Development Update Notes 2022/06/25
Since our previous entry in this series, the team have been delivering improvement after improvement to the more recent CityStates: Medieval builds. Many of these come in form of bug fixes and general performance tweaks but as usual this article will be focused on the bigger changes.
Basic world map is now live in the game.
Previously we had discussed how visiting other players cities was now a possibility. At the time, this feature was accessible only through the leader board and although it worked fine, it just didn’t feel like the player was a part of a huge continent full of other prospering cities.
As you can now see, the team have started to address this by implementing an actual world map. Like everything else CS:M related, functionality takes president over the aesthetic, so for now the developers are ironing out things like positioning and enhancing the feature from a technical standpoint and everything graphical is place holder.
Early version of the market has been implemented.
The market mechanic is one of the more complex aspects of development as it requires multiple layers and communication with external services to work. Currently we are able to post buy and sell orders for the resources. It’s worth noting that the quantity and price are user defined meaning it truly is a completely player run economy without restrictions found in other games such as set amounts or predefined price ranges.
There is still ongoing development on this front and we have made the decision to hold off on showing this feature until everything is functional rather than fragmented updates. We are however looking forward too seeing your reactions once we do reveal all!
Happiness mechanic implemented.
This is another function that you may have missed if you don’t watch our YouTube videos. Happiness is another way to get the most out of your pops (citizens). Happier pops will work harder and be more efficient in the tasks you assign them to. Once again the graphical aspects of this are place holder but the mechanic is pretty clear and easy to understand on a visual level.
Armory storage building improved with the addition of an inventory menu.
In our recent development video we had mentioned that the Armory now tracked how much military gear players owned as well as introducing a cap on what a player can actually store.
The developers have also now introduced a completely new menu to CityStates: Medieval which by itself is perhaps one of the biggest quality of life updates recently added. This menu allows a user to view all of the gear they currently own and furthermore allows them to filter it by usable squads.
We will be releasing a video taking a look at this function in more detail later so stay tuned to our Discord announcements!
Building production and efficiency ceiling raised.
A big part of our testing is to bug hunt and to verify feature functionality. Having said this, we are also taking the time to test out the feel of the game in terms of progression. As you can imagine this takes time and the shared input from everyone involved. One thing we noticed was that in the late game, assigning only five pops to a building could at times feel restricting.
Our resident math wizard Setra took a look at this and has worked with the development team to introduce a new pops worker cap of fifteen. Reaching this new cap requires significant investment into a building and is more so aimed at those of you in the late game or those of you who have chosen to specialize in certain areas of production. The change not only feels great, but also provides players with another goal to work towards.
UI and quality of life changes.
Besides the bigger changes listed above there have been more smaller improvements on this front, including the following:
⁍More informative visual indicators. Most notably indicators on the main resource hub to quickly identify if your production of each individual material is in the green, red or breaking even.
⁍Introduced more time periods for monitoring city production and consumption, this can now be viewed over a 1,4,8,12 and 24 hour period.
⁍Civic and military pops are now shown on the HUD. Players can now see how many of their pops are assigned to work and available as well as whether they are civilians or a part of you army.
