Yesterday, we said Folklands 1.0 means More Folk. More Lands.
There is, unfortunately, a small problem with the second part: The good land isn't always where you want it to be!
As your settlement grows, each new tier brings new buildings, new opportunities, and new demands on your economy. As your settlement grows, so does the need to expand - farms need more space, production buildings need more resources. And eventually, staying comfortable inside your little corner of the map stops being an option.
Sometimes you have to go looking.
With this release, exploration and expansion play a much bigger role in how your settlement develops. The interesting resources are scattered around the map, and some of them are even protected!
With improved map generation logic, no two maps put the same opportunities in the same places. Map size, water level and resource abundance can all change, which means the land you need may not be sitting conveniently beside your starting settlement.
Valuable resources may be waiting beyond your current borders, and reaching them can mean expanding across the map, clearing space, and deciding which territory is actually worth the effort.
We've also added new tools for clearing trees, rocks, and bushes, something players have asked for throughout Early Access - because sometimes the greatest threat to urban planning isn't an invading army. It's a shrub.
But not everything standing between you and those resources is quite so easy to remove. Sometimes, somebody got there first.
Optional raider camps can occupy valuable parts of the map, frighten nearby folks, and turn a promising expansion site into a problem you need to solve.
"Wait - is this suddenly an RTS?" we hear you say. Not at all! Guards and guard towers are already part of Folklands, but in 1.0 they have more reason to matter as settlements spread across the map. Raiders are an optional challenge, and dealing with them is still about supporting your settlement economy rather than commanding armies around a battlefield.
Guards need to be fed, paid and armed to protect your area and clear out those pesky bandits. All of which cost resources that could have been spent somewhere else.
But expanding your settlement is all about creating and seizing opportunities!