I continue working on Civilizations update, and this is taking some time, more than expected, but well... we can say that the usual in game development.
Meanwhile, I will try, time to time, to upload some updates about other stuff.
In terms of development, currently, the most difficult part is the design of the system.
How everything it should work? How to fit Civilizations with the current game? How many options and menus?
Previously, I uploaded another devlog showing an screen of the progress, today you will see that screen doesn't exist anymore. This is because of the continuous cycle of doing and redoing everything after testing some stuff or realizing that maybe it wasn't good enough or not in the expected direction.
I would like to share with all of you some information and screenshots, and explain what is my plan and how I'm designing everything.
As usual, everything you will see here, in terms of visuals, it's a mockup, a draft or a placeholder.
Let's go!
This is the Main Menu of the cities.
Here you can see an overall picture of the city.
In the left side you can find the population of the city. They will grew up if we have enough housing and food resources. New citizens will be on idle state, until you assign them to work, investigate, collect resources, etc...
On top of that, it's the current temperature of the city. This is important because our species will tolerate specific max and min temperatures. So keeping the city in the right temperature is important, otherwise the population will die little by little.
On the bottom menu, you can see the name of the civilization and the city (I will improve the name generator later) and the current properties and resources stored in the city.
Also, two buttons on both sides: one in the left for buildings in the city, and the one in the right to investigate new technologies (unique per civilization).
Also, you can see the building menu is open. Here you can start a new building in the chosen location or select one of the existing ones to demolish.
There is a building amount limitation per city, and the location of the buildings, for now, it won't have any effect apart of the aesthetics. I will think about this in a future.
If you click in the Culture Menu, the following screen will open:
Here you can see the Civilization or Culture details. This is a common screen for all cities.
You can see the current specie of this civilization, the architecture, politics, religion, current technology under investigation, and flag design.
Also, in the bottom, a list of cities of this civilization, and a list of other civilizations/cultures in this planet.
About architecture... Yes, I will add a building editor, but... because the amount of buildings is going to be big, I cannot add an editor to custom every each of the buildings, so the idea is to edit a base template that will be applied to all buildings, then each type of building will add some extra elements to look different within them. Maybe this is not the best solution, but the more reasonable.
For Religion & Politics I decided to take a different approach than the usual one, and that menu will look like this:
Here, you have a list of rules that you can pick and combine them as you wish (very WIP screen).
Of course, there will be rules that are the opposite to other rules, so you won't be able to pick both of them at the same time.
You will need to discover new rules by investigating them in the technology tree.
Also, when you have a specific set of rules unlocked, a template in the left side will appear were you can click a traditional human politic or religion and apply their pack of rules. This is just to make things a bit easier for some players.
This screenshot is about politics, but exactly the same will be available for religion.
Finally, you can name your new government or religion as you wish.
In case of you contact another civilization, the following Negotiation Menu will appear:
Here you have a set of resources and actions you can use.
First, you will need to set what you propose to offer and what you request, then by clicking the blue button you can propose this to the other negotiator.
If they agree, the deal can be accepted and resources and actions be transferred or applied.
Otherwise, they can do changes in the proposals by asking for more or removing some of the requested items, and launch the proposal back to the player.
Now, again, the player can modify the proposal or accept it.
The negotiation will run in this cycle until someone accepts the offer or 5 proposals are made with no success.
OK! This is everything for today.
Maybe it doesn't look like too much, but it took me a while to design all these systems.
As mentioned, all you have seen here are mockups and they need a lot of polishing in terms of UI and visuals, but the system and gameplay design is already there.
Now, I will start working in military related stuff: recruiting units, managing them and simulating battles.
Then, building and flag editor, and after that, when are systems are in place, I will start adding the content and overall polishing.
As you can see there is still a lot of work to do, but now I have a clear idea of what I want to build for Civilizations update, so everything should go faster without does and redoes.
I will see you all in the next devlog and have a Happy Christmas!