Hello and welcome to the 18th development diary of Grey Eminence!
In today’s edition, we’ll be taking a look at one of the most anticipated mechanics in the game, trade. It is the crown jewel of Grey Eminence’s economic simulation - a process that transforms an otherwise static world of disparate populations and goods into a massive, interconnected network that ebbs and flows like a living organism.<...
2023-03-04 16:22:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello, everyone!
One year has passed since we announced Grey Eminence to the world! The past 365 days have truly been a rollercoaster of ups and downs, but the one constant has been your unwavering support and faith in our vision for the historical grand strategy genre.
The year was certainly not without challenges – and we had to make many difficult choices along the way. But we remain resolute in the face of adversity and have embraced this challenge whol...
2023-02-10 14:20:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello and welcome to the 17th development diary of Grey Eminence!
We’re continuing the series of dev diaries dedicated to the economy with another spicy topic, bankruptcy. While the word bankruptcy might evoke images of modern financial institutions, in Grey Eminence this phenomenon can occur for any production building - as opposed to default, which is the tangentially-related process for cou...
2022-12-03 13:18:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello and welcome to the 16th development diary of Grey Eminence!
We’re back with another entry in our ongoing series of dev diaries dedicated to the economy: this time around, we’re taking a look at inflation. It’s one of those mechanics that you might not think much about if you don’t get excited by economics - and that’s perfectly understandable, which is why we’ve designed it to fit with our ...
2022-11-05 14:36:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello and welcome to the 15th development diary of Grey Eminence!
We’re continuing the series of dev diaries dedicated to the economy today by looking at the budget. Unlike the two systems we covered previously (production and consumption), the budget is a system that you’ll have to interact with quite frequently through every run if you want to be successful. Funding your country’s various expendit...
2022-10-01 14:29:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello and welcome to the 14th development diary of Grey Eminence!
Today, we’re continuing the series of dev diaries dedicated to the economy with consumption. As with the production system we covered last week, consumption is a core element of Grey Eminence’s economy: after all, buildings ultimately exist to produce goods to satisfy your population’s needs. We’ve designed the consumption syst...
2022-09-03 13:35:31 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello and welcome to the 13th development diary of Grey Eminence!
With the summer holidays out of the way, we felt that now is a good time to proceed with the series of dev diaries dedicated to the economy, starting with production. The economy is one of Grey Eminence’s strongest suits and we’ve dedicated a large part of the game’s performance budget to it. While the majority of the system will run o...
2022-08-06 12:57:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello and welcome to the 12th development diary of Grey Eminence!
Today, we’ll be covering the topic of succession. The process of succession determines the future rulers of every country, so it’s a very important mechanic to consider. Every country’s succession can be either dynastic or electoral. The specifics of which characters are eligibl...
2022-07-02 11:21:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello and welcome to the 11th development diary of Grey Eminence!
Today’s topic is titles, one of the defining features of every country. Titles contain a lot of important information about a country, like its name, map color, rank, type and flag. More importantly, titles are also the key component in reforming existing countries or creating new ones (though we’ll get to that in a bit). Increasing t...
2022-06-18 18:44:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello and welcome to the 10th development diary of Grey Eminence!
Today, we’ll be taking a look at elites, the power-holders of society. Every country contains multiple elites, groups of characters with common socio-economic roles. While characters have their own individual personalities and goals, their collective behavior exerts a strong influence on their country’s stability and po...
2022-06-18 18:42:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello and welcome to the 9th development diary of Grey Eminence!
This time around, we’ll be taking a look at technology, the system through which we model scientific and social progress in the game. Grey Eminence's 600-year span saw the emergence of numerous game changing inventions and ideas, so managing your country’s technological progress will be pivotal in ensuring your country’s long term s...
2022-06-18 18:40:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello and welcome to the 8th development diary of Grey Eminence!
Today, we’ll take a look at diplomacy, the system through which countries can secure (or doom) their future. Like in real life, diplomacy in Grey Eminence is the art of compromise: very rarely will the situation between two parties be so lopsided that unilateral decisions can be made. Diplomacy almost always happens through negot...
2022-06-18 18:39:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello and welcome to the 7th development diary of Grey Eminence!
In today’s edition, we’re going to take a look at one of the more intimate systems in the game: characters. They’re the primary agents of change across the world and as such are something you’ll be interacting with frequently over the course of the game.
Let’s start with a recap of what we’ve said about characters so far: they represent peopl...
2022-06-18 18:37:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello everyone and welcome to the 6th development diary of Grey Eminence!
Today, we’ll explore how culture works in the game. As one of the primary demographic properties (alongside religion, social class, age, and gender), culture is inexorably linked to a lot of other mechanics, including some systems that we still haven’t announced yet! We’ll tease some of them a bit farther down, but ...
2022-06-18 18:30:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello everyone and welcome to the 5th development diary of Grey Eminence!
In today’s edition, we’ll explore the various mechanics around religion. Prior to the emergence of popular nationalism, faith was the binding force for civilizations across the globe. As such, religion interacts with many other systems in the game and will be something you’ll definitely want to keep a close eye on.<...
2022-03-26 11:41:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello everyone and welcome to the fourth development diary of Grey Eminence!
Today, we’ll take a look at the geography systems that are the foundations of our game world. Specifically, we’ll explore how land tiles work, what differentiates them from one another and how their composition impacts other game systems. We’ll also briefly cover some related systems like weather and rivers. Apol...
2022-03-12 15:42:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello everyone and welcome to Grey Eminence’s third development diary!
This time around, we’re going to explore how countries work in Grey Eminence. A country is any polity that rules over a given set of tiles. It’s what you, the player, will attempt to control and direct throughout the game.
The 600-year span between 1356 and 1956 saw the rise and fall of a staggering variety of st...
2022-02-26 10:47:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello everyone and welcome to the second development diary for Grey Eminence!
Today, we’ll be taking a detailed look at one of the most important aspects of Grey Eminence: its population system - how it works, what drives it, how you can interact with it, and how you can mod it.
At its core, Grey Eminence is a game about people, both collectively and ...
2022-02-15 19:35:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear patrons,
Welcome, and thanks for choosing to support us!
As you can see on this graph view of our game design wiki, we have a lot to discuss together as soon as we're done managing the chaos around our public announcement. Keep an eye out for the #patreon-discussion channel on our Discord for more details!
2022-02-10 13:42:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello everyone and welcome to the first development diary for Grey Eminence!
It’s difficult to describe how excited I am to share what we, the Nestinars, have been working on for the past three years. What began as a cursory exploration of a cool new technology has evolved into a wholesale attempt to revolutionize the grand strategy genre. So, without further ado, let’s dive in!