Hi all!
It's been about two weeks since the early access release and I've received a lot of valuable feedback. Since the early access release, two hotfixes have been made to address issues, but also in the meantime work has continued on the main features of Clockwork Dawn. Still lots to do! In this latest update (0.4.0) the main targets were implementing the World Council feature, improving the existing tech tree, and improving the user interface.
The World Council
To deal with the problem of rapid expansion, a system needed to be put in place to provide a buffer for taking too many provinces too quickly. Instead of going for a simple 'aggressive expansion' penalty, I wanted to have something more interactive and engaging. The solution to this is the World Council - a type of proto-U.N.
When the 'World Council' tech is researched by any country the player gets an event that the world council has been founded. If their score is high enough (a combination of military size, industry, tech level) they will be invited to have a seat on the world council. Being on the council will give a passive bonus to reputation, but council members are obligated to join coalition wars on pariah nations.
The main currency of the world council is reputation. Reputation is lost when declaring war, but can be improved by assigning ambassadors as representatives to the council. The penalties for a low reputation are on a tiered scale, getting worse as reputation lowers. Assemblies are formed against nations with low reputation and they will enact the penalties against countries. Only at the lowest tier will the council join defensively in wars the offending nations starts.
Tech Tree Redesign
The design of the tech tree has been redone so now there is one single chokepoint (Analog Computation) that distinguishes historical technology from Steampunk technology. This allows for more themed technologies to be available earlier in the game and sets the tone for the Steampunk setting attempting to be created. Many of the technologies have been reordered and renamed to go along with this change.
Western countries farther along in industrialization will start on the cusp of this research, while non-European countries will need to do a little more historical research to reach the chokepoint.
Other Changes
Some other minor changes include the following:
- Autosave is yearly instead of monthly
- Technology button colors fixed after a research completes
- Reputation loss shown before war declaration
- Tooltip for research gain factors
- Additional images for events
- Math bug in army strength calculation fixed
- Hovering resources in banner displays resource name
- AI offering player alliance cooldown extended to 5 years