Microcivilization News

v1.0 Beta has Started

[p]Hello,[/p][p]let me invite you to the beta-test of version 1.0 using the experimental branch pass-key: [/p][p][/p][h2]WelshCorgiPembroke[/h2][p][/p][p]Just go to the Steam, find Microcivilization in your library, go to its Properties, Betas and insert your key to the text box. [/p][p]The branch is already activated and should contain game version 1.0.0.[/p][p]This beta will run for a minimum of four weeks after which the game will transition out of Early access moving on to the next phase of development.[/p][p]Because the beta is long there are a few features I decided to add mid beta - most notably the Final Scenario will be unlocked later before the go-live.[/p][p][/p][p]Here's what changed (sorry it's a bit long list):[/p][p][/p][h3]Scenarios, Judgements, Ascensions and other Meta-stuff[/h3]

[p]Tier 2 scenario now has slightly improved initial layout, some civilization perks and a few secrets to start with.[/p]
[p]Babel tower now has a visible Goal for descriptive purpose (otherwise the scenario is unchanged)[/p]
[p]Hard difficulty only granting +100% lotus[/p]
[p]Enlightenment points now need 100 gold lotus instead of 250[/p]
[p]Added a few tutorials around indigo lotuses and judgement combat[/p]
[p]Judgement combat made a little easier and scaled by difficulty.[/p]
[p]Meta powers (Consonants etc) spent in Judgement combat fully recover if losing the fight. (Artist skills dont though)[/p]
[p]Artists are slightly cheaper to level up.[/p]
[p]Added milestone locks to ascension tree to tier 3 and 4 to smooth the progression of Idol and Artist levels. These locks also provide some instant rewards that effectively make the progression cheaper.[/p]
[p]Level up of Unique heroes is now more expensive in culture than of Rare heroes.[/p]
[p]Spirit culture bonus granted by activated Idols is now rewarded from defeated crises (based on crisis level), not passively over time.[/p]
[p]Culture Farmer perk was added which multiplies culture gained (using theater, so can be further boosted with Magnification). This perk also makes all Unique Crises drop an extra Theater Refill reward.[/p]
[p]Cookout Quest from Vulture Idols now generates Culture points (random type, mostly spirit).[/p]

[p]From Tier 4 you can now choose whether ceremonial wonders use the Tier 3 Red lotus ceremony (with prod penalties) or the old Gold lotus one(with no penalties). This is controlled by a new 'Good old Ceremony' Perk.[/p]
[p]Nemesis scenarios in Tier 4 were temporarily removed. They will be linked to other build features planned in a future update.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Dilemmas[/h3]

[p]Tribal villages dilemmas redesigned. Each card has three types of answer:[/p][p]Good answer - leading to moderate reward but costing some resources. This answer always removes the village.[/p][p]Bad answer - leading to high reward but penalizing with black lotus. This answer also removes the village (and typically causes combat)[/p][p]Dismissive answer - leadin to modest reward but allowing to draw another dilemma card.[/p]

[p]Village dilemma effects were boosted so they are relevant even in late game (typically a permanent +X% production multiplier)[/p]
[p]Civilization diplomacy dilemmas work similar to Village dilemmas:[/p][p]1) Good answer - immediatelly leads to improving diplomatic state (Allied if Neutral, Neutral if Hostile).[/p][p]2) Bad answer - immediately leads to worsening diplomatic state. [/p][p]3) Dismissive answer - a modest reward effect but no diplomatic change.[/p]
[p]Last card in the deck will always have a definitive change in the option 3 (village destruction in case of villages and random diplomatic shift with civs).[/p]
[p]Besides being Hostile Civilizations can now also be Forever-Hostile - preventing any diplomacy and somewhat changing your options in dilemmas.[/p]
[p]Civs can only be made Neutral from Hostile once (with some exceptions like coal or new Locks). Next time they would turn Hostile from your diplomacy they will turn Forever-Hostile instead to prevent endless diplomacy farming.[/p]
[p]Destroying a civilization will grant a unique hero (only selected basic bundles of heroes spawn here however). This hero can be seen upfront on the civilization tile details, so you can plan who to kill and who to spare accordingly.[/p]
[p]Allied civilization now grants a unique Perk to your civilization - this can also be seen on Civ tile details for planning purposes. There's currently 6 Civiliztion perks.[/p]
[p]You can also fund improvement of Allied tiles directly with gold to maximize your neighbour adjacency bonuses and trade effects.[/p]
[p]A hostile civilization brought to its knees (reducing tiles below 5) can once re-roll their perk and become your Ally (simulating a vassal relation)[/p]

[h3]Tier 3[/h3]

[p]There are now only two Ancestral ruins dilemma cards. They give 3 choices for a resource (either Red lotus or Secret depending on the card). [/p]
[p]One choice grants large reward but sacrifices existing hero. Another choice gives moderate reward but sacrifices a future hero. Small reward is given when no sacrifice is made. [/p]
[p]Unspent Secrets now generate flat +5 research amount and also multiply research by 5% per Secret (this is a general effect not just Tier 3).[/p]
[p]As a result of above, tier 3 ancestral ruins no longer offer Dilemma options for research. Research is gained from secrets early on.[/p]
[p]Rebalanced tier 3 research progression as well as combat difficulty based on other changes.[/p][p][/p]

[h3]Combat[/h3]

[p]Unblockable attacks on nemeses can be removed when nemesis damaged[/p]
[p]Barricade now dealing more damage and has less block rate (which also scales much less with ability power)[/p]
[p]Barricade now has no cooldown (Autocombat can use it like forts to spam until a 99.999% block rate if possible)[/p]
[p]Militia cap is now directly affected by free workers (+1 per each)[/p]
[p]Enlist ability (on Republic heroes) only affects militia recharge speed[/p]
[p]Enlist no longer costs autonomy when militia is fully recharged[/p]
[p]Barracks damage boost reduced percentage.[/p]
[p]In later eras, some crises now have shield perks which makes them resistant to different combat styles. [/p]
[p]Black shield reduces flat number from every attack. This makes low damage abilities like militia or light units far less effective. [/p]
[p]Blue Shield reduces 95% damage from Light, Heavy and Fort units. This opens opportunity for Militia and hero ability damage.[/p]
[p]Yellow shield doesnt reduce damage, but it regenerates fully after short period of time.[/p]
[p]All shields are displayed as extra Hitpoints on the crisis bar and their effects are destroyed when the shield's hitpoints is reduced to zero.[/p]
[p]Original unit resistance crisis perks were removed, and are now simplified into two main Perks - Massive & Furious.[/p]
[p]Massive crises are resistant to Heavy and Fort units but take MORE damage from Light and Militia. Furious crises are working the other way around.[/p]
[p]Heavy units are now heavier (more damage & metal cost) and can be made even heavier with a perk. Hannibal now makes them EVEN heavier[/p]
[p]Heavy units are now implicitly less effective in material/damage compared to light units. but their higher damage multiplier makes them more suitable for burst damage when capacity increased appropriately. [/p]
[p]Besides reducing risks, Hawk Idols now also increase unit capacity.[/p]
[p]Critical hit removed from generic idol trait list, instead given to Golden calf idol ability. The only other instance is on Artemis temple.[/p]
[p]Critical hit now deals 30x damage instead of x10 (chances on traits reduced accordingly though)[/p]
[p]Red shield government (Law) now has a Shatter ability - detonating your own active forts for damage (based on actual fort damage) - its old Incentive ability was moved to mausoleum replacing its original ability.[/p]
[p]Zeus statue now giving ability power boost for 5s (similar usage as barracks but for abiliies, not units).[/p]
[p]Colossus nerfed, ability now detonates other workshop charges for massive damage, colossus damage is affected by its passive ability power multiplier. Passive colossus bonuses are smaller now.[/p]
[p]Eiffel tower ability now deals Heavy unit damage (and can be boosted as such with barracks but also multiplied with windmill), its passive autonomy per free worker nerfed.[/p]
[p]Quests and rewards no longer ger blocked by ongoing crisis and can be collected freely.[/p]
[p]Autocracy scaling nerfed,[/p]
[p]Patriotism bonus nerfed and increased cooldown.[/p]

[h3]Map Tiles[/h3]

[p]Nerfed adjacency bonuses on tiles - especially the percentage bonus on Gold Adjacency.[/p]
[p]Damage bonus on Strategic Tier 2 nerfed but added strong secondary unique effect per type.[/p]
[p]Public schooling no longer changes village benefits, instead it will give +10% workers in general. After I disabled Urbanization last update I realized that modifying tile behaviour from techs was a bad idea (while it may be a positive net effect mathematically, it breaks the strategizing effort psychologically)[/p]
[p]Trade routes are more expensive in the beginning (costing 3 gold per tile initially).[/p]
[p]Traderoute technology traits now reducing this cost by 20% each.[/p]
[p]Highest-tier strategic resources can now be gathered from neutral territory same as Oil/Coal (i.e. you can raid a hostile Civ tile owning it, then steal it)[/p]
[p]Unique critters no longer exist from staret. Instead they now spawn randomly on map for a limited time after which they disappear. They are always very highlevel and difficult to defeat. They will drop unique Badges however if you succeed.[/p]
[p]These new unique crisis Badges can be farmed infinitely but with higher owned count the unique critters are less likely to spawn (this is just a simplified mechanism, which I think will soon evolve to something more sophisticated)[/p]
[p]Strategic resources are spawning with more spacing in between them.[/p]
[p]Basic strategic resources now grant a lot more resources.[/p]
[p]Primitive tier 3 quests (slash&burn, cutdown) are no longer usable from classical era[/p]
[p]Food consumption increased and Food Sustainment nerfed so that more food sources are now needed in general[/p]
[p]Reduced food bonus from ascensions and certain technologies[/p]
[p]New Food-related basic strategic resource - Water spring.[/p]
[p]Only up to 3 Tile/FreeWorker civilization perks can be picked per run.[/p]
[p]Tile perks (Farmer, Lumberjack etc.) now boost also adjacency bonuses.[/p]
[p]Free worker perks (Silviculture, Intensive Farming etc.) now also multiply resource production per free worker.[/p]
[p]Villages grant +2 workers in adjacency 3 now only.[/p]
[p]There is now a Perk granting +1 Worker from all villages but it belongs to the category of 'max 3' tile/worker perks.[/p]
[p]Exploit quests was added for strategic resources. It will consume the resource and convert it to a passive bonus (permanent) depending on the resource tier.[/p]
[p]Added Civilization of Crescent:[/p][p]This civilization can be picked on map start as a perk (once unlocked from ascension tree).[/p][p]Cannot use Fort units (instead all fort bonuses are affecting light units)[/p][p]Can build Quarries on grasslands.[/p][p]Light units are built using stone.[/p]
[p]Added Civilization of Sunset[/p][p]Cannot use light units - all light unit effects into forts.[/p][p]Can build villages on hills.[/p]

[h3]User experience and Quality of Life[/h3]

[p]There are 8 hero inventory slots now free of charge.[/p]
[p]Added scrollbar to recipe menu[/p]
[p]Humility perk should correctly show warnings from quests potentially affecting it.[/p]
[p]Other white lotus perks should correctly warn when technology rendering them failed is being selected or when other actions like that may happen.[/p]
[p]Humility perk tile limit increased to 20.[/p]
[p]Bulk dismantle in inventory now also limited by class. So shift dismantling a purple square rare hero will only dismantle all purple square rare heroes.[/p]
[p]Damage indicators now better grouped&reused (less spam)[/p]
[p]Game runs in 60 fps[/p]
[p]Can Merge 10x per click for Levelup recipe and also preview levelup results.[/p]
[p]Can use 10 and 100 units/workshops with single click (using shift/control hotkeys or new toggle button on the main screen)[/p]
[p]Can fast-send quests on map using shift[/p]
[p]Reward buttons grouped to stacks so more are visible at the same time.[/p]

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

[p]Fixed perk drag visual bug in 2560x1440 on starting screen[/p]
[p]current hero build is saved[/p]
[p]cleopatra no longer affecting other nonhero dmg bonuses[/p]
[p]levelup reward from crises affects artists[/p]
[p]several other small bugs.[/p]

[h3]Heroes[/h3]

[p]New heroes added to two new bundles.[/p]
[p]Existing bundle badges boosting recharge speed reduced from 10% to 5% per badge[/p]
[p]Heroes were shuffled a bit within existing bundles that correspond to Tier progress[/p]
[p]Heroes until Classicist bundle (including) are now all droppable in Tier 1 (and also as reward from Civilizations destruction mentioned above)[/p]
[p]Lawmaker and gods of old bundles contain Tier 2 heroes[/p]
[p]New Beastly and Ambition bundles contain Tier 3 and 4 heroes.[/p]
[p]Heroes whose abilities affect Tier 2 wonders have been appropriately moved to drop only in Tier 2 and later[/p]
[p]Napoleon now boosts Eiffel tower (obviously) and has been moved to tier 4.[/p]
[p]Nebuchadnezzar now also in Tier 4.[/p]
[p]Because there are now more cohesive ways to protect from disasters and predicaments Square hero abilities in their old form are no longer needed.[/p]
[p]Square hero (Economy) abilities now actually affect economy by adding construction material production to Workshops. Material effect is the same for all faction colors but the type of workshops affected is different.[/p]
[p]Economy ability determines the workshops nor directly by name but more vaguely by its production resource. Therefore they are further boostable by other hero effects and magnitude.[/p]
[p]Economy abiltiy cost scales with buildings affected so it is quite expensive compared to Leadership ability if you want to use it fully.[/p]
[p]Leonidas only affects militia max damage (they always have min damage 1)[/p]
[p]Qin Shi gives 0.5 free tiles per fortress tile now[/p]
[p]Windmill boosting from unique heroes was shuffled and nerfed a bit.[/p]
[p]Caesar no longer scales damage with level[/p]
[p]2 New Unique idols. Unique idols now have a stronger version of the non-unique charged ability which however also grants a disadvantage (inability to use one type of workshop).[/p]
[p]Raven Idol now grants a new Technology instead of generating secrets. This tech can be researched repeatedly with increasing cost and rewards that secret instead.[/p]
[p]Rat Idol now provide same mechanism for a tech that grants predicament 'cure'.[/p][p][/p]

[h3]Disasters Update[/h3]

[p]Disaster effects from Predicaments (or any other source) are now placed on map tiles. Each disaster debuff has its separate timer but also can be removed by a special (very expensive) 'emergency' quest (which i potentially faster depending on distance and quest speed). One tile can have only one disaster at any time, thus your civ size being a hard limit to disasters active at a time)[/p]
[p]Disasters only affect your owned tiles and each disaster type may affect only certain biomes/improvements. Social disasters only affect villages,forts and your home tile for instance.[/p]
[p]Disaster effects are almost the same as before - but some have slightly been changed so that their effects can stack when multiple instances exist. Disasters now however also nullify all tile traits while they're active.[/p]
[p]Rats Poisonous Crisis perk damage now scales up with every Rats debuff[/p]
[p]Meteors now gives Fiery Crisis perk adding damage to all attacks (this is effectively the same effect as before but now scales in same manner as Rats' poisonous perk and is presented as a crisis perk)[/p]
[p]Resentment Thorns damage now working in the similar manner as the two above. Base damage was reduces as it can scale with individual resentment instances. Risk reduction effect was removed from Resentment.[/p]
[p]The much hated industial pollution now 'merely' doubles construction costs (instead of preventing them during crisis).[/p]
[p]Fear now only doubling autonomy/gold costs. No longer doubles crisis attacks received.[/p]
[p]Chaos reduction effects slightly lowered.[/p]
[p]Economic Depression Gold cap reduction reduced.[/p]

[h3]Achievements[/h3]

[p]~30 New Achievements were added[/p]
[p]'This is fine' achievements condition changed to be more accurate to the Dog meme. You old achievement will disappear now though.[/p]
[p]Conqueror achievements condition changed. They need you to conquer map before specific Tech Era, not specfic Ascension tier - meaning they can be accomplished later on if you want (and should be probably easier to do so). Old achievements you have will stay yours (they were actually more difficult to reach)[/p]

[h3]Future era/Late Game[/h3]

[p]Tier 4 nemeses cooldown reduced.[/p]
[p]Late Future era now adds endless map enemy spawn. each of these enemies reduce research so you need to quickly dispatch them to progress through the tech tree.[/p]
[p]Future era now has flood perk starting from one technology. flood will incrementally turn tiles into water around your home until majority of land is flooded[/p]
[p]You can gain a technology allowing creation of land mass tiles via stimulated volcanic activity. Chance for strategic resources included. Try this at home today![/p]
[p]Dystopian technologies (like Language correction) removed from future era (temporarily, to be integrated to other dystopian features in a future update)[/p]
[p]Changed future era tech effects, moved unit unlocks from dystopian techs to base techs.[/p]
[p]Future era now jumps by two levels with every technology row[/p]

[h3]Festivals[/h3]

[p]Two new festivals are added. Festival of Labor, Festival of Culture[/p]
[p]All festivals now require food per second to bee used (increases with each active festival)[/p]
[p]Festival of culture boosts ability damage (has a long duration)[/p]
[p]Festival of labor doesnt have a passive effect instead it will generate workshop random charges at the end.[/p]
[p]The basic Festival is now festival of Fire - boosts research % and also gives flat research amount (so this festival now acts identically in tier 3 instead of there being two different festival types)[/p]
[p]Shamanism rare tech now makes each festival provide +20% gold/autonomy[/p]

[h3]Other changes[/h3]

[p]Commerce penalty increased so it is now harder to go too far above Gold Reserves.[/p]
[p]Gold from marketplace selling nerfed.[/p]
[p]Great lighthouse nerfed from 5% to 2%[/p]
[p]Crisis difficulty estimation added on map to highlight dangerous enemies in red (details showing estimate of units needed to destroy)[/p]
[p]Removed Magnitude III special traits on workshops, magnitude now only multiplies traits.[/p]
[p]Overall Windmill recharging nerfed so it should be harder to over-use it.[/p]
[p]Great library now granting research per autonomy (to prevent abuse for new Secret/Predicament tech)[/p]
[p]Artemis temple now giving its bonus if autonomy above 50%. Bonus wood Value is granted as base allowing bonuses synergy comparable to lumbermill[/p]
[p]Library now giving facility cap %[/p]
[p]Fort and a few other abilities performance optimized[/p]
[p]New negative perk boosting risk-based crises level was added.[/p]

Civilizations, Shields and more

[p]After what felt like two days, another month is gone! This time we will talk about the upcoming beta and some bit of good news.[/p][h2]Upcoming Beta[/h2][p]As mentioned in previous update, Beta will start in the middle of December. Which turns out to be in a few days. I don't know the exact start day yet but unless something goes epically wrong during testing Beta will start next week.[/p][p]My preference is 4 weeks long beta test but since this is 1.0 release it is important to end in a stable state.[/p][p][/p][h2]Some bit of good news[/h2][p]Last time I explained the problem of beta start date. The choice was either too soon, or a bit later than needed. Because I chose the option two I ended up with a little more time than necessary to get the version content ready. So I did what I do in these situations - increased the scope.[/p][p]I addressed some things I had in the 'optimistic' backlog as well as looked into the feedback you players have provided.[/p][p][/p][h2]First two Civiliztions coming to 1.0[/h2][p]Although main update containing different civilizations is coming later after 1.0 I managed to finish up the first two civs which were sitting at ~80% completion state since last year.[/p][p][/p][h2]Role of Civilizations[/h2][p]Civilizations are picked during map perk start phase. Civilizations are in fact special middle category of perks with only a single slot.[/p][p]Every civilization will twist some existing map-related rule of the game. It will also forbid usage of some element of the game (e.g. Unit) and will reinforce some group of play-styles at the expense of others. They will be a 'specialization' kit.[/p][p]Civilizations are not named after concrete civilizations in history but they are styled loosely as a group of civilizations either culturally or geographically (or both).[/p][p]A greek or roman civilization would all now fit under the loose umbrella Civilization of Radiance now (the default 'mediterranean-styled' civilization with no special benefits or drawbacks. I hope this historical bastardization doesnt insult too many people :)[/p][p]Overview of the new Perks available. Some were added based on player feedback.[/p][p][/p][h2]Civilization of Crescent[/h2][p]Civilization of crescent is focused on large offensive unit buffers. It will not be able to construct Forts, but all Hero (or other) bonuses normally applied to forts are applied to Light units instead.[/p][p]It will also use stone to build light units instead of wood. At the same time it will be capable of constructing quarries in lowlands.[/p][p]It will also have a hyper-recharging Barracks (+100% recharge further boostable with magnification) but will need Autonomy to trigger it.[/p][p]Crescent civilization is styled very loosely after the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and in later stages it steers towards Islamic architecture. But yes I know they all could build awesome forts.[/p][p][/p][h2]Civilization of Sunset[/h2][p]These guys will be focus more on non-light units. Light units will be forbidden, instead all bonuses to light units will be diverted to Forts.[/p][p]Civilization of sunset will be able to live comfortably in hills by constructing village tile anywhere. They will also be the one civilization best to (ab)use windmill with other wonder mechanisms since their windmill (actually a water mill) recharges faster and costs autonomy.[/p][p]Sunset civilization is based on early european civilizations (later the current 'Western' civs) starting off with a bit of a William Wallace style. It will also have a slightly more difficult start versus easier late game, as opposed to Crescent Civ.[/p][p][/p][p]A busy civilization of sunset having fun discovering the Dark Ages[/p][p][/p][h2]Combat Resistances[/h2][p]One of the earliest feedback was to look into the combat simplicity. Players have been suggesting to make some crises only attackable by specific units, creating special 'medic' abilities etc. The main concern was that everything can be destroyed too easily with the same spam of soldiers.[/p][p]I have always remained careful not to introduce a too obvious system of unit and damage types from other games. But in this late phase I thought it is time to expand the system a little bit.[/p][p][/p][h3]Crisis Hit-point types (Shields)[/h3][p]In the next version, some crises (depending strictly on crisis type in technological era) will have so called Crisis Shields. These work like extra hitpoints in a different color, which carry a specific Resistance or Effect with it. Once you remove those shield hitpoints, the resistance/effect is gone.[/p][p][/p][h3]Blue Shield[/h3][p]Blue shield will reduce most of damage of Light, Heavy and Fort units. Your best approach is to eliminate this shield using Militia and Hero damage abilities.[/p][p][/p][p]Ottomans will always have a small ratio of health as Blue shield, forcing the player to come up with an effective secondary combat ability that can break through it (in case their primary ability is resisted by it).[/p][p][/p][h3]Yellow Shield[/h3][p]Yellow shield is just a regenerative HP. While this doesnt have any special resistance effect, it may render builds focused on damage from unit construction (with no buffered army) less useful if the shield is too large to recover in time. The recharge works as an instant refill after X seconds since first attack. [/p][p][/p][h3]Black Shield[/h3][p]Unlike blue shield which multiplies damage by a specific X% Black shield reduces ALL damage by a flat value. This value is based on the crisis level meaning a high-level crisis with black HP might be able to block off all damage from your small units (militia or light unit).[/p][p][/p][p]Black shield forces the Player to deal high-damage with single ability like a Barracks-boosted heavy unit or a high-power Bolster. But even light units with a good Critical Hit may be enough to break through a normal crisis shield.[/p][p][/p][h2]Dilemma & Diplomacy Update[/h2][p]Based on your feedback I spent some time with the dilemmas of Tribal villages and on Civilizations.[/p][p]I made some modest changes which should make the existing system more useful. It boils down to a few essential points:[/p]

[p]Dilemmas (both tribal village and civilization diplomacy) will each have a 'Good' a 'Bad' and a 'Dismissive' option.[/p]
[p]Good option will always provide moderate reward (not the highest) but will cost something.[/p]
[p]Bad option will usually not cost anything, will provide the highest reward but will penalize you with Black lotus (or a similar penalty)[/p]
[p]Dismissive option will usually cost nothing, but the reward will also be nothing special.[/p]
[p]Good and Bad option of Tribal Villages always destroys the village - so you only have a one shot for a powerful boost per village.[/p]
[p]Tribal Villages provide various 'permanent' bonuses to economy instead of lame temporary boosts.[/p]
[p]Civilizations now grant a Unique Hero if destroyed, or a special Perk if allied (both can be seen on their tile details upfront)[/p]
[p]You can now also improve ally tiles (for money) to optimize your trade and adjacencies.[/p]
[p]You cannot infinitely interact with Civs with diplomacy. They will always end up in one of final states. Either as an Ally or a 'Forever Hostile' - a new type of hostility preventing diplomacy.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Example of new tribal village card options. The top is always the 'Good' path, Second option is the 'Bad' path and the last one is 'Dismissive' usually meaning you want to try the next card on the deck.[/p][p][/p][h2]Disasters Localization[/h2][p]This doesn't mean they're translated to all languages, no sorry. What it means is that Disasters are now linked to a tile on map.[/p][p][/p][p]Example of a handful of Disasters in a civilization. Note that there are three Meteor disasters on three separate tiles. As usual each meteor grants a Crisis perk making every crisis attack deal extra damage. So three Meteors would make this extra damage triple.[/p][p][/p][p]This changes a few things in how Disasters now work:[/p]

[p]You cannot have more disasters than tiles (they no longer stack duration, any disasters above limit instead are ignored). So one tile can only have one Disaster on it.[/p]
[p]Some disasters only affect specific tile types (e.g. specific biome or improvement). Social disasters like Resentment typically only affect tiles where people live.[/p]
[p]Negative Effects of the same type of disaster (on different tiles) stacks. So multiple Meteor swarms kill more people per time. More Resentments increase Thorns damage etc.[/p]
[p]Industrial pollution now 'merely' doubles construction costs, not disables it entirely. But the old perk isnt deleted. I just have to figure out a nasty enough enemy to give it to :)[/p]
[p]Other Disasters have also been slightly changed to be more scalable.[/p]
[p]Tile with a disaster on it provides you no benefits (all its traits are nullified) but still improves adjacency to other tiles.[/p]
[p]Most importantly any Disaster can now be 'Healed' using a 'Disaster Response' Quest. This Quest can be very expensive depending on the distance and level.[/p]

[h2]Various smaller changes[/h2][p]There is a number of other feature changes I made in the last four weeks. I will list all in the beta change log when it starts but heres a few of the most notable ones:[/p]

[p]Economy Hero skills have been changed. The square heroes now provide more synergized economic effects instead of crisis/predicament protections.[/p]
[p]Heroes were more distinctly reorganized to tiers. Some higher tier heroes were buffed. There's also new bundles for the new Heroes/Idols.[/p]
[p]Unspent Secrets now also boost research by +5 +5%.[/p]
[p]Some wonder effects were upgraded to be more useful or combat related. Some are now also boostable further through unique heroes and magnification.[/p]
[p]Wonders can be rebuilt (with the right perk)[/p]
[p]Spirit culture will now be granted from Combat, not over time. Vulture Idol ability now also farms Spirit (and other) culture. There's also a perk to boost culture gain overall.[/p]
[p]Magnification is now more expensive to maintain (needing more workers)[/p]
[p]Removing predicaments from Rat Idols now works similar to new Secret Research from Ravens - a new repeatable research project which has a growing cost with each instance finished.[/p]
[p]Basic Crisis damage resistance perks were merged (simplified) to two Perks - Massive and Furious. Massive makes Heavy/Forts weaker but light/militia stronger, while Furious works the other way around.[/p]
[p]Militia is now capped by Free workers and is easier to quickly recharge through various synergies.[/p]
[p]Heavy units are now heavier. Meaning they deal a lot more damage but also cost a lot more materials. The central strategy to playing focused on Heavy is through buffering high amount of damage between crises instead of having constant DPS as with Light-unit build. [/p]
[p]Critical hits are now more critical. Dealing 30x more damage but less % chance to happen. They're also much harder to get.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Also eight Inventory tabs now. Free for anyone because why not.[/p][p][/p][p]Thats all for today,[/p][p]I'll be in touch next week with Beta start announcement.[/p][p][/p][p]Ondrej[/p]

Final Push

[p]Hello,[/p][p][/p][p]it has been very busy four weeks, a lot has happened and a lot needs to be revealed today. Last time I was talking very vaguely about 1.0 release. Today I can finally draw some concrete steps to leave Early access![/p][p]First of all I'd like to mention that my amazing wife has brought our second baby to this world two weeks ago. So apologies if I were (and will be) less responsive in the meantime. I am now slowly coming to a new work schedule and managing to get a couple of work hours each day. But it will take a few weeks probably to stabilize on some steady pace.[/p]

Good news and Bad news

[p]In my previous update mentioned the following two planning questions:[/p]

[p]When the Beta test for 1.0 starts. Optimistic guess = November, Pessimistic guess = December.[/p]
[p]When the 1.0 actually goes live (ending Early access phase). Optimistic guess = December, Pessimistic guess = January[/p]

[p]Leaving the point one aside for now lets look at point two - the ACTUAL GO-LIVE.[/p][p][/p][h3]Is Optimistic Go-Live release still doable?[/h3][p]December is a tricky month to release. Because you cannot overlap release week with Steam Holiday sale (you can technically do it but it's a bad idea) the latest day for go live in Dec would be 11th![/p][p]December 11th is 4 weeks away, which no longer adds up with the work needed (I estimate minimum of 2 + 3 weeks of Balancing + Beta).[/p][p]This plan looked less risky 4 weeks ago but with little bit of debt accumulated each day, it is now very unlikely to make it all in time in good quality. In a life-or-death situation (or if I had a mean product manager breathing on my neck) I'd still manage to do it before 11th, but at this point it is not worth the risk. [/p][p][/p][p]So the 1.0 Go-Live will happen in January.[/p][p][/p][h3]What about Beta?[/h3][p]The good news is that postponing release to January gives us more time than we need for Beta. So there is a good chance to add some extra small features planned for post-1.0. It also gives me enough time to do some QoL stuff (there's quite a long backlog of requests from players).[/p][p]I would therefore start Beta test at something like T-4 months (T being the go live). This would probably be around the start of Winter sales in the middle of December. [/p][p]I know I have previously mentioned to try start beta in November - it would still be possible by delaying some development stuff for beta, but running an 8-week long beta with major updates in the middle has proven to be problematic (i tried this with 0.10 last Christmas and I ended up with way more hotfixes than I liked). So this time I'd rather do a normal 4 week long beta and spend extra time with my own tests beforehand.[/p][p][/p]

What will change from 0.12?

[p]While I tried to do majority of invasive changes in previous major update, there are still numerous changes - mainly to provide maneuvering space for late-game balancing. I won't go much into detail since majority of these are medium-to-small changes. There's just a lot of them.[/p][p][/p][h2]Secret Farming[/h2][p]Secret farming from Raven idols was redesigned. It no longer generates Secrets passively, instead it unlocks a 'repeatable' research technology, which rewards a secret every time it is 'finished'. [/p][p]For a 'diminishing return' effect (and thus a soft cap on max secrets gained) this technology cost rises with each instance researched (and is reduced with Idol power/count).[/p][p]Along this change I also redesigned some research-supporting Wonders and Heroes to create a feasible synergy build. Festival of Radiance has also been tweaked to introduce Food->Research->Secrets synergy.[/p][p][/p][h2]Unique Idols[/h2][p]Golden calf now has two other friends. These three unique idols provide a more powerful version of their non-unique Idol power (instead of a passive unique trait granted by previous version Calf). As extra downside, this unique idol power prevents usage of a single type of Workshop (depending on the idol type). [/p][p]I'll be rolling out Unique idols to cover all 6 existing animals eventually.[/p][p][/p][h2]Windmill un-cheesing[/h2][p]Workshop recharge cooldown has been increased (more so for Windmill) and Hero traits boosting Windmill recharge rate have been 'mostly removed' from the drop pool. Garden skill has also been nerfed (mostly on higher levels). [/p][p]Windmill can still be boosted to very high recharge rate (yes it is a fun build), but it should now be more complicated to setup.[/p][p][/p][h2]Worker/Food/Wood Rebalance[/h2][p]A complex rebalancing was done to make Workers more scarce and also to reduce the overall utility of mass-forest-light-unit-spam strategy. [/p][p]There are numerous components to this change but most notable are:[/p]

[p]Higher worker costs for high-magnitude workshops & wonders[/p]
[p]Lower food sustain bonus values from heroes (requiring more farms)[/p]
[p]Lower food bonuses from heroes/ascensions etc.[/p]
[p]Lowered +% Resources Adjacency bonus on gold-adjacency tiles (+10% instead of +35%). This can however be doubled to a +20% with appropriate Perk.[/p]
[p]Villages now give only +2 workers (with Gold-Adjacency), but there is a perk improving this to original +3. Public schooling will further raise this to +4 (as in 0.12).[/p]
[p]Urbanization perk from modern era has been removed. Villages adjacency will no longer be 'broken'.[/p]

[h2]New Heroes[/h2][p]A bunch of new unique heroes were added where build synergies were missing. I have also tweaked some existing unique heroes to better shape unit-specialized synergies.[/p][p]Main objective was to move power from light-units to other combat units and abilities.[/p][p][/p][h2]Perk group limits[/h2][p]Resource perks modifying tile yield and per-worker-resources are now 'grouped' and you can only have three of these perks in a game.[/p][p]Some of these perks have been buffed to make players choice more relevant.[/p][p][/p][h2]Festival Perks[/h2][p]New Perks now allow you to modify your Festival ability to either boost Hero ability power or Recharge workshop charges. Festivals are now more powerful but also cost food per second when they are active providing a 'conversion opportunity' for high-food yield builds.[/p][p][/p][h2]Strategic Resource Exploiting[/h2][p]Strategic resources can now be 'eaten' providing a persistent passive bonus (depending on resource tier). That way you can use up resources you do not need.[/p][p]Unit-damage strategic resources have been nerfed but they now spawn in up to two types per map. They also have more diverse secondary effects (Instead of +Workers on each).[/p][p]I also added a basic-tier food oriented resource (since food will now be more challenging to get).[/p][p][/p][h2]Unique Crises spawn[/h2][p]Unique enemies no longer spawn on map start. Instead they randomly spawn during game for a limited time. They will have a very high level but if defeated will provide big reward pile including a unique Badge with permanent passive effect. [/p][p][/p][h2]Special Badges[/h2][p]As mentioned above some unique enemies now award badges when destroyed. Randomly spawned unique enemies drop three types of badge while Future era Nemeses drop three ultra-powerful badges when destroyed (yes this is possible on tier 4). These badges work same as Hero-bungle badges, except they are exclusively gained only from these 'difficult' fights.[/p][p][/p][h2]Flood & Future era extensions[/h2][p]Instead of relying on a frustrating combination of Research penalties, Predicaments and invincible Nemeses, Future era now has a new mechanism that serves as a primary method of killing you - flood.[/p][p]Over time (after finding certain techs very late in the tree) you will start losing tiles around your home (you will keep a small area around it).[/p][p]There is also a number of very-late random technologies in Future era available only on Tier 4.[/p][p]You can also adopt Future era techs in the same way you adopted ancestral techs in tier 3.[/p][p][/p][h2]Judgement refund & rebalance[/h2][p]Judgement combat will now fully refund meta-powers used when you're not victorious. Costs, damage and health of judgements will also be rebalanced. [/p][p]Culture economy will also be revisited. Vulture idol ability will now provide a way to farm extra culture points and artists level will be better spread out to gameplay to avoid sudden requirements to grind.[/p][p]Tier 4 is currently very grindy so this will hopefully be smoothed out by the above changes and later during beta.[/p][p][/p][h2]Some UX updates[/h2]

[p]A new user control (shift/control) was added to trigger 10 or 100 units or workshop charges with single click. This doesn't aggregate the effect, merely acts as 10/100 clicks on the button with less lag. Can also be toggled on/off.[/p]
[p]Similar effect is added for levelling up of heroes.[/p]
[p]Some frequent Quests can now be quick-started on map (using shift)[/p]
[p]Reward/Quest buttons are grouped (and there's more of them)[/p]
[p]Forts should no longer lag that much when you have thousands of them.[/p]
[p]Crises difficulty is now estimated on map (to prevent some suicide missions)[/p]
[p]Crisis bar explosion is now a bit faster, takes less space and (hopefully) is less laggy.[/p]
[p]And we're now running in 60 fps (yeah I know...cutting edge technology)[/p]

[p][/p]

What's next

[p]In the following days I'll be finishing all there is to the current version and doing my best not to start any new invasive changes. I'll also be reviewing the suggestions from the October survey (thanks everyone for their ideas). [/p][p]In my next update, we should be pretty much ready to start 1.0 beta.[/p][p]See you next time,[/p][p][/p][p]Ondrej[/p]

Feature wish-list

[p]Hello,[/p][p][/p][p]In this update I want to talk about just one thing and that is 1.0 and leaving Early Access.[/p][p]After four years of development it has now finally come to this tough-decisions-moment to figure out what will and what will not be in 1.0.[/p][p][/p][h2]1.0 Public feature wish-list[/h2][p]Before we go into details I have prepared a little form to collect player wishes for 1.0. This is the opportunity for you to ask for specific changes, fixes, new stuff and whatever you like or dislike. There are no hard questions there...it's basically a 'letter to Santa' thing. [/p][p]If you have some cool ideas, please share them in this little form:[/p][p]https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScGLHolmiBk0NM-S3tHH-NXfry2Szyz_H-OYykFwOSj6Lm_Ww/viewform?usp=header[/p][p][/p][h2]What's left to be done[/h2][p]Before getting into any promises (to be regretting later on) let's look at the things which are still planned to be done. Because there's a lot of them...[/p][p]Feature backlog (just the big stuff, many small things are not listed):[/p]

[p]Final scenario at the end of Tier 4[/p]
[p]Future era ascension tree (in Tier 4)[/p]
[p]Late-game rebalance (levels ~160-200)[/p]
[p]Achievements[/p]
[p]Other civilizations[/p]
[p]Endless mode[/p]
[p]Sounds/Music[/p]
[p]UI updates (various little things)[/p]
[p]New Difficulty[/p]
[p]More Heroes[/p]
[p]Nemesis eradication scenarios[/p]
[p]Rare technologies update[/p]
[p]AFK gameplay update & Optimizations[/p]
[p]Localization (adding actual support for localization AND doing translations)[/p]
[p]Non-Win-PC support (deck, mac, linux etc.)[/p]

[p]So you see it's a lot of stuff. Of course I don't plan to do them all in the 1.0 update. Only the essential stuff will be done next...[/p][p][/p][h2]With what do we leave Early Access?[/h2][p]This is the real question. Where on that list should I draw the line saying - this is enough for leaving early access.[/p][p]My current intention (before collecting your thoughts on the matter in the survey above) is to draw that line somewhere between 4. and 5. while also completing bits and pieces of other parts lower on the list where time allows. This should be a good basis for the initial 'full game experience'. [/p][p]So let me briefly explain what each of these four parts would mean.[/p][p][/p][h2]1. Final Scenario[/h2][p]Not going to spoil anything here, but the goal is obvious - there will be a 'final confrontation' fight of some sort. A boss.[/p][p]Similar to the mechanism of the Babel tower or Space Elevator this scenario will also be a run with special rules and special objective. Overall i hope this will make a appropriate ending to the game's 'story'.[/p][p]Note: You will be able to continue playing freely afterwards (though there will be no further Tiers in the ascension tree to reveal)[/p][p][/p][h2]2. Tier 4 Future Era[/h2][p]The last 'endless' Future era in 0.12 will be included - you will again be able to build robots and mechs. I plan to make some small update to the future era mechanics to make it more interesting for late-game play and put some proper challenges and guardrails in place (at the moment future era is very messy).[/p][p]But to be fair future era has too much potential to do it all now. So I will leave something to be done with Future era after 1.0 as well...[/p][p][/p][h2]3. Late-game rebalance[/h2][p]This one is also pretty straightforward. But there's a lot of potential impact to existing mechanisms. So far I avoided late-game balancing completely. We have many over-powered builds and some have been quite balance-breaking (e.g. Windmill recharge cheesing). [/p][p]Naturally this will mean some disappointing nerf. But I am a big fan of all your crazy builds you have shared - so I will do all I can to preserve their obscene beauty.[/p][p]A sub-objective of this work is also separation of distinct combat strategies. As part of this I will be introducing some new Unique heroes to fill gaps and also changing behaviour of some boring Unique heroes.[/p][p]Sad Note: I will need to add a limitation to equipping only one Unique hero of the same type. While I loved stone overflow crashes using three Ozymandiases, having this multi-equip would naturally enforce nerfing heroes themselves. I decided instead to add this one-per-type limit and in case of 'nice crazy builds' I can always add another 'similar' hero to the set to effectively simulate the 'duplication effect' with more control. [/p][p][/p][h2]4. Achievements[/h2][p]For the moment I want to have a decent coverage of achievements for high-difficulty challenges to make a good use of various 'exotic' builds you can have. This will not be a final set but enough to keep players occupied for a while after finishing the main game.[/p][p]I will add more achievements past 1.0 ... especially after adding fourth difficulty and the 'Endless mode'. I also want to focus more on dystopian stuff past 1.0 which naturally asks for Achievements as well.[/p][p][/p][h2]5. The Other stuff[/h2][p]I will be including a minimum of 6 new Unique Heroes (with a new bundle) to the set (mainly droppable from Tier 2). I also did some rework on some existing hero and wonder abilities to better synergize.[/p][p]In addition I would like to look into Unique Idols (we only have the poor old golden calf fella). But that work will probably be more complex so I expect only a handful of these idols in the first batch.[/p][h3]Other Civilizations[/h3][p]I am also internally working on the 'Other civilizations' stuff. If you remember - a large amount of work has already been done last year. But I decided not to include this build before finishing Tier 3 and 4.[/p][p]The actual reason was that I was not sure which abilities will be best applied to Heroes, Perks, Wonders or Idols (all of which I didn't have fully designed back then) - and therefore which features could be left to Civs. This stuff will not likely get into 1.0 but rather be one of the early things afterwards (so 1.1 maybe). However most of the design decisions have to be done now.[/p][p]Civilization of Sunset. One of the first three civilizations coming after 1.0. This civ will be synergized with Blue & Purple hero factions.[/p][p][/p]

When Is 1.0 coming?

[p]As I mentioned in my earlier update, we're expecting a little baby this month (any day now). It seems it is also a covid season so planning my time capacity is quite a lottery. [/p][p]Therefore my only sensible goal for October is to stabilize my workflow, finish some of the more complex tasks for 1.0 and make a realistic plan by the end of the month.[/p][p]There are in fact two important moments:[/p]

[p]When the Beta test for 1.0 starts. Optimistic guess = November, Pessimistic guess = December.[/p]
[p]When the 1.0 actually goes live (ending Early access phase). Optimistic guess = December, Pessimistic guess = January[/p]

[p]Note: Please bear in mind those are guesses. I do not yet have the full scope decided and I don't have much idea what my time capacity will be in the 7 weeks before December.[/p][p]While Beta start only depends on me - finding enough time to build and test everything - actual LIVE release depends on other 'marketing' factors like time of the year, conflicts with steam sales and other game releases. [/p][p]Also I would like to make the Beta test of 1.0 long enough to manage one or two mid-sized patches (so something like 5 weeks long betatest).[/p][p][/p][h2]What happens after 1.0?[/h2][p]While leaving Early access is a big event, for you as a Player it is not a massive change. The development will continue pretty much as before for at least two major updates (this is about the size of the current backlog as mentioned earlier in this update). [/p][p]With what little I know at this moment my vision for post-1.0 updates is something like this:[/p][h3]Version 1.1[/h3][p]In first update after 1.0 I would add the Endless Mode together with a new Difficulty. This would provide a different kind of late-game experience for players who finished the main scenario and some reason to revisit the game for new achievements and challenge.[/p][p][/p][h3]Version 1.2[/h3][p]In the second update I would probably aim towards Nemesis eradication scenarios and rare technology update. I have some other small features in minds couple with these two features, making this a one big ball of stuff to be worth a major update of its own. [/p][p][/p][p]Both of these updates could carry parts of other major features and various technical upgrades. It is still early to tell. The reason I am sharing this so early is I wanted you to know that development after 1.0 will not stop and there is still plenty of stuff to do before I can call it all a finished game.[/p][p][/p][p]That's all for today, see you next time.[/p][p][/p][p]Ondrej[/p]

Patch 0.12.10

[p]Hello,[/p][p][/p][p]i've just released a tiny patch addressing the latest regression issue with Graphene Tech enhancement crashing the game. It now should also increase its price correctly (though the numbers will need to be a little more polished in a future version, they no longer resemble the original scale for the fix simplicity's sake) [/p][p][/p][p]Additionally I've also made Sell/Buy tile quests for alliances instant.[/p][p][/p][p]Cheers,[/p][p][/p][p]Ondrej[/p]