Legends of Ellaria
Live Stream: Ellaria - World Management Part 3
Today, we are focusing on how to play Legends of Ellaria in its world view. This is our third and final stream of World Management. will explore how to develop your kingdom and how to expand it by conquering other areas.
The fourth stream will take place next Thursday, around the same time as today, and it will focus on the RTS/FPS gameplay.
Your feedback is very important to us so any questions, suggestions and feedback will be deeply appreciated. We hope to release the beta a few days after these streams so now is an ideal time to let us know what you think about Legends of Ellaria.
You can watch the full video here
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Live Stream: Ellaria - World Management Part 2
Today, we are focusing on how to play Legends of Ellaria in its world view. We will explore how to develop your kingdom and how to expand it by conquering other areas. The second stream will take place next Thursday, around the same time as today, and it will focus on the RTS/FPS gameplay.
Your feedback is very important to us so any questions, suggestions and feedback will be deeply appreciated. We hope to release the beta a few days after these streams so now is an ideal time to let us know what you think about Legends of Ellaria.
You can watch the full video here
[previewyoutube="Ot5JO072lvs;full"]
Ellaria - World Management Streaming - LIVE
We know you are wondering when you will be able to play our latest Beta. We still don’t have an exact date as we are not quite ready yet, but we have exciting news: we are planning to host two beta streams and the first one of them is running right now!
Today, we are focusing on how to play Legends of Ellaria in its world view. We will explore how to develop your kingdom and how to expand it by conquering other areas. The second stream will take place next Thursday, around the same time as today, and it will focus on the RTS/FPS gameplay.
Your feedback is very important to us so any questions, suggestions and feedback will be deeply appreciated. We hope to release the beta a few days after these streams so now is an ideal time to let us know what you think about Legends of Ellaria.
You can watch the full video here
[previewyoutube="EMI45x0nVKo;leftthumb"]
Ellaria - RTS advanced guide
In this week’s dev diary we wanted to go back to a topic we already visited a few weeks back: RTS combat. You might remember that we showed you a sneak peak of it, but considering we have worked on it over the past weeks, adding new features, we’d like to show you how it has evolved until now.
When you approach a battle in the world view, a button will pop-up offering you to join into combat. If you accept, you will enter the battlefield where you can choose between fighting in first-person camera or doing so in the real-time strategy mode. As you know, first-person combat will allow you to issue commands to your army to attack, defend, or follow you.
But let’s dig deeper into the RTS combat so you can gain an advantage in the battlefield. The first thing to note is that not all of your troops will enter the battlefield. Depending on the strength of your army and the enemy’s you will only get some of your troops and you might be able to use the rest of them as reinforcements later on (note that if your army is too small you will get all of your troops at once, but no reinforcements). So, if you attack a stronger army than yours, you will always find yourself in a weaker position than the enemy. In this case, it might be more responsible to go defensive to try to lose as few troops as possible while inflicting damage to your opponent. Note that the battle will end when one of the sides has lost more than 80% of their army.
To help you fight in RTS mode we have also implemented new features. Positioning is a key aspect in the battlefield so we will give you tools to select and move your troops in an efficient way. One of them is the ability to group your soldiers and bind keys so you can select them in a faster manner. For example, select a group of archers and click Ctrl + number and then click that number and you will be in control of that group. This might be useful to have different groups for your archers or your melee fighters.
Speaking of archers, positioning them will be important as they don’t fire on friendly troops. One way to deal great damage with them is by positioning them on a side of the battlefield, so they will have a clear line of view. If you set some melee fighters in a defensive formation in front of them you can set a trap for your enemy, that will fight a shield wall while receiving arrows from their sides.
Commands will also be important in RTS fights. We talked a little bit about this before, bet let us elaborate a bit more about how to do it in a battle. There will be three commands available to players: move, stop, and attack. The move command will move to a location, usually without attacking anything on the way. The stop command will tell the soldiers to stop moving and fight anything near them (though pressing the stop command twice will enter a "defend" mode, in which your soldiers will stop and stand their ground). And finally, the attack command will tell your soldiers to go to a location and fight anything on the way.
You will be able to issue multiple commands so you won’t have to be paying attention to every movement of your army. For example, if you need to outflank your enemy you can issue the following orders: go left, then go north, then attack move. Outflanking is an important maneuver in Legends of Ellaria. When a soldier is hit from behind, he receives double damage, so you should make sure that your soldiers are not attacked from multiple sides. There are easy ways to avoid this, such as selecting a dozen soldiers and tell them to go to a location. They will arrange themselves as a formation pointing to that location.
And that’s it for today. The size of your army, its position on the battlefield, and the commands you issue will be important features of RTS combats. We hope you have learned a little more about it in this week’s dev diary.
See you next week, Ellarians!
Ellaria - RPG/Strategy
Good day, Ellarians!
As you may remember, a few weeks ago we posted a dev diary that explored the combat system. You may recall that Legends of Ellaria is a unique blend of RPG and real-time strategy so each player can approach the game as they prefer. You can get your hands dirty fighting bosses or you may take a calmer perspective looking at combat from an aerial view like you may do in many RTS titles.
This philosophy also applies when considering how to embrace Ellaria’s world. You may choose between playing from a more role-playing perspective or you can focus on strategy, making big decisions, and letting everybody else do the job. It’s your call, but since these genres are very different from each other, we can't design a game where you can play with only one of the genres, and we can't force you to master both.
We think we have found an answer to that problem. And that answer is freedom, so players can have multiple ways of doing a task. For instance, there are four different ways to fight a battle. The most obvious is entering into the battlefield to fight in the first-person mode, using your weapon of choice or magic. But let’s pretend you have a sizable army with you: you can point at your enemy, issue commands, and then, simply stay back and enjoy the fight. If you are more into a strategic approach, you can switch to the Real-Time Strategy mode and issue multiple commands to your soldiers. This mode will give you an edge, as you'll be able to defend soldiers, chose the soldiers that will engage in the first wave, and adapt to the battlefield. And lastly, you can resolve the battle by letting your army fight for themselves. Not entering the battlefield is the way of the king, observing from afar and treating every battle as a single move in a larger strategic plan.
Choices will be present at any point in the game. Think for a minute about exploration. Your character might be entering a new location as part of the main story. Next, he or she will meet one of the villains. Do you want to fight with your well-built character? Or do you prefer to press F2 and let your elite troops handle that enemy? It is your choice.
One last thing we want to clarify: this approach not only sticks to battles. It actually can be used when performing any task. You can build a farm and manage it as a strategic location or you can go to that farm, perform quests, meet your fellow farmers, and gather extra food for your kingdom using farm equipment. In the end, you will be the one choosing how to live your life, either as a king or as a self-made hero.
Ellaria - World Generation
Good day, Ellarians!
Over the last two weeks, we took a tour of the world of Ellaria. First, we visited some of its most gorgeous landscapes and took a look at how the cities of its world will look like. But we also took our time showing indoor spaces such as houses, palaces or dungeons. This week we want to take a different look at Ellaria’s world and how the dev team has worked to make it procedurally generated so it always looks unique to our players.
Let’s start talking about the world map. Ellaria is huge and we wanted every region to have a unique flavor. How we managed to accomplish that? We have a set of map templates and a smart slot system that can fill that region with villagers, goblins, bandit camps, or other elements according to the faction that rules that area. This way, every location you visit will look different from the ones at other locations. This also means that you will find unique generated resources or enemies.
To make the world of Ellaria a unique place we had to design a system so each house was different from each other. We have worked on a system that changes its appearance on both the inside and the outside. Each house is connected to the biome it’s built, so when the map generates it, it also adds grass or flowers around it. Houses can have small, medium, or large sizes, and their insides are also procedurally generated. Each one has its own set of furniture and every piece of furniture also generates its items. For example, a bookshelf will have candlelights or books you can read. A cupboard will have cutlery and accessories that you can grab and trade in the market or the blacksmith to get some iron.
We have also worked to have unique dungeons in Ellaria’s world. They work similarly to our houses. We have a set of around 15 templates but each one of them generates different enemies, chests, and random resources so you won’t find two that look like the same. Speaking of resources, Ellaria is a good place to look and gather them. Resources can be useful if you want to trade them in the market and can also be used for other purposes, such as crafting weapons or armors. Lumber, gold, iron, stone, or food can be collected around Ellaria and you will have to find them at locations where they are supposed to be. So, look for stony structures to get stone or look for gold in bandit camps. You can also mine, chop, and farm to help boost your kingdom’s resources.
There’s one last item that we wanted to talk about today: rift stones. These magical stones are very rare, have great power, and give you very precious resources. You can trade them for gold, for research or to boost your kingdom’s production. But you can also use them to buy golems, activate portals, or craft special weapons. How you use their special power will be up to you… just remember to use it wisely!
That’s all for today. Ellaria’s world will be full of interesting places to discover and interact with, hidden caves, and interesting people to meet.
We hope you will be having as much fun exploring every corner of it as we are having while designing it!
Ellaria - Indoors
Good day Ellarians!
Last week, we took you on a short trip through the beautiful lands of Ellaria in our weekly dev blog, showing you how the landscapes and cities of the game will look in its full release version. This week though we wanted to finish this “sightseeing tour” by visiting some of the locations that you’ll be able to walk in: castles, palaces, but also humble houses or even caves. So let’s start with our “Ellarian Indoors Tour!”
The first set of images belong to the Ancients – the mighty race that once ruled over Ellaria and disappeared (no one really knows why or how) some time ago. They left behind impressive stone structures such as these ones… and who knows what kinds of treasures and artifacts could be found in them!
Castle are much more than stronghold of your kingdom, like stone guards for your frontiers and crossroads. But on top of that they are also your seats of power – and that comes with certain luxuries and beauties, for no proper king worth of his crown would live in a simple concrete hole!
Talking about holes in the stone… here you have some pictures from the very heart of Ellaria – natural caves where certain minerals and gems can be found.
Here you can see some other buildings you can visit in your travels: three peasant’s houses, a library, a mage’s tower and a tavern.
And last but not least… take a look at how beautiful your character’s house can look. These pictures are taken in the player’s residence as the sun sets over Ellaria.
That’s all for today and for our special tour through Ellaria! We hope these pictures have given you a sense of the scale of this world – both of its variety and size, but also of the quality you can expect from the full release version of the game… which, do not forget, will come very soon! Add Legends of Ellaria to your Wishlists and follow this page to stay tuned and don’t miss any future announcements. See you next week, Ellarians!
Ellaria - World gallery
Every Thursday for the last weeks we’ve been discussing with you details of Legends of Ellaria and, above all, the new features of the upcoming full release version. But, as much as we have described the different biomes, cities, settlements… we know that a picture is worth a thousand words. Without further ado, let’s take a look at this new gallery we’re releasing today for you!
Food is vital for the survival of your kingdom and armies. Here you are visiting one of your subject’s farm. You can even lend a hand with the harvest!
A makeshift tent out in the wilds.
A tavern (above) and some merchant’s houses (below).
A lush forest – who knows what kind of secrets live deep inside the darkest forests of Ellaria?
This is the priced riftstone, the most valuable resource of Ellaria!
One of the awe-inspiring structures left behind by the Ancients.
A humble human village.
Ellaria - The importance of city planning
In our last dev diary, we discussed how the economy of your kingdom will work in Legends of Ellaria – but we focused mostly on its macro economy, that is, the management of your kingdom at large. However, we did mention how cities contribute to your economy, and some of the actions you can take to improve them because there is a microeconomy side of things too. This week we're focusing on cities and how you manage them to make them the strong and powerful heart of your land.
You already know that towns share resources with your kingdom: that means that everything that each city produces goes to the kingdom coffers, so to speak, and in turn, every city can count on that "treasure" for its needs. You don't have to worry about how to move your gold or wood from one point to another. However, cities do have their own internal management. Every city has its manpower capabilities, which depends on how many houses you have built. You need that manpower in turn for building utility buildings such as barracks, markets, workshops, etc.
On the other hand, your kingdom has an upper management limit, and both houses and buildings draw from these management capabilities. Thus, you cannot spam housings to build as many buildings as you want, because then your kingdom would suffer undermanagement. There is a delicate balance to be found there: you just cannot build everything in every city, so you will have to "specialize" them and make them as efficient as possible if you want to get the most out of them and of your kingdom economic potential.
And there is quite a bit of variety when it comes to building. The most basic thing you can build is houses and props (such as fences, fountains, etc.). There are places that increase happiness and give you revenue depending on the number of citizens you have, like taverns and markets. Then there are military buildings, such as blacksmiths and barracks, which allow you to recruit or upgrade your soldiers. You can also build places for gathering resources or upgrade some capabilities, like farms, granaries, or metallurgist. You have research buildings too, like libraries, to research new technologies that help you get more happiness, more tax efficiency... The more libraries you have, the faster your research goes!
There is a peculiar place of building you can create to help you manage another kingdom-wide statistic: happiness. If you recall previous dev blogs, unhappiness leads to a decrease in general efficiency and can cause problems like bandits roaming your lands. You can put buildings and props in your cities to increase happiness: gardens, fountains, and some other buildings. Since happiness is a kingdom stat, you can devote one or several towns to increasing the overall happiness of a kingdom while other towns focus on construction.
As it happens with every other gameplay feature of Legends of Ellaria, you can manage your city and build new places both in the first- and third-person view. In the world view, you can choose a house or building, just click +, and have it put in place automatically. But if you want to design and customize your town by yourself, creating your own districts and putting props in place, you can enter the Build menu from inside the town during the first person to RTS menu. In this menu, you can position your houses wherever you want, just as long as nothing obscures it.
And since you're at it going around your city, you can stop a minute to chat with your citizens! You can have a basic conversation with your subjects, and even help them with their daily choirs to increase their overall trust in you as a king. You can buy and sell items at vendors like the market, tavern, blacksmith, and other locations, "borrow" (ahem) household items from houses, and smelt stuff at the blacksmith to get ore. You can also talk to the librarian and take quests to help him find ancient devices, which will increase your research capabilities.
As you can see, cities in Legends of Ellaria are a thriving, living place that you can customize to make it really your own places.
Remember that Legends of Ellaria is nearing its full release, so don't forget to Wishlist the game and Follow it here on Steam so as not to miss anything – and see you next week in the next entry of our dev blog!
Ellaria - Economy
We are back at our weekly dev blog, where we are showing you more details about the upcoming full release version of Legends of Ellaria. In the past, we have discussed a few times how in Ellaria you are not only a hero yourself but also the ruler of a kingdom. And it doesn't matter how fantastic a setting is, there is something that all rulers have to take care of: the economy of their kingdoms. Today we're discussing how the economy works in Legends of Ellaria!
Even though the economy of this game is not as complex as it can be in a 4X game, it plays an important role in your story. Your management of your kingdom affects its general happiness, which in turn affects its productivity. Military victories, good management, certain world events and completing quests raise happiness. A bad economy management, overbuilding, crime rates and unhappiness will reduce your income and productivity.
If that happens, it's a slippery slope. If you can't pay your troops, your soldiers will desert you; if you don't pay the upkeep costs of your buildings, they will stop working. If you don't produce goods and food, more soldiers and people will desert you, it will raise unhappiness in your kingdom, which in turn will lower your overall production… You see where this leads.
Does that mean that you will have to go through complex economic planning to play Legends of Ellaria? Not really: you can play as an adventurer/conqueror king à la Richard Lionheart and ignore most of your kingdom management. You'll have to invest a minimum effort in building some buildings and defending your kingdom, mind you – but the minimum kingdom management is provided through quests and is quite easy to understand. The goal of the game is not to build and manage an empire.
However, if you do increase your economy and develop an empire, you'll have a strong army by your side and more tricks up your sleeve, since you will have money to spend in researching, items, etc. Take libraries, for instance. If you can build one and spend time researching, you can discover more advanced buildings and increase your tax efficiency and resource production. And with the surplus that will get you eventually, you can get bigger armies and arm them to the teeth…
There are four types of resources: gold, food, manpower, and raw materials. You produce food mostly in your farms, and your citizens and armies will need it for obvious reasons. Raw materials (wood, stone and iron) are produced through specific buildings such as lumberjacks and mines. You need some gold for the upkeep costs of your kingdom, and you can use your surplus income to build more buildings, raise armies and hire mercenaries. And lastly, the more manpower you have, the more taxes you can collect and the bigger the army you can hire.
So, what can you do to produce gold? This resource is generated by taxing your citizens and through trade buildings. The more cities, people and buildings you control, the more citizens you have and the more taxes you can collect. You do decide the tax level and manage its gathering, though – if taxes are too high, your people will get angry, their production will be reduced and they may even cause unrest.
The tax efficiency is also affected by the level of research in tax gathering, your kingdom management level, and crime rate. So, if you have built too many houses, but without the infrastructure needed to support them, your tax gathering may stay the same. On top of that, some special buildings like gold mines and taverns can generate revenue without taxation. You can also sell your surplus resources in the market, which means that you can create a trade-based economy if your kingdom is efficient enough to gather a certain resource.
Apart from building, you can use your gold to found new villages and strongholds that will expand your territory and defend key positions. You can also buy epic magic items, and most importantly, raise armies for your military exploits. If you also invest in research and military buildings, you can train a strong army, but if you'd like to skip that, you can hire mercenaries – they cost more money and have a higher upkeep, but they don't lower your manpower, so you can hire as many as you want!
This is a brief overview of how the economy works in Legends of Ellaria. As you can see, it's not something we force more adventure-oriented players to go through – but those willing to manage their kingdom and make it prosper will have even more options and possibilities in their hands.
That's all for today, see you next week, Ellarians!