Hi,

In the previous diary we talked I talked a bit about terrain properties and how placement of settlements will have a larger impact on tax income and productivity. Today I want to talk about settlement focus which, combined with the new terrain properties, will be a major change to your Fate of an Empire experience.

Each settlement can be designated a ‘focus’, or expertise area. These focuses range from garrison city, trade center, research center to naval base. The focus will decide how efficient the settlements are at utilising the resources coming from the surrounding terrain and constructed buildings. The focus of a settlement may also give other benefits.

For example, in a garrison city the infrastructure is optimised for training and equipping new companies. But it comes at a cost and it will be inefficient at producing food for the population and the trade and tax income will be decreased as funds are needed to upkeep of the infrastructure. A side effect of this is a decreased population base for recruiting new troops. To overcome this a garrison city will fill up its recruit pool by taking recruits from nearby non-garrison cities.

The purpose of a garrison city is to be the empire’s primary source for new companies.

Towns and villages which, due to their small population base and need to grow in larger cities, will have a special focus allowing them to function similarly to today. As soon as they grow into a city this focus will be replaced to a generic focus that isn’t especially efficient at anything at all but can be used for cities whose purposes aren’t decided yet.

Capitals will also have a special focus that will allow them to remain as the power house of each empire during the early stages of the game.

Swapping between focuses will be possible but the new focus will start at a decreased efficiency and it will take several turns to reach full productivity again. This decreased efficiency will not hamper food production as this could cause severe issues with starving and drops in loyalty. Note that this can happen anyway if a change is made from a focus good at generating food to one which isn’t good at generating food.

This is the end of my small series of developer diaries where I talk about my vision for Fate of an Empire – Age of War. When we get closer to launching the game I might return to this topic and talk about marketing and plans for the future.

Next week the developer diary will focus on the general status/progress of my work again.

Thank you for reading. Cheers!