This is a larger update addresses lots of player feedback and expands the combat system, including the following changes:
Design
Reinforcements:
Bands preparing for battle can now pull reinforcements from adjacent bands, to increase total available fighters that can be assigned to units. This makes smaller bands less vulnerable if clustered together.
When using reinforcements for an attack, reinforcing bands also go on Attack Cooldown.
Glory:
Total damage dealt to enemies during battle is tracked and displayed, and it accumulates as tribe-level Glory
Every 100 Glory triggers a beneficial event with tribe-wide bonuses, and some factions and norms get other bonuses that scale with Glory, making a militaristic focus more rewarding long-term
Unit size no longer impacts Attack Strength, only Morale. This increases the impact of technology and other Attack bonuses, and means larger units survive longer but without doing more damage.
Injuries:
Total damage taken during battle is tracked and displayed
Injuries no longer work via a probability roll with every unit hit. Instead, total damage taken gets multiplied by Risk of Injuries from Battle to calculate number of injuries. This makes injuries more aligned with battle performance and outcome.
Risk of Injuries from Battle is now baseline 0.1
Warmaster's Curiosity now modifies Risk of Injuries from Battle by -10% for each +1 Curiosity
Battle Objectives:
Attacker bands can now choose 1 of several battle objectives, with different mid-battle effects and victory outcomes:
Repel:
if attackers win, they push away target band
Loot:
if attackers win, they steal a resource (via event)
Plunder:
if attackers win, they steal an item (via event)
Capture:
if attackers win, they take captive a non-fighter (via event)
if attackers win, they push away target band
+0.2 Risk of Injuries during this battle
-5 Opinion from target for 10 turns
-5 Opinion from target's friends for 5 turns
Destroy:
if attackers win with x4 more fighters than target, they fully conquer the target band
else if attackers win, they kill an important character (via event) and push away target band
+0.4 Risk of Injuries during this battle
-10 Opinion from target for 10 turns
-10 Opinion from target's friends for 5 turns
When fighting over structures only the 'Conquer Site' objective is available
Factions agendas (e.g. diplomatic, militaristic) affect which battle objectives they choose
As before, player still conquers target band if it has 0 fighters, no matter the battle objective
If player is defeated in battle, attacker faction gets their own victory event, and player gets a response event
Opinion malus from attacking now gives a base -5 Opinion for 10 turns from the target, and -5 Opinion for 10 turns from the target's allies
Players can now back out of battles they have initiated and begun staging, it's only locked in once the "Start Battle" button is pressed
"Family Member Taken Captive" person state now lowers Charisma by -1
"Invite to Feast" diplomacy action now costs 30 Food, up from 20
Standing Guard production focus now gives -20% Risk from Wildlife per 1 Production, boosted from -5% per 1 Production
Climate adaptations now require 3XP in a climate before triggering Level 1 adaptation event, up from 2XP
Added new tile improvement, Cave Paintings:
unlocked with Controlled Fire
buildable on tiles with Caves
gives +1 Victory Point to faction that completes it
gives +0.5 Culture/turn to band on tile and +0.5 extra if Band has Pigment Items (e.g. Ochre, Malachite)
UI
Events with probabilistic outcomes now also trigger a full pop-up acknowledgement describing what happened, not just a notification
Added explicit mention in Chief's effects of existing mechanic: +1 Reputation per won battle, -1 Reputation per lost battle
Improved layout of military and battle menus
New battle details text with detailed tooltip added to military, battle, and battle outcome menus
Added small animation when running trials to increase clarity of new units appearing
Unit summaries now shown in unit button tooltips in Band > Military page
Enabled tribe relationship summaries to be accessible via event outcome tooltips
Moved person band info to main Person panel so it's more easily accessible
Event outcome text made bold to increase legibility
'ESC' key now also resumes game when in-game menu is already open
Added 'Devotee' hyperlinked concept to make Spiritual Site effects clearer
Enkidu added to tutorial screen :)
Bugs Fixed
Fixed Brawlers unit special ability not triggering correctly
Fixed tradeable button sometimes looking interactable when they are not
Fixed norm-dependent Reputation modifiers not updating when a person is taken captive by a tribe with different norms
Fixed Morale bonus from Standing Guard production focus not applying to new units trained that turn
NOTE: This is a larger update that may break some older demo saves!
Please leave a review on the demo's page to let me know what you think,
and join the discussions on Discord where we get into prehistory and strategy.
The full game comes out very soon, August 26th!
Cheers :)
Enkidu