Hello all!
The time has come for another update, this time focusing on province development, implementing macro builders, and more!
In short, the following has been implemented:
- Province buildings overhauled with developments and improvements
- Province workforce
- Province development and improvement overlay macro
- Unit recruitment requires prerequisite improvements to be constructed
- Unit recruitment overlay macro
- Economy tweaks
- AI improvements to handling economy
- Map aesthetic enhancements
Provincial Developments and Improvements
The biggest item is that the "buildings" system has been overhauled with "developments" and "improvements". Along with these development changes, an overlay has been made to make it easier to interact with a countries' provinces:
Instead of building capacity being based on population, provinces must first be developed to open up slots for "improvements" to be constructed. Each improvement has a specified workforce required to keep it running - which is tied to a provinces' population. Improvements are also now separated by category (Production, Workforce, Research, Defensiveness, Land Recruitment, Naval Recruitment). In order to build these improvements, the province must first be developed up to the prerequisite level. Settled colonies start with no development, while starting development in the rest of the world varies from province to province.
Infrastructure development opens up more slots for Production improvements to be built, while also opening up the possibility for developments tied to other improvement categories. Below are the categories improvements are separated into:
Production
Production improvements are the core of where resources are gained. These include improvements such Farms and Coal Mines. In order to get the maximum output of these improvements, the province must have enough workforce. If there is not enough workforce, the production output is cut proportionally to how much workforce is missing.
Workforce
Workforce improvements increase the proportion of the province population able to be counted in the workforce. Every province has a starting rate where 10% of the province is available to work inside of constructed improvements. Each Worker Housing that is constructed increases this proportion by 10%. This is very important in provinces with lower populations, but not as important in a province where even a workforce that is 10% of the population is more than enough (In China for instance). In the future, workforce will also be affected by province culture, if the population is educated enough, and other factors.
Research
Research improvements cause the literacy of the province to slowly increase, which in turn increases research speed. In the future, the literacy system will most likely be replaced with something else that reflects the Steampunk setting better where there can be a large, lowly educated underclass that exists within a technologically advanced world.
Defensiveness
Defensiveness improvements main use is to make a province more difficult for an enemy to occupy. Province defensiveness is also affected by population size and is now displayed in the province info panel.
Land Recruitment
Land Recruitment improvements unlock the ability to recruit specific land unit types in a province. This makes it so that units such as landships have to be built in highly developed provinces and can no longer be recruited in newly settled or conquered low development provinces.
Naval Recruitment
Naval Recruitment improvements are the same as Land Recruitment improvements, except for ships. They, of course, can only be built in coastal provinces.
Province development will continue to be tweaked and added onto, the "Special" improvement category currently is not used, but will be where constructions such as canals, undersea logistics platforms, and projects such as the Cognition Engine will need to be built.
Recruitment Overlay
Recruiting units is now done in an overlay, so that players can choose exactly where they want their units to spawn, as long as the prerequisite recruitment building has been made for the unit attempting to be recruited (shown in the provinces which are green in the above map) and the player has enough resources to recruit them.
Wrapping Up
That's it for this update, thank you to everyone following along! If you want to interact with the development of Clockwork Dawn feel free to join the Discord. The next update will most likely focus on expanding the lore of the setting through events and other means, hopefully I'll be able to give an update on that soon!