The key goal for this week is to get the game to a playable state with at least one win condition. For the most part that has been done. I also took the opportunity to refactor a huge part of the code to make adding content easier.

Win Conditions #

Instead of one win conditions, I managed to make 3 of them this week. These 3 are the one that the player will see and know how to work towards to.

Prosperity #

The first win condition that does not required any research is Prosperity. This can be considered as the default win condition.

The win condition have 3 steps.

1. Reach the max population of 15.
2. Activate Golden Age.
3. Survive 10 turns.

The key challenge to the condition is preparation and surviving the 10 turns, as during golden age, all villagers will consume 2 food instead of 1. The player need to prepare surplus or be ready to handle the increase food consumption.

Faith #

The second win condition added was Faith.

This win condition also have 3 steps.

1. Build a Temple; which is also available once the player activate the Ambition.
2. Convert 6 Believers.
3. Create a (Imaginary) Statue.

The key challenge is the conversion of believers and creation of the statue. This is probably the hardest of the 3.

Conquest #

The third win condition added was Conquest.

Conquest is a simplier objective. The player is required to play a mastermind/codebreaker game with dice. The only dice that can be used is soldier, requiring the player to build a barracks and train them.

With luck, the code breaking will only take about 6~7 turns, and it does not require the player to put all the dice at once. However, at the last stage, the player will have to re-roll the dice a lot to get to the face to finally beat it. This is one of the goal that the earlier you start and commit, the easier it is.

Balancing #

I also had to rebalance the end game events. In the game jam version, I had to end the game around turn 40, which is quite late.

This time round, the death events will start around turn 18, and slowly increase in intensity and will almost reach unsurvivable state at 30.

A lot of the numbers regarding food generations is also changed. Previously I only take into account how much 1 dice can be converted to food. However, in playtesting, I realised that there are more variables to this.

For example, the ability that leftover dice can be put to use is really unaccounted for in the previous version; especially if those dice values aren’t used elsewhere. Fishery is a big part of this. I balanced Fishery to a EV of 3, which by calculating, means that it should output 4 food per successful fish. However, being able to throw any leftover dice to fishery makes it stronger than Farm and ForagerHut. I instead then set the number to 3, which makes it feel more balanced.

Conclusion #

In playtesting, a lot new ideas came up, and I look forward to finishing them next week. I also hope to implement 3 new win conditions next week, together with an achievement system to hint at these win conditions.