African Kingdom Major Redesign

I'm happy to announce that the new changes to the African Kingdom expansion go live today. This update sees a re-work of the African culture and changes how the African Kingdom campaign will be played.

Overview

After completing the Tribes of Gaul campaign, I felt that the African Kingdom campaign was lacking. Where in the Gaul campaign you had a wide range of resources and buildings, the African campaign mostly used a mixture of Roman and African resources and buildings.

It felt like the African campaign focused too much on Rome. While Rome is important and still plays a role in Africa, I wanted the African people, along with their buildings and resources to be the primary focus of the campaign. With these changes I'm very happy with how the campaign now plays (and I hope you will be too!)

The Tribal Hunters

With all of the new buildings and resources, it felt like the two original groups (the Tribesmen and Tribal Nobles) just weren't enough.

Added in this update is a brand new group of citizens - the Tribal Hunters

These hunters form the mid level part of African society. Working across a range of industries and civic services in the village.

Much like the tribesmen and nobles, they have four dwelling levels and will require progressively more resources and civic services to upgrade. Multiple missions in the campaign will have you focus on growing this group and ensuring they are developing. Resources such as Ebony Trinkets, Spiced Meat and Tanned Hides will be in high demand from this group.

New Resources

A massive part of this update is the introduction of over a dozen new resources.

Each of these resources has been created to either be a stand-alone resource, or a resource that requires one or more steps of processing to create a final product. Without spoiling too much, here are a few new resources that have been created.

Ebony

Created at a Ebony Crafter and requires Wood. Ebony is used to create Ebony Trinkets which is highly desired by the Tribal Hunters and used as a component in the creation of Tribal Jewelry.

Earthenware

Created at a Ceramic Artist, this resource is highly desired by the Tribal Nobles and is crafted via a combination of Water and Rough Clay, the latter being collected from a Clay Mine

Tribal Bread

Required by Tribesmen and created via a combination of Barley, Millet and Sorghum at the Tribal Bakery. To upgrade your tribesmen's dwelling you'll need a good supply of bread to make them happy.

Spice

Created at a slow but stead rate from the Spicemaker. Multiple spices were made in the African region and they were both traded to Rome and used locally for the creation of Spiced Meat

New Industries & Building

To facilitate the creation of all these new resources, I've added a range of new industrial buildings.

You'll have to play the campaign to get to know each of them, but here's a few screenshots of several related buildings connected together to create these new resources.

Spiced Meat

The newly added Game Hunter will produce a volume of Game Meat for the village. This meat, along with Spices produced by the new Spicemaker building will be taken to the Village Cookery to create Spiced Meat

Ivory Trinkets

Much