Grand Strategy Gilded Destiny - like Victoria 3, but not a piece of shit (in theory)

[AwesomeButton]

This guy actually has a life, a job, and likes the economic simulation of Victoria 3, while admitting that the gameplay loops aren't enough.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Idk, I'm starting to develop serious doubts about this game. Though even if it turns out as a graphics refresh and updated economic model Vic2, I'd still be happy.

 

[Space Satan]

Alpha Roadmap Update #2
Dev Milestones

Salutations Industrialists!
I'm excited to share the progress we've made over the last month and update you on our Alpha Roadmap. First, thank you to everyone that has given us their feedback on our latest Dev Diaries. Dev Diary 17 on Mapmaking and the Map Rework has proven to be one of our most popular ones yet! We have received a lot of suggestions and comments about the first draft of our provincial map layer on the globe. Of course, I'd like to remind you that this is still a first draft of the provinces. There will certainly be changes to the borders. Hopefully, you understood from the Dev Diary that we are taking our time to carefully research map content—political borders, terrain, resources. However, we ultimately do need to make some gameplay considerations, which will cause the map to deviate slightly from the real 19th Century political map, especially as we adapt it to a hex-based globe. And of course, we appreciate your feedback—we are collecting suggestions we have received from our community and will consider them for future map updates.

Also, as a reminder—we have assigned Discord roles to our backers who are already part of our server. If you are not a member of our server, please join via the link below to ensure that you claim your role! We'll be checking back weekly to assign roles to new followers. Of course, if you join and would like to get your role sooner, just say hello in the main channel and mention that you'd like your role. If you're not yet a member of our Discord server, please use this link to join!
Join the Gilded Destiny Discord Server

Accomplished in May
Front-loading Mapmaking before the Map Rework:
As mentioned in Dev Diary 17, a major Map Rework, discussed at the end of the video, is coming very soon. The Rework will optimize the map to run more smoothly and improve performance. Check out Dev Diary 17 for more information!

Our Technical Artists and programmers will be implementing the Map Rework in June. While they are performing this update, our Content Designers will not be able to edit the map. Therefore, we reshuffled some of our tasks that we outlined last month, to prioritize a development sprint on placing cities, terrain, and resources before the Map Rework begins. Ultimately, this means that we accomplished more on the map than anticipated, with events to be worked on in June.

Cities and Major Terrain Features
Our content design team has actually succeeded in accomplishing more than expected!

• The first draft of Cities has been completed across all regions around the globe.
• The first draft of Terrain has been placed in: Japan, Korea, Southeastern China, South Asia, Northern South America, most of Brazil, much of Sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• We plan to make more progress on South America, Africa, and parts of North America in the first few weeks of June before the Rework begins.
• Lakes and Rivers will be placed once the Map Rework is complete.

Resources Placed

• While originally resource placement in Europe was planned for June, I'm happy to announce that our team has made significant progress placing resources in many other parts around the globe (Australia, South Asia, Russia, and Africa)—far ahead of schedule! Of course, as terrain is further completed, some of these may need to be moved, and additional resources added.
• Resources that have been added so far into the game include: Iron, Sulfur, Niter, Coal, Gold, Oil, Furs.
• Some resources, which are dependent on terrain or vegetation, such as Logs, will be added in the future to coincide with the map decoration for Forests.

New Military UI Inputted

• The new Military UI design has been completed, and has largely been input into the game. Inputting the Military UI will be complete by the release of our next stable internal build in the coming week. We'll share a teaser screenshot when it's ready!

Logistics System Inputted

• Done! The new Logistics System, as outlined in Dev Diary 15, has now been inputted into the game.

Technology and Research Designs Completed

• The initial design of Research Mechanics has been completed; however, it still needs to be finalized and input into the game. Our Content Design team has finished a draft of the Academia, Industry, and Military tech trees, which detail the research progression of each tech. We look forward to sharing this with you in a Dev Diary soon!

End of June

• Map Rework
  Work on the Map Rework will begin June 11. We aim for this to take about one month, scheduled to be finished around July 10.
• Content for Military Units
  This includes removing some placeholders and naming Military Units, along with refining the stats for each unit type
• First Draft of Major Prussian Events
  Since we had to prioritize the map before the Map Rework, we moved events tasks from May. As one of the pivotal countries in the time period, we are starting with Prussia to test and build out our event system.
• Add Provincial Data for Prussia
  This involves researching and inputting population data for each Prussian province (such as the number of people and the distribution of cultures, religions, and professions).
• Implement the New Diplomacy System
  Our programmers will implement the redesign of the Diplomacy System into the game. We also have a redesign of the Diplomacy UI planned in the future, so stay tuned for an update on that too!
• Input the revised and updated Leader System, including new UI and mechanics

End of July

• Finalize First Draft of Terrain
  As our team will not be able to work on the map in June, once the Map Rework is completed around the end of June, they will continue with editing terrain in July. We aim to finish editing altitude, placing terrain features, lakes, and rivers.
• Continue adding provincial data for other countries and regions
• First draft of Minor Prussian Events
• Complete the reworked Technology UI design to go with our new Technology system
• Input the revised and updated Construction and Building System, including new UI and mechanics
  As we prioritized mapmaking before the Map Rework to be done from June 11 to July 10, we moved the input of the Construction and Building System to July.

As our goals and expectations evolve, and as these milestones are reached, we will keep you updated!

Thanks for your support and for reading!
May your day be a gilded one!

 

[AwesomeButton]

The summary is that they can now move and place objects on the map, and their UI displays data and updates accordingly. I'm still not impressed. I wonder what their goals were for functionality by this time and how they are faring. As time runs out, so will budget, and I'm afraid of feature cuts.

 

[Axioms]

The summary is that they can now move and place objects on the map, and their UI displays data and updates accordingly. I'm still not impressed. I wonder what their goals were for functionality by this time and how they are faring. As time runs out, so will budget, and I'm afraid of feature cuts.

I don't understand. Is this not a Unity game? I can't remember. Regardless, moving and placing objects is so basic, as is UI updating. Especially on a hex-map.

 

[Sinilevä]

Looks interesting, but the combat looks like basic shitty combat from paracucks games. Probably will also end up playing ping pong trying to catch AI armies jumping from province to province.

 

[Axioms]

Looks interesting, but the combat looks like basic shitty combat from paracucks games. Probably will also end up playing ping pong trying to catch AI armies jumping from province to province.

How would you expect combat to work in a real time map game?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Looks interesting, but the combat looks like basic shitty combat from paracucks games. Probably will also end up playing ping pong trying to catch AI armies jumping from province to province.

It was what all the Vic2 hipsters were claiming they wanted 2 3 years ago

 

[Axioms]

Being turn based allows you to have superior combat at the scale of a world. Being real time is a significant disadvantage, especially given that most people prefer to speed through history.

You can do a lot fancier stuff regarding armies manuevering for advantage and dealing with scouting in a turn based game.

 

[Sinilevä]

Looks interesting, but the combat looks like basic shitty combat from paracucks games. Probably will also end up playing ping pong trying to catch AI armies jumping from province to province.

How would you expect combat to work in a real time map game?

At least like in Grand Tactician: Civil War or Ultimate General: American revolution. Or do you think ping pong combat is a pinnacle of grand strategy combat?

 

[Sinilevä]

Looks interesting, but the combat looks like basic shitty combat from paracucks games. Probably will also end up playing ping pong trying to catch AI armies jumping from province to province.

It was what all the Vic2 hipsters were claiming they wanted 2 3 years ago

And your point is?

 

[Axioms]

Looks interesting, but the combat looks like basic shitty combat from paracucks games. Probably will also end up playing ping pong trying to catch AI armies jumping from province to province.

How would you expect combat to work in a real time map game?

At least like in Grand Tactician: Civil War or Ultimate General: American revolution. Or do you think ping pong combat is a pinnacle of grand strategy combat?

But that is a total war style game that goes to a new screen for battles no? Plus the scope of the game is tiny. There's roughly 2 sides and it occurs in a single country. That's totally distinct from what a Paradox game does.

 

[Sinilevä]

Looks interesting, but the combat looks like basic shitty combat from paracucks games. Probably will also end up playing ping pong trying to catch AI armies jumping from province to province.

How would you expect combat to work in a real time map game?

At least like in Grand Tactician: Civil War or Ultimate General: American revolution. Or do you think ping pong combat is a pinnacle of grand strategy combat?

But that is a total war style game that goes to a new screen for battles no? Plus the scope of the game is tiny. There's roughly 2 sides and it occurs in a single country. That's totally distinct from what a Paradox game does.

What do you mean "total war style game"? Total war games are turned based. The games I mentioned have real time map.You asked how do I expect combat to work in real time map game and I gave a couple of examples. It should not make any difference whether it's two sides or ten. The AI battles could happen automatically on the background. Nu paracucks games are in general very low bar to strive to.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Looks interesting, but the combat looks like basic shitty combat from paracucks games. Probably will also end up playing ping pong trying to catch AI armies jumping from province to province.

It was what all the Vic2 hipsters were claiming they wanted 2 3 years ago

And your point is?

My point is that there isn't that many of them around any more.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Looks interesting, but the combat looks like basic shitty combat from paracucks games. Probably will also end up playing ping pong trying to catch AI armies jumping from province to province.

How would you expect combat to work in a real time map game?

At least like in Grand Tactician: Civil War or Ultimate General: American revolution. Or do you think ping pong combat is a pinnacle of grand strategy combat?

But that is a total war style game that goes to a new screen for battles no? Plus the scope of the game is tiny. There's roughly 2 sides and it occurs in a single country. That's totally distinct from what a Paradox game does.

There is also The Seven Years' War by the same guy Oliver Keppelmueler who later made Grand Tactician: Civil War. That one has a larger scope. I'd rather have a small scope scenario-based games but with more in-depth look at alternative scenarios (like the turn based To End All Wars) than hopelessly pseudo-historical games like Paradox' Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis. I've been a big fan of both, but my preference has shifted with time.

 

[Space Satan]

Alpha Roadmap Update #7
Dev Milestones

Salutations Industrialists,
We are excited to share the progress we've made over the last month and update you on our Alpha Roadmap.

Pre-Alpha Testing
As you'll remember from our update last month, we are excited to announce that we have selected 50 Kickstarter backers to test Pre-Alpha version of Gilded Destiny, before the Alpha is released to all backers! The pre-Alpha build has been created, and our team is doing a final check before we send out the keys to the selected backers! We plan for this to happen in the first couple weeks of November!

We will be monitoring and collecting feedback from the pre-Alpha primarily through our Discord server. If you have not yet joined, please do so.

Join the Gilded Destiny Discord Server

We decided to do a small closed Pre-Alpha test to gather initial feedback so that experience of the Alpha is enjoyable and meaningful, and to streamline the process of administrating keys, feedback collection, and bug reporting on our end. Of course, as many of you know, both the pre-Alpha and Alpha builds of the game will likely have limited content and systems may not be fully implemented into the game.

Finally, we are excited to announce that we have shipped physical merch to our Kickstarter backers. There are still a few who have not yet completed the backer survey. If you are reading this and have not done so yet, be sure to fill out the backer survey!

Without further ado, let's take a look at what we accomplished in October and what is planned for November and December.

Completed in October
Refine and test existing in-game content in preparation for Alpha
- Ongoing. Our Content and Design teams continue to identify and address issues

Finish designing and implement Province Edicts that relate to extant systems
- Done.

Complete implementing Technologies in-game and testing the Research system
- Ongoing. Academia is largely complete, which we are using to test the system.. Military and Industry events are being implemented.

Input and test major early- and mid-game Prussian Events and Decisions
- Ongoing. Issues are being addressed and fixed with the Event System, such as identifying modifiers and effects needed for each event. The system is being built out in conjunction with Event implementation.

Begin inputting Qualities for Cultures and Religions
- Delayed, although we plan for the Alpha to contain proof of concept and indicate how we are handling these

Finish inputting historical data for major European countries at game start
- Ongoing. Fine-grained distribution of cultures between provinces and professions is still a work in progress.

Input UI designs for Construction, Countries, and Population
- Construction UI is currently being redesigned and implementation will happen once complete (likely in November or December).
- Country UI has been designed and has been largely implemented in the game. Currently it is being tested.
- Province UI has been designed and input is planned but not yet started.

Continue to update and refine the appearance of the new Map
- We have refined the appearance from what has been seen in the previous Dev Diaries; however, we plan to continue updates and refinement.

Continue refining terrain
- Ongoing. Now that the new Map Rework design has been implemented, the content team can continue refining terrain. The terrain of Northern Europe—lakes, rivers, mountains, elevation—has been updated.

Refine details of existing in-game UIs
- Delayed. Currently, the focus is on completing the major UI updates before refining those that have already been implemented.

Continue refining the Global Economy at game start
- This has been started and will continue. However, more work needs to be done on balancing countries at game start.
- Ensure that Industries and Plantations are placed in historically and geographically appropriate places, and begin balancing production to avoid extreme instances of surfeit and dearth (e.g., army rations)
- Ensure that provinces contain sufficient numbers of the necessary professions to staff these Industries and Plantations

Begin inputting leader portraits
- We aim to have some additional leader portraits input by the pre-Alpha release. However, this process will be ongoing.

End of November
- Collect feedback from pre-Alpha testers and address issues raised
- Continue inputting and testing major Prussian Events and Decisions
- New features are also being added to the Event Editor to increase the potential of what we are able to simulate.
- Input and test more Qualities for Cultures and Religions
- Continue refining the Global Economy at game start
- This is an ongoing project that will require continuous refinement.
- We plan at this stage to also start taking into account the various technological disparities between different nations
- New UI designs for Navy, the HUD, and Settings menu
- Continue inputting historical data for European countries at game start
- Finish first draft of terrain, including mountains, lakes, and rivers
- Finish Designing Construction UI and begin implementation
- Refine and update the mechanics design for profession promotion/demotion and migration

End of December
- Continue inputting Prussian events, and testing new Event Editor systems
- Input and test revised mechanics for profession promotion/demotion and migration
- Input more Leader portraits and backgrounds
- Continue refining the Global Economy at game start
- Continue inputting and refining historical population data for European countries at game start
- Finish implementing Construction UI
- Begin implementing new UI designs for the HUD and Settings menus
- New supplementary UI designs for other features (load game, main menu, etc.)
- Finalize design for Rebellions and Bureaucracy

Thanks for your support and for reading!
As our goals and expectations evolve, and as these milestones are reached, we will keep you updated!

Also, as a reminder—we have assigned Discord roles to our backers who are already part of our server. If you are not a member of our server, please join via the link below to ensure that you claim your role! We'll be checking back weekly to assign roles to new followers. Of course, if you join and would like to get your role sooner, just say hello in the main channel and mention that you'd like your role. If you're not yet a member of our Discord server, please use this link to join!
Join the Gilded Destiny Discord Server


May your day be a gilded one!

 

[kris]

Paradox map require a team of devs to sustain no indie studio can afford. Each of their provinces are tracked by colour code and calculating borders is hell. It could be managed via mods but to create it from scratch is a hell of an effort.

Why would it require that? First paradox games were made by one person.

 

[Space Satan]

And were infinitely more simple. HoIIV and EUIV is gargantuan in comparison with number of provinces and modifiers attached to them

 

[Raghar]

Frankly I was making auto generation of planetary surfaces and erosion as a single unpaid person in 90s.

In comparison to that creating a map like paradox do is simply cylindric projection and drawing provinces on a rectangular map. And luckily NASA posted free high res photos of Earth surface thus they can have decent looking earth globe if they want.