Hey folks,

Just wanted to drop another quick devlog. Had to rush Bella to an unplanned vet visit because she started limping out of nowhere while my little sister was watching her. Luckily, Bella’s okay. Then, got roped into watching my niece and nephew when I wasn’t expecting it. So yeah, didn’t manage to get the release out this past weekend.

Decided to just take another week or so to polish everything up because of all this. So no update yet, but it’s coming soon!

So thanks for hanging in there!

Also, had to clean up one of the scenarios. It was bugging out during playtesting, and guess what? Turns out there’s been this sneaky bug in the game for probably years. It messed up saving and loading scenarios with triggers, making the triggers work only every other

 time it was loaded. So yeah, had to dive in and sort that out.

Gonna ramble a bit now on my various ideas, this is the end of the important bits, so continue reading only if you want to read me rambling for several paragraphs...

What else...

I've been brainstorming on spicing up the rogues guilds by introducing a bunch of new upgrades to make them feel more "guildy", especially with the new tile effects system rolling out. This would Mean I've got to update all the spots where you can build rogues guilds to include their tile effects now, etc.

Some ideas might not make it into this update but are definitely on the horizon:

For instance, I'm toying with the idea of blacksmiths in kingdoms having techs that enhance their tile effect, which I’ve already conveniently named 'Level 1'. I'm kind of keen on leaning more into that 'majesty fantasy kingdom sim' vibe.

And there's this concept I'm mulling over, though it's still a bit up in the air for this update – the idea of introducing tile effects that change every turn based on some math or randomization. Picture this: the ocean having "storm" tiles that damage ships if you build there, with varying intensity levels but is also quite deterministic. It would add this whole new layer of strategy to where you decide to deploy your ships. I'm thinking of using some kind of cellular automata to simulate the storms intensifying and shifting, it seems like it would be quite a bit of work if i wanted to get it in this update. So it probably wont happen but a man can dream.

There's also this idea I've had since I implemented the system, where the liminal maps would have a unique tile effect that grants units bonuses for deploying there, but once deployed, the effect would disappear. It's akin to scavenging in the back rooms and slowly the map would run out of "scvangeable" tiles. Surprisingly, this would be a lot easier to add than the storm idea, and it would introduce a whole new layer of depth to the noderoom "map settings" in the skirmish game.

I should mention that, obviously, once this is out, just because this update is out doesn't mean I won't be updating the system or adding new tile effects in later updates. This is just the first "iteration", so to speak, and not all my ideas will make it in this first round.
I do really, really need people to give me feedback once it's out, though!