One year ago, Roots of Harmony got released out of nowhere. No marketing, no hype; even my family was not aware. What was the point? I still don't know. I think I was willing to keep the project on its own track, scared of the idea that I would have to delay its release if the game wouldn't receive the feedback I was expecting. That's basically the poorest decision you can make when it comes to releasing a video game (or anything?). This is a saturated market, and having a niche project is not enough to attract attention. That being said, it has found its place. It's on a little shelf, next to Warsim, and there's a certain charm to it!
In one year, I have sold about 1000 copies, and very happily received 17 positive reviews. I also have about 1500 wishlists. Many times though, I just wanted to give up, or to switch to another project. In 2025, I made a few prototypes and I've worked on many new ideas, but a sense of unfinished work always brings me back to RoH. And I know the theory and the stats: they say that if you don't have at least 7000 wishlists at release (I had 0 of course), or if your game isn't successful after two months, you should forget about it and start another game. But I refuse to hear that, because financial gain is not everything there is about releasing creative content. What is success anyway? I could argue that having one player in this world who absolutely loved the few hours he spent on my game is success. Or that having maintained an unsuccessful game for one year makes me happy, for the sake of integrity. Even though I wouldn't dislike the idea of paying all my pizzas with money from RoH sales, I'm convinced that this game is rather good, and can even become better. So today ladies and gentlemen, I'm excited to announce Roots of Harmony 3.0, the biggest update I've ever released! © (it's actually true)
The most obvious change concerns the UI. It's been a long time now that I wanted to make things clearer, to increase contrast, and to bring more colours to a rather dull palette. It took a serious amount of work to improve the engine, as the whole idea of this engine, at first, was just to have a terminal that would offer a few features that the Windows terminal couldn't handle. I don't regret the decision of building everything from scratch (in PureBasic, "transpiled" to C), but it sure has proven a lot more complicated than expected. UI programming is tedious. Besides, all the other projects I've started were also based on this engine, so many improvements had to be made. The current engine is actually able to show real images, to handle ASCII maps, and to support complex mouse-based menus. Things that RoH doesn't really need because of its "keyboard-only" option and of its nature. Some of you might say: "why not implement a map in RoH? Or real images?" Well, I've tried both things, and it just doesn't fit the intention of the game. I've also tried to put a lot of new ideas from other projects into RoH, but it just doesn't work. Game design often works in mysterious ways...
Anyway, let's take a look at the new interface:
As you can see, I've added and improved many things: all titles are now highlighted, what you select is more obvious, and navigation options are more coherent. And I won't even mention all the little changes I've made to both the English and French texts so the game can be easier to understand. Some of you might find the new design less old-school, but I think that it will be more engaging to newcomers, and it feels neater and more pleasant to play in the long term.
The most important changes of version 3.0 concern gameplay mechanics. When it comes to disciples, I always wanted the stats to be minimalistic and understandable. One of my main inspirations has always been the Dominions series, but I didn't want to fall into the trap of complex characteristics, as it can be extremely challenging to maintain in the long term. So, let's take a look at the new Militia:
Version 2.3
Version 3.0
As you can see, things are even simpler than before! Initiative is gone (faster units play first), as well as minimum range and range cooldown. There are now two base damage types: melee and range, and they both have a range of min/max values instead of being a fixed value.
Concerning the damage modifiers, they now disregard whether the attack is melee or range. The new line Dmg. mod. can now be read as "Damage added against Light, Medium and Heavy armours." Note that damage modifiers are now added, and no longer multiplied. The goal is to have less dramatic battles, because in 2.3, some units could often deal three times more damage, and the result of a battle was quite hard to predict. Now, you can pretty much ignore damage modifiers, and it won't be the end of the world. They're only necessary if you face a serious challenge, or if you really want to minimise your losses.
Finally, Accuracy and Dodge are now expressed in percentages, making those stats easier to understand.
All disciples have been revised. Their stats have been rebalanced, and new traits have been added. I've added 36 new traits in total, and many different ways to acquire them. Traits have been one of the main focuses of this update: enemies have more of them, Champions have default ones, and Blessings can grant you temporary traits as well (more on that below). Note that the trait limitation per disciple has been completely removed.
Speaking of traits, I've completely changed how the "trait giver" landmarks work, like the Necromancer's Tower or the Banshee's Pool. Before, you had to kill the owner and then send a disciple to meditate there in order for them to gain a new trait. Now, you can conquer the place by killing its owner, and all the disciples you'll recruit at this landmark will receive the local trait. Creatures in those places don't respawn anymore.
Prior to 3.0, landmarks didn't have much impact, and most of them could just have been random Points of Interest (POI) or special events. I tried to give a purpose to all of them so that you would have a real interest in moving one of your disciples to a landmark. Now you will ask yourself: "Is the new trait valuable enough for me to recruit a disciple there on this land, potentially very far from my main base?"
Another big change concerns the Altars. Before, they were mainly used to gain new essences. The problem with that approach was that this landmark occupied a land for no obvious reason. There was no reason for the player to move their disciples on this land, and the strategic value of this landmark was therefore non-existent. Now, in 3.0, Altars are used to summon new units! All those units have one of the following traits: \[Construct], \[Magic], \[Demon], or \[Undead], and there are a lot of new traits interacting with them.
They don't cost any resources. Instead, you need to sacrifice one of your Disciples if you want to summon one of these 16 new units. There are only four altars per playthrough, and each one is associated with only one creature, making the game even more replayable.
In 2.3, there was an additional landmark in New Game+: Monoliths. Now, Monoliths are accessible in every game, and they bring a major new feature with them: Ascension.
In 2.3, each Champion had to be unlocked through the old Perks system, and you could recruit them anywhere you wanted. It was tedious and unclear, as you always had to keep track the number of disciples you had. Now in 3.0, each of your disciple can become a Champion through Ascension. If they have enough Wisdom, you can move them to one of the four Monoliths, and there you can ascend them, ie. evolve them into a better unit. Think of Champions as evolutions, like in the HOMM series, where you could upgrade your units at some places, like the Stables.
Last but not least, I've added a new landmark: Trading Posts. This landmark completely revamps how trading used to work before 3.0. All notions of commodities have been removed in favour of a more straightforward mechanic. Now Trading Posts are working places, meaning that you have to assign a disciple to it before it can work. When you do so, they will start trading one resource for another, with a tribe of your choice. Each tribe has a random resource they need, and another one they exchange.
In 3.0, some features are to be discovered through your playthrough and are not available from the start. Trading Posts are one of them. I think I've added so many features during this year that the game has become overwhelming for new players. It's still not easy, it doesn't hold your hand, but it tries to be more gentle!
Prior to 3.0, Blessings were a unique buff you could apply only once per combat turn. Now, Blessings behave more like spells. There are many new ones, and you can cast as many Blessings as you want. The only limitation is the amount of Energy you have available.
Energy is a new resource that is provided by three sources: perks, traits, and essences. That means your Energy pool can vary from one battle to another, because it's partly increased by your disciples. Now it can be very beneficial to group some of your disciples together, like for instance those with the new trait \[Spellweaver] that provides +5 Energy.
The previous perk system was tedious and confusing. Now, perks are what you would expect from any game: a bonus that you can unlock in exchange for resources. I've added and altered many perks, and also implemented new game mechanics to interact with them. For instance, the Independents (who are kind of a new faction) can "sneak attack" your bases at night if you don't defend them properly... or you unlock the Intimidation perk:
Starting a game should be engaging and pretty straightforward, and I don't think 2.3 is doing that, so I've changed a few things:
New game scenarios that immediately unlock a first doctrine.
Quick summary of the doctrine you've chosen, the resources you get, and the disciple you unlock.
Note that all doctrines related to Cruelty, Greed and Vanity are not available during game start. The reason is those resources are harder to increase, and that can have a negative impact on your early game. The experience of the first minutes of the game should be smooth, and some of those resources are only available at higher tiers.
And that's it for this little teaser! Although I've already implemented all the new systems I've described above, Version 3.0 has many new changes that require serious playtests. I cannot release it for RoH's birthday unfortunately, but it will very likely come out in November!
Note that to celebrate the 1 year of Roots of Harmony, the game will be available at a 20% discount for a week!
Thank you for reading, and I hope you'll like all the new changes! Stay tuned! 🙏
Guillaume (aka Joubarbe) 🌳
