Patch #55 (BETA). Event Director and Balance

Hello everyone,

Dmitry here.

Today we are releasing the Event Director to the beta branch.

This system, also known as the Storyteller in RimWorld, makes the game experience more balanced at every stage of a playthrough, as well as richer, more varied, and more rewarding.

Our testers now refuse to return to the previous version and say that playing without the Director feels painful and boring.

I hope you notice the same improvement to the gameplay experience that we did.

As usual, all save files are compatible.

You can switch to the beta branch through the game's menu in your Steam Library or directly from the game's main menu.

Event Director

The system is complex, but here is how it works in brief.

The Director controls almost every event in the game, while still taking its trigger conditions into account. For example, an uprising still requires dissatisfied characters and will not happen for no reason. It then distributes events across days based on the current phase: challenge or recovery.

In some ways, it resembles Resident Evil. First, tension builds, then you face a boss, and afterwards you find a relatively peaceful area with loot. If you suffered heavy losses, you have an incentive to search more carefully and find additional resources for recovery. The game does not secretly adjust the difficulty in your favor, but it gives you opportunities to recover, which still require effort to take advantage of. This makes the experience feel both balanced and fair.

To create pressure, we introduced a raid system, while recovery is supported by a system of opportunities. You can recognize them by the green event card in the important events banner.

On average, the Director has a 75% chance each day to create one of 60 different event types.

There are also differences between Easy, Hard, and Hardcore difficulty levels.

Raids

On average, once every 10 days during the challenge phase, a raid attacks the city. We added many different enemies, such as dog-headed barbarians who attack alongside tamed wolves, and gave each group different objectives that they reveal before the attack. For example, Unholy fanatics may want to burn down the temple, but they have no interest in your money.

Once a raid achieves its objectives, it leaves, so even defeat does not mean the end of the game.

Raids can also be seen as an opportunity to obtain valuable weapons and prisoners.

You can also disable raids in the initial game settings using a modifier.

Politics

We also reworked politics to make it less frustrating and more rewarding.

For example, politicians can now deliver a Sermon of Hope to their followers, providing a significant mood boost. This means that, if you maintain good relations with them, you can use their popularity to your advantage.

They also become less active when their relations with the king are positive.

We also reduced the Bishop's activity. Converting your population to the True Faith is now less aggressive and is accompanied by the distribution of gold.

Balance

We made substantial balance improvements, closing obvious loopholes involving resource overproduction, overly profitable trade multipliers, and imbalances in character actions.

The prices of books brought by the caravan now gradually increase with each new settlement development level, creating a more balanced gold economy in the mid and late game.

You can find the full list of changes below, but our work in this area is still ongoing.

In the near future, we will also focus on optimization, combat tactics, and economic development.

Once again, thank you all for your feedback and support!

Full List of Changes

Event Director

Added the Event Director, which regulates the flow of random events:

• Attack on the player's city by the Faceless

• Attack on the player's city or village by bandits from a camp

• Attack on the player's city or village by a neighboring province, or an attempt to force the player into vassalage

• Attack on the player's city by marauders

• Prophecies

• Arrival of unique guests

• A politician's desire to change the ruler

• Bribery of a politician

• Conspiracies

• Uprisings

• Dark deeds on the local map

• Raids on the player's city by neutral factions

• Opportunities - special ongoing events that the player can use to recover

Tutorial and Interface

• Added an image to the "Intrigues with Neighbors" encyclopedia article

• Improved the "Intrigues with Neighbors" tutorial: it is now triggered by the puppet advice, and the target is selected through the seduction prompt

• Added advice for having six or more unfilled jobs

• When the player acquires knowledge that unlocks a new crop, a yellow marker will now appear on the field

• Updated the battle tutorial with the Ragamuffins. It now uses the new raid system, and the Ragamuffins approach the player's city on the global map

• Added a yellow marker to the soft tutorial task window to indicate that the hint has not yet been read

• Changed the threshold for displaying the low population happiness alert from 40 to 30

• The army panel at the bottom of the screen will now display enemy armies on the global map that are moving to attack the player's city

• The summary will no longer report when someone makes a friend

• Removed the rumor notification

• The advice that the king does not have enough followers now has a new condition: there must be a politician in the player's faction

• The Lord Feud tutorial scenario now points to the "Play Dice" action

• The "Knowledge Will Soon Be Lost" advice now only takes knowledge from the "Economy" category into account

• Removed the notification: "Lord: Bad Relations with the King"

• Added a button to the load menu that refreshes the list of saved games

• If another faction becomes an enemy while the player is under the protection of the Church, the notification will indicate that the player is protected by the Church

• The knowledge acquisition event is no longer displayed for knowledge that is already known or permanent

• Characters who have temporarily left the local map will now appear in the list of possible sermon performers. They will be unavailable, with the reason shown

• When a character goes to intimidate a target, a notification about it will appear on the right

• Added zoom support and camera movement inertia to the Dynasty menu

• The quest to neutralize a lord will now appear above the target's city rather than the employer's city

Character Balance

• Reduced the relationship bonuses from the "Impressionable Hunter" weakness and the "Flesh Wolf Hammer" strength from x2 to x1.5 and x1.3, respectively

• Limited the maximum thought caused by relationship inversion during usurpation to between -20 and +20

• Guests from neighboring provinces can now begin arriving from day 2 rather than after the player's city reaches 20 civilian population

• Seduction can no longer be assigned against characters who are currently pregnant

• Until there is a second politician in the city, the ruler will not create new political strategies, and advice about a politician having too few followers will not be displayed

• The Bishop can now receive a thought indicating whether he likes or dislikes the current ruler

• Political activity in the player's city will now begin at 40 population rather than 20

• The "Emotionless Sex" thought received after seduction will now display the portrait of the character associated with the thought

• A politician will only use seduction or order an ally to use it if the performer's mood is above 40, or if special traits prevent them from receiving negative thoughts from seduction. A politician will not use seduction if their relationship with the target is already above +50

• Reduced the negative thought received by the performer of seduction from -30 to -20

• Experience gained from inspections has been reduced by half

• Desires to change the ruler will no longer give politicians a negative thought

• Commanders will no longer gain followers after defeating a bandit camp

• Increased the stake for playing dice from 100 to 300

• The Bishop will deliver Sermons of Faith less frequently

• The Sermon of Faith will now distribute 5 coins to each listener

• After a politician disappears from the player's city, a new politician cannot appear for at least 10 days. The exception is when a politician seizes power through usurpation

• The Manners skill level now affects the cost of the reward requested from the king

• Politicians will select targets for gaining a new ally and undermining a rival less efficiently. The best target will be selected with a 53% chance, the second-best target with a 26% chance, the third-best with a 13% chance, and the fourth-best with an 8% chance

• Added a 20% success bonus to the "Burglar" strength when kidnapping or killing a lord on the global map

• A politician in the player's faction whose relationship with the player's ruler is above 0 will perform political actions and deliver sermons half as often

• A politician in the player's faction can now independently seek absolution from the Bishop if their total sins exceed 15 and they have at least 200 coins

• Politicians will occasionally deliver a Sermon of Doubt if the Bishop is an ally of the player's ruler

• The strength of the "Addict" thought for characters with the "Hatred of Substances" trait has been changed from -20 to -10, and it will only be applied if the character does not personally have an addiction

• Removed the mechanic that gave every character on the global map a 0.5% daily chance of losing their sight. Honestly, I have no idea why we ever added this

• Reduced the chance of becoming an alcoholic by 1.5 times

Economy Balance

• Added a comfort effect for residential buildings based on proximity to rivers and lakes

• Temples now provide a separate comfort effect for residential buildings

• Removed the comfort bonus from neighboring residential buildings

• Public place bonuses no longer stack with each other

• When enemies have the objective of stealing gold from the Hall, they will now steal exactly half of the gold instead of 30-50 coins per character

• The caravan will no longer sell most weapons, except bows and clubs

• Reduced the price multiplier for goods during the post-war state

• Reduced the price multiplier during harsh seasons

• Adjusted the balance of negative effects from eating rutabaga

• Peasants and soldiers who consume Nectar will now receive "Energized"

• The "Mines" book is now available to the player from the start

• Reduced the chance of surrendering instead of fleeing from 30% to 20%. Reduced the chance of capturing soldiers who fled during a battle on the global map from 50% to 25%

• Random caravan price increases for a specific good are now capped at x2 instead of x3

• Recruiting prisoners into the army now costs money. Mercenaries now have a Combat skill level between 7 and 9

• Mercenaries are now 30% more expensive

• Seasonal effects no longer affect the prices of alcohol and hops

• Reduced the fertility bonus from rain from +30% to +10%

• Increased the resource price bonus in the resource sale opportunity quest from x2 to x3

• Chancelleries are now limited to managing no more than 10 buildings. Connecting one Chancellery to another now costs 3 paper per day

• Raiding villages now provides loot in gold

• Changed the prices of technologies and textbooks

• Changed the population thresholds at which knowledge is unlocked

• Adjusted the cost of cultural knowledge

• Increased the final settlement development threshold from 100 to 110

• Miscellaneous

• The "No Ragamuffins" game modifier has been replaced with "No Raids". This change will be applied automatically to old saves

• Players can now attack AI villages that are not located on the borders of their territory

• Reworked mercenary recruitment. Mercenaries now arrive 12 hours after being hired, at the start of a new hour. Recruitment can be cancelled and the money refunded during the first hour after hiring. For old save migration, mercenaries who were hired but have not yet arrived will appear at the start of the next hour

• After looting a warehouse, enemies will set it on fire

• Added cultural knowledge for improved hops and rutabaga efficiency to the Varns

• The number of fertile rye and hops fields has been reduced by half

• No more than four rebel squads will be created during a religious uprising

• Pilgrims will now pay for the food given to them, at a price three times higher than selling the resource to the caravan

Fixes

• Guaranteed a mine during map generation and fixed mine placement being offset when constructed

• A stronger mood modifier from treasury operations will no longer be replaced by a weaker one

• Fixed a tutorial scenario where problems could occur if the required lord had already been selected before the tutorial scenario began

• Fixed a bug where a pursuit order could end several tiles before the squad reached the fleeing target

• Fixed a bug where hostages carried by squads incorrectly handled terrain elevation

• Fixed bugs in the ambush task involving the capture of prisoners; Residents will no longer wake up because an enemy squad is nearby

• Fixed a bug where torches thrown by warriors could fly from the edge of the map instead of from their hands

• A squad will now leave a burning building on its own, unless it is engaged in combat

• When surrendering, the equipment destruction sound will only play if the character had equipment

• A warrior in a squad will drop a carried prisoner if the prisoner catches fire or dies; Warriors in squads will no longer attempt to capture burning prisoners

• Wolves in squads will no longer capture prisoners, untie allies, or bandage allies' wounds; In mixed human-wolf squads, a human will be prioritized as the squad commander

• A puppet can now definitely no longer become a master

• Fixed a bug where the order to give carrots to unique Pilgrim guests was only displayed for the Pilgrim leader; The "Expel Guest" button will now always be the last order in the list

• Fixed a softlock in the Puppets tutorial scenario when another lord was selected and a tab other than the first one was open

• Fixed a bug where rebelling prisoners simply disappeared after completing all uprising objectives instead of fleeing the map

• Fixed a bug that prevented Farms from being built. When the relevant knowledge is learned, the yellow marker will now flash on all Farm variants

• Fixed a bug in the Squad Creation tutorial scenario where, at the stage requiring the player to press the squad creation button, it was impossible to add a squad of soldiers or lords

• Partially fixed a bug involving unclear padding in the tutorial window

• Fixed movement time calculations for armies and characters on the global map

• The player will now receive the full ransom amount for freeing an AI lord from bandit captivity

• Fixed a bug where armies on the global map were not displayed in the player's bottom army panel

• Fixed a bug where Yellow Fanatics lost the Nectar Addiction trait at 08:00

• Different enemy squads will no longer burn and loot the same building at the same time

• Fixed a bug where the "Spend Time Together" action hint displayed a line granting +100 mood to the target when chatting

• Fixed a bug where the puppets of lords who became politicians did not automatically become followers

• Improved the algorithm for determining where roads and walls are constructed. They will now be placed exactly at the mouse coordinates instead of appearing higher because of terrain elevation

• The target of seduction will no longer receive the "Spent the Night Together" thought

• The initial setup of the player's city budget when starting a new game will no longer write data to statistics, which previously caused problems with the first economy report

• Fixed a bug where a bandit camp could not spawn in Ken's province

• Fixed a bug where a bandit camp could spawn with fewer than 3 bandits

• Fixed a bug where two notifications appeared on the right when a lord surrendered at a bandit camp

• Fixed a bug where the caravan trading action did not display the reason why the action could not be assigned

• Changed the mechanics for assigning warriors to towers. Soldiers without ranged weapons will no longer go to towers

• Fixed a bug where the "People Have Nowhere to Pray" and "Build a Library" problem flags repeatedly appeared and disappeared at the start of the game. These pieces of advice will now only appear if the advice about building houses for residents has been displayed and completed at least once

• Fixed a bug where the dust effect spawned too low when buildings were constructed on elevated terrain

• If a task assigned by a politician becomes invalid, for example if the politician wanted someone to be seduced but the target's interest in the performer decreased after the task was assigned, or the target became unavailable for another reason, the task will be cancelled at the start of the hour. Political activity takes place between hours 16 and 24

• Fixed a bug where forcing a seduction task from the target's menu could result in ordinary sex

• Fixed the "Intrigues with Neighbors" tutorial scenario. All windows now appear in the same location, and the correct buttons are highlighted regardless of the selected language

• Fixed bugs in the rendering of character and squad movement paths on the global map

• Fixed poisoning on the global map. Additional thoughts not listed in the action hint will no longer be applied

• Nighttime intimidation by a politician will be cancelled if the politician loses a fight

• The icon above a character indicating that they are squeezing between buildings will no longer appear while the character is in combat

• Fixed a game crash that could occur during the "Prisoner Control" event

• Fixed a bug where the caravan trader could claim that the price of a good might increase even though the caravan did not sell that good, such as coal

• Fixed a bug where the most recent saves could fail to appear in the load menu. Save loading is now lazy-loaded, so having hundreds of saves no longer affects load menu performance

• Fixed a bug where the "Poorly Hosted My Lord" thought was positive

• Fixed a bug where the opportunity quest to ransom a neighboring lord from a bandit camp could disappear immediately after spawning because the lord's ruler ransomed them immediately after the kidnapping. The ruler will now never ransom such a lord if the lord was created as part of an opportunity quest

• Fixed a NO error when cancelling squad changes after adding a new soldier and giving them a weapon

• Fixed a bug where a hired unique Mountain Bandit guest continued waiting for a conversation after being hired

• Resources will now ignore some map generation restrictions if there is not enough space for them. Added a safeguard with repeated generation attempts and a notification for the player

• Fixed a bug where maps could generate without clay

• Fixed the cooldown hint for the Sermon of Generosity, which is available to characters with the "Sacrificer" trait

• If the target of nighttime intimidation wakes up because of the break-in, the intimidation attempt will now be cancelled

• A politician will no longer attempt to intimidate at night a target with the "Anxious" trait, since such a target automatically wakes up during an intrusion and cannot be intimidated

• Fixed the displayed operating cost of the Chancellery

• Fixed a bug where an intimidation action task assigned by an AI politician was always deleted on the evening after assignment, even though the intimidation itself still began

• A bandit camp created by the Event Director's opportunity system will no longer immediately grow again; A bandit camp will also no longer grow while an attack order has been assigned to it