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[Flatgub]

Thats a shame, some kind of renderer, like overseer or maybe stonesense for dwarf fortress would be really cool for this!

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Thats a shame, some kind of renderer, like overseer or maybe stonesense for dwarf fortress would be really cool for this!

I can see the value of that, don't get me wrong, but the amount of time it would take me to allow something like that to be integrated would see the actual game itself just grind to a total halt :|

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Upper-Class Housing

This week’s main project has been on upper-class housing. There will only be one of these districts in each city and will contain three manors for the most important families in that civilization (including your family); a number of smaller manors for the “second tier” of wealthiest family within that nation; then a range of large houses (larger than what any other district offers) for other wealthy families but ones who cannot quite afford one of these ostentatious manors. In this version you will begin the game in the courtyard of the manor for your family, whilst in other versions once the early-game story introduction is in place, you’ll spawn within the manor (though once you know what the introduction is, you will naturally be able to leave right away and begin the game).



For the sake of interest I also put together an image to show the four different levels of housing. Note that this is four screenshots stitched together – hence why the roads do not match up between districts – but remains nicely illustrative of the four different levels. I’m very pleased with the kind of variation between upper class/middle class/lower class/slums and can’t wait until the point where I can put together an entire image of a city in all its glory. Markets as discussed before are finished, recreational and medical districts are being removed (and absorbed into others), and my next district is probably going to be military districts, though that requires quite a bit of thought first about what exactly I want spawning there.



Banks and Currencies

For the most part currencies are scheduled for a few releases hence (at least the generation of their images, exchange rates, etc), but since I came up with an interesting idea for banks on the strategic level of the game, I realized I need to implement at least the names of the currencies now even if their full realization would have to wait. As in the real world, the overwhelming majority of coins are metallic, though there are a very small number made from rather more unusual materials that you may come across (no more than one or two per game). Each currency is termed according to the material of its construction and the image that will be on the coin – you might encounter civilizations that deal in Golden Stags, Silver Wolves, Steel Fires, Bronze Axes, Copper Dragons, etc. Some also break down into lesser denominations like shillings, pence, cents, etc (a quick Google for a large number of these terms proved incredibly helpful).

Now, each civilization (Feudals only) will have a central bank with branches in some of its middle-class districts. I wasn’t sure at first what role these could play, but I had an interesting idea for the strategy layer of the game. As I’ve talked about before, the strategy layer of the game will involve navigating the world map in a range of difference ways. Different terrain types and elevations will take different periods of time to go across; some nations will be friendly, some hostile, some unknown; whilst mountains can only be crossed with a mountain pass, deserts with a caravan, and the ocean by finding a trade route and someone willing to accept you onto their ship. One other aspect of this layer is money – different districts will cost different amounts to enter, some exchange rates will/won’t be in your favour, and as you move around the world, you’ll quickly leave your home civilization far behind. Thus, once the strategy layer is implemented you will be able to invest your money into the bank in any civilization you pass through, and interest will accrue, but only in increments of one month and can only be collected if you pass back through that civilization again. The one-month requirement prevents farming (there is no way you can wait around a full month!) whilst it will raise another interesting strategic decision. Do I leave some money here on the assumption I’ll come back later to collect it? How much currency do I think I’ll need on my journeys before I next return to this city? Etc. It’s just a small aspect, but banks now spawn in middle-class districts, ready to receive future customers.

Special Buildings

Some more work on special buildings. There are going to be roughly twenty-five in total, and whilst they will not all spawn every game, a decent number of them will; they will then be distributed through-out the world’s cities. This means not every city is going to have one, but most cities will, and these special buildings will be especially prominent in world histories. Some will relate to the core quest, some will relate to other things, and they’ll generally add a little more variety. They will also allow me to further explore some of the sociological themes I want to get at in the game, so below is a screenshot of the player walking around the outside of the Panopticon prison (which this time happened to spawn in a near-polar nation):



Next week, I can safely predict (for once) I’ll be talking about nomadic fortresses as I’ve been working on those the past couple of days. They’re starting to come together and have also helped me come to some conclusions about the role of military districts in cities, certain things to do with weapons (coming a few releases hence), and also to think through some other things about the strategy layer I’ll share next time. Until then, hope you enjoy the Ominous White Pentagon and the city districts, and let me know what you think.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

For the first time in living memory, my prediction about this week’s update was spot on - fortresses. Where hunter-gatherers dwell in settlements and feudal civilizations dot the landscape with cities and towns, their nomadic brethren survival via a combination of caravans (which will be implemented later, probably in 0.8 ) and fortresses. These are dotted throughout the deserts of the world along what will later be major trade routes the caravans pass through. Whilst they are home to some people, the population count of nomadic civilizations is small compared to feudal nations, and many of their people live “in” the caravans anyway. Aside from some homes within these fortresses, however, much of their land is given over to military barracks and facilities, and open-air markets – yes, that’s right, open air markets will exist! Several people have asked for these, and whilst I felt I wanted everything in feudal nations to be focused in distinct shops (black markets, once implemented, will still roughly follow the “shop” model), open-air markets and bazaars seem very appropriate for nomads. For now, these markets are shown by the white %s in the images in this post; these stands will display items with a shopkeeper “patrolling” the area around them. Whilst each fortress has a lot, not all fortresses will spawn with markets (though most will), and some “stalls” might be shut, or unused, whilst others will contain useful things. My intention is for most stalls to be akin to general stores in feudal cities – almost any item may spawn – but possibly a few specialists in the mix as well.

Now on to the layouts of these fortresses. There are twelve different presets for fortress shapes, as shown in this illustrative and highly detailed diagram I created in the leading contemporary graphical software package, MS Paint:



Most of these are self-explanatory – the ones with dots are ones where the entire fortress is not “enclosed” within walls, but many of the buildings surround the main towers of the settlement instead. It’s a rare variant, but one that I thought would add some nice variety. At time of writing five of these have been coded, and I hope to have the remaining ones finished in the next fortnight, then probably moving back to cities for a while. Below is one example of the “concentric circles” archetype. In the outer layer we see housing, and in the inner layer one region of barracks and military buildings with a second region of open-air markets. Gates in this case happen to have spawned in the west and east, and there are bridges for crossing the rivers, making sure every region of the fortress can be reached on foot. In all fortresses areas near the core are likely to be of soil or even have some plantlife, whilst the outer areas will remain covered in sand. Bear in mind, as ever, that screenshots of an entire map grid always look wildly different from a close-up (which you’ll have at the end of this post). Nevertheless:



As you can see from that picture, the web of bridges and gates ensures that every area of the fortress can be accessed. In future versions once caravans are implemented there will be buildings and encampments around the fortress which will come and go as caravans and seasons pass, but these are the “stationary” parts that will remain constant.

Lastly, here’s two more screenshots, one from me entering a “square” archetype fortress, and one from a square fortress which had a river running through it, and its inhabitants had evidently decided to use it as a form of extra defence or a way to separate the different areas of the fortress, rather than just considering it something that had to be built around like those who crafted the circular fortress above.





TWO FINAL VERY IMPORTANT THINGS

Firstly, I’m going to be submitting my thesis within, I hope, a month (or at the most, perhaps a month and a half). This means the next 4-6 weeks are going to be very academically busy whilst I do the final edits to my hundred-thousand-word abomination masterpiece. I don’t yet know how many edits my supervisors will want (we’re meeting on the 4th of July to discuss this) and how long these will take to do, but whilst weekly updates will continue as ever, they may be shorter, or I may deploy some non-URR pieces I’ve had in the works for a little while. I think August remains a realistic target for 0.6, but we’re probably looking at the end of August, though it must be said this is the biggest release in some time. 0.7, by contrast, I would expect to be significantly shorter in duration.

Secondly, some absolutely incredible news has just come through regarding the next year of URR’s development (starting in two months once my thesis is submitted). I’m not really allowed to say any more on this topic yet, but by next week (or if not, definitely the week after) I should be able to make the appropriate announcement. GET HYPE.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

So, last week I hinted towards a big announcement that had come through about URR’s future, and today I’m actually able to talk about it.

Short version: I’m going to be working on URR full-time for the next year, starting around September! And not a Kickstarter to be seen.

I’ve been thinking about this a while. As regular readers will know, URR has rapidly become the project in my life I care the most about, and whilst I’m currently doing a doctorate in one field of social science, I want to move into game studies before my first academic job. It started to seem that taking a year “out” would be the perfect way to combine these objectives – I could finally work on URR full-time and push ahead with it, whilst simultaneously having time to start publishing in game studies in anticipation for jobs further down the road. With a full year I know I can easily finish the entire worldbuilding segment within a year’s full-time, and that’s hugely exciting to me, and I really want to finish this block off. This means adding currencies, ships, ocean travel, mountain passes and caravans, and not to mention building interiors, NPCs, and weapons, armour, and combat mechanics!

However, even if I was fixed on the idea, there were still questions of where I was going to live, how I’d get by financially, and so forth. At first I considered doing a Kickstarter or similar – I’ve been critical of many KS campaigns in the past, and I continue to feel it can turn into a very problematic situation, but that was what I first considered. However, through a combination of trying to live frugally and the kindness of a family member, I’ll be able to survive this year. I recognized I could still have tried a Kickstarter instead, and I feel I would have had a high chance of success, but now I’d been given this option I specifically decided not to go the KS route. Sure, it would boost the publicity of the game somewhat, but it would also take several months to start the campaign, run the campaign and do the rewards (even  if they were all virtual/game ones). Having been given the option not to, I don’t want to “waste” months of my URR year not actually working on URR! I also didn’t want to blur the line somewhat with URR and the involvement of money – right now it’s free, will always remain free, and I didn’t want to introduce money to the equation if I didn’t have to.

Another reason to not do KS, alas, is that in the next few months I’m not going to be able to do much URR work. Through no fault of my own the completion of my doctorate has been dragged out beyond what it should have been, and the next few months (July/August and probably September) are going to have to be very thesis-heavy. It’s annoying that this might eat slightly into my URR year (as I’ll be moving house in early September), but there’s nothing to be done, and focusing on my academic work now means that as much of next year as possible will be free. Doing a KS would just further eat into the year, and as above – now I’m lucky enough to have the option to not KS, I think the arguments for KS falter against the arguments for not doing one and starting URR coding the moment my thesis is submitted.

I’m… more excited than I can say about a year of full-time URR coding with some game studies on the side. I’m amazed things have come together after what was probably the hardest year of my life (for reasons I may post in a later blog entry and that had nothing to do with my PhD) and I’m already now figuring out the right order to go about the coding in this next year in order to achieve the worldbuilding-completion goal. There’s also a second half of the announcement I can’t say until next week, which – whilst very significant from my perspective – is secondary from the perspective of you fine blog-readers, but is just to do with my living arrangements for the next year and my continuing academic shift into game studies.

There you have it. The next two or three months will have unfortunately have little URRing due to a very unfortunate position I find myself in academically, so 0.6 will be pushed back a few months, but from the screenshots I’ve been posting in the last few entries, I hope you’ll all agree it’s looking like it’ll be worth the wait. The next few months will therefore have some URR updates when there is stuff to update you on, but also probably a greater number of general games criticism pieces than usual. After that, hopefully starting at some point in September, I’ll be working on URR full-time for a year! I cannot wait. Thanks to everyone for your support thus far, and I hope you’ll join me in the UNCONTROLLABLE HYPE for next year.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Last week I announced that starting in a few months I planned to have an entire year of full-time development on URR. The response here and on other websites has been overwhelming, so I must give a huge thank you – I’m amazed at how excited and positive everyone has been, and I cannot wait to start the year! My objective is to do everything currently on the Development Plan page, and I think that is very achievable within a full year. This year will be starting within a few months (a little bit into the new academic year) and that’s what I mean when I say “next year” within this piece.

Until then, however, I do (alas) need to actually finish my doctorate. I estimate this taking 2-3 months, so I expect to start the full-time year some time in September, depending on exactly how long it takes, when I move house, and various other factors. The second half of next week’s announcement is that my best friend has got a PhD in Game Studies in Lincoln, so we’re both moving there in September, at which point I’ll be starting my full-time year (with a little bit of game studies publication on the side, hopefully). As mentioned last week there will be no Kickstarter, though I do appreciate the willingness many have stated to donate to help me out this year. I may add the possibility for this, but I’m more likely to wait the full year and then evaluate. If, however, the entire coding year goes by and I haven’t yet found a job and I find myself ~15 months from now suddenly entirely lacking in money, I may then set up some form of donation system to potentially keep myself afloat. But that is in the distant future.

So, what now? Well, these next few months I’m unfortunately going to have very little time to program, though I hope to snatch a few hours of coding here and there. The past week I’ve been making a little progress on some more fortress archetypes and the mysterious standing stones in hunter-gatherer settlements, but not enough for a full update. Thus, instead, for these next two months we’re going to have primary game criticism updates. I know a lot of people have enjoyed these in the past and I’ve got a line-up of interesting ideas. Since it would be going off-topic a little, check out the full blog post at http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/07/13/the-path-to-next-year/ for details of what these posts are going to be .

[gimymblert]

As mentioned last week there will be no Kickstarter, though I do appreciate the willingness many have stated to donate to help me out this year. I may add the possibility for this, but I’m more likely to wait the full year and then evaluate. If, however, the entire coding year goes by and I haven’t yet found a job and I find myself ~15 months from now suddenly entirely lacking in money, I may then set up some form of donation system to potentially keep myself afloat. But that is in the distant future.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

That is a profoundly amazing choice of image, and I appreciate it , but I only want to ask the community for help if I absolutely have to!

[gimymblert]

I'm sorry ...

can't ...

resist ...

after finding this ...

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I'm sorry ...

can't ...

resist ...

after finding this ...

Ha! I shall be using that one myself in the future, I hope.

I've got a little bit of URR work done this week; finished all the textures for hunter-gatherer buildings (bone, wattle and daub, stone, mud bricks, and a dozen others), done some preparatory work on the other forms of fortresses, and fixed some of the road-generation bugs on the world map, but progress will still be slow for the next two months. Trying to make sure to still get a little bit of coding in here and there, though.

So, as mentioned last time, here's the first of the game design/criticism blog entries for the next couple of months, starting with some detailed thoughts on the strengths (and, especially, weaknesses) of Dark Souls 2: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/07/20/dark-souls-2-design-ravings/

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Things are still ticking over, albeit slowly; thesis is going well though, which means I should be able to start the full-time URR year when I move in September, but started seriously working on the military city districts and the next fortress archetype (for the wise civilization that prefers their forts to be of a pentagonal nature). This downtime really sucks, but the full-timing will, I think, rather more than make up for it

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Generating pentagonal desert fortresses has been an utter nightmare. No more fortress archetypes are going to lack orthogonal symmetry...

[failrate]

Generating pentagonal desert fortresses has been an utter nightmare. No more fortress archetypes are going to lack orthogonal symmetry...

Sure, sure, we've all heard that one a *million* times.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Generating pentagonal desert fortresses has been an utter nightmare. No more fortress archetypes are going to lack orthogonal symmetry...

Sure, sure, we've all heard that one a *million* times.

It's the truth! I swear! Though, hmm, a seven-sided fortress might be nice...

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

This is the first development update in a couple of weeks. I’m still primarily working on my thesis in the hopes of finishing before the end of September, at which point I’ll be starting the full-time development year. Nevertheless, I’ve managed to snatch a little bit of time here and there to code and keep things ticking over.

Fortresses

I’ve done a few more fortress archetypes. As mentioned before, there are twelve “shapes” fortresses can generate in total; each civilization chooses one, and there can never be more than five nomadic civilizations, so it’ll be a long while until you see each archetype (not to mention, obviously, that each instance of each archetype will generate differently). I’ve thrown together the “Pentagon” and the “Double Fort” algorithms, and here are a bunch of screenshots. Fortresses are really interesting to walk around – they definitely evoke a very different feel to towns or cities or settlements. One thing I’ve found to be a very good idea is to really emphasize difference in procedural generation – sure, in the real world, a “castle” and a “fortress” may be very similar, but by placing one at the core of cities and giving the other to nomads, I’ve emphasized the differences in each one to create two totally different kinds of structure. Even though they lack NPCs yet, walking around the four different types of population centre (cities, towns, settlements, fortresses) all feel totally, totally different (which was exactly the goal) and I can’t wait to see what everyone else thinks once this release is out. Some fortresses are more or less militarized than others; some have larger or small markets, or housing, or defenses; some are more open, some are more closed and more challenging to navigate. There’s a great amount of variety, and they all also handle rivers in different ways, leading to some really interesting maps (which have been challenging to make ensure walkable generation on)…





Hunter-Gatherer Buildings

I’ve thrown together the generators for the textures of all the different building materiasl hunter-gatherer civilizations might use. Whereas feudal civilizations use variations of bricks and nomadic civilizations sometimes uses bricks, or stone, or drystone walls, hunter-gatherers are forced to be a little more resourceful. There are currently sixteen different materials, each civilization will choose a different one (a couple are tied to particular climates) and they won’t repeat, so you’ll have a wide variation every game. Here’s an example of the outcomes of each of the generators for the different materials. Going left-to-right and top-to-bottom, these are “logs”, “leaves”, “wood”, “stone”, “bones”, “mud bricks”, “snow bricks”, “interwoven sticks”, “mud”, “drystone”, “thatch”, “wattle and daub”, “rope”, “bamboo”, “leather”, “fur”:



The materials have no particular gameplay difference, but they do lend a nice variety to the hunter-gatherers, especially as the way they are displayed in-game varies according to the colour of each texture. HG civilizations are now looking rather more complete than they were before, and the other reason for this is the introduction of standing stones.

Standing Stones

Different religions worship in different ways; some have big idols, some might have small totems in the houses of worshipers, and so forth. Some hunter-gatherer civilizations have standing stones in the middle of their settlements as the focal points for worship. Each of these is a different shape, contains a symbol of the appropriate religion, and… some other text, in an ancient language. In future versions this text will be one of many clues around the world to help you find your way through the world’s mysteries, and will be one of several reasons you might consider visiting a hunter-gatherer settlement you pass on your way to parts unknown.



NEXT UP:

The next three entries will probably be the other games criticism entries I discussed before, then we’ll have a roundup of some more code at the end of August/start of September. By then I should have more of the fortress archetypes done (maybe all of them?) and maybe some more city districts too – military districts might be next on my list, though I think I also need to make some changes to market districts; playtesting them by myself suggests that they might need to be a little more contained and a little less open to make them more enjoyable and more understandable to navigate. The plan thus remains: I’m working hard to finish my thesis before I move house in late September, and then to start the full-time year of development in October, with the intention of releasing 0.6 – admittedly the biggest URR update ever, since it is generating every town, city, fortress and settlement – within November.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Now that's a nice fortress. Full version at http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/08/NewS.png

[gimymblert]

nazi blond hair green tunic, nazi blond pink princess and red hair black person from the desert

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I was planning to upload another non-URR post today, but Sunday has crept up upon me with alarming speed and I haven’t actually finished the one I was working on. So, instead, here is a very short and screenshot-heavy update for this week instead with a couple of things I’ve thrown together. As well as the fortress above, I also on a whim threw together some graphics for a future release, 2 or 3 down the line, once I start putting together ships and trade routes. These are just stylized graphics to denote the different classes of ship, military and transport, when you look them up in the Encyclopedia. Alongside them you’ll see information like the ship’s schedule, its armaments, what it trades in, its captain, etc etc.



Also did a little bit of work on making Upper Class Housing districts just that little bit snazzier (as ever, this graphic is generated, there’s over a hundred possible variations):



Next week I'll be back to non-URR updates on my blog for a little while, but around the start of October remains the target for starting the full-time year! See you all next week...

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Finally fixed all the remaining bugs with roads going into loops, or choosing the wrong orientations when a town is built on them, and other similar weirdness.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Here is this week's update - a long, detailed and in-depth analysis of current progress on URR:

http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/08/17/the-shortest-update-in-urr-history/