Imagine Earth News

In the first update for Imagine Earth in March you'll find many optimizations for UI and AI that lay ground for innovative new game play features consider the next update to revolutionize core game play at several odds and ends.





The research menu has a new optional viewing mode where all details are presented directly on screen instead of as tool-tips. For now the compact view still stays the default view, so you have a perfect overview for all your research processes.



We also optimized the filters in the research menu. You can highlight research options according to what their primary effect is. That makes it easy to adjust your research strategy to suit your specific needs.





The building descriptions in the build menu now also contain all upgrades of the building and their potential pros and cons.

Upgrades that have already been researched can be activated here to be automatically build together with the building.





We made the visualization of competitors more compact and consistent to the rest of the user interface. Instant intuitive visibility for the ranking, diplomatic status and victory points. More over you see which incidents or catastrophes are impacting their colonies and also the resulting share price drops.





We reworked the competition ratings table. The x-axis now has the different types of colony points needed to win the competition. We added more captions and explanation texts to clarify all aspects.





When accessing a city center other factions are now talking to you directly - we are working on making this communication as personal as possible...





Factions do now have individual agendas that add character and individual tactics to the 8 different corporations you can play in competition and freeplay mode.

• Cooperative: Cooperative diplomatic sentiment.
  
• Aggressive: Aggressive diplomatic sentiment. Sabotages other colonies.
  
• Sustainable: Preserves the environment and prefers buildings with low emissions.
  
• Exploitative: Tries to get as many fossil and rare resources as possible. Does not care about environmental impacts.
  
• Expansive: Trying to own as much territory as possible. Does not like it when someone takes over territory.
  
• Trader: Focuses on trade. Likes to sell resources and items.
  
• Gaian: Tries to get as many temples as possible and generate Gaia.
  
• Oceanist: Prefers to build the colony on the coast and the sea.
  
• Scientist: Researches as many technologies as possible.
  

A decent foam line at the coast makes it easier to identify the exact sea level and whether fields are land, coast or ocean. This is an addition to the waves the are rolling in and breaking.





There are several options in the build menu that help to visualize certain states and objects in the world. For example it can colorize buildings by their type to provide a better overview.

• You can now sell incomplete packages of rare resource to free up space in the warehouses.
  
• New city center sounds!
  
• Workshop menu got a face lift.
  
• Build menu buttons reworked.
  
• All campaign planets have decoration and environment objects like mountains suitable to their planet theme now
  
• Big Illuminati Pyramids can't burn anymore
  
• Unified calculation of field and construct values to improve AI decisions and simulation speed
  
• If you loose competition you won't get spammed by the professor commenting on that anymore .
  
• Build menu: you can now have a certain category activated that stays open also when you hover another for short operations. So you can keep your eye on your inventory or the forces you have ready.
  
• AI in sandbox is no longer saved and transferred into created planets.
  
• Bora: AI allies may no longer build their second colony next to the great pyramids to prevent the mission plot from getting stuck.
  
• Fixed problem with multi-use of temple powers
  
• Fixed assimilator drone explosions
  

Happy new year again, this time from China! As Steam has started its Lunar New Year sale "Imagine Earth" is 25% off for the first time in 5 years Early Access. Don't wait for more until the game is finished ;). We are accompanying this sale with an update release that brings you much more than redesigned game characters and a classic strategy game styled build menu for advanced gameplay...

Please note that we are looking for beta-testers who can check on our new update releases days earlier than other players, please mail us if you happen to be that enthusiastic about getting your fingers early on new updates of Imagine Earth!



The old avatars of the main crew members in the campaign are some years old by now and we always knew we'd have to give these guys a makeup someday. Nothing is a better way of showing how this game has grown up over the years than the evolution of Limas character. It goes all the way back when it was a casual game idea with comic characters. Maybe we should not have opened this old box ;) but with the final release coming in 2019 this nostalgic flashback came over Jens..




A new build menu on the left side of the interface will keep you informed about all your build options. Coolest thing about it is that this menu also shows your inventory and on top the craftable items. It has a category for all your gaia forces and shows if they are fully loaded. You won't have to visit a workshop anymore to craft your stuff. It comes in addition to the classic build ring, so nothing changes, you just get more options.





The control menu also offers a set of visualization tools. you can highlight fields that are threatened by rising sea-level caused by global warming. You can highlight rare resources, fertility, ground pollution, construct types and colony areas.





If you open a trade or a crafting panel it will be centered on screen from now on. The background is blurred out and playtime is paused, so you can concentrate on deals and negotiations with factions and traders.





We are currently experimenting with how the drones are working. We decided to limit the city centers drones to one per level - so you are starting now with one instead of two. This makes it more important to level your city.

The maintenance station no longer comes with a build drone. Instead it comes with a repair drone that only does repair jobs and will automatically do this in the range of the building. As before it can be upgraded with a fire station.

Same goes for the remediation center. It now has a special remediation drones instead of a build drone



Based on feedback and the experiences we received from Wuik in the steam forums, we had another look at the Gaia balancing. The following changes have been done:

• Doubled Gaia production
  
• Reduced price of Gaia container
  
• Display correctly how much Gaia is available in a temple
  
• In addition display how fast Gaia is created and how this is influenced by the nearby population
  

The first update of Imagine Earth in 2019 brings you a new power construct which is built on the open sea with three brand new forces to unleash and a devastating catastrophe. As always there are tons of UI, AI and game balancing improvements. We reworked the first three missions intensively and enhanced the effects and visualization of global warming... We hope you enjoy the latest features and changes and send feedback and requests into our forum!
Cheers, Jens & Martin


The ocean citadel is a powerful construction of the Nootilas, it can convert Gaian energy into force fields which influence sea and weather conditions. It is to be found on the open sea of course.




A power of the ocean citadel provokes a thunderstorm that moves across the planet in wind direction. The storm can cause wildfires and incidents in production facilities. Thunderstorms are also natural catastrophes whose occurrence becomes more likely with increasing global warming.



This power of the ocean citadel generates a gaian force field that vitalises the flora on the seabed and allows sea plants and occasionally corals to grow. This is helpful to re-balance the carbon emission balance on the planet.



This Gaian force field of the ocean citadel lowers the tectonic continental plates - entire regions sink into the sea. Keep the mouse button pressed to apply the power.

Land reclamation works the same way from now on.
We redesigned the Cover Image, the website, Steam and social media channel


You can now reuse forces and items by holding the shift key as long as you have more items of the same kind or enough gaian energy left in the according power constructs.


Due to the importance of this feature we have represented Global Warming more prominently in the Interface. You get a permanent display and icon for the emission balance and the global warming in percentage. And there is a global value of sea-level and temperature rise. The population counter has moved to the left of the UI also because it is not global.



For better information it displays how high a certain piece of land is above the sea-level which is of particular interest in case of global warming. Will it be flooded by the melting polar caps?



We deactivated the quarantine of the planet in case of climate collapse which ended game way too early. You can now live on a ravaged planet with maximum climate chaos and all the catastrophes arising with it and still try to make your living or win a competitive round somehow.

You can activate this quarantine when starting a new game to stop a round when it gets almost hopeless. Also we changed the visualization of high global warming which was a bit over the top with yellow coloring of the oceans and the atmosphere.


In one of the next updates we plan to further increase the effect of global warming on the local field temperature and buildings


Again we had to rework many aspects of the first three missions of Tuto, Joma and Lorian to improve the experience of the campaign, make it more accessible to new players and adjust them to the lately added features.

• AI now uses temple powers to sabotage enemy colonies
  
• AI will actively expand into territory of enemies when additional land is needed
  
• AI will respect border of alliance colonies
  
• AI gets a Pulse cannon in time
  
• AI tries to explore cannons if necessary
  

• Display overview of other factions in missions
  
• a bar displays the goals for achieving new research, tech licenses and landing permits as such.
  
• storage capacity is visualized more intuitive in the resource menu
  
• New and universal desktop icon for the game and for all social media accounts
  
• Increased speed of tooltips. Especially in build menu
  
• Influence of temperature on productivity is now shown in the build ring as well
  
• Improved drone flight
  
• Cinematic landing animation for dropping asteroids, trader, vendor and the Midras drillbot
  
• Visualization when using Soma item
  
• Restored loading animation
  

• Fixed some issues of trader speakers, icons and ships that have been swapped
  
• Fixed pirates event not being triggered
  
• Towers only loose claim for surrounding fields when completely destroyed
  
• Increased reach of ideon bombs and comparable items
  
• Fixed: Speaker is sometimes interrupted by other sounds in the main menu
  
• Laser attacks should no longer trigger fires
  
• Selling and buying of items now also influences their pricing
  
• Increase in Gaia power is no longer increased linearly with additional surrounding population (but logarithmic)
  
• Fixed pollution created when destroying mountains
  
• Ideon bomb no longer destroys the rare rocks that appear when a big mountain is blown up
  
• Science district gives research bonus instead of improved quality of life
  
• Assimilator settings decrease/increases probability of uplinks landing
  
• Changed balancing of fights between assimilator drone and frontier towers
  
• Assimilator drone no longer follows fleeing city capsule
  
• Temples can now be destroyed
  

Again we have a big December update for you with lots of interesting features that will refresh the space colonizing business. Have a look and give us your feedback on how they work...

Of course we'd like to take the opportunity to wish you all pleasant holidays and a happy new year in advance! We plan to celebrate the final release of Imagine Earth together in mid 2019!





The Sabotage item hacks supply buildings within a small radius and sets them into the state of malfunction in which they stop production and are constantly damaged until the building is destroyed or the malfunction is fixed.





Supply capsules contain items, resources and building construction kits. The colony that claims the field it landed on can take the cargo. The capsule will then disassemble automatically. They will land randomly on the planet throughout gameplay.




New orbital lifts show you when colonists are coming or leaving your colony. This animation makes the colony more lively and visualizes where the colonists come from and where they disappear to when the quality of life is too low.





In the campaign galaxy you will now see a completion panel that shows your overall campaign progress. More important the colony ratings on all planets are wrapped up in a company rating that is compared in a global ranking.





You can now revisit colonies after finishing the mission to find the remaining ideon crystals and to raise your colony rating by expanding your colony.

Campaign research and unlocked buildings are permanent. So you can use the technology you gathered in later missions to advance the cities when your return to earlier colonized planets.





Other corporations now have three shared diplomatic statuses: rivalry, neutral or alliance. They define if other factions trade with you and if there will be discounts. It also influences AI behavior: An alliance partner will respect your territory - a rival will actively grab your land.





We have added brand new AI behaviors to make factions more lively and authentic actors in the game. They may contact you via the message system and to propose neutrality or an alliance. In addition they will cancel an alliance or even declare rivalry when your relation is very bad. The AI remembers when you have helped against threats like an epidemic and alien invasions by using items or temple powers

• Added clarifying goals on Bora to help Otarek against Assimilators
  
• Introduction briefings for all game modes
  
• Steam store page updated with images and Simplified Chinese version
  
• Landing and starting animations for the Boss' and Leen's command center
  
• Increased number of sleeping volcanoes in ice worlds
  
• AI now uses pulse cannons more often
  
• Pulse cannons will destroy small meteors with one shot
  
• Cannons will not focus on asteroids when another cannon is already targeting it
  
• Engagement popup: Ask players for feedback after having played 20 hours of having finished the campaign
  
• Asteroid rocks give stone quarry an extra bonus
  

• Now possible to get the "scientists" research achievement
  
• Harvesting of rare asteroids is properly displayed in the resource statistics
  
• Alignment of level visualization for city centers
  
• Waking up volcanoes in sandbox editor is working again
  
• Size of world icons when using different UI scales
  
• Leveling frontier buoys is working again
  
• Display range when building maintenance station and remediation center
  

Greetings, Space Colony Managers!

The Universe is expanding! Because of this growing luxury of empty void we implemented much bigger planets into Imagine Earth which can be played with or against up to 6 factions. There is now technology trade to make other colonies more interesting.

There is a new trailer as well as tons of gameplay fixes and improvements to make Imagine Earth ready for the launch of early access on Humble Store on Nov 9th... - that's right, two days ahead! :D Please share the joy about this with us and the rest of the world.


We implemented bigger Planets into the game because many of you asked for them. Let us know if you have any feature requests, ideas and stuff coming to your mind while checking out the latest version. Here are the details:

• Biggest planet has 2880 compared to previously 2000 fields
  
• Increased maximum competing companies to 6 (from 4)
  
• Maximum landmass increased to 80% of planet
  
• Tuto twice the size (720 fields, previously 320)
  
• Addition: Tuto mission has received a lot of detail improvements to make it a smoother experience
  

Now you can buy single construction kits for buildings from other corporations. This means trading with other colonies gets more interesting.

Each building that has been licensed by the other colony will be offered in their store - given that your diplomatic status is good enough. Of course it will be much more expansive to buy these single construction kits and therefor make sense to license a construct yourself if you need it more often.

As you can see we started implementing epic cut-scenes to introduce all other factions, traders and invaders landing on your planet for the first time.

https://youtu.be/NXtSLwv8-oQ

The last update introduced planetary themes and this time we made a general and huge rework of the themes textures to make them look more diverse and individual and last be not least, much better.

Volcanic world for example has by default no polar caps (so no rising sea level)


Another important step done in order to make the AI fair and fun to play: The AI now has to research upgrades and other improvements in order to use them. So far those tricksters were able to build any upgrade without having to research it.


The existing trailer clearly needed a remake and has been replaced with a new one that is much more relying on in-game graphics to give you a perfect introduction into the actual game. Watch it and enjoy advanced space traveling via ideon powered hypergates!

https://youtu.be/GjwPzI1D-DE

• New Music Track. Tracks are now looped to a maximum of three minutes and than randomly change.
  
• Forests back in build ring. No longer license-able.
  
• Removed remediation from tool ring.
  
• Increased maintenance cost for forestry (the relatively low cost was basically the reason the AI most times choose to build it).
  
• Changed description and factors of industrial farm GM upgrade to make it less confusing
  
• Sleeping volcano new better visualized and explained
  
• Increased number of volcanoes and likelihood of erupting every once in a while
  
• Rare rocks are now also detected on neighboring fields
  
• During campaign also block fields next to rocks for first city center
  
• Auto saves are now done based on real time instead of in-game time
  
• Dead sea grass on land field is automatically removed
  
• Dead forests can now be removed
  
• Desertification can now also be canceled with temple powers (growth and fertility) and super-fertilizer
  
• Temple power cure can now also be used on other colonies
  
• Assimilator uplinks can now also be set on fire while they are building a drone. The uplink will extinguish itself after some time, though
  

• New fertility icon
  
• Build process is now visualized with the icon of the building
  
• Influences of neighbor buildings are now visualized with the resource type icon instead of the buildings icon
  
• For huge buildings and mountains influence icons are now only displayed on the main field
  
• Harvesting resources new displays the corresponding resource icon
  
• Improved goal description visualization
  
• Improved mouse responsibility when interaction with menus
  
• Added separate smiley when a district is losing people due to missing food
  
• Added icon to build ring to clearer distinguish it from the tool ring
  
• Highlight in inventory when new item has been crafted
  
• New sound for cancel
  
• Dead forests and temple ruins are now properly named
  
• Added tooltip for fossil resources to field info panel in bottom left
  
• Adjusted building order in the technology panel
  
• Improved game over dialog
  

• Fixed a bug where the game didn't start at all on windows 7 systems
  
• Fixed graphics bug for assimilated cities and city centers level 2 and 3
  
• Display fires in the short-cut panel (top right)
  
• Fixed a bug where fires could not be extinguished
  
• Fixed description of the fire temple power
  
• When blasting mountains sometimes two rocks where placed at the same field