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Thanks! I believe the Pachisi-esque video games, within the sport, are very Mankala-esque, truly… however you are proper, there might be one other!

Some very thrilling developments this week! Ships have been reworked for 0.9 and made a couple of hundred instances extra numerous, and extra fascinating, and have some precise gameplay round them now. So firstly, in 0.8 I created a system for establishing journey and commerce routes that ships would use, as seen within the image beneath (gamers wouldn’t see this instantly in-game). The system was particularly designed in order that every time a brand new route matched up with an current route, it might cease producing a brand new route, in order that ships would journey solely on well-plied commerce traces and so forth, which result in one thing like this:

That was high-quality after all, particularly as this was partly an under-the-hood factor that gamers didn’t percieve too strongly, and in 0.8 ships have been free to journey on and easily served to assist the participant get from one a part of the world to the subsequent. Now, nonetheless, as we start to implement mechanics round time, cash, and journey, ships wanted to be made a bit extra detailed. Firstly, after all, real-world ships within the kind of 1600s-to-1800s world URR exists in, didn’t all go along with precise commerce routes. You would get loads of variation relying on winds, the seasons and the time of 12 months, which means you have been going, and naturally typically ships travelling to and from comparable instructions would possibly take totally different paths for political causes or different causes. As such, I began by remodeling this a bit bit right into a system that might nonetheless group ships in sure areas, however permit additionally for a variety of paths to and from comparable locations. That yielded one thing like this:

So you’ll see this appears much more natural and real looking – there are nonetheless clear, most optimum paths that many ships take (in the true world these would after all be delivery lanes, primarily) however there’s additionally plenty of variation from ship to ship, even these working in the identical kinds of areas. I believe that is nice. Now, if we rework this right into a heatmap displaying us what number of ships go alongside a sure path, the place crimson = one, yellow = a couple of, inexperienced = a number of, blue = tons and violet = a large quantity, we get this…

…which I’m very proud of! Some apparent and busy delivery lanes, some much less plied routes, and a few within the center. The subsequent step was to generate the ships themselves, give them photographs, personalities, names, histories, crews, and so forth (and naturally speeds and costs) and thus make the number of ships and journey routes one thing to really take into consideration and weigh into your motion world wide, as an alternative of one thing that takes place immediately and requires no actual consideration. I set about constructing a ship identify generator, and after a short time, you may see among the debug outputs from this generator right here, in addition to their coordinates, and the size of their paths. Keep in thoughts the world map is 250×250 tiles, so < 25 is a brief journey, < 75 a middling journey, something > 75 an extended journey, and something over, say, 125 or so typically means you’re actually going to the opposite aspect of the world.

Would you sail on the “Red Kraken” or the “Grief of the Ocean”? I do know I’d! As a part of this ships additionally now possess traits, a few of that are energetic on this launch and a few of which is able to come quickly in 0.10. Again, the aim right here is so as to add extra strategic depth to deciding on which ships you go on, and I hope will truly get the participant remembering and serious about particular ships they’ve discovered to be particularly helpful: perhaps a ship that goes between the 2 cities the participant is spending a lot of their time in, or a ship that’s particularly quick or low cost, or a ship that offers a reduction to a selected demographic the participant is in, or a ship that’s well-armed and helps the participant journey by means of areas of piracy (coming later…), and so forth. Here’s the present listing (you would possibly have to open the picture in one other tab, relying on the way you view this web site), and their results:

The availability of those traits is after all decided by the insurance policies and different traits of a civilization, so as an illustration solely a civ with the “Literary” trait can have the “Poetic Ship” risk, just one with the “Theocracy” trait can have the “Holy Ship” risk, and so forth. There are some actually fascinating combos which ought to yield fascinating strategic selections. You can see these while you go right into a dock in a metropolis or a city and look over the out there ships. Whereas in 0.8 you simply had an inventory of locations and clicked on the one you needed, the ship choice display screen has now been massively overhauled! You can see the listing of locations and what ship will take you there; textual content (white should you can afford it, crimson should you can’t) displaying you the worth of passage, the place the ship is now, and the way lengthy it would take you to achieve that vacation spot; who owns that ship, the place it travels from, and so, and so forth; a picture of the ship (procedurally-generated, naturally!); and an inventory of the ship’s traits, that are colour-coded relying on what they apply to (e.g. faith, armament, price, ship-board tradition, and so forth). In phrases of ship traits I estimate there are round 150,000 attainable ships that may generate with totally different combos of traits, and I believe that ought to hold issues fascinating for a while!

In docks, as elsewhere, now you can enter foreign money exchanges the place you’ll be able to change currencies you possess for currencies you don’t. Each dock will solely settle for the foreign money of its residence nation for journey (although perhaps I’ll change this later and have some cultural trait, e.g. “Internationalism”, will let you spend any foreign money in that port?) and so one of many strategic components of the sport will come from build up shops of required currencies, and planning forward. Whenever you commerce foreign money you lose a bit little bit of general worth from the foreign money you’re buying and selling out of (as in the true world) and so that you’ll wish to alternate currencies hardly ever and in giant volumes (once more, as in the true world). Again, I’m positive I’ll add traits in a while for barely higher or barely worse alternate charges, and different issues of this kind.

Once you’ve obtained your cash (this subsequent screenshot is clearly from a unique world / port), a few of your journey choices will present up as white slightly than crimson:

And then you choose your ship and the sport offers you a closing affirmation you wish to spend that cash.

Once you say sure, you’re given a bit story about your time on the ship (as in 0.8 ) and you’re ferried to your new location.

I’ve extra to put in writing about this later, however I’ve made large optimisations to the velocity of the sport in 0.9, and thus journey now not takes many seconds for the sport to calculate, it’s as an alternative now (successfully) instantaneous, as is travelling on the world map! But extra about this at a later date. This was an replace about ships and docks and currencies, and I hope you all loved it. See you all quickly for one more replace for what must be a (thirty first of) December 2021 launch!

My first plan for 0.10 was procedural e-book technology. We already had the books producing as objects and – should you’ll permit me – they’re one of many issues I used to be proudest of within the 0.9 launch:

This was at all times meant to be a central a part of the sport – I wish to get the sport producing texts that have been logical and significant and related carefully to the sport world, and to get the participant studying these as a central a part of studying concerning the world and discovering the clues to the core thriller. However, as readers will know to some extent, 2022 has not precisely been the 12 months I hoped it might when it comes to my well being, and whereas issues is perhaps selecting up now, I usually really feel like I’m in a perpetual back-and-forth between “unwell” and “getting again to the place I used to be earlier than I obtained unwell once more”, with little time to really construct one thing and construct on what I’ve been doing beforehand. I’m now again within the “gbtwiwbigua” part (as we name it) as soon as extra, however I do not know what the remainder of the 12 months holds. This is necessary as a result of the technology of the e-book contents is one thing I’ve made some progress on – some extremely thrilling progress, truly – however realistically there is no such thing as a means I can now end it earlier than the tip of the 12 months. Even if I did not have a full-time job to think about, and even when I did actually nothing else for 0.10 besides the e-book contents, I nonetheless do not suppose I might get it completed in time. I actually do not wish to half-arse the e-book technology because it’s one thing that basically excites me, however I additionally am now decided (as mentioned in previous weblog posts) to maintain to at least one main launch a 12 months, it doesn’t matter what.

So, as an alternative, 0.10 goes to be the “every thing I needed to place in 0.7, 0.8 and 0.9, however did not have the time to” launch! I’ve been making some good progress easing myself again in, constructing some new code and a few new content material, and refamiliarizing myself with every thing, so this is what has been added to date up to now couple of months:

New Items

To start with, we now have some new objects! These seem in a wide range of logical outlets and are objects that contribute to your navigation of the world and to surviving on this planet (see beneath). The first of those is the compass, which (like every thing) may be present in varied qualities and varied shapes relying on the civilization you purchase it from. The compass reduces how a lot water the participant consumes when shifting by means of desert – the logic being that you would be able to extra precisely plan your actions as an alternative of stumbling round uncertainly. The high quality of the compass – low, medium, excessive – determines how correct it’s and thus how a lot water is saved, with the bottom high quality saving the participant 25% of their water, the medium high quality saving 33%, and the very best high quality saving 50%.

The second of those is the binoculars, which enhance your viewing distance as you progress world wide map utilizing the “journey” perform. The lowest high quality binoculars will provide you with one additional map tile across the participant as you progress; the medium-quality binoculars will provide you with a couple of extra additional map tiles in every course as you progress; and the highest-quality binoculars will provide you with a couple of extra map tiles in every course than that. It’s arduous to explain, however consider a circle the place every high quality degree provides on a pair extra tiles on the fringe of the circle than the one earlier than it.

Pitons are the equal of the compass, however to your use of provides in mountainous or polar terrain, slightly than your use of water within the desert. Pitons can be utilized to scale back your use of provides in mountainous and polar terrain by 25%, 33%, or 50%, relying on the standard. Unlike the compasses and the binoculars pitons will very slowly be used up, however at a fee that also makes them a really worthwhile buy in comparison with simply utilizing bigger volumes of provides.

We even have canes! These cut back meals use in all of what I’m now calling the difficult terrains – desert, polar, and mountainous – by 25%, 33%, and 50%, once more relying on high quality. These may be bought at carpenters’ outlets and just like the pitons will ultimately put on out, however solely as a particularly sluggish tempo. On a aspect notice I’ve to say I’m significantly proud of the generator I constructed for these, as it’s (un?)surprisingly troublesome to think about some ways to fluctuate and make fascinating and merchandise that’s, primarily, a stick of wooden. Nevertheless, I believe I did fairly effectively right here!

And, lastly, we now have grenades! Modelled after pre-gunpowder and early gunpowder historic grenades, these will likely be out there in powdermaker outlets in civilizations with the suitable applied sciences and insurance policies. Shown right here from left to proper is a hallucinogenic grenade, an explosive grenade, and a smoke grenade, and I’m engaged on a few different sorts as effectively. As I’ve stated earlier than, I actually am enthusiastic about engaged on fight when that begins coming into play, and these are a class of merchandise I’ve been wanting ahead to including into the sport for some time now.

Speech

Part of what I’ve deliberate for this launch is absolutely increasing and growing the speech choices. As a part of this, due to this fact, now you can ask NPCs open questions of the sort “What do you concentrate on [X]?”. This means now you can query NPCs about any alcoholic drink, any prisoner (should you’re speaking to a jailer), any historic occasion, any ship (should you’re speaking to a sailor), any monastery or monk (should you’re speaking to monks or monks), any political celebration (in related nations), any main household (in feudal nations), any gladiator (in related nations), any feudal nation, any tribal nation, any nomadic nation, any identified illness or plague, any non secular relic, any faith, any particular person, any metropolis, any city, any space of the world map, any animal or plant, any weapon, any paintings, any e-book, and any political ideology. Here’s an instance of those kinds of questions within the listing of questions, after which an instance of the way it at present appears while you’re deciding on what to ask:

One of my subsequent duties, after all, will likely be to develop the responses to those questions! More on this quickly.

Survival

I’ve at all times hated the trivialities and the fixed have to hold your self from dying in most “survival video games” – eat meals each jiffy, drink water each jiffy, and many others. It’s tedious and repetitive and would not actually add a terrific deal (besides in a couple of uncommon instances the place it’s so tightly built-in into the sport design, as in one thing like Don’t Starve). By distinction, the survival mechanics in a sport like The Curious Expedition, which was one among my favorite video games from final 12 months, struck me as very totally different. In shifting survival from the fixed to the strategic, the query in TCE is as an alternative framed much more as “planning for an expedition” and ensuring you have got sufficient to outlive, making good use of your assets, planning forward, and so forth. These kinds of framings actually appeal to me and actually slot in with the kind of factor I’m trying to do in URR. It should not be one thing the participant is considering each second of the day, however given the sport’s deal with exploration and the scale of the sport world, I’m actually interested in the concept that with the intention to push out from one’s base metropolis it is advisable to be sure you have what it is advisable to survive, and that to push out into more difficult terrains (desert, polar, mountains, and many others) it is advisable to make sure you’ve obtained what you will want to have the ability to correctly discover them.

So, progress has begun on the “planning for expeditions” aspect of issues by including three meters into the sport which you’ll be able to see now on the sidebar on the left – meals, water, and tools. None of those are required in cities, cities, and on ships, however to go out your self, you will have to fill up on provides. Food is consumed every day you are out of a settlement / ship; water is consumed every day you are within the desert (the idea is that outdoors of the desert yow will discover plentiful water sources), and tools is consumed every day you are in polar or mountainous areas (once more, it is assumed that is simpler elsewhere). These may be purchased in cities while you enter/exit by means of the town gate (which is the a part of this I’m now engaged on). These are fairly low cost items, however naturally if one runs out and is not in a settlement or a ship, unhealthy issues would possibly start to occur – which must be fairly enjoyable to code. More on this quickly!

Thrones

Thrones – regardless of having been generated over a 12 months in the past – now, truly, seem in-game while you have a look at a throne. So that is good.

Bug fixes

I’ve additionally accomplished a variety of bug fixes, reminiscent of:

-Resolved a difficulty the place urgent ‘@’ to take a look at your character didn’t correctly provide the identical navigation choice for taking a look at your character that urgent ‘l’ or ‘;’, after which manually taking a look at your self, would.

-Removed a debugging choice within the “Export” menu that I’d by chance left within the sport – whoops!

-Hopefully mounted an issue with the world technology sequence very hardly ever freezing (not crashing) should you transfer the “focus” in your laptop away from it to a different app; I believe this has been resolved, however it would possibly want a bit extra testing.

-Fixed bugs the place a number of speech choices resulted in crashes.

-Fixed a bug the place urgent the “Exchange” choice in a dialog would result in a crash (although I will likely be coming again to this in additional element later).

-Fixed a bug the place the sport would crash upon going up stairs (!).

-Fixed some typos within the technology of monastery names.

-Changed the identify generator for mercenary guilds, since among the generated names have been a bit bit… iffy.

-Fixed an issue the place typically asking troopers about their armour prompted a crash.

-Standardised the spelling of “civilization” to the American English model – most phrases within the sport are British English, however I’ve at all times favored the look of the ‘z’ in that phrase (I blame Sid Meier) so I made a decision on that one as an alternative.

-Fixed shading on indicators outdoors buildings in metropolis centres.

-Fixed a bug with a crash upon getting into a fortress.

-Fixed bug the place a cult ring would typically attempt to generate for a non-cultist civilization, leading to a crash.

-Fixed a BIG and long-running crash bug with some cities on the coast not producing sufficient properties for folks to reside in, leading to a crash! This was as a result of the sport couldn’t discover someplace to place a dock in time, after which ran out of “can I place a building?” cycles earlier than it was in a position to get to putting homes (which come after the bigger, extra necessary buildings). I’m actually happy to have lastly solved this one, as this now means there are only a few remaining identified main bugs – actually, solely actually one.

-Fixed a bug the place turquoise mines didn’t show appropriately within the encyclopedia and prompted a crash, and likewise typically appeared as “metal” mines as an alternative of “gem” mines (regardless that I’m fairly positive turquoise shouldn’t be a steel).

-Fixed a bug the place taking a look at a mine within the encyclopedia belonging to a nomadic, as an alternative of a feudal nation, prompted a crash as a result of it was making an attempt to print the improper form of flag.

-The listing of ships within the encyclopedia now exhibits the photographs of the ships alongside their names, locations, homeowners, traits, and many others.

0.10 Begins

So: I’m happy to say that 0.10 is now going to be a launch targeted on the stuff I could not get into the previous couple of releases, plus a load of latest objects, some new mechanics, plus a load of polishes and refinements and fixes for bugs and issues of that kind. Again, I believe it is actually necessary for me to settle into a daily annual launch schedule of any measurement, slightly than specializing in enormous releases throughout any time interval. I simply do not suppose after being fairly unwell for eight months that 4 months – even 4 months of focus – is just sufficient to do credit score to the e-book technology concepts I’ve began engaged on, and that I’m excited to deploy. With that stated I’m positive I will likely be persevering with to do a bit of labor on e-book content material technology, since that excites me and I’m extremely eager on growing this technique I’m constructing for this – which I believe is distinct from others? – and seeing the place it may possibly go. However, my precedence will likely be on this 0.10 content material, constructing on 0.9, sharpening, fixing, enhancing, growing, and fleshing out, what’s within the sport proper now. 0.11 is perhaps e-book technology; it would even be fight; it is perhaps some mixture, or one thing else; however 0.10 goes to be a launch of great measurement, deepening each the gameplay interactions within the URR world, and the sport world element, and I’m excited to get engaged on it.

Thanks for studying everybody, and I’ll see you in a few weeks – I promise! – for the subsequent replace!