Rise of the Settlement – Dev Diary Community Update #24

Greetings, Settlers 🏛️

Version 0.0.14 focuses on making the settlement feel more alive and more structured as it grows.

Until now, settlement growth was mostly represented by increasing numbers. With this update, progression now feels more meaningful: the settlement evolves through different structures, each with its own population limits, social organization, and gameplay restrictions.

Let’s dive in!

Settlement Structure

The settlement now has a specific structure based on how many people live in it:

• Hamlet can hold up to 100 people

• Village can hold up to 250 people

• Large Village can hold up to 500 people

• Small Town can hold up to 750 people

• Town can hold up to 1,000 people

• Large Town can hold up to 1,500 people

• City can hold up to 2,500 people

• Great City can hold up to 5,000 people

Each settlement stage has its own population capacity and society structure. The settlement evolves automatically once the required population threshold is reached.

All settlement progression details can now be viewed in-game, including the current structure, population cap, and related information.

Camp at the Gates

Another important change is that people attracted by Feast Quests no longer join the settlement automatically. Instead, they now gather at the Camp at the Gates.

From this new section, you can decide who is accepted into the settlement and who is rejected. The people waiting at the gates currently belong only to the three Survivor-class tiers.

A person can be accepted only if the current society structure has enough space for that specific social class.

With this change, the settlement is no longer just a number of people. Its internal social structure now matters, and each settlement type limits how society can be organized.

For now, people waiting at the gates do not leave over time, but the number of people who can gather there is limited by the current settlement structure.

Society Patronage

Patronage is a new way to help a specific social class advance faster.

Behind the scenes, each person saves coins and uses them to buy reputation from the settlement. Once they have enough reputation, they attempt to promote to the next social class. This promotion check happens once per week.

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Patronage allows the settlement to support an entire class directly. By spending coins from the settlement treasury, you can help a selected social class become eligible for promotion faster.

However, promotion still depends on the limits of the upper class. If the higher social class is already full, patronage may not have an immediate effect.

This makes patronage a powerful tool, but also one that must be used carefully.

Settlement-Based Progression

Building upgrades are now linked to the settlement structure.

This means that a small village can no longer develop the most advanced production buildings too early. The settlement, its buildings, and its technologies should now evolve together in a more natural way.

Technologies are also linked to settlement evolution. Some technologies now require a specific settlement structure before they become available.

Improvements

• Barter Hall now shows which resources already have an active export rule.

• Added a tooltip for increasing and decreasing export rule quantities, explaining how multiple entries can be managed at once.

• Caravan upgrades can no longer be activated if the settlement does not have enough coins.

• Adjusted food, drink, and tool consumption for several social classes.

• Adjusted advancement values for all classes to make promotion between social classes faster.

• Firewood is now mostly consumed as fuel by all social classes.

• Children are no longer counted toward the total number of people in a social class.

• The settlement now starts with 150k coins when the treasury is discovered.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a small issue where building names were too close to the edge of the card.

• Fixed an issue where caravan cargo resource tooltips could become hidden when time passed.

• Coin information is now displayed in society details only after the treasury is unlocked.

• Fixed an issue where a person could sometimes be duplicated in the savegame.

Final Note

With this update, the settlement now has more identity and personality. Life inside the settlement should feel like it changes as the settlement grows and evolves.

Next, the plan is to connect even more aspects of daily life to the settlement structure, beyond building upgrades and technologies. This includes systems such as taxation, life expectancy, and more settlement-wide effects.

As always — thank you for supporting the journey.

Your feedback shapes every update.

🎮 Join our community: 👉 Discord Server

See you in the settlement. — Luki