Shadows of Forbidden Gods
Beyond V1.0
The first new addition is a new god, which is now available on the beta-branch. Its powers and mechanics are roughly playable, but need polishing and almost certainly bugfixing.
Going forward I'd like to avoid breaking mod compatibility as rarely as possible. There were a few issues even with V1.0, and I'd like to avoid repeatedly forcing mod creators to update their work. This may mean working towards one big release in October, rather than releasing this new god onto the main branch at the end of the month.
This god itself is quite a technically challenging one, which required a fair amount of changing stuff under the hood in the past few months. It involves games of many thousands of turns, letting players reset the world after each victory, and playing against a more powerful humanity which adapts to how the player has won in the past. Expect even more bugs than usual, as this infinite gameplay pushes the game's systems to their limits, past what they were initially intended to do.
Its gameplay mechanics build on this cyclic system, and it has the ability to curse families, then empower these curses by harming the family, in order to create powerful agents in the next cycle out of their descendents. It can also buff its current agents and harm heroes, making it quite an individual-focused god.
V1.0 Hotfix
This bugfix catches a couple of them, in a way which in testing lets people carry on past pre-crash saves.
Specifics:
-Fix gamebreaking bug, where a civil war could crash the game and prevent game progression
-Fix major bug where the "Kill the Chosen One's mentor" questline would break when selecting "spare" option
Version 1.0: Shadows of Forbidden Gods
The game has also expanded to include modding, and the community can now enjoy a variety of extremely high quality mods, covering new narrative events, entirely new gods with complex mechanics and new high quality art.
This community participation has gone beyond just the modding side of things. The gods themselves were based on ideas from the community in the very early days, leading to a variety of interesting perspectives on how a dark god could be, both from a narrative perspective and from a mechanical one. As well as this, players have stepped up and offered services such as the new style portraits by Brad which have been included and made the game better for everyone. Alongside these, a great many of the good ideas which have shaped the game over the Early Access period have come from the players. Youtubers have also been instrumental in getting players to discover the game, and been vastly more effective than my own attempts at marketing ever have. Lastly, but not least, the detailed bug reports have allowed a quick and painless process of patching issues as they arise, with players going above and beyond and submitting save games, steps to reproduce, screenshots and log files to let the problems get fixed as soon as possible. Everyone who has contributed, in whatever capacity, has my enduring gratitude, and has made the game what it is today.
Version 1.0 marks the end of the roadmap, and the end of the game's core mechanics being changed, but not the last update Shadows will receive. A new god is already being worked on, with the art being finished within the week, ready to go on the beta-branch in July, as well plans for a new agent with some mechanics I want to try out. There are no concrete plans for the future beyond that, but definitely some exciting ideas worth trying out.
Sadly not everything I'd hoped for could make it into the game. Translations are still not in, although not ruled out for a future update. Time is a finite resource, with only one full time developer, and some things took longer than hoped for, or caused more issues than anticipated. Human-aligned Divine Entities stand out as the worst design decision, which were cut because they simply weren't good. Maybe they'll return in a new form (ideas have been proposed and discussed, and seem good).
Overall, this whole process has gone way better than I expected, and better than I could have asked for.
As for the update Version 1.0 itself, it brings updates and buffs to the game's most deserving peoples: the humble orc. Granting them new ways to expand their territory a bit (including a new agent), and letting them build economic alliances with the Dark Empire (which has also been buffed). New victory screens have also been added for the harder-to-achieve victories, as rewards for the most dedicated players (Frozen world, Madness and Deep Ones).
Art for the new screens has been by https://rettroper.artstation.com/
While the various gods and holy orders have been brought to life by https://www.artstation.com/meganwong
Both of whom have been great to work with, and are responsible for giving the game its unique monsters and apocalypses
Thank you all for being here, it's been and hopefully will continue to be, amazing,
Yours, Bobby Two Hands
Update changes in detail:
Gameplay:
-Added new bonus god, as a fun alternate way to play with how powers work
-Added "The Shaman" an orc spellcaster which can create a geomantic locus
-Orcs can now "encroach" on human settlements, taking them over if the settlement's society goes to war with a third party
-Divine Entities removed
-Chosen One "redeem sovereign" motivation reduced
-Chosen One "build Alliance" motivation reduced
-Heroes' motivation to access item caches now depends on their contents
-Item caches now gain profile over time
-Gold cost of orc expansion reduced
-War length now increased somewhat if nations are far apart
-Added more mourning events, decreased frequency of existing ones to compensate
-Chosen One's motivation to warn national rulers specifically now depends on world panic
-"Aware hate Dark Empire" changed to the more thematic "Alliance hates Dark Empire" and applies only to The Alliance
-Dark Empire VP gain reduced 5.5 -> 3.5
-Warlords may now secure funding for the orcish hordes from The Dark Empire
-Wayfinder motivation to perform "find ruler" quest increased
-Hero motivation to perform "redeem ruler" quest increased for Alliance capital if using "Alliance is Vigilant" option
-Hero motivation to perform "drive back shadow" quest increased for Alliance capital if using "Alliance is Vigilant" option
-Unrest reducing party event probability reduced by 75%
-Nobles will only rebel from Dark Empire formation if they AND their settlement are below 90% shadow
-Influence gained by donating to Holy Orders now rounds up
Other:
-"organise the horde" challenge now chops down nearby trees and ruins the terrain a little bit, for cosmetic orc flair
-Trade route view made less dark to hopefully reduce disorientation
-Added "World Nations" panel to allow at-a-glance view of nations and their relative stats
-Added "Self" to the family view, so you can click and pan to the current focus
-Mods can now define custom configuration options, which can be changed by players from the main menu's mod config screen
-Message for a lost evil temple will now have a go-to for that temple's location
-Added turn log
-Added SHIFT and CTRL modifier keys to left click to help selecting units/locations
Bugfixes:
-Fixed incorrect probabilities in exploration event with razor wire
-Fixed political agitation not working
-Fixed Elves having double political agitation
-Ophanim's faith can't be removed by heir inheritance
-Fixed (again?) neutral evil creatures such as vampires, deep ones or drones causing menace when attacked by agents
-Deep Ones can't have Deep One children (or if they do, at the very least they can't inherit and become accepted and normal members of human society)
-Ophanim theocracy take-over now works properly when performed on non-capital locations
-Dark Empire outposts will now start enshadowed
-Fixed The Dissident's Security change from "Sympathisers" trait
-Fixed Orchish Encroachment doubly-applying and not being infiltrated
-Fixed game options not working on some monitor resolutions
-Armies no longer wait to join battles which they can't find a side for (due to being at war with both sides)
-Agent portraits fixed in person finder view
-Improved clickability of locations
-Nations will no longer move capitals away from Elven cities as soon as they encompass a human city
Bugfix: Political Instability not working
Hotfix: Stop agents all being infected with fungal plague
Victory Point changes, Madness Victory Art and drag-drop UI for item trading
UI also gets a bit of polish, with drag-and-dropping being added to item trading. Hopefully can make it to minion rearrangement pre-combat in the next patch.
Changes in detail:
Gameplay:
-Victory for insanity buffed: The SUM of both insanity victory point gain forms (enshadowed and not) now must be your highest contribution (so they don't work against each other). Buffed to 3 per ruler/hero and 5 per ruler/hero
-Lay low buffed, now gives a full 1 point of menace reduction in cities (going up to 3 if enshadowed+infiltrated) and 2 in non-human settlements (going up to 4 if infiltrated). Profile reduction now always equal to menace reduction
-Dissident's "A Better Choice" now works on Elves, and in fact instantly sets the sovereign. Requires no sovereign to exist (presumably due to assassination or death in battle)
-Elven Arrogance's gain from menace and world panic is reduced based on ruler shadow (to zero at 100% shadow)
-Heroes will spend longer before disrupting again
-Heroes will now disrupt one another exploring high allure ruins (especially if they have personal grudges)
-Rebalance Enshadowment Victory Points to allow specilist victory types (for achievements and cool end game art). VP from Enshadowed % changed to "Enshadowed % outside of Dark Empire". Dark Empire VP gained buffed (3 -> 5.5) to maintain the same point total. Should allow (hopefully) people to reduce the 'Enshadowed population %' VP contribution, by putting some population into a Dark Empire, and so allow a different source to be the top scoring one at the end.
-Elves will now call themselves "Dark Elves" if they form the Dark Empire (new saves only)
-Elven preference for humans (both positive and negative) majorily reduced in frequency
-Holy Order prophecy item "from a village" will no longer appear, as heroes don't spawn in villages
Other:
-Implemented drag-and-drop for item trading
-Victory screen for madness added
Bugfixes:
-Fixed graphical bug where selected unit wasn't displaying in masked view
-Orcish armies should no longer join humans in battle when fighting their orcish kin, nor should humans join forces with orcs (unless they are dark empire or ophanim theocracies).
-Fixed bug in lay low, where it would occasionally apply on the first turn
-Fixed UI issues with lay low challenge
-Fixed unexpected behaviour with regards to dissident's "A better choice" (as described above)
-Mammon's smuggling power now works properly when at max range
-Fixed bug in which heroes would get stuck waiting to explore high-allure ruins
-Fixed bug where clicking "re-enable all suppressed messages" without a game started would throw an exception
-Elves can now employ their national action "Join Dark Empire" again, following a bug disabling it
-Elves no longer incorrectly believe themselves to be human when they are born, so won't all have a major obsession with elves as they will no longer briefly believe they are elves born into human society
-Shadows created by the snake god can no longer have children
-Witches "Arbormancy" motivation fixed to prevent them entering an obsessive cycle
-Fixed rarity of item dropped in ruins exploration event
-Orcs should no longer auto-expand into wonders they can't hold due to 0% habitability
-Mammon's "Gift from the mountain" now only works on agents
-Dissident now correctly uses both command and intrigue in the seperatism power
-Rulers bringing a new faith to a location remove temples of oppositing faiths
-The Entrance's random teleportation can't teleport you to your own location any more
New Tutorial Added, along with Bugfixes
Along with this, bugfixes for the bugs:
Gameplay:
Other:
-New tutorial added
Bugfixes:
-Reworded achievement "28 turns later"
-"Assign guard" power of the Insect God can no longer assign a guard to an enemy hero
-"Assign Guard's" ability to exceed normal command limit added to description
-When drones gather population from a city with 100% infection they won't reduce infection (which would correspond to somehow curing some of the population) (scales with population until previous behaviour at 0% infection)
-Infected Agent starting XP changed to 127
-Fixed typo in Haemophage power
-Added description to Insect God's "Infection" trait
-Cordyceps Insect God can no longer infect elves
-Drones no longer have preferences
-Attacking drones no longer has menace/profile/infamy gain associated
-Drones now require 1% infect populace at least to begin harvesting them
-Drones will no longer path through armies when trying to get home
Bundle and Bugfixes
Shadows may be about utterly obliterating humanity, but hopefully we as a community can try to make the world a better place whenever we get the chance, esepecially in these turbulent times.
Alongside this, a critical bug has been fixed: The game was losing progress when people were winning as Iastur, requiring them to then re-win as She Who Will Feast. This should be fixed, with the game now loading the achievements file from your saved game folder to check a second time (the issue was the settings.txt file being corrupted). This means that lost progress should, in principle (and in testing on my machine), be restored, without you needing to get another snake win.
Patchnotes in detail:
Gameplay:
-Expell Deep Ones can't be used in locations with Abyssal Faith, religious fish won't leave their temples
Other:
-Re-added title theme to main menu
Bugfixes:
-Fixed major bug with file loading, which caused tutorial to fail to load sometimes
-Fixed game losing progress sometimes, progress hopefully restored
-Fixed description of Mammon's "Wealth Creator" trait
-Vinerva's "Black Forest" power can't be infinitely cast any more
-Fixed Crusader Faith behaviour and description to match. Can now be used on any city of the faith, but only those following the faith
-Using the "repeat challenge" now correctly marks challenges as claimed by your agents, preventing double-usage
-Elven arrogance still applies even when the elven leader is out of their city
Bugfix: Fewer evil trees, fewer lunatics murdering fishmen
-Appoint state religion AI no longer assigns a "religion" tag to each religion which would be removed
-Madness outcomes now can't kill evil things, such as vampires or your own agents, and can't kill targets more than 5 links away
Other:
Bugfixes:
-Fixed UI scaling issue in windowed mode
-Fixed Ruins exploration only producing the Vinerva outcome
-Fixed bug where national action to join the Alliance would process international relationship incorrectly
Yet more bugfixing
In detail:
Gameplay:
-Dissendent "seperatism" distance requirement reduced to 5
-Black Forest can no longer be cast on 100% enshadowed rulers
Other:
-Added text to flavour and descriptions for Insect God
Bugfixes:
-Dissident seperatism power now can't be used on useless locations (non-cities)
-Agents will no longer take actions due to insanity
-Improved Vinerva ruins exploration, giving number of seeds remaining
-Fixed game crashing on defeat
-You can now rob Acolytes
-Fixed bug in "Temptation of Eternity" which prevented it being used if the ruler had 100% shadow
-Fixed description of outcome of plague ships