The graphic systems for logic 'display layers' have been completed, allowing players to easily access information about their terrain and city.
This system allows me to control, for each display layer, whether to display a specific map as colors on the terrain, or colors on tile edges, or if i want to toggle off the display of buildings, roads, walls etc, or if i want to display built platforms as 'blocs'.
This greatly facilitates the creation of easily readable display layers and will make the logic of fortifications far clearer for players.

A new "Movement cost" display layer has been added, which specifically focuses on displaying the path-finding grid logic. It clearly shows the tile movement cost, but also the tile edges costs from walls, and the platforms/bridges thanks to the bloc display.
That will make complex fortifications much more intuitive to build and analyze, especially thanks to the 3d display as well, compared as the current legacy version.

Deployment tools have been repaired and are functional again. That includes the systems to display military troops, a key milestone towards the bigger picture that is having a functional battles system again.
Overall, the deployment tools work in the same way as in legacy.

I've slightly improved the associated "Areas" display layer, which now more clearly communicates the status of an area between exterior, protected, navigable or inaccessible.
Bridges heights impact the accessibility of navigable areas, as showcased here: low pontoons can bloc water passage (even though its currently not used by the game as there's no navigation game-play).

After so many years, it's finally here: road access implementation.
Buildings (most of them) will finally require a proper road access.
The feature is not fully implemented yet, but the basis is completed, and its design is set.

All settlements will require this small "road stele" building, which can only be built once and cannot be destroyed.
It's role is simply to be a reference point to define the starting point of your roads network: any road not connected to this stele will be considered invalid.
Besides that, buildings simply need a road on one adjacent tile, and the addition of dirt paths allows you to do so from the game's start.
The lack of building access will be greatly reduce the efficiency of production buildings.

The "roads" display layer will show you easily which buildings are missing road access if any, as well as the quality of roads and if road networks are invalid.

But beyond simple yes/no road access, the most interesting new feature built on roads is the addition of the 'traffic map'.
Cities will now simulate organic traffic on the roads, to compute a 'traffic heatmap' that you can visualize as a new display layer.

This 'sim city' like feature will show which roads are being saturated with traffic beyond their capacity, which will depend on the road type players have built: improving roads will increase their traffic capacity, thus allowing for more traffic before 'turning red'.
This means you'll be able to design a road network adapted to your traffic needs, instead of having to mindlessly upgrade all roads to the highest tier: a single home isolated in the country side will probably remain fine just with a dirt path.

The traffic heatmap is calculated by averaging the paths taken by new 'traffic agents'.
Instead of just spawning cosmetic random 'road wanderers' citizens, the game will now also spawn traffic agents citizens: units with an objective, and who actually pathfind on the roads network.
For now, there is only one main type of traffic agent: production buildings will spawn citizens that deliver their productions or get materials.
In the future, more types of "traffic agents" will be added, to create a more accurate model of traffic in the player cities.

It also makes the cities feel more lively, seeing porcos traveling through the streets with an actual goal, which you can also see by selecting them.

The traffic map will then have a global effect on your whole territory: if traffic overall gets bad, it will start to negatively impact the efficiency of all production buildings, and the quality of life of all houses.

Speaking of houses: another new mechanic is finally introduced (albeit basic for now): the desirability map.
It can also be viewed as a display layer.

Buildings can now have a positive or negative desirability effect (and range).
For example: tanneries have a strong negative effect with a large range while things like water sources, palaces, doctors or forums have positive effects.
This defines a global desirability map, and the desirability value where houses are placed now affects the Quality of Life they provide to their residents.

Some long standing QOL features have finally be implemented, notably a new 'copy' tool.

This tool, available from any building's menu, will copy this building's settings to any other building of a similar type.

By clicking on the 'copy' button, you'll be able to then select an area of terrain.
Any building of a matching type will be highlighted in green and once released, the settings of your original building will get copied to all of them.

This allows you to easily copy the material and production choices of your workshops, or to easily copy the particular storage settings of a warehouse.

Another long requested QOL feature has been added: it is now possible to mass upgrade all buildings of a similar type at once, simply by holding "shift" when clicking on the upgrade button, in the building menu.

The upgrade popup will also preview the number and total cost of upgrading all.
It will only upgrade buildings of the same type.
if the total cost is higher than your current material stocks, it will only upgrade the maximum amount possible, meaning some non-upgraded buildings will remain.

It is now possible to limit the maximum amount of workers in any building.

By clicking on the number of workers in the building menu, you can now not only hire/fire one worker, but also increase or decrease permanently the cap of workers.

It is now possible to easily toggle 'production sources' in production buildings.

In the production building menu, you simply click on the production source to toggle it on/off.
This also works for annexes (ex fields): it will auto set to sleep/wake all the relevant annexes.

As you can imagine, making such a new game will take a lot of time.
It's quite a desert crossing for me as it leaves the legacy game un-updated for all that time (causing a natural drop in interest and sales) while this 'new game' still has a long way to go.
Any support on Patreon is REALLY more than welcome.
It is rewarded with a special Discord room where i discuss and share daily updates about the progress of "New Dawn" with my Patrons, and an exclusive access to the New dawn WIP builds so you can see it for yourself on your PC!

Ymir is getting a new dedicated server!
For one it's because to be honest i can no longer afford the renting of the previous dedicated server, and it was very expensive for its aging hardware.

The new server has a much better hardware in preparation for the needs of New dawn, and even the current Legacy servers should benefit with possibly noticeable improvements in performances.

However the downside is that it's located in a less convenient location, which means connectivity will be worse (about 50ms more ping in average).
Given the type of game, this should hopefully not matter that much.

The client has been updated to point to the new server.
However note that your games history ("my games" tab in Join games) will no longer point to the correct IP the first time you reconnect to your games: you will have to rejoin your server from the server list.

Most of the basic required graphic systems are now in place!









Fields display is completed. They work pretty much the same way as in the legacy game.





Roads display is completed. A new type of earlier game road has been added: "paths", which are much smaller than the dirt road and will be available right away from the start.



Fences now work on a completely new layer: instead of occupying the tiles, they occupy tile-edges allowing you to control intuitively on which edges you want to place them.
Because they no longer occupy a tile, it also allows you to combine them with other regular objects such as placing them between a road and a building or creating nice garden separations around houses.





Resources display using the legacy resources sprites is completed.
New warehouses use my new system of asset editor and randomization to make them visually less repetitive with additional props randomly appearing.
The new fences system also allows you to further customize the esthetic of storage areas by surrounding them with a wall or fence of your choice.





There are now much more platforms types than in the legacy game, using a wider range of materials:
A primitive mud and wood platform will be available earlier ingame.
Then, new platform types include mudbricks, basic stone, and bricks on top of previously existing planks and stonebloc ones.

"Double height" platforms are now separate infrastructures, which will allow for these to have different tech requirements and unlock later than the basic versions.
Also, only brick and stonebloc platforms will have a "double height" version.

Platforms no longer snap to height levels, instead they deform to follow the ground slopes and thus always add the same height offset from the ground.
It's up to the player's control via terrain editing tools to decide if he wants to build them over a flattened ground or not.





Walls, stairs, battlements, and gates are now placed on the "tile-edge" layer like fences thus making the creation of forts much more visually intuitive and giving you more control on fort designs.


Like fences and platforms, walls follow the slopes of the terrain.








Bridges are now a separated type of infrastructure from platforms.
They can only be built on water, can't be built over, but they will be available sooner than platforms and cheaper.
There are 3 types of bridges: small pontoons, taller plank bridges, and stone 'roman style' bridges.
They will possibly have water depth limitations, with the stone bridges allowing to cross the larger rivers and pontoons being for shores and shallow waters.




Multi territories are now functional, allowing you to seamlessly go from your city to its surrounding countryside.


Being able to fly across your lands in a few seconds from city to villages is pretty satisfying and addictive!





The systems to display buildings in construction is completed. It now includes animated builders, and an additional step of progress blending the building with the construction site.
The display of abandoned buildings is also completed as well.



Finally, the new system of terrain editing is also completed.
It now includes 4 different tools, which will each unlock separately and might also have different limitation upgrades connected to knowledges.



* Smooth simply averages the tile height of each tile of the selected area based on its surrounding tiles.
* Flatten will flatten the selected area of terrain at its average height, but it cannot create hard slopes meaning that its slopes will spread around the flattened area if needed.
* Rise will increase or decrease the height of the selected area, but like flatten it cannot create hard slopes meaning slopes will spread around the affected area as well.
* Level, finally, is the most powerful terrain editing tool but will also be the most costly. It sets all tiles to the same height of the first selected one.

Unlike other tools, Leveling does create hard slopes if required.
When these hard slopes around the affected area are required, they automatically appear as stone retainment walls.
This tool will allow you to create clean flat terraces to build your fortifications on elevated defensive positions.


Terrain tools are now instantaneous, they no longer work with a system of preview and planned construction.
Terrain editing can also be done under any existing structures for convenience, so you can modify the terrain under your existing buildings and roads without having to delete/move them every time.


Repeatedly using terrain rise created a natural pyramid, as slopes spread around the affected area.


Using the terrain leveling tool to create defensive terraces on top of a hill and combined with defensive palissades.


Testing the level tool (during wip) to create large terraces surrounded by stone containment walls, and with cosmetic fences placed on the edges.




Implementation of audio has been repaired and is under way.
That includes volume options in the main menu being finally working!
I'm also reworking the UI sounds to add more diversity and feedback to players.



Next, work will begin on a new big chapter: battle display and resolution.
Includes redoing systems of path-finding to work with the new terrain systems, finding solutions to display armies during battles, and reworking battle calculations on the server side.
It will be a long and complicated chapter, but it will bring New Dawn completion close!






As you can imagine, making such a new game will take a lot of time.
It's quite a desert crossing for me as it leaves the legacy game un-updated for all that time (causing a natural drop in interest and sales) while this 'new game' still has a long way to go.
Any support on Patreon is REALLY more than welcome.
It is rewarded with a special Discord room where i discuss and share daily updates about the progress of "New Dawn" with my Patrons, and an exclusive access to the New dawn WIP builds so you can see it for yourself on your PC!

A new game has just started on Server 4.

A new game will start this Saturday around 12:00 Paris time on Server 1.
For this occasion, a small update will also be published that will add 5 new resources to the game:
Eggs, Milk, Cakes, Silverware and Lamps.

Eggs and Milk will be produced by Pastures in the same way wool is.
Eggs will require chickens, and Milk will require Cows or Goats.

Milk fills the water need.
Eggs fills the food need.
Cakes will be produced by the bakery and require Flour, Milk, Eggs and Sugarcane, filling pleasure-foods need.
Silverware will be produced by the Jewelry with Silver, filling the luxury need.
Lamps will be produced by the Potter with Clay and Oil, filling the furnishing need.

A new game is starting on Official Server 1 today at 18:00 Paris time.
It is on a custom map of Middle Earth made by community member May, and server will be of 120 players.

A new game is starting on Official Server 3.
It is on a single continent, 100 players, all-biomes random map.

The big visual milestone is that I have finally completed the initial pass on all the biome types, including multiple new ones.
Each biome now uses a collection of many more trees, bushes and grass types compared to the legacy game, making the environment look much more visually diverse. There's now hundreds of trees, bushes and grass types in total!
Some are still somewhat placeholders that will need more variations/refining, but the overall design of every biome is now well defined.


Glacial


Sea ice


Tundra


Taiga


Oceanic


Continental


Steppe


Dry (old mediterranean)


Savanna (old arid)


Desert


Jungle (old tropical)


Monsoon (new biome, after subtropical monsoon/savanna, SE asia)


Humid (new biome, after subtropical humid, asia)


Every plant has been modelled after a real-world reference, to create more coherent biomes.
There's also now enough plant types per biome to allow for individual tiles to only include a random sub-selection of a biome's total plants, making different tiles of the same biome look less repetitive.



Terrain now includes a general 'grass shader' that gives relief to the grass layer of the terrain tiles.
It completes the placed grass objects to create a feeling of lush vegetation when needed, and helps integrate everything into the terrain making the 2D sprites look less floaty.




Terrain also includes a system of dynamic snow layer, based on the biome temperatures.
It may eventually be also connected to a dynamic meteo data allowing to have variations in snow coverage during a game.




World view has also of course been updated so that the biome of every tile can be visually identified.







The most basic game city building mechanics are funcional again: launching a game, placing basic buildings, accessing the main menus, creating and moving formations on the world map.
Buildings can now also be placed rotated, making buildings of the same type look much more visually diverse.



Porco citizens are finally roaming the lands again.



Camera controls allow you to change the vertical orientation and see your city with the perspective of the horizon, integrating it more within the planet's landscape.



By holding the space bar, you can in fact freely rotate the camera in any way you want horizontally or vertically.



It was already mentioned in previous updates, but once a tile has been initially loaded during the session, zooming in and out of it becomes seamless.










Buildings will be a mix of 3d converted buildings and legacy 2D placeholders, the idea being to gradually keep replacing buildings to their full 3D version. In priority this will be houses, merchants and large special buildings such as government buildings.

A lot of display systems remain to be redone:
Resources in warehouses, fields, roads, fences, stairs, simple walls, platforms...
Each system requires its own approach and to be redone from scratch to work within the new graphics framework.
Then, pathfinding has to be modified and updated to work with the new terrain system, and lastly the whole system of battle display as well.





As you can imagine, making such a new game will take a lot of time.
It's quite a desert crossing for me as it leaves the legacy game un-updated for all that time (causing a natural drop in interest and sales) while this 'new game' still has a long way to go.
Any support on Patreon is REALLY more than welcome.
It is rewarded with a special Discord room where i discuss and share daily updates about the progress of "New Dawn" with my Patrons, and an exclusive access to the New dawn WIP builds so you can see it for yourself on your PC!

A new game is starting on Official Server 2.
It is on a single continent, 100 players, all-biomes random map.

A new game is starting on Official Server 1.
It is on a single continent, 120 players, all-biomes map.