Work continues on the remainder of the ideology buildings. I'm hoping to get the whole system launched in a few weeks. After that I will start adding in unique decorations for each ideology (they're not vital for the system itself, so it can be done afterwards).
The treasury building is now finished. This is a liberal building that is geared at improving tax uptake. Like other ideology buildings, it will also boost surrounding zones. In this case commercial zones.
The museum of labour is also finished. This is an ideology building for ideologies to the left. It boosts residential zones and provides an increased culture output and also increases labour output slightly.
The devlogs have been a bit sporadic lately, but that should hopefully be fixed soon, as I'm getting a slightly more normal work load at work from now on.
Small fix
Hello!
I've updated the game to fix an issue with difficulty defaulting to sandbox if the difficulty slider is not touched when setting up a free roam game. Also, there was a collider issue in one of the new special block roads.
/ Nick
0.77 is live!
0.76 -> 0.77 - Scientist workers implemented. - Road, tram and grass variants added to slope block. - Minor optimizations in city load code and calculation and connectivity managers. - New happiness system. - New sanctuary building added.
- Fixed issue with placing trams on slanted blocks etc. - Fixed avenue road tile not being replaced when placing trams.
Added, but enabled later (when ideology system is finished) - Center of tradition. - Grand library - Great museum of history
Great Museum of History, new sanctuary type building and Grand Library building
Hello!
Missed the previous log, as I've been under a very heavy work load. As such, this update will also be quite short.
The upcoming version is underway and I will have the game updated later this week to add a couple of fixes - for example placing trams on sloped roads not working as intended and avenue roads not reverting to regular roads when trams are placed on them.
Primarily, I've continued work on ideology related buildings, and now only have a handfull left, which I should be able to finish up fairly soon. After that, I will move on with testing the ideology system in general and start finalizing the perks of each ideology.
A new sanctuary type building will be added in come next update. This one will provide more culture, but be slightly larger and cost a bit more. Overall it will add a bit of variety.
I will also be making a change to the happiness system a bit to accomodate for the implementation of the ideology system. Currently it is calculated from a bunch of individual variables such as tax rate, crime levels as a total and implemented policies. After the change, happiness will be based on the average local effects of crime, education etc. and then use policies as a multiplied factor.
The great museum of history is finished. This building will add entertainment in traditionally minded socities (conservatives) and boost upper class quarters.
The Grand Library is also finished. This building boosts education city-wide alongside the University of Liberal Philosophy in liberal minded socities.
Most of the ideology buildings provide both a local effect, such as boosting local education or culture, but also a citywide effect such as boosting labour output or similar. If an ideology building is placed and the city then converts to an ideology that doesn't support the building, the building will automatically convert to a historical site, boosting culture.
Grass, roads and trams for sloped blocks and center of tradition
Hello!
Xmas and new years came and went and work on the game is now back to normal.
I'm planning on getting the next version, 0.77, out the 24th of january. A lot of work at the moment is focused on the remaining ideology buildings, so I can get that system into the game. But I will get some other minor features added in as well.
Among them the grass, road and tram pieces for the 22,5 degree slope block.
I'll be updating some icons for clarity, especially those relating to mission objectives etc.
I'm doing another pass of optimizations, this time in the calculation as well as connectivity threads. There will also be some additional hints added into the building info, for example the population level required for a zone to grow.
The ideology building Center of Tradition is finished!
This building will boost culture in the city and locally, and boost upper class residential quarter buildings nearby.
0.76 is live!
Hello!
The year is coming to a close, and so the last update for the year is now live! There's been a lot of progress with the game over the year - some features I had planned to finish didn't make it, while other changes I had not planned for made it in instead. My goal for next year is to increase the dev pace a bit and finish up the remainder of todo-list (which is shrinking! Promise!)
0.76 is a fairly small update in terms of new items, but each set of quarters features 15 buildings, so it is quite time intense to make them.
With the upper class quarters now done, there is a set for each citizen tier - lower class, middle class and upper class.
I've found that this residential type is quite "powerful", in that they hold a lot of citizens for a fairly low cost. Because of this, I've decided they will be a special feature for different sets of ideologies, once the system is completely finished. So they can be unlocked using the 8 different ideologies.
Another thing I'm planning, is for there to be another worker type - scientists. These will be output from universities at the rate of 1 per 10 lower class workers, 1 per 5 middle class workers and 1 per 3 upper class workers. In other words, some workers will essentially be converted to the scientist class worker. The scientist class is then employed in certain high tech industry and certain special buildings, like the lab.
This is primarily to add a bit more depth into education systems in the game. That is, instead of just ensuring education coverage, universities essentially output labour resources that are essential for certain things to function.
This change will be in for the next update. On the subject of updates, I will be moving towards updating the game every three weeks (instead of two), since mostly, requests for certain features have been infrequent and some of the remaining items on the todo list are rather time consuming.
On the upcoming version (0.76)
Hello!
The holiday season is upon us, but work on the year's last update is still ongoing! 0.76 is expected to go live sometime around the middle of the week and will feature the full set of mansion textures:
Upper class citizens living in a mansion will provide additional tax income if wealth tax is enabled - if not they pay the regular upper class tax.
The remaining quarter type, upper class, is underway.
This is a sort of parisian style building that, like the lower class and middle class quarter, has 3 densities.
I'm hoping to get a bunch of other goodies in for the next update as my ordinary work is (almost) done for the year. :)
0.75 live in a bit!
Hello,
0.75 will be live in a bit, adding in some new stuff and fixing some bugs.
0.74 -> 0.75 - Added (yet another) block type (now it's the last one!). Matching roads etc. to come. - Night lighting for quarters added. - Mansions added. Some currently missing textures, but they be in soon :)
- Added redundancy if resolutions are not loaded properly.
- Fixed car movement on 45 degree road. - Fixed issue where placement on special blocks would be prioritised to non-flat surfaces. - Fixed incorrect difficulty settings on templates and campaign levels. - Fixed quarters not spawning vehicles. - Fixed campaign menu header title in main menu. - Fixed autoplaced road tiles in tunnels not adjusting to surrounding roads properly. - Fixed middle class quarter density 3 growth bug.
Mansions have been added. These are bigger residential lots for upper class citizens, they are costly to plop and have fairly high demands, but once fully implemented (which will be in 0.76), will be able to be used for wealth tax income etc.
I decided to add in 4 variations, but two are still untextured. It was better to do it this way, so that there is more variation even initially. The remaining textures will be in for the next version!.
A flatter type of slanted block has been added. I'm still working on the grass variation and roads to be placed on them.
Lighting has been added for the recently included quarter building types! The remaining upper class quarter is slated for 0.76.
Lastly, the change in difficulties recently made the difficulty level of the campaign levels and the templates skewed towards easy, this has now been fixed, as have a couple of other annoyances I've found.
0.74 is live!
Hello!
0.74 will be live in a bit and add in some new buildings and fix a few issues:
0.73 -> 0.74 - Lower class quarters density 2 and 3 added. - Middle class quarters density 1-3 added. - New block type added. - Sandbox mode added. Cities built in what was formerly the easy mode with infinite money, will no longer have infinite money, but will still be easier. Sandbox mode also unlocks all buildings. - Tweaked population count etc. for lower class quarters.
- Fixed being able to place roads over grass tiles on sloped blocks. - Fixed block end cap decoration not working on some of the special blocks. - Fixed not being able to build (for example grass) decorations on both the rounded and flat side of a special block at the same time. - Fixed not being able to place (for example grass) decorations on the rounded corner block. - Fixed grass tile (without trees) not saving properly. - Fixed missing sound for Quarters when clicked.
First off, the second and third density for the lower class quarter has been added in! There have also been some tweaks to the first density's values. I've also fixed the missing doorbell sound when placing the building or when clicking it.
The middle class quarters are now also in, density one through three! These won't house quite as many citizens as the lower class quarter buildings do, but also do not come with quite as many requirements for policing and fire department coverage etc.
A sandbox mode has been added! That means that the infinite money that was previously available in the easy mode is no more. If you had a city going in easy mode, you will have a tonne of cash, but it will no longer be infinite! Easy mode has a slightly better global economy and a more generous happiness calculation. There are also no disasters.
The sandbox mode has infinite money, and all buildings are unlocked from the start.
A new special block has been added - a 45 degree angled block. This is the last block type to be added before version 1 of the game. There is a small issue with traffic on the 45 degree angled road, but connections work properly otherwise.
I've also fixed some issues where grass tiles could not be placed properly on some of the special blocks. There are a few edge cases left to adress, but overall it should all work much better now.
More on quarters
Hello!
I've continued work on the new residential building type - quarters.
There's now a full three-density set for lower class citizens inspired by eastern european type module housing. The first density houses 80 people, the second 210 and the third 480. The third density is therefore almost equal to the third density for a 4x4 sized residential building. Given a size of 2x2 tiles, these can potentially house a lot of people. The downside is that they have a slightly higher resource use and require a lot of police and fire department coverage.
This week I will be moving on to the middle class quarter building. This will, however, not be quite as focused on packing in lots of citizens as the lower class one.
I'll also be adding in a last block type - a 45 degree angled piece with inner and outer corner pieces.
