Gonna talk a bit about Alpha 6 development and things which make it longer than expected (once again). One of the new features is about making resource consumption much more sensible and reallistic. As of Alpha 5, your citizens only strive to have 4 types of food (or 6-7 if they are on the richer side). Of course it's too simplified to be believable.

In Alpha 6 every food resource will have nutritional value, but as it turns out you can't just choose foods by nutrition. When I tried that, the citizens would just buy all the calorie-packed foods and ignore all the vegetables. Another issue is that each food type has it's own consumption rate (most people can't eat 100g of garlic at once, but everyone can eat 100g potatoes). People would rather choose foods by taste, not by technical specs.


There's also no difference in local market price for different foods in Alpha 5 and resource amounts are quite arbitrary. Alpha 6 goal is to make all numbers make sense and thus make it easier to set actual prices for different foods, which would also have an effect on purchasing decisions.
Yet another factor is citizens class differences (there will be a bit more administrative roles with higher wages in the town) which lead to different expectations for products on the market.
It's been a long time since the game had this level of rebalancing and all the little details should play along together and don't break the parts which actually work. It takes some time to experiment and choose all the right solutions, but I believe this will bring a lot of new depth to the game.

Meanwhile, here's what's available in this little update:

• Added background colors in treasury stats to improve readability
• Total population wealth is now visible in population stats
• Optimized fences rendering when viewed from afar
• Added an icon to tell if a resource is set to be collected by a building which also produces it
  
• Updated some help pages
• Can now force lime kiln burn before the whole batch collected
  

• Taken loans didn't save between sessions
• Some stone bridges could block navigation on water
• Fields and reforestation areas could cause blocked paths in some cases
• Corrected some spelling mistakes
• Barbers sometimes couldn't stop visiting the same fracture patients repeatedly and taking their money
• Lime kiln resources were collected even if it's deactivated

Another feature we're testing before Alpha 6 is repayable loans. You can still take an unlimited number of loans, but at least it gives you some idea of how much money you spend. Later we will have startup options where you can specify limits on loans.

• Added a dialog to choose a loan when the treasury is empty
  
• Loans are now requiring a repayment on due date
• A list of active loans is now visible in treasury stats (Loan repayments row)
  
• Added a help page about loans
• Updated the help text for trading post
• Added a help page for oil workshop
• The game will now check if there are buildings left on the other side when demolishing a bridge
• Renamed construction office to construction shed (gonna need that name later)

• Map 3 had a few unremovable trees
• Some buildings were in a wrong menu category
• Could still build fully enclosed rowhouse yards in some cases leading to blocked entrances
• Potentially fixed a bug with disappearing top bar
• Building and then demolishing the only bridge led to other side becoming inaccessible forever

Alpha 6 is so big, its features are spilling into hotfixes. I think it makes sense to polish out some of the less exciting features with the community before Alpha 6 arrives and brings new players.

• Building categories are now separating food and non-food production
  
• Added the trade limits window, which allows more control of what stays in town and what goes for export
  
• Added a help page about trade limits

• Crash on save in some cases
• Could put graves too close to water leading to navigation problems
• People could forget about their dead relatives graves after loading a save

• A little trees issue

• Added "Replant automatically" feature to reforestation areas

• Building placement verification didn't work properly for some buildings on the edge of the map
• Windows 7 start up issues (for real this time)
• Wage changes in building's hire options didn't apply to managers
• Potentially fixed some issues with trade UI

Meanwhile Alpha 6 development is going smoothly but, as you may have guessed, slowly. Currently working on food consumption (won't be able to feed them just 5 types of meat) and finishing up the new help system.

• Optimized some of the previous optimizations

• Some latest changes prevented the game from starting on Windows 7
• Navigational issues around orchards and hopyards

• Limeworks workers will now prioritize removing a small remainder of quicklime from the kiln

• Planted trees could have some navigation problems
• Field lost its link to a farm if entrance blocked
• Yearly supply limits didn't always work properly
• Navigation issues with fishing docks on map 3 (may need to rebuild the problem buildings in older saves)

So, about that deadline. This time I broke my rule about not having a release date for anything and it was a mistake. For instance, I had 2 days allocated for a new feature: help pages for every type of resource. When I got to implementing it, it quickly became apparent that the whole in-game help system could use some more substantial overhaul. What you see here is the current work-in-progress:



It's now taking 6 days and it's not finished yet. And of course it's all tied to the new buildings and resources in Alpha 6, so it can't be released separately. Our work is mysterious and important and, as such, very unpredictable. That's why games always either get delayed or botched.

I want Alpha 6 to be released as soon as possible more than anyone else, but I also want it to be actually worth revisiting for everyone. It's a rare opportunity and I don't want it to be wasted.
Sorry to disappoint, but you know that making the best game possible has always been my highest priority. Alpha 6 will be out when it's ready.

Thank you for your patience. We're under construction.

• Various problems with removing trees for construction

• Pausing construction led to some resource delivery issues
• Pausing construction or changing priority in the end of the queue could lead to builders needlessly return their deliveries
• Made some changes in hope to fix start-up problems on some systems
• Could get stuck in placement verification on autosave (also led to crashes)

• Optimized emptying buildings in later game

• Trading dock was unfairly blocked in some cases
• Fences could ask to chop trees
• Some animals could secretely starve to death even after food arrived
• Stone mining camp could be overly dramatic about not having reachable deposits
• Crash on demolishing buildings in some cases