Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing

[Jubal]

Oh dear :/ I've had bugs like that before but I'd thought I fixed them - it's caused by a bug in some major map-level calculation, so the game got stuck doing something in the seemingly random area, and then couldn't move your troops around because it was still looking at the area it'd had a hang-up in. The diplomacy and city warfare scripts are pretty common culprits there. You didn't happen to get a screenshot of the random area by any chance?

The tutorial thing was me being an idiot - I'd made some changes to how cities are stored, and not updated the load file for the tutorial to match. That'll be fixed in the next patch

[Rovine]

Oh dear :/ I've had bugs like that before but I'd thought I fixed them - it's caused by a bug in some major map-level calculation, so the game got stuck doing something in the seemingly random area, and then couldn't move your troops around because it was still looking at the area it'd had a hang-up in. The diplomacy and city warfare scripts are pretty common culprits there. You didn't happen to get a screenshot of the random area by any chance?

The tutorial thing was me being an idiot - I'd made some changes to how cities are stored, and not updated the load file for the tutorial to match. That'll be fixed in the next patch

I'll do another playthrough and try to reproduce it (gave up that bugged playthrough because I was dying anyway lul). If it helps, it was a 5x5 map, and had several inter-city wars happening that I wasn't involved with.

[Jubal]

Yeah, probably triggered by some niche problem with an army placing script. I'll have another look at it, though replicating bugs on that thing is horrible.

I'm glad you're enjoying the discovery aspect, it's something I definitely want to double down on in future improvements - let me know if you think there are particular areas that could do with more depth too, I have improvement idea lists on most bits of the game but help prioritising is very valuable!

[Jubal]

Finally got a rather pathetic but nonetheless functional amount of work done - adding hotkeys to the city menu and battle screens, and Help (by pressing H) to say what the hotkeys are. I'm not sure if either screen needs a more developed help section than the hotkey overview, advice appreciated.

[Jubal]

Further things today:

> There's now a minimum number of cities equal to the map size - so a 2x2 map has min 2 cities, a 3x3 has min 3, and so on.
> I've started working on character permanence - basically a log of where characters go when they're not "active" (in a party or ruling a city), so you can get the same character back for a different quest later etc. So far this has only been implemented with nobles who you escort between cities - you can now find the same nobles again for escort missions later in the game - but this system will be expanded to various other parts of the game over time.

[Jubal]

The game now limits the number of scholar escort missions you can have at any one time, because it was getting super lucrative to just load up and have about twenty of them following you and run between cities.

I've got two and two half major planned pathways and I don't know what to focus more on:

> Path 1 is character development: making it more possible for characters to switch between roles so you can build up rivalries and watch other characters rise and fall in their fortunes, adding more life and sidequests to companions, etc.
> Path 2 is quest development: adding more and more varied quests as you go through the game, making your storylines more interesting. This would also go with adding more search results and enemy types.
> Path Kinda-3 (because it's a much smaller area) is trade, and getting trading working properly as a bit of a minigame for the player so if you're smart you can make money shuttling stuff around.
> Path Kinda-4 is going back to the manuscripts more and redoubling my efforts to milk stuff out of those, mostly adding extra enemy types, more graphical variation, etc.

I'm not sure which the game is lacking more - feedback very appreciated on which you guys think would be more important!

[Jubal]

New encounter added - finding a ruined cart in grasslands. There are various possibilities if you search the wreckage. One of these is a new quest, where you find a mysterious parchment and have to go and find someone to decipher it, which may in turn lead to other opportunities...

[Jubal]

Today's been all about morale - more possibilities to both lose and gain it. You can now get caught in storms which damage morale, and unit wipeouts in battle give specific further morale hits. On the other hand tavern stays can boost morale and can also produce a new "buy the men a drink?" events which can further improve morale. There's now a cap on the morale stat, and if you hit it then all your troops can get an XP bonus or may vote to give you some extra money.

[Jubal]

So, big overhaul this weekend: I implemented most of the character permanence stuff. This doesn't make a huuuuge initial visible difference to the game, but does have several important results:

• City leaders can now lead their armies to battle (and won't be at home to give you quests if they do so).
• You can promote companion characters to lead their home city in some cases. All characters now have a home city, usually the one where you found them.
• You will sometimes see characters in different capacities: ex-city leaders can turn up as escort quests, and characters you met for escort quests can get elected/appointed as city leaders

I'm a bit worried this has been a lot of work for minimal gain, but I'm hoping this will also give me a better basis for any other added complexity in character interactions that I want to give.

[Manic Arts]

I request a copy of this bad boi PLZ sir!

Don't have much free time, but when I'll do, I'll make sure to put your project through its paces

[Jubal]

Great - I should fiiiinally be getting a new version out shortly

Today I managed the first decent block of work the game has had in a while, mostly on graphics (ironically for a game with so little graphical content) the three different types of companion NPC and two main escort mission units (scholar and noble) now all have a small variety of visual options to make things look a little less samey.

Also, scholars now have character permanence like nobles, the mysterious parchment quest now has an ending, and I've started on putting in some dialogue and things triggered by characters' opinions and traits. 

[Ierne]

I really like all of these ideas, especially allowing NPCs to change role. I feel that's going to give a good sense of the world developing, and having its own internal logic.

The cart-and-mysterious-parchnent quest sounds really interesting, and trading could be fun too, especially if there's an element of risk, ie to loose more than you make.
There could even be trading based quests, eg to travel to get rare commodities, with the possibility to make city rulers into enemies by getting resources they want (or into allies by trading on their behalf).

[Jubal]

Today's been a fairly solid day of work on this - lots of small things added/fixed, especially adding more practical effects that result from companion traits. Eventually there will probably be tons of these, but having a few as a start is good. Also a whole new quest has been added, an assassination mission that only gets given to you by city leaders with ruthless, iron fisted, or conniving character traits.

[Jubal]

Another solid day of work and 007 is compiled and ready!

There's now some alternative battle background graphics for different terrains, character traits affect elections, more flavour text added, more character-related boosts, etc.

007 has mostly been a very character heavy update: 008 will either focus on quests primarily, or on adding new unit types, abilities and search results. Not sure which the game needs more. I'm sort of interested in adding a trade sub-game as mentioned above, and in adding a load more options for holding court (allowing you to e.g. invest money in a city), but I'm not sure if the latter would be interesting enough that I should prioritise it. Expect more terrain related effects/tweaks, and a change to the siege system so the game requires you to wait a certain number of weeks before attacking a city, as a way to slow the lategame and force the player to not take on tons more troops than they can manage and just blitz the map before desertions set in.

[Tusky]

Hey! Could I get a James Bond version too? I have little bits of time so can have a poke around for you if poss.

Not sure which the game needs more. I'm sort of interested in adding a trade sub-game as mentioned above, and in adding a load more options for holding court (allowing you to e.g. invest money in a city), but I'm not sure if the latter would be interesting enough that I should prioritise it.

My 2 cents are that something like quests will give people something to keep them busy - which is better for people that are starting with the game or more of an idle player.
The holding court mechanic/s sounds like it will add loads of depth but perhaps once the player has played for a little bit and is invested in various things... But trading will definitely be a fun addition, and you can probably tie in the odd quest with it?