Distant Thunder
Thank you once again for all the feedback on the demo. It's answered a lot of questions I had in my own head about what works and doesn't in the game. As well your feedback and bug reports have assisted in finding and crushing a host of bugs. Also in helping shaping my thinking about the direction of the game. In this update I'll be going into exactly what has been happening and the next steps on the Critias Empire road.
Empty Handed
I finally got around to improving the survey / exploration feature. Adding in search hints means no survey ever leaves you with nothing at all, which given the relatively high cost of surveying, is a good thing. Or at least the survey hints will tell you when there's nothing to be found, so you don't waste time and resources.
Combined with the priorities filter, the hints also allow you to sniff down the resource you actually want, and over time get a bit of a natural instinct for where might be a good place to start a search in the future.
The priority filter also gives you an idea of what exactly there is to find. I'm hoping this acts as a clue for players who get to the middle of the game and ask "ok, I build my empire, I can't see any marble nor gold, what now?"
Woolly Balance
Originally I balanced the game with the final version in mind - much larger maps and more gods, disasters and wonders. It was only later in making the demo that I decided on a condensed version of the game with a radically cut down number of land uses (buildings), products, gods and disasters.
Releasing the demo made me realise that some of the assumptions in the demo balance were actually left-over from previously and no longer made sense. In particular, estates didn't make sense to build versus the number of workers they needed, and the wool->cloth economy needed for cities was far too demanding. Both of these I have made fine-tune adjustments for, which have already been patched into the demo.
The gods and disaster spawning has also been less even than I'd hoped. The game was balanced for gods slowly getting angrier and angrier as the game continued, to keep pace with player progress. However from talking to you fine folks, seem you either get wrecked early by the disasters, especially from Poseidon. Or reach a tipping point after which your economy is strong enough you can just build your way out of trouble. Sometimes even by accident of just building the favoured-by-the-gods buildings - temples, harbours and mines - that you would have built anyway.
The game also had a bug that would mean disasters failed to find a target location and spawned "empty" disasters where the ground shakes and the skies darken but no volcanoes spawn and no land changes. This combined with the uneven god balancing led to a lot of games where there was neither a threat of disaster, nor any special resources needed for victory spawning.
The disaster no-show bug should now be fixed (at least I hope!) In the short term, I will be rebalancing which land uses (buildings) please/anger which gods. In the medium term, this very direct, mechanical way of interacting with the gods will be replaced by the more subtle "Decisions" system I spoke about in previous blogs.
Difficult Direction
However, the biggest learning is that the skill level of you the players is wildly different. I balanced the demo with the objective of not having anyone get stuck in the horrible death-spiral of not having enough stone, food or workers to build and operate mines and farms. Which in turn are need to collect the stone and food already lacking. And more generally, I leaned towards making the game forgiving.
On this front, I'm really happy this death-spiral issue has hardly come up at all. (Or maybe the people who get stuck in this cycle don't stick around long enough to give any feedback).
However, I've instead found more people commenting that the game is too easy. Specifically, it's too easy to spam mines. As well, being able to build anywhere dilutes the need to carefully plan where to build and expand.
I have a few different ideas of how to tackle this, and it also ties in with another piece of feedback I received.
A Plethora of Non-Options
When I launched the demo, I was in two minds as to whether to include all the different options for changing Tenets, Gods, maps and disasters. My concern was that this would be seen as a promise for a lot of content.
While later versions of the game will have lots of things to switch up each time you hit the new game button, right now, most of those things are not implemented. The result has caused much confusion. The game presents false choices - options that aren't actually changeable.
I realised what the game really needed was "scenarios". Fixed game setups that can't be changed, with a story wrapped around them.
I have implemented the framework for adding scenarios to the game, and I'm now focusing on making two scenarios. The first will be a re-packaging of the existing demo balance. And the second will involve a different balance (different buildings, product and wonders) plus some new surprise features that I've been working on recently.
Selective Scenarios
I was hoping to get these new scenarios out in time for the Steam Endless Replayability festival, but there are just too many bugs to iron out. Things like making sure the tutorial still works and that save-load still functions correctly would suck if they broke from me rushing to get a release.
So instead I'm going to spend a bit more time getting these changes really polished. As part of this, I can do the land use (building) god-affinity rebalancing mentioned above. I also plan for the second scenario to address the mine spam and build-anywhere issues. This way the first scenario is still there as a gentler introduction to the game, while the second scenario provides more of a challenge.
My original plan for developing the game was to selectively turn on/off different options in the new game screen whenever I implemented a new god, disaster or tenet (feature) that I wanted the community to test. However it makes more sense to instead create a scenario and have people play that. That way, the game slowly builds up a library of content that can be re-played at any time, whilst letting me test and balance features in isolation. (The release version of the game will still have what I'm for now calling a "Custom Game" with the ability to change all the options).
What's Next?
Critias Empire is currently registered for Steam NextFest in June. A game can only ever be in one NextFest ever, so I'm still debating if it's worth sticking with this sooner NextFest or waiting for the edition after, in October.
I also need to portion up my workload on Critias Empire with my other game, Palm Paradise Garden; also currently slated for June Next Fest. I will keep working on the Critias Empire scenarios update in any case. My plan is still to have the demo available all the time and added to on an on-going basis, regardless of the festivals and events the game is part of.
As usual, if you have any of your own feedback or thoughts on the game's progress, (or especially if you find a bug I've reported as fixed!) you can always contact me or leave a comment!