Hi there!

We have some very exciting news to share with you today.

As revealed in our roadmap update back in February, the team is hard at work on multiple new content releases for Foundation. We are happy to say that starting right now, you can opt into an experimental build focusing on big changes for the early to mid game progression.

Whilst the full changelog and details will only be available once the update is released, here’s some of its key points to whet your appetite:

• The new meat production chain - available from the start - uses the hunter’s hut and a butchery to let you turn boars into food for consumption or sale; note that the butchery visual is placeholder
  
• Taxation has been moved to the Labour progression path
  
• Serfs now have two food needs to fulfill
  
• There is a new Entertainment need for commoners and citizens, fulfilled by beer and wine at the tavern…
  
  • plus berry brews crafted at the berry brewery, a new tavern sub-building!
• You can now promote villagers at will
  
• Several workplaces now require higher villager statuses
  
• A new Levy mandate from the Manor House can be activated to get emergency funds… at the cost of villagers’ happiness!
  
• Villagers are a bit less forgiving about happiness mishandling
  
• Immigration factors have been softened
  
• Traders have more inventory to buy and sell from…
  
  • and we’re introducing a new trade route, Kinstone Abbey, affiliated with Clergy!
• Wood production has been slowed, incentivizing more planning
  
• Bad weather is less punishing
  
• And lots of other balancing changes and tweaks!

To participate in this experimental build:

• Open Steam
  
• Right-click on Foundation
  
• Click Properties
  
• Click BETAS
  
• Select experimental_tavern_taxation in the dropdown menu
  
• Relaunch the game after it’s been updated

Have fun and see you soon!

Hello Lords & Ladies!

A new patch is now available. Here’s the rundown of what’s included in 1.9.2.5:

• There is now a maximum distance villagers will travel to during their free time, which is based on the location of their homes
  
• Upkeep categories’ ordering in the Book now follows the same order as the list of building categories in the build menu
  
• Villagers happiness tooltip positive and neutral colors are now easier to read

• It was possible for builders to reach construction sites and not do any work
  
• The build menu scrolled back to the top after placing a monument part that featured several of them, hindering complex monument construction
  
• Coins total from taxation could exceed the limit set for individual houses
  
• Some resources in storage facilities weren’t displaying a numerical value for their available quantity (they now do even at 0)
  
• The Builder’s Workshop was displayed at the end of the building list unless players reloaded their game
  
• Rare case where the game displayed wrong quantities after switching resources assigned to a Warehouse/Granary/Market slot
  
• Building upkeep costs
  
  • Weren’t calculated correctly when pausing/unpausing a workplace
    
  • Were wrongly modified when adding more workers, causing players to pay more than intended
• Building upkeep costs were wrongly calculated The Sturdy Material edict’s effect wasn’t applied in the real calculation of the budget
  
• The Sturdy Material edict’s effect wasn’t applied to maintenance costs from additional workers
  
• Villagers crossing under a quarry were teleported on its ladder
  
• Some tooltips had more empty space than intended
  
• A number of Mod.io thumbnails’ colors were misinterpreted
  
• Music wasn’t switching when players reached different Estate tiers
  
• Changing the monk/nun dorms function could cause a crash
  
• The Abbatial Gate – Major door wasn’t working
  
• Quick reloading while the “Promote villagers to higher status” list was opened could cause a crash
  
• Rare crash when downloading mods

Hello fellow city-building enthusiasts!

Update 1.9.2 has just been released. This version of the game focuses on four key points: improving the budget breakdown, adding new construction steps to the Monastery, using right-click to close windows and hitting ESC to close (or open) the system menu. But that’s not all: we took this opportunity to introduce some quality of life (QOL) changes as well as fix multiple bugs—including one where villagers would trek far and wide to find the most comfortable benches!

Here’s more details of what you can expect in this update:


Understanding Foundation’s economics makes all the difference between running a thriving or a struggling medieval village. For this reason, we now offer a more in-depth budget breakdown. It should help you plan better, but more importantly, get a clearer picture of your expenses and income as they roll in.

Here’s an overview of what’s been added to the Budget tab:

• Quantities for resources bought and sold
  
• Upkeep costs per buildings’ categories and types, each with their respective quantities
  
• Territory costs, including those purchased and maintained
  
• Taxes per type, including how many villagers and/or buildings are affected
  
• New categories for data previously displayed under Miscellaneous
  
• Tooltips for all categories

Every single feature mentioned above will work with previous Foundation saves. You will also notice some quality of life changes included in the budget breakdown such as the possibility to collapse/expand data either individually or globally and better category grouping and visibility. On a related note, save files have been considerably shrinked thanks to the compacting of budget data.


Modders will be happy to learn the new, detailed budget breakdown leaves room for custom upkeep costs, i.e. something not called coins.




Last year, one of the biggest changes to Foundation was how players would progress through the game by specializing in different Estate paths. Clergy in particular was completely reworked with the addition of several new building functions and events. Back then, our art team laid out the groundwork for a new and improved vision of what the game should look like, previewed first with the Abbatial Church.

It’s not just about raising the visuals bar either: adding construction steps to the Monastery is something we had planned for a long time, which better reflects the evolution of this prestigious monument and helps bring it to life—complete with scaffoldings for all of its variants!

What you see from the Monastery in this newest update sets a new benchmark for the future of architecture in Foundation. In time, our goal is to apply the same principles to other buildings and thus bring them to higher quality standards.




Part of being game developers is taking the pulse of what the community wants so we can deliver a frictionless experience. An oft requested quality of life feature has been added in Update 1.9.2 with the ability to close windows by simply right-clicking on them. In the same vein, we have added the expected behavior of opening (or closing) the system menu when pressing the ESC key.



This concludes the core features added or improved upon with Update 1.9.2. For more details, read the full patch notes below.

• Budget breakdown overhaul
  
• Monastery construction steps
  
• Right-clicking on panels will now close them
  
• ESC key will bring up the systems menu or close it if it’s already open

• The Daily Average Balance now displays more accurate information about whether you are making money or not
  
• Save files’ size have been considerably shrinked—up to 70% less!

• Housing help topic
  
• Editing buildings help topic (refund)
  
• Localization

• The special panel style for buildings now only applies to the parent building, which should help distinguish them from sub-buildings
  
• Added a confirmation pop-up when unassigning a slot with stocked resources (example: Warehouse)
  
• Improved the resource refund feature when destroying parts to be more consistent across the board
  
• Wealth calculation from the Book will now display a score after the first month regardless of your income status positive or negative)
  
• Improved performance for densely populated villages

• In some circumstances, the game wouldn’t properly close on exit
  
• None of the shortage events (except for service) were displayed in the Happiness tooltip
  
• Villagers trying to fulfill needs spread too far from each other on the map would get stuck in a needs loop, which led to further issues
  
• Added a distance limit so villagers won’t be traveling far and wide to use benches
  
• Destroying a monument before its completion refunded too many resources
  
• While a game rule that modified the trading price was active, the “Buy from village” price was rounded before calculating the quantity available for purchase
  
• The Rustic Gate – Elevated part from the Monastery snapped inside the model, which blocked entry to the location
  
• Multiple scrollbars could be displayed when building a Cloister

• The Unlock Trade Route button wasn’t displayed when mods added new resources for trade. The GUI now handles up to 5 resources rows without a scrollbar
  
• Switching a sub-building function in the Fuel mod (1.9+) crashed the game
  
• Exposed the Hospitium, Monk Dorms and Nun Dorms functions for the Monastery

Greetings Lords & Ladies!

We have some important news to share with you about Foundation's next steps. The team is pleased to unveil an updated roadmap! 📅


2022 was a big year for Polymorph Games, but also one of transition.

First and foremost, we have worked on our biggest update so far, Foundation 1.9, that has added the remaining systems and bound all of them to shape the core experience we intended for Foundation. We also have included and expanded the monastery gameplay, with a revamped visual, representing our work on the final Art Direction (see: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/art/deep-dive-the-art-of-i-foundation-i-).



Another major feature that we were happy to deliver was the first iteration of the map generator, allowing you to have more maps to play with.

The second important change that happened last year was the expansion of our team, with the addition of team members filling important roles, such as an Art Director, a Lead 3D Artist, an Engine Programmer and a Narrative Designer. This is allowing us to work on multiple aspects of the game at the same time: improving our visuals, the game content, as well as the procedurally generated content like the map generator.




In the last couple of months, we’ve made the delicate and thorough exercise of reviewing and completing our game design. Every idea and planned feature has been discussed and questioned, and we aimed to leave no stones unturned. This process had us recenter on Foundation’s strengths, and the result is a better defined feature list.

Today we are pleased to share our updated roadmap – a glimpse of both our major and minor updates left to be released.


We are planning five major releases until Foundation’s end of Early Access.




The next Major Update we are working on is about adding Safety, a tool players can use to control the density of housing in specific zones. Safety is also something that will be used and extended by the Castle in the Kingdom progression path. This will also integrate the walls into the construction flow. We will provide more details soon.


We know you are eager to get your hands on this one, and we are already working on it. In addition to the new Castle monument, expect more gameplay options from overhauled military missions (including squads!), and more interaction with the new safety concept.


This update will round off the final Estate gameplay and its visual overhaul. It will focus on giving the tools to improve happiness and taxation capabilities.


As you may know, we are working to revamp our building and environment visuals: environment biomes, skyboxes, lighting, map edges.


This one will have all the completed game content, with the improved residential zoning, and tier 3 housing.

Along the way toward Foundation's full release, the team will continue to add minor features, to include new quality of life (QOL) changes as well as game content.

• Continuous Monument Experience Improvements
  
• Continuous Map Generator Improvements
  
• Continuous Quality of Life Improvements
  
• Continuous Accessibility Improvements
  
• Continuous Modding Improvements
  
• Continuous Balancing Improvements
  
• New Productions Buildings and Production Building Extensions
  
• Fertility
  
• Scalable Quests
  
• New Mandates
  
• New Information Layers
  
• Job XP Implementation
  
• Paved Roads

As mentioned earlier, the process of reviewing and completing our game design had us focus on Foundation’s strengths. But that also means that unfortunately, some features we have added to the roadmap during the Early Access won’t make it to the full release, as we realized that they will not add any significant fun to the game and will create more micromanagement than we wish to push on the player. We are thus shelving housing decay, aging and families, and graveyards from the roadmap. The disease feature and vehicles are also postponed, meaning they might become part of the game at some point, but not before the end of the early access. Steam Workshop Integration has also been dropped as we continue to focus on https://mod.io/g/foundation and its cross-platform modding capabilities.

We know some of you will be disappointed about this news, especially the aging and family, but the average village size in Foundation has a higher population count than first anticipated, and having a feature like this would have brought us on the path of survival, micromanagement and overcomplexity.

We have reasserted our inspirations - Pharaoh, The Settlers and Anno - all games that don’t feature aging and death, but are still unique in their own ways and most importantly, great city-building experiences. With that in mind, we are confident that we are on the right path with Foundation’s design plans.




As many of you may have realized, the Trello board was not being updated often. It has shown to be a lot of work to maintain, and it also creates a divergence with our internal planning tool. Hence why we are closing the Trello, and will instead share updates and progress on the roadmap on posts such as this one.

We are also closing our Mantis Public Bug reporter. We realized that the most efficient way to track bugs and get feedback is through Discord or right here on the Steam forums. It is also a better way to filter what is a bug and what is not, because the community usually provides help as well. So don’t hesitate to join our Discord server to share your bugs and feedback!


In 2023 we also want to give you access to experimental builds. Their goal will be to test new features and progression changes before they're applied to the live version of Foundation. This is a way for us to get important feedback from you, that will help us deliver polished updates. The first experimental build will be the next minor update that changes a lot of the early/mid game balancing.




As of now, we are currently working on multiple updates:

• 1.9.2 is about an improved budget breakdown and multiple Quality of Life improvements, like the ESC and right-click handling (Estimated Release Date: February 2023)
  
• Minor Update: We are preparing an experimental build that changes early progression in the game (In Progress, Experimental in March 2023)
  
  • Taxation will be moved to the Labor progression path
    
  • Tavern will become a need for the commoners
    
  • The early and mid game progression will be reviewed
    
  • Trade revenue will be more generous
• Minor Update: Plains terrain type (flatter) will be introduced in procedurally generated maps (In Progress, Estimated Release Date, March 2023)
  
• Major Update: Residential Core + Safety (Being prototyped, No ETA yet)
  
• Major Update: Castle (Kingdom Progression Path) (In Progress, No ETA yet)

Note that this planning is subject to change along the way.


In 2023, we are full speed ahead to deliver consistent and substantial updates that will keep improving the overall quality of the game.

We thank you for your continued support, we are lucky to have such a loving and dedicated community!

—The Polymorph Games team

Hello everyone!

A new version of the preview build (1.9.2.3.0221) is now available.

Here's what's changed:

• Improvement: added a construction step between steps 0 and 2 of a part without tiling
  
• Modding: Mod custom type properties weren't deserialized

We will keep you informed about future developments of this update. Thanks!

Hello Foundation players!

A new version of the preview build (1.9.2.2.0220) focused on Quality of Life (QOL) is now available.

Here's what's changed:

• Fix: crash when selecting a part from a building (in the Edit tab)
  
• Modding: expose the Hospitium, Monk Dorms and Nun Dorms functions for the Monastery

We will keep you updated with further changes to the preview build before its release. Thanks!

Hello Foundation players!

Quality Of Life Update 1.9.2 is now in public preview! This is your chance to get a first hands-on experience with the new features before they’re released!

Here’s the key features included in this update:

• Overhauled budget breakdown
  
• Added construction steps to the Monastery
  
• Right-click to close panels
  
• Improved ESC key behavior to bring up or close the systems menu

And here’s how to gain access to this public preview on Steam:

• Open Steam
  
• Right-click on Foundation
  
• Click BETAS
  
• Under ‘Select the beta you would like to opt into:’, choose preview_1.9.2
  
• Once the update has completed, relaunch the game

A full changelog will be shared once the update goes public. Feel free to share your thoughts and comments here or on Discord.

Thanks and have fun!

Announcing Foundation 1.9.2, focusing on quality of life improvements 🔨

- Improved Budget Breakdown
- Right-Click to Close Windows
- Improved ESC key Behavior
- New Monastery Construction Steps

The update will be deployed soon.

We are also working on 3 other updates, including an experimental one.



Expect more news soon!

- The Polymorph Games Team

Greetings Lords & Ladies!

Today, Foundation turns 4! 🥳 Time flies!

To celebrate this new milestone, we’ve applied a 20% discount on the game for a limited time.

We would like to thank you for your support and trust in this project. Your comments help us shape the game so that it meets your expectations. And we simply love seeing your villages teeming with life, all created from scratch!

Stay tuned for more details about Foundation’s future coming up very soon!

Greetings Lords & Ladies!

It is with great pleasure that we announce being part of Steam’s Base Builder Fest 2023!

This special event is designed to showcase games focused on the spirit of building habitable spaces.

In Foundation, this is expressed by two key factors: choices and organic growth. The former is how you create a medieval village on your own terms, in a gridless map with the ability to create custom monuments—among other things. The latter comes from roads and residential spaces that evolve over time in a slightly more autonomous but structured way. Both factors create a unique city-building experience.

The 20% discount offered as part of Steam’ Base Builder Fest has perfect timing: Foundation’s most recent update introduced a random map generator that adds a lot of replayability, as well as several quality of life improvements including detailed tooltip breakdowns for each resource.