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Great Houses of Calderia News

TactiCon is a new strategy festival marching onto Steam today


If you’re strategically minded then you might want to check out TactiCon, a new festival that’s running from today until September 26th. The whole shindig is being organised by Hooded Horse, publisher of Old World, together with Great Houses Of Calderia publisher Firesquid. Watch the trailer below to get an idea of what’s featured in the festival.


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Volcano you said?

Oy explorers,


[h3]Why is there a volcano on our world map?[/h3]


To understand why there is a volcano, we must first ask:
[h3]Why Great Houses of Calderia?[/h3]
The title Great Houses of Calderia was thought to be evocative. As you may know, our main inspirations are the Crusader Kings series and Game of Thrones. To stick to the strategy genre, we imagined the word House, since a lot of families are rivals and try to conquer Calderia, in the spirit of Game of Thrones with Westeros.

First, to fit with the previous idea, the project was called Pro Domo, which meant 'For Your Home/House. It was the project name, short, efficient, but also secret! It is meant to be a simple internal "code name".
When we had to select the official name for the game, the "Great Houses of" went easily, we wanted our title to be impactful. Then, we needed to add something after the "of", like a location.

[h3]Why Calderia?[/h3]
The landscapes of our game are composed of specific locations, all gathered around an element that could make the game recognizable. The name of the land in world building sense comes from the first clear landmark the first settlers saw when sailing in.

Then, volcanic land is often fertile, so it was very desirable to move there and prosper.
Finally, the land was once populated by the ancestors of its current population, but something caused them to abandon the peninsula. The reason and stories were strictly forbidden from history books. The new emperor wasn't superstitious and gave permission to colonize it again. Maybe the volcano had something to do with the exodus, or maybe not. No one knows for sure...



Some of you might have also recognized the inspiration behind it. Calderia is coming from the word Caldera (or Caldeira), meaning volcano. A Caldera is more precisely a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. That is why, during the creation of the landscape, we came up with a volcano. It's massive and recognizable.

To add uniqueness to our title and not be too generic, we twisted the word 'Caldera'. The game is located near the Mediterranean Sea, we thought about adding an "I" to make it sound more Latin. That is how we came up with "Calderia".

[h3]Some info about the map: the Isle of Orsa[/h3]
The Isle of Orsa is an important island because beyond that, the water is too shallow for any big ships. The shallow waters are due to the lava flow direction from the volcano. Because its location is so important for the passage between Calderia and the land where the Emperor resides, the island is not allowed to be owned by any vassals, but instead by the Emperor himself.



That's how our game title Great Houses of Calderia and the volcano of the map were defined! They were both defined at the same time.


To be part of the development process of Great Houses of Calderia or simply chat with the devs, join us on Discord!
Great Houses of Calderia Discord: https://discord.gg/vsxD6n8P8J

- Great Houses of Calderia Team -

Try the Demo at TactiCon

Oy strategy lovers!


[h3]We're glad to announce that we will be participating in TactiCon, the Steam festival celebrating strategy games. Let's celebrate together![/h3]


What is TactiCon?
TactiCon is a digital convention hosted on Steam celebrating strategy video games, officially supported by Valve. It will feature upcoming and recently released or updated strategy and tactics games across a number of different subgenres (grand strategy, 4X, RTS, turn-based tactics, and similar). There will be unique talks, panels, interviews, and let’s plays given by experts from the genre in addition to showcasing the games themselves in a dedicated sale.


Try our new campaign mode (demo) and let us know what you think! It will have slight changes from Gamescom's one (July).

[h3]During TactiCon:[/h3]
🎤 Jussi, Creative Director of the game, will participate in a panel about "The challenge of designing the core game loop of strategy games". Set a reminder to watch the panel during TactiCon!


Share your feedback here or on Discord: https://discord.gg/vsxD6n8P8J

- Great Houses of Calderia Team -

Unit creation process

Art lovers,


[h3]Juha, our Character Artist, made an accelerated video of the creation process of a unit.[/h3]

In this video, you will see how he's drawing the silhouette, adding colors and lights to make one of the Peasant militia units come to life!

https://youtu.be/bEqRf7dJ9JU
What are units?
Units are used in military conflicts like companions are used in social conflicts. Units can be recruited by the players when building an army. They all give different bonuses to the fiefdom.

Their appearance is based on Renaissance soldiers mixed with classical antiquity and a splash of fantasy elements.


To be part of the development process of Great Houses of Calderia, join us on Discord!
Great Houses of Calderia Discord: https://discord.gg/vsxD6n8P8J

- Great Houses of Calderia Team -

Characters' inpirations

Oy creative lads!


Did you miss our Summer miniseries about the references used to design our key art characters? Find them here!



We took inspiration from Renaissance-themed TV Shows, but also from History, or even real-life outfits and objects. All the characters have their own episode. Learn more about their face references, and where are their outfits coming from!

[h3]Episodes of the characters and their inspirations:[/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1812910/view/3350130288844599327
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1812910/view/3350130288844601175
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1812910/view/3350130288844601943
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1812910/view/3350131733954914272
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1812910/view/3376029156932270779
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1812910/view/3376029156936561385
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1812910/view/3376030426068289756
[h3]Great Houses of Calderia's key art:[/h3]


Come and chat with the devs on Discord: https://discord.gg/vsxD6n8P8J

- Great Houses of Calderia Team -