Great Houses of Calderia News

[h2]We are excited to announce that the latest version of our game is about to be released and is ready for playtesting![/h2]

Fill out the form below if you're interested in taking part in this new session: https://forms.gle/5ErrwxSi7jKoNzfF6



The playtest will run from June 16th to June 25th.

🎮 How to Participate:
To secure your spot in the playtest, please fill out the Google Form to register. We value your understanding as we carefully go over your signups and manually send Steam keys. We appreciate your dedication. We are committed to including as many people as possible.

📢 Your feedback is key:
This playtest, once again, is a vital milestone in the game's development, and your feedback will help shape the final product. We welcome you to explore Calderia's medieval setting, put its mechanics to the test, and share your thoughts with us. Your input will be precious in refining the game and making the best version possible for all players.

To share your feedback with us, you can fill out this Google Form.

We really want to hear your thoughts about any aspects of the game (likes & dislikes, ideas for improvement) so feel free to share your feedback on our Discord server or in the Steam discussions.

For bug reports, please take screenshots and be as precise as possible so we can reproduce them and fix them!


[h2]PATCHNOTE[/h2]

Added

• AI IMPROVEMENTS:
• Smart selection of characters to send on delegations
  
• War Weariness has an effect on AI decisions
  
• AI measures what to do with other families based on how they perceive their strength compared to themselves
  
• AI know can call court member back home
  
• AI will try to keep more people at home
  
• AI checks missing resources properly
  
• AI will try to slander before declaring a war
  
• Conflict Resolution AI: AI weights the use of its special abilities
  
  
• GENERAL UI/UX:
• Player is notified when new tradition needs to be selected
  
• Claim title icon added to war map mode
  
• Confirmation step added when starting to construct a building
  
• Courted relation shows current percentage in events
  
• Courtship progress in contacts view
  
• Family Member First Name In World View
  
• Home Location info added To Event and Diplomacy Widget
  
• Loading screen hints
  
• Illustrations to social conflicts
  
• Confirmation UI box before entering social conflict shorthanded
  
• List unhappy professions in 'fiefdom shrinking' notifications
  
• Diplomatic cooldown indicator
  
• Unit tiers visualization
  
  
• TOOLTIPS:
• Happiness tooltip to Foreign Fiefdoms
  
• War weariness info added to Happiness Tooltip
  
• War score tooltips show what to expect from peace negotiations
  
• Character Skills have tooltips
  
• Worker Efficiency has tooltip
  
• Building upgrade tree view has tooltips
  
• Happiness impacts shown in tooltips
  
• Tooltips to start tradition selection
  
• Tooltips about Feudal levels
  
  
• TUTORIALS:
• Social Conflict tutorial
  
• Event Tutorial
  
• Building tutorial
  
  
• MECHANICS & MISC:
• Army moves slower than normal caravan
  
• Player can see what sort of unit character becomes in Military/Social conflicts
  
• Music continues from where it was left off, if paused
  
• Setup state to the Military conflict
  
• Player can earn tradition points from conflict resolution
  
• Player can earn tradition points to event choices
  
• Winning progress end game steps
  
• War weariness has maximum limit
  
• Military Units and Social Companions have tiers
  
• Few Traditions added and tradition costs updated
  
• Event Launched when getting a new Head Of House
  
• Warscore accumulation corrected
  
• Enter button to continue during tutorials
  
• Steam Achievements
  

Updated

• AI Behavior
  
• Adjust profession efficiency meter
  
• Strategy camera distance value
  
• Chronicle button adjustments
  
• Claim Title Icon
  
• Conflict Resolution Setup UI
  
• Event button, event prompt, tradition selection
  
• Event illustrations
  
• Event choice tooltips
  
• Happiness calculations
  
• Journal title and colors
  
• Landscape Optimizations
  
• Loading Screen
  
• Maximum amount set for war weariness
  
• Province Post-process
  
• Runtime Virtual Textures
  
• Start game tradition selection not unlocked fully, but selected as target
  
• Skill Progress Bar
  
• Time cycle to seasons
  
• Trade Willingness Meter
  
• Tradition layout and categories
  
• Traditions UI
  
• War Weariness amounts reduced
  
• Winning Progression Steps to the End
  
• World Map Texture Optimizations
  
• World map lighting
  
• Input bindings
  
• Profession UI positions
  
• Arrange Wedding screen
  
• Back & Next buttons
  
• Skill XP Progress Bar
  
• Landing sequence
  
• Notification for courtship
  
• Months changed to seasons
  
• No other family character pre-selected in diplomatic delegations
  
• Playground Weights Icon
  
• Happiness tooltip
  
• Redesign character info screen
  
• Delegation UI
  
• Overseer tooltips and info
  
• Worker efficiency meter
  
• Overseeing effect levels
  
• Whole map visible in the landing states
  
• Population cap notification
  
• Social Conflict Particles
  
• Demand War Support Widget
  
• AI stops and won't start to create alliance plan if that is impossible
  
• Resource bar adjustments
  
• Economy balance. City population caps decreased, production costs changed.
  
• Minor layout adjustments on Fiefdom production costs
  
• Skill tooltip experience visuals
  
• Caravan Dust System
  

Fixed

• All buttons of fiefdom Intrigue window are red
  
• Annoying Child event missing text
  
• Armies movements are bugged after ordering to go back home
  
• Arrows of map tutorial point toward other fiefdoms during camera movements
  
• Incorrect blood relation descriptions
  
• Bribe skill doesn't work in social CR
  
• Camera movement and arrows on fiefdoms in tutorial doesn't act correctly
  
• Change custodian for a member of your own family
  
• Chronicle Date
  
• Conflict Resolution result screen shows wrong information
  
• Courtship duration
  
• Crash during tutorial
  
• Delegation blocker texts
  
• Dozens of Event Launch Issues
  
• Empty list of my house member in appeal for rank delegation screen
  
• Enemy armies do not fight when on the same position
  
• Failing to trade doesn't break trade agreement
  
• Fiefdom banner is over action menu
  
• Fiefdom profession list bouncing
  
• Fiefdom widget stays on Esc. menu during tutorial
  
• Game crash on Social Conflict resolution
  
• Game crash during military conflict
  
• Game crash when validating the result window of social conflict
  
• House Origin Mountain Range Image Animation
  
• Impossible to do diplomatic action drag and dropping portrait on fiefdom
  
• Impossible to drag and drop portrait of adults on squire assignment
  
• Intrigue in AI fiefdom with no spy or house member on this fiefdom
  
• List of house member empty in trade window when they are all available
  
• No space between "of" and the name of the fiefdom on fiefdom view
  
• Overlord increases tax constantly
  
• Overseer objective doesn't complete tutorial
  
• Peace Negotiation
  
• Problem in production part of fiefdom view for professions being upgraded
  
• Problems with the diplomatic cooldown icon
  
• Ranks of Calderia softlock
  
• References to icons used in text
  
• Resource map mode indicates wrong information
  
• Result window of Social Conflict resolution is empty after a loss
  
• Skill variables to professions in events
  
• Social Companions Objective
  
• Soft lock on conflict tutorial when it's military conflict
  
• Softlock in companion selection
  
• Softlock in event tutorial
  
• Trade tutorial appeared a second time
  
• Tutorial pickaxe highlight
  
• Tutorials are not in the right position
  
• War can't be declared
  
• Wedding location displayed as unknown
  
• Weird camera angle when loading save
  
• Wrong color for ranks during rank selection
  
• Wrong description in ability
  
• You can open fiefdom widget windows during tutorial
  
• Camera always zoom on your fiefdom when sending a delegation
  
• Notification collapse button is wrong place
  
• Armies Meet Delegation
  
• First name with a space bug
  
• Roads Not Assigned to Virtual Texture
  
• Help Button Overlaps With Unit Start Location
  
• Resource Tooltip
  
• Fiefdom production entries on two rows
  
• Settings Confirm Option
  
• Game Crash in conflict resolution
  
• Consumption tutorial layout
  
• Tooltip of event button stays on screen after a choice
  
• Broken road at Girolva
  
• Tooltips inside tooltip wrong word capitalisation
  
• All delegations in the island ands still getting Appeal Delegation event
  
• Red flash while fiefdom transition
  
• Peace negotiations never happen
  
• Softlock in peace negotiations
  
• Trade equalize-button bugged with multiple resources in deal
  
• Hide resource problem icon if profession is not unlocked or deficit
  
• Person can be enemy and friend
  
• Objective of peace social CR overlap on the other frame
  
• Double crest
  
• Diplomatic skill value different in overseeing
  
• Exclamation mark tooltip
  
• Conflict Resolution: Action Category
  
• Courting status update
  
• "Securing Battlefield" text for social conflict
  
• Deficit due trade
  
• AI raise army without the resources to do it
  
• Resource map mode indicates wrong information
  
• Objective notification not shown
  
• Disable possibility of Humiliation war against your own vassals
  
• Missing Icon For Action Prompts
  
• Courted character can't be courted anymore
  
• AI won't aim for population growth if at maximum population level
  
• AI condition - Population not at maximum
  
• AI to more eagerly build stuff. Also better handling of shortages.
  
• Companion do not go back to reserve on Result window
  
• Event tutorial step missing a highlight
  
• Board of social CR have spots not placed correctly
  
• Game crash soon after start
  
• Companion got one shot in social conflict
  
• HP of companion and house member in social CR are stuck
  
• Conflict Resolution nodes change color to gray when dragging
  
• Crash after Ranks of Calderia selection
  
• Caravan particle effect on pause
  

- Great Houses of Calderia Team -

[h3]In today's devlog learn how the art team crafted the art direction for Great Houses of Calderia:[/h3]

"When it came to creating illustrations for this game, our main goal was to make the world of Calderia feel real and immersive. We wanted players to be fully absorbed in the game's history and culture, so our art designs were based on this foundation. To achieve this, our art team worked closely with the design team to bring Calderia to life.

Instead of relying solely on typical fantasy themes, we drew inspiration from real historical references. We also steered towards Mediterranean references and tried to avoid the central European and British look which we feel is more common in entertainment.

We also discovered that real-world examples often have the richness of practical functionality, psychological and cultural layers and making them further interesting and surprising than standard fantasy tropes."

One of our early fantasy concepts


"Throughout the process, we delved into various references and integrated them into our art style. Sometimes, we added a twist, but always with a foundation in Calderia's worldbuilding.

For instance, unlike often depicted, in reality, it would have been uncommon to wear armor outside of martial context. However, the period armor does look undoubtedly awesome and we wanted to display it often. Our approach was to incorporate pieces of armor in noble attire as a status symbol in Calderian society and explain this cultural quirk with the unconscious psychological factors surrounding the world's cataclysmic history."

Magistrate and Advocatus companions


"When making illustrations for the game, we have put effort into justifying our choices with world-building so that the elements in the illustrations would convey the rich history and culture of the world of Calderia. Some of the illustrations might depict a specific scene in the game, but sometimes they might be a painting, illustration, or a mural from the game world, sometimes even from another era, expanding the world-building on a meta-level and adding an intriguing visual twist."


Part of a mural created for our game


"During the development process the AI-generated image technology took huge leaps and we started to experiment with using this for some of the illustrations.

After a few months of experiments we found that with the right prompting, using mainly names of old masters, we could generate something that fits the game’s aesthetic without stepping on any living artist’s toes, including our own.

The process often involved quite a bit of curating, merging, and editing of the AI output. Having said that, there are also untouched generated images as we did not want to do a cursory overpaint (as seems to be the trend) just to make them appear handcrafted.

All in all, this allowed us to include much more imagery than originally planned, adding depth to the world of Calderia and allowing our small team to focus on more important issues relevant to the game. We want to emphasize that both human-art and AI-generated content is used in the event illustrations."

[h3]Click on the links to watch our artists work on early concepts and in-game portraits[/h3]



Join our Discord to get involved in the development of Great Houses of Calderia: https://discord.gg/vsxD6n8P8J

- Great Houses of Calderia Team -

Based on your feedback on the TactiCon 2023 demo, we've prepared a quick patch to solve some bugs and crashes. Thanks for playing it and sharing both your inputs and enthusiasm about it, your support matters!

Added:

• Demo text to main menu
  

Updated:

• Demo end screen
  
• Loading screen
  

Fixed:

• Game crash when validating the result window of social conflict
  
• Game crash while tutorial
  
• Tutorials are no in right position
  
• Skill variables to professions in events
  
• Problems with the diplomatic cooldown icon
  
• Empty list of my house member in appeal for rank delegation screen
  
• Chronicle Date
  

[h3]In today's devlog our Sound Director "Janne Kariniemi" explains how he created the soundtrack for Great Houses of Calderia:[/h3]



"We started the music production with composer Seppo Kantonen researching the music of the era of the game’s location. Soon we discovered that authentic music would not be entertaining enough in the context of the game, but doing the proper study was very enlightening for us.

[h3]"Allowing ourselves to work with synthetic sounds and combining them with organic instruments was very liberating"[/h3]

We found many melodic components, especially instruments we wanted to use in the final production. It became clear that we wanted to move to more movie-like scoring and work within artistic freedom. So we decided to create a musical world that has some sounds, instruments, and melodic paths from the era, but use whatever sounded good and created the right kind of mood.

Allowing ourselves to work with synthetic sounds and combining them with organic instruments was very liberating and helped us to reach the goal we wanted. Also, we wanted to get some mystique and unknown to the soundscape and reached for that by seeking sounds from the neighboring areas and cultures where the actual game would take place."

The mandolin appeared during the Renaissance in Italy, www.pixabay.com


"In the second phase of the production, we created a Spotify playlist of any kind of music that could be somehow useful as a reference or just felt right. We shared the gigantic playlist with the game-developing team and asked how they felt about the music.

We started narrowing down the list using the answers we got from the team combined with our own ideas. In the end, something like over 200 reference songs were narrowed down to eleven. These songs had the overall mood, and feeling – the essence we decided to aim for."

Janne and Seppo created a musical moodboard on Spotify. Listen here

"Seppo started to compose demo versions for the main theme. Almost twenty different versions were made and one of those was chosen to become the main theme. After that, we did a breakdown of the game, just to make clear at what point and what kind of music was needed, and how we would fit the theme in different variations. When we had a shared vision of the musical entity, Seppo composed the rest of the pieces and we produced demos of these compositions."

[h3]"The actual production was very intense and we worked as a pair in the studio for long days."[/h3]

"We used the demos to make a breakdown of the instrumentation and arrangement ideas. When the instrumentation plan was done, we studied what could be the best way to produce the sounds we wanted to have in the scores. Several software and VST instruments were acquired to support the hardware instruments that were chosen for production.

We ended up using a lot of software like Spectrasonics Omnisphere, Arturia V Collection, and Native Instruments Komplete alongside hardware like ASM Hydrasynth, Nord Stage 3, Sequential Mopho X4, and some classics like Roland JV 2080 and TR808.

A "Nord Stage" keyboard used on the soundtrack. Picture by Daniel - originally posted to Flickr as Nord keyboardist, CC BY-SA 2.0, link

The actual production was very intense and we worked as a pair in the studio for long days. Executing well-made plans was the key to a successful result and actually gave us lots of time to try (and fail) new ideas during production. We had lots of fun and sometimes got carried away playing around, but being such serious professionals and not at all any silly babblers (yeah right!), we managed to get back on track whenever needed."

- Janne Kariniemi, Sound Director at Resistance Games


[h3]Which topic would you like to hear about in our next devlog?[/h3]


Join our Discord to get involved in the development of Great Houses of Calderia: https://discord.gg/vsxD6n8P8J

- Great Houses of Calderia Team -

[h2]To celebrate we prepared a brand-new demo for you to enjoy![/h2]

What changed since our last public demo:

• 1. Added numerous mechanics
  
• 2. New onboarding
  
• 3. Graphical optimization
  
• 4. AI improved
  
• 5. Tooltips
  
• 6. New music and SFX
  
• 7. Brand new social conflict resolution
  
• 8. New smart auto-resolve features for conflict resolution
  
• 9. Fiefdom management and building revisited
  

Your feedback is extremely precious, it helps us make the best game possible!

Please share your feedback regarding the demo on discord: https://discord.gg/vsxD6n8P8J

- Great Houses of Calderia Team -