Thrive: Heavy Lies The Crown News

Join Greg and Kat as they bring you another update. They discuss how Disease and Happiness will impact the citizens of your kingdom in Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown.

*This stream is pre-recorded*

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Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown is available to Wishlist on Steam now!

Social Links:
Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown Website - Official Website Discord - Join our Discord community
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Find out more about PlaySide Publishing on its official website

To learn more about Zugalu Entertainment, please visit its official website

People of Nysamor,

Since our last dev update, we’ve been expanding our own horizons with the Publishing team showing off Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown as part of the official SXSW Sydney game selection.

In Thrive, managing your kingdom is a delicate balance of maintaining current wants and needs, and staving off future threats. Today, we’ll be exploring how Happiness and Disease can impact the lives of your citizens, and what you can do as a leader to make sure your subjects are healthy and productive.

Make sure to check out our recent Dev Update Stream where we covered Happiness and Disease in greater detail

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

HAPPINESS



Regardless of whether you’re Benevolent or Tyrannical, the overall happiness of one’s citizens can greatly affect the ability for your kingdom to succeed in Thrive. A variety of elements factor into how your people feel at any given moment.

In the current build of Thrive, event outcomes, goods, and luxury items have the potential to increase or decrease happiness amongst the populace. In addition to these, our team is working to add even more factors that will impact your kingdom’s happiness levels. These include: pollution levels, population, building density, taxation, and the effects of those mysterious magenta crystals that seem to keep spawning wherever the Waelgrim’s presence is felt…

In the future, players can expect being at war versus at peace, decorative structures around the kingdom, and having well maintained buildings (not destroyed or damaged) to also affect how happy your kingdom will feel.

DISEASE

Illness can spread quickly throughout your kingdom, so it’s advisable to keep a watchful eye on the health of your citizens. Should illness strike one home, it can quickly move between others. Working residents always have a chance to pass it on. Whatever the ailment, fermenters and infirmaries should be located nearby homes to manage these bouts of sickness before they get out of control.

• The Infirmary provides an area of effect wherein citizens can be cured. Any citizens who reside within its radius will receive treatment once a disease is present, provided that enough cure has been stored.
  
• To make cures, you will have to grow an Herb Garden.
  
• These harvested herbs can be used to create bottles of cure at the Fermenter.
  
• Once created, the cures can be transported to the Infirmary, ready to both heal those actively sick, as well as potentially ward off the chances of illness.
  

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Look out for our next Developer Update in the coming weeks as we push towards Early Access in 2024. Make sure to join our Discord and learn the details for our upcoming Playtest if you’d like to check out all these features for yourself!

Until we next meet…

Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown is available to Wishlist on Steam now!

Social Links:
Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown Website - Official Website Discord - Join our Discord community
X/Twitter - Follow us @thrivehltc Instagram - Follow us @thrivehltc Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

Find out more about PlaySide Publishing on its official website

To learn more about Zugalu Entertainment, please visit its official website

Greg (Lead Designer) and Kat (Lead Narrative Designer) are back with another update on Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown, including details on AI towns and trade, as well as Military updates including formations and rations.

*This stream is pre-recorded*

People of Nysamor,

Following on from our successful publishing announcement and trailer launch at Gamescom 2023, our team has been hard at work giving players new ways to stake their claim over hard-fought territory, be it through diplomacy or by the sword.

Make sure to check out our recent Dev Update Stream where we covered Expanding and Defending Your Borders in greater detail
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

AI TOWNS

Our Strategic Map is filled with provinces ready to be claimed, or already inhabited by AI or human players. Given combat and alliances are key pillars of Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown, having rich interactions with AI Players has been high on the agenda for the development team.

A zoomed out shot of the Strategic Map, with all of the provinces and Wyrmaxan kingdom on display. n.b. some names are placeholder (looking at you Tacotown)

To that end, players can now have both friendly and hostile interactions with AI towns. Conducting trade and fulfilling town requests can strengthen the bonds between your kingdom and native Nysians, while those looking to instill fear and sow discord can attack neighboring towns and make demands.

Trading and Requests

Players looking to establish new friendships throughout Nysamor can examine the Strategic Map to locate nearby AI towns. By selecting a town on the map, players can gain insight into its current status. This includes its alignment (neutral/Wyrmaxan, Benevolent, Tyrannical), allies, needs (requests), and available resources.

In order to trade with and fulfill requests from these towns, players must make good use of their caravan. The caravan’s Trade Menu is used for buying and selling, as well as exchanging requested goods. Engaging in trade and fulfilling requests will increase the player’s standing with these towns, becoming allies, and strengthening trade relations.

Attacking and Making Demands

Formations allow for greater tactical flexibility and improved survivability.

If striking up friendships sounds a little too wholesome for you, violence and intimidation are also an option. Players can bring their units to selected towns and Declare War to begin their attack. Players will need to come prepared with a variety of formations and troop types to break through defenses and exert their will on their fellow Nysians. Once a town has been brought to its knees, it will Surrender, and the player must then decide how to claim their victory. They can demand tribute (coins), demand resources, switch a town’s alignment, or even raze it to the ground. While AI towns will reset after a few days when their demands or alignment have been adjusted, towns that are destroyed will be gone forever…

MILITARY UPDATES: WALLS AND RATIONS

Of course, attacking is only one part of the equation. Players will also need to be careful to not overextend themselves or neglect critical defense infrastructure lest they be conquered themselves.

Manning walls is a great way of galvanizing your defences.

Players can now construct and utilize walls to defend their kingdom. These walls provide great protection for those dwelling within them. Their effectiveness can be increased through the addition of corner ladder pieces, which will allow troops (swordsmen and archers) to be assigned to patrol them.

Rations have also been introduced, and are essential to a military’s endurance and strength. Players must ensure their units are within the radius of a caravan or barracks to keep their rations full. Each unit, regardless of type, can carry up to three rations at a time. This ensures that troops not located near a caravan or barracks can still engage in battle with full health and heal, but it is always wise to keep a caravan nearby to ensure that these units can be well maintained.

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Look out for our next Developer Update in the coming weeks as we push towards Early Access in 2024. Make sure to join our Discord and learn the details for our upcoming Playtest if you’d like to check out all these features for yourself!

Until we next meet…

Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown is available to Wishlist on Steam now!

Social Links:
Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown Website - Official Website Discord - Join our Discord community
X/Twitter - Follow us @thrivehltc Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

Find out more about PlaySide Publishing on its official website

To learn more about Zugalu Entertainment, please visit its official website

An update from the Thrive: Heavy Lies The Crown dev team on the recent updates with the game development and the partnership with PlaySide Publishing.

*This stream is pre-recorded*