Dev Diary 24 - [VLOG] Province Mechanics: UI, Edicts, and Modding
Gilded Destiny · published
Greetings, Industrialists!
In today's Dev Diary, we are excited to share an overview of the Province System. One of our Content Designers, James, will give an overview of the core features and mechanics of Provinces, including the UI, Province Buildings and Economies, Provincial Populations, Provincial Edicts and Industry Support, and Modding Potential!
Also, Check out our ninth Alpha Roadmap Update:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2189430/view/505065116626060512?l=english
You can find the full script for the Dev Diary below.
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Let us know if you have any questions or feedback over on Discord. And be sure to wishlist us to stay up to date!
Join our Discord community today!
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Speaking of Discord, we have started rolling the Discord roles to our Kickstarter backers! If you have not yet completed the Kickstarter survey we sent out, please do so. If you have filled it out, and are not yet in our Discord server, join and say hello in the main channel to let us know you're there to claim your role!
Our Kickstarter officially ended in April, and brought in a total of £31,974 GBP, which is 159% of our goal! We offer the most gilded appreciation to all of our backers and our community. Your support, positive feedback and encouragement, and our growing vibrant community of industrialists motivates more than ever to make Gilded Destiny the most moddable, immersive, fun, and grandest GSG out there.
You can access the survey on the Kickstarter website:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gildeddestiny/gilded-destiny-a-grand-strategy-game?ref=bjurrh
Finally, if you are interested in what we do and want to join us but do not see a relevant job, send us your resume at [email protected]!
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Script for Dev Diary 24:
Greetings, fellow industrialists. This year is set to be full of updates and I'm happy to present our first Dev Diary of 2025. My name is James and I'm a content designer for Gilded Destiny. Today we'll be talking about the specifics for how players can influence their country at the province level. Before we dive into that, though...
As many of you are already aware, we have launched the pre-Alpha of Gilded destiny for a small group of about 100 testers chosen from our Kickstarter and Modian backers. We have received lots of constructive feedback, suggestions, and bug reports. Based on this feedback, we are revisiting a few design features, revising some mechanics, and reworking several UIs. Once we have implemented some of these changes, and worked out a few bits about the Economy, we plan to bring the pre-Alpha to more testers when it's ready. As mentioned in our last Dev Diary, we do intend to offer a way to purchase the Alpha for Gilded Destiny for those who joined our community after the Kickstarter concluded. Also, be sure to check out the January Alpha Roadmap for all the latest.
Now, on to provinces. To start with, the province UI has received a slight rework. Let's look at Pomerania. Going point by point, we first have the province name at the top. Because we want players to have full control over their countries, you'll notice we allow all provinces to be renamed. If I click on the pen icon to the right, I can change Pomerania to whatever name I like.
Continuing down the province view, we'll stay on the overview tab where we can see the option to appoint a governor. For detailed information about leaders, please see our video coving them linked in the description.
While we are still adding features to what governors can accomplish, one of the role's primary uses is for our leaders to gain experience for higher positions in the government down the line.
Next, we can see some basic information about Pomerania. It has a population of 646,000 and provides 120M to our total GDP. Tax efficiency and stability are still being worked on, so I won't cover those. And do keep in mind all numbers are subject to change.
Towards the bottom of the window, there is a list of major cities. In 1822, both Stolp and Koslin only had about 5000 people each. Of course, they will both grow considerably through the 19th century. Stolp shows that it contains 1 factory.
Clicking on it opens the building tab of the city view. The factory is a textile mill converting cotton into textiles.
Viewers might have noticed pretty important city that was not included. Stettin, of course, was a major Pomeranian city. However, we have separated that into the province of Cispomerania, though historically they were a part of the same Prussian province.
Before covering edicts, I will quickly take us through the other 3 tabs in the province view. The buildings tab has a list of all non-city buildings in the province. Currently, Pomerania has a single sea port for province buildings. We can see that there is the potential for 71 agricultural buildings and 1 natural resource building.
The Population tab gives an overview of Pomerania's demographics. Mousing over a few of the pie charts, the Pops here are about 85% smallholders, 90% North German, and 90% Protestant. Overall, there are roughly 659,000 Pops, and because this is the first day of the game there is no immediate migration yet. However, we do display domestic migration, international migration, and Pop promotion/demotion. Scrolling down, there is some basic economic information relating to Pops such as their current average savings, income vs. Expenses, and unemployment rate. It would seem that our Pops here aren't in great shape with expenses nearly double their income. Prussia might be in for a bit of trouble if that is not remedied.
Let's take a closer look at our economy in the next tab to see why. First off, Pomerania has 100% market connectivity, so no issue there. There is a single factory which is our textile mill in Stolp from earlier. It would be good to have more factories, but those will take time and investment. If we look at our top products and demands in the province, the issue become apparent. Despite grain, logs, and fish being our top products, we can't meet our demand in any of them. Prussia was going through a difficult transition following the Napoleonic Wars and much of the peasantry struggled to support themselves. Similar issues were happening all across Europe as the great powers tried to re-establish the old order in a rapidly changing world. The gap between income and expenses that we saw in the Population tab is a problem that the player can solve to better the conditions in their country. However, it won't be an easy fix. Let's look at some of the tools we have available: industry support and province edicts.
The primary use for industry support is to influence investment behavior and Pop promotion. While your capitalists will look for investments that show the best returns, the player has foresight that Pops lack. Anticipating how a new technology will influence the flow of the global trade can put your country at a comparative advantage if you direct your investors ahead of the curve. However, keep in mind that encouraging a specific industry does not mean that industry is profitable. Similarly, encouraging a specific workforce does not provide jobs for the newly promoted. Industry support should be used in tandem with the demands of your country. Societal change does not happen overnight. Push your country too far too quickly, and the change you see might not be for the better.
Scrolling through the window, there is a support option for each pop type as well as for each good type. The authority cost for each support option is shown and it's important to keep in mind that these are paid on activation as well as each following month.
Province Edicts by contrast represent more tailored effects. We currently have 9 edicts but there are more planned in the future as various game systems are completed. Edicts tend to have a combination of benefits and detriments. For example, clear-cut forestry will increase the output of you logging camps, but the increased erosion will harm both farm and plantation output. Similarly, mandated mining quotas will increase mine output, but it will also increase the mortality rate for workers in the province while decreasing the rate that new Pops promote to the worker job type as the job becomes less appealing overall. I'd like to draw your attention to one edict in particular that might not seem very useful at first. The Austerity measures edict has two primary effects. The first is that it decreases the amount of luxury goods that your upper and middle class Pops desire. The second effect is that it lowers the happiness of your upper and middle class pops as well. That first effect might look odd, because decreasing overall consumption in your country could have a deflating effect on your economy. However, because your higher strata Pops are spending less on luxury goods, they will have more money available to invest This kind of edict rewards the player who can identify when they should encourage long term investment over the benefits of immediate consumption.
Now that we understand the tools we have at our disposal, let's return to the problem facing our Pops in Pomerania. We saw that our textile mill was not fully employing clerks and that we were not meeting our need for grain, timber, and fish. To fix our clerk problem, let's encourage promotion to the clerk job type. That will get some of our Pops into better paying jobs so that they can afford the goods they need on the national and international markets. Next, let's increase our timber production to open up more jobs producing a highly demanded good. To do this, I'll enter the building menu and start construction on a logging camp. I will then return to the province view and encourage timber using the industry support. Also, let's set the edict clear-cut forestry. Because our province currently lacks farms and plantations, there is no downside to increasing our timber output. While this will not solve our goods problem immediately, I hope the steps I have taken here demonstrate the kinds of challenges you'll face in Gilded Destiny as well as the steps you can take to solving them.
Before wrapping up then, I'd like to talk a bit about the modding potential province edicts have. Currently, we have them setup to allow for any effect or modifier we have in the game. For example, if you wanted to make an edict like "mandated fasting" you could remove the food requirement from all Pops in the province as well as increase the mortality rate by 1000%. Or you could make an edict that immediately spawns an army ready for battle, but that gives every neighboring country a casus belli to take that province. It's really up to your imagination and we will continue to add more effects as development progresses.
Alright, that's it for today's Dev Diary. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel and, if you have not done so already, add Gilded Destiny to your Steam wishlist. Until our paths converge once more, we bid thee farewell!
Thank you for watching.
May your destiny be a gilded one.
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Also:
Be sure to listen closely to the backing tracks in all our videos—they are the pieces you will come to hear in the game, composed by John Skoog. Also, the solo clarinet on this track was performed by yours truly, Marc.
Listen to some of John Skoog's other work on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3PGd3lmURa72oFasqK3N7N?si=nDl4DUTRQGKKLaDtGcHBJw
John Skoog Music: https://www.johnskoogmusic.com/