It’s been one week since the closed alpha started with about 20 players.
There is a lot of bugs and missing gameplay in the game itself, but the server seems to handle quite well this new load and no major or load-realated bugs seemed to appear (which is quite encouraging for the official goal of a 100 players per server ).
The feedback and bug repports of users has proved itself to be very useful, and a lot of potential exploits need to be taken care of.
The game frequentation is quite satisfying and although i dont have stats yet, i beleive this game has already entertained the testers for tens of hours since the beginning of this test with an average of 6 to 8 people permanently online during the week ends.
Today i am releasing a new version (v0.503), including a lot of new management stats to increase the challenge of the game and limit infinite expantionnism.
The game now includes Capital cities, Culture, Administration, Waste and Loyalty. Although not fully implemented yet, those bring a lot more complexity to the game.
Waste represents corruption and thieft in your kingdom. Waste takes a percent of all your tax incomes and appears when you have a negative Administration in a region.
Administration has an arbitrary production of 100 for now ( later on you’ll control it with civics and buildings ). Its lowered by the total population of the region, the distance to the capital and the total number of regions controlled by the player.
Culture is produced by population, depending on their Intelligence. It is divided in 2 categories : local culture and state culture. Local culture represents a divergent and region-specific culture different from the one of your kingdom, eventually lowering its loyalty to you. The farther from your capital, the higher % of produced culture goes as local.
Though not implemented yet, low loyalty regions will potentially rebel and become independent ( anarchic ) , becoming a potential spawn for another player.
Loyalty is mainly defined by culture, but it is also influenced by the military forces present in the region. The total population and any garrison ( local formation ) counts as a force loyal to the region ( lowers loyalty, increasing risk of rebellion ) . Any regular formation ( an army made of professionnal paid soldiers ) is loyal to the player and increased the loyalty of any region where they stay.
Right now, military acts are not allowed ingame because of missing gameplay making the defense unbalanced.
The next update will probably include all the gameplay required to allow balanced but basic military actions, with full support of local garrisons.
v0.503 The anti-expantionnism update
Gameplay
– Regions with 0 population will disappear.
– There is now capital cities
– Implementing Administration
* default production
* lowered by number of regions
* lowered by distance to capital
– Implementing Culture
* defined by population and intelligence
* devided in 2 types : local culture and state culture. Local culture lowers loyalty.
– Implementing Loyalty
* decreased by local culture
* decreased by garnisons ( local formations )
* increased by state armires ( regular formations )
– Implementing Waste ( Represents corruption and thief , reduces tax incomes )
* increased by negative administration
– Wealth production by buildings had been multiplied by 3.
– All storage’s capacity has been multiplied by 2 except the free storage ground.
– Level 4 Farms consume 3 workers instead of 4.
– Lots of producing buildings now require upkeep.
– Changed construction price of Fisherpig buidings.
– 1 pottery now satifies need of 15 porcos instead of 10.
– 1 cloth now satisfies need of 18 porcos instead of 15.
– Bronze and Iron tools production is slower
– More worforce is needed to create 1 stone bloc
– A tile of stone and clay is less productive. Stone makers and clay camps have a wider range.
UI
– Capital cities displayed on the world map
– Capital cities are the only ones showing a banner at maximum distance on the world map
– Neutral and NPC factions’s banners are no longer shown at maximum distance on the world map
– New tabs in the Region menu : growth, economy, culture, administration, loyalty
– Unified icons to represent ” Wealth ” . Reorganised a few other icons.
Debug
– Fixed some exploits where players could use a few buttons of regions and units they didnt own.
– Fixed clay pits beeing 2×2 instead of 3×3 tiles.
– Fixed quarry using wrong sprite.
– Fixed Olive orchards using wrong type of field.
– Local formations no longer cost upkeep.