World Map Major Content Update

Hi,

I'd like to thank everyone for their help with 0.9 beta. Today I am launching the new Map Update (along with a Daily Deal discount). This update was full of new challenges and a lot of new ideas came in so I hope you'll enjoy it.

Version 0.9 is very important in adding all the missing core game mechanisms and in some perspective it makes the game mechanics 'complete'. Not in a literal sense - there's going to be more major updates before 1.0 - but all the 'necessary' things for basic playing experience are now in place.

Sure .. a lot of things will change, but after adding Wealth Hero faction (v0.7), dynamic Research tree and AFK gameplay (v0.8) and Map management (v0.9) the game is now ready to start expanding to further levels, higher difficulties and all the fancy mid and late game features.

The map update completely reworks the old Quest system and adds a more conventional territory management in line with the 4X genre. It also reworks the wonder mechanics and adds a new civilization Perk system. If you haven't seen them yet you can check out my previous updates:

Map update

Perks

Wonders

If you would like to participate on future Betas, be sure to visit our community on discord or drop me an email on [email protected]

Cheers,

Ondrej

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[h2]0.9 Changelog[/h2]

• While selecting starting location on Map you can no longer open main menu
  
• Map in the above state should no longer become exitable via esc after Restarting a civilization round
  
• This is just a 'dirty fix' to an existing deeper issue causing menu state prone to becoming corrupted. A proper Menu state fix to prevent these issues altogether is planned in future but is too invasive to do close to major update.
  

• Destroyed Wonders should no longer show in building list
  
• Siege dilemma is now mandatory (automatically opened after a few seconds) to prevent some cheesing scenarios.
  
• Some game crashing corner case scenarios were resolved.
  

• Famine dilemma now offering a slightly less 'malevolent' option when you have no food instead of a surprise attack.
  
• Right-clicking a workshop should no longer toggle activation (it opens the demolish dialog only)
  
• Canceling Festival via right click should now work as expected.
  
• Destroy Wonder attack on Crises should no longer crash the game
  
• Barbarians created from Tribal village now have correct tile assigned and can be attacked normally.(note that this does not retroactively fix bugged barbarians, only newly created ones)
  
• Shield % will now be indicated in red when showing on unblockable attack to indicate the attack cannot be blocked by this shield.
  
• Huns now require 20 soldiers to become vulnerable due to easier access to higher unit caps.
  
• You can no longer end up starting in Sea by using a selected map tile from previous run (selected tile now resets on leaving map).
  
• Can no longer gain infinite strategic resources by working around UI validation on quest buttons.
  
• Workshops without workers now have a more explicit indicator icon on them to highlight missing workers.
  
• Destroyed Wonders should no longer contribute their Traits to your civilization.
  

• Building Stonehenge without having Classical era unlocked will no longer crash the game.
  
• Starting Autonomy boost ascension should now correctly apply on every civilization start
  
• Era bosses or Nemeses should no longer be trigger by Autoresearch during Grace period after fall.
  
• Midas/Shamanism should now correctly improve their targeted skill
  
• Ozymandias and Caesar should now correctly be affected by new map tiles.
  
• Wheat and Cows rare technologies now affect farmlands in the same way Farmer Perk does (all these effects multiply as usual for multiplier bonuses).
  
• Villages can no longer be cheesed infinitely by not collecting dilemma cards. Dillemas are now mandatory (autocollected) and villages deck no longer resets.
  
• Colossus text made a bit shorter to fit building menu (overflow fixes like this are temporary measure until bulding menu gets upgraded)
  
• Can no longer leave starting map before chosing a location by using menu hotkey.
  
• Map rendering has been slightly optimized and some performance issues removed. FPS Should be a little better though there's still more room for improvements.
  

[h2] Map Tiles [/h2]

• Map is now much larger in size and Quests have been completely redesigned into Hexagonal grid.
  
• Quest stages have been removed. Tile modifications are completed by just a single Quest run.
  
• You can now explore and annex territory on the map using your units and improve your territory based on its biome.
  
• You can build 6 different Improvements: Farmlands, Forests and Villages on lowlands biome, Quarries, Mines and Fortresses on highlands biome.
  
• Tile Improvements boost each other if compatible neighbours are created. Two separate 'adjacency bonuses' are available for each Tile Improvement type.
  
• First (silver) adjacency bonus is granted to Tiles surrounded by 2 compatible hex tiles (what constitutes compatible differs per improvement type).
  
• Second (golden) adjacency bonus is granted to Tiles surrounded by 6 compatible hex tiles.
  
• Map is generated randomly each run.
  
• Mammoths, Cannibals and Barbarians are now randomly spawned 'Crises' on the map during creation and progress through levels along with your civilization.
  
• Map now contains other Civilizations (after unlocking Medieval Era in ascension tree)
  
• Map now contains exploitable Strategic Resources (after unlocking Classical Era in ascension tree)
  
• Trade routes are no longer gained via special Strategic Resources. Instead you gain them via Tribal Villages or other Civilizations.
  
• Trade routes can no longer be 'magnified' by getting more sources of the same Route. Instead they provide a large amount of resource input by default and they scale with Technology and Heroes.
  
• Food trade route is always available (after researching Money).
  
• Your workers are the limit of how many map tiles you can have.
  
• Worker progression based on civilization has been buffed. You will now need roughly 30% population increase to gain another worker.
  
• You can still utilize Villages to increase Workers but you will need to reach its maximum adjacency bonus (i.e. surround the village with 6 non-village improvements)
  

[h2] Dilemma Cards [/h2]

• Tribal Villages now contain a deck of limited card numbers so you can repeat their quests (number shown on map).
  
• Final Dilemma card always results in the Village disappearance (but the options vary).
  
• Neutral Civilizations offer their own Deck of Dilemmas, but their cards are different.
  
• Neutral Civilizations do not disappear when you exhaust their Dilemma deck. Instead they reshuffle a new deck, or they change to Friendly/Hostile.
  
• Civilizations may also become Allied or Hostile based on some of your Dilemma choices. You can also lead surprise attacks to speed up this process.
  
• You can attack Hostile civilizations and take away their territory.
  
• You can utilize Allied Civilization tiles to provide adjacency bonus to your own tiles without any worker cost.
  
• All dilemmas are redesigned. Some of them offer access to Trade Routes for Wood, Stone or metal. You can now also gain plenty of Rare/Unique Heroes from dilemmas.
  

[h2] Units, Workshops and Wonders [/h2]

• Units over capacity (e.g. after disabling Barracks) are no longer wiped instantly, instead they start consuming Food and will only get wiped one by one when reaching starvation.
  
• Unit cap can now be greatly increased by Village and Fortress map tile improvements. Overall unit cap has increased throughout the eras.
  
• As a result of above, Granary and Barracks no longer grant flat Unit Cap increase.
  
• Barracks now (instead if flat Fort cap) grants Percentage multiplier to ALL unit caps.
  
• Granary now (instead if flat Soldier cap) grants extra Food storage space.
  
• The only way to increase Heavy unit cap (besides unique heroes) is via Fortress with a maximized Adjacency bonus (i.e. surrounded by 6 non-fort improvements).
  
• Aside from growing and feeding people, Stored Food is now used to pay for certain Quests on Map as well as for the Festival ability.
  
• Turning Granary off can now be utilized for rapid consumption of its stored food into growth.
  
• Wonders now occupy workshop slots.
  
• Wonders can now consume more than one Worker when activcated. The number cost is visible on the details as well as on the toggle button.
  
• Player can demolish Workshops to make space for wonders and vice versa.
  
• Wonders economic effects and abilities have been redesigned.
  
• Stonehenge and Pyramids now generate lotus via their charging ability.
  
• Free workers given food traits from technology. Instead Free workers can be tuned by Civilization Perks (see below) to gain specific specialist role.
  
• Free workers are no longer a primary source of Food. Since you can utilize free workers by expanding on map, you can now choose whether to play a 'wide' empire stretched on the map, or 'tall' empire using free workers to boost your workshop output.
  
• Some workshop visual style changed and some housing types were removed (due to upcoming Class Perks)
  

[h2] Combat & Crises [/h2]

• Shield ability from Fort units now has only a X% chance to block an attack which increases with technological upgrade of the Fort unit.
  
• Multiple fort instances apply to any single attack. E.g. having two 50% forts triggered will effectively create a 75% chance to block the next attack. Thus you can reach near 100% values by using large enough amount of forts.
  
• A Fort which fails its roll to block (and thus fails to deflect the Crisis attack) is kept and can roll again on further attacks.
  
• Fort block chance is now boosted by Barracks ability. Similar to +200% damage It works statistically as if the fort was triggered three times (thus a 50% fort becomes 87.5%).
  
• Similar block improvement effect as Barracks can be granted by Heroes (in smaller percentage). The resulting block chance is now visible in Hero Inventory screen as well as on the Crisis bar during combat.
  
• Some Crises have been nerfed as a result of above, since it is now more costly to defend against crises attacks all the time.
  
• Three Unique Crises have been created. They spawn randomly on the map and can yield Rare or Unique Heroes as their drop.
  
• Cannibals crisis has been added to the game.
  
• Stun duration is now automatically scaled based on Damage of the unit dealing Stun.
  
• Stun has now become more available for Heavy units and more rare for light/militia units.
  
• Drought is now more punishing for your food production (to give more spotlight to the new Granary storage capacity feature).
  
• New Barricade ability was added available from Classical era. Barricade uses Autonomy to create a Shield effect similar to what Fort units do. It has a progressive cost similar to Enlist with each Barricade used (each ability use increasing block chance but not increasing the number of blocks).
  
• Passive Hero block chances (from various Law abilities) should now be visible on Crisis during combat and are combined with any % Shield ability to create an resulting % chance to block.
  

[h2] Heroes [/h2]

• Primary Resource traits for Wood, Stone or Metal are now boosting all three Resources at once to lower the need for hero swapping.
  
• More Rare/Unique heroes are now granted from Tribal Village quests
  
• You can now have three separate equips and switch between the active one.
  
• Heroes can now be filtered by text search
  
• Hero Screen was slightly adjusted to accomodate new buttons and make more space for longer hero and damage descriptions.
  
  
  

[h2] Perks [/h2]

• At the beginning of all runs (after unlocking Classical era ascension), you can choose your starting location on the map.
  
• Additionally you may pick one Positive civilization Perk. Perks can modify behaviour of Tiles, Free Workers and other features otherwise unachievable by any other means.
  
• You can also choose any number of Negative Perks. Each Negative perk gives you a significant handicap for the next run, but allows you to pick another Positive Perk along it.
  
• Perks are unlocked via Ascension tree (via the central Era unlock nodes)