Shadows of Forbidden Gods
Hotfix to Hotfix and UI change
New UI element also added, an international view, which allows you to view the relationships of your selected society, including leader personal preferences and alliance status.
Hotfix: Naming (Expanded forbidden word culling)
It also brings with it some work-in-progress changes which improve readability of the generated names, and assign different name-gen Markov models to different continents. As such, people and cities from a given landmass will share a consistent naming pattern, to add some flavour to the world. Current word models are English, French and Chinese. German was tried, but proved less successful, although some changes to the probability biasing may allow German-sounding names to be included in the near future.
Version 0.8: Orcs
They are also expanded in terms of what they can do and where they can do it. Hordes are now far more player-built, and have a variety of specialist camps you can expand. Your mages can teach magic to orcs, your warlords can bring back trophies of slain manticores to convince goblins to build a menagerie which sells a variety of unusual minions, or warlords can expand across the ocean on stolen human ships.
Certain changes are made directly to address issues with how orcs used to behave. You are now more able to control them, preventing them from attacking targets you don't want them to. While holding the banner taken from a fallen orc upstart you can now lead them to war, letting you deliberately target them, as opposed to simply hoping they would opportunistically attack weakened foes on their doorstep. Finally, the orc's colonisation ability allows you to take over human city ruins or settle distant shores. This should provide a far smoother gameplay experience for the fans of the classic fantasy evil species.
Humanity, in return, has been given the first parts of its own upcoming population mechanics. Human nations can now start to recolonise lost territory, rebuilding into locations they've lost or which have been made habitable by geomancy or the destruction of hostile social groups. The people themselves are also more dynamic, and will try to flee locations of war or famine to seek shelter in safer locations. Both these mechanics will be expanded in the future, which will lead to emergent gameplay opportunities both in the normal game, and in the planned 'endless mode'. The ultimate goal is for the world to be a living thing, able to rebuild from your devastation and recreate a new human civilisation from just a few scattered survivors.
The UI in general has been improved somewhat, with the introduction of windowed mode, TAB to switch tabs on the right-hand panels, small challenge view option, click to jump to hero motivation location, and a few other changes. More UI work is planned imminently, which will hopefully streamline the game experience yet further.
Changes in detail:
Gameplay:
-Battles can now have 'battle effects' which amplify or harm the side they are applied to
-Orcs now spawn 'orc upstarts' who lead raids against humans. Killing them gives you a banner you can use to call the orcs to war, and suppresses their independent action
-Orc armies now spawn from any fortress, but only drawn from their location and neighbouring orcish industry instead of horde-wide
-Orc camps can be turned into orc fortresses by agents
-Orc camps can be turned into orc mage camps by mage agents. These spawn orc spellweavers, who buff their army's side in battle
-Orc camps can be turned into menageries by bringing a manticore trophy
-Manticores added as wandering monsters for humans to fight
-Reduced secret requirements for blood magic
-Added battle effect 'geomantic support' for mages on both sides to buff their forces
-Elder Tomb now has a very strong preference towards spawning next to a human society
-Buffed human motivation to study magic, turning clues into mastery
-Slowed down army vs army combat by reducing damage dealt
-Taunting lure grows in motivation over time (still decays after same time)
-Non-mage heroes cannot study arcane secrets at all (heroes only)
-'Rob' action can now only be performed on good heroes, not on non-humans such as Deep Ones or Orcs
-Hero escorts now automatically join at the start of the battle
-The Harvester's max charge on his howl now set to effectively infinity
-The Harvester now steals half the XP he drains while following a hero
-'Death of the Sun' nerfed. Temperature decrease reduced by 32%. Menace gain increased from 30 to 35
-Danger reworked. Each point only has a 50% chance of being consumed when it deals damage, no longer blocked by defence. Some quests have inherent danger which is always present (combat banditry, devastate orc industry)
-Survivor gains new starting traits related to magic channelling
-Nerf Malign Catch. Madness 1.5%/turn -> 1%, menace 5 ->8, complexity 35 -> 40, shadow 0.2%/turn -> 0.15%/turn
-Malign Catch can now allow you to start Deep One Cults in the locations it is present in
-Orc Warlords no longer require you to infiltrate before you can recruit them
-Goblins no longer require you to infiltrate to recruit them, but now cost 10 gold
-Orcs hordes can now be challenged to single combat, automatically spawning an orc upstart who will attack your agent
-Lay low changed to be an 'indefinite' challenge, will continue until both menace and profile are at their minimums, and will alert when one but not both hits the min
-Orc Spelltwisters can be recruited as minions from the orc spelltwister camp
-Webspinner minion available in menagerie, can place webs which disrupt heroes who walk over them
-Ghasts now add shadow per turn, and gain menace/profile per turn, while performing their challenge, and stop when they reach 100% to reduce wasted turns (especially due to multiple ghasts)
-Armies from locations which have been taken over by Ophanim no longer damage high-menace units
-Deep Ones buffed. Accelerated maturation bonus from 2% to 3%
-Deep Ones no longer try to move to start or enhance a cult in a location with an army which would deal damage to them due to menace
-Split 'Access Vault' into two challenges, "Rob from Ruler" which can take arbitrary amounts of gold, and "Subtle Thievery" which can only take 35 gold, but generates far less menace and has lower complexity. Cooldowns removed.
-Buff ogre: HP 8 -> 10. Command cost 4 -> 3, gave trait 'menacing' which adds 10 menace to the owner
-Added razor-rat minion to menagerie, which increases the danger of quests in cities
-Added crow minion to covens, which increases XP per turn and applies debuff to enemy armies in combat if its master is a commander
-Hexes devastated by volcanic effects will heal over time and return to normal terrain
-Humans can form outposts and build them into new locations, allowing humanity to recolonise lost areas
-Human population will flee famine and war to safer locations, offsetting climate damage and possibly populating new colonies
-Rulers will only place wards when some shadow exists on the map, to reduce initial message spam
-Agents now take three turns to drop a cache, to prevent them from dropping all their loot just before dying
-Heroes can now spawn with minions when world panic is high
Other:
-Initial functionality for switching between fullscreen and windowed mode added
-Windowed mode can be rescaled by holding CTRL and scrolling the mouse wheel
-Added glow around shadow created by 'split shadow' to make it more obvious when it is active/inactive as an agent
-TAB (rebindable) now switches between tabs in the location view on the right
-Shadow flow between locations now available as numbers in the hover-over text, as well as statements as to which locations spread shadow to their neighbours
-Clicking on an item in the hero motivation viewer pans you to the location of that quest/unit
-One decimal place added to the motivations/modifiers details view
-Messages referring to a location now have an image of the location
-Character stats are now visible when selecting which agent to spawn
-Agent roster on the left now moves to the right, to remain visible when a location or unit is selected
-Added a couple of 'victory is imminent' events, to make victory come as less of a surprise
-Added 'small challenge icons' to game options, to allow far more icons to be displayed at one time
-Wards now have faded icons on map view
Bugfix:
-Split shadow now properly inherits the level of the character they are cloned from
-Cloud Senses now correctly cannot be used on the Chosen One
-Bugfix relating to bodyguard agent combat
-Split shadow now cycled through properly using Q/E agent switching keys
-Courtier's Cause Scandal now displays the victim correctly
-Military units can't trigger movement events (such as visiting the Primal Font)
-Magical knowledge now consumed properly, previously wrong amount of secrets were removed from arcane knowledge by studying magic
-Ravenous dead aren't able to heal to maxHP each turn while in combat
-Fixed Vinerva's Dragonflower tooltip
-Bugfix to Blood Magic: Wasting Soul, now challenge progresses properly
-Fixed Deep Ones' fund/empower challenge tooltips
-Heroes will no longer try to warn the Dark Empire or Ophanim controlled areas
-Deep Ones can't receive gifts of power if you have no power
-Deep Ones won't occasionally have -25 profile or menace
-Agents cannot pick an infinite number of traits on level up
-The hero in the first tutorial no longer has preferences, to avoid pacifists breaking the tutorial
-Agents now level up when they reach the target XP, not when they go past it (greater than or equals to, instead of greater than)
-Agents can't continue their challenges if they engage in combat and retreat to a new location
-Heroes will no longer hate agents for doing 0 menace challenges
-Bugfix relating to formation of Alliance crashing game if a ruler was dead
-Necromancy spells can now be cast in empty locations properly
-You can no longer attack heroes who are in combat
-Armies disengaging from combat now doesn't risk them being involved in two combats at once
-Rulers who abdicate while under call of the abyss will now feel the call as a hero, rather than being unexpectedly cured
UI Improvements
Gameplay:
-Increase menace gained from 'cultivate disease' from 5 to 10, increased complexity from 20 to 25
Other:
-New Mammon art
-Cities now named 'towns' if they only have two points of interest, to help identifying easier-to-infltrate locations
-If a social group (orcs for example) has menace its locations will display that menace
-Increased unit distance from location on the map, and slightly increased their click-ability
-Can now change between viewing an agent's actions and the modifiers present in its location using either a button or TAB (rebindable) and switch back similarly, for fast inspection of present conditions
-Reduced size of challenges in right-hand side to allow another to be visible while selecting actions
-'Nurture' no longer has a warning, to reduce message spam. Nurture is deliberately intended to be weak and irrelevant, as it exists even if the player does not engage in the magical arms race
Version 0.7: Magic
I also recently did a game dev interview, discussing some of my thoughts about games. Read it here, if you're interested in my perspective on games in general and Shadows in particular:
https://sassygamers.com/game-dev-interview-bobby-two-hands/
Regarding magic, a core mechanic introduced is channelling. This involves a caster (either hero or agent) standing on a source of power to cast a powerful spell. The spell's power will depend on the power available in the location they are in, and the caster is vulnerable while casting. During a channelling, any mage on the planet can attack the channeller, by going to a geomantic locus (the source of geomantic power) and firing shards of obsidian across the sky towards the caster's location. To defend, the caster or an ally must create and maintain an arcane fortress, which will absorb incoming damage.
Casters can of course be physically attacked, so some changes to combat have been made. Heroes will attempt to guard key casters, such as the Chosen One or a mage trying to reforge the seals. These heroes must be killed before your agents can attack the caster directly. The order of combat has also been changed, so that minions' turns are resolved simultaneously, so the attacker's minions no longer have an advantage.
The aim for this is to allow multiple heroes and agents to be involved in both sides of the conflict, with the caster's allies keeping up physical and magical defences, while their enemies firing various magical projectiles or attacking them directly as a team.
Magic must also be researched, which often involves infiltrating libraries to gain access to their secrets, or performing magical research. Gold and time can fund research, at a library, but much darker avenues to knowledge exist. The Plague Doctor can conduct experiments on the plague victims to gain secrets for himself or his allies, and the souls of the dead can be exploited by any agent to see past the mortal world. A powerful mage is a considerable investment, and needs to be guarded against unnecessary risk, again an attempt at promoting team-work.
The three schools of magic (for this first update) are Geomancy, Death and Blood magic.
Geomancy allows the modification of the climate. The ultimate end-goal of this school for your agents is to freeze the entire world, reducing the temperature to the point where human life becomes impossible. It is also the school which human mages learn, allow them to defend against climate devastation by creating regions of high habitability. As the spell used to assault channellers at range, high level geomancers are also the counter to enemy mages. It is powered by geomantic loci, which are scattered across the maps in regions of high power, and it is at these places you can most easily create arcane fortresses to defend your casters. As well as freezing the world, it also allows you to devastate enemy city defences or cause volcanic eruptions.
Death Magic draws power from locations where there has been large amounts of death. Famines, plagues, war or volcanoes all create ready supplies of bodies and souls to exploit. It revolves around the creation of armies, minions or other allied creatures. Along with geomancy, it is also highly focused on channelling, and allows its own variant of arcane fortress. This school allows full zombie apocalypses, as armies of ravenous dead multiply by consuming death as they create it. It also has spells to create ghasts, which spread shadow automatically, or minions to defend your casters against both magical and physical attacks.
Blood Magic is the last school, and does not revolve around locations of power or channelling. Instead, blood magic involves items taken from individuals to allow very personal types of spells to be cast against them. It attacks heroes or rulers directly, or them and their families. It is more discrete than other magical mechanisms, so won't require your caster to create arcane fortresses, but will often create personal grudges, whereby individual heroes will stop and nothing to kill your caster for what they have done to them. Spells in this school allow you to interrupt heroes repeatedly to render them useless, to cripple entire families by reducing their XP gain, or to cause heroes and rulers to gain a hunger for human blood.
Alongside these, a new generic agent, the warlock, allows you to get started on any of these three schools, and The Survivor has become a level 2 Geomancer.
Ideally the magic system will receive a few more spells and improvements in the following updates, possibly even a full second update if the need seems to arise an sufficient cool ideas can be thought up.
Changes in detail are:
Gameplay:
-Magic added
-Iastur now has a new mid-game power which allows him to amplify a person's personality, so they act in extreme ways, if they are holding the tome
-Heroes now try to guard each other when performing major quests (primarily the Chosen One, but also mages casting 'Reforge the Seals')
-Improved 'tax nobles', increasing gold taken, increasing motivation, reducing agitation caused
-Heroes no longer reduce unrest in the Dark Empire
-Agent combat now resolves minion rows simultaneously. While agents and heroes act first, the minions act at the same time (so can possibly both kill one another). Intended to reduce attacker advantage, due to its extreme effect on combat
-Deep Ones now grow slower by default, but can be funded or empowered to increase their maturation speed. Menace gain from uninfiltrated neighbouring locations increased slightly
Other:
-Music expanded with new royalty-free music from pixabay
-Single click to select units and locations implemented
-Minion stats now present in their recruitment description
-Gold now visible in left-hand side
-Chosen One now always at the top of the hero view
-Added an alert as to which character is holding the Laughing Tome (if any are)
-Starting music now affected by music volume setting
-Many typoes and poor wording issues fixed
Bugfix:
-Ophanim can no longer take over the Alliance
-Fixed bug where Ophanim's Devastation removal ability failed to work
-Prevent commanders from leading both sides of a battle
-Prevent commanders from leading armies twice at the same time in edge cases
Bugfixes for V0.6
-Abdicate action changed, now more potentially possible, although still <0 motivation for a character with ambition
-Appease nobles now takes 45 gold
-Appease nobles now lower motivation at the highest levels of political instability (diminishing returns with higher political instability)
Bugfix:
-Ophanim now invades properly, rather than just raiding
-Deep Ones cannot make two cults in the same location, the second now just adds 25% charge to the existing one
-Supplicant traits for Ophanim now correctly only apply to infiltrate challenges
-Fixed Ophanim Peace and Order power, now correctly removes devastation
V06: Ophanim
Ophanim's gameplay revolves around opposition of shadow to light, and you must create both, to drive the humans to accept your faith, so you may 'save' them. As you do, you can form perfected cities, which have stronger armies (to spread the faith via military invasions) and resistance to shadow and disease. Humans watching their countrymen become 'perfect' will become terrified, and you must prevent word of your actions getting out, by suppressing dissent, as you turn the world into a terrifying Lovecraftian totalitarian theocracy.
Secondly, this version has the first two third party mods, a collection of mid-challenge events by An Actual Englishman and Mall, and a set of vampiric minions and associated events by 8thDaughterOfFrost. Hopefully the first of many, Steam Workshop integration should allow Shadows to gain a host of exciting new content, greatly increasing replayability, and letting you play or create the fantasy apocalypse of your dreams.
Modding documentation nears completion of its first draft (although new functions are added constantly, so it requires updating its large lists of conditions and actions available), and two example mods are available on the github ( Link ).
Both of these milestones were reached thanks to the community's help, with feedback, suggestion and meticulous bug-reports, on the discord and Steam forums. As always, I am ever greatful, and hope that together we can make this game into something memorable.
A fair few UI improvements have also been added (new flags on the map for better at-a-glance map reading, and new keybindings for faster agent switching) to improve the game on a functional level, also often in response to user suggestions and feedback.
Detailed Patch notes:
Gameplay:
-Ophanim Added
-Reduced victory gain from Deep Ones
-Deep Ones can now spread to the Abyssal cities without requiring a direct sea link
-Chosen One now tries to build alliances if they detect the alliance isn't building fast enough
-Dark rulers will rebel if their ruler tries to join the Alliance
-Game difficulty no longer affects challenge complexity, and therefore doesn't affect time taken outside of lower stat gain
-Reduced probability of heroes reconciling 10% -> 4%
-Rulers can now abdicate if they fear civil war. Depends on personality and relation to heir
-Increased Deep One growth speed
-Increased Deep One menace gain from non-infiltrated neighbours
-Changed Deep One shadow gain threshold from 50% to 100% and reduced shadow gain speed
-Vinerva's Heart of the Forest cost scales with times used, instead of with seals broken
-Primal Font waters can now be drunk even if not fully depleted
-Plague doctor can now cure plague (reducing his menace in the process)
-Reduced devastation caused by human armies, in both capturing and raiding locations
-Forts defensive bonus doubled
-Increased ruler motivation to send armies against agents at distance
Other:
-Flags added to the capital city of all social groups when at maximum zoom
-Map tint added
-Added icon for Deep Ones
-Space key can now be used to end turns
-Added map view buttons in bottom right
-Added hotkeys Q and E to cycle between agents
-ESC now returns to the map if in main menu
-Allowed rebinding of map view keys
-Agents no longer have preferences, as these had no current gameplay effects
-Added 'discord' tag to reduce unrest and brutal crackdown
Bugfixes:
-Dead characters will no longer be featured in events
-Plague can't get stuck at 300% any more
-Fixed bug where societies would not execute rebel dukes, reducing effectiveness of agent-caused civil wars at causing long-term resentment between families
-Fixed bug where dead person can console the grieving relative
-Dark Empire and Ophanim Controlled empires no longer block high-menace agents
-Prevented Deep Ones for being described as human when killed by a hero
-Bandits no longer raid deep ones
Version 0.5 Hotfix 2
-Tags added to Exterminate Deep One to allow AI preferences to apply
-Events given additional checks to avoid people talking to fish
-Spelling mistakes fixed
-Insanity responsed tweaked to avoid edge cases
-Heroes no longer remove shadow if it's less than 5%
V0.5 Hotfix
Version 0.5: Call of the Abyss
Deep Ones initially start as tiny communities which are easily suppressed by heroes, who will occasionally visit and eradicate half of them. With your protection, however, their maturation and continue and complete itself. Deep Ones reproduce by converting humans to their blasphemous aquatic form, both the population of cities and the noble heroes or rulers. Populations are converted by the Deep One cult as it grows, and when a location reached 300% it transforms, and can start drawing in citizens from surrounding locations. They mutate and dive beneath the waves, to join the abyssal cities, which counts towards your eventual victory.
Noble Houses can now suffer from bloodline curses, and the Call of the Abyss is the Deep One's signature curse. It calls to all the members of the family to dive beneath the waves and serve the cause of the Deep Ones. Heroes and rulers alike will need to occasionally perform an action to maintain their humanity, or fall under the curse and become a Deep One themselves. Once they have, they will automatically attempt to spread Deep One cults around the coastal locations of the world, allowing the aquatic race to become autonomous and self-propagating.
Alongside this, a few other interpersonal changes are made. Two other bloodline curses exist, to cripple humanity on a very personal level. The Cursed gains some narrative elements, as she now has a singular individual she hates, who has wronged her in the past. If she can kill this person, she gains a buff to her stats. The Harvester, conversely, curses the hero who kills him, and their family.
Importantly, this version will be the first to test out the new modding capabilities. Steam Workshop integration should allow event-based mods to be designed and uploaded by users, and downloaded to expand your game in exciting new ways. This feature is extremely work-in-progress, so expect bugs and unanticipated behaviours for the next month while the issues get worked out.
Detailed Changes:
Gameplay:
-Deep Ones added. Found in a couple of coastal settlements at game start, they can be kept safe by your agents until they mature, and can start calling humanity into the deeps. If the ruler of a location with a semi-mature deep one colony is somewhat enshadowed, they can be cursed with the call of the deep, which will call their entire family to turn into non-controllable Deep One agents who will further help you.
-Added traits to the supplicant of She Who Will Feast
-The Cursed gains a new mechanic, a vow of vengeance to kill a target to gain power
-The Harvester now inflicts a curse on his killer and their family
-New challenge to death magic high areas, allowing you to curse the family of the local ruler to take damage over time (if a unit) or occasionally enter gridlock (if ruler)
-Heroes can now reconcile with their enemies
-Buff heroes' `treat plague' ability
-Rulers are more inclined to use their quarantine ability
-Orcs expand more quickly into ancient ruins
-Chosen One no longer rests between actions
-Reduced heroes desire to rest betweens quests by 25%
-Baroness' 'Mistress of the night' trait attack boost dropped from 2 to 1
-Paladins HP buffed from 6 to 7
-Specialist traits now give +4 defence against target (orc slayer and exorcist currently)
-New events added
-Human armies (including from Dark Empire) no longer attack low-HP armies in hostile territory, to instead focus on capturing enemy territory
-Madness now its own tag, with specialist title "Alienist"
-Reduced motivation to save friend from shadow if a hero is at high shadow
-Heroes can't redeem rulers if their own shadow is >95%
-Supplicant buffed: starts with enough XP to level up on their first challenge
-Hierophants nerfed: lose a point of intrigue and a point of lore
Other:
-UI now displays description and tags for hero actions in their planning tab
-Challenges are now ordered based on the agent's skills
-Map movement keys no longer move the map if an agent is being renamed
-Click-dragging the map with the mouse no longer de-selects selected units
Bugfixes:
-Bugfix to agent attack and disrupt motivation calculation
-Prevented rulers from giving the CO one gold. Minimum is now 10
-Vinerva madness power now caps at 300% insanity generated
-Fixed issue where the tutorial hero might not be close enough to aggro the agent
-Fixed issue where the tutorial could be won without reaching the end
-Fixed bug where dead characters could get involved in interpersonal drama
-Cancelling Iastur's "Devil makes work" or similar power will no longer cost power
-Fixed issue where an heir could fail to inherit properly