Noble Fates: Riverlands, the 8th Major Update for Noble Fates is nearing completion!
Harness Water to live off the land, raise animals, and supercharge production!
Welcome the Halflings and High Elves!
v0.30 saves are compatible!
Beta available now!
Features
Welcome to the Riverlands
The Riverlands are an easier environment, presenting a Mild Climate with lots to Forage, home to plenty of new Animals, and...
Rivers!
Rivers are a new type of Water feature that enters the Map somewhere and exits somewhere else. It naturally flows, and can be leveraged for a variety of uses.
Flowing Water?!?!?
Gone are the days of static lakes as you Terraform and build powerful new Props to harness the power of Flowing Water!
Or just make cool Moats and Water features and Waterfalls and stuff!
Home to the Halflings
Turns out these little fellas have been living off the land right under our noses.
Halflings are not naturally gifted Melee fighters nor are they highly motivated to spend the time to develop their Ranged Skills. They are excellent, however, at gathering food from their surroundings, animal husbandry, and preparing a great Meal.
Smaller in Stature, they live longer than Humans, but not as long as the Dwarves. Inherently Good natured, they strive to live off the land and live in peace. Their feet are too big for Feet Gear, but the size of their hearts makes up for it.
Come on down!
And new Animal friends
The Halflings have opened the other Mortals's eyes to a variety of new Animals that can be Tamed.
We completed a consistency pass across the other Animals to get them ready for the march to 1.0.
Squirrels, and Rabbits, and Guinnies, and Sheep, and Raccoons, oh my!
Raise your flock
Animal Yodeling
It turns out that Animals Yodel to reproduce, just like Mortals - who knew!
Animals skip the Baby Maturity, progressing through Young and Juvenile Maturities after 6 Bio Yirs each before reaching Adulthood.
Improvements to the reliability of Pastures make it more possible than ever to manage breeding.
Introducing Animal Genes!
Mating experimentation lead to the discovery of Animal Genes that drive their Stats, Yields, and Value and that are inherited from their parents before mutating.
Breed them strong via Strength, or fast via Mobility, or yieldier(?) via Vitality, or... all three to maximize their Value to Traders.
Genes are unbounded, but progress becomes rare the further a Gene gets from the mean.
Also, keep in mind that increases in Genes seems to make them Eat more and Poo more. Yep, they definitely Poo more.
I wonder if they'd Poo less if we bred them to be less Genesy?
More and better Ranchers means more Animals!
Beyond unlocking the ability to Tame and utilize Animals, the number of Ranchers and their collective Skill drives the number of Tames your Kingdom can maintain.
Tame or Grow too many Animals too fast and you'll see them start returning to the Wild before you know it!
Maximize Crop Yields
With the arrival of Flowing Water, the Humans have been at work learning the nuance of getting the most out of their crops.
Crops growing in Farms now require Water, Temperature, and Light to grow. Each type has different needs, making them more or less suitable to various environments.
Some can even be grown indoors or underground all year in the right conditions!
Leverage Cranques to Increase Production
The Dwarves immediately set to work inventing Props to harness the power of Flowing Water and supercharge refining of raw goods via Manufacturing.
Introducing Cranques!
The Water Cranque
Plop one of these bad boys into some Flowing Water and turn that Flow into Cranques.
Cranque Shafts
Feed those Cranques into a network of Cranque Shafts to transport it to somewhere useful.
The Hand Cranque
Hand Cranques offer an early option, a fallback in a pinch, or a way to get Water Flowing.
Manufacturing!
Lumber and The Lumbermill
Upper tier Wood Props now require Wood that is refined into Lumber.
This can be done by hand at Crafting Tables or automatically via Cranques at the Lumber Mill!
Fibres, Fabric, and The Loom
Cotton and Wool(!) are interchangeable as Fibres in the production of anything that used to use Cotton.
HIgh end Clothing and Decorations are now made from Fabric. Fabric is made from Fibres by hand at the Crafting Table or via Cranques at the Loom!
The Stone Splitter
The Stone Cutting Table has been retired.
Stone Blocks can now be made by hand at the Crafting Table or via Cranques via the new Stone Splitter.
Put those Cranques to Work, not your people!
Welcome the High Elves
Now that the Halflings have been discovered, the High Elves have come out of hiding to stake their claim on their Elven heritage, protect their little friends, and ensure the demise of the Dark Elves.
The High Elves
Descendants of the Ancient Elven folk, the High Elves embrace the more Moral of their ancestor's teachings and have decided it's time to do what they can to make Noberia a better place for all races - well, maybe all but the Dark Elves.
Let's clean this place up!
The Dark Elves
It turns out the Elves that had previously been bopping around Noberia were tricksters from the deep underground. Now that the High Elves have shown up, they've dropped the act and have taken up their true identity, which includes higher than expected Melee gifts, a penchant for Evil, and sleeping during the day when left to their own devices.
Control Water
The High Elves have introduced ways to move Water.
Introducing the Water Gate
Build these in the way of Water to control the amount that flows through.
And the Water Pump and Water Pipes
Hook up some Cranques and some Water Pipes and you can Move Water!
No River, No Problem!
Let's talk about Poo
The High Elves were disgusted to find the other Mortal Races walking around Pooing anywhere they pleased. Shame drove rapid adoption of their management methods.
The Chamber Pot
Place these anywhere your Mortals spend time. Yielding half of the Hygiene hit of Poo on the floor and requiring half the time to clean up, it's a solid option.
Mortals have even learned to line up and wait their turn to do their dooty.
The Privy
Take things a step further with the use of the Privy to dump that Poo through the floor below.
Fill that space with Water and thanks to natural dissipation you no longer have to clean it up.
Or just drop it outside the castle walls.
What about Fishing?!?!?!?
Sato is hard at work on the Fishing System and it will be integrated during the Beta.
Corpse Product Opinion Redux
The increase in the number of Mortal Races and Animals has expedited the long overdue refinement of Subjects for Corpse Products.
Raw X Meat and Cooked X Meat => X Meat that is Raw or Cooked
Instead of separate Raw and Cooked Opinions for every type of Meat, Mortals now simply have an opinion for each type of Meat. They combine this with a separate Opinion of Raw Meat or Cooked Meat when evaluating a food source.
So instead of Liking Raw Dwarf Meat, a Mortal will now combine their Like of Dwarf Meat and their Like of Raw Meat when deciding whether to eat those freshly diced Dwarves or not.
This paves the way for more Meat types without doubling the number of Meat Opinions each time.
Pass the manflesh...
X Hide and X Leather => X Hide
Same thing here, minus the separate opinion of Hide versus Leather.
So now, Mortals will simply have a preference about the various Skins for each Race or Animal Type. The idea of Hide versus Leather has been dropped in favor of the existing Opinions for those Armor Types, bringing it more inline with how Opinions about other Equipment Types has worked all along.
Water Details
A water tile that is 85% or more is considered Overhead, 50% full is considered Deep, any thing else above 0% is considered Shallow.
Characters can Swim and can perform most actions while swimming (even fighting), just slower. While Swimming, a Mortal or Animal's Sleep Need will increase at an accelerated rate until they become Exhausted. A Character who is Exhausted will now pass out for a period of time if they aren't on their way to bed already.
Lingering in Overhead Water or laying down in Deep Water puts a Mortal or Animal Underwater. Underwater too long, and they'll begin to Drown. Drown too long and they'll Die.
Characters recognize the danger of Water and try not to linger in Water unless they need to. They'll go out of their way to walk around a body of Water, and swim on the surface before going deep unless it cannot be avoided. They can jump into and out of the Water, and can walk along the floor within, regardless of depth.
Monsters cannot Drown.
The Water Sim
We use a custom Cellular Automaton with Inflow to stabilize flowing bodies of water. It runs on a thread to minimize performance impact. Inlets (entrances) can be expanded by digging out the surrounding area. Outlets (exits) are anywhere that water reaches the edge of the map that doesn't connect to an inlet, even underground!
Flowing water does not flood unless the Outlet capacity cannot meet the Inflow. Water fills up from above, but does not climb upwards via pressure. Shallow Water that does not have Water above or below it and isn't connected to an Inlet will Evaporate over time. Rain will add Water up to 75% if there is some already and it is not connected to an Inlet.
Character Visuals
Along with the Halflings, we reworked the Eyes for Elves to be less insectoid and did a cleanup pass on many other Mortal Cosmetics.
We also added Closed Eyes that they use when Sleeping or Dead.
Secrets
There's more goodies in flight that will land during the Beta... Stay tuned!.
Experimental Beta
We've dusted off the Experimental Beta branch to put the update through its paces before releasing it more broadly.
Saves from the Experimental Beta will carry over when the full update releases.
You can participate by switching to the Experimental Beta on Steam. Expect issues - but know that we appreciate you helping pave the way for a smooth launch!
Release Date
Noble Fates: Riverlands releases on 1/6 at 10a PST.
Save Compatibility
You can carry on with your Kingdom from v0.30 and existing bodies of Water should come to life.
There are a few things that were changed about the simulation, so starting fresh will yield the best experience going forward.
Saves from the Experimental Beta will carry over when the update releases fully.
Localization
Translations for new strings are in progress, stay tuned!
Mods
It's 100% certain it will cause issues with Mortal, Animal, and Monster mods.
It's quite likely that the update will cause compatibility issues with some mods.
We'll use the Experimental Beta to iron out the issues.
Compatible mods will be marked with v0.31.
Discord
Join the Official Discord to participate in Development!
Reviews
If you like the game, please consider leaving a Review for the game if you haven't already. These help players that may be on the fence to decide whether or not to support us.
Thanks for reading and thanks for playing!
The Noble Fates Team