https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/uncasualgames/ancient-cities/posts/2861661
First closed release
Uncasual GamesCreator
June 10, 2020
First of all we want to thank you because you have made this project possible from the very beginning.
Many months of hard work have passed from the prototype we presented in 2017. To make our own technology resulted in a great delay that we underestimated, so we decided to focus on gameplay and tried to find more funds to grow the team.After failing on getting enough resources to speed up development, we have decided to release a work in progress version, for backers only, so you can start playing the game from July 2020.
This is not the finished version we wanted to release but we have a debt with you and you deserve to play the game as soon as possible.
CONTENTS
This version is a first approach to the Mesolithic era in Atlantic Europe. Your mission will be to keep your tribe together and alive in these hard ancient times.
In the new game screen you can select any region on the map to play during the Mesolithic period. Base satellite map resolution is low but there are some zones with better resolution available. You can check such zones by activating the layer button on the new game screen. There are also some mods available in Steam workshop with satellite map layers with better resolution, of course, you can upload your own.
The game represents regional migration of a nomadic tribe. Select your tribe and use the action “Migrate” to pick a place where to settle. Rivers and coasts are good places to settle so there you can fish or gather seafood all year long. Planes are plenty of berry bushes and in the mountains you can find mushrooms and hazelnuts, but beware, these are seasonal resources. When you settle, you will be able to build your village in a fully simulated environment.
Your people will need something to eat and a proper place to rest and sleep. If you don’t provide them properly they will leave the tribe or maybe they will die. As resources decay and they are hard to find or exhausted, you should be prepared to migrate to another place…
Currently a minimal work specialization is represented in the form of “Work groups”, so you can control work organization in your tribe and prioritize tasks. Your citizens will choose what to do or not based on its attributes and traits, so for example people too young or too old will not work at all.
Resource production is centered on fishing, gathering, cropping wild plants and chopping trees. These resources can be stored and processed so you can maximize their durability.
Tools are needed in order to perform some of the tasks properly. Different tools are intended for different tasks so you will have to craft them when you have the required resources and services . At this point, basic tools are included so no special knowledge is required to craft them. In the near future we will include the knowledge system so this will be a requirement too.
You can construct several types of buildings: houses, storage, defenses, services and decorations. All of them require resources and some maintenance in order to be able to use them for their purpose. Of course, an important part of surviving will be to construct the appropriate buildings in a proper time. For example, do not build a big house when you reach a new location or maybe people will decide to leave the tribe before the house is available because no one likes to sleep in the open too much time.
As the tribe leader, you can set up policies that must be followed, you can control work time and manage food rations, but people don’t like rules so you will have to use policies with care.
Other aspects are already in development and we will present them to you in the following releases when we consider that are playable.
MOD SUPPORT
A first approach to modding is available and it is integrated in Steam Workshop. Anyway, you can currently mod many game aspects because many game data is text based or it is using standard formats.
We have included some demo mods in Steam Workshop so you can try to upload your own.
Of course, we will continue improving mod support since it is an important feature of the game.
LANGUAGES
Currently only English is officially supported as a work in progress version. Spanish is available too as a demo mod on Steam Workshop. Creation of language mods is already supported, so it will be easy to add new languages in the future.
REQUIREMENTS
Recommended requirements for “Normal settings”: i7 8GB 1060 GTX
Minimum requirements for “Low settings”: i5 8GB with a 2GB GPU (at this time integrated Intel GPUs are not officially supported)
This is a work in progress version so bugs and optimization problems with some hardware & drivers are expected.
WHAT’S NEXT?
After this first release, we are determined to continue the game development covering all the aspects in the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras but now with your direct feedback so you can share our effort and our love for the game.
We plan to release periodic updates with new features and bug fixes that will be directly available for you on Steam until the game is released to the public. After that you will have access to the release version and to a beta branch with the latest features.
In the following days we will publish an explanation of the release process and the concrete day when we will start with it.
Thanks for your support!
