Update 14 - Nature and Negotiation!

Hi Everyone!

Update 14 is here! It is a big one.

The first half of my time was spent on the new Negotiation System which works with the Story Generator to deliver Year 2+ challenges.

The second half was because I added Beavers one afternoon for fun. One thing really led to another with those Beavers.



With this being such a large update, I will link the related "Progress Update" announcements for deeper details on the changes.

Those progress updates explain my thought processes and why/how the changes came about. I will need to stick to a higher-level overview here, or I will run out of text space. (it has happened before :)

Update 14 covers versions 0.457->0.479 from the Testing Branch.
(Note: anyone can join the testing branch under Clanfolk/Properties/Betas, and it is updated multiple times a week)

[h3]New Stuff[/h3]

• The Negotiation System
  • Patience - How long a Negotiation lasts
    
  • Authority - How "in the right" the Negotiator is feeling
    
  • Courage - How brave the Negotiator is feeling
    
  • Persuasion - Skill at lowering opponent's Authority
    
  • Intimidation - Skill at lowering opponent Courage
    
  • Brawling - When all else fails (Player Initiated Only)
    
• Nature
  • Beavers
    
  • Swimming
    
  • New Better Shoreline System
    
  • Natural River Generation
    
  • Bridges
    
  • Piers that can be built on!
    
  • New Natural Terraformer (much nicer maps)
    
  • Riverbank Seeding (the rivers have life growing along their edges)
    
  • Undergrowth System (makes the forests, grasses, and rocks feel a lot more "there")
    
  • Clouds
    
  • Lightning
    

For those who want more detail, let's dive right in!

[h2]The Negotiation System![/h2]


A Negotiation is a Live Event that progresses over time. The Negotiation will continue until an Outcome is picked or Patience runs out.

New Outcomes become available based on Courage and Authority thresholds being met.

The Negotiator can modify the Opponent's Courage and Authority by steering the conversation with their Persuasion or Intimidation skills. Depending on the strength of this steering, Patience will lower more quickly.

Environmental factors such as a grand meeting hall or having a backup at the ready will also change Courage and Authority over time, making other Outcomes available.

If an Outcome is not picked before Patience is exhausted, the Opponent will win the negotiation and be granted their original demand.

If Patience is about to run out, and the Player is unwilling to lose the Negotiation, the Player can choose to trigger a Brawl as a last chance to scare off the opponent.

The Brawl is only ever triggered by the Player faction. Brawls exist to not tie the player's hands when a Negotiation has failed. There is a cost to Brawling. Relations will suffer greatly, and permanent (But nonfatal) injuries may also occur. It is important to think carefully before abandoning Reason in favor of a Headbutt.

Currently, there is one Story Event Chain: The Outcast Mother. Some new events have been added to this chain and one of these will lead to a Negotiation. Many more story event chains will be added in the future, and the current Outcast Mother chain should be seen as an example.

For in-depth detail on the whole Negotiation System please see this (mostly still accurate) post:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1700870/announcements/detail/6089499397576415358

[h2]Nature[/h2]


So, as mentioned above, this all started with adding some Beavers one afternoon after wrapping up the Outcast Mother story event.

There is a very detailed step by step process listed in the next two Progress Updates, and I suggest giving those a read if you are wondering exactly how Beavers lead to Rivers to Bridges to a New Terraformer all the way to Lightning. They should both be somewhat entertaining :)

Here are the Progress Update Links:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1700870/announcements/detail/4119176366789362099
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1700870/announcements/detail/4182229294562593636

[h2]Here is a much higher-level description of the changes.[/h2]

[h3]Beavers[/h3]

It turns out that Beavers were quite common in 1300s Scotland, and Europe in general. The Beavers were hunted for their pelts as well as their castor sacs which used for medieval medical purposes and just about anything else you can imagine, even beekeeping.

Beavers will build Lodges in lakes, and their presence will cause reeds to be replanted along the shoreline. Beavers don't currently gnaw down trees, but that will also likely come.

[h3]Swimming[/h3]
Beavers looked really odd walking on water, so Swimming was added. Now, all humans and wildlife will swim and wade into the water from the shoreline.


[h3]New Better Shoreline System[/h3]
To make Swimming work, it required a rethink of how the Shoreline worked. I needed the Idea of depth to allow me to figure out how much of the Beaver to draw. Snapping the Beaver from walking on the ground to being in the water looked terrible, so we needed a gradual transition.

This new wading transition looks good about 90% of the time, but will sometimes seem a bit odd. Just remember that a real beaver is bendy, so if the wading seems weird, well that is just the beaver bending :)

[h3]Natural River Generation[/h3]

A long time Clanfolk player mentioned to me that Beavers were kind of lame without Rivers, so I groaned audibly and decided to give Rivers a quick try.

I *never* thought that Rivers would look right with square tiles. I expected straight lines and stair cases, but surprisingly, in the end (and a lot of iterations) they turned out really well!

Rivers will now connect Lakes and thin out as they travel through bogs. They wind around mountains and seek simulated natural low spots in the terrain. The rivers will also widen in areas and create crossings in others. There should be quite a bit of variety to the shape and paths of the rivers for each map.

The Rivers also slice the map up into zones quite well, requiring the player to think more about homestead placement. 100% love for the rivers now.

[h3]Bridges[/h3]

So now that we had rivers dividing the land into zones, we needed to be able to cross those rivers.

Bridges had to happen next. Bridges broke most of the rules I had created to keep the tile-based construction sane, but in the end, I got a road to span the water.

In running a few visual tests, it became apparent, even to me, that people were also going to want cover these bridges with roofs (yet another rule broken. roofs over water? inconceivable!)

Then my son started chanting "Lake House" and showed me jazz hands, annnnd I decided to make bridge tiles provide full build support.

This led to:

[h3]Piers that can be built on![/h3]


Now we can also have decks over water and piers to go fishing off of.

It is even possible to build walls and fences on bridges, so creating sealed animal pens that border lakes is now a reality.

Bridges also have span distances similar to roofs. Completely paving over lakes is not possible, but if there is a small island in a lake, it can provide support for a nice Lake House!



With how nice the Rivers and Bridges were looking, I felt empowered to try one more experiment.

[h3]New Natural Terraformer (much nicer maps)[/h3]
The Terraformer wasn't exactly producing natural-looking results by randomly blasting trees and plants here and there. I had also seen some very nice pictures of hand-seeded forests. The new tech for river placement was also begging to be applied to forest seeding, so one more experiment couldn't hurt!

The end result was almost instant, beautiful forests. There were dense patches, little forest paths, and larger open areas on the map for building. The new forests looked natural and had some personality. So I decided to apply the Forest Seeding Algorithm to grasses and even rocks and the result was also a dramatic improvement.

We now had proper-looking forests, with paths, grass fields, open areas, and dense rocky areas, all placed naturally. The map was starting to look very convincing.



So, next, I decided to show this new tech off on Discord, and people were excited. One of the users also mentioned how the Rivers were empty on the edges. They were right! Rivers have life along their banks.

Tinker Tinker...

[h3]Riverbank Seeding (the rivers have life growing along their edges)[/h3]


Riverbanks now generate trees or grasses or even sometimes rocky sections along their shoreline. This new plant life also extends around Lakes and Bogs tying everything together.

Back to Discord to show off the new Riverside a bit, and another pretty critical insight from that same player. The Trees were pretty bare underneath, and they just kind of popped out of the green grass. They said this in a lot nicer way, but my brain translated it to that.

I could not unsee it now.

[h3]Undergrowth System[/h3]

There is a new Undergrowth layer that grows and shrinks over time as the Trees grow or are removed.

So if a forest is chopped down, expect to see the grass plains slowly take over the old forested area.

Also if a new forest grows, the undergrowth will slowly return along with the ferns and bluebells. It is quite gradual, but will happen even in older saves.

At first I just applied this new system to Forests, but have since also given Grasses and Rocks their own form of undergrowth.



It turns out Bluebells grow in Forests and are also tied with Thistle as the national flower of Scotland. There are some very nice pictures on Bluebell Forests in Scotland, and I suggest searching for them.

At this point we were getting pretty close to Update 14, and I knew there was not time for a new Story Element Chain, so I decided to try applying that River tech to one more thing that had been on my mind for a looooong time.

[h3]Clouds[/h3]
The Rivers and Natural Terraformer both sample a heightmap texture (think of a black and white picture of a bunch of clouds) to determine where to place tiles, buuuut You know what a cloud heightmap also look like? Clouds!

I decided to try panning that texture across the map in relation to the wind speed. The first few attempts were ugly, but it was pretty obvious that it was going to work. After enough tinkering with the shaders, there were light clouds on Sunny days that wandered across the landscape as well as "light holes" on very cloudy days that showed breaks in the clouds.



I think it is obvious to everyone what has to come next...

[h3]Lightning[/h3]
Lightning was originally to be a Friday afternoon task (like the Beavers.) But it turns out lightning is actually quite complicated lighting wise. I wanted to deliver on the experience of a Thunderstom slowly rolling past the homestead.

Thunderstorms do not happen very often, but you can expect at least a couple within a game year. They tend to be more likely with heavy rain, but can come at any time, even in the Summer.

You will know when one is coming by the sound. There is a set of sound for strikes off map and ones on map. The flashes will also become more intense as the lightning approaches.

Lightning will cause fires so beware. Currently I have it in "merciful" mode and it will not set roofs on fire, but there will be a toggle for that in the future. Lightning will set fields on fire though.



There are many more upgrades and changes in Update 14, but that covers the largest additions.

Please take a look at the Progress Updates linked above, or the Change Logs listed below for further info.

[h2]The Big List Of Everything[/h2]
For those interested in detailed change logs, following this link and starting at V0.457 will give you a listing of all the changes since Update 13

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1700870/discussions/0/3183488858470509508/?ctp=21


[h2]Road Map[/h2]

There is a lot more to come! Please take a look at the Road Map for further long term details as well.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1700870/view/3388412789658793666

Diving back into the code now.

Thanks very much for playing Clanfolk!

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.

Watch out for Beavers. They can send you places you never expected!