We are developing at full speed and have therefore treated the social media somewhat unfairly. Sorry for that! Empires and Tribes will be released as Early Access on Steam on 01.05.2020. We will make sure that we will soon be able to offer a version with the full features here at itch.io in addition to the already available free demo. Feel free to e-mail us concerning the key: whitevertexstudios@gmx.de
Yes, we continue to develop the game at full speed. But since every update and upload needs some preparation and testing, we update the version on itch.io only every 2-3 months to save time for the core development. But we plan to release Empires and Tribes here, on Steam and on other platforms in the near future (approximately April 2020), then the save function will finally be included!
Hey SIP, thanks for your great Let's Play and your support! There'll be a major version release around christmas featuring the new terrain system, bugfixes and performance improvements. All the best,
Hey, big thanks for this great and detailed reply!!! I'll definitely check out the Endless series and will follow your advice and recheck all players UI actions concerning how often they'll be triggered and how important they are. Working with different sized texts and using tooltips more often seems a very good start. Thanks a lot.
Hey thanks for the great feedback. I'll definitely care about the building rotation! Could you give me some more details about, what you'd expect of a good UI? This would be a great help, as I'm really trying to make it as intuitive as possible but, at some point, I could need some more creative advice.
Ok, the crash when building walls close to the bridge has been fixed and will be implemented in the next version. So until then, it would be better not to build fortifications near the bridge. Sorry for that.
Yeah, I had the idea of some "netherland fishers" in mind, too. ; ) Let's see, maybe I'll have the time in on of the next updates. While we're at it: the next update will be released in a couple of days - probably end of next week. Thanks for the beer ; ) - maybe I can return the favor by naming the innkeeper of the tavern Brummbaer ; )
Big thanks for your bug and improvement report again!
I'll definitely consider adding a panel which asks if a building should be placed or not and I'll care about the bug with the message panel.
The clipping issue is meant to be a function not a bug ; ) It prevents getting pushed into the universe when a new building and new colliders are instantiated near the player. The colliders will become active when the player moves away from the new building afterwards.
Yeah the terraforming can be quite heavy near rivers and mountains. But at least your workers won't walk into water. (Let's consider it to be the Netherlands function ;)
I'll improve the 3D Models inside the buildings for sure! In fact, I planned some dependencies on the supply with copper ware, furniture, wool, etc. just as you mentioned.
The water issue with the quarry is not solved yet. I have to think a little bit how to fix this, as the water level is global for the whole game and the quarry may go beyond it at some times.
The idea to make tabs for the research menu is good. I'll implement it in a version in the future. Returning some of the building material when destroying houses is a good feature, too!
For the saving function: I'm a little bit sorry, but this feature will first be implemented in the final version, or an early access version (I'm still not sure, if I want to support the idea of EA and if it is helpful for the development of the game, if the community wants to have one, etc)
You can imagine the saving function as a way to rebuild the entire game and then store it to some variables. As this is some work, I'll want to make sure, that the game runs stable before and the most bugs are fixed.
Hey Brummbear, first of all: big thanks for your detailed post and the bug reports. This really helps me improving the game. I spotted the building bug of the quarters and (hopefully) completely fixed it. Also the bug which occurred when equiping weapons has been removed. I think, the bugs of being able to build pikeman and the wrong assignment of the building progress percentage have been triggered by the initial quarters bug and do not exist if everything works fine. At least I tried my best to reproduce them and Bad a look into the code once more, (fortunately) whithout success. Concerning the idle workers which failed to get to the keep building site: A wrong placement of streets may have been the problem. Simply just drag some new streets on the old streets or try another route. Should solve 95% of all pathfinding problems. I'll fix that later. I'll upload a hot fix tomorrow. Cheers.
There have been big changes in the back end of the game, lots of performance optimisations, AI scripting and more. Unfortunately not completely stable yet. That's why it has been a little bit quiet over here.
But I decided, to release a new stable demo version in the next week, including bug fixes and some added gameplay functions. Thanks for your patience and stay tuned.
The following list includes the features which are planned to be implemented/are currently in the development. Feel free to post own suggestions and expansions:
Environment: Heightmap generation and texture processing nearly closed. Though: Improvement of some shader issues and small details.
Wildlife: Passive animals like cats, dogs, birds,... Aggressive animals like wolves which may complicate the surviving in the beginning of the game.
World: Maps! On the one hand the sandbox mode maps list will be extended. On the other hand, the planned campaign will ship with a lot of unique maps. Interaction between these maps could be a coming feature.
AI: The main feature which is not included in the demo as it is under development currently. AOE like AI which builds and extends its own settlement, manages resource gathering and citizen labour, deploys units and fights the player.
Combat system: Under dev. Four different unit types (swordsman, pikeman, knight and archer), with three subcategories each, have been designed so far. Melee, ranged combat and siege are planned.
Diplomacy: Ability to interact with the AI and other kingdoms in a non-violent way.
Events: Town fire, fair,... with positive and negative effects on the contentment of your citizens.
Legislation: L. enables the option to alter the contentment and the productivity. L. will include laws concerning the working hours, taxes, religious freedom and more.
Contentment: Influenced by local events and the legislation. Negative values could result in the emergence of maroding bandits.
Side quests: Smaller quests like "Help the local smith to settle its dispute with the innkeeper". More complex quests like chasing the bandits.
Campaign: A load of work, intrigues and alliances designed to adorn your path to the crown.
Audio: Implementing of additional ambient sounds and music.
I encountered the mouse bug myself and will fix it in the next update. The saving function hasn't been included as there will be too many changes in the future and this feature should be available in the ready game only. Sorry for that!
Big thanks for your feedback! I'll update the download link frequently. The jump acceleration, the tree graphic bug and some minor issues have been solved in the latest build.
Tell us which features you'd like to see in game! Do you wish to have an enhanced interactivity, an even more complex economic cycle,... let your ideas run wild. Plus, if you track any bugs, just let us know. We're doing our best in finding solutions as soon as possible.
