Trading Posts
These are new buildings that spawn in unpurchased territory. They always offer 3 randomly assigned trades that are very advantageous. However, they are classified as NPC buildings so you can not move them around - you have to bring goods to them! By default, 8 of them spawn on a map but you can change this value in the 'edit map' section when creating a new game.
You can build them and change their recipes in creative mode. You can also add new trading post recipes in the Game Rules Editor. Any recipes assigned while editing the map will be fixed in place during non-creative playthroughs, opening up some interesting possibilities for custom map scenarios.
Campaign Map 4
After a long delay, Campaign Map 4 is now available. I wanted to make this one pretty unique, so it needed some additional features to be built before I could finish it.
The setting is one large main island, with a different trading post on each of the 4 major shorelines. There is an abandoned railway running through a desert region. Perhaps it was once used to move goods across the island?
To win the scenario you will need to generate Elixirs and other goods that can only be acquired from the Trading Posts. So you must establish some trading routes and probably make use of Freight Rail cars to deliver large quantities of items for trade.
Other Feature Additions & Changes
- Added new Create Game property: Trade Recipes. This is a list of recipes that the Trading Posts will choose from on map creation. New trade recipes can be added here. Any of these recipes can be assigned to the trading post in Creative mode.
- New option when customizing new random map: Trading Posts, which let you choose how many trading posts should spawn
- Rail Cars now default to including top-level Train filter in its logic, but the rail car can specify whether the Train filter should be active or not. This also fixes a bug where a fixed-filter rail car (like Hopper) would ignore train filters for specific goods due to its built-in Loose Bulk filter always taking precedence.
- ‘Packed only’ and ‘Unpacked only’ filter restrictions can now be specified for item categories like ‘Gourmet’
- Recipes with inputs that are not produced in map (based on custom rules) are no longer automatically removed, as they may be produced by Trading Posts
- Replaced NPC building particle effects (when they appear on a newly purchased terrain chunk) with an exclamation point icon that disappears when you select the building
- Updated ‘Rail’ tutorial map to include Freight Cars
- Alert icons are hidden during Campaign intro cutscenes
Balance Changes
- Freight Cars are now dependent on Steam Locomotive research, not Steam Engine research
- Removed Red Coin cost from Farm Herbs recipe
- Campaign 2 starts player with General Store and a worker delivering Planks so they get an example of how Red Coins are produced. Also flattened out some terrain near starting area and disabled several Kitchen recipes which were impossible to produce or consume.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed bug: Steam Connectors over Water Pumps could be assigned “Water” filter if an outlet pipe built from them in the same session they were created. Similar bug with Water Connectors and the Steam Generator.
- Fixed bug: Custom recipes defaulted with Enabled property set to Off
- Fixed bug: In creative mode, some objects were not appearing in build menus if they had been disabled by active rule set or if map launched with creative mode off
- Fixed bug: When moving rail cars and re-attaching them to existing train, would create a bad train link that could cause errors when highlighting or deleting that train car in the future. Any bad links currently in games are automatically fixed during game load.
- Fixed bug: Transfers to or from Rail Cars were being accidentally limited during train station stops. New behavior is that an unlimited number of items can be transferred to a single Rail Car per transfer attempt.
- Fixed bug: Non-physical items like ‘Steam’, ‘Fuel’, ‘Knowledge’, etc would appear as pick-up options for workers, and would be transferred by ‘Deliver All’ commands
- Fixed missing localization on ‘PlayerActionCloseTopMenu’
- Fixed bug: placing structures would immediately show 'occupied' error after successful placement, instead of waiting for cursor to move
- Fixed bug: when placing Farm Tiles over crops the crop icon would obscure placement position
- Fixed bug: ALT key activation of ‘remove block’ tool would prevent correct hotbar assignments to top row
- Fixed bug: Context commands menu would be displayed when backing out to the main menu
- Fixed bug: Item filters specifying categories like ‘Gourmet’ would ignore packaged versions of items matching that category.
- Fixed bug: attaching a new rail cart wouldn’t immediately apply the relevant top-level train filter
Hotfix .171k:
- Fixed missing recipes for basic medicine items in Campaign Map 4 (bandage, remedy, fish oil, protein shake). Also disabled Mana Brick, sellable books, and Specialty Goods Store. Retroactively affects campaign maps already in progress
- Removed sellable books from Campaign Map 3
- Fixed hotbar items loading with incorrect locked display state