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!