When one's recreating the historical reality, battles are just as important as an economic development. Establishment of almost every civilization included some sort of military actions. Some computer games are sometimes more focused on the battles rather than economic development. Depending on developers' priorities and desires games' battle systems can look very different. For some games it's just a simple event, not outstanding at all, but in others, it's almost like a game inside a game, a huge event which requires a lot of actions and efforts from the player, something like what we can see in Total War.

We're making a historical strategy, and we're trying to make it as close to the truth as possible, so it's important for us to balance out every sphere of life in the same way as it was balanced in the Old Kingdom. Ancient Egypt was not a military state, and that's why we decided to let the player focus more on the development of the country rather than military actions.
Our first games had no separate battle mode, and the player got the result of the battle after a few clicks. In Predynastic Egypt we added the battle mode, but all the battles remained blended into the story, only slightly highlighted in comparison to the other events.

Predynastic Egypt battle mode:


Egypt: Old Kingdom battle mode:


In the Predynastic Egypt conquering hostile tribes took several steps. Preparation took a few turns, then a couple of skirmishes to weaken the enemy, and then the battle royale. Of course, players could go without skirmishes if they were sure they'd win. The process of the battle was demonstrated in a separate window, but a player could not influence it or make any decisions in the battle. The only thing (s)he could do is to retreat from the battleground.

This simple system was sufficient for Predynastic Egypt. But for the new game, Egypt: Old Kingdom, we needed something more elaborate. From the feedback we got from Predynastic Egypt, we also knew the audience requested to improve the battle. Some people even asked us to make something similar to Total War. With all due respect to this game, it was inappropriate for our game to have this kind of a battle mode. Not only because Egypt wasn't a military state, but also because there are not much data available for a detailed reconstruction of battles of the Old Kindom period. All we know is that Egypt had an army that they have had some kind of military actions, but there is no information about the enemies or about battles' dates, times and locations, no information about the number of troops. No information about the results of battles. Without this information, all we could do is to fantasize about what their battles were like, but that is not something we need.

Still, we wanted to improve the battle mode, and the question was - how could we do it? We went through players' suggestions, as well as through our own ideas. We wanted to keep the ease of Predynastic Egypt's battle mode, but add a few features to make it more interesting. In the end, we added a few buttons, which were the result of a painstaking analysis and synthesis. We had to analyze as much of possible battle actions as possible, and then synthesize this information to make a few new buttons for a battle mode. Eventually, we got a system that is deeper and more flexible, than the original one, but at the same time, it's not entirely different.
So, before the battle player's troops are going to the enemy's territory (Egyptians on the left, enemies on the right side):



As soon as the player will choose to fight, the battle preparation will begin. The player will learn basic information about the enemy, and on the screen below we can see the first added button "Risk". What does it mean?
Even at the Old Kingdom period battles started long before the troops stood on the battleground face to face. Scouts were sent to investigate the enemy's troops condition, sabotages, tricks and set-ups were used in order to weaken the enemy's army before the battle. If those actions were effective enough, they could upset the initial power balance and a less powerful, but more cunning army could win the battle. These actions are hidden under the "Risk" button. It does not guarantee the victory, but sometimes it can save the army when the battle is unavoidable, but the army is not strong enough. On the picture below you can see the exact case when the button "Risk" can be used. Without it, the battle most certainly will be lost. The "Risk" button increases the chance of both good events (by 100%) and bad events (by 75%). The battle will become highly unpredictable, but also with a chance of victory.


After the player chose his actions - to fight or to risk - here comes the second step of the battle. The battle itself. Here you can see two more buttons which allow the player to select the tactic. He can order the army to attack, and it will increase the damage to the enemy's army. Or he can order to defend, and in this case, the player's army will suffer less damage, but also the chance of bad events will increase.

In Predynastic Egypt, when the battle was over the player could only accept the result without the chance to react somehow. In Egypt: Old Kingdom the player can now choose his actions after the battle. He can exterminate the enemy or to let them go home. The first option will slow down the progress of the enemy's tribe. The second option will improve the relationships with all neighbor tribes/nations.



If the player loses the battle, his enemy can capture his troops. In this case, the player can beg his enemy to release part of them. Regardless the result, it will damage the relationships with the other tribes, and additionally, the enemy may not return the troops. So the begging only effective if the army was big. Otherwise, the player can just accept the defeat and do nothing about the lost troops.



Besides the main battles, the player can also do raids. They have slightly different results. The successful raid will allow the player to enslave the enemy or to desert their lands (to destroy the fertility of the land by mixing it with salt). This will slow down the development of the enemy's tribe. In case if the raid will be failed, player's troops will be enslaved.

Besides the number of troops, a few other factors will influence the results of the battle. These modifiers will randomly be chosen before every battle. There are organization factors and religion factors. For example, successful raid or god's support can help the player. On the other hand, long distance from Memphis to the battleground or god's indifference can weaken the army.
And that's all about basic changes in our new battle mode! Trust me, it will be quite challenging!

When one's recreating the historical reality, battles are just as important as an economic development. Establishment of almost every civilization included some sort of military actions. Some computer games are sometimes more focused on the battles rather than economic development. Depending on developers' priorities and desires games' battle systems can look very different. For some games it's just a simple event, not outstanding at all, but in others, it's almost like a game inside a game, a huge event which requires a lot of actions and efforts from the player, something like what we can see in Total War.

We're making a historical strategy, and we're trying to make it as close to the truth as possible, so it's important for us to balance out every sphere of life in the same way as it was balanced in the Old Kingdom. Ancient Egypt was not a military state, and that's why we decided to let the player focus more on the development of the country rather than military actions.
Our first games had no separate battle mode, and the player got the result of the battle after a few clicks. In Predynastic Egypt we added the battle mode, but all the battles remained blended into the story, only slightly highlighted in comparison to the other events.

Predynastic Egypt battle mode:


Egypt: Old Kingdom battle mode:


In the Predynastic Egypt conquering hostile tribes took several steps. Preparation took a few turns, then a couple of skirmishes to weaken the enemy, and then the battle royale. Of course, players could go without skirmishes if they were sure they'd win. The process of the battle was demonstrated in a separate window, but a player could not influence it or make any decisions in the battle. The only thing (s)he could do is to retreat from the battleground.

This simple system was sufficient for Predynastic Egypt. But for the new game, Egypt: Old Kingdom, we needed something more elaborate. From the feedback we got from Predynastic Egypt, we also knew the audience requested to improve the battle. Some people even asked us to make something similar to Total War. With all due respect to this game, it was inappropriate for our game to have this kind of a battle mode. Not only because Egypt wasn't a military state, but also because there are not much data available for a detailed reconstruction of battles of the Old Kindom period. All we know is that Egypt had an army that they have had some kind of military actions, but there is no information about the enemies or about battles' dates, times and locations, no information about the number of troops. No information about the results of battles. Without this information, all we could do is to fantasize about what their battles were like, but that is not something we need.

Still, we wanted to improve the battle mode, and the question was - how could we do it? We went through players' suggestions, as well as through our own ideas. We wanted to keep the ease of Predynastic Egypt's battle mode, but add a few features to make it more interesting. In the end, we added a few buttons, which were the result of a painstaking analysis and synthesis. We had to analyze as much of possible battle actions as possible, and then synthesize this information to make a few new buttons for a battle mode. Eventually, we got a system that is deeper and more flexible, than the original one, but at the same time, it's not entirely different.
So, before the battle player's troops are going to the enemy's territory (Egyptians on the left, enemies on the right side):



As soon as the player will choose to fight, the battle preparation will begin. The player will learn basic information about the enemy, and on the screen below we can see the first added button "Risk". What does it mean?
Even at the Old Kingdom period battles started long before the troops stood on the battleground face to face. Scouts were sent to investigate the enemy's troops condition, sabotages, tricks and set-ups were used in order to weaken the enemy's army before the battle. If those actions were effective enough, they could upset the initial power balance and a less powerful, but more cunning army could win the battle. These actions are hidden under the "Risk" button. It does not guarantee the victory, but sometimes it can save the army when the battle is unavoidable, but the army is not strong enough. On the picture below you can see the exact case when the button "Risk" can be used. Without it, the battle most certainly will be lost. The "Risk" button increases the chance of both good events (by 100%) and bad events (by 75%). The battle will become highly unpredictable, but also with a chance of victory.


After the player chose his actions - to fight or to risk - here comes the second step of the battle. The battle itself. Here you can see two more buttons which allow the player to select the tactic. He can order the army to attack, and it will increase the damage to the enemy's army. Or he can order to defend, and in this case, the player's army will suffer less damage, but also the chance of bad events will increase.

In Predynastic Egypt, when the battle was over the player could only accept the result without the chance to react somehow. In Egypt: Old Kingdom the player can now choose his actions after the battle. He can exterminate the enemy or to let them go home. The first option will slow down the progress of the enemy's tribe. The second option will improve the relationships with all neighbor tribes/nations.



If the player loses the battle, his enemy can capture his troops. In this case, the player can beg his enemy to release part of them. Regardless the result, it will damage the relationships with the other tribes, and additionally, the enemy may not return the troops. So the begging only effective if the army was big. Otherwise, the player can just accept the defeat and do nothing about the lost troops.



Besides the main battles, the player can also do raids. They have slightly different results. The successful raid will allow the player to enslave the enemy or to desert their lands (to destroy the fertility of the land by mixing it with salt). This will slow down the development of the enemy's tribe. In case if the raid will be failed, player's troops will be enslaved.

Besides the number of troops, a few other factors will influence the results of the battle. These modifiers will randomly be chosen before every battle. There are organization factors and religion factors. For example, successful raid or god's support can help the player. On the other hand, long distance from Memphis to the battleground or god's indifference can weaken the army.
And that's all about basic changes in our new battle mode! Trust me, it will be quite challenging!

A note before we start:
This is the last issue of 2017. Huge thank you from all of us for your support! We hope you enjoy our games and diaries. See you next year! Happy New Year!

***

Today's issue is dedicated to all of you who ever wondered how games are made, but never dared to ask. Of course, it's impossible to cover it all in one issue, but I'll try my best to explain some of these basic things which are so familiar to game makers and high-level gamers.

Let's start with the very basic thing: coding (or programming) is a way to make a machine understand what it should do. In order to do that we need programming languages because we have to translate the instruction from human languages to machine code. As computers became more advanced, it became obvious that people often translate a bunch of similar instructions over and over again. In order to make this process faster, some people created so-called "Middleware" - special software which contains a set basic instructions, different for each purpose. For example, creating a computer game. Using special middleware for creating computer games helps to save time because it already contains a set of basic instructions, and a coder can adjust it to his liking to get the final product. It's fair to say that the most part of modern games was created with the help of middleware. Flash-technologies and game engines are also the examples of middleware.

First few games of Clarus Victoria were made with Flash-technologies. According to Wiki:
Adobe Flash is a multimedia software platform used for the production of animations, rich Internet applications, desktop applications, mobile applications, mobile games and embedded web browser video players. Flash displays text, vector graphics and raster graphics to provide animations, video games, and applications.

That means Flash-technologies is a set of tools which allows people to work with graphics, animation, sound, etc. Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Marble Age were created with the help of Flash technologies.Stone Age was the first game in many senses. Its structure wasn't perfect, wasn't built according to common rules of game making. But during the making of Stone Age, the first priority was to work on the main gameplay, which is workers management. Marble Age was more advanced and implemented a programming paradigm which is called Object-oriented programming (OOP). This paradigm helps to structure the information in a certain way, which helps to make the programming process easier. To create Flash-games, we used Animate CC (Flash Pro) and Flash Develop Animate CC is good for working with graphics, but not very suitable for big games. Flash Develop is a software for programming games.
Here is Animate CC interface with Stone Age characters:


And this is Marble Age at the interface of FlashDevelop:


Along with improving games' structure we also were working on improving gameplay. With each newly released game, we relied on player's reviews and opinions in order to understand good and bad sides of it, so that in the next game we could improve good sides and get rid of bad sides. This is our residential approach to making every game, and when we tell you that your opinion is very important, we mean it.
Since the beginning, we didn't have an actual office and were working remotely. Soon it was obvious that Skype is not sufficient anymore and we had to look for another solution. It came in a form of version control system Git. We tried several Web interfaces for it and eventually decided on Source Tree:


Predynastic Egypt at the beginning also was going to be a Flash-game, but when we started to discuss the possibility of game mods, we realized that Flash is not suitable for this idea. In case if someone is not aware what "game mods" is, I'll explain. "Mod" is short for "modification". Mod is an alteration that changes some aspect of a video game, such as how it looks or behaves. Mods may range from small changes and tweaks to complete overhauls and can extend the replay value and interest of the game.(c) Wikipedia Skyrim, Fallout, GTA, The Sims - these games are all good examples of games with mods.

In order to implement mods, it's necessary to separate the core of the game from its logic. Commonly the core of the game is an unchangeable part of the game, while game logic can be modified. Sometimes game core can also be modified with mods, but it wasn't our case. Anyway, we decided to try and implement mods, and this is when we switched from Flash to our first game engine Unity. We created game core on Unity. Game logic was separately written in LUA language. Here is the process of writing a game logic in Lua/Visual Studio Code environment (syntax switched off):


As mentioned before, a game engine is a middleware which helps to develop games. It's a set of programming tools, which helps to deal with graphics, sound, animation etc. just like Flash, but on a much more advanced level. If I try to explain it on a very basic level, which helped me to understand it when I had no idea what is it whatsoever, I'd explain this way. Imagine you need to build a building. No matter what kind of building it is, there will be some basic elements which make building a building - basement, roof, door, windows, etc. Building a game is kind of the same. You also have to have some basic elements - graphics, animation, maps (if any), sound etc. So the engine provides tools to work with those elements. Developers can use these tools to adjust everything as they wish in order to make a new game. There are many different engines, but each of them serves best for making a certain type of games. Some more suitable for RPG, some for action games and so on. Some bigger developers prefer to make their own engines.

Back to Predynastic Egypt and its mods. As some of you know, Predynastic Egypt eventually was released without mods, and that's why. First of all, its historical plot didn't leave much room for any modifications. And second, it would be really difficult to explain to the players how to make mods. That's why, even though we already had the code written, we had to postpone the idea of mods and write the code anew, this time only using Unity. This kind of situations is not rare in the field of game development. Some ideas look brilliant in our imagination, but when we actually play the game, we may find out that it just doesn't look good, and we have to remake everything from the beginning. Game development is just like any other process - you can't expect that everything will be perfect on the first try.

Despite those struggles, switching to Unity was a good decision, because it's a very convenient tool which allows us making games faster and more interesting.


We released the Predynastic Kingdom and then, basing on the feedback, begun to work on Egypt: Old Kingdom. We proceeded to use Unity based on the old code of Predynastic Egypt. Unity made it easier to switch to 3D. Thanks to players' feedback we knew what to work on in order to make a new game better. The main focus was on making the game more replayable, to add more depth and diversity. We had to reconsider and reinvent many events in order to give more freedom to players. In Predynastic Egypt, we had "Global" events which applied to the whole city or a big area. In Egypt: Old Kingdom most events will be "local', applied to each small area separately, and the player will have to deal with them separately. Not only he will be able to appoint the worker in one particular area, he also will be able to choose the task for him.
The whole code is written in C# (both core and logic). Our programmers use MS Visual Studio:


Egypt: Old Kingdom is still work in progress, so we'll be able to talk more about it later and after release.

A note before we start:
This is the last issue of 2017. Huge thank you from all of us for your support! We hope you enjoy our games and diaries. See you next year! Happy New Year!

***

Today's issue is dedicated to all of you who ever wondered how games are made, but never dared to ask. Of course, it's impossible to cover it all in one issue, but I'll try my best to explain some of these basic things which are so familiar to game makers and high-level gamers.

Let's start with the very basic thing: coding (or programming) is a way to make a machine understand what it should do. In order to do that we need programming languages because we have to translate the instruction from human languages to machine code. As computers became more advanced, it became obvious that people often translate a bunch of similar instructions over and over again. In order to make this process faster, some people created so-called "Middleware" - special software which contains a set basic instructions, different for each purpose. For example, creating a computer game. Using special middleware for creating computer games helps to save time because it already contains a set of basic instructions, and a coder can adjust it to his liking to get the final product. It's fair to say that the most part of modern games was created with the help of middleware. Flash-technologies and game engines are also the examples of middleware.

First few games of Clarus Victoria were made with Flash-technologies. According to Wiki:
Adobe Flash is a multimedia software platform used for the production of animations, rich Internet applications, desktop applications, mobile applications, mobile games and embedded web browser video players. Flash displays text, vector graphics and raster graphics to provide animations, video games, and applications.

That means Flash-technologies is a set of tools which allows people to work with graphics, animation, sound, etc. Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Marble Age were created with the help of Flash technologies.Stone Age was the first game in many senses. Its structure wasn't perfect, wasn't built according to common rules of game making. But during the making of Stone Age, the first priority was to work on the main gameplay, which is workers management. Marble Age was more advanced and implemented a programming paradigm which is called Object-oriented programming (OOP). This paradigm helps to structure the information in a certain way, which helps to make the programming process easier. To create Flash-games, we used Animate CC (Flash Pro) and Flash Develop Animate CC is good for working with graphics, but not very suitable for big games. Flash Develop is a software for programming games.
Here is Animate CC interface with Stone Age characters:


And this is Marble Age at the interface of FlashDevelop:


Along with improving games' structure we also were working on improving gameplay. With each newly released game, we relied on player's reviews and opinions in order to understand good and bad sides of it, so that in the next game we could improve good sides and get rid of bad sides. This is our residential approach to making every game, and when we tell you that your opinion is very important, we mean it.
Since the beginning, we didn't have an actual office and were working remotely. Soon it was obvious that Skype is not sufficient anymore and we had to look for another solution. It came in a form of version control system Git. We tried several Web interfaces for it and eventually decided on Source Tree:


Predynastic Egypt at the beginning also was going to be a Flash-game, but when we started to discuss the possibility of game mods, we realized that Flash is not suitable for this idea. In case if someone is not aware what "game mods" is, I'll explain. "Mod" is short for "modification". Mod is an alteration that changes some aspect of a video game, such as how it looks or behaves. Mods may range from small changes and tweaks to complete overhauls and can extend the replay value and interest of the game.(c) Wikipedia Skyrim, Fallout, GTA, The Sims - these games are all good examples of games with mods.

In order to implement mods, it's necessary to separate the core of the game from its logic. Commonly the core of the game is an unchangeable part of the game, while game logic can be modified. Sometimes game core can also be modified with mods, but it wasn't our case. Anyway, we decided to try and implement mods, and this is when we switched from Flash to our first game engine Unity. We created game core on Unity. Game logic was separately written in LUA language. Here is the process of writing a game logic in Lua/Visual Studio Code environment (syntax switched off):


As mentioned before, a game engine is a middleware which helps to develop games. It's a set of programming tools, which helps to deal with graphics, sound, animation etc. just like Flash, but on a much more advanced level. If I try to explain it on a very basic level, which helped me to understand it when I had no idea what is it whatsoever, I'd explain this way. Imagine you need to build a building. No matter what kind of building it is, there will be some basic elements which make building a building - basement, roof, door, windows, etc. Building a game is kind of the same. You also have to have some basic elements - graphics, animation, maps (if any), sound etc. So the engine provides tools to work with those elements. Developers can use these tools to adjust everything as they wish in order to make a new game. There are many different engines, but each of them serves best for making a certain type of games. Some more suitable for RPG, some for action games and so on. Some bigger developers prefer to make their own engines.

Back to Predynastic Egypt and its mods. As some of you know, Predynastic Egypt eventually was released without mods, and that's why. First of all, its historical plot didn't leave much room for any modifications. And second, it would be really difficult to explain to the players how to make mods. That's why, even though we already had the code written, we had to postpone the idea of mods and write the code anew, this time only using Unity. This kind of situations is not rare in the field of game development. Some ideas look brilliant in our imagination, but when we actually play the game, we may find out that it just doesn't look good, and we have to remake everything from the beginning. Game development is just like any other process - you can't expect that everything will be perfect on the first try.

Despite those struggles, switching to Unity was a good decision, because it's a very convenient tool which allows us making games faster and more interesting.


We released the Predynastic Kingdom and then, basing on the feedback, begun to work on Egypt: Old Kingdom. We proceeded to use Unity based on the old code of Predynastic Egypt. Unity made it easier to switch to 3D. Thanks to players' feedback we knew what to work on in order to make a new game better. The main focus was on making the game more replayable, to add more depth and diversity. We had to reconsider and reinvent many events in order to give more freedom to players. In Predynastic Egypt, we had "Global" events which applied to the whole city or a big area. In Egypt: Old Kingdom most events will be "local', applied to each small area separately, and the player will have to deal with them separately. Not only he will be able to appoint the worker in one particular area, he also will be able to choose the task for him.
The whole code is written in C# (both core and logic). Our programmers use MS Visual Studio:


Egypt: Old Kingdom is still work in progress, so we'll be able to talk more about it later and after release.

Do you recall when you first found out about pyramids? I think every children encyclopedia has an article about it. That's how I found out about them, among the others 7 world wonders. It's a pity that now we only have one world wonder preserved, but at the same time, it's unbelievable! They are around 4500 years old!

Pyramides is a very important element for Egyptians and for Egyptian history. The format of our game would not let us do this topic a justice, so at first, we didn't plan to delve into it. But when in the Predynastic Kingdom it was possible to just briefly mention the pyramids, without much information, it's a whole another story for the Old Kingdom period. At this time, pyramids were tightly woven in the net of governmental systems; almost every side of Egyptian life was somehow connected to them.

Burial ritual was simple at first. During the predynastic period, it was just a wooden sarcophagus. It was placed in a burial chamber in the earth, chamber's walls were worked up with brick. After a while, people started to make an earthen hill on top of the chamber. Earthen hill gradually became a mastaba - flat-roofed rectangular structure, like a truncated pyramid. Eventually, famous Egyptian architect Imhotep, who was a counselor to the pharaoh Djoser, invented something new. Originally he was just going to build a standard mastaba for the king but ended up building six more mastabas on top of the biggest one. The result was the first pyramid, which became a prototype for all of the following pyramids.

Real Djoser Pyramid, our concept-art, the pyramid in the construction menu, the pyramid on the city map

The higher and complex pyramids got, the more sources they demanded construction, maintenance, and sacrifices. Lion's share of all sources was used for construction. Workshops created an endless amount of art objects only to bury them underground. Egypt sent expeditions to nearby countries when it needed more sources. Pharaohs built at least one pyramid for himself, and some of them built several. For example, Pharaoh Sneferu built at least 12 of them! However, not all of them preserved until now. After Sneferu's pyramids, the most famous Hufu pyramid was built. Then the decentralization slowly began, not allowing pharaohs to collect enough power and sources to build something like majestic Hufu's pyramids, but they still built smaller ones.

In short, the history of pyramids reflects the history of rising and fall of the first Egyptian Kingdom. And since our game is all about this history, the menu of pyramids construction almost made itself.

Our menu covers the most basic knowledge necessary for better understanding of Old Kingdom's history. It has four main features: height, shape, finishing and the type and size of a burial chamber. The player will be able to select any combination; the price of construction will change accordingly. At the beginning though not every option will be available. To open them all, the player will have to learn all necessary technologies first.
In some cases, the option of selecting the architect will be available. They will influence the construction basing on their unique professional qualities.

Sometimes during the construction, good or bad events may happen, such as a technological breakthrough, which will boost the bonuses for construction. On the other hand, something bad may happen, such as walls destruction, which will entail higher construction fees.

Construction or pyramids are not an obligatory rule for winning the game. You can try and completely avoid this process, but in this case, it will be really difficult to win the game. As you remember, we mentioned before that pyramids were built to please the gods and ancestors. Without pyramids, many unhappy events will start to happen. But you still can try :)

For Egyptians, pyramids were something like a guarantee of stability and they feared to lose ancestors' protection. Often pyramids were left unfinished - when there were not enough sources or when the pharaoh who started to build them died. Egyptians considered it as a bad omen; it meant the dead pharaoh lost the protection of gods.

Construction of pyramids lasts until the end of the game and generally follows historical events. But the player may also learn all technologies and build all of the pyramids ahead of historical time. In case if technologies will not be learned in time, the player will only be able to build the simplest forms of pyramids.

Despite our original unwillingness to delve into the pyramids construction, we came up with this unexpectedly interesting construction menu. We hope it will help a player to understand how Egyptian society worked. We like this new element of the game and can't wait to hear your thoughts about it.

Do you recall when you first found out about pyramids? I think every children encyclopedia has an article about it. That's how I found out about them, among the others 7 world wonders. It's a pity that now we only have one world wonder preserved, but at the same time, it's unbelievable! They are around 4500 years old!

Pyramides is a very important element for Egyptians and for Egyptian history. The format of our game would not let us do this topic a justice, so at first, we didn't plan to delve into it. But when in the Predynastic Kingdom it was possible to just briefly mention the pyramids, without much information, it's a whole another story for the Old Kingdom period. At this time, pyramids were tightly woven in the net of governmental systems; almost every side of Egyptian life was somehow connected to them.

Burial ritual was simple at first. During the predynastic period, it was just a wooden sarcophagus. It was placed in a burial chamber in the earth, chamber's walls were worked up with brick. After a while, people started to make an earthen hill on top of the chamber. Earthen hill gradually became a mastaba - flat-roofed rectangular structure, like a truncated pyramid. Eventually, famous Egyptian architect Imhotep, who was a counselor to the pharaoh Djoser, invented something new. Originally he was just going to build a standard mastaba for the king but ended up building six more mastabas on top of the biggest one. The result was the first pyramid, which became a prototype for all of the following pyramids.

Real Djoser Pyramid, our concept-art, the pyramid in the construction menu, the pyramid on the city map

The higher and complex pyramids got, the more sources they demanded construction, maintenance, and sacrifices. Lion's share of all sources was used for construction. Workshops created an endless amount of art objects only to bury them underground. Egypt sent expeditions to nearby countries when it needed more sources. Pharaohs built at least one pyramid for himself, and some of them built several. For example, Pharaoh Sneferu built at least 12 of them! However, not all of them preserved until now. After Sneferu's pyramids, the most famous Hufu pyramid was built. Then the decentralization slowly began, not allowing pharaohs to collect enough power and sources to build something like majestic Hufu's pyramids, but they still built smaller ones.

In short, the history of pyramids reflects the history of rising and fall of the first Egyptian Kingdom. And since our game is all about this history, the menu of pyramids construction almost made itself.

Our menu covers the most basic knowledge necessary for better understanding of Old Kingdom's history. It has four main features: height, shape, finishing and the type and size of a burial chamber. The player will be able to select any combination; the price of construction will change accordingly. At the beginning though not every option will be available. To open them all, the player will have to learn all necessary technologies first.
In some cases, the option of selecting the architect will be available. They will influence the construction basing on their unique professional qualities.

Sometimes during the construction, good or bad events may happen, such as a technological breakthrough, which will boost the bonuses for construction. On the other hand, something bad may happen, such as walls destruction, which will entail higher construction fees.

Construction or pyramids are not an obligatory rule for winning the game. You can try and completely avoid this process, but in this case, it will be really difficult to win the game. As you remember, we mentioned before that pyramids were built to please the gods and ancestors. Without pyramids, many unhappy events will start to happen. But you still can try :)

For Egyptians, pyramids were something like a guarantee of stability and they feared to lose ancestors' protection. Often pyramids were left unfinished - when there were not enough sources or when the pharaoh who started to build them died. Egyptians considered it as a bad omen; it meant the dead pharaoh lost the protection of gods.

Construction of pyramids lasts until the end of the game and generally follows historical events. But the player may also learn all technologies and build all of the pyramids ahead of historical time. In case if technologies will not be learned in time, the player will only be able to build the simplest forms of pyramids.

Despite our original unwillingness to delve into the pyramids construction, we came up with this unexpectedly interesting construction menu. We hope it will help a player to understand how Egyptian society worked. We like this new element of the game and can't wait to hear your thoughts about it.

Construction

After the menu of cults and the discoveries menu, it would be obvious to talk about the menu of construction... but we don't have it. Instead, we decided to make a new construction system, which will comply with the following criteria:

• To be more diverse in comparison to Predynastic Egypt;
  
• To be historically correct.

As much as we wish to make our games more diverse, we still can't do it at the cost of its historical accuracy. We're trying to keep this balance in every system of the game. New construction system is based on the geography of Memphis area, on several types of buildings and its materials. s we mentioned before in the second issue, Memphis is divided into 51 area. Each area has one of six types of landscape: semi-desert, river, wadi, shore, floodplains, and hills. The type of constructed facility will depend on the type of landscape. It's a simple connection! Because you wouldn't build a house on a floodplain, would you? Or to grow grains in the desert. It's all the same in our system - you can build houses in every area with a suitable landscape. On the screenshot below, you can see buildings are located on a hill, and fields are below on a floodplain.



The process of constructions goes from simple to complex. Egyptians in the game came to a new land, and as they explore it, they constantly meet different obstacles, which can disrupt construction. For example, wild animals, there will be quite a lot of them. The player will have to decide how to deal with them - tame them, pray to them or exterminate them. Each action will have different consequences and bonuses. If there are no wild animals in the area, there can be bushes or swamps, and those need to be exterminated or drained before the construction. On the screenshot below, you can see several icons. Two icons below represent bonuses of the area. The upper row of icons represent tasks available for the player. Tree means fertile lands, cabin - abandoned village, white stones - flints, a useful mineral. At last, a hammer represents improvements which player can do in this area. Here nothing endanger the construction, so we can just go ahead and build whatever we want. Be there lions of crocodiles, we would have to deal with them first; otherwise, our construction workers could be killed.





On the floodplains, you can build a vegetable garden or a pasture. Vegetable gardens can be upgraded to the grain field or a flax field. On the hills, you can build houses. Houses can be upgraded to workshops or barracks. The last level of the upgrade is temples and palaces. Graveyards can be built on the hills or in semi-deserts. In the rest of areas, players can hunt, gather berries or fruits or do a stockbreeding.

Upgrades are available as soon as the player will have all necessary knowledge and sources. By "knowledge», we mean the discovery of certain technologies. While it's not enough, the icon of the upgrade is visible but inactive. By clicking on it the player can find out what else he needs to upgrade the area. The price of the upgrade will rise with each upgrade, besides player will have to keep in mind that there will be maintenance fee for each building. However, not everything is so expensive; bonuses will also rise and sum up with each new upgrade.

Talking about the appearance of the buildings, we have to go back in a virtual history classroom and let you know that there is not much information left about the appearance of Memphis buildings. Unfortunately, it was built on a very unstable land and eventually all the buildings were destroyed or flooded. Memphis in our game is some kind of interpolation. For a reference, we used Hierakonpolis buildings, some buildings from the later historical period and the drawings of Memphis buildings that were found inside of tombs and pyramids. Basing on these things, we made a suggestion about Memphis buildings look, and this is what you will see in the game.



Oh, but what about pyramids, right? We didn't mention anything about pyramids construction! Right. Of course, pyramids are very important. So much that we will make a separate issue about them because we prepared a great surprise for our player regarding pyramids and we really hope you'll like it.
Besides pyramids, we also didn't mention anything about construction on the bigger map, the map of Egypt. Here we also added several new features, enough to make another issue. So please, stay with us and discover more about the game!

Construction

After the menu of cults and the discoveries menu, it would be obvious to talk about the menu of construction... but we don't have it. Instead, we decided to make a new construction system, which will comply with the following criteria:

• To be more diverse in comparison to Predynastic Egypt;
  
• To be historically correct.

As much as we wish to make our games more diverse, we still can't do it at the cost of its historical accuracy. We're trying to keep this balance in every system of the game. New construction system is based on the geography of Memphis area, on several types of buildings and its materials. s we mentioned before in the second issue, Memphis is divided into 51 area. Each area has one of six types of landscape: semi-desert, river, wadi, shore, floodplains, and hills. The type of constructed facility will depend on the type of landscape. It's a simple connection! Because you wouldn't build a house on a floodplain, would you? Or to grow grains in the desert. It's all the same in our system - you can build houses in every area with a suitable landscape. On the screenshot below, you can see buildings are located on a hill, and fields are below on a floodplain.



The process of constructions goes from simple to complex. Egyptians in the game came to a new land, and as they explore it, they constantly meet different obstacles, which can disrupt construction. For example, wild animals, there will be quite a lot of them. The player will have to decide how to deal with them - tame them, pray to them or exterminate them. Each action will have different consequences and bonuses. If there are no wild animals in the area, there can be bushes or swamps, and those need to be exterminated or drained before the construction. On the screenshot below, you can see several icons. Two icons below represent bonuses of the area. The upper row of icons represent tasks available for the player. Tree means fertile lands, cabin - abandoned village, white stones - flints, a useful mineral. At last, a hammer represents improvements which player can do in this area. Here nothing endanger the construction, so we can just go ahead and build whatever we want. Be there lions of crocodiles, we would have to deal with them first; otherwise, our construction workers could be killed.





On the floodplains, you can build a vegetable garden or a pasture. Vegetable gardens can be upgraded to the grain field or a flax field. On the hills, you can build houses. Houses can be upgraded to workshops or barracks. The last level of the upgrade is temples and palaces. Graveyards can be built on the hills or in semi-deserts. In the rest of areas, players can hunt, gather berries or fruits or do a stockbreeding.

Upgrades are available as soon as the player will have all necessary knowledge and sources. By "knowledge», we mean the discovery of certain technologies. While it's not enough, the icon of the upgrade is visible but inactive. By clicking on it the player can find out what else he needs to upgrade the area. The price of the upgrade will rise with each upgrade, besides player will have to keep in mind that there will be maintenance fee for each building. However, not everything is so expensive; bonuses will also rise and sum up with each new upgrade.

Talking about the appearance of the buildings, we have to go back in a virtual history classroom and let you know that there is not much information left about the appearance of Memphis buildings. Unfortunately, it was built on a very unstable land and eventually all the buildings were destroyed or flooded. Memphis in our game is some kind of interpolation. For a reference, we used Hierakonpolis buildings, some buildings from the later historical period and the drawings of Memphis buildings that were found inside of tombs and pyramids. Basing on these things, we made a suggestion about Memphis buildings look, and this is what you will see in the game.



Oh, but what about pyramids, right? We didn't mention anything about pyramids construction! Right. Of course, pyramids are very important. So much that we will make a separate issue about them because we prepared a great surprise for our player regarding pyramids and we really hope you'll like it.
Besides pyramids, we also didn't mention anything about construction on the bigger map, the map of Egypt. Here we also added several new features, enough to make another issue. So please, stay with us and discover more about the game!

Рады приветстовать всех в новом сообществе по игре Египет: Древнее Царство!


Отныне здесь мы будем постить все новости, дневники разработчиков и многое другое. Приглашаем всех вступать в сообщество и добавлять игру в вишлисты!

Предыдущие выпуски дневников уже в сообществе, и вскоре выйдут новые!

We're happy to greet you in the new community for the Egypt Old Kingdom!


From now on here we will post our news, Dev Diaries and other interesting stuff, so we encourage everybody to follow us and add the game to your wishlist!

As you can see, we have already uploaded the old issues on Steam. It's available in Russian, English, and Chinese. We would really appreciate and encourage the translation to other languages as well. Please let us know if you're up to translating the Diary to your language, and we'll upload the text to Crowdin. No pressure though :) Only free will. Thank you and enjoy your time in our community!