Hey all, I’ll try make this post short and sweet (by my standards, anyways!), as I just posted another massive “let’s play” video which does a better job of showing off what we’ve been up to than I can with words alone:

Weighing in at a whopping 3 hours this video is by far the longest yet, but don’t let that scare you off! I’ve broken it up into six 30-minute parts that should be much easier to work through in multiple viewings. Much of Part 1 covers the recent changes I’ll be talking about below, so if that’s all you’re interested in feel free to pass on the other five parts. If you prefer text to video though, well, read on!

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Diplomacy

Coming up with a good diplomatic system is an absolute beast of a task, but the first couple items on my agenda were actually pretty simple.

I started by modifying the map generation logic so that players are placed in groups instead of 100% randomly. If you want interesting diplomacy it’s vital to actually, you know, have someone to talk to. In earlier versions of the game you’d often find yourself completely alone, and may not meet a single soul until you were several years in. Games like that can be fun on occasion, but they were so common that it would have been impossible for a diplomatic system of any kind to shine, regardless of its merits.

The second, sexier addition to diplomacy was allowing players to disguise their warriors as bandits. An issue I’ve noticed in 4X games is players (and I include myself in this) tend to be reticent to declare war. A public, official pledge of animosity isn’t a concept we 21st century humans can really relate to. Instead, we tend to be a bit more subtle and guarded when dealing with our “enemies”, and this change is meant to take advantage of that fact. Being able to disguise your clans allows you to wage a proxy war of sorts while still keeping everything on the up-and-up officially. It’ll take some time to get this new mechanic right on the balance and AI sides but it’s a really exciting new tool in the diplomatic toolbox that I’m hoping will help make AtG unique.

Beyond those first two bullet points the plan was to continue approaching the diplomatic system the same way as I had with other gameplay systems… but it quickly became clear this wasn’t going to work. When you’re adding something like foraging it’s easy to come up with a few bullet points outlining how it differs from the pre-existing mechanics for how structures harvest resources, code up something quick and try it out later that day. But diplomacy? There’s no other existing system you can even compare it to. How do you break something down that is defined more by the web of events and consequences built up over the course of an entire game than individual decision points?

After banging my head against the wall for a few weeks I stepped away for a couple, then came back with a new plan: iterative playtesting. Basically, I would play the game a ton, identify the biggest problems/omissions/opportunities that stood out along the way, then tackle just those specific items. Now, that’s obviously the kind of thing a designer should be doing with every system, but it’s especially important with (and may in fact be the only way to pull off) a feature characterized by intangible complexity like diplomacy. It’s an arduous process (especially for someone who plays their turns as slow as me!), but I’m now certain it’s the right one.

In terms of nuts and bolts, this approach has resulted in the addition of AI Leaders paying attention to your promises to stay way from their territory and calling you out if you renege. There are a number of other smaller changes as well, but nothing worth going on about at length (this is supposed to be concise, after all!). If diplomacy is an aspect of the game that really interests you though I’d strongly recommend watching the playtest video, as it does a good job demonstrating what we’re going for.

 

Gameplay Changes

Most of the past couple months has been dedicated to playtesting and diplomacy, but I did find some time to squeeze in a couple other gameplay changes.

One involves how resource deposits are identified. The core issue was that only a lone profession was capable of performing this essential activity: the Surveyor. If you wanted to figure out what that rock next to your settlement was so that you could then actually use it the Surveyor was your one and only option, and as such, training one and sending him out to work often felt more like a chore than a fun strategic trade-off. So how do we fix that?

Some test group members had been lobbying to cut the profession entirely, but I’d always liked the niche it had in the game. The solution I settled on was to keep it around but make its ability a bit less… unique. All foragers and builders are now capable of identifying deposits, but the Surveyor is much faster at it and can now also move through rough terrain ‘for free’ like a Scout. The impact of this was clear in the very first game I played after making the change, as I was surrounded by a half-dozen minerals and excitedly targeted the Surveyor as my #1 priority. I’ve often talked in the past about how limiting a player can make a game better, but in this case the opposite was true!

One important addition on the gameplay side was a basic scoring system. You now earn points for each clan you control, structure you build or capture, bandit camp you burn, etc. From a mechanical perspective this doesn’t change things much, but it does provide a metric for comparing games along with a way to provide players with indirect feedback.

 

Polish

I could go on for a while about this one, but I’ll use actual bullet points to ensure I keep that promise I made about being concise!

• In-Game Patch Notes
  It’s now possible to see a list of what’s changed with the game from inside the game. What makes this especially cool is that it dynamically builds the list and shows what’s most likely important to you. If you’ve played the previous version it’ll show the complete list bugfixes and all, but if you haven’t played in six months it’ll only show major gameplay changes.

• Group Games (AKA ‘Daily Challenges’)
  This concept is somewhat inspired by Spelunky, a roguelike platformer I’ve played way, way too much of. Basically, it allows everyone in the world to play on the same map, which is swapped out every day/week/whatever. It’s fun because it allows you to compare how you’ve done with your friends, and also a handy debug tool – when a Test Group member provides feedback or a bug report we now have a frame of reference.

• World IDs
  And this was something I borrowed from The Binding of Issac. Games with random maps build them using ‘random number seeds’, which are numeric values (usually) between 0 and ~2 billion. The basic idea is that if you start from the same seed you’ll get the same map. In most games this value is remains in number form and forever hidden, but some (including the aforementioned TBoI) instead use six alphabetic characters, mapping them in code to numeric values. Ever wondered what “JON-ROX” looks like in the form of a map? Well, wonder no longer!
  
  

• New UI Layout
  We haven’t yet started on the big, ‘real’ revamp of the UI, but I’ve been playing around with the placement of controls in preparation for it, and I’m pretty happy with where the ‘world screen’ is at now. No doubt things will change though, so don’t get too attached to anything!

• Research Queue
  You can now right-click on ‘techs’ to add them to the queue. Nothing too sexy, but it does make the game easier to play. It’s also especially helpful when resuming a game that you started on a previous day – queuing a few things up before you call it a night can serve as a perfect reminder as to what the hell you were actually thinking before!

• Sticky Notes
  And last but certainly not least is the feature I might be the most giddy about. You can now attach ‘sticky notes’ to the bottom of a clan’s ‘card’. These can be simple reminders, titles you’ve bestowed upon them, etc. There’s a ton of potential here to help out both strategists and roleplayers, so I’m hoping it’s something folks will get a lot of use out of.

I show off all of these changes and more in the video, so make sure to check that out if you want to dig deeper. Anyways, I think that’s about it for right now. In the coming months we’ll continue working on diplomacy, the AI, and shining things up real nice. ‘Til next time!

– Jon

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