Hear ye, hear ye, King, Queens and Monarchs!
Today, we are releasing our Hamlets (and Trade) update that I arbitrarily decided to name "Hit the road update" without consulting anyone (don't tell the devs!)
In this update, we are implementing the Advisor Mode, the Hamlets and trade system, roads adapting to your evolving city, and a highly requested feature: a refined destruction tool that will only delete the building and not the plot!
This update is also our biggest Optimization update.
Disclaimer: Due to heavy changes in the system and build, your saves in 0.2 are not compatible with 0.3. However, we have created a 0.2 branch so you can transfer your save there. PTB Saves are not compatible either, make sure to switch to the Main branch again if you haven't already, by clicking on the "Selected Version"
Key features
New “Advisor” game mode
This new game mode will offer stronger challenges for players who are up to the task!
Optimization
We've worked hard on optimization. We knew it was one of the biggest issue tied to the game and we are happy to present our biggest optimization update. We are still working on some details along the way but you should notice many improvements while playing!
Hamlets
Hamlets will allow you to expand your territory and bring new resources to your territory. You can access the menu via the Town Hall. While your Burgomaster will not be available for any other activities, they will bring their skills and perks to the new hamlet!
Gather camps now need to be placed inside the city construction area
Trade system
Hilde's Trade Post will be unlocked with the Hamlets and will allow you to obtain gold in a different way than expanding, so you can have control over your growth.
This was requested by the community several times. It was originally suggested to be tied with the market itself but we wanted a system that would make more sense: if we were to use the marketplace, it would have been implied getting the money from your population.
This feature will allow you to have a different form of income without implementing taxes that we feel are a bit too idle.
We hope it will make your progression interesting! Please let us know your thoughts!
Resource depletion, agriculture and balancing
With the introduction of the Hamlets and Trade system, we have changed the resource depletion and regeneration. They will deplete a bit faster and you will have to be a bit more careful with the management of your production chain.
We have also deleted the agriculture zones, so you can now place your orchards, vineyards and farms anywhere you want!
Mechanics and core changes
New deletion tool and the ability to cancel construction
The building deleting feature was highly requested by our community and it took us a bit more time than expected to implement it with a satisfying result.
We also implemented a "Cancel" construction feature, that will allow you to cancel it if you missclick or change your mind.
It has a few ripple effects on the spatial puzzle that we were and are still worried about so please let us know what your think!
Changes in narration
When starting a new game, you can now choose to play without narration and without tutorial.
For your first game, the tutorial and narration will be enabled by default. However, as soon as you've progressed a bit in the game, all your subsequent new games will allow you to disable these options as you wish
This will allow you to create more freely without reading through the story. This change made us rethink the narration was intertwined with core features.
We have separated Narrative quests with the “Main Quest” that will unlock new buildings and new elements, you can prioritize easily and differentiate them in the UI, the Advisor will guide you well.
In “Non Narrative mode”, you will only get the Main quests.
Life, visuals
Citizens and transporter: your city is coming to life with transporters carts instead of backpacks
Fancier roads: As your city evolve, the roads will evolve with it from dirt to stone to paved roads
Habitation fusion: Higher-tier habitation sometimes fuses with their neighbor after upgrading
Supporter Pack
4 more tracks have been added to the Supporter pack!
0.2 Disclaimer
Disclaimer: Due to heavy changes in the system and build, your saves in 0.2 are not compatible with 0.3. However, we have created a 0.2 branch so you can transfer your save there.
Right-click on “City Tales - Medieval Era” > Betas > in “Beta Participation” select “Version_0_2_0”
You can find your savegame in {disk}:\\Users\\{username}\\AppData\\LocalLow\\Irregular Shapes\\City Tales\\saves\\{steam_userid}\[/i]
Each folder with a number is a save slot with 0 being your autosave
Full patchnotes
Highlight
Reworks building perks to be the same for all building types
Companion quest can be given up
Limiting quests to 2 active companion quests
Deprecates save prior to 0.3.0.1 + adds deprecated save UI
Three new quest related to a new Companion
4 new music tracks
Hamlets
You can expand your city by creating hamlets and naming one of your trusted companion as burgomaster
Gather camps now need to be placed inside the city construction area
New destruction mode
You can destroy a building without destroying its parcel
In progress constructions can be canceled
Performances
Many changes have been made to improve the performance of the game, particularly with larger cities
Carts
NPCs carriers now use carts instead of backpack
New economy buildings
Eight new production buildings with their unique visuals
New resources
New civil building upgrades
Houses can be upgraded one more time
New “Advisor” game mode for more challenge
Narration
The city progression and building unlocks are now separate from the main story
New option to play without the main story
Each companion has a new quest to further your relationship with them
Many existing quests and objectives have been reworked
Other
Building and upgrading civil building have different costs (upgrading a chapel to a church has a different cost than building a church directly)
Habitations now start with their maximum of inhabitants, instead of gradually growing over a few minutes
Performances (detailed)
Improves performances of carriers NPCs
Improves rendering performances of all buildings
Improves rendering performances of fields
Improves rendering performances of castle
Improves performances during district creation and building placement
Improves rendering performances of the terrain
Improves rendering performances of building alert icons
Improves performances of road creation
Improves rendering performances of collectable stones
Grass has been mowed below collectable resources
Vegetation fields growing animation has been replaced by a new, more organic one
Balancing
Overall rebalancing of the economy to prepare for the new buildings and resources
Town hall construction area are smaller (but can be extended using hamlets)
Town hall upgrades and castle construction cost less gold
Reworked position of resources on maps
Removes fertility zone for animal and vegetation fields
Add game mode to save tooltip
Updates vinque font for better readability of some letters
Player name and city name can be longer (from 12 to 16 characters)
Increases camera panning speed at high altitude
Adds UI to castle placement
Influence areas: minimizes overlaps between symbols
UI
Updates end of EA screen text and buttons
Reworks perks UI (production wheel, tooltips, icons) 🔵🟣
Updates destruction buttons UI
Updates dialogue UI
Adds hover/pressed state to notification card
Put all non-English words in italic in dialogues
Removes delay before mouse camera drag and rotation
Adds specific dialogue per companion to autonomy tutorial
Updates translation team credits (new members, fixed job title)
Adds perks onboarding
More mill visual variety
Fixes
Fixes building a civil building on two houses increases the total number of inhabitants
Fixes destroying a manufacture or civil building or its parcel that was built on top of a house does not decrease the total number of inhabitants
Fix sometimes villager cross a district (especially mono-parcel districts) to go behind the district
Fixes placing a civil building over two habitations only cost the money of one habitation
Fixes placing a building over habitations only cost the money of the current tier (and not the sum of all current and previous tier)
Fixes additional money cost is not actually paid if the district has only one house
Removes crane from loading screen
Fixes fences are badly updated after building or parcel deletion
Fixes visual borders of large collectable resource zones
Fixes experience gained by buildings was not uniform
Fixes destruction highlight icon priority (icon was not shown if building had a 3D alert)
Fixes expertise icons in objectives and dialogues
Fixes cannot destroy a district if cannot afford each parcel destruction cost (but can afford total)
Fixes roof pattern
Fixes map border fog glitches
Fixes Montalban Meadows inhabitant spawn positions