Hi all, I've got some good news: in three months, we're releasing a prologue, "Path to the Throne". If you've played the demo, it's a total overhaul of that. I thought it wasn't all that great - too mechanically simple, too janky, to be a proper grand strategy game. So for the past ~12 months I've been totally redoing the game to better fit my vision.
Revamped Combat: The system has been rebuilt from the ground up for more strategic depth - rather than the simple system where two armies battle it out with no player interaction, they're now made up of multiple phases, in which each army can choose from one or more actions to turn the tide of the battle - bribe your enemies, spy on them to see what units are fielded the next phase or switch which units you will field. This is all done in real-time.
Espionage: New covert options to undermine rival factions - spy on them, steal from them, sponsor rebellions in their territory.
Resource & Food Management: Balance your needs more carefully with 18 resource types with different effects - some are needed to build specific units, some are for improving relations with vassals, some are needed to produce different kinds of resource. Food is required to maintain your population and your population's relations with you - lacking food causes starvation.
City Buildings: Construct and upgrade buildings to shape your urban centers - churches, walls, military barracks, monasteries, granaries, workshops, docks and more. Each level of settlement has different types of building - small rural churches in villages, basilicas in large cities. Special locations like monasteries and military camps can construct special buildings like cloisters and redoubts.
Improved Graphics & Animations: Including new siege combat visuals, better lighting and post processing, new models, shaders and textures, a cleaner, more intuitive and better-looking UI (with more tooltips and a more efficient use of space), and more.
Better AI: The enemy AI has also been improved to be more challenging - it now makes better and more tactical decisions about what to build, where to attack and how to control its armies.
Seasons: The game world now changes according to the season - snow gradually comes down the mountains in winter, in autumn the leaves of deciduous trees turn red and fall from the branches, the grass dries out in summer. This also affects the game world - certain resources are produced more or less depending on the season, so the player has to build granaries to prevent starvation.
Procedural Cities: Watch your settlements grow organically based on size and fortifications.
Expanded Factions: Three distinct factions to defeat with unique dialogue trees and diplomatic options - Corvinia, Virturia and the Imperial Domain.
Enhanced Settings: More control over your game experience - granular graphics and audio settings.
All these features will, of course, also be added to the main game, which will be released in Q3 next year. Your continued feedback will be crucial as we move towards the final release.
Path to the Throne will be available on Steam for Windows on October 1 9am PST. Stay tuned for our upcoming trailer. As always, check out the Discord or r/fallofanempire for more news.