Imagine Earth News

[p]Warm greetings from an otherwise rather cold Germany, but winter is helping us keep a cool head as we tinker away at the next DLC for Imagine Earth. This is me officially announcing the "Transformation" DLC before we get to the specific update :-)[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Transformation DLC [/h2][p]The DLC features a campaign in which you are part of a rescue team that wants to transform civilizations before their planets are destroyed by a climate catastrophe.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]New buildings[/h2][p]The DLC coming early next year will finally include new ocean buildings: A wave power plant and a floating algae factory. There are slums from which you must relocate the population to modern quarters, and mountains of trash that you can recycle as a source of income. Insect farming will most certainly be introduced as a new food source, and you can create lakes to cool down the temperatures in your cities, as heat waves will be a new and threatening disaster.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]But now let's move on to the features of the current update 1.21[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Forests Grow Deeper [/h2][p]This is a big change and makes it more interesting how you grow forests strategically: When you surround a forest with other Forest pieces they grow much bigger. Thick forests compensate much more emissions and ground pollution.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Bonus on Fossil Fields[/h2][p]We had to completely rework how the influence of fossil deposits on the production of power plants worked out. So far fossil power plants always had full productivity as long as there was still a neighboring field having at least 10% deposit. This is more differentiated now:[/p]

• [p]The power plant will still have full bonus when it’s on a fossil field with more than 50% reserve.[/p]
• [p]Down to 10% it will still have half productivity.[/p]
• [p]The same goes when the neighboring field has 50% or more reserve.[/p]
• [p]Below that it will have no more bonus.[/p]
• [p]On fields that are not near a fossil reserve it will have a malus (as it used to).[/p][p][/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][h2]Emission Tax vs. Compensation[/h2][p]We have raised the CO² tax to make it more relevant and change the behavior of other factions as well.[/p][p][/p][h2]Abandoned Cities[/h2][p]The procedural Planet generator can now generate abandoned cities and you can also define how much they should lie in ruins.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Relocating City Districts[/h2][p]You can now relocate city districts without losing the complete inhabitants of a district. You can also relocate supply buildings without losing their production for a long while and thus causing panic in your population.[/p][p][/p][h2]General Cost Reduction[/h2][p]We reduced the costs for planting trees and claiming land. Please see if it feels more balanced for what you get.[/p][p][/p][h2]Chinese Voice Over[/h2][p]We have a Chinese Voice Over now! If you speak Chinese please give it a try and tell us what it sounds like. We were very amazed by how great automated voice over worked for the German language. The main story campaign was once translated into Chinese by a professional agency so the generated speech should make sense. The new Galaxies campaign and some menus have been translated with automated translation. We are looking forward to get your feedback on this.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We reactivated the feedback button for language translations for this. If you find a typo in some dialog click the tiny icon and it will bring you directly into the translation forum where you can request optimizations.[/p][p][/p][h2]Beauty Fixes[/h2]

• [p]The planet's atmosphere isn’t cut on super wide screens anymore.[/p]
• [p]We’ve updated to Unity Version 6 to give you a more stable game experience.[/p]
• [p]You can now zoom closer into the beautiful details of the game world.[/p]
• [p]Supply capsules are not landing on forest anymore that are then auto self destructing to make place for the capsules.[/p]
• [p]The license button is not hiding under the info box of the ring menu anymore.[/p]

[p]Thank you for your interest and support! Please let us know what you think of the latest version and write a review if you want to support our work! [/p][p]Best[/p][p]Jens & Martin[/p]

[h2]WDC World Ocean Day Charity Sale [/h2]
We are excited to announce that we are supporting WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation for World Ocean Day!

The WDC World Ocean Day Sale starts today and runs until 12th June, 10am PDT 2025, and you can save a fin-tastic 60% off Imagine Earth. We will also donate 20% of our net profits to WDC to support their conservation work.*

[h2]Who are WDC?[/h2]
WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation are the leading global charity dedicated to the protection of whales and dolphins.
Their expert-led teams in the UK, Europe, the Americas, and Australasia work across the whole spectrum of threats, from climate breakdown to accidental entanglements in fishing gear, pollution, captivity and hunting and whaling. They bring together, and work hand-in-hand with, businesses, philanthropists, scientists, NGOs, governments and grassroots communities to find solutions to the problems faced by whales and dolphins.
Their mission is to reverse the global decline of whale and dolphin populations by creating safe seas for these majestic beings. And their vision is a world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free.

[h2]What is ghost gear?[/h2]
Ghost gear is fishing gear that has been lost or abandoned at sea. It’s a deadly menace to whales, dolphins and other marine life.
When a whale or dolphin gets tangled in it, it can kill them in the most horrific way, by preventing them from getting to the surface to breathe. Or they can carry it for days, weeks or even months suffering a slow and painful death as it cuts into their skin, restricts their movement and hampers their ability to hunt and feed.
But it’s difficult and expensive for fishers and other ocean users to dispose of gear they find at sea, or even to responsibly get rid of their own gear at the end of its life.
Did you know that about 1/3 of marine litter found in European seas is discarded fishing gear? That's estimated to be over 11,000 tonnes entering the sea each year!
It is a massive problem and so WDC are working on some innovative solutions. 

[h2]How your support will help this year[/h2]
By purchasing games from this year’s World Ocean Day sale, you will help WDC continue their global conservation work, as well as their ghost gear removal project, funding 10 missions for divers to remove lethal entanglement hazards to marine life (and scuba divers) from reefs, seabed and shipwrecks in UK seas.
Whales and dolphins are awe-inspiring, intelligent beings. The ocean produces more oxygen and absorbs more carbon than all of Earth's forests combined, and whales help it flourish. Yet 300,000 whales die in fishing gear every year.
If you want to read more about WDC, you can do so here: https://whales.org/
Keep up to date with all the awesome gaming activities WDC does by signing up to their mailing list here: https://games.whales.org/#newsletter
And you can find many other amazing games in the sale here: https://bit.ly/WODSale25

[h2]Thank you for joining us and for supporting WDC! [/h2]
*20% of our net revenue from this sale (after Steam platform fees) will support WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation. WDC is a UK registered charity (no. 1014705).

Good news everyone,

again it's fascinating how much you can balance, improve and fix in such a long game development journey, isn't it? At least for us ;D

Warm regards, Jens & Martin.
P.S.: Please support Imagine Earth Project with a review here on Steam!

[h2]Improvements[/h2]

• Keep current zoom level when jumping to city
  
• City extensions of Galaxies DLC now available in free play and competition game modes
  
• Annoying car beeping sounds in cities removed
  
• Clarified how satellite hubs are charged
  
• Improved visibility of Icons in functions ring
  
• Rounos: Rounosians don't accept donations anymore before Leen is there
  
• Territory takeover reparations consider building value now
  
• Construction tasks assigned to a plot with rocks or a forest can be canceled
  

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

• Fixed side effects of the city extensions of the Galaxies DLC that were randomly blocking the AI from building climate positive upgrades.
  
• The AI will more likely work sustainable when the player does so.
  
• Fixed another problem were the AI planting forests and using seed bombs could block it from building climate positive upgrades.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Forest shows wrong examine message
  
• AI is failing to give up after take over by Assimilator and having native camp
  
• Ruins graphic error when teared down in water
  
• Ideon map shows wrong natives on Bora
  
• Bora: Other factions sometimes don't land
  
• Bora: Pyramid taken by other faction
  
• Bora: Leen finds no field to land
  

Fixes the following problems:

• Error when hovering the “Typo” icon in the MessagePanel in the galaxy
  
• Bug when selecting the last entry in the list of expansions for city centers
  
• Occasional error when selecting the faction for a new game
  
• Occasional error when displaying city center expansions
  
• Camera rotation via keyboard blocked after jumping to a field