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What's new in 0.8.0
November 16th, 2015

- Savefiles from previous versions should work with 0.8.0, but it is recommended to start a new game anyway, since there's a lot of things that have changed.

- New mega-building: Arena. As any other mega-building Arena produces some fame over time and increases appeal in the area, but most importantly it increases the amount of XP your units gain and provides every unit with a small amount of XP every month.

- New mega-building: Wizard's guild, which increases magic output by 20% (useful, since we're adding spells).

- New building: Magic tower. Magic tower uses magic points to shoot enemies. It's a bit weaker than guard tower but has splash damage.

- Spells! Spells need to be researched first using magic points and coins. Some spells can be upgraded up to level 3, increasing the efficiency (casting cost stays the same, though).

Some spells are aimed at strengthening the economy, the others are useful in combat. For example 'Phantom Warriors' spell creates a group of ghostly soldiers who will join your side for a limited amount of time.

You can switch between spells and construction with a button in the bottom left corner of the screen or with a hot-key. [Q] opens up spells menu and [Esc] gets back to buildings. Greyed out spells are not researched (or you don't have enough magic points to cast).

Spells do direct damage and don't take armor into account. Some of the creatures, though, have magic resistance (Warlock, Skeleton Reaper) or even magic immunity (Dragon).

- Balance changes. First of all, all producing buildings now have the production value of 24 loads per year. I can't quite remember, so maybe it already was like that, but anyway I went ahead and made sure it works that way. Exceptions are: hunter's lodge (12 animals per year), mining/digging buildings (12 per year, note that masonry produces 2 loads of stone at a time, so it's still 24 per year) and stables (4 horses per year). Since the production of aviary and fishing quay is somewhat random it can vary, but in average it is still 24 eggs/feathers and fish per year accordingly.

All workshops that require resources take 1 load of each raw material per 1 load of finished product. For example, bakery requires 1 load of flour, 1 load of logs and 1 load of water per 1 load of bread. This makes it easier to know how many grower's lodges you need for your bakeries - it's always (almost) 1 to 1. Exceptions are: boats, weapons, armor and horses (no changes here). Also, you, obviously need 2 hunter's lodges per smokehouse, since lodges have only half as much production.

Also, I rebalanced workforce requirements, item prices and nutrition values to make sure that more advanced food types are more efficient than raw materials. For example, not only bread provides more food points per load, but it is also more efficient workers-wise than turnips (if you build a bunch of turnip farms). Producing finished products for trade is also more efficient than trading raw materials.

There are also changes in food/alcohol/luxuries consumption values and other balancing things.

- Some changes in texture loading, so now loading is somewhat faster and images take less video memory.

- Options unavailable for player's culture are removed from foresters, hunters, growers and shepherds. Hopefully this makes it less confusing.

- City reputation now slowly increases as you earn fame. This gives an additional purpose for fame and helps large cities recover its reputation. You will need to start a new game to fully benefit from that, since it takes into account the total number of fame points ever earned and not the current value (which also means that you don't have to keep unused fame around).

- Stopped ghosts from wandering far away from abandoned mines (apparently this didn't quite work as intended).

- Some buildings look different.

- Buildings that require extra resources to be built now actually use those resources. Must have gotten broken at some point.

- Squads sent home now ignore enemies until they reach the barracks. This is the retreat feature people were asking for.

- Autosave now overwrites the previous autosave (from the same playthrough). You will still have at least two autosaves (if enabled) - on exit and annual.

- Houses didn't devolve from the lack of food apparently. Thanks for pointing that out!

- Buildings become a bit more transparent in Hide Buildings mode.

- You can ignore messages about monsters and thieves by enabling appropriate options in the settings menu.

- Fixed a bug with an army stuck upon returning (again).

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Status update
November 9th, 2015

Lots of bugfixes and other things this time!

Buildings that require extra resources to be built now actually use those resources. Must have gotten broken at some point.

Squads sent home now ignore enemies until they reach the barracks. This is the retreat feature people were asking for.

Autosave now overwrites the previous autosave (from the same playthrough). You will still have at least two autosaves (if enabled) - on exit and annual.

Houses didn't devolve from the lack of food apparently. Thanks for pointing that out!

Buildings become a bit more transparent in Hide Buildings mode.

You can ignore messages about monsters and thieves by enabling appropriate options in the settings menu.

Fixed a bug with an army stuck upon returning (again).

New building: Magic tower. Magic tower uses magic points to shoot enemies. It's a bit weaker than guard tower but has splash damage.

I will have to spend a few more days testing things out and balancing stuff with the addition of spells.

Casting Flamestrike on some goblins:

Using Bless on troops:

3 comments

Status update
October 25th, 2015

This week I decided to make some balance changes. First of all, all producing buildings now have the production value of 24 loads per year. I can't quite remember, so maybe it already was like that, but anyway I went ahead and made sure it works that way. Exceptions are: hunter's lodge (12 animals per year), mining/digging buildings (masonry produces 2 loads of stone at a time, so it's still 24 per year) and stables (4 horses per year). Since the production of aviary and fishing quay is somewhat random it can vary, but in average it is still 24 eggs/feathers and fish per year accordingly.

All workshops that require resources take 1 load of each raw material per 1 load of finished product. For example, bakery requires 1 load of flour, 1 load of logs and 1 load of water per 1 load of bread. This makes it easier to know how many grower's lodges you need for your bakeries — it's always (almost) 1 to 1. Exceptions are: boats, weapons, armor and horses (no changes here). Also, you, obviously need 2 hunter's lodges per smokehouse, since lodges have only half as much production.

There are also changes in food/alcohol/luxuries consumption values and other balancing things.

I also made some changes in texture loading, so now loading is somewhat faster and images take less video memory.

Options unavailable for player's culture are removed from foresters, hunters, growers and shepherds. Hopefully this makes it less confusing.

City reputation now slowly increases as you earn fame. This gives an additional purpose for fame and helps large cities recover its reputation. You will need to start a new game to fully benefit from that, since it takes into account the total number of fame points ever earned and not the current value (which also means that you don't have to keep unused fame around).

Stopped ghosts from wandering far away from abandoned mines (apparently this didn't quite work as intended).

A different look of minstrel's guild:

(Click to enlarge)

Spells are still in progress with combat spells (and testing) left to go.

Casting Midas Touch (creates additional coins in houses for tax collectors to collect):

2 comments

Status update
October 11th, 2015

The fourth mega-building is Wizard's guild, which increases magic output by 20% (useful, since we're adding spells).

(Click to enlarge)

Here it is in game:

(Click to enlarge)

I decided to put spells menu in the left-bottom corner of the screen. You can switch between spells and construction with a button or a hot-key. [Q] opens up spells menu and [Esc] gets back to buildings. Greyed out spells are not researched (or you don't have enough magic points to cast).

Some of the spells are done and it will probably take another week to complete (and test and balance) the rest. Maybe we need some kind of cooldown for certain spells (especially resource creating ones), otherwise giving you have enough magic points, you can fill up the map with hoards of magical rabbits.

Creating magic forest:

Creating magic coal:

2 comments

Status update
September 27th, 2015

Here's the progress we've made since the last update (0.7.4):

New mega-building: Arena. As well as Castle and University Arena produces some fame over time and increases appeal in the area, but most importantly it increases the amount of XP your units gain and provides every unit with a small amount of XP every month.

(Click to enlarge)

Temple has changed a bit to look better among other buildings.

(Click to enlarge)

I started working on magic system for the upcoming 0.8 update. The spells have to be researched first much like technologies. Certain spells have more than one level, with each next level increasing the power of the spell (damage, duration etc.). Each spell costs magic points and coins to research and magic points (which are collected by priests) to cast. Currently there are 21 spells. Each culture has its own set of spells. Some spells are available to every culture, some are unique and some change the way they work depending on the culture.

The list of spells and the way they work can change as I'm implementing them and see the effects. Also I've been thinking about adding magic and physical resistance, but this may complicate things too much, so I'll keep thinking about it:)

Some spells are aimed at strengthening the economy the others are useful in combat. For example 'Phantom Warriors' spell creates a squad of ghostly soldiers who will join your side for a limited amount of time.

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