Dev Diary 60 - Comeback

March 29, 2024 · 6 min · Vsevolod

Hi hi, it’s been a long time! It’s time to lift the veil on the development a bit! :) Now I do periodic live coding sessions on twitch where I play Colossal Citadels until I encounter an issue, and then proceed to fixing it. You also have a chance to play the game at periodic public playtest sessions at Game Habitat in Sweden :)

There were so many changes since last time! I tried to list them at the bottom of the page, but you also can have a glance over them in this video. I also told a little about what other games and genres inspired me to shape Colossal Citadels as they are right now. Here it is:

Changelog

Added a cool uneven dungeon logo intro when launching the game
Updated main menu soundtrack
Quests/objectives lists
Objective rewards dialog and effects
Quests
- Distortion
- Surviving the great night
- Citadel-building
- Cartographers (main quest)
- Caravans
- Procedurally-generated quests (projects) in citadels
A lot of new flavour text for all resources and items
Can’t clear productions anymore (because removing productions takes orders)
Can’t learn multiple understandings at once anymore
“Discovered” action range is claimed as your territory forever now
- Some factions will still be “non-territorial” and behave the old way
- Romans, greeks, and orcs are territorial
- With these factions, you usually have only one group, so UI now works more convenient with 1 group
Understandings costs grow by 1 after each learn instead of 3
New understandings
- Zeal - additional action point regen
- Mobilization - the functionality to clear productions returns here and costs 1 Order
- Expansion - increases action range
- Bloodlust - restores Orders on kill
- Diversity - ability to learn multiple understandings at once
- Weak Point Analysis - increases crit damage
- Territorial - action range stays forever
- Nomadic - can move
- Proof of Burden - allows acquiring understandings without spending orders
- and some more
New opinion axes (“On Destiny”, and others)
Understandings now take an order to acquire
Understandings are pooled now
Most understandings are not available from the start. You have to find them and add to you deck at first
New status effects
New type of event rewards that allow choosing understandings to add in the pool
Bows and projectiles are moved to blacksmith production category (because all other weaponry goes there too, and buildings go to workshop)
New structures
- Architect (the same as old citadel)
- Goblin Cave (can train wild goblins)
- Orc Cave (can train wild orcs)
- Rune Stone (awakens creatures)
Citadel now gives procedurally-generated quests (projects)
Improved citadels visuals in the world
- Visual styles can be combined when making citadels from different kinds of stone
Visual style changes
- Returned to more “classic” flat look without dark outlines
- Color scheme changed so that it’s less happy
Can’t move producing creatures anymore without a special “Nomadic” understanding
3 new soundtracks
Some structures can now be discovered in building blueprint design
Timed structures, that take units for a few turns, and then they return with a reward
- Some structures, such as dungeon, are now timed
All story texts are updated with much more quality
New loading screen
No initial “dialogue” anymore on starting the game. Instead, a shorter version is shown on the loading screen
Quests list on the loading screen that smoothly goes to the game when you press start
When you end your turn and have some important actions to do, a suggestion window with possible actions will spawn
- Suggestion for acquiring understandings, movement, productions, and interacting with world structures
- Instead of old old “unspent workers” notifications
Excess fire damage on tiles destroys loot/items/resources that lie on the ground. So fire spells should be casted more carefully now
New basic stone type: slate
New citadel type from slate
Improved spell wheel
- Now there are hints when you are clicking on unlearned spells
- Now when creature is not awakened, it says what to do more clearly
Spell level is now shown
Difficulty system
- 11 difficulty levels, each with determined effects that increase difficulty
Unlockables system
- Unlockable difficulties
- Unlockable factions
Acquiring understandings now requires orders
No awakening by level up by default, but there is a new understanding for that (“Awakening”)
An understanding to acquire understandings without spending orders
Rebalanced opinion understandings to have options to increase every of 6 characteristics in the beginning
2 new house types, earth shelter and shack
towers now can be built via building recipes from magic crystals
Reworked all existing factions
- Scultpures were disabled for now because of movement system change, their idea is not actual anymore
Literally hundreds of bugfixes
- Repair mechanism for when production algorithm fails
Now there are 3 weapon blueprint choices instead of 2 per roll
Revisited contextual tutorials
Enemy action range is shown when you hover over it
Creatures can without weapons can attack again
- Martial Arts now allows dealing a bit more damage while unarmed
Clicking resources on map that are meant to be mined now opens productions menu and highlights associated production entry
Flag with 1 creature now displays “1” because it was confusing
Unavailable choices at world structures now display the reason of why is it unavailable
All random effects on materials are now limited to some type of item (for weapons, for armor, for building, etc)
Improved tooltip behavior
Improved performance and memory management
Improved starting area generation, fixing cases when enemies or crates were too close or in water
Fortifications made from different materials of the same type now have combined visuals
Error hints when you do something illegal (e.g. try to move workers into a battle zone)
Animated visual hints to draw the attention to certain elements of UI
Increased visibility range
Button to show workers production at the right of creature portraits
Help sections in productions menu and creature menu (wip)
Work in progress island switching
Button to quickly assign/unassign a soldier on creature portrait
Improved and rebalanced procedural passive abilities (names and icons still don’t make sense)
Can’t reposition workers that are assigned to productions anymore
Can double click resource to open productions menu and highlight its production
Improved dependencies in productions UX
Precious metals and jewelry
Contextual tutorial system, help buttons
Changed how attack ranges for melee weapons work (now there is generally more range, and unarmed fighting affects only the closest triangles)
Shortcut icon to assign soldier on portrait
When new players try to do unintended actions (like, place a movement order inside of your borders), there are explanations, error messages, and tutorial
Some UI elements are bigger
New production category: training
- Productions related to acquiring and educating workers moved there (including standard worker production)
- Dependent on willpower
- Previous “military” on it’s place is a special category for assigning soldiers that doesn’t require action points
All categories button has returned. It is now shown by default
Improved world generation so that important things (such as your spawn) don’t happen too close to water
Better descriptions for building understandings
Tanks are now Defenders and Soldiers are now Fighters
Having not enough resources after the production automatically removes it, showing a notification that the production was stopped
Updated the engine to a custom UE4.27 fork
Simplified movement orders
- Movements don’t save over turns now (it causes A LOT of confusion for new players)
- Can’t place movement orders inside of your action range now
Fixed countless bugs and issues
And of course hundreds of new bugs