Devlog 19: Festivals
[h2]Celebrations[/h2]
Festivals allow players to make medium-term tradeoffs, spending resources to throw celebrations and festivities, but with ongoing costs to match. Meanwhile, the game itself has been in a number of digital festivals on Steam.
[h2]Throwing a Party[/h2]
There are various pre-defined Festivals in Critias Empire can be instituted by the player. Each festival runs for a fixed length of time and cannot be cancelled. Most festivals involve paying some resource every turn for the whole time the festival is running, in exchange for bonuses or other types of resources.
Players often end up with an excess of one resource that they can't easily or immediately do anything with. The idea behind festivals is to let players trade those resources in for something they want. But rather than a straight swap, the festival, and thus the costs and benefits, last for many years. In this time, the player's priorities might change or there might be a disaster for example. This means that there is a risk involved in starting a festival that may not be sustainable or become a drain on the player's resources.
I have finally implemented this feature after many years of having it planned, though I need to test and balance it before updating the demo to include it. Nevertheless, I'm really pleased with it, and I think it'll lead to many interesting medium-term decisions for players to make.
[h2]Of Gods and Mortals[/h2]
I've also added in a few more decisions. Even after having made myself some extra development tools for adding and editing decisions, the process of creating and balancing them is very long and involved. I'm hoping to add a further few more to the Glittering Isles scenario in time for the next update to the demo, but unfortunately the Bronze Seas scenario will remain disabled for the meanwhile as I try to churn out the decisions data for that also.
[h2]Building Steam[/h2]
Since Critias Empire was in the TurnBasedThursday fest on Steam, as well as June 2025 NextFest, it has received a lot of new followers and wishlists, and even some people making youtube videos playing the demo, which is super encouraging!
The game will also be in Steam's 4X fest this week, alongside a number of other 4X games by indie developers. We even have our own group for promoting each other's games, and I highly recommend you check out the others if you're at all interested in different and innovative 4X and strategy games: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45670309
[h2]Road to Release[/h2]
The festivals feature took me a bit longer than I anticipated, but largely due to me getting back into the flow of working after being on vacation in July. (Aide: I was in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, a fascinating part of the world that even had some ancient Greek ruins from the time of Alexander the Great and the successor states to his empire).
My aim is still to release Critias Empire by the end of September, but I will need to step up the speed to get there on time. My next aim is to implement all the remaining disasters and Gods that will be in the release version. I will share more details of those in the next update.
After that, I can focus on balancing the "main" game as opposed to the individual small scale scenarios that are currently in the demo. That will be the home straight and where I'll be looking out for assistance with feedback and testing. Follow the game here on Steam or stalk me on social media if you'd be interested in helping with that. Meantime any feedback and thoughts on the current demo is more than welcome, as it'll feed into my thinking about the balancing to come.
Festivals allow players to make medium-term tradeoffs, spending resources to throw celebrations and festivities, but with ongoing costs to match. Meanwhile, the game itself has been in a number of digital festivals on Steam.
[h2]Throwing a Party[/h2]
There are various pre-defined Festivals in Critias Empire can be instituted by the player. Each festival runs for a fixed length of time and cannot be cancelled. Most festivals involve paying some resource every turn for the whole time the festival is running, in exchange for bonuses or other types of resources.
Players often end up with an excess of one resource that they can't easily or immediately do anything with. The idea behind festivals is to let players trade those resources in for something they want. But rather than a straight swap, the festival, and thus the costs and benefits, last for many years. In this time, the player's priorities might change or there might be a disaster for example. This means that there is a risk involved in starting a festival that may not be sustainable or become a drain on the player's resources.
I have finally implemented this feature after many years of having it planned, though I need to test and balance it before updating the demo to include it. Nevertheless, I'm really pleased with it, and I think it'll lead to many interesting medium-term decisions for players to make.
[h2]Of Gods and Mortals[/h2]
I've also added in a few more decisions. Even after having made myself some extra development tools for adding and editing decisions, the process of creating and balancing them is very long and involved. I'm hoping to add a further few more to the Glittering Isles scenario in time for the next update to the demo, but unfortunately the Bronze Seas scenario will remain disabled for the meanwhile as I try to churn out the decisions data for that also.
[h2]Building Steam[/h2]
Since Critias Empire was in the TurnBasedThursday fest on Steam, as well as June 2025 NextFest, it has received a lot of new followers and wishlists, and even some people making youtube videos playing the demo, which is super encouraging!
The game will also be in Steam's 4X fest this week, alongside a number of other 4X games by indie developers. We even have our own group for promoting each other's games, and I highly recommend you check out the others if you're at all interested in different and innovative 4X and strategy games: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45670309
[h2]Road to Release[/h2]
The festivals feature took me a bit longer than I anticipated, but largely due to me getting back into the flow of working after being on vacation in July. (Aide: I was in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, a fascinating part of the world that even had some ancient Greek ruins from the time of Alexander the Great and the successor states to his empire).
My aim is still to release Critias Empire by the end of September, but I will need to step up the speed to get there on time. My next aim is to implement all the remaining disasters and Gods that will be in the release version. I will share more details of those in the next update.
After that, I can focus on balancing the "main" game as opposed to the individual small scale scenarios that are currently in the demo. That will be the home straight and where I'll be looking out for assistance with feedback and testing. Follow the game here on Steam or stalk me on social media if you'd be interested in helping with that. Meantime any feedback and thoughts on the current demo is more than welcome, as it'll feed into my thinking about the balancing to come.