Salutations Industrialists,
We're excited to share the progress we've made over the last month and update you on our Alpha Roadmap.
As mentioned previously, in March we were focused on addressing and resolving a few issues with the in game economy. We're making good progress refining several of the important features of Gilded Destiny, in preparation for the release of the Alpha version of the game to our Kickstarter and Modian backers. Importantly, our dev teams are devoting much of their focus on resolving a few issues with the in-game economy and population. The main problems we have been facing are maintaining the integrity of how the pops consume, produce, and trade in-game, which ties into the economy. Once these systems are working properly, and once we've thoroughly tested them, we are planning to release the Alpha to our backers.
Without further ado, let's take a look at what we accomplished in March and what is planned for April. This is also a special roadmap, as it marks the twelfth update! So, we would like to share a list of major accomplishments in the last year as well!
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Accomplished in March
Complete implementing early Events for the Qing Empire, Netherlands, and Belgium
- This will not include rebellions, which will wait until implementation of the Rebellion system
- Early events for the Qing Empire are underway, and implementation has begun.
Continue designing early Italian Events
- Underway and continuing into April.
Continue refining terrain (such as mountains, lakes, and rivers)
- Southeastern Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia
- Central Asia has been completed and work on Southeastern and South Asia will continue into April.
Begin designing early US Events
- Some initial design work has been completed. Work will continue into April.
Continue adjusting and refining the global economy
- This is an ongoing process. Improvements have been made to the economic system. With the implementation of a redesigned trade system in games, we hope to resolve several of the major bugs plaguing the economy right now.
Update initial country stats for Europe and the Americas
- Done.
Refine and update the placement of resources and the availability of plantation goods in various provinces
- Refinement has begun and will continue into April.
Refine and update design for the effects of Leader Positions
- Done. These have been refined and are ready for implementation.
Design for auxiliary units (engineers, sappers, etc.) that can be added to divisions for various bonuses
- Initial design has been completed, with units including: Engineers, Spotters/Reconnaissance, Field Hospitals/Medics, Service Corps/Logistics, Heavy Machine Guns, Military Police, Signal Corps, and Marines.
Adjust some Country and Province Borders
- Done.
Update and refine Culture, Religion, and Profession distribution in Europe
- Pushed back.
Design new Cultural Heritages and Religious Convictions, and implement where possible
- Underway, a few have been implemented and will be assigned to pops.
Add new Leader Traits
- Delayed. Pushed back.
Complete the Settings and Save/Load Menu Art Design
- Art designs have been completed. Awaiting implementation
Add more portraits and clothes to the game
- Several new country-specific uniforms have been added to the game. These now need to be synced with leader portraits. And one general European military uniform has been added, which can currently be seen in the game.
Continued performance optimization, through internal QA testing and bug reports and feedback from Pre-Alpha testers
- The internal QA team has been growing and is creating procedures to optimize workflow. Performance continues to be optimized in the game build.
Redesign and Implement new Trade system
- With the hope of addressing issues with the Economy, our devs have designed and implemented a new trade system. If the new Trade system is successful, after thorough testing, we are much closer to releasing the Alpha build.
Extras Added in March:
- Added New AI behaviors, including Building Construction and the adjustment of Tariffs and Government Expenses
- Implemented the HUD UI Design
- Implementation of Rebellion system is underway
- Navy System design is currently being finalized
- Updates to schools and literacy rates are in progress
- Bureaucratic efficiency design is currently being finalized
- Further refinements to population job transfers and transfer rates
End of April
- Continue testing the newly implemented Trade system
- Southeastern and Central Asia
- Finish designing early Italian Events
- Implement Qing events
- Continue designing Early US events.
- Continue fixing bugs reported by QA testers and pre-Alpha testers
- Adjust various economic features, such as tariffs, to align with the new Trade system
- Complete implementation of Rebellions---Test, and update.
- Update and refine policy modifiers and tech modifiers
- Continue designing and implementing cultural heritages and religious convictions
- Begin implementation of Bureaucratic efficiency system
- Continue implementing with clothing and portraits
- Working on updating the Trade UI
- Continue work on map view modes
Major Accomplishments in the Last Year!
- Reworking the entire UI and making it more consistent
- Creating an improved and more readable visual language to improve UI/UX
- The release of the pre-alpha
- Reworking the Event Editor, including making changes to improve usability for modders
- Developing Prussian events to develop design standards for game content
- Creating a demo build and sharing the game at Gamescom
- Map Rework of underlying logic and visual appearance (which is still being refined)
- Significant performance optimizations from adjustments to Pops, the Map Rework
- Bringing several core features from concept to implementation
- AI behavior has been greatly improved, especially in relation to buildings and economy
- Adding new employees to our Development and Publishing Teams, increasing stability and reliability of the development process
- 100 new Leader portraits have been designed and many have already been implemented into the game.
- Completed design for various core systems, such as Rebellion, Technology, Production Methods, managing Cultures and Religions, and many more. Implementation of these systems is mostly complete, with only one or two still underway.
- Significant advances in the historical distribution of POPs, resources, buildings, etc. While this is still a work in progress, the world of Gilded Destiny is far closer to the world of 1822 than it was a year ago (somewhat paradoxically).
- The 3 technology trees have been implemented, along with all of the goods and buildings. These will continue to receive refinement, balancing, and artwork, but the bulk of the content is in the game and working as it should be.
- A world map that is historically accurate, given the inevitable restrictions of size and gameplay requirements. There may still be a few small errors that need to be fixed, but by and large the political geography is done and the physical geography is almost finished.
Please note that we are again recalibrating our progress at the end of April, so we will look forward to sharing May goals in the next Alpha Roadmap. As our goals and expectations evolve, and as these milestones are reached, we will keep you updated!
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Also, as a reminder—we have assigned Discord roles to our backers who are already part of our server. If you are not a member of our server, please join via the link below and say hello in the chat to ensure that you claim your role!
Join the Gilded Destiny Discord Server
Pre-Alpha Testing Continues
As many of you are already aware, we have launched the Pre-Alpha of Gilded Destiny to a small group of about 100 testers chosen from our Kickstarter and Modian backers at random. So far, we have received lots of constructive feedback, suggestions, and bug reports. As we continue to develop certain systems for Gilded Destiny, we are also now beginning to transition to a more feedback-based approach to development. The pre-Alpha testers have helped a great deal to isolate bugs and to improve playability. We look forward to sharing the game with more of you very soon!
As we've mentioned previously, we decided to do a small closed Pre-Alpha test to gather initial feedback so that experience of the Alpha is enjoyable and meaningful, and to streamline the process of administrating keys, feedback collection, and bug reporting on our end. Of course, as many of you know, both the pre-Alpha and Alpha builds of the game will likely have limited content and systems may not be fully implemented into the game.
Thanks for your support and for reading!
May your day be a gilded one!