Hello everyone, 

After weeks of testing and refining, we are happy to merge Foundation’s latest experimental version to the main game. This update brings significant changes in the form of game balance and added features. As such, it is advisable to start over; while previous saves will indeed load, some of the work introduced in this update will undoubtedly disrupt villages’ productivity, happiness and more. That said, there’s a lot to be excited about with 1.9.4. Read on for all the details! 

New Meat Production Chain And Additional Food Need

The Butchery, a brand-new building unlocked in the first tier of the common progression path, has been added to the game! This means boars are now much more useful as a resource: after placing Hunter’s Huts near dense forests, you will be able to capture the animals. Then, butchers will turn them into meat to be consumed at your markets or sold to traders.

Such a change fits nicely with the fact that villagers—including Serfs—now require two different food types to be happy.

Tavern Overhaul And New Entertainment Need

The Tavern has undergone significant changes in this newest version of the game. You are now able to create berry brews—a special drink made of berries and water—at the Berry Brewery. Served alongside a delicious meal, this is sure to be a hit among your people!  

Introducing a new drink serves two main purposes: adding variety and perhaps more importantly, letting you deal with the fact that commoners, citizens and soldiers now require to be entertained! This new need affects happiness, so you want to make sure concerned villagers can quench their thirst.

Progression and Balancing Changes Overview

Update 1.9.4 features a trove of progression and balancing-related changes. Here’s a quick glance at what you can expect:  

New Features

• Butchery workplace and meat resource
• Entertainment need, berry brews and berry brewery workplace at the Tavern
• Levy mandate
• Kinstone Abbey trade route
• Discoveries
• New advice
• New action bar shortcuts for mandates and village aspirations
• Quick promotions
• Resources linked to some workplaces are now displayed on click

Balancing Changes

• Tax Office was moved to the Labour progression path
• Additional food need for villagers
• Villagers have a chance to leave starting at -25% happiness
• More workplaces now require higher villager statuses
• Removed residential availability from immigration factors
• Trade routes have added resources to buy and sell from
• Adjusted plenty of building construction costs
• Events have been improved across the board
• Several unlockables have been moved around
• Your second territory no longer has an upkeep cost

The exhaustive list of changes can be found in our game design changelog at the end of this post.

Levy Mandate

Update 1.9.4 adds a new way to access “emergency funds” with the Levy mandate. Activating this mandate grants you a large quantity of coins at the cost of villagers’ happiness. The debuff is applied for a set duration (currently: 30 days) and stacks should you activate the Levy multiple times. Use with caution!

The Levy mandate has been added as a result of the Tax Office function now being exclusive to the Labor progression path.  Our design goals with this change is to further associate taxes with this estate and encourage better decision-making regarding early to mid-game profit.

New Trade Route: Kinstone Abbey

A new, Clergy-allied trade route has opened! Merchants from Kinstone Abbey sell a variety of useful and rarer resources such as gold bars, gems or marble. They’ll be looking for herbs, honey and planks to name a few. Unlocking this trade route requires you to produce manuscripts at the Scriptorium. 

Enhanced Transport

Our engine team has been hard at work developing behind-the-scenes optimizations for Foundation. Chief among them is our rebuilt transportation system that is being rolled out as part of this update. 

Before, villagers sometimes had to travel long distances to satisfy their needs and seek resources, which was more obvious while facing shortages. This led to scenarios where villagers would cross the whole map—so to say—just to reach a market or specific building like a warehouse or a church. Not good. 

From now on, our transport algorithm further favors local management of resources and needs. To put it in more concrete terms, villagers will associate with markets or buildings near where they live. The same principle applies for production chains: a weaver hut requiring wool will get it from the closest available warehouse stocking some, itself linked to the closest sheep farm—effectively giving a whole new meaning to “hubs” within your villages. They will operate in a much more satisfying and natural way.

Map Generator Improvements

We are pleased to share an updated version of our map generator. When we first released this feature, we got a lot of feedback about terrain that felt a bit too bumpy, so we started iterating on a new version of this tool that would allow for flatter topographies. We took this opportunity to add several new configurable parameters as well, in order to have maps feel even better than before. 

Each map type has its own set of parameters you can adjust to your wishes. For instance, the Fluvial map type lets you modify the following parameters: 

• River
• Island
• Slope 
• Cliff
• Promontory
• Hill

If you are particularly happy with one of the procedurally generated creations, here’s another bit of good news: you will be able to easily share them thanks to a unique map code system! Input the alphanumeric code into the designated space, click the confirmation button and voila: you have a new world to settle in!

Adjustments to Job Requirements

Several jobs now require more advanced villager statuses. In previous iterations of the game, you could (mostly) ignore promotions and still manage to get all production chains going. However, we feel like some jobs should require a bit more investment and decision making before your villagers can access them. 

Two examples of jobs adjusted to the new reality of higher status requirements are the Tax Collector and Bailiff, which now require Commoners at a minimum.

Important Changes to the Promotion System

As you will now spend a lot more time dealing with promotions, it no longer made sense to limit this function to once every 30 days. Hence why with 1.9.4, we’re introducing two important quality of life changes regarding promotions: 

• You can now use the promotion mandate at will
• You can now promote villagers directly from their detailed information window

Advanced Resource Tracking

This update also introduces easy identification of resources in the world from select workplaces such as the Hunter’s Hut. In this example, selecting the building reveals where boars live on your map. Using the Extraction paint tool produces a similar result, displaying available berry and stone sources, so you can plan your village accordingly.

New Take on Immigration 

Immigration waves will now feel more rewarding and steady across the board. Previously, passersby would take into account multiple factors before deciding whether or not to join your village. One such factor, housing, has been completely removed from the equation, effectively softening the difficulty associated with immigration. 

Another change we made is that unless your immigration rate is nil or disabled, you will always get a minimum of one newcomer per immigration wave. 

Discoveries

Foundation is a city-building game with quite a lot of interconnected systems that you learn to master over time. We want to make sure this doesn’t hamper your fun nor prove too daunting, so we thought of an additional tool to help you learn the ropes: discoveries. 

Crucial systems or concepts are now accompanied by one-time notifications whose stated goal is to provide assistance in a concise way. We are confident this new feature, in addition to help topics, will answer most questions that may arise while playing.

General Changelog

New

• Meat production chain with the Butchery
• Entertainment need
• Berry Brews at the Tavern
• Levy Mandate
• Discoveries
• Environmental Resource Display
  • Berries
  • Fish schools
  • Stone nodes
  • Boars
• Advanced onboarding
  • Food diversity
  • Enacting the Mandate Levy
  • Leaving villagers

Improvements

• Auto-assigning higher status villagers to workplaces will not demote them anymore
• Transport behavior has been enhanced, a change that will be most noticeable with larger villages. The algorithm now focuses more on local ‘resource hubs’, which should fix workers traveling great distances to do their job

Updates

• Help topics
  • Housing
  • Generating revenue
  • Immigration
  • Markets
  • Promotions
  • Trading
  • Trade routes
  • Villager Happiness
• Localization

Modding

• Exposed missing unlockables
• Exposed Butcher-related assets (job, building, etc.)
• Exposed Tavern buildings
• Exposed Master Builder job (Crafter Workshop)
• Exposed Kinstone Abbey (trading village)
• Exposed Jeweler’s workshop building part
• Exposed Entertainment need
• Exposed missing Happiness factors
• Added members to GAME_RULE_MODIFIER_WORKPLACE_RECIPE
• GAME_ACTION_APPLY_GAME_RULE: OptionalDescriptor field no longer optional (renamed to Descriptor)

Fixes

• Common Resources mod interfered with housing placement and prevented them from being placed
• Masterpieces couldn’t be added to Churches
• Crash when selecting a Monastery with a Modest Facade

Game Design Changelog

New Features

Levy Mandate

• This new mandate lets you instantly earn coins in exchange for a temporary villager Happiness malus
• The Levy Mandate is unlocked when you build a Great Hall
• The Levy Mandate can be performed once every 7 days
• The Levy Mandate reduces every villager’s Happiness by 30% for 30 days, then decays to 0% for another 30 days
• The Levy Mandate instantly gives this many coins:
  • 3 coins per Serf
  • 4 coins per Commoner
  • 5 coins per Citizen

Entertainment Need

• Commoners, Citizens, Soldiers, and Knights now have an Entertainment Need
• The Entertainment Need can be filled by consuming a drink resource (Berry Brew, Beer, or Wine) at the Tavern
• The Entertainment Need cause a negative Happiness Factor if left unfulfilled for 300 days

Butchery Workplace & Meat Resource

• A new building, the Butchery, can produce a new resource, Meat, from Boar
• The Butchery is accessible from an Unlockable on the Common Path, Tier 1, for 25 coins
• The Butchery can employ up to 2 Serf workers
• The Butchery cost 3 Tools, 10 Planks, and 10 Stones
• The Butchery has a base upkeep of 1 coin, plus 1 extra coin per Worker
• The Butchery produces 4 Meat resources from 1 Boar
• Set Meat value to 3 coins on sell, 6 coins on buy
• Meat resource can be consumed as Food at the Market

Berry Brewery Workplace & Berry Brew Resource

• A new sub-building, the Berry Brewery, can produce a new resource, Berry Brew, from Berry and Water
• The Berry Brewery is accessible when purchasing the Tavern Unlockable
• The Berry Brewery requires a Room, a Door and a Chimney
• The Berry Brewery employs 1 Commoner per 5 Room Size
• The Berry Brewery has an upkeep of 2 coins per Worker
• The Berry Brewery produces 3 Berry Brews from 3 Berries and 1 Water
• 1 Berry Brew can be purchased for 5 coins
• The Berry Brew can be consumed as Drink at the Tavern
• The Taverner will directly pickup Berry Brew made within the same Tavern

Kinstone Abbey Trade Route

• A new Clergy Trade Route made for Monastery-oriented playthrough
• The Trade Route can be unlocked with 20 Manuscripts
• The Trade Route can be further improved using Coal, Coins, or Clergy Influence
• The following resources are available for trade with Kinstone Abbey:

Discoveries

• Discoveries offer practical information and direct links to game features
• All Contextual Help, located in the top-left corner, has been improved into Discoveries
• Discoveries are located in the Notification section, at the bottom-left corner of the screen
• Discoveries trigger under specific conditions
• On top of existing Contextual Help, New Discoveries were added:
  • Set Your Taxation Rate in the Book!
  • New Progression Paths Unlocked
  • How to Generate Wealth
  • Trade Routes Can Be Improved!
  • Minerals Prospection
  • About Territory Management
  • How to Promote Your Villagers
  • You Can Now Undertake Mandates
  • How to build your monastery
  • How Taverns Work
  • How to Increase Your Treasury Capacity

New Advice

• Three new Advice were added to the game:
  • Advice: Food Diversity
  • Advice: Enacting Levy
  • Advice: Leaving Villagers
• Each piece of Advice has a specific triggering condition, narrative panel, and quest

Action Bar

• Mandates and Village Aspirations can be accessed from the action bar, at the bottom of the screen

Quick Promotion

• Promotion can be done at any time, there is not a 30-day cooldown anymore
• Promotion can be done from the Mandate window or from each villager’s detailed window
• The Quick Promotion button will be displayed once the villager meets the promotion criteria
• Only the first villager of a Status has a Need requirement
• Promotion costs stay the same as before

Environmental Resource Display

• The following environmental resources now display resource trackers upon certain conditions:
  • Berries
  • Fish School
  • Stone nodes
• The environmental resource tracker is displayed when selecting the Extraction or Hunting paint
• The environmental resource tracker is also displayed when selecting the following workplaces:
  • Gathering Hut
  • Stonecutter Camp
  • Fisher’s Hut
  • Butchery
  • Hunter’s Hut

Balance Change

Need duration

• Increased all Needs durations to 630s

Progression

• Increased Tier 3 Common Path Prosperity requirement to 75
• Increased Tier 4 Common Path Prosperity requirement to 150
• Increased Tier 5 Common Path Prosperity requirement to 300
• Increased Tier 3 Estate Path Prosperity requirement to 100
• Increased Tier 4 Estate Path Prosperity requirement to 200
• Increased Tier 5 Estate Path Prosperity requirement to 400

Taxation

• The Tax Office has been moved into an Unlockable found on the Labor Path at Tier 2
• The Tax Office Unlockable costs 5 Labor Influence
• The revenue of Housing Taxation has changed:

Second Food Need

• A second Food Need has been given to Serfs and Militia, and each of their promoted Status
• The second Food Need can be filled by consuming a second, different Food resource at a Market

Tavern Building

• The Tavern building has been moved to Tier 2 of Common Path
• New parts have been added to the Tavern building
• The Public Lounge of the Tavern building fulfills the Entertainment Need, if there are Drinks resources available at the Service Counter.
• The Tavern’s job has been renamed to Taverner
• Added Desirability to Tavern parts
• Adjusted capacity of certain Tavern sub-buildings and parts
• Tavern Splendor parts are unlocked on Tier 2 Labor Path, for 5 Labor Influence
• Base Tavern parts do not yield Labor Splendor

Job locked by Status

• Additional jobs now require advanced villager statuses:

Wood Production Pipeline

• Slowed down the production of Wood and Planks to encourage territorial management
  • Increased time per Woodcutter cycle to one cycle of 20 seconds
  • Increased time per Sawmill cycle to two cycles of 20 seconds
  • Increased Input Storage of Sawmill to 20 Wood

Stone Production Pipeline

• Synched both workplaces to improve the fluidity of the stone pipeline
  • Increased time per Stonecutter cycle to two cycles of 20 seconds
  • Reduced time per Stonemason cycle to two cycles of 20 seconds
  • Increased Input Storage of Stonemason to 20 Stone

Fish Production Pipeline

• Increased the Fish production pipeline to match the Meat production
  • Increased output resource of Fishing Hut to 8 Fish per cycle
  • Increase the maximum amount of Fish per Fish School

Clothing Production Pipeline

• Balanced the Clothing production to ease visualization of the flow
  • Reduced Sheep Farm’s Output to 2 Wool
  • Increased Weaver’s Hut Input to 3 Wool
  • Increased Input Storage of Weaver’s Hut to 30 Wool
  • Increased Input Storage of Weaver’s Hut to 40 Cloths

Bread Production Pipeline

• Improved the Bread pipeline to be a reliable source of Food throughout most of the game and to be easier to visualize its resource flow
  • Increased the amount of Wheat gathered at once
  • Doubled time per Windmill cycle to 30 seconds
  • Doubled Windmill Input to 8 Wheat
  • Doubled Windmill Output to 2 Flour
  • Increased Input Storage of Bakery to 60 Flour
  • Increased Input Storage of Bakery to 20 Water
  • Increased time per Bakery cycle to 30 seconds
  • Increased Bakery Input to 3 Flour
  • Increased Bakery Output to 12 Bread

Commonwares Production Pipeline

• Improved the Commonware pipeline to be a practical, relatively cheap next step for Planks
  • Removed Tools from the recipe
  • Increased time per Commonware Workshop cycle to 30 seconds
  • Increased Commonware Workshop’s Planks Input to 3 Planks
  • Increased Commonware Workshop’s Planks Output to 3 Commonware
  • Increased Input Storage of Commonware Workshop to 30 Planks
  • Reduced Worker Upkeep to 2 coins

Immigration

• Halved Immigration penalty due to unemployment status
• Removed the Residential Factor from Immigration Factor
• Improved the way Newcomers are spawned on the map
  • Nil Factor – 0 Newcomer
  • Low Factor – 1 Newcomer
  • Average Factor – Between 1 and 2 Newcomers
  • High Factor – Between 2 and 4 Newcomers
  • Maximum Factor – Between 3 and 5 Newcomers
• Newcomers stay at the Village Center for a maximum of 3 days

Trade Route Resource Offer

• Increased Trade Routes volume per resource to 25 units
• Lowered Trade Routes Improvement cost factor
• Increased Trade Routes’ Trade per month requirement factor
• Added resources to buy and sell for each existing Trade Route:
  • Northbury:
    • Buy from them
      • Tools, Cloth, Berry Brew, Honey, Wax, Candle, Commonwares, Barre
    • Sell to them
      • Berries, Polished Stone, Planks, Wine, Herbs, Gold Ore, Gold Bar, Meat
  • Myddle:
    • Buy from them
      • Berries, Coal, Iron Bar, Wheat, Grapes, Wine, Hops, Beer
    • Sell to them
      • Glass, Barrel, Clothing, Sword, Fish, Marble, Jewel, Cheese
  • Davenport:
    • Buy from them
      • Fish, Herbs, Polished Stone, Sword, Gold Ore, Quartz, Glass, Marble
    • Sell to them
      • Boar, Tools, Honey, Wax, Candle, Bread, Beer, Gem
  • Trotbury:
    • Buy from them
      • Boar, Gem, Iron Ore, Iron Bar, Hops, Marble, Grapes, Jewel
    • Sell to them
      • Candle, Gold Bar, Quartz, Glass, Wine, Fish, Herbs, Tools

Resource Trade Value

• Reduced Boar value to 2 coins on sell, 4 coins on buy
• Increased Bread value to 3 coins on sell, 6 coins on buy
• Set Cheese value to 4 coins on sell, 8 coins on buy
• Set Wheat value to 1 coin on sell, 3 coins on buy
• Increased Cloth value to 2 coins on sell, 4 coins on buy
• Reduced Commonwares value to 4 coins on sell, 8 coins on buy
• Reduced Beer value to 2 coins on sell, 5 coins on buy
• Set Berry Brew value to 2 coins on sell, 5 coins on buy
• Reduced Herbs value to 3 coins on sell, 6 coins on buy
• Reduced Hops value to 1 coin on sell, 2 coins on buy
• Increased Planks value to 3 coins on sell, 6 coins on buy

Villager Leaving

• Villagers might leave starting at -25% Happiness

Building Construction Cost

• Decorative
  • Roofed Stable: 15 Planks, 2 Tools
• Tavern
  • Stone Cabin: 15 Planks, 15 Stones, 3 Tools
  • Tatched Cabin: 22 Planks, 12 Stones, 3 Tools
  • Plaster Cabin: 27 Planks, 6 Stones, 3 Tools
  • Tatched Hall: 10 Stone, 15 Planks, 10 Wood, 5 Tools
  • Wooden Cabin: 8 Planks, 1 Tool
  • Welcoming Entrance: 7 Planks, 3 Wood, 1 Tool
  • Service Entrance: 5 Planks, 1 Tool
• Manor House
  • Stone Hall: 25 Stones, 18 Polish Stones, 12 Planks, 6 Tools
  • Stone Terrace: 40 Stones, 25 Polish Stones, 25 Planks, 12 Tools
  • Stone Passageway: 10 Stones, 5 Polish Stones, 5 Planks, 4 Tools
  • Stone Gate, Simple: 5 Polish Stones, 5 Stones, 2 Tools
  • Stone Gate, Elevated: 10 Polish Stones, 10 Stones, 3 Tools
  • Wooden Tower: 4 Wood, 4 Planks, 5 Stones, 1 Tool
• Monastery
  • Rustic Chimney: 20 Stones, 2 Tools
  • Rustic Hall: 35 Stones, 15 Planks, 4 Tools
  • Rustic Passageway: 35 Stones, 15 Planks, 3 Tools
  • Rustic Quarters, Major: 30 Stones, 10 Planks, 3 Tools
  • Rustic Gallery: 25 Stones, 5 Planks, 2 Tools
  • Rustic Hut, Stone: 15 Stones, 8 Planks, 2 Tools
  • Rustic Quarters, Minor: 25 Stones, 5 Planks, 3 Tools
  • Rustic Facade: 25 Stones, 15 Polished Stones, 3 Tools
  • Rustic Bell Tower, Wooden Belfry: 25 Stones, 11 Planks, 2 Tools
  • Rustic Bell Tower, Open Belfry: 30 Stones, 5 Planks, 2 Tools
  • Rustic Bell Tower, Enclosed Belfry: 30 Stones, 5 Planks, 2 Tools
  • Rustic Gallery: 25 Stones, 5 Planks, 2 Tools
  • Rustic Tower: 25 Stones, 5 Planks, 2 Tools
• Rustic Church
  • Tatched Nave: 32 Stone, 15 Planks, 4 Tools
  • Wooden Chapel: Windowed, 10 Planks, 2 Tools
  • Wooden Chapel: Inclined, 12 Planks, 2 Tools
  • Tatched Chapel: 21 Stone, 5 Planks, 3 Tools
  • Tiled Chapel: 15 Polished Stone, 28 Stone, 3 Tools
  • Wooden Bell Tower: 20 Wood, 5 Planks, 2 Tools
  • Stone Bell Tower: 25 Stone, 6 Planks, 2 Tools
• Wooden Keep
  • Wooden Quarters: 33 Planks, 4 Tools
  • Wooden Keep: 41 Planks, 4 Tools
• Workplaces
  • Bakery: 4 Tools, 20 Planks, 25 Coins
  • Berry Table: 10 Wood, 10 Coins
  • Brewery: 10 Tools, 15 Polished Stones, 15 Planks, 200 coins
  • Fisher’s Hut: 20 Wood, 10 Coins
  • Hop Farm: base upkeep of 12 coins, plus 2 coins per worker
  • Hunter’s Hut: 2 Tools, 20 Wood, 10 Coins
  • Sheep Farm: 2 Tools, 10 Stone, 10 Wood, 25 Coins
  • Stonecutter Camp: 2 Tools, 10 Wood, 10 Coins
  • Stonemason Hut: 8 Tools, 10 Wood, 5 Cloth, 25 Coins
  • Tailor’s Workshop: 8 Tools, 15 Stone, 20 Planks, 50 Coins
  • Weaver Hut: 6 Tools, 5 Stone, 10 Planks, 50 Coins
  • Wheat Farm: 4 Tools, 20 Planks, 25 Coins
  • Windmill: 6 Tools, 15 Stone, 15 Planks, 50 Coins
  • Woodcutter Camp: 2 Tools, 10 Coins

Building Upkeep

• Tavern
  • Stone Cabin: Base upkeep of 3 coins
  • Thatched Hall: Base upkeep of 3 coins
  • Thatched Cabin: Base upkeep of 2 coins
  • Plaster Cabin: Base upkeep of 2 coins
  • Roof Chimney: Base upkeep of 1 coin
• Monastery
  • Rustic Chimney: Base upkeep of 1 coin
  • Berries Planter: Base upkeep of 1 coin
• Mineral Deposits
  • Stone Quarry: Base upkeep of 2 coins, plus 1 coin per worker
  • Iron Quarry: Base upkeep of 5 coins, plus 1 coin per worker
  • Quartz Quarry: Base upkeep of 5 coins, plus 2 coins per worker
  • Gold Quarry: Base upkeep of 10 coins, plus 2 coins per worker
  • Marble Quarry: Base upkeep of 10 coins, plus 2 coins per worker
  • Crane: Base upkeep of 10 coins
• Workplaces
  • Hop Farm: Base upkeep of 12 coins, plus 2 coins per worker
  • Wheat Farm: Base upkeep of 4 coins, plus 1 coin per worker
  • Bakery: Base upkeep of 7 coins, plus 2 coins per worker
  • Brewery: Base upkeep of 14 coins, plus 2 coins per worker
  • Commonwares Workshop: Base upkeep of 18 coins, plus 2 coins per worker
  • Fisher’s Hut: Base upkeep of 2 coins, plus 2 coins per worker
  • Hunter’s Hut: Base upkeep of 1 coin, plus 1 coin per worker
  • Sheep Farm: Base upkeep of 5 coins, plus 1 coin per worker
  • Stonemason Tent: Base upkeep of 8 coins, plus 2 coins per worker
  • Tailor’s Workshop: Base upkeep of 8 coins, plus 3 coins per worker
  • Weaver’s Hut: Base upkeep of 5 coins, plus 2 coins per worker
  • Windmill: Base upkeep of 6 coins, plus 2 coins per worker

Event Improvement

General

• Added new illustrations to all narrative panels
• Fixed wrong Trade Route Conditions across different events
• Adjusted Prosperity Conditions across different events
• Forced the following “Welcome” events to happen once their waiting time was done:
  • KingdomWelcome
  • LabourWelcome
  • MonasteryTrade (initial welcoming event)
  • MonasteryWelcome

Initial Onboarding

• Initial Onboarding’s Quest Happiness requirement has been reduced to 75%
• Removed Taxation Quest from the Onboarding sequence

Monastery Welcome

• Swapped the Wood and Stone reward for Planks and Polished Stones

Monastery Trade

• Changed the Fish option for Barrels

TownTale

• Added Meat check for NoFood

LabourFair

• Increased Happiness check to trigger the Event
• Increased the Low Happiness’ Quest objective to 50%
• Increased all Fair Quest’s Happiness objective to 75%

Advice

• Removed the MonthlyTax Condition from the two taxation’s Low Coins and Low Happiness
• Removed the Prosperity Condition to the Decorative Advice
• Lowered the Prosperity and Population requirement for the Commoner Promotion Advice
• Changed the Labor Specialisation Quest’s objective to build a Roofed Stable
• Removed the No Tool’s starting condition to not have Tools assigned at the Warehouse
• Reduced the No Tool’s objective to 3 Tools to purchase

Bad Weather

• Pushed back Bad Weather to Prosperity 75
• Reduced Bad Weather to 40 days

King’s Welcome

• The King’s Welcome Narrative Panel will now start when the Manor House is built

Mission Board

• Added Berry Brew, Beer, Boar and Meat rewards to Military Missions

Territory Upkeep

• Made the first and second territory cost 0 upkeep
• Increased the cost of all further territories:
  • Territory 1-2: 0 coin
  • Territory 2-3: 10 coins each
  • Territory 3-4: 20 coins each
  • Territory 5-6: 30 coins each
  • Territory 7-8: 40 coins each
  • Territory 9-10: 50 coins each
  • Territory 11-12: 60 coins each
  • Territory 13-14: 70 coins each
  • Territory 15-16: 80 coins each
  • Territory 17-18: 90 coins each
  • Territory 19+: 100 coins each

Other Fixes and Tweaks

• Added new Help Topics:
  • Work Restrictions
  • Mandates
  • Sculptures
  • Entertainment
  • Resource Flow
  • Maintenance Cost
• Added the Tax Office Unlockable as a requirement to all Taxation-related Unlockables:
  • Milling Taxes
  • Drinking Taxes
  • Mining Taxes
  • Smithing Taxes
  • Tithe Privilege
  • Protection Taxation Privilege
• Moved Kingdom’s Decoration 1 Unlockable into Tier 1 of Kingdom’s Path
• Added new icons to certain unlockables
• Differentiated visuals from the Builder’s Workshop from Master Builders at the Sculptor’s Workshop and Stained Glass’ Workshop
• Increased grace period from lack of Goods
• Increased starting Tools inventory to 25
• Rearranged Unlockables order within a Tier
• Moved Bailiff Office to Tier 2 of the Common Path
• Moved Fisher’s Hut to Tier 1 of the Common Path
• Lowered Tavern Tax revenue to 0.5 coins per Tavern consumption
• Lowered Market Tax revenue to 0.15 coins per Market consumption
• Moved Rustic Cloister to Tier 2, reduced cost to 5 Clergy Influence
• Made the second territory cost 0 upkeep

Hello Lords & Ladies! 

A new update has just been released. The two main features are decorations availability and action bar (HUD) improvements. Without further ado, let’s see what this means for Foundation.

Common Decorations

Starting with 1.9.3, common decorative parts are made available for all monuments regardless of their previous limitations. In other words, you can now customize monuments with more freedom. Decorations have been grouped into different categories in the build panel for better understanding. The intended goal is to open up more customization possibilities for your villages. 

As a reminder, common decorations are not only for looks either: they provide a very useful desirability bonus, encouraging villagers to upgrade their houses. Furthermore, common decorations provide beautification, which is taken into account for prosperity—a score that represents your overall progress in the game. Estate and monument-specific decorations, on the other end, provide splendor instead of beautification and desirability.

In summary:

• Common decorations are available for each monument and from the build menu
• Estate decorations are available across all monuments from the same Estate
• Monument decorations are for parts that only work for a specific monument

Action Bar (HUD) Improvements

In past versions of the game, mandates were enacted at the Manor House with the help of a special button. Alternatively, you could click on a specific opportunity in your quest module to enact mandates. Starting with 1.9.3, a shortcut for mandates has been added to the action bar at the bottom of the screen. Clicking this icon will bring up all available mandates, allowing faster access to this feature. 

While on the topic of action bar improvements, we also added a shortcut to village aspirations. Clicking on the trophy icon brings all available village aspirations—optional objectives you can aim for while building your medieval village. Village aspirations will appear in the quest module once you start tracking at least one of them. Please note that the Village Aspirations shortcut previously found in the system menu has been removed.

Illustrations Galore

Update 1.9.3 features plenty of updated–⁠and in some cases, completely new–colorful ⁠illustrations to breathe life into Foundation events.

We hope you enjoy your time with this newest update. Stay tuned for more details on upcoming content for Foundation.

Changelog

New

• Common decorations are now accessible for all monuments
• An extensive collection (100+) of new and improved illustrations for events
• Added two buttons to the action bar
  • Mandates 
  • Village Aspirations
• Added help topics in the Help (F10) menu
  • Hunting
  • Bridges
  • Motion sickness
  • Useful shortcuts
• The game now has its own icon

Game Balance

• Moved tombstones (decoration) from tier 2 to tier 1 of the Clergy progression path

Improvements

• Advices from the quest module now display a New prefix, for example New Advice: Increase Taxation
• When using more than one monitor, players can now choose which one will display the game (fullscreen mode)

Updates

• Batch of unlockables’ icons
• Localization

Modding

• Villager statuses and profiles now have gendered fields. Therefore, we removed statuses and profiles related to nuns. To convert your mods, read the official documentation here
• GAME_ACTION_DELIVER_RESOURCE now has a BudgetCategory property

Fixes

• Removed a line from the Book which was displayed before Estates were unlocked
• Switching tabs of the Book after deleting a privilege reactivated it and stopped players from removing it again
• Death finds a way: right-clicking on tombstone window wouldn’t close it
• Dead soldiers were listed as newcomers and still counted for the village’s total population
• Bailiff selection window wasn’t closing on a right-click

Hello fellow city-building enthusiasts!

Update 1.9.2 has just been released. This version of the game focuses on four key points: improving the budget breakdown, adding new construction steps to the Monastery, using right-click to close windows and hitting ESC to close (or open) the system menu. But that’s not all: we took this opportunity to introduce some quality of life (QOL) changes as well as fix multiple bugs—including one where villagers would trek far and wide to find the most comfortable benches!

Here’s more details of what you can expect in this update:

Budget breakdown

Understanding Foundation’s economics makes all the difference between running a thriving or a struggling medieval village. For this reason, we now offer a more in-depth budget breakdown. It should help you plan better, but more importantly, get a clearer picture of your expenses and income as they roll in.

Here’s an overview of what’s been added to the Budget tab:

• Quantities for resources bought and sold 
• Upkeep costs per buildings’ categories and types, each with their respective quantities
• Territory costs, including those purchased and maintained
• Taxes per type, including how many villagers and/or buildings are affected
• New categories for data previously displayed under Miscellaneous
• Tooltips for all categories

Every single feature mentioned above will work with previous Foundation saves. You will also notice some quality of life changes included in the budget breakdown such as the possibility to collapse/expand data either individually or globally and better category grouping and visibility. On a related note, save files have been considerably shrinked thanks to the compacting of budget data. 

Modders will be happy to learn the new, detailed budget breakdown leaves room for custom upkeep costs, i.e. something not called coins.

New construction steps for the Monastery

Last year, one of the biggest changes to Foundation was how players would progress through the game by specializing in different Estate paths. Clergy in particular was completely reworked with the addition of several new building functions and events. Back then, our art team laid out the groundwork for a new and improved vision of what the game should look like, previewed first with the Abbatial Church. 

It’s not just about raising the visuals bar either: adding construction steps to the Monastery is something we had planned for a long time, which better reflects the evolution of this prestigious monument and helps bring it to life—complete with scaffoldings for all of its variants! 

What you see from the Monastery in this newest update sets a new benchmark for the future of architecture in Foundation. In time, our goal is to apply the same principles to other buildings and thus bring them to higher quality standards.

User experience (UX) improvements

Part of being game developers is taking the pulse of what the community wants so we can deliver a frictionless experience. An oft requested quality of life feature has been added in Update 1.9.2 with the ability to close windows by simply right-clicking on them. In the same vein, we have added the expected behavior of opening (or closing) the system menu when pressing the ESC key.

This concludes the core features added or improved upon with Update 1.9.2. For more details, read the full patch notes below.

1.9.2 Changelog

New

• Budget breakdown overhaul
• Monastery construction steps
• Right-clicking on panels will now close them
• ESC key will bring up the systems menu or close it if it’s already open

Improvements

• The Daily Average Balance now displays more accurate information about whether you are making money or not
• Save files’ size have been considerably shrinked—up to 70% less!

Updates

• Housing help topic
• Editing buildings help topic (refund)
• Localization

QOL

• The special panel style for buildings now only applies to the parent building, which should help distinguish them from sub-buildings
• Added a confirmation pop-up when unassigning a slot with stocked resources (example: Warehouse)
• Improved the resource refund feature when destroying parts to be more consistent across the board
• Wealth calculation from the Book will now display a score after the first month regardless of your income status positive or negative)
• Improved performance for densely populated villages

Fixes

• Fix: in some circumstances, the game wouldn’t properly close on exit
• None of the shortage events (except for service) were displayed in the Happiness tooltip
• Villagers trying to fulfill needs spread too far from each other on the map would get stuck in a needs loop, which led to further issues
• Added a distance limit so villagers won’t be traveling far and wide to use benches
• Destroying a monument before its completion refunded too many resources
• While a game rule that modified the trading price was active, the “Buy from village” price was rounded before calculating the quantity available for purchase
• The Rustic Gate – Elevated part from the Monastery snapped inside the model, which blocked entry to the location
• Multiple scrollbars could be displayed when building a Cloister

Modding

• The Unlock Trade Route button wasn’t displayed when mods added new resources for trade. The GUI now handles up to 5 resources rows without a scrollbar
• Switching a sub-building function in the Fuel mod (1.9+) crashed the game
• Exposed the Hospitium, Monk Dorms and Nun Dorms functions for the Monastery

Greetings Lords & Ladies! 

Foundation’s Update 1.9 is finally available on GOG and Steam. 

The team has been hard at work to bring you quality content as part of a new and improved gameplay experience. 

Here’s a quick overview of what’s included.

Village Aspirations

A fundamental aspect of Foundation is the customisation of your experience, which is reflected in the game by the organic growth that makes each village unique. With 1.9, we wanted to go one step further and give you the ability to achieve Village Aspirations: optional objectives that offer different ways to play in order to nab sweet GOG or Steam achievements. Examples include building an Abbatial Church or having 100 citizens in your village

Village Aspirations are another way for us to not only increase the replayability of Foundation, but also to make it a somewhat more challenging experience.

Progression revised from the ground up

Update 1.9 changes several elements of Foundation, including the way you progress into the game. Now, each EstateUpdate 1.9 changes several elements of Foundation, including the way you progress into the game. Now, each Estate—whether it be Labour, Clergy or Kingdom—has several unlockables of its own. Investing influence in and thus favouring one Estate makes it more difficult to progress with the others. This dynamic requires more planning on your part and adds weight to your decisions without restricting your ambitions.

In addition to Estate-specific progression paths, there is also a common progression path, which includes quite a few essential production buildings in Foundation, such as the Warehouse, the Stonecutter Camp and the Fishing Hut. In e

In addition to Estate-specific progression paths, there is also a common progression path, which includes quite a few essential production buildings in Foundation, such as the Warehouse, the Stonecutter Camp and the Fishing Hut. In either case, you will need to reach different tiers of Prosperity before being able to unlock some of the most desirable options. This new measure of your success takes into account six factors: wealth, territory size, trade, population, splendor and beautification.

Our next updates will focus on upgrading both the Kingdom and Labor progression paths.

Edicts and privileges

You may have noticed that the progression page has a tab dedicated to edicts and privileges. This is another new feature introduced with Update 1.9. The first case represents what may be described as laws that you enact in your village. The second case represents rewards given by the different Estates to their most loyal Lords or Ladies.

Edicts and privileges grant important boons such as reducing a Splendor penalty between two Estates, increasing the market value of certain resources or reducing the maintenance cost of production buildings by half. They are unlocked with coins or influence points. Afterwards, you just have to choose the edicts or privileges you want to activate.

Buildings and sub-buildings

The city-building aspect is at the heart of the Foundation experience, so we wanted to let you expand the capabilities of your buildings. You can now assign functions to a group of building parts (what we call sub-buildings) instead of individual parts. Each sub-building will therefore be linked to a single function (e.g. Treasury) which you can change should you desire so.

In a few words, this means that a Monastery can now be home to a Chapel, a Scriptorium, a Hospitium, a Monastic Garden and so on. The same goes for a Market, which you can expand by adding a sub-building associated with a separate function from the parent building if you wish, such as a Luxury Goods Stall. At any time, it is possible to browse each of the functions of a parent building thanks to the “Parts List” tab.

A glorious Monastery

Progressing on the Clergy path, you’ll soon notice important changes. For starters, there are several new functions available, including a Hospitium that will host visitors, a Scriptorium that will help you produce Manuscripts used to promote your faithfuls or a Cloister where they can medidate while fulfilling a new need. Moreover, you will have the pProgressing on the Clergy path, you’ll soon notice important changes. For starters, there are several new functions available, including a Hospitium that will host visitors, a Scriptorium that will help you produce Manuscripts used to promote your faithfuls or a Cloister where they can meditate while fulfilling a new need. Moreover, you will have the pleasure of building a prettified Abbatial Church: our artists have done a great job upgrading its visuals for your enjoyment!

Taxation

Previously, Foundation’s economy was largely tied to market stalls. With Update 1.9, taxation replaces the main way to fill your coffers. The Manor House now has a Tax Office function, which is combined with the Tax Collector job. Each house accumulates coins over time, and it’s up to you to decide how heavily your village will be taxed. But beware: people are not too keen on having to pay much, so there is a balance to be struck so as not to collapse your global Happiness factor!

Even more modding possibilities

In keeping with our commitment to the modding community, we’ve outlined several new features that are sure to have a snowball effect in the coming weeks. Without getting too technical, the major changes to unlockables, the progression system and narrative choices will certainly result in the creation of mods that we’ll be happy to share with you!

Looking forward to a bright future

Foundation’s 1.9 update is multi-faceted and marks an important milestone in our Early Access (EA) journey. We hope you will enjoy how we reimagined some of the existing systems while adding more depth to the core medieval city-building experience.

As for what the future holds, in the short term work has already started on a first patch to fix newly discovered bugs. At a later date, and after focusing a lot on the Clergy progression path—particularly the Monastery—we want to give the other two Estates the attention they deserve. We plan to overhaul the Kingdom and Labor progression paths, in that order.. We will let you fill in the gaps as to what that might entail.

Until then, have fun!