Salutations Industrialists,
We're excited to share the progress we've made in May and early June and update you on our Alpha Roadmap.
We are happy to announce that we are getting close to the release of the Closed Alpha! As you may have heard in the latest Dev Diary on Map Modes, we have sent out Non-Disclosure agreements to our Kickstarter backers. In addition to having early access to the game, our backers will be an integral part of the development of Gilded Destiny. One of the main purposes of the closed Alpha will be to gather focused, high-quality feedback from devoted and passionate players while key systems are still in development. Again, we are thrilled to be bringing the closed Alpha to our supporters who backed us on Kickstarter!
If you are one of our backers on Kickstarter, please head over to Kickstarter for more information in the previous update about accessing the NDA.
We’d like to thank you for your continued patience as we work toward the Alpha release. That said, we’ve been making steady progress on several key features of Gilded Destiny. Over the past weeks, much of our attention has been devoted to preparing for the closed Alpha, handling essential pre-release tasks, and polishing various game systems behind the scenes. First and foremost, we want to thank you for your continued patience as we develop and refine Gilded Destiny to a level that will be playable and enjoyable to our early testers.
Without further ado, let's take a look at what we accomplished in May and what is planned for June.
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Accomplished in May
Edit Terrain of South America and begin editing terrain of Africa
We have updated several areas:
Qing Dynasty (Taiwan, Hainan, Amur, Fujian, Zhejiang, Shandong, Jiangsu, Northeast, etc.).
Africa (Morocco, Tiris, Tagant, Trarza, Algiers, Tunisia, Sokoto, Bornu, Tibesti, Haray, Darfur, Wadai, Bamana Kingdom, Western Sahara, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Portugal, Buonda, Lunda Kingdom, Skeleton Coast, Cape, Xhosa, Zulu Kingdom, Kalahari Desert, Upper Vaal, Gaza Empire, Tabora, Ruvuma, Oman Empire, Swahili Coast, Mozambique, etc.).
America (US West Coast Mountains, Canadian East Islands, South American Terrain, Spain Terrain).
Egypt (East, Northwest, Southwest).
Cultural Heritages and Religious Convictions: Continue design and implementation of Cultural Heritages and Religious Convictions, aiming to cover the major Religious Convictions and finalize Religious Groups by the end of May.
This has been delayed. Our devs have prioritized the rework of the economy, and therefore have pushed this back.
Authority and Government Support:
Update and refine systems involving the generation and use of Authority, and review the impact of the Government Support system.
Completed
Review and update configuration of POP Political Power system
Pushed to June
Political Parties: Begin implementation of new Political Parties design.
Work has begun and will continue into June. Create initial design plan, implement basic design into game, connect political parties with countries.
Policies: Update and refine the modifiers for Policies in line with new game systems.
Similarly to the work on Cultural Heritages and Religious Convictions, our devs have prioritized work on the economy system and therefore additional work on Policies has been delayed.
Economy: Continue refining economic behavior and updating initial economic world-state based on historical data.
Ongoing and will continue.
Rebellions
Complete implementation of Rebellion system.
Work on Rebellions is largely complete, yet not finalized. Pushed to June.
AI
Finalize AI for Province Edict management
Completed
Implement AI systems for leader recruitment and assignment to governmental, province, or military postings
Completed
Completed AI budget system
This is an infrastructure system. I will gradually rework previous AIs that are related to resources (like cash, authority, influence point) to make them under control.
Optimized Consumption Tax AI. Make it under control by the new AI budget system.
Optimized investment AI
Converted from behavior tree to code.
More performance-efficient, and fixed some bugs.
Optimized Military AI
Converted from behavior tree to code.
Optimized performance and support for the rebel system.
UI
Complete design of Navy UI
Done
Complete redesign of Flag Editor UI
Work has begun. 32 out of 55 of the planned flag symbols have been designed.
Continue refining Map Modes UI elements for clarity and performance
Done and ongoing. Be sure to see the latest Dev Diary on Map Modes!
POPs: Refine distribution of POP cultures, religions, and professions in Western Europe and Russia, based on historical data.
Western and Northern Europe have been completed. Eastern Europe and Southern Europe are in progress.
Diplomacy: Begin planning for refining and expanding on Diplomacy system
Initial design work has begun for some mechanics within Diplomacy. Design work will continue.
Map Modes
Added Unrest map mode. (This is a map mode for the rebel system)
Added Resource Point map mode.
Begin designing Map Mode filter feature, which is still under development.
This UI component will enable players to switch to sub-modes under specific map modes, such as Resource Point mode, Production mode.
End of June
Continuing the work on balancing the economy
Continue work on Pop distribution
Finish work on terrain
Continue editing terrain: West, South, and Central Africa
Finish military initialization for major powers and medium European nations.
Continue development of Map Mode Filter feature.
Redesign AI behavior for Army Recruitment
Should be roughly half done with the new UI for political parties and voting.
Adding the 3rd batch of historical leader heads to the game.
Should have the new (our first official) loading screen ready.
Trade UI redesign will be done.
6 (out of 8) 3D buildings should be done. However, these need to wait for the refactoring and the world map work to resume before they can be implemented.
Cavalry 3D unit should be done.
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As we are approaching the closed Alpha, much of our priority has been to prepare the game for wider release. This means that focusing on the economy has been the most important task for our dev team. While we are actively working on a number of other features and improvements, our focus on stabilizing and refining the economic systems means we’re not quite ready to share details or timelines for those tasks at this stage. We appreciate your understanding as we concentrate on the systems most critical to the Alpha. We will share our plan for July at the beginning of the month, and as our goals evolve and milestones are reached, we will continue to keep you informed.
Also, as a reminder—we have assigned Discord roles to our backers who are already part of our server. If you are not a member of our server, please join via the link below and say hello in the chat to ensure that you claim your role!
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Thanks for your support and for reading!
May your day be a gilded one!