Weekly update – Outposts

Hey Everyone!

Another quite productive week has passed. Pictured above you can see another render in preparation for chapter 2 – there’s going to be an elf faction! But aside from that I want to use this update to talk about another big change coming in version 17.

You will no longer be able to create buildings anywhere on the map within your owned territory. Instead, you’ll only be able to build areas around your capitol and around a newly introduced addition: Outposts. 

To be more specific, you’ll be able to build around your city in a radius of about four tiles in each direction (the actual amount may change over time after testing). Territory further away from your capital can be conquered and you will receive benefits for doing so, but you won’t be able to build on it because it’ll be too far from your direct control.
 

Once you capture capitols of enemy factions they will turn into outposts and you will also be able to build around them, thus increasing the amount of buildings you can create. You’ll also be able to upgrade those outposts and have them dedicated to increasing your income, your faith or giving you other bonuses - providing you with more options on how you want to shape your empire.
 

In the following screenshot you can see an example map where the capital of Abstinencia was turned into an outpost:

Why Was This Change Needed?  

This new feature is more or less a preparation for chapter 2. As you may have read already, the massive upcoming chapter 2 update will add new maps to the game. However, right now it’s not necessary to conquer more land for building space. The normal map is already so large that, if you have conquered it in its entirety, you would not need to expand further to other maps. I had to limit the amount of buildings you can create on the default map to create an incentive for expanding your territory in other maps and making conquering in those maps meaningful.  

This change is also more indicative of how civilizations and empires actually grow too.  

I hope you understand this reasoning and are ok with limiting your building possibilities for the sake of the long game. As always, please let me know what you think of these changes.

As for version 17, I think I will need one more week to put everything together and then another one for testing and balancing, so I am currently looking at a mid-May release period.

Thanks for reading,

hw21