared To The Old Version:
1. It's now impossible to directly unlock technology through labor accumulation
This old mechanic can lead to players not being able to make choices on technology development. It is very detrimental to the playstyle.
I like the old mechanic myself, but it's a temporary compromise for the sake of smooth gameplay and the more important leader system, so I hope you understand.
The mechanism now is that the leader creates the technology by leading the crowd, working together, and gathering the wisdom of all.
Knowledge remains an important factor, and with insufficient knowledge, technology creation will be slow beyond the medium term.
The engraving of monuments and the passing on of knowledge is still alive and well and remains a more important play.
We will also continue to design better ways to play to reflect the importance of knowledge. Keep up the playstyle exploration of this factor.
2. New art style
The detail (texture) is reduced. On the one hand this is better for post performance.
On the other hand, I think being able to clearly see what people are doing is very important for this work.
The characters have become more slender than in the past, and the movements are more realistic, especially the fighting ones.
There's still a lot of room for improvements, but the overall presentation of the art style is much more appropriate for this game than in the past.
Scenery details will be further enriched by adding buildable facilities.
3. Some other removed features:
Mission, Founding, Oracle. It will be replaced later by a richer system of diplomacy and events.
Terrain modification. Shouldn't be done again, huge amount of work, other games do it more.
But the mound of dirt and the altar are still there. They are now used for cultural outreach.
The "Smoothing Point" is removed, and the need for "emotional pacification" is gone. Now there's no more being scared to death out of fear.
There are no specialized medical beds. Serious injuries are treated by prioritizing placement in beds, and if beds are not available, they will be placed next to the campfire.
Highlights, added gameplay:
1. Strategic gameplay - Ancient ethnic rivalry and the corresponding map
The player starts in East Asia.
The player can take slaves and food from other tribes.
They can also pay tribute to other tribes or be turned into military service by "propagandizing" them.
There are no more complex strategic gameplay options such as marriages.
The localized battlefield has simple weapon restraints and training of soldiers. There are chariots as siege equipment.
2. Technology Tree
In the past, the tech tree was accumulated by knowledge and unlocked by itself. The player had no choice. Now it has been changed to, the leader leads the clan and conducts research together. The speed of research is mainly affected by collective intelligence, but also by the amount of knowledge.
The content of the tech tree has been increased mainly by city defense. Other tech points have changed little.
3. Cultural Trees
This can be done through culture, controlling population growth, weapon quality, training effectiveness, and outreach effectiveness. Four broad areas.
It is likewise up to the leader to lead the clan and create.
4. "Leader" centered grouping function
There are related leader schedules, martial arts, and dietary management.
It's very convenient to operate in the middle and late stage. All kinds of interactions are centered on the leader.
5. Group marriages
It's not a monogamous union now. Children don't know who their father is.
It doesn't have much impact at the moment. The main thing is to lay the groundwork for play styles down the road.
For example, an imbalance in the ratio of men to women can cause a difference in playstyle, where women are more numerous and the population reproduces faster.
And more males in greater numbers, with greater war power.
This is also more in line with history, and lays the foundation for future "family" and "class" mechanics.
6. Slave management
Slaves are great laborers, but they can also rebel.
Rebellion can be deterred by execution, or it can take a leader's time to turn them into clansmen or sold.
7. Medicine is now automatic
You don't have to send squads out to find medicine anymore, the people who work in medicine will find it themselves.
Serious injuries are now 0 blood, but they won't die immediately, they will be saved by others, and will only die if no one saves them at intervals.
Known major issues
※ Performance can't hold up after the population explosion in the later stages. We have already designed a way to play against "too many people", but it will take time to fix it.
※ Localization still a work in progress while it is on Beta. We will be updating it always that the each translator make some progress. Russian and Spanish might be unplayable for now, once that our translators are facing personal problems.
Also being a Beta branch, there should be more or less a few bugs and numerical issues that we haven't found yet.
We hope you will give us more encouragement.
-Peterson Bueno, Mr. Octopus