Here's an update for what's being worked on and what's coming up next.
Merchant Trade
Immigration
Overland Spawns and Exploration
Village Raids, Defense, and Destruction
Dwarves
Ongoing UI Changes and Bug Fixes
The Merchant Trade feature involves several new game mechanics and finishing up of some existing ones.
Once you've completed the quest rescuing his crewman, Tirk will engage you in dialogue for a new quest to setup ongoing trade.
For Tirk to be able to land at your village and unload supplies, you'll need to build a dock.
Accepting the new quest unlocks new specialized build pieces where you can build berths for small ships on the water as part of your new port.
A proper berth allows Tirk to tie off his jolle (jolly boat or tender) and unload lightweight supplies and more importantly, people - this is required for the Immigration feature.
Tirk travels by ship to various other villages and your old city, and will return periodically depending on which leg of his trade route he is on. You'll know he's arriving when you or your villagers hear his ship's horn... or see the Kona Maria arrive in your harbour.
At this early stage you can request the types of items you'd like to buy and Tirk will do what he can to stock them. You ask him for general categories such as foodstuffs, raw materials, tools and weapons, and books. Books are one way you can learn and unlock special skills for building as well as other vocations.
Building something advanced like a dock requires special skills, hence the specialized build piece unlocks you get from this quest.
Later you'll be able to learn how to construct full size piers for berthing cargo vessels like the Kona Maria, which opens up access to heavy trade goods, livestock, and drought animals.
This is somewhat in order as each feature is required by the next one.
Once Tirk can berth his jolle and unload cargo, he can start to bring you new villagers, and maybe even new heroes.
Don't expect to gain any scholars or engineers early on as you'll probably only see beggars, poor folk, and other unsavoury characters until you can start paying wages in coin, or have earned enough renown to entice artisans and nobles to your kingdom.
As you may have noticed, the current main map is quite empty. This feature will add in the various spawns and exploration areas throughout the map.
This brings up the topic of combat difficulty. You may have noticed even during the first quest when rescuing Tirk's missing crewman that there are some enemies you should not face.
You can expect this to continue where you'll encounter some creatures that you will want to avoid until you can field a stronger exploration party, and that will mean there are some areas of the map you can't visit yet. But, as your village grows you'll need to deal with some of these areas.
You may encounter enemy camps, dangerous wildlife, and other mysteries to be solved, as well as new resources.
This ties into the existing Random Encounters feature and expands on the existing destruction mechanics introduced with the rock breaking/stoneworker job. While you may have the occasional creature wander into your village (or track you there), what you should be most concerned with are raids from enemy camps.
The existing Random Encounters feature is an escalating encounter system where if you fail, or ignore until it fails the current level, it can trigger raids on your village. The enemy raiding force can increase in strength as the Random Encounter level increases.
Fortifications can help keep enemies out of your vulnerable areas, but you'll still have to repel enemy forces otherwise they can break down your gates and destroy your buildings.
This is the reason you came to the new land. You will finally be able to engage with them, although they may not be interested in talking to you much until you can prove your worth in the new dwarven trials adventure where your wits and might are tested to the limits.
Apparently not everyone loves my developer UI :)
Changes to the UI are ongoing and I'll be looking to bring on a UI/UX contractor to help out, especially with the overall design.
Bug fixes are also an ongoing priority, please keep reporting bugs so they can be fixed.