Update 1.9.1 has just been released. Here’s what you need to know:
The Map Generator is Now Public!
First and foremost, the experimental map generator is now part of Foundation’s public build. Everyone can now discover the joys of building a village on a procedurally generated map. Choose from one of the three available topographies (Hills, Coastal, Fluvial), roll the dice and jump into an infinite number of maps, each with their own unique landscapes.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the players who helped us with the map generator’s initial release in the beta branch about three weeks ago. Also, quite a few things you asked for are already planned down the line! One such case relates to overly hilly maps, something we plan to mitigate with flattened “plains” clusters.
Resources Tooltip: Now With More Details!
As part of our continued efforts to improve your medieval city-building experience, we added a detailed breakdown of each resource’s physical location in the resources tooltip. For instance, hovering over the wood icon will show you how much of that resource is currently available in storage, in production, in stalls or in transit. In a similar vein, if you have wood which is already in use, the tooltip will clue you in: it may be in production, in construction or in transit.
Delivery quest changes
The delivery quest window now clearly shows how much of the required resources are accumulated in your warehouses. Furthermore, reserved resources from your warehouses are now included in the calculation of the delivery quests. We also made it so reserved resources from your warehouses will now be cancelled in order to complete delivery quests.
Loading Screen Tips
You may have noticed new loading screen art, which has been added as part of the 1.9 update. From now on, this loading screen will be enhanced with easy to understand tips about some of Foundation’s best kept secrets. Our first batch includes 5 of them, with more to come.
Update Notes
New: the map generator is now available for everyone! Three topographies are included in this beta version: hills, fluvial and coastal
New: resources tooltip details
New: loading screen tips
Balance: Monastery parts
Balance: traded resources
Fix: mineral deposits were sometimes unreachable
Fix: mineral deposits were sometimes falling into the ground
Fix: crane storage was sometimes displaying wrong values
Fix: the bonus effect of a Masterpiece only affected the sub-building it was built in. If it was built in the root of the parent building, none would benefit from the effect
Fix: when any privilege that modifies an upkeep cost was applied, the modifier only applied to the parent building’s parts and not the sub-buildings’
Fix: Lord Manor (Stone Office) had negative Desirability
QOL: delivery quest changes
QOL: added a yellow highlight when hovering another sub-building from the EDIT tab in the builder window
QOL: Bell Tower sound improvement (some large bell towers had the small bell tower sound effect)
QOL: updated localizations
Modding: couldn’t override TRADE_SETTINGS
Modding: expose PARTICLE_SYSTEM_CHIMNEY_SMOKE
That’s it for today. Stay tuned for further update news coming up in 2023.
Patch 1.9.0.38 is now available. Here’s what’s included:
QOL/Tweaks
The parent building upkeep cost will now be updated dynamically after deleting a part instead of having to close and reopen the building window to see the change
Better wording about the monthly upkeep of sub-buildings
Updated localization
Bug fixes
Hovering over the conditions to unlock a new tier of progression displayed the Estate Splendor tooltip instead of Estate Rating
Sub-buildings displayed the tax amount of the parent building instead of their own in the building panel
Splendor was gained even though buildings/monuments weren’t completely built
The disabled trade route button was missing a tooltip
The Trading with the Abbess event was adding its debuff on top of the applied debuff on each reload
The Help window for control keybinds was displayed again after reselecting a building even if the player chose to dismiss it
The first sculpture’s required resources were being multiplied by the total number of sculptures
Required statues for some monuments’ parts were being converted to something else on load, which could prevent them from ever being completed
Fixed a large number of typos
Crash fixes
Crash linked to switching a Refectory (from the Monastery) to any other sub-building function
Crash when quick reloading while the Parts list window of a monument is active and a newly added part is still under construction
Patch 1.9.0.37 is now available. Here’s what’s included:
QOL/Tweaks
Builders will be more efficient
Cloister improvements: --Added new Entrance & Hall descriptions to parts --Moved the Rustic Cloister wall to the Decorative category --Updated Decorative category and description
Destroying a sub-building no longer closes the building window, instead going back to the parent building window
Updated Help topics and tooltips for Influence, Splendor & Splendor Rating
Minor music improvements
Bug fixes
Debuff timer for the Monastery Trade Favour was set to 0
Construction requirements were displaying wrong font colors and a double space
The Traders panel was displaying wrong colors for both Wants to buy and Wants to sell categories
Crash Fixes
Crash related to Trade Routes when clicking on a Courier in your village
Modding
Exposed Agent need and building function for the Monastic Cloister
We have a great announcement today about something that has been cooking for a while and that we’re finally ready to lift the lid from.
The first iteration of our random map generator is now available to experiment! To do so, switch to the Map Generator branch on Steam and GOG (see how that works below).
Experimental yes, but here to stay
If you start a game using the map generator, you will be able to keep playing it with further updates, as long as you stay in the experimental branch, until we deploy the map generator on the public branch. We won’t remove access to the experimental branch until then. The experimental branch will also benefit from the same updates as the public build. So feel free to move to the experimental branch as you see fit.
Map Generator Highlights
Map Settings
In this first beta version, you will be able to generate random and unique maps based on 3 settings:
Hills
Fluvial
Coastal
Organic Territories
Gone are the days of hex-shaped territories: they now procedurally fit with the topography of the area, like an island, or a promontory, but also with what’s in it. For instance, a territory containing a mineral deposit will be much smaller than one without one.
Note that this is our first take at procedural territories. We plan to improve them in further iterations with the help of your feedback.
How to Generate a Map
Generating a unique map is done quickly. Here’s how:
Click on New Game
Under Procedural Maps, choose your topography
Click Generate to see a preview of your random map
When you’re satisfied with the preview, click Confirm
How to access the experimental branch
Opting into the experimental_mapgen branch to test the map generator’s experimental release is quick, here’s how:
Open Steam
Right-click on Foundation
Click Properties
Click BETAS
Opt into the experimental_mapgen branch. This will initiate an update of your game files
Launch the game
What’s planned for the future
We know that many of you will ask for more customization options, and in time, we plan to give you these options
More map types will also be added over time
We hope you enjoy this first iteration of the map generator. Feel free to discuss this new feature and share your own results!
Patch 1.9.0.35 is now available. Here’s the details:
Game Balance
Reduced Negative Impact of Taxation
2nd Level reduced from -10 to -5
3rd Level reduced from -40 to -15
4th Level reduced from -70 to -25
5th Level reduced from -100 to -50
6th Level reduced from -130 to -100
Balanced Upfront cost of multiple workplaces
Added an upfront cost of 10 coins to the Warehouse
Reduced the upfront cost of Well from 20 coins to 10 coins
Reduced the upfront cost of Bakery from 150 coins to 100 coins
Reduced the upfront cost of Berry Table from 20 coins to 10 coins
Added an upfront cost of 300 coins to the Candle Workshop
Increased the upfront cost of the Cheesemaker from 150 coins to 200 coins
Added an upfront cost of 300 coins to the Common Wares Workshop
Increased the upfront cost of the Dairy Farm from 75 coins to 150 coins
Added an upfront cost of 10 coins to the Forester
Added an upfront cost of 500 coins to the Glass Smelter
Added an upfront cost of 500 coins to the Gold Smelter
Reduced the upfront cost of the Granary from 50 coins to 10 coins
Added an upfront cost of 500 coins to the Jeweler
Added an upfront cost of 10 coins to the Sawmill
Reduced the upfront cost of Stonecutter from 25 coins to 10 coins
Reduced the upfront cost of Weaponsmith from 500 coins to 200 coins
Reduced the upfront cost of Weaver’s Hut from 100 coins to 50 coins
Reduced the upfront cost of Wheat Farm from 75 coins to 50 coins
Reduced the upfront cost of Windmill from 100 coins to 75 coins
Reduced the upfront cost of Woodcutter from 20 coins to 10 coins Increased Trade Route capacity from 10 to 12
Balanced Unlockable cost
Common Path
Reduced cost of Bailiff from 100 coins to 25 coins
Reduced cost of Warehouse from 50 coins to 25 coins
Reduced cost of Clothing from 100 coins to 75 coins
Reduced cost of Decorative 1 from 100 coins to 50 coins
Reduced cost of Bailiff Edict from 200 coins to 100 coins
Reduced cost of Farming from 100 coins to 75 coins
Reduced cost of Fishing Hut from 100 coins to 50 coins
Reduced cost of Stonemason from 100 coins to 50 coins
Reduced cost of Beer Production from 200 coins to 150 coins
Reduced cost of Common Goods from 350 coins to 200 coins
Increased cost of Cooperage from 100 coins to 200 coins
Increased cost of Dairy Farming from 200 coins to 250 coins
Reduced cost of Decorative 2 from 400 coins to 200 coins
Increased cost of Double Mineral Edict from 200 coins to 400 coins
Increased cost of Bulk Trade Edict from 200 coins to 400 coins
Increased cost of Hunter from 100 coins to 200 coins
Increased cost of Candle Tech from 300 coins to 400 coins
Increased cost of Common Wares Tech from 300 coins to 400 coins
Reduced cost of Jewelery from 500 coins to 400 coins
Increased cost of Stone Bridge from 250 coins to 400 coins Clergy Estate
Reduced cost of Monastery from 50 coins to 25 coins
Reduced cost of Rustic Church Splendor from 50 coins to 25 coins
Reduced cost of Hospitium from 10 Splendor to 5 Splendor
Reduced cost of Refectory from 10 Splendor to 5 Splendor
Reduced cost of Monastery Rustic Decorative from 10 Splendor to 5 Splendor
Reduced cost of Monastery Treasury from 10 Splendor to 5 Splendor
Reduced cost of Small Stone Wall from 10 Splendor to 5 Splendor
Reduced cost of Church Bell Tower from 10 Splendor to 5 Splendor
Increased cost of Clergy Kingdom Splendor Privilege from 10 Splendor to 15 Splendor
Increased cost of Tithe Taxation Privilege from 10 Splendor to 15 Splendor
Increased cost of Trade Influence Privilege from 25 Splendor to 30 Splendor
IIncreased cost of High Upkeep Privilege from 25 Splendor to 30 Splendor Kingdom Estate
Reduced cost of Military Fort from 50 coins to 25 coins
Reduced cost of Wooden Wall from 50 coins to 25 coins
Reduced cost of Military Fort Splendor from 10 Splendor to 5 Splendor
Reduced cost of Stone Wall from 10 Splendor to 5 Splendor
Increased cost of Bonus Territory Splendor Privilege from 10 Splendor to 15 Splendor
Increased cost of Knight Privilege from 25 Splendor to 30 Splendor
Increased cost of High Upkeep Privilege from 25 Splendor to 30 Splendor Labour Estate
Reduced cost of Hedge Wall from 50 coins to 25 coins
Reduced cost of Manor Splendor Part from 50 coins to 25 coins
Reduced cost of Market Splendor Part from 50 coins to 25 coins
Reduced cost of Tavern from 10 Splendor to 5 Splendor
Reduced cost of Tavern Wall from 10 Splendor to 5 Splendor
Reduced cost of Miling Tax from 10 Splendor to 5 Splendor
Increased cost of Extra Tax Privilege from 10 Splendor to 15 Splendor
Increased cost of Labour Kingdom Privilege from 10 Splendor to 15 Splendor
Increased cost of High Tax Privilege from 25 Splendor to 30 Splendor
Increased cost of Trade Influence Privilege from 25 Splendor to 30 Splendor
Increased cost of High Upkeep Privilege from 25 Splendor to 30 Splendor
Balanced trade values of resources
Reduced value of Tools
Import: 4 coins to 3 coins
Export: 8 coins to 7 coins
Reduced value of Iron Bar
Import: 5 coins to 3 coins
Export: 10 coins to 6 coins
Increased value of Polished Stone
Import: 2 coins to 3 coins
Export: 5 coins to 6 coins
Increased Milk Input Storage of Cheesemaker from 15 to 25
Increased Cloth Input Storage of Tailor from 10 to 15
Added Worker Ratio Capacity of 0.5 to the Monastery Kitchen Function
Changed the construction cost of Rustic Gate, Elevated
10 to 5 Polished Stone
10 to 15 Stone
Changed the construction cost of Rustic Facade (Root)
25 to 15 Polished Stone
15 to 25 Stone
Changed the construction cost of Rustic Facade (Tiling)
5 to 3 Polished Stone
3 to 5 Stone
Reduced cost of Beautification Decoratives to 100
Added upfront cost to Market Tents
Doubled Keep Splendor to compensate with lack of buildings
Monastery Rustic parts are now included in the basic set
Removed the Monastery requirement for the Gemmed Cross Masterpiece
QOL/Tweaks
Upgrading a trade route with coins or influence will now trigger an outcome panel
Added a tooltip when hovering over a construction requirement
Edicts and Privileges with multiple effects will now be separated by bullet points
Privileges’ icons will now display a tooltip of their respective Estate
Rustic, Modest and Legacy Cloister parts’ exterior navigable area is now connected to its internal part
Updated Legacy Cloister
The Work Progress bar now applies to all workplaces. It includes both the Production Cycle Duration and the Work Cycle needed
Cloister condition will now accept only one cloister shape
Visitors on horseback will now properly show their scrolls
Added new sound effects to the Sawmill
Added a button to devote villagers inside dorm sub-buildings
Quest timers are now inline with the quest title
Cloister shapes must now be adjacent to any building part to be valid
Villager requirements is now better communicated in-game
Updated localizations
Bug fixes
Moving a monument part was resetting the rotation of all connected parts
Villagers’ hair color was reset upon loading a save
The tooltip for higher job status on hidden jobs was still showing up
During a trade route upgrade quest, the ‘A Courier is approaching’ notification wasn’t displayed unless the game was paused
Room capacity and room size values of the Wooden Chapel, Inclined part (from Rustic Church) weren’t increasing
The sound effect from painting a zone continued to play if the player pressed the ESC key while painting and moving the mouse at the same time
A door from the Rustic Monastery wasn’t working properly with the Chapel
Evicting villagers didn’t incur a happiness penalty
It was possible to have a Masterpiece in an unfinishable state
Fixed a typo in the Labour Fair event text
Destroying the first Cloister while having a preview part for another one wasn’t resetting the "Enclosed Area" special requirement
Houses accumulated taxes while being built
Incorrect values were being displayed in the UI for upkeep costs
Pilgrims didn’t reach the visitor location to pray at a Shrine and instead went to the village center
Hedge walls sinked into the ground when edited
Crash fixes
Crash related to custom mandates when placing a Great Hall sub-building with modded games
Crash related to closing the building zone editor
Crash related to a cloister with the Shrine Masterpiece
Other rare crash fixes
Modding
Covered Bridge mod: when snapping a house from the “Covered bridge” monument to one of the nodes on the “Center” parts, if you didn’t attach it on your first try, you wouldn’t be able to snap the house to any nodes
Livestock Farms mod: some buildings showed up twice in the building parts list
Ruins mod: loading it would cause an instant crash
As always, we are more than happy to read your feedback about this new patch. Head over to our Discord channel if you want to chime in!
The team has been hard at work to bring you quality content as part of a new and improved gameplay experience.
Here's an overview of what's included.
Village Aspirations
A fundamental aspect of Foundation is the customisation of your experience, which is reflected in the game by the organic growth that makes each village unique. With 1.9, we wanted to go one step further and give you the ability to achieve Village Aspirations: optional objectives that offer different ways to play in order to nab sweet GOG or Steam achievements. Examples include building an Abbatial Church or having 100 citizens in your village
Village Aspirations are another way for us to not only increase the replayability of Foundation, but also to make it a somewhat more challenging experience.
Progression revised from the ground up
Update 1.9 changes several elements of Foundation, including the way you progress into the game. Now, each Estate—whether it be Labour, Clergy or Kingdom—has several unlockables of its own. Investing influence in and thus favouring one Estate makes it more difficult to progress with the others. This dynamic requires more planning on your part and adds weight to your decisions without restricting your ambitions.
In addition to Estate-specific progression paths, there is also a common progression path, which includes quite a few essential production buildings in Foundation, such as the Warehouse, the Stonecutter Camp and the Fishing Hut. In either case, you will need to reach different tiers of Prosperity before being able to unlock some of the most desirable options. This new measure of your success takes into account six factors: wealth, territory size, trade, population, splendor and beautification.
Our next updates will focus on upgrading both the Kingdom and Labor progression paths.
Edicts and privileges
You may have noticed that the progression page has a tab dedicated to edicts and privileges. This is another new feature introduced with Update 1.9. The first case represents what may be described as laws that you enact in your village. The second case represents rewards given by the different Estates to their most loyal Lords or Ladies.
Edicts and privileges grant important boons such as reducing a Splendor penalty between two Estates, increasing the market value of certain resources or reducing the maintenance cost of production buildings by half. They are unlocked with coins or influence points. Afterwards, you just have to choose the edicts or privileges you want to activate.
Buildings and sub-buildings
The city-building aspect is at the heart of the Foundation experience, so we wanted to let you expand the capabilities of your buildings. You can now assign functions to a group of building parts (what we call sub-buildings) instead of individual parts. Each sub-building will therefore be linked to a single function (e.g. Treasury) which you can change should you desire so.
In a few words, this means that a Monastery can now be home to a Chapel, a Scriptorium, a Hospitium, a Monastic Garden and so on. The same goes for a Market, which you can expand by adding a sub-building associated with a separate function from the parent building if you wish, such as a Luxury Goods Stall. At any time, it is possible to browse each of the functions of a parent building thanks to the "Parts List" tab.
A glorious Monastery
Progressing on the Clergy path, you’ll soon notice important changes. For starters, there are several new functions available, including a Hospitium that will host visitors, a Scriptorium that will help you produce Manuscripts used to promote your faithfuls or a Cloister where they can meditate while fulfilling a new need. Moreover, you will have the pleasure of building a prettified Abbatial Church: our artists have done a great job upgrading its visuals for your enjoyment!
Taxes for all
Previously, Foundation's economy was largely tied to market stalls. With Update 1.9, taxation replaces the main way to fill your coffers. The Manor House now has a Tax Office function, which is combined with the Tax Collector job. Each house accumulates coins over time, and it's up to you to decide how heavily your village will be taxed. But beware: people are not too keen on having to pay much, so there is a balance to be struck so as not to collapse your global Happiness factor!
Even more modding possibilities
In keeping with our commitment to the modding community, we've outlined several new features that are sure to snowball in the coming weeks. Without getting too technical, the major changes to unlockables, the progression system and narrative choices will certainly result in the creation of mods that we'll be happy to share with you!
Looking forward to a bright future
Foundation’s 1.9 update is multi-faceted and marks an important milestone in our Early Access (EA) journey. We hope you will enjoy how we reimagined some of the existing systems while adding more depth to the core medieval city-building experience.
As for what the future holds, in the short term work has already started on a first patch to fix newly discovered bugs. At a later date, and after focusing a lot on the Clergy progression path—particularly the Monastery—we want to give the other two Estates the attention they deserve. We plan to overhaul the Kingdom and Labor progression paths, in that order.. We will let you fill in the gaps as to what that might entail.
We've updated the public preview to version 1.9.0.22.0928.
Please note that this update is currently still in development. In order to try it, you have to first opt into the preview beta channel on Steam (right-click on Foundation, click Properties, click BETAS, choose preview from the dropdown, launch the game).
Here's the highlights of this latest patch:
Tweaks/QOL
Once the Edit tab is accessed from the Build menu, the scrollbar will now reset
Added a slot description for locked Privileges
The Estate Upkeep cost modifier now always shows Reduced by 100%
The free territory value will now be updated live in the menu
Added a Taxes tooltip for villagers
Improved the balancing and naming of Stone Bridge parts
Improved the Giant Gate monument
Improved/Updated the names and descriptions of various monuments, categories
Moved the Logistics building category to the first position in the Build menu
Important audio effects improvements
Various onboarding enhancements
Various performance enhancements
Various localization enhancements
Bug Fixes
Delivery Quests couldn't be completed even though the right amount of resources needed were in granaries/warehouses
Food never depleted after hosting a fair
Additional Edict slots were unlocked after a reload
Trader from Northbury could get stuck on the Mountain map
The Scriptorium (from the Monastery) was missing from the list of workplaces in the Book
The Confirm Delivery button for a Delivery Quest was missing
The Sturdy Material Edict showed a 0 Days Left duration
Quests could be obtained a second time before the deadline of the first one was over
Blueprints could be studied by the Bailiff and give no rewards
The sub-building Create button had the wrong tooltip
Information from taxes could be cumuluted as you switched between sub-buildings and their parent
The Advice can be heard event was missing instructions to activate it
There were inconsitencies between the listed effects and the Bulk Trade Edict's tooltip
Workers could be in surplus after removing rooms from a workplace
The lodging dropdown (Hospitium) displayed profile statuses instead of names
The nun need for Stone Cloister was misplaced
The Sub-Buildings string was missing for localization purposes (in the Parts panel)
Crash fixes
Crash when a market was deleted while there was an active reservation
Crash related to an abandoned territory
Crash when a Military Fort was switched to another function
Crash when you switched from Edit Building to Parts List on modded monuments
Crash due to missing workplace data on modded worplaces after loading a save