It's been a while since the last time. And I understand that people is getting worried about when the next update is coming, I would be too if I were in your shoes.
Sadly, as usual, this is taking more time than expected :-(
On one hand, because Christmas is a terrible period for productivity: celebrations, family stuff, etc...
But also because... I decided to rebuild some systems again (sorry!).
Last time I showed you the building menu, the culture menu, negotiation screen and religion & politics.
Do you remember that building menu? Well... it has been changed again ːsteamfacepalmː
BUILDING SYSTEM
Before, it was a circular grid with fixed positions for all buildings, limited to around 40 building slots around the city center.
But now, it's tiled based!
This means, you will be free to choose adjacent tiles an expand your city in any direction, adding up to three buildings per tile.
This allows more organic cities and some creativity and a bit of more freedom when creating cities.
Also, there is no technical limitation on how much you can expand, so the idea of ecumenopolis, proposed by a fan, could be a thing.
PRODUCTION SYSTEM
Also, this has changed from previous devlogs.
Before, there was a system where you have to assign resource collection per tile.
I found this was tedious and maybe too much micro management.
So, I removed that and created the new production menu, where you will see a table with the following:
Current production.
Production limit based on your technology or buildings.
Production limit based on available resources provided by nature (food, wood, stone...).
Percentage of work force applied on that resource.
This way you don't need to continuously pay attention that all available population is assigned to a resource. In a more macro-way you will be able to assign your city production levels, that will grow up along with your tech and buildings. But, also, you can increase or stop the production of specific resources to adapt to any situation.
MILITARY
This is new!
Not much to explain here, the usual stuff.
You will be able to produce military units for defending or attacking other civilizations.
There will be few military types with their advantages and disadvantages.
BUILDING EDITOR
Another new thing to the game.
As everyone was expecting, there will be a building editor!
But with some limitations... because of the amount of different types of buildings the game will include, having an editor for each one of them was adding too much complexity to the game, and also it could be very tedious for the players to need to build all of them individually, the editor will work as a template.
This means that you will create one design, and it will be applied to all buildings. Of course, to identify different buildings, each type of building will add some predefined details to the template (e.g. some blades for a windmill).
And after all this, combined with all previous devlogs, all systems for Civilizations are implemented and ready to be all connected. Then, it's all about adding content, replacing placeholders and polishing.
See you soon!