Heart Of Muriet News

Hey all!

The new playtest should have gone live ages ago, unfortunately, I am a slow poke or I just blame that I am working solo on the project. ːsteammockingː It just takes a lot of effort to make a switch to a new design mid-development I guess. ːsteamsadː

[h2] New Voxel Importer[/h2]
I implemented a new voxel importer, which can handle animations inside models. This was not possible before. All the animations of multiple units can now live in a single Vox file. Finally, the model names are now converted correctly from Magica Voxel to Unity, which is a great help.

It was quite a big unplanned task, but in light of needing to add more units in the future, it was a decent decision to invest the time.

[h2]Better dev console[/h2]
I wrote a better developer console, which has more flexibility. It eases debugging and improves the speed of testing the game.



[h2] UI redesign, tooltips[/h2]

• Improved the look of the UI.
  
• Removed a lot of clutter and made it more readable.
  
• Removed any overhead UI from objects as it was not consistent with the rest of the UI.
  
• Reworked most of the tooltips and added new tooltips for hamlets, equipment, special attacks, battle stances and more etc.
  

[h2] Planting and growing trees[/h2]
Once a forester is placed and built, the player can choose between planting and chopping trees.
Don't forget that chopping down trees will make your base look awful. Your local population might hate this.



Foliage is moving in the wind again. This feature got lost over several unity updates and changes. Fortunately, it's back now.



[h2]Alchemist Building Changes[/h2]

The alchemist has been reworked to fit the new design. It is an important building for bases focussing on mining or crop fields. Alchemists are not very popular among the population as they drain the beauty of bases significantly. More upgrades for certain magic realms, like monster creation, are coming.

• Adds research points to the player every game tick.
  
• Has a negative morale modifier for the base it lives.
  
• Only one alchemist building per base is allowed.
  
• Converts Mana to Gold.
  
• Upgrade to improve Mana to Gold Conversion.
  
• Upgrade to convert Ore to Gold.
  
• Upgrade to improve Ore to Gold Conversion.
  
• Upgrade to improve the fertility of a base by sacrificing some of the base's beauty.
  
• Upgrade to improve the mining of a base by sacrificing some of the base beauty.
  

[h2]Hamlet Feature[/h2]
The hamlet is an undertaking and still needs more work. A few features are missing, like the annexation of surrounding land and the upgrading process to towns and cities.

• Clicking on a base will show the Hamlet UI if a town hall is available.
  
• Hamlets can only be created on bases with a decent population.
  
• Hamlets can be named, taxes can be adjusted, the population space increases and the population happiness improves.
  
• Taxes influence population happiness, depending on the political research and the current state of the empire.
  
• Hamlets can annex directly neighbouring bases and cannot be found next to each other. (Planned)
  
• Hamlets have either the status loyal or revolting. Revolting means that it has a chance to convert to neutral depending on different factors.
  
• Revolting hamlets can mainly occur due to a mad population or enemy wizard spells.
  
• Depending on the size of the population, militia squads are automatically recruited.
  
• Militia units cannot be controlled by the player. They will fight only in the interest of Hamlet's population.
  
• Militia gets automatically added to the build queue of town halls, depending on the size of the population.
  
• When the players remove the added militia units from the training queue, the population happiness decreases significantly.
  
• Added gold building upkeep label to hamlet UI.
  
• When the town hall gets destroyed, Hamlet will disband shortly afterwards. The UI shows a timer when the hamlet disbands.
  
• When a hamlet disbands, the remaining population not fitting in residential houses is now distributed to the rest of the empire bases.
  
• When a hamlet with an ongoing revolt disbands, the revolt calms down.
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Hamlet revolts and militia squads[/h2]
Hamlet Revolt happens when your population gets mad for a long time. Successful revolts can lead to independent bases.

• Hamlets get into a revolting state when the population is mad for a certain amount of time and with a certain chance.
  
• The militia training increases (currently doubles) if enough resources are available.
  
• The player has no access to training queues of any building in the hamlet.
  
• The player cannot destroy any buildings.
  
• The player cannot place any military building.
  
• The population immigration to the hamlet stops.
  
• All militia squads convert to a neutral AI and attack stationed military units and buildings.
  
• If no defensive buildings or units are at the base, the militia will change the hamlet to a neutral/independent state over time.
  
• Revolt has a minimum time. Once it starts, it takes at least a certain amount of time to end.
  
• The revolt ends when no militia is left or the population gets happier.
  
• During a revolt, the Militia is trained using the Hamlet draft resource. The draft is calculated by the available population and a special revolt multiplier. A 50% revolt multiplier and 100 population means that 50 "draft" resources are available for the revolt.
  
• If a militia costs 5 "draft" the hamlet trains up to 10 militia with a maximum of 5 militias parallel due to population limits.
  
• After a revolt the happiness of the population is reset to calm. A cooldown is set to make sure to prevent a chain of revolts.
  
• The tax slider is not enabled during a revolt. No taxes are paid to the empire.
  
• During a revolt all troops will leave the reserve tent.
  
• Workers cannot moved from the base during a revolt.
  
• Workers cannot sent to a revolting hamlet and don't get attacked.
  
• Workers can build buildings during a revolt to improve the beauty of the base.
  
• Placing of civilian buildings is allowed during a revolt, but military buildings are not.
  
• A revolt tooltip describes all consequences of the current revolt.
  
• The militia trained during a revolt reduces the population. The amount is defined by the militia unit draft cost.
  
• The Hamlet UI shows if a revolt happens after a certain amount of game cycles.
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Population and resource upkeep[/h2]
Finally the population and the buildings are now connected to the resource upkeep.

• Missing upkeep for buildings is now damaging buildings over time.
  
• Missing upkeep (food) for the population is decreasing happiness over time, growth rate and immigration are reduced to 0.
  
• Longer food shortages can lead to a starving population.
  
• Missing upkeep (gold) for Hamlet's administration decreases the population's happiness over time.
  
• Added population and hamlet upkeep to tooltips.
  
• Hamlet's upkeep drops to 0 during a revolt, though food upkeep for the population stays the same.
  
• Population starvation: immigration and growth of the population stopped for the whole empire.
  
• Once a certain threshold is reached, parts of the population will die from starvation each update cycle.
  
• The starvation status is shown in the population tooltip.
  
• Taxes influence the happiness of the population. This incorporates the hamlet tax and its expenses for troops and buildings as well as the overall income and upkeep of the empire.
  
• Taxes which are too low (upkeep is higher than income) or too high (income is a lot higher than upkeep) will affect happiness.
  
• Indicators showing if the population mood is going up or down at several places in the UI.
  
• The node info tooltip shows why the population mood changes in detail.
  

[h2]Research[/h2]
The research system has been reworked and is now similar to the one in Stellaris. The player gets 3 - 4 random research options. Each research has a rarity. Epic and legendary research options are harder to get and cost more research points.

• Research points are generated by different buildings like Alchemist, Wizard Laboratory, Blacksmith, Architect and others.
  
• Each wizard has a different amount of research points it generates.
  
• The more research points are generated, the faster the research is done.
  
• Research points are not collectable as they only apply when a research is active.
  
• Research can stop and resume anytime.
  

During the upcoming playtest, I will collect feedback and see how it affects gameplay and fun. The idea of the change was to make every playthrough a bit more interesting, as it's not possible to use the same build multiple times.

[h2] Worker Assignment[/h2]

• Removed the overhead assignment worker UI and integrated it into the building UI.
  
• Automatically assigned workers are also shown below the auto-assign slider.
  
• When the manual assignment is activated, each worker can get assigned to a building or job.
  
• This will enable worker specialization in the future e.g. farmers, tree planters.
  
• Switching between auto and manual assigning does leave the workers in place as far as possible.
  
• Buildings which have workers assigned and get damaged are now repaired by the already assigned workers.
  
• Workers who get into a specific state like burn/freeze or pushback now stop their work animation correctly.
  
• Workers whose jobs get reset while manually assigned (due to different circumstances) get reassigned after a short period.
  
• Killed workers get automatically removed from manually assigned jobs.
  
• Destroyed job objects like resources, buildings or units, get their manually assigned workers removed automatically.
  

[h2]Magic Realms and the spell system[/h2]
Magic schools are now called magic realms. Wizards cannot level up in a realm like before. They need to collect realm books to learn more spells from a realm.

The balance sheet shows how realm books affect the number of spells a wizard can learn. This idea is borrowed from the wonderful game Master of Magic.



Here is an example of the Nature Realm and all the spells it includes.

• Spells have a rarity and can be researched.
  
• Spellbooks can be found in loot.
  
• Scrolls can be found in loot and used even though the spell has not been researched before.
  
• Realm books are integrated into the loot system.
  
• Chests can contain realm books.
  
• All realm books have a legendary rarity.
  

[h2]Wizard Selection[/h2]
Players can select a wizard at the start of the game. Currently, six different wizards are available. More wizards will be added after the EA launch.

Checkout the video below:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Additional features like selectable traits, a broader selection of spells and realm books are planned. Selected magic realms might exclude each other, like Water and Fire, Nature and Arcane as soon as more realms are added to the game.

[h2]Wizard Character UI and levelling[/h2]

The Empire UI now has a wizard button to open the wizard character UI. The character UI shows the wizard and its attributes, skills and learned spells.



A wizard can now earn experience points and level up. Experience Points are now given to the wizard for the following activities:

• Automatically.
  
• Casting a spell (with a cooldown, to prevent spamming).
  
• Conquering a base.
  
• Winning a battle.
  
• Placing buildings.
  
• Recruiting units.
  
• Researching spells.
  
• During incarnation.
  
• Creating a hamlet.
  
• Solving quests.
  

The following wizard modifications can be raised during a level-up:

• Power Costs
  
• Casting Range
  
• Area Of Effect
  
• Projectile Speed
  
• Incarnation Upkeep Costs
  
• Damage
  
• Healing
  
• Enchantment Duration
  
• Curse Duration
  

[h2]Forest Fires rework[/h2]

• Forest fires spreading is less likely now - this might change for games with a higher difficulty.
  
• When a tree burns, the fire ramps up and then slowly reduces the size of the tree while the fire stays at a specific scale.
  
• The navigation mesh is updated once a part of the forest fire is extinguished, otherwise performance hits would be too significant.
  
• All fire settings are configurable and can be adjusted with specific difficulty modifiers.
  
• When growing trees are burning, growth will stop.
  
• When the burning has stopped, and the tree hasn't burned, it will grow back to a normal size again.
  
• When a fire is extinguished with a spell, the area is calculated more generously than when starting a fire.
  
• Some projectiles (ice sphere) can now stop a fire at a grid position it's shot at.
  

[h3]More changes for forest fires coming with seasons: [/h3]

• Worker will automatically extinguish fires.
  
• Rainy weather will also stop the fire.
  
• Scorched earth decals will be placed underneath fires and vanish over time once the fire is out.
  
• Fires close to buildings will reduce the health of buildings.
  
• Fire can burn down crops and destroy crop fields completely.
  
• Seasons: In the winter season fires are very unlikely. In the summer season a lot more likely.
  

[h2] Scrolls[/h2]
Scrolls can be found in loot drops or inside treasure chests and are one-time usage spells. Scrolls don't have any realm book requirements.



[h2]Message UI[/h2]
The message UI has been completely changed and is looking like this:

• Messages get sorted into a category.
  
• Once right-clicked on, the player can dismiss it.
  
• Left-clicking opening the message text again and jumping to the location of the event.
  
• Up to 512 Messages will be saved in a history log and can be accessed via the Empire UI.
  
• Critical Messages will open a message dialogue right away. This will be configurable in the settings later.
  

Here is a small video showing off the features.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Strategy UI removed[/h2]
The strategy UI is gone, and there are currently four different attack types when sending troops to enemy territory.



[h3]Conquering:[/h3]
The army will attack all military buildings and units and try to conquer the base. Economic buildings don't need to get destroyed to conquer bases.

[h3]Resource Raid:[/h3]
The army will try to raid as many resources as possible from economic building. The raid loot will be dropped into chests when the raid is successful.

• At the beginning of a raid, a resource pool is calculated, depending on the player's resources and the buildings and resource nodes at the base.
  
• Raiders will only attack economy buildings, and when a building gets to 50% health or below, each hit from a melee unit will steal resources instead of doing any damage.
  
• Siege weapons and any ranged units will stop attacking once the building reaches 50% health, as only melee units can raid.
  
• The remaining health of the building is used as a resource pool. Each time the building is raided it's reduced.
  
• Depending on the number of units, the raiding formation can only carry a certain amount of resources.
  
• If the whole formation gets destroyed during a raid, the stolen resources will spawn as loot at the last valid position.
  
• Once the formation dissolves at its home base, the resources will drop as loot. Players will get a message about the successful raid.
  
• It might be interesting to add a well-armoured wagon unit, which could increase the number of resources a formation can carry. This role is currently taken by the ram unit, due to its big carry capacity.
  
• After a raid, buildings get a visible raid cooldown and cannot be raided until the cooldown wears off.
  

Here is a video of a raid. The feature is still in development:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Economy Attack:[/h3]
The army will destroy the economic infrastructure of the base, leaving military buildings alone and focusing on civilian buildings. Once the troops achieve it's, goal they will leave the base.

[h3]Military Attack:[/h3]
The army will destroy the defence and military buildings of the base, leaving economic buildings alone. Once the troops achieve their goal, they will leave the base.

[h2]Battle UI[/h2]
While reworking the attack strategy, I realized that it's sometimes hard to follow a battle. That is why the new UI was introduced.

It shows the enemy units, destroyed/lost gold values and the morale and health of the attacking or defending squads. The updating health bar of attackers and defenders also helps to understand how well or poorly the battle is going.

For attacking armies, the option to merge formations or command them to flee altogether was added, as well as buttons to incarnate a wizard to a selected formation or stop the incarnation.



[h2]Battle Stances[/h2]
Battle stances are an alpha feature, which means they might disappear again if they don't add enough fun to the game. They can influence the following attributes of your formations/base defending army and can be changed in the battle UI.

• Attack speed of melee weapons.
  
• Attack speed of ranged weapons.
  
• Casting speed for magic units.
  
• Shield protection.
  
• Critical attack change.
  
• Health regeneration.
  
• Armor regeneration.
  
• Morale buffs/debuffs,
  

Additional stances can be gained by research (for now) or a hero skill (later). The three common stances are available from the start.



[h3]Common Stances[/h3]

• Balanced Stance - No changes.
  
• Offensive Stance - Attack Speed +25%, Shield protection -50%, Critical Attack Chance +2%
  
• Defensive Stance - Attack Speed -25%, Shield protection +50%, Critical Attack Chance -2%
  

[h3]Uncommon Stances[/h3]

• Ranged Stance - Attack Speed Ranged +50%, Attack Speed Melee -50%, Shield Protection +15%
  
• Melee Stance - Attack Speed Ranged -50%, Attack Speed Melee +50%, Shield Protection -15%
  
• Magic Stance - Casting Speed +50%, Melee Speed -25%, Ranged Attack Speed -25%, Shield Protection +15%
  

The current stances are in the game for testing. More stances with different rarities will be introduced if it proves to be a fun feature.

[h2]Hundreds of smaller changes/bugfixes[/h2]
The list would be too long. During the testing phases, hundreds of issues and bugs were fixed, and performance improved. The amount of "technical debt" has been reduced significantly as the project is getting into is seventh year of development... ːstressː

[h2]When to expect the new playtest?[/h2]

I have tried to make predictions several times and failed. I guess it's a few weeks, probably two months away. Once all the features below are completed, the playtest will go in its first iteration.

• Scouting and exploration feature.
  
• Polish the following buildings: Architect, Guard Building, Town Hall, Temples, Blacksmith, Forester and Wizard Laboratory.
  
• Apprentice Unit - Unit with a magic spell, depending on the wizards main magic realm.
  
• 30 newly designed spells and at least as many research options.
  
• AI Enemy rework to cope with all added features.
  
• Adding a skirmish test map.
  
• Balancing and polishing.
  

The second iteration of the playtest will be conducted, once the randomly generated maps are in. All the other listed items are optional and a lot smaller.

• Randomly generated maps - not started yet and will take at least a month.
  
• Adding more biomes to the map generation.
  
• Quest UI rework.
  
• Solved quests will spawn specific loot or chests.
  
• Further UI improvements and polish.
  
• Skirmish UI will include map generation parameters and configurable AI enemies.
  
• Adding a variety of military, support and npc units.
  

A few features I talked about in my last update will probably not make it into the playtest:

• Seasons
  
• Different types of crop fields.
  
• Animal hideouts.
  
• Arda Firin Gates and the forces of the dark (skeleton, zombies, ghouls etc.)
  

[h2]When to expect the EA launch?[/h2]
During the playtest, I will collect feedback from the players and evaluate what needs to be changed to make the game as much fun as possible. I will post news once the roadmap has been updated. The current goal is to release the EA this year.

[h3]I have changed the visible release date to 2024, as I am still not sure when in 2024 I can finally release the EA version.[/h3]

Thanks for reading!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1368160/Heart_Of_Muriet/

Hey!
Fiinally a big update. Sorry, this took so long.

The plan was to release the new playtest in six weeks, but I realized that the game had many more flaws that needed fixing.
After six months, I am still changing old systems, adding new features and polishing older ones.

What happened since then?


The following changes happend in the last few month. There more features planned, but for now I am focussing on the completion of the new playtest.

[h2]Hex grid[/h2]
The new hex grid opened up the game design and made a lot of interesting new systems possible.

• A lot more attack vectors when attacking an enemy on the map.
  
• Opened up the map for exploration features.
  
• NPC buildings and hex field themes are now possible.
  
• More resources make sense now.
  
• Army tents had to be reworked due to space issues.
  
• New and better building placement.
  
• More control over army movement.
  
• Loot system.
  
• Population system.
  
• Troop morale system and alot more.
  
• The map editor is up to date with all the new features added.
  

[h2]Building Placement system[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Building plots have been replaced with a standard placement system known from most strategy games.
The building can be placed over smaller stones and trees that get removed automatically (might change later - workers need to clear the area first)

[h2]Army tents [/h2]

• Army Tent is now a standard building. Placed by the player and built by the workers.
  
• All units, including workers, use the army tent to get rest when idling. 
  
• Missing tents on hex fields reduces the morale of living troops or the health of machines.
  
• Units in army tents get a morale boost and have reduced upkeep costs.
  
• Upgrading the army tent with a field hospital heals wounded units.
  
• Upgrading the army tent with a field blacksmith gets machines repaired.
  

[h2]Base Attributes[/h2]


More base attributes have been introduced. Buildings, upgrades, auras, spells, and units might influence those attributes.

• Water Magic, Fire Magic, Nature Magic, Arcane Magic
  
• Fertility, Defence, Mining, Research, Harvest, Population, Beauty, Morale
  

[h2]New Resources[/h2]
The following new resources were added to the game:

[previewyoutube]https://youtu.be/YbSodBdoO0U [/previewyoutube]

[h3]Stone [/h3]
Stone is a resource used for constructing civilian/military buildings and recruiting troops. Building a Mining Hub (former Storage) or a Wizard Tower is needed to start mining it. 

[h3]Ore[/h3]
Ore is a resource used for constructing civilian/military buildings and recruiting troops. A Mining Hub or a Wizard Tower is needed to mine it.

[h3]Wood[/h3]
Wood will get chopped when placing a forester. Civilian and military buildings, recruiting troops and constructing machines need wood to build them.

Forester:


Forester Buildings can be placed on any base. The influence radius of Foresters shows in which area the forest gets chopped down. Assigned workers start chopping wood immediately. There are options to upgrade the forester for regrowing trees or increasing the influence radius.

[h3]Food [/h3]
Supply has been replaced with Food. Food is produced with crop fields and used by the population and troops as upkeep. Not having enough food will have severe consequences on population happiness and the morale or health of troops.

Crop fields grow based on the height of the terrain. Higher areas have lower fertility. Increase the fertility by placing a mill, building an alchemist and upgrading it with a fertility bonus. Seasons will also influence the growing speed of food.

Food is one of the resources which have a capacity limit. For this purpose, the Silo, a sturdy building that can store food for seasons with less or no harvests, got introduced. More variety for food-generating options, like vegetable fields/trees, might be added later.



[h3]Gold and Mana[/h3]
No changes. Gold/Mana is mined like ore and stone using a Mining Hub or Wizard Tower.

[h3]Population and Draft[/h3]
Once you place residential buildings, more people might migrate to your empire. With more population, more draft points get generated. With those points, specific unit types can be recruited.
Get more info in the population system section of this post.



[h3]Power (Wizards)[/h3]
Wizards now use Power (instead of Mana) for casting spells. It has a maximum value depending on the magic school level of the wizard and the wizard selected.



This prevents spam spell casting and makes room for challenging decisions when casting certain spells. Power regenerates over time. The regeneration speed is influenced by NPC buildings like power sources.

[h2]The loot system[/h2]
The new loot system has taken a significant time to develop, especially for the map editor, but it was worth the time.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Loot Types[/h3]

• Any resource (except Draft)
  
• Scrolls and Spellbooks
  
• Lore
  
• Research
  

[h3]Chests[/h3]
Chests contain multiple loot items and can be randomly generated, depending on the settings in the map editor. They can also include traps, which might be triggered when opening them.

[h3]Traps[/h3]
Traps can trigger spells, de-buffs or an enemy spawn. Reveal spells cast by the wizard can identify if a chest is trapped. A disarm trap spell makes sure to prevent the trap trigger. Trap trigger chances are configurable in the editor.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]NPC buildings [/h2]
NPC buildings make exploration a lot more interesting to the player.

[h3]Ruins[/h3]
Ruins are buildings which can be searched by workers. Searching will reduce the health of the ruin and reveal loot over time. Ruins can be trapped like chests. Once a ruin has no health left it gets destroyed.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Temples, Shrines and Auras[/h3]
Auras are a base wide influence which have a lot of different effects. They can buff, de-buffs buildings or units, change base attributes release random spells or spawn poison or lava floors. Auras are always connected to temple or shrines.



When a player conquers the base, he has to deal with the aura effect of the temple. Players can decide to keep or destroy the aura effect.

Destroying is a risky endevour as it might trigger temple defenders or traps. Traps and defenders vary depending on the rarity of the temple. Once the temple or shrine gets destroyed, a loot chest will appear, and the aura effect will fade away.

[h3]Power Sources[/h3]
Power sources generate power for the wizard. The more power sources owned the more power is generated. Power source belong to a magic school. They prevent any other magic casted on that base. A fire power source will only allow fire spells casted on that base.



[h2] The population system [/h2]
The old farm buildings have been repurposed to residential buildings. The bigger the building the more population fits in.



[h3]Base beauty[/h3]
The base nature is calculated as base beauty. The more natural stones, trees and bushes are available the higher is the beauty of the base. Bases with shores get a beauty bonus. Buildings also influence the base beauty. Depending on the type of the building it can increase or decrease the beauty.

[h3]Base safety[/h3]
The more population a base has the more safety is needed. Safety is increased by stationing troops or building defense building on a base. Certain civilian buildings like statues also increase the safety. Allied neighbour bases increase, enemies neighbour bases decrease the safety.

[h3]Happiness[/h3]
Happiness is calculated by checking the beauty and safety every game tick. A happy population has more migrants and grows faster. A mad population does not grow and might revolt. (Hamlet)

[h3]Hamlets (WIP)[/h3]



Hamlets are created when enough population is on a base. Hamlets can have a town hall building. Once built, the player can charge taxes from the hamlet. It also has a higher population growth, increased population space and it automatically recuits militia squads.

Hamlets might revolt when the population is mad. In this state the militia destroys troops and defense buildings and tries to get into a neutral status.

[h2]The troop morale system[/h2]
Each unit has an upkeep cost, once the upkeep costs cannot be paid, morale is reduced step by step. Machines (e.g. siege weapons) do not have morale, but loose health instead.

Good morale will buff different stats and bad morale debuff stats. The stats can vary depending on the unit type.



Conquering bases, winning fights increases morale, loosing bases or fights decreases morale. There are a few more influence factors for morale which I will talk about in a later post.

[h2]New and repurposed Civilian Buildings (WIP):[/h2]
Civilian Buildings never get destroyed when conquering a hex field. They can still be destroyed once conquered.

[h3]Mill[/h3]
increases the fertility of all crop fields in its influence radius.

[h3]Well[/h3]
Increases beauty of the residential building in its influence radius.

[h3]Alchemist [/h3]
Convert mana and ore to gold and change base attributes like fertility or mining.
Generating research points but has bad influence on troops (morale) and population (happiness).

[h3]Marketplace [/h3]
Buy and sell any resources, get better prices when having good standing with neutral hamlets.

[h3]Wizard Laboratory [/h3]
Generates research points, increases the chance to get better research options for scrolls and spellbooks. Upgrade to recruit apprentices.

[h3]Architect [/h3]
Increase the base beauty attribute and generate research points. Increases the chance to get better research options for buildings. Reduces build cost and times with specfic upgrades.

[h3]Wizard Status (Fire, Arcane, Water, Nature)[/h3]
Increase magic resistances, beauty and safety of a base.



[h3]Warior Statue[/h3]
Increases troop morale, beauty and safety of a base.



[h3]Ponds[/h3]
Increase the beauty of the base but take quite some space.



[h2] Planned Playtest features [/h2]
Some of the features below are currently work in progress.

[h3]Improved Army control[/h3]
Workers can be assigned as before. Additionally, the player can assign by clicking (selecting) and right-clicking a building. The same mechanic applies when moving troops/workers to other hex fields. Troops can’t be micromanaged during a fight.

[h3]Map seasons[/h3]
The summer and winter season will make it into the playtest. More seasons will be added later.
This is mainly for mood, but will already have impacts on food growth, upkeep costs and morale.

[h3]New Research System[/h3]
The current research system will be replaced with a new one. The new system allows only one research at a time which costs research points, which can be accumulated through buildings and other means.
The player will be offered three research options, once the last research is done. Each research has a rarity, Higher rarities are harder to get. Research options can be rerolled with certain resources.

[h3]Scrolls and Spellbooks[/h3]
The old spellsystem gets reworked slightly. The wizard UI will get filters for a better overview and onetime scrolls are added. They will enable the wizard to cast spells from magic schools not yet learned.

Scrolls
Scrolls are one time spells which can be found in ruins or loot.

Spellbooks



Some spellbooks can be unlocked via research, but most of the spellbooks have to be found in ruins, temple, shrines or loot. Spellbooks also have a rarity system.

[h3]More unit types[/h3]
There will be a bunch of units added to the game before the new playtestlaunches, details will follow.

[h3]AI Enemies[/h3]
The enemy AI has to learn all the new features. This is quite a big taks which needs to be completed before the next playtestlaunch.

[h2] Playtest Bonus features[/h2]
Some of the listed features might make it into the playtests, others not.

[h3]Wizard Selection[/h3]
The player will be able to select the wizard he wants to play with. Wizards will have different strenght and weaknesses.

[h3] “Arda Firin” Gates[/h3]
A gate to the land of the dead is opened. Nothing good comes out of this! More info soon.



[h3] Animal hideouts[/h3]
Wolves/bears/spiders etc. spawn and attack anybody daring to enter their hideout. You can either kill them or respect them. Kill them to increase your empire, respect them. earn their trust and they might help out.

[h3]Battle reports[/h3]
After each battle against an enemy the player will get a small report to check how it went.

[h3]Random generated maps[/h3]
The new design makes it possible to generate random maps for a high replayability. Not sure if this will make it into the playtest. Propbably not the first iteration.


Thanks for reading.

Hey all,

after a fresh look into the game and talking to different developers and players, I have decided to redesign some significantly flawed game design systems in Heart of Muriet.

[h3]1. Why am I doing this so late in the development cycle?[/h3]

The game has grown big, and some game design elements have never got adjusted. There are some serious flaws which I want to point out here:

• The map is not utilized well. Most of it is a dead zone due to the current base design.
  
• The game lacks interesting decision-making other than: Do I have enough units and technology to conquer the enemy base.
  
• No exploration is possible with the current map.
  
• Troops can only stay in a few positions. Making tactical decisions is currently not possible.
  
• Pathing of troops cannot be influenced, which is a big problem, as there is only one vector of attack most of the time, which makes most battles an attrition war.
  
• Special points of interest are not possible with the current design, I tried to fix this with base sizes, but it didn't work out.
  
• There is more, but the above points are the main problems.
  

[h3]2. What is going to change? [/h3]

TL;DR: A lot!!!11

• A hex grid system will be introduced. Each hex is a small "base". Multiple "bases" form a territory for each player.
  
• Building plots will be removed. Players can place buildings on a grid, as they are used to in other games. I will keep some of the conveniences the old system currently has, like previews that can get switched with the mouse.
  
• Troops are pathing through the midpoint of a hex field. You can only walk to already explored hexes. Troops can get moved on any hex field and stay there.
  
• Players can explore the map, find loot, and have lots of game-changing points of interest to discover, beside a strong AI opponent to watch out for.
  
• Introduction of POIs like neutral hamlets, bandit camps, shrines, animal hideouts filled with loot, resources, technology and severe dangers.
  
• More resources will get introduced, as well as a population to recruit your army from. "Supply" will also change into a more advanced food system with growing crops.
  
• Moving of troops and fighting will stay but will be adjusted to the new grid system. E.g. ranged units and buildings will get their projectile ranges modified.
  
• There will be more changes, which I will talk about in upcoming posts.
  

Teaser Screenshots:
Exploration:


Expanding territory:


Pathfinding on hex:


Closeup:


Fitting more content in a few hexes compared to the biggest map in the demo:


Seasons maybe?


[h3]3. When will we be able to test this?[/h3]

The good news is, I was able to make the switch from the base to the hex grid system in about to two weeks including the path finding. There is still plenty of work left as I have to add more features that underline the current concept changes. The tutorial and the AI need a proper rework as well. My current guess is about four to six weeks to the first playtest!

If you want to be part of the playtest, please join our community! The first few weeks it will be exclusively for our discord users.



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1368160/Heart_Of_Muriet/

Hey,

all players saving while an architect constructed a build slot couldn't load their save games anymore. It's fixed now, and the save game will still work, though your resources will be gone, and the build slot will not get recovered.

• Fixed: a crash when loading a saved game while a build slot got constructed.
  

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Hey,

after 14 days without getting a crash report, yesterday popped up a new one. Fortunately, it was easy to reproduce and fix.

With the last patch, I introduced new build slot space requirements without actually adjusting the global space multiplier for bases, which rendered the architect building useless again. Sorry for this. It's now adjusted correctly.

• Fixed: a crash when loading a saved game in which a building collapsed during saving.
  
• Fixed: calculation of build slot space was too low for all bases.
  
• Upgraded to Unity Version 2021.3.18 which should fix some rare shader and particlesystem issues.
  

Thank you for your playing, and a happy valentines day to all of you!