#09 – A SNAPSHOT

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Today we’d like to give you an overview of a day at the Spire. Or to be more precise, a snapshot, as when we tried to cover the whole “day”, we realized that it requires a real deep dive into the user interface across the whole game.

For now, let’s imagine that we’re already running the campaign for 10 hours… but wait, this is not the reference that we can use, since different people will play with different pacing: some strive for complete control, while others just let the flow go.

So let’s just agree that we’re looking at the Spire in a somewhat advanced state. It’s not yet a late game. Not even a mid-game. But it’s the sort of a transition spot from “just setting up, folks” to “really digging it”.



One of the major differences in how people play Spire of Sorcery lies in the level of detail they want to go into. For every type of event, the game offers 3 notification options:

• a notification that shows up as a small icon, which you can open up whenever you want;
  
• a notification that shows up in the log with the header of the event, then transforms into a small icon– without pausing the game;
  
• a full event window that is displayed right in the middle of the screen, and auto-pauses the game.
  

The first option is useful for routine events that are common. For example, you assigned a disciple to go to the nearby forest, and bring back wood. He keeps going there and coming back with the resources. The reports are simple: a disciple arrived from the quest, spending 2 food rations and bringing back 20 units of wood for the Warehouse.

The second option is useful for events that are informative but not very important at the current stage. For example, you assigned a disciple to read books dedicated to Monstrology in the Library, every day for 2 hours. At the end of each period of reading, you’ll see a small notice reporting that she’s finished her reading for today.

The third option is normally used for events that require decisions, or contain a lot of details. For example, a party returns from a long quest, with wounded; sick; and new artefacts. This is probably something that you want to read up in as much detail as possible, as such report also contains hints about the personalities of your disciples and expands your understanding of the global map.

You are free to set up these notification options as you want, and it’s quite likely that early on in the game, every event will be of interest – while later in the game, you’ll focus just on the events where your decisions have substantial impact on the results.

The other way of managing the level of control you want to have over the game, is the depth of reading quest and task reports. Someone comes home with an artefact and a wound. What’s essential? Sending the wounded to be treated, and starting the research on the artefact in the Lab. As to the actual story – where does the artefact come from, and how was the disciple wounded – perhaps you have more pressing matters to attend to, and don’t need these details.

Illustration 1: Concepts for the mid-level members of the Inquisition.

Going back to our campaign, let’s assume that by this time, you have 12 disciples under your authority:

• 2 “old friends”
  
• 5 “advanced” disciples
  
• 5 “new” disciples
  

The details on each disciple (their stats, skills, traits and current states) are available through the character menu. We cannot underline enough the fact that only very rarely, until late-game, will you have the complete and accurate information about your disciples! The game is about exploring the world outside just as much as it is about exploring the personalities of the disciples in your Spire.

Let’s look closer at the “old friends” group:

Some months ago, you started the campaign with 3 disciples who followed you to the Spire from the Guild. Since they are a part of your back story, at the start of the campaign you already have a very good insight into who they are. And yet in the time since then, one of them has – Mizegul – died as the result of a routine quest. How is this even possible? Let’s take a detour to talk about managing danger levels and success rates.



One day, you sent Mizegul to harvest mandragora roots from the swamp nearby, which is nothing special. However, when he came back, he fell sick, and after a few days, died. A major loss for you, since Mizegul had great skills in Battle Magic as well as in Geology (however, your campaign hasn’t progressed yet to the point where he could use them; and so you used him for simple harvesting quests for the moment).

Now, you may recall that whenever you assign a task or a quest (tasks being in-house projects like baking a pie, or growing herbs; and quests being projects in the outside world, like harvesting roots – or enslaving non-human settlements), you get an automatic indication of two things:

Expected Danger Expected Success Rate

So why would a routine quest that did not show you much of a warning, result in the death of your disciple? Let’s break this down: first of all, the expected level of danger it comes in 4 levels:

• ːthe_red_boxː High Danger
  
• ːorange_boxː Moderate Danger
  
• ːlolypopː Low Danger
  
• ːthe_green_boxː No Danger
  

Sending an unprepared party to cross the dessert or venture into Distorted Lands, for example, will show High Danger as one or more characters in the party is very likely to die.

As to the success rates, these also come in 4 levels:

• ːthe_red_boxː Very Low Success Rate
  
• ːorange_boxː Low Success Rate
  
• ːlolypopː Moderate Success Rate
  
• ːthe_green_boxː High Success Rate
  

Let’s say you send someone with a gift, across rough terrain – and without much equipment. The chances of success are high: as long as at least one person makes it there, the gift will be handed over. But the level of danger is also high, to the point where the party may be unable to return at all.

Now, going back to our disciple Mizegul who went to harvest mandragora roots: the quest showed a prognosis with High Success Rate – because harvesting this root is fairly simple; and Moderate Danger – because swamps in general have a location-specific danger: mosquitoes that may (or may not) cause Lowland Fever with their bites. But since this fever (a) is not guaranteed to happen (b) does not affect healthy people (c) is curable, even if contracted –the danger level is not High.

Illustration 2: Concepts for the high-ranking members of the Inquisition.

There are two critical factors that contributed to the death of Mizegul:

(1) At the time of his return from the quest, the Spire did not have a Hospital Room – and neither did it have anyone skilled in Healing. This is a major strategic mistake, since as you start exploring the world, your disciples are bound to all sick and get wounded; which, when left untreated, escalates into a loss of life.

(2) You sent Mizegul to the swamps without knowing that one of his core stats – HEALTH – is very low, so that where other characters who would be bitted by a mosquito with Lowland Fever, would recover – his own chances of recovery were nearly zero. And indeed, you sent other disciples to the swamps before, and what you saw was them reporting insect bites, a few days of fever, and then a complete recovery. The escalation of the sickness with Mizegul was a bad surprise!

While the first issue can be addressed with the construction of the Spire (adding the Hospital Room – or having another room re-purposed into it) and with the hiring process (making it a priority to bring in characters who claim that they are skilled in Healing), the second issue is more complicated: yes, you spent months of game time alongside this disciple; and yes, you still were unaware of what his actual HEALTH stats are.

If you recall, every character in the game has:

• stats
  
• traits
  
• skills
  
• current states
  

Whenever a new recruit shows up, you only know this:

• what the character tells you
  
• what you can obviously see from their outside appearance
  

For example, you may see the following:

KIP (male)

STATS:

HEALTH: –––
INTELLECT: –––
MEMORY: –––
WILLPOWER: –––
CHARISMA: Extraordinary
INTUITION: High*

* – according to this person.

The way to discover some stats, and all of the skills, is through examination: examine the person in the specific area, and you will be certain of their standing there.

The way to discover other stats, like WILLPOWER and INTUITION, is through events: assign a task that the character clearly does not like, and see them succeed, displaying high willpower; or send them on a long quest and read in the report that this person’s intuition served the party right.

The way to discover HEALTH is through a medical examination or by high-skilled magic.

As to traits, the traits that the character is born with, are discoverable via Horoscope. The traits that the character accumulated (such as, for example, a burning dislike towards the Inquisition prompting sudden attacks whenever she sees its members), are discoverable via Fate Reading (another knowledge in the Astrology skill set) or through high-level magic like Mind Reading. And all traits are also naturally discoverable based on events and quests.

Now, in the case of Mizegul, you simply had no chance to perform a medical check on him (as you don’t have anyone with high Healing skills); and your mage’s magic skill is not yet so advanced as to get a comprehensive portrait of your disciple. Hence, when sending him to the swamps, you were looking at “HEALTH: –––“, simply hoping that this turns out to mean “Regular” or even “Exceptional” once you discover the trait.

Illustration 3: Concepts for various chests (located in different locations, originally owned by different types of creatures).

Looking at the “A disciple has died!” event window, you probably had a thought or two about how to avoid this in the future. It would be helpful, for example, to know every disciple’s traits so that you’re more efficient in sending the right person for the right quest. And a good shortcut for this Horoscopes: it’s one of the special knowledge items based on the Astrology Skill.

A throwback to the skill structure: each skill has a progression line, and along that line there are several points where “special knowledge” items become attainable. Let’s take Astrology as a reference. Across the skill line, you have the following special knowledge items marked:

• Star Navigation
  
• Item Knowledge
  
• People Knowledge
  
• Horoscopes
  
• Fate Reading
  
• Seeing the Future; and similar.
  

Normally, you don’t know what these items are, until you come across them in a book. So if your skill already allows for Star Navigation, and you read a book that covers it – this special knowledge will unlock for your character. And if your skill is still inferior for this item, then this item will be marked out on the skill line, so that you at least know of its existence.

Now, the most efficient way of progressing on special knowledge is by reading books. Books are available from booksellers in towns and villages, though these are limited only to the subjects allowed by the Inquisition: farming, forging and such. As to the books about magic, you will have to find undercover booksellers trading in such goods, which means you’ll need a larger town; and probably some help from the Guild of Thieves (or having a person with high Streetwise skill in the party).

Earlier on, we mentioned that the runaway mages are treated like criminals by both the Empire and the Inquisition. So how can you send one of the disciples to town? Firstly, unless they explicitly tell others that they are mages, they could be safe (and as long as there’s not a chatterbox in the party). Secondly, with some simple Social Magic they can disguise their identities, make the guards look the other way, and so on.

The other ways of obtaining books are finding them during exploration (for example, in ruins); trading them from humans and non-humans who may possess them (for example, the Many-handed is nothing else but the guardian of a huge library that has an excellent selection); or receiving books as gifts from the enslaved non-human settlements or followers of the Cult of the Spire (since these creatures remember that the “gods”, in this case you, really love the things called “books”).

And if you fail to find the book required for the particular item of special knowledge, then you can still unlock it by performing research in the Lab – see below.

Illustration 4: Concepts for the mid-level members of the Inquisition.

Finally, we come to the end of this snapshot. You lost a valuable disciple. You’d like to avoid running similar situations in the future. Astrology offers a solution: learning how to make Horoscopes. And how do you get there? By finding a specific book to read, or by performing research in the Lab.

To carry out either of these, you will need to access the schedule of your mage, and to assign a number of hours to this activity. When studying books, you’ll choose the place of study (as it affects the results) and the specific book from those available in the Spire. When performing a research, you’ll choose the Lab and then a dialogue will guide your efforts:

• Do you want to research the application of Astrology to the past? (this leads to learning the coordinates of special locations on the global map, based on what the stars will tell you about the past events)
  
• Do you want to research the application of Astrology to the future? (this leads to learning about the global events that will happen to the world in the future, so you may start getting reminders about, say, an exodus of a specific tribe of non-humans, or a flood)
  
• Do you want to learn about the application of Astrology to gaining insight into other people? (this leads to learning to make Horoscopes, which uncovers the traits that characters were born with)
  

Once you assign the task, the process will become a part of your mage’s routine – or you can also set it as a one-time only event, in which case you’ll be prompted for the next action once this comes trough.

ːgreengemstoneːːgreengemstoneːːgreengemstoneː

With this, the current issue of the blog comes to an end. We started with the ambition of describing one day, but ended with the description of just one specific decision... well, sometimes it happens =).

In the next issue, we’ll focus on the world: the Empire, the Inquisition and the type of lands where the Spire is likely to be set up. Meanwhile, some big news: since last week, we introduced ːnotebookː Weekly Q&A sessions on the official Discord server of the game.

How this works: throughout the week, you can post questions about the game in #questions_en. And every Saturday, our dev team (including Alexey Bokulev) sits down spends an hour answering them. The answers are posted in #answers_en in real time, and then are systemized in this thread.

You can already find there 21 questions and answers from the last weekend, including on whether you can torture prisoners, whether you can send trained monsters on a quest, and in which ways may disciples become a threat to your rule of the Spire!


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