Hey everyone!
We are excited to bring you news on the plans for the upcoming content update!
This update will bring a plethora of new content to the game, so without further ado let's take a look at what is to come in the next update.
New Monument: The Tavern
If you have seen the recent teaser you may have already guessed it but the next update will see the introduction of a new Monument, The Tavern!
As the Tavern is a monument it will consist of multiple parts. These parts will include a Public Bar room, Kitchen, Sleeping Room, Stables and many decorative items.
The Tavern monument will have limited functionality in this update but more functions will be added in future updates.
New Production Chain
A new production line will be introduced in the next update which will see the addition of the Dairy Farm and Cheese Maker.
These new production buildings will add both Milk and Cheese resources into the game, as well as new buildings and of course Cows!
A first look at the new Dairy Farm:
Assigning Monument Functions
One exciting new feature, coming soon, will be the ability to assign functions to monument building parts.
With this new feature, the player will have the ability to assign some generic parts a function that is relevant to that monument type, allowing players much more control over their monument building functions and overall creativity with building parts.
The Lord Manor monument set, for example, currently includes a treasury building and a Bailiff office. These building parts will become generic and the players will be able to assign the treasury and Bailiff functionality to the generic parts.
The new update will also see the addition of the Great Hall to the Manor monument functions. The Great Hall is where you will host any Envoys that visit your settlement. Assigning the Great Hall function to a building part will have the added bonus of doubling the splendour for that building part.
Some factors will have an influence on the Monument functions, for instance, the capacity of the part and the quality of the materials used.
Further Monument functions are planned to be added in later updates.
New Immigration Factors
Currently, new villagers join a players village in pairs, with the time between immigration waves being governed by overall villager happiness. The new update will bring some major new changes to immigration, we will be introducing new factors to govern the size of the immigration wave giving you more control over the growth of your city.
In a change to the current system, ‘Happiness’ will affect the immigration count rather than the time between waves. A happier populace will increase the number of new villagers joining a settlement.
In addition to this, ‘Employment’ will also factor in to the quantity of new villagers arriving in a settlement. Having more unemployed villagers in a settlement will reduce the amount of new arrivals in the next immigration wave.
A third factor being introduced will see a players homeless villagers having an impact on new arrivals. The ‘Residency’ factor will require villagers to be housed and if they aren’t, each homeless villager will be factored in to the next immigration wave, reducing the number of new settlers joining a village.
More Workstation Animations
We will be adding even more animations in the next update alongside a workstation animation feature.
The new feature will bring multiple animation to workstations which will increase the number of animations within a production building. For example, the bakery will see a new workstation where one villager will be working the bread whilst a second villager is working the oven.
In a similar vein, the blacksmith will see a new grindstone workstation animation added that will have a second villager grinding tools whilst the first works with a hammer on the anvil.
A new Coal hut workstation animation:
Weather variation
With the new update we plan to add some weather variation to the standard gaming environment.
The new weather effects won’t have the same impact on the challenge to the game as the bad weather event but will increase the level of immersion with variations in the weather environment between sunny, cloudy and rain effects.
Bridge Improvements
Bridges will be getting more detailed with the addition of bridge decorations! There will be a whole host of additional options to improve the look of your bridges, from simple banners to more ornate gates and towers.
Additionally we are looking into improving pathfinding and collision for bridges to ensure they are usable once built and placed correctly.
A Horse of course!
That’s right, we will be introducing the horse into the game, starting off as a vehicle for the Envoy.
And finally…
We will be adding in the possibility to import heightmap data! Initially this will allow modders to include custom maps with their mods or even create a mod that is just a map.
We will be including more villager outfits and applying many bug fixes and improvements, including fixes to improve blocked pathing issues.
Release schedule
We plan to have the update ready for release within the next few weeks so keep an eye out for further announcements.
All the best
-The Polymorph Games Team