Millennia News

Happy 2024, all.

Apologies for the delay on this Developer Diary – there are a lot of irons in the fire as we got back into things after the holidays. Embrace the chaos!

I am Ian Fischer of C Prompt Games and today we are going to talk about National Spirits in Millennia.


[h3]Role of National Spirits[/h3]

The concept of player authorship is central to a lot of our design. In Millennia, the National Spirits system does some heavy lifting to support that goal.

Ages, which change the baseline rules of the world and alter the Units, Technologies, Goods, and Capital Buildings involved in the game, provide a way for the world to change for all of the Nations involved, based on the direction they steer history.

National Spirits are similar in that, like Ages, they provide new and different tools to the player, but these are more focused on how one Nation decides to face the challenges presented by the world all of the Nations are in together. We really like the idea of players getting to decide what their Nation is about and we think it makes sense that Nations can develop differently when history moves in different directions.

As an aside on that…. We know from early playtesting feedback that a lot of players come in expecting pre-made Nations that they need to figure out how to put to the best use. Millennia has a different arrangement -- we treat Nations as cosmetic things. You don’t pick Spain because of the bonuses Spain has, rather you pick Spain because … well, because you like Spain – you want Spanish location names, Spanish symbology, you like the idea of “being Spain.” For Millennia, no Nation (aside from fairly minor starting bonuses and the cosmetic elements) is different from any other at the start of a new game.

But … where you take your Spain as history unfolds and you make decisions about how to approach things – Nations grow to become very different from one another as the game develops.


[h3]Basic Structure of National Spirits[/h3]

National Spirits are grouped into four sets, based on the Ages when they are first available – two, four, six, and eight. As soon as a Nation enters an Age where a National Spirit choice is available, they can make a selection from the corresponding set. (There is no cost.)

Only one National Spirit can be selected in each of the Ages when they are available (so a Nation ends the game with four different National Spirits).

The National Spirits available are not exclusive -- more than one Nation can have the same National Spirit. However, National Spirits that have not been selected gain a bonus when other Spirits are adopted, meaning that less popular options are offset by additional rewards.

All National Spirits are associated with a Domain, with the exception of Government (so: Exploration, Warfare, Engineering, Diplomacy, and Arts). Governments are their own unique system and there are no Government National Spirits.

In addition to the content offered by National Spirits, selecting one also causes a Nation to earn additional Domain XP in the related Domain -- if you take a Warfare Domain National Spirit in Age 2, say Raiders, you will earn additional Warfare XP every turn.

This can change the way you think about National Spirit selection in certain circumstances. Usually, you’re focused on what the National Spirit itself has to offer but, on occasion, the extra Domain XP each turn or the bonus Domain XP for picking a less-popular National Spirit can enable different strategies.

Once selected, each National Spirit presents a set of bonuses called Ideals. There are seven Ideals in a National Spirit, organized into tiers. You must unlock at least one Ideal of a lower tier to gain access to the next tier. Ideals have a cost in the Domain XP of the National Spirit’s Domain. So, Raiders mentioned above, a Warfare Domain National Spirit – it has Ideals with Warfare XP costs.

The final tier of each National Spirit is a special Ideal called a Legacy. Legacies are cheap, they cost only one Domain XP, but they have a requirement related to the National Spirit. For example, Theologians, an Age 4 National Spirit, has a Legacy that unlocks when you achieve 40 population following your state religion. Legacies reward Social Fabric points and are one of the easier ways to get these, so they can be quite valuable.


[h3]Anatomy of a National Spirit – Khans[/h3]

Any easy way to think about National Spirits, at a conceptual level, is as a kind of “reputation” – what is a Nation known for?

Common examples we use to illustrate this are things like Spartan Warriors, Swiss Banking, Silicon Valley, or Egyptian Pyramids.

As those examples suggest, that means National Spirits are substantial. What you select will have a lot of impact on your strategy as Ideals provide major bonuses and unique capabilities. The design here is less “your stuff is a little better than everyone else’s stuff”, more “you’re the only ones that have this at all.”

In general, National Spirits provide Ideals that have value in different spans – things that are only good in the era when you first get the National Spirit, things that can be valuable for a bit longer, and things that have utility for the remainder of the game. However, there is some shifting there, with certain National Spirts that are strong “now” (and only “now”) and others that have less immediate but more consistent, ongoing value.

The one we’ll look at in more detail here, Khans, is more of a “now” National Spirit.

Khans is an Age 4 Warfare Domain National Spirit. Thematically, this National Spirit allows you to pursue a direction inspired by the Mongol Empire – you want to unleash your own Genghis Khan on the world.

As soon as Khans is selected, it spawns a special Unit – the Khan. Your Khan is powerful, with a high Tactics score (and free, instant), but only around for 50 turns, so make the time count.

In the first tier of Khan Ideals are Khan, which causes Barbarian neutrality, and Horseback Archery, which spawns Horse Archers.

So, pretty quickly, a Nation with Khans is doing some different things – the only ones with a Khan leader, the only ones with Horse Archers, the only ones not being attacked by Barbarians.

The next tier of Ideals builds on this with Incite Conflict, which gives you a new Domain Power that allows you to, essentially, put the Barbarians to work for you. You can leave it at that – just allowing the Barbarians to pester your enemy, or you could get Uniter of Tribes and give your Khan the ability to treat any Barbarian Camp (ones there on their own or created by you) as a way to add more Horse Archers to your growing Army.

Since you only get the one Khan, Keshing is also a solid pick, making the Khan harder to kill and also providing a Unit Ability that allows spawning Horse Archers at the Khan’s location (convenient when you’re out fighting and have a limited number of turns to wait for Units to arrive after training back in a home Region).

Since you’ll likely have a lot of Horse Archers, Composite Bows, is useful for making them deadlier.

Finally, Call to War adds a unique Culture Power to the set available to you, allowing you to spawn two more Horse Archers at each Region.

Collectively, the intent is to deliver a “Genghis Khan experience” -- you have a powerful and unique military leader, you have a feel of uniting the tribes, your armies are different from the other armies of the era, you can move quickly and push militarily, you don’t have the most powerful Units of the era but they’re strong and you can get a lot of them.

[h3]Thanks![/h3]

Khans may seem like it provides a powerful set of bonuses, and it does, but so do the seven other National Spirits available in Age Four. Each of these, like Khans, provides a set of Ideals that deliver a unique experience and strategic options.

As you can probably gather, the depth of the different National Spirit options creates a lot of replayability, both individually and when considering strategies built around using a set of complimentary National Spirits.

The modular approach, which allows us to look at each National Spirit as its own special thing instead of having to consider all of the different options as branches on one (huge) tech tree, is very powerful – Millennia delivers a lot of fun, unique gameplay through this system.

We hope you have enjoyed this overview and look forward to the time (soon!) when you can try it out yourself. (And, as usual, if you like what you’ve seen of Millennia, please wishlist us.)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the next Developer Diary for Millennia. I am Ian Fischer of C Prompt Games and today we will cover Domains and Culture.

[h3]Domains[/h3]

If you have been following Millennia, you know a theme of the design is the idea of player authorship. We are excited by the idea of the “what if?”, of getting to play with history from the perspective of “if I were there, I would have done this.”

To support that, you’ll find less of things like predefined Nations with fixed bonuses in Millennia – designs that have you figuring out how to make your “character” work best with history. Instead, we steer more toward systems that give players tools to define their Nation over the course of a game – designs that let you decide how to grow your Nation in response to the direction history takes.

Domains are one of those systems.

There are six Domains: Government, Exploration, Warfare, Engineering, Diplomacy, and Arts. At the start, in the Age of Stone, the Government Domain is active for all Nations. The remaining Domains become active for a Nation as soon as they encounter them. For example, if you run into some Barbarians and get in a fight, you’ll open up the Warfare Domain. If you built a Lookout Tower, that will enable the Exploration Domain. When you encounter a Tribal Camp, you might find something that provides Engineering. (And so on.) Generally, all Domains are in play by the end of the third Age.

Each Domain provides your Nation with related Domain Powers, tools that allow you to take actions involving the Domain. The range involved with each is broad – the Warfare Domain, for example, includes Domain Powers that represent preparedness, stored materials, leadership training, and martial spirit.

There are a set of “standard” Domain Powers for every Domain. For example, every Nation gets an Exploration Domain Power that allows them to spawn a Scout. Additional Domain Powers become available over time. Depending on what Ages history moves through, you can end up with different Domain Powers – moving into the Age of Monuments (Variant Age) will grant unique Domain Powers you will not have if you progress into Age of Kings. Certain National Spirits also unlock Domain Powers, so different timelines and different decisions about how to grow a Nation will produce different capabilities.

Domain Powers are fueled by Domain XP of their type. The Exploration Domain Power that allows you to spawn a Scout costs some Exploration XP.

XP is earned in a number of different ways. As mentioned, you can gain some from rewards like Tribal Camps and also from actions, such as Warfare XP being rewarded by getting into battles.

Capital Buildings also supply Domain XP – a Town Center provides Government XP, a Barracks generates Warfare XP, a Market Square will bring in some Diplomacy XP. However, to really invest in a Domain and generate substantial amounts of XP, you generally need to look at Improvements and plan some of your economy around the direction you’re interested in – if you build Mines and Furnaces and send Ingots to a Weaponsmith, the weapons made provide Warfare XP.

The intent of this is to allow Nations to take actions that align with their strategy and character. If I have built a lot of Market Squares and Great Halls, deployed numerous Envoys, and set up Improvements to get trade Goods like Tea, I will have a lot of Diplomacy XP and that will allow me to use more of the Diplomacy Domain Powers – my Nation will be characterized by its use of Diplomatic actions, more truces and trade and alliances.

If instead I have built a lot of Workshops and my Mines and Forges are supplying Improvements like Toolsmiths, I’ll show signs of that National character through the Engineering Domain Powers – I’ll likely have more Outposts, more Improvements, higher level Towns.

This arrangement helps Nations to “be more what they do.” If a neighboring Nation has been fighting since the start of the game, has Barracks in every Capital, and has extensive Goods chains dedicated to making Weapons, I can guess that they aren’t likely to be strong on Diplomacy or Arts. I can expect that their long experience with war, their investment in training, and their weapons industry is going to translate into a capable opponent on the battlefield – they will be able to use more Warfare Domain Powers than a less militant Nation.

[h3]Domains and National Spirits[/h3]

To touch on a related element briefly, National Spirits are also associated with specific Domains.

Selecting a National Spirit provides some income of their Domain (taking an Engineering Domain National Spirit will provide Engineering XP each turn) and the Ideals of a National Spirit have costs in their Domain. Additionally, any Domain Powers unlocked by Ideals in a National Spirit will have a cost in the same Domain (and any unique Improvements or Capital Buildings from a National Spirit will often provide ways to earn more of that Domain than usual).

Overall, this means that there’s competition for the Domain points and a fair amount of space for thinking about how you use these different pieces.

[h3]Culture[/h3]

Culture is a lot of fun…. Mechanically, you can think of Culture as a “super Domain.” But, thematically, Culture is the force behind major events in history, big turning points.

As with the other Domains, you gain Culture from your actions in the game – if you construct Capital Buildings like Colosseum, set up Goods lines for Wine, deploy Artists, or control a dominant Religion, you will generate more Culture.

Unlike other Domains, there are not Domain Powers with a variety of costs and you cannot use the Powers any time you can afford them. Instead, the Culture you generate fills your Culture Meter and, when you amass enough, you can pick from any of the Culture Powers available to you.

Culture Powers are arranged by Domains – when you get your first Warfare XP, it opens up the Warfare Domain for you and also makes Warfare Domain Culture Powers available. As with other Domains, different Culture Powers can become available to you because of the Age the game moves into or because of the National Spirits you adopt.

No matter where they come from, all Culture Powers are “big” – founding a religion, changing your government, calling a crusade, raising Armies, and advancing current research are all examples of Culture Powers. A lot of players will have an idea of how they intend to use Culture Powers as they advance through a game, but one of the places where Culture Powers really shine is when those plans go off the rails. Because the Culture Powers are more impactful than other Domain Powers, and because they provide a lot of flexibility, they can serve as powerful wildcards – things that can get you out of a jam you didn’t expect.

The arrangement used for the Culture system is intended to model cultural movements – things that might be seen as “zeitgeist”, as something more about the “mood” of a Nation at a specific point in history instead of the direct product of more tangible industry. Think of historical events like the push to settle the western portion of North America in the 1800s, the increase in raiding after the Germanic Iron Age, or the period of rapid technological advance sparked by the invention of the printing press.

As such, a difference between how Culture works and the other Domains operate is that Culture has a connection to the size your Nation. Smaller Nations, with fewer people and less distance between them, have an easier time maintaining cohesion. Larger Nations, with more people and greater distances to cover, need more to stick together – they require an amount of Culture to offset their size. Hence, if your Nation has more Regions, you’ll spend more of the Culture you generate on keeping them together, and you’ll (likely) get Culture Powers less often. If you instead pursue more of a “tall” strategy and have a smaller number of more developed Regions, you’ll (likely) get Culture Powers more frequently.

[h3]Thanks![/h3]

Domains and Culture are two key systems in Millennia. Hopefully, you can envision some of the potential – they make for a lot of interesting strategies to explore and provide Millennia with strong replay value. We hope you have enjoyed this overview and look forward to the time (soon!) when you can try them out fully yourselves.

Thanks again, and if you like what you have seen so far, please wishlist us!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

Hello! I’m Ben Friedman, a Game Designer at C Prompt Games, and I have the pleasure of presenting the next dev diary for Millennia! We’ve left some of you hanging with our allusions to the various Ages in our game, and now it’s time to go into detail about that.

Something that’s always been at the core of Millennia has been the ability to explore each era of human history and let the player toy around with what you might’ve done if you were there. People get excited talking about big “what-if” moments in history and our vision is to let you play through those possibilities. To do that, Millennia features a range of historical and alternate history Ages that create a sandbox for history. From there, you can explore Ages that involve “What if Rome never fell?” “What if steam power was viable?” “What if AI becomes sentient and takes over the world?”

To put these together, we were at a white board scribbling the most common and interesting “what-ifs” we could think of, coming at it from both what we thought were the coolest themes and also what we thought would be fun to play with. We quickly came up with way more Age concepts than we could build for the initial release so, for now, we’ve only built the ones we thought would be the most impactful and that we could make shine for launch.

[h3]Ages, Broadly​[/h3]

The timeline in Millennia is separated into 10 distinct Ages. Each Age houses a handful of Techs that unlock Units, Buildings, Improvements, and more. Unlocking each Age will both progress you through history and potentially expose you to these “what-if” alternate history timelines. The historical Ages have Technologies you’ll recognize, and the alternative history Ages have new Techs unique to that Age. The “What if steam power was viable?” Age has floating airships, steampunk machines, and more, just to give you a taste!


In order to progress from one Age to the next you’ll have to research a certain minimum number of Techs from your current Age and meet any additional requirements the next Age might have, then research the Age you want to advance into. Other players can see your progress on any Age advance research you start, and are alerted towards whatever Age research is closest to being completed. This might give you a chance to see what someone else is doing and race ahead to beat them to the Age you prefer.

In the top-left, the Age progression warning appears

By progressing into a non-mainline Age, you diverge your game away from the historical known timeline, and into alt-history scenarios. We’ve chosen cut-off points in the timeline to break up our Ages that work both historically and are suited for alt-history. For example, if you choose to go into an Age like “What if Rome never fell?” it picks up right about when Rome was in decline, and an Age like “What if steam power was viable?” is right at home in the Victorian period. Due to all of the permutations, every game you play is going to be different because of which ages you link together.

These alternate history Ages take the place of the historical Ages, and that means you’ll sometimes miss out on something important from the main timeline in order to get something else unique from your alt-history Age. This variation leads to some wild games, and the system accounts for that by requiring you to return to the next historical Age after adventuring into an alternate history branch. That way you’re always in a known position when we present the next “what-if” question, and we know that you have the tools to rise to whatever challenge comes next.

However, the past influences the present (and future), so Units, Buildings, Improvements, Goods, and so on that came about because you went into a variant Age can change things farther down the timeline – just because you progress out of a variant Age doesn’t mean it stops having an impact on your timeline.
These Ages are linked together in the timeline

When you research a new Age, you get a suite of Units, Buildings, Improvements, and more, just like any other Tech. By researching the Age of Blood, for example, you unlock the Berserker Unit that’s ready to lay waste to your enemies! (Which you’ll have a lot of in the Age of Blood.) If you’re the first person to enter an age, you also lock in that Age for the timeline. All other players will have to progress through the same Ages as you once the timeline is locked in. That makes the leading Nation an important role to maintain, as you get to choose which Technologies are available in your game.

Each Age also has a set of “Age Rules” that are enforced globally as long as that Age is the leading Age. Entering a new Age will replace the old Age Rules from the previous Age. The historical ages have more tame Age Rules that reward players for following patterns from known history, like building castles in the Age of Kings, but the alt-history Ages are where the Age Rules are more pronounced. The Age Rules for the Age of Blood forces every Nation to be at war with every other Nation, but also reduces the penalties associated with being at war. These Age Rules can make each Age more impactful than just the Technologies available. (So, you might want to pick an Age just because you can leverage the Age Rules in your favor.)

[h3]Types of Ages​[/h3]

If you want to diverge your timeline into an Age that you like, you’ll have to compete with all of the other Nations trying to do the same thing. Some Ages are easier to reach, some are harder, and some you’ll accidentally slip into.

Historical Ages don’t have any additional requirements beyond the minimum Tech requirement, and they tend to have more subtle Age rules. These follow a traditional historical route that will be familiar. There is plenty to do if you stay on the “known path,” there are fine strategies that involve trying to progress through the standard Ages timeline, but you’ll miss some of the fun of the alternate Ages.

Variant Ages are the primary place where “what-if” scenarios are explored. These have special requirements to unlock them, but you might meet those by accident because of your playstyle (or you might decide to go out of your way to steer into a Variant). Variant Ages tend to be somewhat equivalent to historical Ages, except their “what if” scenario bends the game, making it play differently. If your Nation is booming in the Age of Iron, it might be wise to push for the Age of Monuments next, instead of Kings, as Monuments offers unique Improvements that can help your Regions grow.

Crisis Ages are Similar to Variants, they have unique Units, Buildings, and other content to help you progress, but they also generally come with some horrible disaster that will challenge every Nation in the game. That isn’t always “bad”, if you’re well-suited to overcome the challenge, you might want to go into the Crisis just to make other Nations suffer (or you might want to go into the Crisis Age for a Unit or Tech you couldn’t get otherwise).

Another difference in Crisis Ages is that you are locked out of other Age options when you meet their requirements. You don’t necessarily have to enter the Crisis Age at that point, if you don’t want to, you could instead continue to research Technologies and bide your time, hoping that another Nation researches a different Age and sets the timeline to something else.
Scary stuff

Victory Ages are the last type of Age. These have a very high bar to meet, but if you can manage it, you gain the ability to win the game. The most common Victory Ages are the Age 10 Victories (every Age 10 option is a Victory Age). There are also some Victory Ages that are available earlier, which we call internally “off-ramp” Victory Ages. These were put in place to let you end a game early if you feel like you’ve gotten a firm lead and don’t want to pass 200 more turns just to see the Victory screen. But be careful when entering a Victory Age, as these just set the specific rules for winning. Anyone who meets the victory conditions can win, so don’t rest on your laurels just yet!

[h3]Historical Ages​[/h3]

As mentioned before, after you progress through an alternate Age you’ll return to the next historical Age, which means that at least half of the Ages you play in will be historical Ages. To best walk through what the historical ages are like, here’s a general description of how my games tend to go when sticking to just the historical ages.

(Note: most games will play differently due to the alt-history ages, different National Spirits, and another zillion granular choices you can make.)

[h3]Stone c. 10,000 B.C.E.​[/h3]
Despite being the first turn of the game, with only one Region and a few Units to control, there’s lots of decisions you need to make to get the ball rolling. I normally focus on building farms and keeping my Needs met at 200% as much as possible. I use my starting Warband Units to clear the fog of war around my starting area, supplemented by one or two Scouts I’ll build. I try to collect Reward Camps and stomp out any Barbarian Camps I see to hopefully get something helpful to rocket myself into a good position.

[h3]Bronze C. 5,000 B.C.E.​[/h3]
In the Age of Bronze, I’ll pick my first National Spirit based on what I think is going to be the most beneficial for me. Most of these National Spirits care about what terrain is nearby, but my go-to (with all factors being equal) is the Mound Builders NS because it helps me grow my population faster. I’m still focusing on keeping my Needs at 200% as much as possible, so I like to chain together my wheat farms with flour mills. Flour is so efficient that I can normally free up a spare worker that otherwise would’ve been on a farm to go work at a clay pit or forester Improvement and get some production flowing.

[h3]Iron C. 2,000 B.C.E.​[/h3]
I like reaching the Iron Age ASAP because I can reform my Tribal Government into a new Government. Which Government I pick depends on how my game is going, whether I have a lot of Vassals, or if I’m better off keeping my borders close-knit and just focus on keeping my Regions growing. By the Age of Iron, I also normally have a plan for how I’m going to get ahead of my neighboring Nations. If I’m lucky with the terrain near where I spawned, I can focus on investing in myself, getting my iron mines up and running, and continuing to chain together basic foods into more efficient refined goods. If I’m unlucky, I’ll have no choice but to invest in my military and train some Cavalry to harass my neighbors or try and steal an unprotected Vassal from them.

[h3]Kings C. 0 C.E.​[/h3]
In the Age of Kings, I like to upgrade my Outposts into Castles early to get the Age Rule reward for building Castles, and because it protects my Outposts from attacks. (I may or may not get into a lot of wars early on.) I can also found a Religion in this Age, but tend to wait on it instead of rushing in, because meeting the Faith Need is a bit trickier than other Needs, and not meeting the Need will result in an upcoming Crisis Age. The Age of Kings also has the Feudalism Tech which I tend to take first, because it makes my farms extremely efficient, and chaining together the mills and ovens to bake bread means I have loads of free workers to work other Improvements outside of just meeting my Needs.

[h3]Renaissance C. 1400 C.E.​[/h3]
Continuing down the path of known history, I arrive at the Age of Renaissance. You get a free Explorer Unit when you research this Age, which I use to go on Expeditions at Landmarks near my Regions. I’ll also upgrade any Scouts into more Explorers to help with the Expeditions. I tend to get the Navigation Tech quickly here, as it allows me to load up my land Units into Deep Water Transports, and send them across the deep blue sea. I want to know what’s going on at the other continents or islands, and I’ll either join a winning battle to steal a piece of land for myself from the losing side, or I’ll instigate conflict on my own now that my territory is safe on the other side of an ocean. Renaissance also reveals the Social Fabric system, which I’ll typically start with a few free points from the National Spirits I’ve taken, and I’ll focus on producing a lot of Domain Points to increase my Social Fabric Score to get the sweet bonuses.

[h3]Enlightenment C. 1650 C.E.​[/h3]
In the Age of Enlightenment, the game gives you the tools to really explode your Knowledge production and put it into high gear, but I tend to play it safe because there’s also a Crisis Age coming related to over-doing it and failing to meet the associated Education Need. I use this age as a cooling period to make sure all of my Regions have upgraded Improvements, their Needs are still being met, and I’ll spend my resources where I can to get all of my Regions to be powerful economic machines.

[h3]Revolutions C. 1800 C.E.​[/h3]
Knowing what I know about the game, I seek out locations early on in anticipation for the Age of Revolutions. Specifically, I look to claim as much Coal on the map as I can, even though it doesn’t have much use until now. Coal is a really cheap way to generate Power, to meet my upcoming Power Need. Power Needs for a Region comes from building “factory” style Improvements and other advanced Buildings, which I intend to do as soon as possible once I’ve unlocked them. The benefit for doing so is that I can assign multiple workers to each factory Improvement, and my smaller Regions can catch up to my Regions that control much more territory. Revolutions is a really important inflection point in the game, but is also one of the only historical Ages that comes with its own conflict built-in. When revolutionary Rebel units start spawning, I need to be prepared with my military to fend them off, which is why it’s good that I use the Age of Enlightenment to cool down my wars and bring my troops home.

[h3]ATOM C. 1920 C.E.​[/h3]
If I’m the first player to this Age, I’ll update my Government to whichever Government benefits me the most, but if I’m late to the party I’ll pick whichever Government allows me to join the most powerful Faction, so that I can ride their coattails and claw my way back into the lead. I also leverage the Space Race whenever I can, as the first player to complete it gets a nice reward for themselves and for their Faction, which can be the tipping point to get a high tier Faction Reward.

[h3]Information C. 1980~2030 C.E.​[/h3]
Once I hit the Age of Information, I have to start focusing on how I’m going to win. If I feel like I’m in a safe position relative to the other Nations, I enjoy heading into the riskiest Victory Age: the Age of Singularity. I take the Information Tech that unlocks the supercomputer Improvement, and build an unreasonable amount of them to summon the Rogue AI Crisis to end the game in a big firework final showdown.


[h3]Sign-off​[/h3]

There’s plenty more to talk about for the Ages, but this is where I have to end today’s diary entry. We’ll be sure to talk more about the Ages again, so look forward to Part 2! Thank you for bending your ears, err… eyes? We appreciate all of the love we’ve seen for the game so far, and if you like what you’re seeing, and you haven’t already, please wishlist us!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

Hello and welcome to another Millennia Design Diary! I’m Rob “Xemu” Fermier, lead programmer and co-designer (along with Ian Fischer – fun fact, we’ve been working together since “Age of Mythology” way back in 1999!). We’ve talked about the Map, the Nations, and the Combat in the game, but today I’m excited to talk in more detail about the Economy of the game.

Ever since the early concepting of the game, having deep and rich economic systems has been one of our primary goals. Whether your path to victory involves raising massive armies, rushing ahead in the tech tree, or securing your cultural prominence, doing any of those things requires a strong economy to be successful. There’s a lot to cover here – in fact so much that we’ll be doing a second entire Design Diary on the economy later on!

[h3]Econ 101[/h3]

At the heart of the economy are your Regions, which house your Population. Your Population lets you work the tiles controlled by the Region, generating Resources directly, or Goods that convert back into Resources at the end of the turn. There are many paths to a bountiful economy – more Population to let you work more tiles, more advanced Goods which convert into more valuable resources, or just expanding to control more Regions in the first place.

How you assign your workers gives you a lot of flexibility about what you’re actually generating each turn. When there’s a war going on, sometimes extra Production to finish out a new Unit is a lot more important than growing your Population. You can manually control each worker’s assignment, but if you prefer to just focus on the big picture, the game will make sure that no workers are left idle at the end of a turn.

Some parts of your economy generate passive income as well. For example, you can construct a Town Center for +1 Government XP per turn. There are many Technologies and Ideals which also give you income directly, or for each Region you control. When creating a “wide” Nation these per-Region bonuses are important as they can scale up dramatically.


Let’s get into some details!


[h3]National Resources[/h3]

These are all tracked & accumulated at the “nation level”, pooling income from all your Regions together. They generally carry over from turn to turn.

Knowledge – Used to develop Technologies, which give you new bonuses and unlocks as well as let you progress through the Ages. In a game about moving through thousands of years of progress, this is always an important Resource to focus on!

Culture – Each time the Culture meter is filled up, you use one “Culture Power”, which provides a wide range of potent effects from instantly mustering armies, expanding your Regions, or change your Government. Each time you use a Culture Power, the cost for the next one increases slightly. Managing your Culture when you have a lot of Regions can be quite challenging, but many of the Culture Powers provide abilities you cannot access in any other way.

Wealth – If you want to maintain a large standing army, you’ll need plenty of Wealth to pay for Upkeep on your Units. Some elite Units require a great deal of Wealth to maintain, while others are much more affordable. As you progress in the game you’ll unlock the ability to use Wealth to “rush” progress in Regions, or towards your next Culture power.

Improvement Points – These do pretty much right what it says on the tin, you use them to build new Improvements! Improvements let you get much more out of your workers, and are the primary way you get and convert Goods. Later in the game you’ll also encounter Specialists, which function similarly but represent the requirements of a more educated workforce as opposed to pure infrastructure (and in the Age of Alchemy you might find yourself in need something rather more exotic…)

Domain XP – Each of the six Domains in the game (Exploration, Warfare, Engineering, Diplomacy, and Arts) has its own Resource, representing your Nation’s expertise and preparation in that Domain. They are used to both to use Domain Powers (like spawning Settlers, Artists and other unique units) as well as to purchase new Ideals from your National Spirits (which can provide extremely powerful specialized bonuses).


[h3]Regional Resources[/h3]

These are generated by, and used with, a specific Region. They generally do not carry over from turn to turn but instead are used immediately.

Production – Each Region can build one thing at a time, usually a Unit or Building. Each turn your Production is applied to the current build, in a process that should be quite familiar to most 4X players. Regions can also work on “Projects” which let you convert your Production over to other Resources instead of building a new thing.

Influence – By generating Influence, a Region can control more territory on the world map. There are many factors that control which specific tiles are acquired such as Town placement, geography, and Technology adjustments, but they all start with Influence. Well developed, high Population Regions require a lot of space for all their Improvements so this is an important, if subtle, Resource to manage.

Needs – There are a wide variety of Resources that Regions use to keep their Populations satisfied. Early on this is met by Food and Housing, but by the end of the game large regions can require Education, Ideology, and more. Meeting the Needs of a Region grows your Population, which in turn can cause them to have more types of Needs.


[h3]Needs[/h3]

Needs are worth describing a bit more in detail, because they are such a key concept in the game. There are 9 types of Needs in total, and how well your population grows is directly determined by your overall “Needs Satisfaction” (which is simply the average of all the individual Needs). If you meet the need at 100%, your people will have their basic requirements met – slow and steady growth. But if you can provide up to 200% Satisfaction, you can grow a Region much, much faster. Of course, the converse is true as well, as a Region with less than 100% Satisfaction will not only cause your Population to decrease but also has other negative consequences for a Region!

Five of the Needs (Food, Housing, Sanitation, Luxury, and Education) are triggered simply by hitting various Population thresholds in the Region (for example, Sanitation becomes required once you are above 10 Population). The other four (Faith, Power, Ideology, and Information) are more conditional, activating based on external factors like Religion or Government.

Almost all Needs grow directly with your Population, so managing a full set of Needs on a very large Region can be quite challenging! Vassals have a key advantage in that you don’t need to manage their Needs at all – the autonomy provided to a Vassal lets them grow at a steady pace without any guidance.

[h3]Goods[/h3]

While Resources are directly gathered via Forage (on unimproved tiles) and Buildings / passive bonuses, any advanced economy is going to run mainly on Goods. Goods represent a wide variety of things from raw materials to advanced consumer products – there are around 130 different Goods! Each type of Goods has a different “consume value”, which is what you get at the end of the turn if you don’t use it for anything else. Many Goods even give you multiple types of Resources when consumed!

Goods come from a variety of sources, but the most common way to get them is to work Improvements. For example, direct Forage from a Grassland tile gives 2 Food, but if you build a Farm you can instead get one Wheat, worth 4 Food. Finding “bonus” tiles in the world can take that even further – building a Farm on Wheat bonus gives you 2 Wheat from that same Farm, for a total of 8 Food.

To really get the most value out of your Goods, however, you will want to convert them into more advanced types of Goods. The aforementioned Wheat (4 Food) can be turned into Flour (8 Food) at the Mill – and each Mill provides capacity for converting up to two units of Wheat. Pursuing advanced Goods chains can be extremely efficient but they require an investment to build the right Improvements as well as have enough workers available to operate every step in the chain.


Which chains of Goods you decide the invest in makes a huge difference in how your strategy in Millenia will play out. National Spirits can modify the values of some Goods, and some chains are much more efficient if you have the right bonus tiles available. You can also use Goods to make both foreign and domestic trades, but we’ll get into that more in a future Design Diary.

[h3]Workers[/h3]

You may have noticed that this overview of the economy refers to both Population, and “workers”, somewhat interchangeably. Early in the game, these concepts are the same – each Population provides exactly one worker, so a Region with Population 3 can work exactly three improved tiles. However, as you get deeper in the game, a few things change up that dynamic.

Around the middle of the game, depending on which specific Ages are chosen in a given game, higher levels of industrialization become possible. This is reflected in a few different ways in the game (efficiency, costs, Power requirements) but one unique thing about industrialized improvements is that they allow multiple workers to be assigned to the same Improvement! For dense, highly developed Regions this makes a significant difference in how you build up your economy. To take maximum advantage of these Goods chains you may have to retool your infrastructure significantly.

In the later Ages, economies of scale are represented by “bonus workers”. Regions with larger Populations start getting workers at better than 1:1, so for example at 20 Population you might get not just the 20 workers available from population but +2 bonus workers (1 for every 10 Population). Getting the right Technologies (and Ages) can push that even further, giving a nice bonus to late game mega-Regions.

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From a design perspective, it’s been a fun and exciting challenge to make an economic system which fits the scope of a 4X that covers all of history. Managing your economy starts out pretty simple in the Stone Age but by the end of the game there are a lot of moving pieces.

As mentioned at the start, this is just “part 1” of our look at the economy in Millennia. There’s lots to cover with trade, merchants, outposts, town specializations, and more. Until then, we’ll see you again next time to discuss some more specifics about how Ages work.

If you like what you see, please wishlist the game here!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

Hello everyone, unfortunately there isn’t a Developer Diary this week. Our next one will be Economy Part One on the 28th of November. But we do have something to share with you today!

We recently asked you over on our discord server for your questions and you didn’t disappoint. Here’s our answers and if you have any questions head on over to the Millennia Discord where we’ll be asking for more questions soon.






Question: Will we see real issues such as climate change being depicted throughout the ages? How would this work?

Answer: We take inspiration from real-world things, so you should be playing with “real issues.” A strength of that is that it helps guide toward intuitive mechanics where you can understand relationships and think about options without having to consider things through a lens of more abstract rules.

We have some content in a number of Ages (Utopia and Dystopia come to mind), that touch on themes like climate change and we have some powers that allow types of “terraforming.”

That said, I’d argue that we aren’t really using climate change (not the way I think you might be asking about it, anyway). We are designed to add things like this in as we expand, a full climate change mechanic just wasn’t on our list for the initial release.

Question: Will there be more Ages added in later dlc?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Which is your favourite Age and any particular reasons for that?

Answer: It’s hard for me to pick favourites. I like Visitors – I think it’s a fun idea and a good example of how the Age model allows Millennia to provide a unique, fun experience.

Question: Are there any plans for any magic based ages?

Answer: Not really. Millennia is a historical game. The vision for the alternate history Ages is to base things on historical “what if” scenarios. That’s not an irrefutable definition – I could easily argue that our “what ifs” in things like Alchemy or Aether are “magic” if I wanted to.

So, there’s some intangible “feel” involved. I’d say that a lot of how we look at it is to think about the perception of the Age from a historical standpoint.

In the case of Aether, if you look at material about what the future was going to be like done by people in the late 1800s, early 1900s, you’ll find a lot of sketches of world capitals with flying cars, flying ships, and flying buildings filling the sky. That’s what they thought it would be. So, it feels like a “historical” fit for us because it has that kind of “by the 1950s, we’ll take rockets to work at our office on the moon” tone – it didn’t happen that way, but here’s an Age that explores what it might have been like if it had.

Question: I have no idea what the”Age of Archangel” could you please explain?

Answer: It is Archangels now … this is what we named a space-based weapon that is a centerpiece of the Age. This is a Victory Age and involves winning by having the majority population on the planet, something you can do by out-growing the other Nations … or, you know, by using the aforementioned Archangel array. We just liked Age of Archangels more than “Age of Space Lasers.”

Question: If a variant ages happens. How much of an impact will that have during later ages?
E.g. If we go through the Age of Aether, will subsequent ages still unlock new Aether themed units? Will things that have been built stay Aether-y but no new aether related things unlock, or does everything get turned to "normal" after the age?

Answer: It depends on the specific Variant. In general, the design approach for the Ages was to identify things that were different during the Age itself, things that were different because of the Variant for a time after the Age, and things that had long-term impact.

Other than Age-specific rules, things do not suddenly “change back” when a Variant or Crisis Age ends. Upgrade lines can provide options to replace some of these things as a game progresses -- things you can build in a Variant Age can be great for that Age but can be surpassed by later Age options and you might end up replacing the Variant content with new stuff (still, the use of what the Variant Age provided changed the overall course of the game by giving you more, less, or different “stuff” relative to the other possibilities).

Other options from Variant Ages can persist through the game. Air Taxis from Age of Aether are a good source of Luxury – you might have them around for the rest of the game. Aether is a good source of Power – you might gather it for the rest of the game.

Question: Will the terrain change with ages? Like finding new ores in civ. And are they influenced by the kind of age? Like the age of plague making fresh water more important

Answer: There are Goods that are revealed as the game progresses or when certain Ages are entered into (or certain National Spirits are selected).

Question: Are some age combinations impossible? Like is it impossible for me to go from the Age of Ecology to the Age of Floods because by definition I’m doing such a good job taking care of the environment by being in this age

Answer: What is being described here is basically conditions and since all Ages have some kind of requirements, those could make anything “impossible.” Plague, for example, is based on not dealing with Sanitation, so if you deal with Sanitation, you make it “impossible” to go from Iron to Plague.

Structurally, Ages are limited by their space on the timeline – it’s impossible to move from Renaissance (5) to Stone (1), for example. Branching Ages also collapse back (most of the time) to the next standard Age, which makes progression from Variant or Crisis to another Variant or Crisis impossible.

Question: Is there an Age of Chivalry?

Answer: Maybe? There is no Age (now) called “Chivalry” but there is an Age I think fits the bill – Age of Kings in 4.

Question: What National Spirits are in the Stone Age?

Answer: None (now). The first National Spirit choice is in the second Age.

Question: How detailed is the industrial era and industrialization and as well as factories on Millennia?

Answer: There are mechanics and content (and an Age) that represent this. New Goods, Factories, Power becomes a Need as you industrialize… Depends on what you mean by “detailed”?




Question: Will techs become completely obsolete, or will their effects still be visible many ages later?

Answer: In general, Technologies do not become obsolete from a game mechanical perspective. There are Techs that aren’t of the same value when researched in Age 8 compared to having them in Age 2.

Question: How many techs are shared between variant ages? The latest short shows that Smelting is shared between Heroes and Blood, while Construction is shared between Iron and Heroes. Is it something like half the techs? I can certainly imagine Smelting, Horses, and Construction being shared between all three of the Age 3 variants

Answer: I have a sense for it but not in a way that I could swear “20.9% “or anything. I just asked Game Designer Ben and he said about two per Age. I was looking at some of the Age 9s before I wrote this and there were two in there, so those tracks.




Question: Is there an Alien Civilization/Nation?

Answer: Not a playable one (now).

Question: Will there be civics/policies/laws that will distinguish your government from other nations with the same government type?

Answer: Yes? There aren’t things that are entirely unique to two Nations that both adopt the same Government, but Governments have Ideals and can vary in applicability. You and I could have the same Government, but you could fully unlock yours and play to its strengths while I do other things – we’d have the same Government but you’d be pretty different. In the late game, Factions also come into play with Governments.

Question: Will there be a separate ethnic map and can it influence your empire if there are many nationalities in it?

Answer: No. This is not modeled as of now.

Question: If you occupy an area from another, will the inhabitants of the nation try to revolt?

Answer: When you occupy an area, it becomes a Vassal. Vassals have to achieve a level of Integration before they can become full Regions. Vassals that are taken via conquest require substantially more Integration than Vassals established via something like Settlers.

Question: Will it be possible to assimilate nationalities?

Answer: No, not at launch, not in the way I imagine you are thinking about it.

Question: Will there be a migration effect?

Answer: The Needs system represents migration effects. When Needs aren’t met, people leave, when Needs are met, people flow in.

Question: How will a peace negotiation work? Will it be possible for other nations to be created?

Answer: “Splinter” Nations can be formed if a Region revolts after Unrest gets to very high levels.

Diplomacy is still a little early at this point, but it can be used to end hostilities.




Question: Are there "wonders" like in other 4x games i.e. big projects or buildings requiring large investments of resources for a large return, typically embodying some historical wonder like the Colossus of Rhodes or the Library of Alexandria?

Answer: Wonders exists, but in a different way than in other 4X games. A wonder potentially comes from the empire Innovation system, that grants them (the Colossus of Rhodes is one of these). We also have “megaprojects” which are more involved multi-stage constructions – the Space Race is a megaproject, for example.

Question: Are there monuments specific to ages? As in whichever ages you go into, specific monuments/wonders can be locked away.
E.g: In the Age of Heroes there is the Knossos Labyrinth, etc.

Answer: Yes, some are exclusive. A lot of Innovation (and Chaos) events are Age-specific.

Question: Are there wonders of the world available to build (ie Pyramids, Stonehenge, Easter Island statues, etc)?

Answer: Yes, but, as above, generally not with the same mechanics. (Pyramids are part of the God-King Dynasty National Spirit.)




Question: Will we be able to access other instances of the map or regions? Like the sky, seafloor, underground, space…

Answer: No, not in the way I read this question. Sea, air, and space are involved in the game and there are some things that show specific information about these, but there isn’t (now) a button you press to see and interact with a “space layer” or the like.

Question: Will there be new world/colonization mechanics?

Answer: It depends on what you mean / how you define this? There are specific mechanics for founding new settlements and expansion, there are Nationals Spirits that focus more on “colonization”, and there are things that represent other people in the world, but there is not a specific old world / new world division or mechanic.

Question: Will the landmarks be based on real world landmarks?

Answer: There are landmarks based on / named after real-world landmarks.




Question: Will multiplayer be available at launch?

Answer: Local and online hotseat multiplayer will be available at launch. Additional multiplayer support is planned.

Question: How long does one campaign usually take?

Answer: Depends on player and strategy, settings, map size, difficulty – I’d say 5-15 hours as an average with a lot of range in either direction depending on specifics.

Question: Is the game meant to be complex or casual?

Answer: Millennia is meant to be deep, not complex, but I wouldn’t call it a “casual game” either way.

Question: Will there be game modes (tech shuffle, myth unit mode)?

Answer: We are focused on getting the core gameplay right before we start tweaking things like this. Let’s get the engine running before we put on some cool rims.

Question: Is there any other way of winning besides out-ageing / beating your neighbours?

Answer: Every Victory Age has specific victory conditions. Out-ageing other Nations can be an advantage for having access to techs or being able to set the Age, but tech costs (including Age-up costs) are reduced based on how far things have advanced and how many other Nations have a Technology, so you’re also making progress faster / cheaper for the Nations you leave behind. (I am positive we are going to find some tech-focused strategies we need to better balance but we have a number of tools for this.)

Question: Is this going to be so hard to learn (like HOI4) or more playable for the gamer that only has 8 - 10 hours a week to play (like Civ 6)

Answer: Easy to play, hard to master. We generally introduce mechanics over time so players can learn as they go and we’ve been refining UI, tooltip format, Infopedia entries, and help messages based on player feedback for a while now. It’s an intentionally deep game with a lot of things in it, so it is going to have some curve, but we keep approachability in mind as we develop.

Question: Will the game have an espionage system and/or intel system?

Answer: We have a few things you might generously call intel (like fog of war, and some National Spirit abilities / Culture Powers), but Millennia does not have what we would call an espionage system as of today.

Question: How many different goods types are there? As in like how many goods are food, utility, luxury, etc? I ask this question because you guys said in a video there are 100 unique goods in the game. And I just would like a deeper understanding of how many of these goods are truly unique? Or is it just dependent on what your region is for you to get certain goods? In example you live in a region with less wheat and more game so you sell mainly meat as a good over bread.

Answer: 130ish Goods icons in the game right now. Goods lines are intended to have some context around a number of factors – how much infrastructure does this Good take, what is the upper limit of what it can be refined into, how flexible is it, what National Spirits does it work well with, what does it do to other Needs, how many Improvements and workers does it take? The intent of the lines is to produce different ways to achieve the same goals but with tradeoffs involved – I can build this line to get X sooner but I need to make that count by this point because after that I’ll be behind until I retool….

Question: Will there be religion like civ or other games alike?
If yes, will they change/upgrade along with the ages? So going to the age of blood makes the religions more murderous while age of heroes makes them more quest based.

Answer: There is Religion and the various Ages, National Spirits, and Governments can change the tenor / importance of Religion.

Question: What are late game factions based on? Like, are they based on values like stuff, for example Liberty-Equality being the 'anarcho-communist' faction, Progressive-Liberty-Equality being the 'anarcho-transhumanist' faction, Conservative-Authority-Hierarchy being the 'theocratic fascism' faction, etc?

Answer: Late game factions are associated with specific Governments. These Governments have ideals that can help or hinder different strategies and Victory Age approaches. The Faction aspect of this creates another dimension to think about before you pick, as all players with the same Government are in the same Faction (which doesn’t mean you are cooperating, but could mean that).

Question: Will we be able to build science buildings or is science and society bundled together? Aka is there a seperate science tree or is it just the ages culture unlocks

Answer: I don’t know exactly how to parse this question, sorry. There are “science things.” There are “society things.” Some of these are distinct. Some of these are bundled together. Some of it comes from Governments, some from National Spirits, some from Techs.

Question: Would the game have controversial themes such as slavery, genocide, discrimination, terrorism, etc.?

Answer: Any game dealing with history will (sadly) involve some of these themes, directly or indirectly. I’d say Millennia is about average in this regard.




Question: How will armies and diplomacy be managed during wars? I don’t know, secret pacts about entering the war on someone’s side, for example, or various purchases of weapons for the army(how do the units be supplied in general, you showed that, for example, from the same wood you can make paper for books or cut it into boards for construction, then there should probably be the production of different weapons from different materials).

Answer: Goods are not “supply” but rather resources used to produce Units / Armies or to support their use (and diplomatic efforts, for that matter) via the Domains. If you produce a type of “war supply”, for example, it resolves into Warfare Domain which means you can use Warfare Domain Powers more often – you’re creating the supplies needed to do this.


Question: How will larger scale combat occur when considering units like archers catapults spearmen cavalry and swordsmen - are there counters? Is it simultaneous or turn based? Will individual units cause damage to other individual ones or just apply damage in general? Also what about area of effect weapons? Will they feature?

Answer: We did a Dev Diary on combat that covers a lot of this: pdxint.at/3tQfLB8




Question: On the topic of National Spirits: there is a bonus for selecting a NS not yet selected by anyone else (scaling with how many have already been selected). There also seem to be 8 NS in each set. Does that mean the typical player limit is 8, or do the 9th and following players to transition to the new age just have tough luck?

Answer: There are a few moving parts here.

When we originally implemented National Spirits, the selection was exclusive – after someone selected a National Spirit, it was removed from the set of options for other players. There is still some discussion about this mechanic from time to time, primarily based on the feeling that it’s just more special if you are the One And Only, but the frustration of having plans derailed by sniped National Spirit was substantial.

So, we moved to non-exclusive, but then felt like the choice lacked a little depth. The bonus surfaced as a way to “fuzz” choices a little more – in games like Millennia, it’s common for players to fall into comfortable patterns from past play, so one thing the bonus does is tweak the choices a bit, possibly getting you to consider a National Spirit you weren’t planning on because it comes with the bonus.

In support of the original implementation / vision of the National Spirits, the bonus is applied to the Spirits that have not been taken (or are the least taken), the intent there being to make it more worthwhile to take National Spirits that have not been claimed yet – trying to accomplish that One And Only feel via a means other than hard exclusivity.

Since they are not exclusive, the number of National Spirits doesn’t limit Millennia to any particular number of players. Players who pick last don’t really suffer any particular penalty – depending on how the Nations before them went, picking last has the potential for the highest bonuses.

Question: Will the buildings change based on national spirits and location?

Answer: There are unique buildings (and Units) that are part of National Spirits, but all of the buildings in your Nation don’t change based on the National Spirit that you pick.




Question: Can we create our own maps?

Answer: No, you cannot do this (now).

Question: Will we be able to tailor religions and cultures to our liking?

Answer: Game-mechanical customization, for (now), is limited. Religions, for example, do not inherently have any bonuses associated with them (what they provide is derived from how spread them and meet Religion Needs). The surrounding themes -- names of Religions, names of Nations, icons, flags, names of Towns – are selectable. You can custom-name Religions, Capital names, and the like.

Question: Modding API, plans, anything, etc...?

Answer: Modding support is not in at launch. It will come post-launch, however.

Question: Can we add more techs to a single era, so you have 20 techs in it? Or increase the total amount of ages that you play through within a single campaign?

Answer: No, you cannot do this (now).




Question: Will there be Russian language support?

Answer: CM Katten here, yes there will be Russian language support at release!

Question: Any plans for creating a game franchise? Is support for next generation consoles going to happen? Would we be able to see a mobile version of the game or a spin off version like Tropico mobile?

Answer: We would like nothing more than to get to continue to build on what we’ve done so far.

Question: Could you please also include Italian as language? I see there are lots of languages and is disappointing to me to see this language isn't considered, especially with AI shoudn't be much work. Thanks

Answer: CM Katten here, at release it is not planned, but that of course does not exclude it potentially from the future.

Question: When will the game be released?

Answer: Paradox will announce a date soon, I wager.

Question: How are you doing?

Answer: We are doing great, thanks for asking -- we’ve had awesome response from players, good things go into the game every day, Paradox is helping us to make a better game … the coffee maker works again. The team is in high spirits. We’re excited.