Nova Roma News

Hi Everyone,

We wanted to give another quick update on some of the cool things coming in Nova Roma, mainly how the water and terrain system affects soil fertility.

Crops need fertile soil to grow, and the more fertile the better the yield. Soil fertility is affected by a number of factors, but primarily it depends on proximity to fresh water. As the water flows through, the nearby soil becomes more fertile



Since the water is fully dynamic, this means you can change this if you can divert the flow of water. And of course, you can! Previously we’ve shown how you can build dams to change the course of rivers, but we are adding a feature that lets you modify the terrain, and thus the flow of water however you wish.

You can command your citizens to begin big or small earth moving projects. You can designate areas of the ground to be leveled out, dug into, or raised up.



When we bring all these features together, your citizens can dig out channels under your direction to allow water to flow through, quite literally irrigating the land:



We’re looking forward to seeing all the amazing stuff you’ll come up with!

Until next time!
-Pete, Michael, & Sam

Hi Everyone!

We’ve always found ancient Rome fascinating, especially the daily life and housing. In first hand accounts, original texts, and letters you can find they were very much like us. They had similar complaints about their apartment being too noisy, the roof leaking, or neglectful landlords.

There were a wide range of housing types in ancient Rome, from small homes to towering apartment buildings. We’re taking heavy inspiration from actual ruins and research to implement housing in Nova Roma.

[h3]Housing Types[/h3]
So far, we’re supporting a few different housing types:

• small houses
  
• apartments (insula)
  
• larger houses (domus)

The small houses operate much like you’d expect, you just need to satisfy their basic needs. The apartments and larger homes will need access to more resources and services beyond the basics, including access to aqueduct supplied water. They’ll also provide more tax revenue.

[h3]Mixed-Use Buildings[/h3]
One really interesting thing about ancient Rome was that on the ground floor of apartment buildings (and some domus style houses) there were shop fronts individuals could rent out. This mixed-use type building was very much like the kind you find in cities today.



We want to represent this in Nova Roma so we’ve implemented a new system in which you can make mixed use buildings. We’ve set up the apartment buildings with special slots on their ground floor available for shop placement.



[h3]Shops (Tabernae)[/h3]
You’ll be able to select different shop types to place inside these ground floor slots, everything from food courts to barbers. The apartment and shops are independent buildings. The shopkeepers may or may not live at the apartment where their shop is located, and they’ll need to go out and collect the resources they need to run their business.



We’ve taken a lot of inspiration from the historical research on the types of businesses that populated these ground floor areas (you can read more about that history here). More historically inspired shop types will be coming later! On that note, a little disclaimer that we are not historians so some things may end up a bit different than how they actually were in ancient Rome. As game designers, we’re trying our best to balance the history with compelling gameplay.




Until next time!
-Pete, Michael, & Sam

Hi Everyone!

We’ve been working away on all aspects of Nova Roma, from the internal systems, map generation, water mechanics, and more. Last blog post we highlighted the dynamic, physically simulated water system. Today we want to show how that impacts your city.

Citizens living in higher end homes will need access to water, and water is also required to keep public toilets flowing and bathhouses operating. You’ll need to build dams to create reservoirs, then bring that water via aqueducts to town.

Because the water system is dynamic, building a dam has some challenges. How do you make sure your dam will keep the water where you want it? We wouldn’t want you to spend a lot of time working on a dam only to accidentally flood your city. To solve this problem, Michael has been working on a special Dam Planning Mode.



It allows you to add and remove dam blocks and runs the water simulation in a ‘preview mode’ so you can see how the water will respond based on the design of your dam. You can adjust how far into the future you want to see the water simulated.

Here I’ve set up a poorly designed dam, but the dam planning mode lets me know the dangers of my design. Buildings that would be hit and damaged by flooding water are highlighted red.



Now I’ve corrected it and I can see the water will be directed away from my town. When you’re happy with everything you can start your dam project and things should work just as you’ve planned. This allows you to build large dam projects without the fear of accidentally flooding your town.



To get the water to our citizens, we need to add a water tap. The water tap is a building that draws water from the adjacent dam and allows sediment to fall to the bottom. We’ll also need a water tower which will supply water to nearby houses and buildings. We connect these together with an aqueduct and since everything is physical, the aqueducts must run downhill.



You can also create more complex water networks using reservoir-like Water Splitters.



Each building in the system has information on the flow rate of the water coming in and going out. Houses, apartments, bathhouses, and more all draw from the flow of water so you’ll need to make sure you are piping enough in to keep everyone happy.



We’ll of course be iterating and polishing this further as we approach release. Our goal is that it should be a fun challenge to manage dams and water infrastructure to keep your city supplied with water as it grows larger and more dense.

Until next time,
-Pete, Michael, & Sam

Hi everyone! Nova Roma and other games published by Hooded Horse are all featured at the Hooded Horse Publisher Sale. Come check it out!

Hooded Horse Strategy Publisher Sale

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Hi everyone!

We wanted to give you a quick update on some of the things we’ve been working on for Nova Roma.

[h3]3D Terrain[/h3]
One of the biggest requests from our previous game Kingdoms and Castles was for terrain with hills and mountains. For Nova Roma, Sam and I have been reworking the map generation algorithms and terrain engine from the ground up (heh heh). We can now fully support 3D terrain (which you may have seen from the trailer). We’re working hard to get interesting cliffs, beaches, and mountain features. None of this is final and there’s still improvements to be made, but here’s a preview of the direction we’re going with the maps:




[h3]Water SImulation[/h3]
The 3D terrain isn’t just for aesthetics and show, it’ll factor directly into the gameplay as well. Michael’s been working on writing a fluid simulation that interacts physically with the 3D terrain. Water starts near mountains and flows through forests and hills down to the ocean.



Because the system is fully dynamic it’s possible for you as the player to affect the flow of the water. Here’s an example of cutting a new channel for a river with our terrain editing tools. Changing the terrain dynamically affects how the water pools up and moves across the land.



We’ll be tying this directly into the gameplay mechanics. You’ll be able to command your citizens to undertake huge projects to change the terrain to alter the course of rivers, build reservoirs and dams, and supply water to your city with aqueducts. We’ll have more to show on that soon. There’s still plenty of polish to do, but we’re very excited about the new possibilities of the 3D terrain and fluid system!

Until next time,

Pete, Michael, and Sam