Apologies for the long silence. Yes, I’m still working on the space empire game. Other things have taken up my time, and when I have been able to work on the game I’ve found myself creatively blocked, so I decided it was better to go silent than post monthly dev blogs where I basically say I’ve made no progress. (This is why I set up this Patreon as per-work rather than per-month, so you don’t get charged when I’m not being productive.) But I think I’ve now made enough progress to be worth mentioning.
Here’s what the game looks like now:
ACADEMIC COUNCIL: …The Council’s most prominent institution was the Imperial Museum, which occupied a hundred square kilometres on Novaion. The musuem held cultural artifacts from across the galaxy, most of them acquired during the millennia of the Empire’s expansion, either as loot during military conquests or tribute from subject nations. In the 12th millennium IE the museum came under increasing pressure to return these to their planets of origin…
—Galactopedia
A dozen crimson-robed priests stand in your throne room for a formal audience. Speaking through an interpreter, the high priest explains that the Imperial Musuem holds numerous holy relics connected with Zho-Te the Lifebringer, the divine creator of their home planet. For several centuries now, their predecessors have asked your predecessors to return the artifacts, and they are hoping that you will be the empress to finally agree.
Your scientific advisor fills you in on the artifacts in question. Zho-Te appears in the history books as a pre-Imperial scientist credited with terraforming several planets. His antique space helmet is one of the more recognizable exhibits in the museum, but more important scientifically are the pieces of terraforming equipment recovered from his personal spaceship and now held in the museum archives. Imperial techno-archaeologists have spent centuries trying to uncover the lost secrets of his terraforming techniques, and without access to the artifacts they will never be able to complete their work.
Options:
Return the relics.
Keep the artefacts.
I’ve revised the interface somewhat since last time. Down the left hand side we have: the year of your reign, the amount of the galaxy the Empire controls, the strength of each of the six factions (Noble Houses, People’s Assembly, Galactic Church, Academic Council, Imperial Navy, and Guild of Corporations), and then the settings button and the Galactopedia index. Clicking on any of those things brings up the corresponding Galactopedia page (except the settings button, which brings up the settings menu).
Each faction now has a single stat that represents both its strength and approval. I realized that these stats tended to track to one another anyway because choices that made a faction more powerful would also make it like you more and vice versa, so I decided to simplify the game and give each faction a single score. The scores aren’t shown as numbers, but if you mouse over the bars you get a tooltip with the exact percentage value (and this is also what you’ll get if you’re playing with a screen reader).
Here’s what it looks like after you click on an option:
(Text continues) Disappointed but not surprised, the priests visit the artifacts in the museum, where they say a prayer over them before returning home. Thousands of people continue to visit Zho-Te’s space helmet each day, and many of them buy replicas of it in the museum gift shop. Imperial archaeologists continue to publish papers on how Zho-Te’s terraforming process might have worked, without reaching a conclusion.
Like in Seedship, but unlike in Chiron Gate, I’m having options inside the same event add text to the page rather than going to a new page. This does mean that it’ll be possible to “cheat” in the browser version by refreshing the page and choosing a different option, but it’s a single-player game and it’s not like there’s a prize for winning, so cheat if you like.
The faction values have changed, and there are little arrows in the stat bars showing the direction and rough magnitude of the change. Not shown because this is a still image: when stat bars change they also glow briefly, yellow for up and red for down.
You can see that the Church bar has gone down by a lot and the Academy bar has only gone up by a little. This is the main way I’m balancing the game: most of your choices will raise one faction by a little but lower a different one by a lot, or raise one and lower two. As a result, the overall/average level of the factions will tend to go down, and if you want to keep one faction powerful it’ll be at the expense of all the others.
What happens when one of the faction bars reaches zero? This:
ANAGVASTIAN CHURCH: A religion widely followed in a large part of the Outer Arm, where it wielded considerable influence in local politics. It was based on the teachings of the prophet Anagvast, whom followers worshipped as a deity…
…In 11321, the Church’s ruling council issued an edict that it no longer recognised the authority of either the Galactic Kivastian Churh or of the Vaion Star Empire, making the church’s planets into an independent theocracy…
—Galactopedia
The message comes in the form of a golden tablet, delivered by a pair of solemn crimson-robed Angvastian archbishops. In side-by-side columns of both Galactic Standard and Angvastian hieroglyhs, it declares that the Angvastian Church can no longer tolerate the Empire’s impiety, and that its 1891 star systems are now an independent theocratic state.
Options:
Send the Navy to restore control.
Recognize the new government.
If you fail to put down the rebellion, or allow the region to secede, the Empire will lose territory and that top bar will go down.
What happens when a faction bar reaches 100%? That faction will demand to become part of the government, permanently changing the Empire and shaping its legacy. For example, the People’s Assembly can become the Galactic Parliament, reducing you from an absolute monarch to a constitutionally limited one, and setting you down the path towards a Galactic Republic ending. But so far I’ve only written placeholder text for that, so no screenshot this time.
I’m going to try to get back on a monthly dev blog schedule for the game. Release date is “when it’s done” but hopefully that’s not too far in the future.