Devlog #17: Desirability, Safety, Castle and More!
Hello everyone and welcome back to Devlog’s! Today we present you with Devlog #17 and news from the team. We know it’s been a while since the last Devlog but now is a perfect time to update you all on the current progress of upcoming updates and what we have been working on.
First we would like to take a moment to thank everyone for their feedback on the recent updates. There have been a lot of changes to the game which we have been happy to see very positive feedback for. We are aware of some needed quality of life (QOL) improvements highlighted by the community, such as the sub-building flow which we are working on improving for the next update. Please do keep your feedback coming as it helps us improve the game as we continue development.
Check out this magnificent Monastery scene from Discord user Tizzie
Fall Plan
With the now expanded team, we are working on multiple updates concurrently. These are namely the upcoming 1.9.6 update which focuses on Housing Desirability & Beautification, the new Safety system and the Kingdom update. Let’s take a closer look at what we have been working on…
Though not a major update, calling it a minor update doesn’t do it justice. Update 1.9.6 brings some significant changes that will pave the way for the Kingdom update. More on the Kingdom update in a moment.
The upcoming 1.9.6 update will bring a change to the Desirability system. Where currently houses will be allowed to upgrade if a housing area is desirable enough based on a single factor, with the new system houses now have different requirements in order to upgrade to the next tier. Essentially, Beautification will be an additional and separate factor when it comes to housing upgrades.
With the new system, houses will only upgrade from low to medium quality if all of the following criteria are met:
Desirable neighborhood - Build away from undesirable buildings
Beautification - Build within a Beautification area
At least one villager of Commoner status or higher looking for medium-quality housing
Note: Removing a house requirement will eventually result in the house being downgraded or its occupant moving away.
These changes will allow you to have better control over where you wish housing to upgrade as well as potentially downgrade housing.
Desirable Neighborhoods
Houses need to be built in pleasant neighborhoods, away from noise, bad smells and grime and hence undesirable environments. Some buildings will now have a clearly defined undesirable area based on the building’s footprint. These will include buildings such as the Lumber Camp, Sawmill, Gold Smelter and all types of Quarries. Medium-quality housing needs to be outside of this undesirable area.
Beautification
Beautification is now becoming a Desirability factor in its own right. For houses to upgrade they must be in an area of Beautification, i.e. within a clearly defined Beautification area created by decorations or buildings that provide Beautification.
The range of the Beautification area will be based on a decoration’s Beautification value combined with its footprint. The overall Beautification area will increase if placed next to another similar area.
Information Layers
In order to accommodate the above changes we will be updating the visibility layers.
The Housing Desirability layer will now show residential areas, undesirable areas as well as any medium-quality housing areas.
A new Beautification layer will show Beautification areas, items supplying Beautification and housing affected by Beautification.
Other Improvements
Update 1.9.6 will also come with more QOL improvements to the game as a whole including an improved Monument experience with improved sub-building flow and a new dedicated Monument tab in the Build menu, and more. You can check out the full changelog on release.
The 1.9.6 update is very close to an experimental deployment, so keep an eye out for further announcements if you would like to try it out before its full public release on the main branch.
Also In The Pipeline…
As mentioned earlier, we are working on multiple updates concurrently, so what else is in the pipeline?
Safety System
The Safety system will be a new way to control Housing Density via Patrols and Fortifications. The system itself requires a number of changes to integrate it into the game and work is progressing well. We will bring you more news on this in a future communication.
Walls
The current system for walls has always been a temporary measure and we are now working on incorporating walls into the construction flow. Walls will be integrated into Monuments with their own construction costs and visual building steps.
Kingdom Update
The Kingdom update is also being worked on and it is going to be huge! We won’t go into too much detail here but progress on this update is now well under way. The new Castle Monument is under construction (hype!) as well as a new system to create Companies and Battalions to send your Army off to war. Stay tuned for more news but we will leave you with this teaser…
Don't forget to follow us on social media to keep up-to-date with future developments, teasers and more!
Patch 1.9.5.2 Is Now Available!
Hello everyone!
Patch 1.9.5.2 is now available.
This patch focuses on fixing our most commonly reported crash. Here are the details:
Update
Localization
Fix
Creating a sub-building while having the parent building part selected crashed the game
Thank you and have a great day!
Patch 1.9.5.1 Is Now Available!
Greetings everyone!
Patch 1.9.5.1 is now available. Here’s what’s included:
Improvements
Guest needs are now fulfilled from sources close to Hospitiums (lodging) instead of sources related to their current position
Important narrative panels from specific envoys will now be triggered even if the visit delay is over
Job auto-assignment now considers villagers who lost their workplace
The Service Counter is now listed as such in the Tavern overview, instead of being known as a Stall
Added deep-linking functionality for icons to specific Book pages or zones
Population: opens the Villager tab
Happiness: opens the Villager tab, sorted by Happiness (descending)
Unemployment: opens the Villager tab, sorted by Job status (descending with unemployed first)
Immigration: focuses on the Village Center
Update
Localization
Fixes
The rustic bench, polished (Monastery) couldn’t be used
The rustic gate, elevated (Monastery) had a misplaced and misaligned building zone
The modest buttress (Monastery) wasn’t facing the right direction
The modest roof texture (Monastery) wasn’t up-to-date
A part from the abbatial gallery, major (Monastery) wasn’t displayed correctly
Loading or reloading a game cancelled the progression (study) of a blueprint
Crash when confirming a building function change when it no longer exists
The Lush Garden masterpiece couldn’t be unlocked under specific circumstances
There was a visible gap from the construction steps of the passageway part (Monastery)
Other specific crashes
The Shrine masterpiece no longer boosted immigration
The Shrine masterpiece’s bonus effect did not match the one displayed
Building construction windows could be merged
Modding-specific
Delays were always considered in seconds even if they were set in days, which is no longer the case
GAME_ACTION_GIVE_RANDOM_RESOURCE now takes into account the Quantity field. Before, it always considered it to be 1
Simfest Festival: 25% OFF from July 20–24
Hi everyone.
We’re happy to announce our participation in this year’s Simfest festival!
This special event is a celebration of simulation games, highlighting a lot of interesting creations you may want to add to your collection.
As for us, we’re offering a 25% discount on Foundation for the duration of the festival, which ends on July 24.
Be sure to check out the official page for more details about the event and its participants.
Thanks, and have a great day!
The 1.9.5 Scalability Update Is Now Available!
Hello everyone and welcome to Update 1.9.5!
The main focus of this new version is the inclusion of a new, scalable system for quests and events. We are also introducing an important transport algorithm improvement, event snoozing, Hospitium pausing and villager portraits for all available jobs in the game. Without further ado, let’s get down to the details.
Scalable quests and events
Ever wished quest and event rewards would adjust according to your progression? With Update 1.9.5, we’re introducing scaling to Foundation: a new way to keep things engaging from the very beginnings of your village to the realization of a fully-fledged medieval wonder.
Here’s how it works: requirements and rewards associated with events or quests will now increase based on different progression tiers. For instance, a quest asking you to deliver wood would have a low resource objective early on and scale later—in tune with your Prosperity.
Here, tier 0 (floor) is available from the start, whilst the last tier is activated upon achieving a specific Prosperity threshold. The low, standard and high rewards are linked to negotiation opportunities with traders in this specific example.
Event Snoozing
Events now have snooze delays when a player dismisses them. Such delays are added on top of their recurrence factor, which have also been slightly reduced. You can expect snoozed events to add between 50-100% more days before they pop up again.
Hospitium Pausing
Update 1.9.5 also includes a new pause function for Hospitiums. When paused, such locations won’t welcome new guests anymore. Think of it as an added safety valve to better control your food supply as visitors tend to be quite hungry. You can resume Hospitium functionality—thus further guest waves—at any time.
Transport Algorithm Improvement
In addition to the three functions that have just been discussed, we took this opportunity to include our newest improvement with the transport algorithm. You may have noticed that previously, transporters would reserve specific amounts of resources before reaching their destination. The problem, however, was how this reserved quantity never adjusted to take into account fluctuations in availability.
From now on, transporters are able to dynamically adjust how many resources they carry before reaching their destination, all synced with workplaces. You will notice an immediate effect on productivity as transport becomes even more responsive.
New Villager Portraits
Our artists added villager portraits for every available job in the game. Before, villagers could have a mismatched portrait as we randomly picked one from the handful available. This will no longer be the case and should benefit the game’s coherence.
That’s it…for now!
We hope you enjoy these new features as we continue to work on the next milestones from our roadmap. You’re always welcome to share feedback here or on our official Discord server.
Changelog
New
Scalable quests and events
Event snoozing
Villager portraits for all available jobs
Update
Localization
Improvements
Newcomer notifications are now merged into a single, dynamic notification
Trade route: added a tooltip to the unlock button when the condition is fulfilled
The Hospitium sub-building now has a Pause button
Transporters dynamically adjust carried quantities according to availability fluctuations from workplaces
Foundation's Steam Summer Sale Is Here! 🌞
It's hard to believe that we're already halfway through 2023. Time sure flies! And what better way to celebrate summer season than to take a step back, relax and immerse yourself in Foundation!
Starting right now and until July 13, get 20% off our normal asking price. Discover for yourself all the buzz surrounding our map generator, try the newly added meat production chain, explore new tavern functions and much, much more.
Get a refreshing dose of medieval city-building and become part of an ever-growing community.
Experimental Branch Update: Transporter and Military Quests Fixes
Hi everyone!
The experimental branch has been updated to include two fixes:
Transporters sometimes brought more resources than needed to constructions sites
Military quests no longer yielded any rewards
We welcome all feedback from this version of the game either here or through our official Discord channel.
Thanks for your time and have fun!
Patch 1.9.4.9 Is Now Available!
Hello everyone!
Patch 1.9.4.9 has just been released.
Here are the details:
Fixes
Hosting The Bread Fair (Event): an additional debuff was applied on reload
Reloading the game while a fair was active increased the number of visitors
Today we are glad to announce three new features being added to the experimental branch: scalable quests, snoozing and Hospitium pausing.
Scalable Quests
As their name suggests, scalable quests modify conditions, objectives and rewards according to your game progression—following that of Prosperity, i.e. 5 tiers.
To give you a better idea of how scaling works, here’s a quick example from the Estate trader:
Here, tier 0 (floor) is available from the start, whilst the last tier is activated upon achieving a specific Prosperity threshold. The low, standard and high rewards are linked to negotiation opportunities with traders in this case.
Snoozing
Events now have snooze delays when a player dismisses them. Such delays are added on top of their recurrence factor, which have also been slightly reduced. You can expect snoozed events to add between 50-100% more days before they pop up again.
Hospitium Pausing
The experimental branch also includes a new pause function for Hospitiums. When paused, such locations won’t welcome new guests anymore. Think of it as an added safety valve to better control your food supply as visitors tend to be quite hungry. You can resume Hospitium functionality—thus further guest waves—at any time.
One More Thing: Transport Improvement
Lastly, we have included a tweak to our transport algorithm. From now on, transporters are able to dynamically adjust how many resources they carry before reaching their destination, all synced with workplaces. You will notice an immediate effect on productivity as transport becomes even more responsive.
Let’s try it out!
We hope you enjoy these new inclusions before they’re added to Foundation’s core! Feel free to share your feedback here or on our official Discord channel.
As a reminder, here's how to access the experimental branch:
Open Steam
Right-click on Foundation from your library
Click BETAS
Choose experimental_scalable_quests from the dropdown. This will initiate an update of your game files.
Launch the game
Patch 1.9.4.8 Is Now Available!
Hello Foundation community!
Patch 1.9.4.8 has just been released.
Here are the details:
Fixes
Replanted trees could block woodcutters’ pathing
Crash on load with the Treasury under specific conditions
Modding-specific
Crash with the Corn Farm mod when switching from grinded wheat to corn to make flour
Crash with the Guilds mod when switching a function from the Guild Hall
