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Foundation

A New Era of Organic City-Building Simulation!

Devlog #18: Dev News, Spring Sale & Bundle

Hi everyone and welcome to Devlog #18! 

We would first like to say a big (belated) welcome to 2024! This year the game marked its 5th year in Early Access and we have come a long way in those 5 years. There have been big changes to the game and we are powering through the final stretch to the full release of Foundation!

What we are working on right now

What are we working on is always the question we like to answer. The answer to this is nearly everything! The main theme of course is getting the game and all the planned content complete and ready for the full release and end of Early Access.

Some of the things we are currently working on include:

  • Map Edges – time to remove those hard-on-the-eyes map edges
  • The Castle – We know this is the one you are all waiting for!
  • Walls and Fortifications – Walls will have a cost to build like everything else but will also be part of the wider gameplay mechanics
  • Military Gameplay Improvements – Tied into the walls and fortifications, several changes are being worked on, such as setting patrols and creating “companies”
  • The Whole Art Direction –  including fully overhauled buildings as well as major environmental improvements
  • Monument Design Experience – Adding capabilities such as the ability to replace parts and move an entire monument, as well as a full user interface revamp

Oh! And of course Housing and Residential improvements and changes. A lot of work is going on to get the Housing visuals where we want them to be, as well as bring in the 3rd tier high-density residential. The biggest factor is having the housing look authentically medieval within our style setting but ultimately give housing that wow factor!

Residential concept art

Due to the work-in-progress state of current development, we aren’t quite ready to show too much of what we have been working on, partly to not spoil a bigger reveal announcement but also due to things just not being polished and ready quite yet.

We are aware that you want to hear more and you will soon! Look out for a big announcement coming in the next few months!

Early Access Updates

Some of you may be wondering when the game will receive a new update. As previously announced, the next major update will be the end of Early Access and the Full Release of the game. We do not plan to release any more updates between now and the full release. 

With the final development at full steam ahead, the whole team is dedicated to completing the game, polishing the rough edges and presenting to you the Foundation that we imagined and that you want.

We can’t wait to show you the result of all the hard work and share the date of the full release. 

Watch this space!

Steam Spring Sale: Buy Foundation at a Discounted Price!

If you haven’t got the game yet why not take advantage of the Steam Spring Sale?! Get Foundation with a 25% Discount, right now!

Medieval Foundation Bundle

In a first for us, we are proud to announce our first-ever Bundle offer in the form of the Medieval Foundation Bundle

We are honored to collaborate with the team behind Medieval Dynasty to offer an additional 10% OFF when you buy the bundle or complete the set.

That’s all for now but we’ll be sharing more news in the coming months and in the meantime please keep sharing any feedback and bug reports on our official Discord server.

The Polymorph Games Team

 

The 1.9.7 QOL Update is Live!

Hello everyone!

We are excited to announce that the 1.9.7 QOL update is now available on Steam & GOG!

1.9.7 is the first of our Quality of Life (QOL) updates as we work toward the game’s Full Release. For more information on the recent change to our release plan, check out the link at the bottom of this announcement.

Your feedback is very important to us and we have looked to address some of the most requested QOL features in this update, as well as further improvements we have been planning. Let’s dive right in and take a look at what you will find in the 1.9.7 QOL update…

Interior Access

Previous to 1.9.7, some monument buildings required a separate door, which could limit creativity and also did not make sense for a monument as a whole. Now, with 1.9.7 buildings will check interior access to the whole building, meaning that a single door could be enough. For example, an entrance to your treasury could be part of an attached Great Hall.

Furthermore, so that you can check that your buildings are accessible, we have added a handy toggleable tool that will clearly show when your buildings have interior access, letting you know if they are fully navigable or not.

Buildings Function Status

Buildings now have a clear function status with feedback to the player that will indicate when they can no longer work if one of their construction requirements is missing. Restoring the condition will resume the workplace.

Ghost Construction Preview

Another much-requested feature was the ability to see your ongoing construction sites when placing new buildings. Now in 1.9.7, all other buildings under construction will show as ghost visualizations, making for much easier placement of new construction projects or when editing Monuments.

Improved Construction Flow

One issue frequently raised in the community centered around how builders were affecting the construction flow. Previously, builders would be sent to construction sites based on their proximity to a site. This could cause projects to be completed in an unexpected order making it hard to plan.

With 1.9.7, builders will now prioritize constructions based on the order in which they were started making it easier to plan your projects. We have also improved the algorithm so that builders will be dispatched more evenly between different types of construction projects so that all your builders don’t get tied up on any mega-projects.

Traveling and Work Time

We have now removed the villager’s travel time from their overall work time, enabling your villagers to use their work time more effectively. For instance, crop yields and production cycles will be more consistent, despite any long distances your villagers may have to walk to get to work.

Villagers require to fulfill their needs of course, so efficiency can still be lost with large work-to-needs fulfillment distances.

Improved Map Generator

We have made some major improvements in 1.9.7 with an overhauled Map Generator. You’ll find improved visuals and shaders making it much easier to identify elevations on the Map Gen minimap.

Additionally, we have addressed a couple of bugs and implemented further improvements, so that you should no longer encounter any micro-territories or broken territories on your maps nor find any inaccessible mineral deposits.

Resource Favorites

This one has been at the top of many of your feature requests… It is now possible to choose your favorite resources to add to the Resource Bar! Mark as many favorites as you wish in the resource window of the Book.

The Monastic Emissary & Mandate Window

A new building function has been added to the Monastery! The Emissary Office will employ a Sister or Brother in the role of Emissary (similar to the Bailiff role), dealing with Clergy privileges and mandates. Consequently, we have also revamped the Mandate Window to take into account the new Emissary role.

Housing Upgrades/Downgrades

When a House is upgraded or downgraded, it would previously revert to its foundation construction stage and could easily be mistaken for a brand-new house. To remove this potential confusion, houses will downgrade or upgrade to a later construction step, making it more clear what tier of housing it is, as well as no longer looking like a fresh construction.

And More!

Indeed! There’s more! We have a bunch of bug fixes coming with the 1.9.7 QOL update. You can check out the full changelog below.

Changelog

New

  • Added Interior Access visualization and construction toggle
  • Players can now specify their favorite resources in the top resource bar
  • Added a Bailiff option for the Monastery: The Monastic Emissary, a Brother/Sister working at the Emissary Office
  • Ghosts of buildings under construction are now displayed when you are in Construction/Edit mode

Update

  • Construction sites are now prioritized by start time, not by closest distance
  • Workers should go to their workplace before starting their work time
  • Display attach node only when snap mode is toggled or part needs to be mandatory attached
  • The Market Monument has been turned into a building with parts instead of a Monument with sub-buildings.
  • Moved the Clergy Privilege and Clergy Influence mandates to the Monastic Emissary
  • Overall improvement of the Mandate window & tooltips
  • Improvements to monument attach nodes
  • House Upgrade/Downgrade transition improvements to show construction steps and not new build
  • Tavern Kitchen – worker quantity now scales with building capacity
  • Treasury – Gold coins are no longer lost when the maximum treasury limit is reduced
  • Various UI improvements

Fix

  • Soldiers – soldiers using the barracks as their houses could not fulfill their needs when the monument is being expanded.
  • Bailiff – Changing the bailiff resulted in the edict “contractual wage” to not be applied until reload.
  • Book – Logs – Newcomer notification was not updated “live”
  • Monument Editing – Display all possible attach nodes when a part is being placed / moved.
  • Cloister – Could not start construction if function was switched
  • Monument Editing – Prevent parts from being attached to house attach nodes.
  • Building Highlight – Sometimes, a building would remain highlighted even if the window is closed and the cursor is not on the part.
  • Mandate Window – The window did not close when the Great Hall was destroyed.
  • Deliver Wood Quest – Displayed requirement was 50 but required 100 to complete
  • Unlockables – Show part’s description when there is no building function
  • Missing Unlockable descriptions on Candle & Commonware extension
Map generator

Update

  • Improved elevation texture visuals

Fix

  • It was possible to have a broken territory on specific generated map seeds
  • Some territory regions were too small
  • Some maps had unreachable village path exits
  • Some setting changes could create unwanted bumps on islands
Modding
  • Expose – COMP_BUILDING:getEditMode
  • Expose – Mandates
  • Territory Tooltip – Always shows “coins / week” even if resource is changed
  • Support buying from trade routes with certain condition
  • Updated modding wiki

We look forward to hearing any feedback and please let us know if you find any issues. Feedback and bugs can be posted on the Steam or GOG forums, or come and join us on our official Discord server.

Also, check out the recent announcement of a change to our release plan here.

The Polymorph Games Team

 

Important Changes to Our Release Plan

Hello everyone!

We have some important news to share with you today about the ongoing development of the game.

The final gameplan and core game is now at a stage where we can work towards a full release of the game. All of the major features still to come are being worked on simultaneously and are in most cases intertwined. Due to the way these features are reliant on each other it no longer makes sense to continue with our previous plan of releasing smaller updates that ultimately won’t work well as standalone features.

Due to this we have decided that the next major release will be the full release. This will allow us to focus on integrating all remaining features into the game and delivering a more polished, higher quality game. It will also have the added benefit of reaching the full release sooner so that you can get the best gaming experience and enjoy Foundation to its fullest.

We know you will all want to know how soon, however, we don’t have a release date to announce at this time as we still have plenty of work to do, but do know that development is progressing well. Foundation is an ambitious game, and we will of course keep you updated with any news as soon as we have more to share.

Early Access Adopters

For all our Early Access backers, this doesn’t mean we won’t be releasing any updates before the full release. On the contrary, we will continue to work on bug fixes as well as Quality of Life (QOL) features and improvements, based on community feedback, so that we can improve on the core game experience in preparation for the final release. With this in mind, we will be announcing our next QOL update soon!

A BIG Thank You!

Foundation’s development journey has been an unbelievable experience made so much better by all of you, the fantastic community, that has helped us along the way. We would like to thank every Early Access adopter for supporting us and helping us deliver a high quality game that we wanted to create and also one that you want to play for many years to come. We continue to welcome all feedback from the community and we can’t wait to unveil the full release of the game for you all to enjoy!

The Polymorph Games Team

 

Devlog #17: Desirability, Safety, Castle and More!

Hello everyone and welcome back to Devlog’s! Today we present you with Devlog #17 and news from the team. We know it’s been a while since the last Devlog but now is a perfect time to update you all on the current progress of upcoming updates and what we have been working on.

First, we would like to take a moment to thank everyone for their feedback on the recent updates. There have been a lot of changes to the game which we have been happy to see very positive feedback for. We are aware of some needed quality of life (QOL) improvements highlighted by the community, such as the sub-building flow which we are working on improving for the next update. Please do keep your feedback coming as it helps us improve the game as we continue development.

Fall Plan

With the now expanded team we are working on multiple updates concurrently. These are namely the upcoming 1.9.6 update which focuses on Housing Desirability & Beautification, the new Safety system and the Kingdom update. Let’s take a closer look at what we have been working on…

Upcoming update 1.9.6 (Desirability & Beautification)

Though not a major update, calling it a minor update doesn’t do it justice. Update 1.9.6 brings some significant changes that will pave the way for the Kingdom update. More on the Kingdom update in a moment.

This update will bring a change to the Desirability system. Where currently houses will be allowed to upgrade if a housing area is desirable enough based on a single factor, with the new system houses now have different requirements in order to upgrade to the next tier. Essentially, Beautification will be an additional and separate factor when it comes to housing upgrades.

With the new system, houses will only upgrade from low to medium quality if all of the following criteria are met:

  • Desirable neighborhood – Build away from undesirable buildings
  • Beautification – Build within a Beautification area
  • At least one villager of Commoner status or higher looking for medium-quality housing

Note: Removing a house requirement will eventually result in the house being downgraded or its occupant moving away.

These changes will allow you to have better control over where you wish housing to upgrade as well as potentially downgrade housing.

Desirable Neighborhoods

Houses need to be built in pleasant neighborhoods, away from noise, bad smells and grime and hence undesirable environments. Some buildings will now have a clearly defined undesirable area based on the building’s footprint. These will include buildings such as the Lumber Camp, Sawmill, Gold Smelter and all types of Quarries. Medium-quality housing needs to be outside of this undesirable area.

Beautification

Beautification is now becoming a Desirability factor in its own right. For houses to upgrade they must be in an area of Beautification, i.e. within a clearly defined Beautification area created by decorations or buildings that provide Beautification.

The range of the Beautification area will be based on a decoration’s Beautification value combined with its footprint. The overall Beautification area will increase if placed next to another similar area.

Information Layers

In order to accommodate the above changes we will be updating the visibility layers.

  • The Housing Desirability layer will now show residential areas, undesirable areas as well as any medium-quality housing areas.
  • A new Beautification layer will show Beautification areas, items supplying Beautification and housing affected by Beautification.

Other Improvements

Update 1.9.6 will also come with more QOL improvements to the game as a whole including an improved Monument experience with improved sub-building flow and a new dedicated Monument tab in the Build menu, and more. You can check out the full changelog on release.

The 1.9.6 update is very close to an experimental deployment, so keep an eye out for further announcements if you would like to try it out before its full public release on the main branch.

Also In The Pipeline…

As mentioned earlier, we are working on multiple updates concurrently, so what else is in the pipeline?

Safety System

The Safety system will be a new way to control Housing Density via Patrols and Fortifications. The system itself requires a number of changes to integrate it into the game and work is progressing well. We will bring you more news on this in a future communication.

Walls

The current system for walls has always been a temporary measure and we are now working on incorporating walls into the construction flow. Walls will be integrated into Monuments with their own construction costs and visual building steps.

Kingdom Update

The Kingdom update is also being worked on and it is going to be huge! We won’t go into too much detail here but progress on this update is now well under way. The new Castle Monument is under construction (hype!) as well as a new system to create Companies and Battalions to send your Army off to war. Stay tuned for more news but we will leave you with this teaser…

Don’t forget to follow us on social media to keep up-to-date with future developments, teasers and more!

 

The 1.9.5 Scalability Update Is Now Available!

Hello everyone and welcome to Update 1.9.5! 

The main focus of this new version is the inclusion of a new, scalable system for quests and events. We are also introducing an important transport algorithm improvement, event snoozing, Hospitium pausing and villager portraits for all available jobs in the game. Without further ado, let’s get down to the details. 

Scalable quests and events

Ever wished quest and event rewards would adjust according to your progression? With Update 1.9.5, we’re introducing scaling to Foundation: a new way to keep things engaging from the very beginnings of your village to the realization of a fully-fledged medieval wonder.

Here’s how it works: requirements and rewards associated with events or quests will now increase based on different progression tiers. For instance, a quest asking you to deliver wood would have a low resource objective early on and scale later—in tune with your Prosperity.

Here, tier 0 (floor) is available from the start, whilst the last tier is activated upon achieving a specific Prosperity threshold. The low, standard and high rewards are linked to negotiation opportunities with traders in this specific example.

Event Snoozing

Events now have snooze delays when a player dismisses them. Such delays are added on top of their recurrence factor, which have also been slightly reduced. You can expect snoozed events to add between 50-100% more days before they pop up again. 

Hospitium Pausing

Update 1.9.5 also includes a new pause function for Hospitiums. When paused, such locations won’t welcome new guests anymore. Think of it as an added safety valve to better control your food supply as visitors tend to be quite hungry. You can resume Hospitium functionality—thus further guest waves—at any time.

Transport Algorithm Improvement

In addition to the three functions that have just been discussed, we took this opportunity to include our newest improvement with the transport algorithm. You may have noticed that previously, transporters would reserve specific amounts of resources before reaching their destination. The problem, however, was how this reserved quantity never adjusted to take into account fluctuations in availability. 

From now on, transporters are able to dynamically adjust how many resources they carry before reaching their destination, all synced with workplaces. You will notice an immediate effect on productivity as transport becomes even more responsive.

New Villager Portraits

Our artists added villager portraits for every available job in the game. Before, villagers could have a mismatched portrait as we randomly picked one from the handful available. This will no longer be the case and should benefit the game’s coherence. 

That’s it…for now!

We hope you enjoy these new features as we continue to work on the next milestones from our roadmap. You’re always welcome to share feedback here or on our official Discord server.

Changelog

New

  • Scalable quests and events
  • Event snoozing
  • Villager portraits for all available jobs

Update

  • Localization

Improvements

  • Newcomer notifications are now merged into a single, dynamic notification
  • Trade route: added a tooltip to the unlock button when the condition is fulfilled
  • The Hospitium sub-building now has a Pause button
  • Transporters dynamically adjust carried quantities according to availability fluctuations from workplaces
 

The 1.9.4 Progression & Balancing Update Is Now Available!

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:
Buy from them
BarrelCommon ClothesPolished StoneMarble
Gold BarGemIron BarCheese
Sell to them
HerbsHoneyWaxWine
BerryHopsPlanksMeat

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:
StatusMinimum Revenue per VillagerMaximum Revenue per Villager
Serf05
Commoner016
Citizen027

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:
JobStatus
Tax CollectorCommoner
BailiffCommoner
StonemasonCommoner
Weaver HutCommoner
TailorCommoner
MillerSerf
BakerCommoner
Iron SmelterCommoner
BlacksmithCommoner
BrewerCommoner
CheesemakerCommoner
Sculptor WorkshopCitizen
Stained Glass WorkshopCitizen
CooperageCitizen
Common Wares WorkshopCitizen
Candle WorkshopCitizen

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
 

The 1.9.3 Decorations & Action Bar Update Is Now Available!

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. 

Common Decorations in the build menu
Decorations grouping in the build panel

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
 

Patch 1.9.2.5 Is Now Available!

Hello Lords & Ladies! 

A new patch is now available. Here’s the rundown of what’s included in 1.9.2.5:

Changelog

Improvements

  • Added a maximum distance villagers will travel to during their free time to find a bench, which is based on the location of their homes
  • Upkeep categories’ ordering in the Book now follows the same order as the list of building categories in the build menu
  • Villagers happiness tooltip positive and neutral colors are now easier to read

Fixes

  • It was possible for builders to reach construction sites and not do any work
  • The build menu scrolled back to the top after placing a monument part that featured several of them, hindering complex monument construction
  • Coins total from taxation could exceed the limit set for individual houses
  • Some resources in storage facilities weren’t displaying a numerical value for their available quantity (they now do even at 0)
  • The Builder’s Workshop was displayed at the end of the building list unless players reloaded their game
  • Rare case where the game displayed wrong quantities after switching resources assigned to a Warehouse/Granary/Market slot
  • Building upkeep costs 
    • Weren’t calculated correctly when pausing/unpausing a workplace
    • Were wrongly modified when adding more workers, causing players to pay more than intended
  • Building upkeep costs were wrongly calculated The Sturdy Material edict’s effect wasn’t applied in the real calculation of the budget
  • The Sturdy Material edict’s effect wasn’t applied to maintenance costs from additional workers
  • Villagers crossing under a quarry were teleported on its ladder
  • Some tooltips had more empty space than intended
  • A number of Mod.io thumbnails’ colors were misinterpreted
  • Music wasn’t switching when players reached different Estate tiers
  • Changing the monk/nun dorms function could cause a crash 
  • The Abbatial Gate – Major door wasn’t working
  • Quick reloading while the “Promote villagers to higher status” list was opened could cause a crash
  • Rare crash when downloading mods
 

The 1.9.2 Quality of Life Update Is Now Available!

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
 

Our Roadmap Update Is Now Available!

Greetings Lords & Ladies!

We have some important news to share with you about Foundation’s next steps. The team is pleased to unveil an updated roadmap! 📅

But first, a 2022 Retrospective

2022 was a big year for Polymorph Games, but also one of transition. 

First and foremost, we have worked on our biggest update so far, Foundation 1.9, that has added the remaining systems and bound all of them to shape the core experience we intended for Foundation. We also have included and expanded the monastery gameplay, with a revamped visual, representing our work on the final Art Direction (see: GameDeveloper.com).

Another major feature that we were happy to deliver was the first iteration of the map generator, allowing you to have more maps to play with.

The second important change that happened last year was the expansion of our team, with the addition of team members filling important roles, such as an Art Director, a Lead 3D Artist, an Engine Programmer and a Narrative Designer. This is allowing us to work on multiple aspects of the game at the same time: improving our visuals, the game content, as well as the procedurally generated content like the map generator.

Roadmap Update

In the last couple of months, we’ve made the delicate and thorough exercise of reviewing and completing our game design. Every idea and planned feature has been discussed and questioned, and we aimed to leave no stones unturned. This process had us recenter on Foundation’s strengths, and the result is a better defined feature list.

Today we are pleased to share our updated roadmap – a glimpse of both our major and minor updates left to be released.

Upcoming Major Releases

We are planning five major releases until Foundation’s end of Early Access. 

1 – Residential Density and Safety Concept

The next Major Update we are working on is about adding Safety, a tool players can use to control the density of housing in specific zones. Safety is also something that will be used and extended by the Castle in the Kingdom progression path. This will also integrate the walls into the construction flow. We will provide more details soon.

2 – The Castle (Kingdom Progression Path)

We know you are eager to get your hands on this one, and we are already working on it. In addition to the new Castle monument, expect more gameplay options from overhauled military missions (including squads!), and more interaction with the new safety concept.

3 – Labor Progression Path

This update will round off the final Estate gameplay and visual overhaul of the three estates. It will focus on giving the tools to improve happiness and taxation capabilities.

4 – Environment Rehaul

As you may know, we are working to revamp our building and environment visuals: environment biomes, skyboxes, lighting, map edges.

5 – End of Early Access Release

This one will have all the completed game content, with the improved residential zoning, and tier 3 housing.

Along the way toward Foundation’s full release, the team will continue to add minor features, to include new quality of life (QOL) changes as well as game content.

Some Planned Minor Releases (not in release order)

  • Continuous Monument Experience Improvements
  • Continuous Map Generator Improvements
  • Continuous Quality of Life Improvements
  • Continuous Accessibility Improvements
  • Continuous Modding Improvements
  • Continuous Balancing Improvements
  • New Productions Buildings and Production Building extensions
  • Fertility
  • Scalable Quests
  • New Mandates
  • New Information Layers
  • Job XP Implementation
  • Paved Roads

Some shelved or on hold features

As mentioned earlier, the process of reviewing and completing our game design had us focus on Foundation’s strengths. But that also means that unfortunately, some features we have added to the roadmap during the Early Access won’t make it to the full release, as we realized that they will not add any significant fun to the game and will create more micromanagement than we wish to push on the player. We are thus shelving housing decay, aging and families, and graveyards from the roadmap. The disease feature and vehicles are also postponed, meaning they might become part of the game at some point, but not before the end of the early access. Steam Workshop Integration has also been dropped as we continue to focus on mod.io and its cross-platform modding capabilities.

We know some of you will be disappointed about this news, especially the aging and family, but the average village size in Foundation has a higher population count than first anticipated, and having a feature like this would have brought us on the path of survival, micromanagement and overcomplexity.

We have reasserted our inspirations – Pharaoh, The Settlers and Anno – all games that don’t feature aging and death, but are still unique in their own ways and most importantly, great city-building experiences. With that in mind, we are confident that we are on the right path with Foundation’s design plans.

Putting an end to the Trello and to Mantis Public Bug reporter

As many of you may have realized, the Trello board was not being updated often. It has shown to be a lot of work to maintain, and it also creates a divergence with our internal planning tool. Hence why we are closing the Trello, and will instead share updates and progress on the roadmap on posts such as this one.

We are also closing our Mantis Public Bug reporter. We realized that the most efficient way to track bugs and get feedback is through Discord or right here on the Steam forums. It is also a better way to filter what is a bug and what is not, because the community usually provides help as well. So don’t hesitate to join our Discord Server to share your bugs and feedback!

Experimental Builds

In 2023 we also want to give you access to experimental builds. Their goal will be to test new features and progression changes before they’re applied to the live version of Foundation. This is a way for us to get important feedback from you, that will help us deliver polished updates. The first experimental build will be the next minor update that changes a lot of the early/mid game balancing.

When are the next updates planned?

As of now, we are currently working on multiple updates:

  • 1.9.2 is about an improved budget breakdown and multiple Quality of Life improvements, like the ESC and right-click handling (Estimated Release Date: February 2023)
  • Minor Update: We are preparing an experimental build that changes early progression in the game (In Progress, Experimental in March 2023)
    • Taxation will be moved to the Labor progression path
    • Tavern will become a need for the commoners
    • The early and mid game progression will be reviewed
    • Trade revenue will be more generous
  • Minor Update: Plains terrain type (flatter) will be introduced in procedurally generated maps (In Progress, Estimated Release Date, March 2023)
  • Major Update: Residential Core + Safety (Being prototyped, No ETA yet)
  • Major Update: Castle (Kingdom Progression Path) (In Progress, No ETA yet)

Note that this planning is subject to change along the way.

Conclusion

In 2023, we are full speed ahead to deliver consistent and substantial updates that will keep improving the overall quality of the game.

We thank you for your continued support, we are lucky to have such a loving and dedicated community.

—The Polymorph Games team

 

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