FreeHolder Steam Alpha 3 Hotfix 7
3.1.2017
Announcements
Capital Donations and Assists
A major feature of the mid-game has been added, though there are more epic assists and other abilities to come in the future as the mid-game gets more fleshed out. You may now donate goods directly to the capital to earn favor - this is all done from the capital screen by clicking on the donatable goods. Which goods can be donated changes on a yearly basis. You will immediately trade the good for a certain amount of favor.
When this favor reaches a certain threshold, you can spend it to get help directly from the faction. Each faction has the default assist "Night Raid." This ability will remove one bandit group or faction strike force from your villa immediately, though of course you will claim no rewards from this.
Each faction also has a unique minor assist. I will briefly outline them here.
Manipulate Market (Romans). You may choose a good to spike or crash at the market next month. Most other faction unique abilities cost 15 favor, I have reduced this to 10, and may be willing to reduce it further depending on the relative power of this ability versus the other factions, which can only be revealed through playtesting.
Traveling Skalds (Gauls). All weak militia (Staff, Sword, Bow) at a town will be replaced by two types of Skalds, Blade Skalds and Wind Skalds, who are considerably better warriors. In addition, during each month of their stay they will sing songs of your valor in battle, raising your reputation at the town by 1. They stay for a total of 3 months. Unfortunately, the actual battle abilities of the skalds are irrelevant right now until factions can actually attack towns themselves, which is a feature that I will be adding ASAP. You can still reap the rewards of reputation gain, but this skill is somewhat underpowered until I code more faction behavior. Attacking a town with skalds in it will cause a glitch right now. I will code in the skald sprites and battle abilities with the relevant update.
Astrology (Caemani). You will receive a readout that indicates when all weather, market, disease, and tavern visitor events for the current year you are in will occur. You may consult this readout repeatedly throughout the year at no additional cost.
Only "minor assists" exist right now - there are no limitations on their use, but eventually they will be keyed to the economic level of the faction as a limiting factor. One of the many reasons to boost the economic level of your faction will be to unlock more powerful assists as the game goes on. Those assists, to be clear, only exist in my mind right now.
I hope you enjoy these new features, and look forward to your feedback. These will become more significant as they are woven into the mid-game as it evolves.
Bugs?
These features took somewhat longer to code than I expected - I only just finished them, and have only tested them a few times each. Rather than continue to delay in anticipation of having some bugfixes on this update, I thought I would just release the new content so at least you all have something to look at while I keep getting rid of bugs. I will be aiming for a bug-squishing hotfix tomorrow.
Alpha 4
Obviously, seeing as how it is March, I was unable to reach my original goal of getting alpha 4 up by March. However, it will occur in March, as soon as enough mid-game features are in that I consider it to be a substantial difference. I may occasionally have to neglect bug-fixing as I have done recently in order to forge ahead, and I apologize that I have to prioritize like this, but my time is limited. Your bug reports are vital and I have no intent of ignoring them; I just generally have to choose whether I will be looking forward or back for a session of coding. Or multiple sessions, as in this case.
New Features
-Faction capital donations are now functional
-Faction minor assists are now available
-Added minor assist "Night Raid"
-Added minor assist "Manipulate Market"
-Added minor assist "Traveling Skalds"
-Added minor assist "Astrology"