Nikhil Murthy's Syphilisation
Update v0.72 - 2023/11/26
v.0.700 - Camp Overhaul
- Degrowth options and occupations
- Buildings and improvements that add quiet and ones that add pollution.
- Project restructure to use the quest system.
- Expanded end-game menu
- Rework to the fabric economy and to factory mechanics.
- Spreading pollution and quiet.
- Rework to the foragers and inspirations to integrate the new quest system.
- Multipurpose city tiles and the ability for cities to absorb camps.
I also put in explicit colonies to generate eXploitation currencies. You can even convert the camps of dominated players to colonies for your own factories now. They pollute heavily though and regularly push for freedom. Remember to consider if the production is worth the unhappiness they cause.
There are a lot of rough edges at the moment. The pollution limits are too aggressive, the late game is too difficult, some explanations are out of date, the tech tree is overstuffed and there are a lot of parameters that could use some tweaking. I'll take some time to smooth them out and then put in the final major update; a rework of the combat systems.
Camp Update - 2023-10-22
Camps now have branching upgrades that you unlock through the tech tree. Buildings and wonders also have branching upgrades now.
Quests are now the vector for growth and favor for camps. Projects no longer directly give experience to camps, instead they add currency to the quests, allowing you to complete them that way. Foragers also can no longer be used to add experience to camps. Instead, you have to use them to complete quests as well. This is a pretty major nerf to them and makes combat units much more valuable for campaigns. They were degenerate before and this doesn't make them unviable, but it is much harder to use them effectively now. I have a large combat overhaul planned after the industry one is finished, so things will probably change even more then, but this works decently for now.
The next update is going to bring in some degrowth mechanics and to bring in wealth requiring poverty. There will also be some minor updates to projects and cities as part of that.
The parameters now are a bit off-kilter. I'm working on updating them for the new mechanics.
As always, please leave me any feedback you might have. This is a great time to tell if something doesn't work for you and to shape the game a bit.
Thanks,
Nikhil
Update - 2023/09/29
Update - 2023/09/17
v0.600 - Report Overhaul
This overhaul starts with the fact research system. You can still get facts through the research tech tree as before, but the random facts that you get through research has been collapsed into a single option. I've removed the subthemes of success, failure, hero, villain, beauty and modern. Instead, you choose the topics that you want to research and get facts on those topics.
When you get three facts that share a topic, you can combine them to form a view on that topic. Below, you can see three facts on The Siege of Sidney Street and later strikebreaking combining to form a single view. This concerns a gunfight between London authorities and two criminals and was the first time that the military had been called in to help with a police matter. Churchill, who was Home Secretary at the time, came under a lot of criticism at the time for thrusting himself in the spotlight. Arthur Balfour said at the time "He was, I understand, in military phrase, in what is known as the zone of fire—he and a photographer were both risking valuable lives. I understand what the photographer was doing, but what was the right hon. Gentleman doing?"
This mechanic becomes more interesting when it comes to situations like the one below, where I'm trying to put together a view on the UK in the 1940s and one of the available facts concerns Kipling sulking.
I know that Kipling was an active part of British politics for the entire time period that the game focuses on and was often talked about after it and so would be an effective thread with which to connect different topics, as I do below to connect the UK in the 40s and the UK in the 50s.
These connections are particularly important as they reduce the complexity of the report. A very complex report scores a lot less than a well-connected one and so is graded much lower. Thus, when playing, it's important to make sure that you only add something to the report if you think that you can make it fit. Of course, as with any group report, you might find that your coworkers' enthusiasm has them putting in things that you may then struggle to integrate and it may so happen that you come across a point yourself that you don't want to leave out.
Check the feature out and tell me what you think. I'm going to spend a little more time polishing this feature so if you have anything that you would like to see for it or for the report in general, this would be the perfect time for that. Of course, if you have something else in mind, I'm always happy to get feedback of any kind.
Syphilisation Update - 2023/08/14
There are lots of small fixes in this one. I've updated a lot of text to be clearer for new players and added more tutorial tips around the game. I've also added quite a few facts on Churchill, so playing that route should be much easier now. I reduced the bonus that a city gets from a camp by a small amount. I'm probably going to put in some more tweaks there soon. I also fixed a number of small crashes around the game.
The next update is going to overhaul the report mechanics. I haven't been happy with how it plays for a while now. I don't like the way that the report just gets stuffed full of facts and I don't really like the way that facts are unlocked right now either.
I'm very excited about this overhaul. I think it's going to take a mechanic that still feels a bit of a stub and make it into something that lets you engage much more meaningfully with the report that you make over the course of the game.
Update - 2023-07-21
Syphilisation Update - 2023/07/08 - Flow and Clarity
- The game now clearly explains camp growth and what caused it. This is key to understanding the favor system and keeping your citizens happy and so keeping control over regions.
- The home region now tends very strongly to the player. This makes sure that all of the players are able to do something productive throughout the game.
- The responsibility trigger now shows up even if you only have a single region. This just seemed clearer to me than requiring a second region for it.
- Inspecting preserves / cities is more descriptive now and tracks favor changes. You can also see current actions by inspecting the tile.
- Fixed quest state indicators.
- Relationship metrics are now visible when the game asks you to choose a response to another player. Conversation results now also show the metrics and other results clearly.
- Better detailed the tech level and the requirements to get to the next level.
- Bundled inspiration results together. This vastly reduces the amount of clicking in the late game.
- Notify the player of autonomous production from camps not directly under their control.
There are also a few minor bugfixes and quality of life updates. The AI should also be more productive now, especially when it comes to managing autonomous production.
Syphilisation v0.531 Update - 2023-06-17
- Integrated Virginia Cowles' history of Churchill.
- Revamped the first 10 turns of the game to make it easier to start playing.
- Added a little juice.
- Fixed some bugs and added some small feature upgrades.
This was a fairly minor update. There are just a number of small things that make the game flow better. Try it out and tell me what you think!