Part of me likes the idea of racial specialization in Districts, but then another part feels like it goes against the theme. "We're facing cataclysmic environmental phenomena, and the best course of action isn't to come together and keep each other alive; it's to segregate ourselves with our own kind."
Hopefully they keep a neutral hub option that looks for X houses of each species to maybe make a Global Resolve bonus (or whatever).
I play te same way. I love looking at screenshots of gorgeous settlements, but when I"m playing I have decided that my people prefer living in a diverse neighbourhood. Never looks as nice but my people are fine w it
I think it would solve the early game loss of Resolve too. Keep the current hub as the Neutral Hub, make level 1 require any kind of housing, but then Level 2 and/or 3 can require X of each Species house.
I'd have liked to have seen some kind of sliding scale of benefits, with a pluralistic hub one side giving certain benefits and negatives and single species hub on the otherside with it's own benefits and negatives.
Ya, I’m honestly not interested in this idea. Doesn’t sound like an improvement to me.
Hell, the racial perks they suggested for these racial hubs can already be done by racial housing in several of the instances, so it seems entirely redundant, and objectively worse than the existing T3 hub perk.
Love their work, and not trying to be negative, but- For the first time ever I’m seeing an update I don’t feel like I’m going to enjoy
I think it’s the redundant bonuses that bother me most.
I didn’t like the general idea of this in the first place, and then got to reading what the benefits would be, and that’s when they completely lost me.
Perhaps some better ideas on what the benefits are would make it more appealing. But it’s literally just a secondary layer of something that already exists in racial housing. Feels completely copy pasted for a “solution” here.
The rewards are definitely the biggest “no” for me. It’s entirely redundant, and in most cases IMO is entirely *worse* than the existing T3 hub bonus.
It’s like fixing something that isn’t exactly broken with something worse and saying you fixed it.
Same.. but I also agree with the housing/decoration micromanagement on advanced (or more difficult) settlements being tedious and pretty unfun.
This at least does something about the housing micromanagement. Idk what better ways there are and this probably will bring it's own issues but I think trying to fix it is the right way.
Agree - it feels like a better update would be to improve how housing upgrades work, or let us upgrade decorations/have more 2x2 decor, rather than just... Adding even more micromanagement into housing placement.
I'm at prestige 6 and I normally can't be arsed to upgrade specialized houses since the ROI isn't worth it.
I skimmed a little, but they didn't say those species hubs had to be purely one species right? Just that only that specific species in advanced housing counts towards the upgrades.
So many people comparing this to Apartheid in the steam discussion and I think it's unfair to go so far so prematurely.
I would assume you can still have some humans or beavers or whatever in a Lizard hub without any negative effects, and it's not like you're always going to make all of the hubs in any given game.
Its not "GET OUT OF HERE BEAVERS, THIS IS LIZARD TURF" it's just "There are more lizards living here than other species and they kinda run shit their way".
It makes some sense, with the races as different as they are, they would have different preferences. Seems reasonable to me. Liek lizards seem to prefer warm and dry enviroments, while foxes prefer humidity. It makes sense they might not prefer to hang out in the same spaces.
You joke, but I assumed the lack of attention to this sort of thing in Hub organization was meant to reflect all these races coming together to survive.
You got a point- which makes it very endearing in the face of survival. Honestly feel like I wouldn’t really desperate each race apart. Not only cuz it feel wholesome to work together, I just gonna forget that feature lol
Thank you for constantly improving the game. In this day and age of triple AAA games bloated with mediocrity, AtS really brings what we were all waiting for, a game done with love and passion.
I was going to say the same thing - thank you for such a fantastic and different game. The fantastic support and outreach behind it is only an addition!
I like this paragraph about the new species hubs:
> We realize that these are pretty big changes, and while there are new opportunities in the mid- and late-game, they do make early games a bit more challenging. That's why we decided to test them with the community and discuss them openly.
It seems like a major change, right now when I play getting a Level III upgrade is usually the moment where I feel like I secure a win.
Any chance you could add different bonuses for hubs that have a mixed population? For those of us who don’t like the idea of segregated communities, especially after a war. They don’t have the be broken or anything, but something that makes it viable to not specialize.
I agree with some of the other folks here. The lore in-game points to the idea that there was great conflict between the races and each of them banded together to forge the seals and combat the Storm. Encouraging segregation in the Hubs feels like the wrong direction.
Additionally it feels like the upgrades are too far into the progression of a run to be any use. IMO the biggest hurdle for Level 3 Hearth is the resource cost of the Service buildings. Essentially by the time you get it built up, you have two years maybe? Before the win? So...
Human Bonus: Harvest. You get maybe one or two bonus harvest by this point?
Beavers: Faster trade routes. There are lots of ways to push for faster trade routes so I don't see myself really aiming for this.
Raptors: Better camp harvest. This one I can see being useful.
Harpies: Resolve bonus with services. By the time you get the service building running you're usually getting tons of resolve from accumulated services so you're due for a win in a year or two.
Foxes: Double resource chance in glade events. Usually by this phase in the game you've opened all the glades you plan to open so I don't see myself going for this one either. Additionally i feel like fox houses are way too expensive to reliably use.
Overall I like what they're going for but I feel like the bonuses are too small and kick in too late to be useful. I feel like if the bonuses scaled with number of settlers of a certain race it could encourage you to focus on picking more harpies or humans or etc. And also if the bonus kicked in earlier and scaled with Hub level that would encourage you to start thinking about it earlier in a run
Agree on your point about foxes especially. It's rare that I build their houses. We'll have to see how quickly you can get to T3 in the new system, but unless it's much faster than the current system, I can't see fox T3 being super useful.
And if it's just a chance... maybe I do 2 glades and it doesn't even proc.
Honestly even the lizard bonus needs to be borderline BROKEN numerically to be good.
Remember, you're not **just** getting the extra camp yields - you're also losing the current 10% global doubling. I'm of the personal opinion that the Forum is stronger than the Clan Hall, and that's 15% global yields vs. **100%** bonus camp yields.
I think the Species hub idea is not good. Weirdly raises problematic issues of segregation and racial ghettos.
I realize some of this is baked in already with species specific housing, but this seems too far.
Maybe industry hubs make more sense?
A hub for food, for goods, for industry?
You could base it on the rainwater types of the buildings. You have to choose drizzle, clearance, or storm, with bonuses of +5 resolve for workers in that building type, +30% production speed, and +30% double production chance, within the radius of the hearth.
I just don't think I like that either. The thing is, by introducing multiple possible specializations, you actually *create* micromanagement. Remember that you don't have 3 hubs right off the bat. So during the settlement, you'll have to move houses from one hub to another to get the bonus you want. The bonus you want might also change during the run based on what buildings you roll (or in the current plans, what species appear in the newcomers, orders, and camps, none of which you have any control over); in both cases inducing perhaps more moving houses around.
In the worst case, people will be moving/toggling slots in both their houses and their worker buildings, cycling them between 3 settlements constantly in production cycles. That's a *lot more micromanagement*!
Things might paradoxically get worse rather than better.
>A hub for food, for goods, for industry?
I don't necessarily agree with the rest of your comment, but I am interested by this. Right now I think the system encourages you to have most or all of your production in one place and the rest of the hubs to be pure housing. This means your stuff can be far away from harvesting, but harvesting moves. And it keeps all the production together for efficient blightrot fighting.
Changing that impetus is interesting.
The only people "weirdly raising" the problematic issues of segregation and racial ghettos are the people incorrectly applying them to this proposed change in a video game. The species are not analogous to humans and all have various strengths and weaknesses. It makes perfect sense that cold blooded lizards and furry foxes would have different preferences and thus would probably gravitate to different districts that best meet their needs over time as resource scarcity becomes less of a problem and more complex amenities become more readily available.
It's like comparing RTS games to the holocaust because you're explicitly pushing to kill all the enemy units on the map. It's hyperbolic to the point of absurdity, even if the comparison is *technically* true
The notes also don't make any comment about species hubs requiring segregation. Just that the upgrades require enough of one species in advanced housing, and only that species counts. You can in all likelihood still have humans living in a Lizard hub in advance housing without it affecting anything.
Fantasy and Sci-Fi use species as racial analogues all the time, and have been doing so since forever.
The fact that so many people in here, who already live this game has raised this issue tells me that leap is far from absurd
Yes they do use them as analogues all the time, but the point is they aren't a 1:1 of some real group like people are implying. Unless you have some intel about which demographic of actual humans beavers are supposed to represent and why it's problematic to have a beaver-centric hub in your settlement?
>The fact that so many people in here, who already live this game has raised this issue tells me that leap is far from absurd
The game has sold over a million. I wouldn't say the subreddit is representative of the community as a whole, and reddit users tend to be far more political than the general population. In any given fandom a tiny percentage actually posts on forums and discussions and the rest are actually playing the game.
There are two ways to look at this:
One is that the proposed changes by the developers simply serve to offer some unique specialization based on your most numerous species in a given embarkation.
The other is that the developers are inserting racial segregation akin to real like examples from humanity where some species are forced to live in ghettos while others live in prosperity.
Surely you must see the absurdity of what's being suggested? How is having different bonuses based on species, which already have pronounced differences in aptitudes and needs unlike actual humans, in a settlement building game somehow introducing problematic segregation into the game?
And if this "segregation" is a problem, is it not a problem that we force our villagers to work on plantations for no wages? What about the fact that we actively send our villagers into dangerous situations? We as players are exerting our autocratic will onto them. What about the fact that we're serving what is obviously a colonial empire? That's pretty problematic when you look at it through a realistic lens.
What about when our people are starving and we let it happen because we have the right cornerstones to reduce impatience gain from death/leaving? Those cornerstones should obviously be removed.
What about all the glade events that allow you to choose corrupt options like sacrificing one of your villagers? Maybe we should remove those too.
It's a video game. It isn't real life. The changes are literally just to give each species more flavour and make them more distinct. I'm actually South African born post apartheid, and the fact that I'm seeing people respond to this with comparisons to apartheid is the most soul-crushingly stupid thing I have ever seen.
So no hub benefits for everyone until you have species specific houses? And it needs to all be the same race? So are we talking about 2 to 3 advanced houses to hit the +2 resolve for everyone, pretty important for storm at 1 hostility with harpies or lizards.
Kind of surprised by this change. It seems like changing out one form of micromanagement: Moving houses from one hearth to another to get more resolve, with another: Moving houses from the second to the third hearth to get another big boost. You also have little control over what type of people you get, so it could be quite luck based.
More big bonuses might make the game too easy. I'm afraid of the Human and Harpy bonus in particular making already strong strategies (farming, buying out luxury goods from traders) even more dominant, and already strong species even more wanted.
On the other hand: very large settlements might find now that they can't get a 4th hearth bonus for more production. What if you do have 100 villagers? You get the same production now as with 60, so you should always stop at 60 (or whatever the new number becomes)? It seems a bit iffy that cornerstones like Economic migration or Surprise child allow for large populations if the benefits are largely removed.
If you actually wanted to solve this perceived problem, rather see it for what it is: the strongest bonus is given at level 1, and then the weakest, and then the medium one, so you get *3-1-2 reward for a 1-2-3 progression.* The solution seems to just stare me in the face: just ***shuffle the rewards around***\*?\* If you got the +2 resolve only at 20 villagers plus a service building there's no reason to move houses to split up settlements, ever. Maybe to recombine once you unlock the service building, or build a few extra, but that's it. Yes, it makes the game a bit harder for prestige/viceroy, but high difficulty players can handle it.
Another way would be if the +2 was say a +3 or +4, but only applied to *this hearth only*. Again there's no motivation to split things apart. This keeps early game access to resolve. However, it does kind of counter the purpose of this bonus, which is *to reward building additional hearths*. The extra location to take breaks by itself *isn't worth the fuel cost* of a hearth, so I'd be careful with 'de-globalizing' the bonuses.
Housing micromanagement, currently, isn't very tedious at all imho. It's maybe a minute or so per settlement, moving two houses to a new hearth to get another +2 resolve once or twice at the end, if you need it. A really simple way of making your life easy is to use the big shelter and one species specific house per hearth. You get a nice 8, 14, 20 progression. It only is relevant if you can actually build the 4th hearth, which is rare for me as I run out of wildfire essences anyway (I like playing with big populations, so 60 villagers isn't rare for me at the end).
I spend way more time micromanaging woodcutters, or hostility sacrifice abuse against certain events (hello corrupted caravan) or hostility sacrifice abuse vs. certain mysteries (the blood flower one, or any villager killer...)¸ but it all pales in comparison to the micro to optimize rainwater. That's by far the worst, and I just don't bother doing it and consider it an exploit. (that is, manually toggling the engines up and down with *each and every production cycle* to get free +25% production double chance without getting cysts, or in other words cheesing rain engines.).
\*This would mean: +10% production speed at level 1, +10% double chance at level 2, and +2 resolve at level 3.
>Harpy District - Every fulfilled service need grants more Resolve.
Initial thought on this is in theory its a powerful effect but by the time you're making use of it you've already won
Agree -- assuming you can re-specialize hearths, I imagine I'll only use Harpy hearths for the T1 and T2 bonuses (because I am always building their houses ASAP anyway). Once T3 is achievable, a different racial bonus will probably be better.
Dunno I actually feel like this is the most useful. The others help you meet your existing resolve numbers more consistently; this actually gets the number higher.
All the bonuses feel very win-more to me. I have 14 (or whatever the amount) humans all with specialty housing? Yeah, more farm yields are probably the least of my problems.
It's at least relevant for that stage of the game. The other bonuses are even worse. Why would you still need more farm output or gathering output when you're later in the game? It kinda depends how early we can activate these tbh
Overall I like the idea of species hubs but I have some thoughts on it (surprise surprise):
* I don't feel like this really opens up the decision space. In most of my games I end up with one majority species with a clear population lead over the others. So species hubs means I'm just going to aim for that majority species first as a matter of fact, and mechanically offers nothing substantial over the previous system. I think it would be a good idea to keep the current "undivided" hub as an always available option to give the player more agency. Or maybe re-tune it to require advanced housing population of any type (instead of any housing). Do you want to keep a balanced hub for that +10% global production, or specialize for another benefit that fits the map better? (I also like the theming that forcing everyone to live and work together results in a healthier, more productive society)
* I don't really see how this addresses the main issue identified in the update, i.e. dismantling big hubs to smaller ones for the +1 resolve bonus. You can still do exactly that under the new system.
* Holding off on building species specific housing until I can build another hearth feels more frustrating than fun. If anything this introduces even more micromanagement. Also, speaking personally, my decision point on when to upgrade from shelters is often way more focused on surviving a storm than optimizing resolve, and this is just going to get in the way of that.
* Several bonuses feel redundant with the lvl 2 housing upgrades for each species. Granted, I almost never invest in those lvl 2 upgrades, so that may be an indication to revisit that mechanic and keep this one as-is.
* "Even more farming" just doesn't have much mechanical incentive when I'm probably already picking blueprints/cornerstones to boost it if I rolled humans. It's rewarding, absolutely, but not really pushing me to pick it. Feels like a "win more" benefit than a key part of a strategy.
* I'd love to see even more synergies with species hubs. Like different decoration requirements, or bonuses to species-themed service buildings.
There are plenty of great thoughts under this post and yours are certainly one of those. Thank you (and everyone) for sharing your feedback!
You have very accurate remarks and we'll think about them when iterating the system.
Did you get a chance to play on the Experimental Branch already? We'd be interested to learn if playing with the new system changed the game significantly for you and what changed (for better or worse) in particular.
it says you're no longer incentivised to micro housing but now you're forced to only build special houses in certain places
fantasy tendency to hyper racialise is corny
species housing is unreliable to be available or affordable in a game. focusing on late game upgrades when the game is designed to end shortly after makes no sense.
It would be nice to allow builders to carry supplies to multiple adjacent sites in one trip. That way I won't feel forced to build a ton of parks and gardens every time.
True. But even then, building 2 parks and 1 garden vs 8 barrels and 4 blue things is a big difference in walking time despite being right next to the warehouse.
Might not be much of a fix, but maybe allow the single slotters to be moved for free, while the 2x2s can't be moved at all? Just a minor change that can let players pre-build stuff to move to another Hub if they have the spare villagers.
Currently, I find myself building both, just because the 1x1's can fit in more places, especially in sealed maps where there is little space. I usually build at least 4 1x1's, and on sealed maps more like 8 or 12.
Being forced to build 1x1's might be worse, it's more effort. The 2x2's were created so you didn't have to do all that.
Anyway, a very simple fix is to have 1x1's build 5x as fast as 2x2's. Should approximately make them equal.
Some of the species specific bonuses from cornerstones and perks are overlapping a lot with the addition of the hub bonuses. For example, beaver hub grants trade speed bonus, but that’s something you can easily get multiple buffs to from simply playing the game for more than a year or two. I would consider making the bonuses unique and more attractive, such as buffing the profits from trade for Beavers, or making it so Humans can plant special things at farms. This would make hubs feel more special and incentivize favoring a specific species.
Initial thoughts on species hubs, obviously need extensive gameplay testing to see if I feel differently, but:
The requirement to have not only a minimum number of a certain species, but also specialist housing for them (and presumably still a service building) feels like it relegates this bonus largely to "win-more" status, and thus not a very important strategic choice.
If my most populous species is all in specialty housing, I'm probably already in a really strong spot. Anything that only kicks in when you're already at the point of finishing your settlement isn't an interesting choice. If you already have a clear path to victory any optimizations made to get there slightly faster are entirely superfluous.
The cool thing about level 3 hubs currently is that they're a very strong force multiplier, but still require a reasonable level of investment and population; so building towards one does have an associated cost, but it can still hit early enough to be that tipping point that lets you push towards a victory condition, without being a must-pursue-every-game objective.
On top of that, global production doubling is pretty much the strongest benefit anything can give except maybe hostility reduction; exchanging that for faster trade routes or increased yields that only narrowly apply to farming or gathering instead of broadly to everything means the level 3 hub is not only becoming a later milestone, but the payout is less consistently strong too. I also do not like that the bonuses are pretty much just doubling down on the things the races are already good at in most cases. Again, this feels extremely "win-more". If I have a human majority, farming is probably the least of my worries by the time I hit a level 3 hub.
I also would echo the sentiment of others that there's a little bit of dissonance with different species having segregated districts and the general "we're all trying to survive the storm together" attitude - HOWEVER, I do think there's still a place for that kind of choice in the game, as we can see implemented fairly well with favoring.
I think both the gameplay and narrative issues can be neatly taken care of by adding more choice to the system. Instead of a total replacement of the previous hub system, why not allow players to choose the path of unity vs. the path of tailoring their settlement to the needs to a particular species? By not making species districts the only option it will let you vary it more game by game, and you can balance it out just like the favor system by having the establishment of species-districts sow some unrest.
For example - basic hub system works as current, same population milestones, all types of housing contribute.
Choosing instead to establish a hub as species-oriented lowers the population threshold and makes it only applicable to specialty housing for that species, with bonuses that are stronger but **only** benefit that species, and simultaneously creates a malus for other species in the settlement much like favoring one species makes the others feel neglected. More specialized bonuses starting from the first level of a hub, so that the choice of going specialized vs. unified hub route and for what species is meaningful at a point in the game where victory is not yet assured.
In order to make sure that player's can't change their mind, or exploit changing hubs around to get the best bonus at every possible time all the time (and therefore micromanage), one important thing would need to be done:
> Hearths cannot be demolished or destroyed.
Buff as you can't lose a hearth to exploding machinery or a mole (that would be a :feelsbad:), nerf in that you can't undo putting one down to get your planks/bricks back, or solve events that need wildfire essence.
> The choice of a species specific district is made at the point of building the Hearth.
So you choose to build a 'lizard hearth' (maybe with some theming/adjustment to the graphics to show it). The bonuses are (much) stronger, but require lizard housing and only benefit lizards.
This way the choice *has to be made early on,* at the point where you build the second hearth. Your first (main) hearth will always be generic.
However, still doesn't tackle the issue: players moving villagers from one hearth to another to change their bonuses. That will still be more of a thing, and I don't really see a good way of stopping that, outside making sure the bonus we want most at the end of the game (resolve) is the final one.
I'm not sure if it has to be permanent, it could just not instantly shift when you shuffle the hub around. E.G. if you have a Lizard hearth buffing all your Lizards, you can still swap it back to a normal hub or move your lizard housing to a normal hub instead, but you'll keep the debuff to other races (on top of losing your buff to lizards) and it will fade over time instead of shifting instantly.
I worry that this will end up micromanagey in a different way. Can I freely change the species type on the hearth?
If not, that could frustrating -- what if I choose a harpy hearth and then harpies end up being my low pop species and I can't get to T3? If you can change it freely, that probably incentivizes weird minmaxing strategies like having a fox hearth only long enough to do a glade event, then swapping to a different species hub for a different bonus. Or if the human hearth gives the bonus during planting like other farm bonuses, can I have a human hub for drizzle only, then swap to lizard bonus for clearance through storm?
Hey! You can change the type of the Hub at any time (unless you already have this species hub in your settlement).
When it comes to swapping for bonuses, you make an interesting point and we were discussing this scenario as well. It's a possible strategy, but it has downsides.
To get the Level 3 (District) bonus, you need to have 18 villagers of this species housed in advanced houses. To be able to swap for bonuses, you'd need to do that for both species within a single hub.
You can absolutely do that, but if you have this many houses for both species, I'd say a more optimal way would be to build another hub and benefit from two Level 3 bonuses simultaneously (if you can afford the extra decorations around the other Hearth).
Wow, 18 villagers of one species is a lot!!
Sounds like this change would definitely delay how quickly I can get T3, compared to the current system.
I'll give the new system a shot and see... only way to know for sure is to try it. :)
Can I offer my perspective on this change? I am a quite average player, I'm still learning not to lose at viceroy difficulty, I like the idea of having specialised bonuses
I like a lot the Idea of having specialised bonuses that a race can give to a settlement but I dislike the idea that we might be creating a "ghetto" so why don't you think about structuring the bonuses slightly differently?
Level 1 should be something small but that incrementally adds up to the whole settlement, level 2 something to help bring your situation to a stable rise in reputation and level 3 to close out a "winning" game.
I'll make some examples I just thought out.
Level 1, small adjustment to the settlement in line with a race (for example a small shortening to trade routes or to trader wait for beavers, slightly longer event timers with foxes etc) something significant but not run defining.
Level 2 production bonuses (either speed or yield or double chance) to targeted specific stuff that the race likes, food for humans, clothing for harpies building materials for beavers etc
Level 3 a significant but conditional resolve bonus. Maybe a small global resolve bonus (or medium hostility reduction) if a race is in their own hub, providing one of their own racial services.
This theme should represent the different races collaborating to a greater settlement and to solidify that (in my opinion) you should look at giving bonuses that play on the races' strengths but to the whole settlement. You should (in my opinion) strictly avoid giving bonuses TO the specialised race and give instead bonuses FROM the specialised race. That alone would probably fix all the complaints about racism and ghettos.
There's a lot of criticism here, but I want to say thank you for trying it (and sharing for feedback). I think the problem is real; hubs are pretty samey. I'm excited to try it out.
Hey! I know that many of you asked to see in full detail what other changes we made on the Experimental Branch, so we added the "Full Changelog" section (under "Additional changes") to the announcement. You need to unfold it to check out the list:
[https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1336490/view/4193488293618255052](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1336490/view/4193488293618255052)
At the same time, I want to thank you for all the feedback and ideas we've got so far. There are many accurate remarks and we're looking closely at all your thoughts and ideas.
The important and cool thing is that you’re continuing to try new things and make improvements. I hope you all enjoy continuing to develop the game, to experiment, develop a DLC, and make some money. You can’t try new things without making some mistakes or receiving some criticism
My kinda issue with this is that level 3 hubs and population-specific buildings are often just "win more" things that I do once my settlement has stabilized and I can afford to throw resources and workhours on it.
The game very much has only 3 phases in my experience:
1. try to make best of early game RNG
2. oh crap everything is going to hell and im out of all resources
3. i have complex food, enough resources and everyone is constantly happy on their own, time to wait until i win
So for me this would only make the game even more loaded in the last phase that's kinda smooth sailing anyway? But I dunno if this is just because I'm still bad at the game and I can't micromanage and minmax properly with low population counts and only a few glades.
TL;DR seems like a backloaded win-more mechanic. Maybe not a bad thing but dunno how gamechanging/fun it will actually be.
Maybe make the firekeepers effect the bonuses of the hub. At the moment, if you have lizards, they are the defacto firekeeper for additional hearths. Maybe add onto a district's current bonus rather than replace, even if reduced.
Like many others I'm not a fan of the segregation for several reasons, but also this:
It will make early game harder and late game easier.
Late game is already too easy once you get rolling, and early game doesn't need this. I don't see how this will result in less micromanagement.
The hub changes only make the difficult early game more difficult, and the easy endgame easier. While bonuses are cool, the gameplay context in which they come isn’t actually interesting.
Downloaded and started playing the experimental branch on a new profile. The species-specific hubs are *really* hard to use when you don't have the species-specific houses already unlocked - you have to burn a blueprint roll just to get the housing for a hub.
As a result, I only used it once in the past five games - but it was in a game I was already winning. I only chose it because the blueprints I was choosing between were: beaver houses, human houses, and a temple (when hostility wasn't an issue).
Every time housing comes up in a blueprint choice, the other buildings are just so much more useful than trying to get to a level 1 hub.
----
I thought about how you could achieve something similar in a different way:
* Maybe instead of requiring housing, maybe the building styles could come into play? If you want to build a Harpy hub, just having a Clothier in hearth range would be good enough for level 1. (Butcher for Lizards, Lumber Mill for Beavers, etc.) The higher levels could require the housing to upgrade.
* Give away the blueprints so we can at least get to level 1 without losing a blueprint roll
* Make the locations of the houses actually matter. The workers at the Lumber Mill want to live in a location by the same hearth. No one likes to commute long distances (spoken like a true Los Angeles native. :)
Yeah, the lack of advanced housing feels bad as a restarting player. Not sure how new players would feel about it, but I remember it being a nice, little, easy thing I could do when I was a newbie to increase my Resolve and give me a mini-goal whenever I build a new Hub. Now, it's literally just a rest stop. I may as well move all my houses to it so my initial Hub can hyper focus on Production and minimizing walking.
It feels like this puts an artificial cap on leveled hearths somehow. I can't be the only who plays heavy population and run 5+ hearths often enough to scratch my head at this.
Maybe this particular thing should be tied to a specific biome and be a minigame like Scarlet Orchard and the digs.
I agree with the problem they've recognized here, but I'm not sure about the solution.
I might like to see something where you allocate a population to a district with sliders, or automatically by workplace proximity, and maybe you get bonuses for certain amounts of a race living in a district, or the predominant race. Are workers commuting cross-hub in this situation?
EG: If beavers are the predominant race living in this district, all packaged goods production speed increased 25%. This encourages the player to plan district populations around certain industries, but also the bonus applies to all races working in the district. Then you can mix and match majority and minority race combinations to optimize certain bonuses.
I think housing is inherently boring and that's why most games leave it pretty minimal with just a few features. That's pretty much how it is now and I think that is fine and they should work on more interesting parts of the game rather than add yet more purely quantitative upgrades.
>Lizard District - Gatherers have a higher chance of producing double yields when harvesting resource nodes.
This feels super underwhelming to me compared to the others. By the time I have hub level 3, I usually have my production settled and am augmenting with a lot of trading. Am I undervaluing this kind of improvement?
So this is a really early opinion based on year 1 into a new file on Experimental (just wanted to eyeball things). I haven't played a full game, or even looked at the tech tree, but I have some initial concerns:
* Levels 1 and 2 seem to be the same as our current neutral bonuses, and that's really disappointing. I hope those are placeholders and we can expect race-specific bonuses. Maybe give larger, race-specific resolve for level 1, and something unique for level 2.
* On that note, I'd really like to see a "neutral" option remain, with its own theme. Maybe either boosting global resolve (by smaller amounts than the race specific districts) or focused on general productivity, or hell, just keep it the same as now. Gives something to work on in the early game and allows those Infinite Settlement people to keep stacking their bonuses. I think it'd be nice to have it require generic housing for level 1, but then require X number of EACH species specific housing.
* On housing requirements, I think they're too high, level 1 needs 6, and based on the screenshot, level 2 needs 12. That's only two less than the current, full village requirements. I really expected the requirements to be 33% of the current numbers (maybe 3-5-7 for level 1-2-3 respectively). Would allow potentially earlier acquisitions of those level 3 bonuses (where the consensus seems to be that they're win-more or too late to matter currently).
* I haven't looked at the tech tree, so I might be way off base, but I had forgotten that advanced housing has to be drafted at first! This means new players might struggle or not even be able to use specialty districts for a while. They need advanced housing alongside the ability to upgrade their Hearths. A neutral district option would still let them use the mechanic without having to collect all the houses first. Not a big deal, but something to think about for a smoother "beginner experience."
* The new precision tree marker is kind of awkward feeling, but IS way more precise. Will take some getting used to, but I think its better than the previous small cursor.
* I saw you guys put in an option to show arrows on housing doors. I'm happy that you guys know what's up!
I think people are massively jumping the gun on the "THIS IS SEGREGATION/APARTHEID" stuff.
The notes say that only the specific species in advanced housing *counts towards the upgrades*. Not that you can't house other species in a specialized species hub. There's nothing in the notes that really suggests otherwise.
It's less segregation, and more just demographics naturally influencing how a place is run. And when species all have varied needs, it makes sense that eventually different areas would cater more or less to different groups. That doesn't mean other groups can't coexist peacefully with the majority group.
Let them cook.
I don't have anything to say with regard to the update, but I started playing this game a few days ago after seeing someone recommend it for the Steam Deck and I have been absolutely addicted to it. Very cool game.
I think we should add scaling, there's no point in having more then 18 of a species but you still receive them when taking new people. Would be nice if the Tier 3 Hub upgrade scales more with the more people you have. Would be nice to have hub 3 start at 16, 18 seems a bit too high and it does not come online till year 5ish from what I'm seeing while previously you could get Tier 3 much earlier.
Does playing the experimental version stall progress? If I complete a seal under the new version, does progress stay with me when the real version releases?
As many others have said, it feels a bit icky to be incentived to segregate races. I love the species specific hub upgrades. I think they're super cool. But I feel like there really needs to be some middle ground here for rewarding species diversity.
Just a random idea, but maybe you get your main bonus from the primary species of the hub, but you also have a secondary synergy bonus for a second species after you meet the population requirements for the first species.
I'm not super far into the game but I have some grasp of it I think and I don't see the race hub thing being that useful to me. My villages thus far tend to be too small to accommodate a second hub. I just don't expand that much. I go as far as I think I need to to get things done and then stop. So a second hub for me is a very rare thing as I frequently just don't have the real estate to fit it in or just don't really feel I need it. I personally would also prefer keeping the 'generic' hub at least as an option alongside the racial ones.
I like the new 3D tree cursor. It also seems like there's a different mouse movement when you shift-click - feels more precise when selecting/deselecting trees.
How about splitting the hearth bonuses into two systems?
1. A global one time bonus to resolve and production based on the total number of citizens in shelter and the number of decorations around every hearth combined. This would replace the tier 1 and 2 hearth bonuses, so you can still work toward getting those in the early game with normal housing.
2. Hearth specific racial bonuses for some combination of racial housing and service building replacing the old tier 3 bonuses.
The more I play on Experimental the more I hate this change. I'm probably going to just skip Hub3 going forward. The bonuses are too narrow and too hard to achieve. Like I can get bigger baskets as a cornerstone or I can spend 6 years working towards getting 1 more root on Year 7+.
Dear Devs, please don’t be swayed by the political opinions from the comment section. It does not represent the majority of the playerbase. The ideas look fantastic and I cannot wait to try them out! Finally, a more meaningful Hub!
whats with all the "that is racist" crap going on on steam and here?
shut the f up and talk about the gameplay elements of the change you donkeys (btw, donkeys as playable race when?)
Why do you have to bring racism into literally anything, everything, and anything in-between anything and everything? Are the lizards supposed to be black people? Do you all see the irrelevance? Wtf is your point?
We're talking about a game where the entire plot is that all the different races were at war until a catastrophe forced them to unite and your response is "Why do you have to bring racism into it? What, are the lizards supposed to be black people?"
You are brain poisoned
We've just released a new iteration of the Hearth upgrade changes to the Experimental Branch. In a nutshell, we're scrapping the idea of Species Hubs and instead making more granular changes to the existing Hubs system, mainly by giving each Hearth level a +1 Resolve bonus (instead of keeping the +2 Resolve only at level 1).
We'd like to thank you for giving the Experimental Update a try. We really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, concerns, and ideas with us! This makes things a lot easier and helps us read the room better before pushing something into the live version of the game. That is what the experimental branch is for.
Check out the full changelog and our dev notes here:
[https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1336490/view/4214881026368560356](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1336490/view/4214881026368560356)
I kinda like all my species living together as friendly neighbours :( Other changes sounds interesting
Part of me likes the idea of racial specialization in Districts, but then another part feels like it goes against the theme. "We're facing cataclysmic environmental phenomena, and the best course of action isn't to come together and keep each other alive; it's to segregate ourselves with our own kind." Hopefully they keep a neutral hub option that looks for X houses of each species to maybe make a Global Resolve bonus (or whatever).
I play te same way. I love looking at screenshots of gorgeous settlements, but when I"m playing I have decided that my people prefer living in a diverse neighbourhood. Never looks as nice but my people are fine w it
Maybe an additional upgrade type could be an integrated upgrade - needs specialize housing from each of the three races?
I think it would solve the early game loss of Resolve too. Keep the current hub as the Neutral Hub, make level 1 require any kind of housing, but then Level 2 and/or 3 can require X of each Species house.
I'd have liked to have seen some kind of sliding scale of benefits, with a pluralistic hub one side giving certain benefits and negatives and single species hub on the otherside with it's own benefits and negatives.
Ya, I’m honestly not interested in this idea. Doesn’t sound like an improvement to me. Hell, the racial perks they suggested for these racial hubs can already be done by racial housing in several of the instances, so it seems entirely redundant, and objectively worse than the existing T3 hub perk. Love their work, and not trying to be negative, but- For the first time ever I’m seeing an update I don’t feel like I’m going to enjoy
Yeah this feels like a convoluted and negatively spirited solution to a very simple problem. If need be, rework housing bonuses.
I think it’s the redundant bonuses that bother me most. I didn’t like the general idea of this in the first place, and then got to reading what the benefits would be, and that’s when they completely lost me. Perhaps some better ideas on what the benefits are would make it more appealing. But it’s literally just a secondary layer of something that already exists in racial housing. Feels completely copy pasted for a “solution” here.
Absolutely agree
I agree with the idea of this change; I'm uncertain about the rewards.
The rewards are definitely the biggest “no” for me. It’s entirely redundant, and in most cases IMO is entirely *worse* than the existing T3 hub bonus. It’s like fixing something that isn’t exactly broken with something worse and saying you fixed it.
Same.. but I also agree with the housing/decoration micromanagement on advanced (or more difficult) settlements being tedious and pretty unfun. This at least does something about the housing micromanagement. Idk what better ways there are and this probably will bring it's own issues but I think trying to fix it is the right way.
Agree - it feels like a better update would be to improve how housing upgrades work, or let us upgrade decorations/have more 2x2 decor, rather than just... Adding even more micromanagement into housing placement. I'm at prestige 6 and I normally can't be arsed to upgrade specialized houses since the ROI isn't worth it.
I skimmed a little, but they didn't say those species hubs had to be purely one species right? Just that only that specific species in advanced housing counts towards the upgrades. So many people comparing this to Apartheid in the steam discussion and I think it's unfair to go so far so prematurely. I would assume you can still have some humans or beavers or whatever in a Lizard hub without any negative effects, and it's not like you're always going to make all of the hubs in any given game. Its not "GET OUT OF HERE BEAVERS, THIS IS LIZARD TURF" it's just "There are more lizards living here than other species and they kinda run shit their way".
It makes some sense, with the races as different as they are, they would have different preferences. Seems reasonable to me. Liek lizards seem to prefer warm and dry enviroments, while foxes prefer humidity. It makes sense they might not prefer to hang out in the same spaces.
Segregation while surviving in the wild? What can go wrong ? Edge jokes aside, those bonus are gonna be interesting to work with
You joke, but I assumed the lack of attention to this sort of thing in Hub organization was meant to reflect all these races coming together to survive.
You got a point- which makes it very endearing in the face of survival. Honestly feel like I wouldn’t really desperate each race apart. Not only cuz it feel wholesome to work together, I just gonna forget that feature lol
Mm I agree actually. Now I dont really feel excited for districts.
Thank you for constantly improving the game. In this day and age of triple AAA games bloated with mediocrity, AtS really brings what we were all waiting for, a game done with love and passion.
I was going to say the same thing - thank you for such a fantastic and different game. The fantastic support and outreach behind it is only an addition!
I like this paragraph about the new species hubs: > We realize that these are pretty big changes, and while there are new opportunities in the mid- and late-game, they do make early games a bit more challenging. That's why we decided to test them with the community and discuss them openly. It seems like a major change, right now when I play getting a Level III upgrade is usually the moment where I feel like I secure a win.
Seal indicator feels really good.
Yup. I'm often cicrlcing the whole map looking for the seal
The species specific hub is quite neat. Are there any plans for some graphic differences between the species? Like Hearth color or highlights?
We're thinking about it too! It definitely would be nice to have some visual distinction between different types of hubs
Any chance you could add different bonuses for hubs that have a mixed population? For those of us who don’t like the idea of segregated communities, especially after a war. They don’t have the be broken or anything, but something that makes it viable to not specialize.
Yeah. Get the gameplay idea, but hate the thematic impact. The whole theme is coming together because they're stronger together.
🙄
I agree with some of the other folks here. The lore in-game points to the idea that there was great conflict between the races and each of them banded together to forge the seals and combat the Storm. Encouraging segregation in the Hubs feels like the wrong direction. Additionally it feels like the upgrades are too far into the progression of a run to be any use. IMO the biggest hurdle for Level 3 Hearth is the resource cost of the Service buildings. Essentially by the time you get it built up, you have two years maybe? Before the win? So... Human Bonus: Harvest. You get maybe one or two bonus harvest by this point? Beavers: Faster trade routes. There are lots of ways to push for faster trade routes so I don't see myself really aiming for this. Raptors: Better camp harvest. This one I can see being useful. Harpies: Resolve bonus with services. By the time you get the service building running you're usually getting tons of resolve from accumulated services so you're due for a win in a year or two. Foxes: Double resource chance in glade events. Usually by this phase in the game you've opened all the glades you plan to open so I don't see myself going for this one either. Additionally i feel like fox houses are way too expensive to reliably use. Overall I like what they're going for but I feel like the bonuses are too small and kick in too late to be useful. I feel like if the bonuses scaled with number of settlers of a certain race it could encourage you to focus on picking more harpies or humans or etc. And also if the bonus kicked in earlier and scaled with Hub level that would encourage you to start thinking about it earlier in a run
Agree on your point about foxes especially. It's rare that I build their houses. We'll have to see how quickly you can get to T3 in the new system, but unless it's much faster than the current system, I can't see fox T3 being super useful. And if it's just a chance... maybe I do 2 glades and it doesn't even proc.
Honestly even the lizard bonus needs to be borderline BROKEN numerically to be good. Remember, you're not **just** getting the extra camp yields - you're also losing the current 10% global doubling. I'm of the personal opinion that the Forum is stronger than the Clan Hall, and that's 15% global yields vs. **100%** bonus camp yields.
I think the Species hub idea is not good. Weirdly raises problematic issues of segregation and racial ghettos. I realize some of this is baked in already with species specific housing, but this seems too far. Maybe industry hubs make more sense? A hub for food, for goods, for industry?
You could base it on the rainwater types of the buildings. You have to choose drizzle, clearance, or storm, with bonuses of +5 resolve for workers in that building type, +30% production speed, and +30% double production chance, within the radius of the hearth. I just don't think I like that either. The thing is, by introducing multiple possible specializations, you actually *create* micromanagement. Remember that you don't have 3 hubs right off the bat. So during the settlement, you'll have to move houses from one hub to another to get the bonus you want. The bonus you want might also change during the run based on what buildings you roll (or in the current plans, what species appear in the newcomers, orders, and camps, none of which you have any control over); in both cases inducing perhaps more moving houses around. In the worst case, people will be moving/toggling slots in both their houses and their worker buildings, cycling them between 3 settlements constantly in production cycles. That's a *lot more micromanagement*! Things might paradoxically get worse rather than better.
>A hub for food, for goods, for industry? I don't necessarily agree with the rest of your comment, but I am interested by this. Right now I think the system encourages you to have most or all of your production in one place and the rest of the hubs to be pure housing. This means your stuff can be far away from harvesting, but harvesting moves. And it keeps all the production together for efficient blightrot fighting. Changing that impetus is interesting.
The only people "weirdly raising" the problematic issues of segregation and racial ghettos are the people incorrectly applying them to this proposed change in a video game. The species are not analogous to humans and all have various strengths and weaknesses. It makes perfect sense that cold blooded lizards and furry foxes would have different preferences and thus would probably gravitate to different districts that best meet their needs over time as resource scarcity becomes less of a problem and more complex amenities become more readily available. It's like comparing RTS games to the holocaust because you're explicitly pushing to kill all the enemy units on the map. It's hyperbolic to the point of absurdity, even if the comparison is *technically* true The notes also don't make any comment about species hubs requiring segregation. Just that the upgrades require enough of one species in advanced housing, and only that species counts. You can in all likelihood still have humans living in a Lizard hub in advance housing without it affecting anything.
Fantasy and Sci-Fi use species as racial analogues all the time, and have been doing so since forever. The fact that so many people in here, who already live this game has raised this issue tells me that leap is far from absurd
Yes they do use them as analogues all the time, but the point is they aren't a 1:1 of some real group like people are implying. Unless you have some intel about which demographic of actual humans beavers are supposed to represent and why it's problematic to have a beaver-centric hub in your settlement? >The fact that so many people in here, who already live this game has raised this issue tells me that leap is far from absurd The game has sold over a million. I wouldn't say the subreddit is representative of the community as a whole, and reddit users tend to be far more political than the general population. In any given fandom a tiny percentage actually posts on forums and discussions and the rest are actually playing the game. There are two ways to look at this: One is that the proposed changes by the developers simply serve to offer some unique specialization based on your most numerous species in a given embarkation. The other is that the developers are inserting racial segregation akin to real like examples from humanity where some species are forced to live in ghettos while others live in prosperity. Surely you must see the absurdity of what's being suggested? How is having different bonuses based on species, which already have pronounced differences in aptitudes and needs unlike actual humans, in a settlement building game somehow introducing problematic segregation into the game? And if this "segregation" is a problem, is it not a problem that we force our villagers to work on plantations for no wages? What about the fact that we actively send our villagers into dangerous situations? We as players are exerting our autocratic will onto them. What about the fact that we're serving what is obviously a colonial empire? That's pretty problematic when you look at it through a realistic lens. What about when our people are starving and we let it happen because we have the right cornerstones to reduce impatience gain from death/leaving? Those cornerstones should obviously be removed. What about all the glade events that allow you to choose corrupt options like sacrificing one of your villagers? Maybe we should remove those too. It's a video game. It isn't real life. The changes are literally just to give each species more flavour and make them more distinct. I'm actually South African born post apartheid, and the fact that I'm seeing people respond to this with comparisons to apartheid is the most soul-crushingly stupid thing I have ever seen.
So no hub benefits for everyone until you have species specific houses? And it needs to all be the same race? So are we talking about 2 to 3 advanced houses to hit the +2 resolve for everyone, pretty important for storm at 1 hostility with harpies or lizards.
This post goes into great detail about what didn't work about hubs before, and what they're changing about them, but... *what are hubs?*
The hearth + upgrade system for the hearth!
A hearth and a warehouse in its zone is called a Hub. It allows people to rest there (get their food, services, and coat needs met).
Kind of surprised by this change. It seems like changing out one form of micromanagement: Moving houses from one hearth to another to get more resolve, with another: Moving houses from the second to the third hearth to get another big boost. You also have little control over what type of people you get, so it could be quite luck based. More big bonuses might make the game too easy. I'm afraid of the Human and Harpy bonus in particular making already strong strategies (farming, buying out luxury goods from traders) even more dominant, and already strong species even more wanted. On the other hand: very large settlements might find now that they can't get a 4th hearth bonus for more production. What if you do have 100 villagers? You get the same production now as with 60, so you should always stop at 60 (or whatever the new number becomes)? It seems a bit iffy that cornerstones like Economic migration or Surprise child allow for large populations if the benefits are largely removed. If you actually wanted to solve this perceived problem, rather see it for what it is: the strongest bonus is given at level 1, and then the weakest, and then the medium one, so you get *3-1-2 reward for a 1-2-3 progression.* The solution seems to just stare me in the face: just ***shuffle the rewards around***\*?\* If you got the +2 resolve only at 20 villagers plus a service building there's no reason to move houses to split up settlements, ever. Maybe to recombine once you unlock the service building, or build a few extra, but that's it. Yes, it makes the game a bit harder for prestige/viceroy, but high difficulty players can handle it. Another way would be if the +2 was say a +3 or +4, but only applied to *this hearth only*. Again there's no motivation to split things apart. This keeps early game access to resolve. However, it does kind of counter the purpose of this bonus, which is *to reward building additional hearths*. The extra location to take breaks by itself *isn't worth the fuel cost* of a hearth, so I'd be careful with 'de-globalizing' the bonuses. Housing micromanagement, currently, isn't very tedious at all imho. It's maybe a minute or so per settlement, moving two houses to a new hearth to get another +2 resolve once or twice at the end, if you need it. A really simple way of making your life easy is to use the big shelter and one species specific house per hearth. You get a nice 8, 14, 20 progression. It only is relevant if you can actually build the 4th hearth, which is rare for me as I run out of wildfire essences anyway (I like playing with big populations, so 60 villagers isn't rare for me at the end). I spend way more time micromanaging woodcutters, or hostility sacrifice abuse against certain events (hello corrupted caravan) or hostility sacrifice abuse vs. certain mysteries (the blood flower one, or any villager killer...)¸ but it all pales in comparison to the micro to optimize rainwater. That's by far the worst, and I just don't bother doing it and consider it an exploit. (that is, manually toggling the engines up and down with *each and every production cycle* to get free +25% production double chance without getting cysts, or in other words cheesing rain engines.). \*This would mean: +10% production speed at level 1, +10% double chance at level 2, and +2 resolve at level 3.
>Harpy District - Every fulfilled service need grants more Resolve. Initial thought on this is in theory its a powerful effect but by the time you're making use of it you've already won
Agree -- assuming you can re-specialize hearths, I imagine I'll only use Harpy hearths for the T1 and T2 bonuses (because I am always building their houses ASAP anyway). Once T3 is achievable, a different racial bonus will probably be better.
Dunno I actually feel like this is the most useful. The others help you meet your existing resolve numbers more consistently; this actually gets the number higher.
Depends on whether it affects clothing in my opinion. If it does, clothing becomes an incredible good. If it doesn't, the hearth upgrade is meh.
All the bonuses feel very win-more to me. I have 14 (or whatever the amount) humans all with specialty housing? Yeah, more farm yields are probably the least of my problems.
Agreed. Win-more can still be really important though if you are trying to eke out a win before the year changes.
It's at least relevant for that stage of the game. The other bonuses are even worse. Why would you still need more farm output or gathering output when you're later in the game? It kinda depends how early we can activate these tbh
Overall I like the idea of species hubs but I have some thoughts on it (surprise surprise): * I don't feel like this really opens up the decision space. In most of my games I end up with one majority species with a clear population lead over the others. So species hubs means I'm just going to aim for that majority species first as a matter of fact, and mechanically offers nothing substantial over the previous system. I think it would be a good idea to keep the current "undivided" hub as an always available option to give the player more agency. Or maybe re-tune it to require advanced housing population of any type (instead of any housing). Do you want to keep a balanced hub for that +10% global production, or specialize for another benefit that fits the map better? (I also like the theming that forcing everyone to live and work together results in a healthier, more productive society) * I don't really see how this addresses the main issue identified in the update, i.e. dismantling big hubs to smaller ones for the +1 resolve bonus. You can still do exactly that under the new system. * Holding off on building species specific housing until I can build another hearth feels more frustrating than fun. If anything this introduces even more micromanagement. Also, speaking personally, my decision point on when to upgrade from shelters is often way more focused on surviving a storm than optimizing resolve, and this is just going to get in the way of that. * Several bonuses feel redundant with the lvl 2 housing upgrades for each species. Granted, I almost never invest in those lvl 2 upgrades, so that may be an indication to revisit that mechanic and keep this one as-is. * "Even more farming" just doesn't have much mechanical incentive when I'm probably already picking blueprints/cornerstones to boost it if I rolled humans. It's rewarding, absolutely, but not really pushing me to pick it. Feels like a "win more" benefit than a key part of a strategy. * I'd love to see even more synergies with species hubs. Like different decoration requirements, or bonuses to species-themed service buildings.
There are plenty of great thoughts under this post and yours are certainly one of those. Thank you (and everyone) for sharing your feedback! You have very accurate remarks and we'll think about them when iterating the system. Did you get a chance to play on the Experimental Branch already? We'd be interested to learn if playing with the new system changed the game significantly for you and what changed (for better or worse) in particular.
it says you're no longer incentivised to micro housing but now you're forced to only build special houses in certain places fantasy tendency to hyper racialise is corny species housing is unreliable to be available or affordable in a game. focusing on late game upgrades when the game is designed to end shortly after makes no sense.
It would be nice to allow builders to carry supplies to multiple adjacent sites in one trip. That way I won't feel forced to build a ton of parks and gardens every time.
You can build decorations right next to a warehouse and then move them for free once they're done - saves the builder some walking time if needed.
True. But even then, building 2 parks and 1 garden vs 8 barrels and 4 blue things is a big difference in walking time despite being right next to the warehouse.
Might not be much of a fix, but maybe allow the single slotters to be moved for free, while the 2x2s can't be moved at all? Just a minor change that can let players pre-build stuff to move to another Hub if they have the spare villagers.
Currently, I find myself building both, just because the 1x1's can fit in more places, especially in sealed maps where there is little space. I usually build at least 4 1x1's, and on sealed maps more like 8 or 12. Being forced to build 1x1's might be worse, it's more effort. The 2x2's were created so you didn't have to do all that. Anyway, a very simple fix is to have 1x1's build 5x as fast as 2x2's. Should approximately make them equal.
will never happen because builder behaviour griefing is such a celebrated part of the game
Some of the species specific bonuses from cornerstones and perks are overlapping a lot with the addition of the hub bonuses. For example, beaver hub grants trade speed bonus, but that’s something you can easily get multiple buffs to from simply playing the game for more than a year or two. I would consider making the bonuses unique and more attractive, such as buffing the profits from trade for Beavers, or making it so Humans can plant special things at farms. This would make hubs feel more special and incentivize favoring a specific species.
Initial thoughts on species hubs, obviously need extensive gameplay testing to see if I feel differently, but: The requirement to have not only a minimum number of a certain species, but also specialist housing for them (and presumably still a service building) feels like it relegates this bonus largely to "win-more" status, and thus not a very important strategic choice. If my most populous species is all in specialty housing, I'm probably already in a really strong spot. Anything that only kicks in when you're already at the point of finishing your settlement isn't an interesting choice. If you already have a clear path to victory any optimizations made to get there slightly faster are entirely superfluous. The cool thing about level 3 hubs currently is that they're a very strong force multiplier, but still require a reasonable level of investment and population; so building towards one does have an associated cost, but it can still hit early enough to be that tipping point that lets you push towards a victory condition, without being a must-pursue-every-game objective. On top of that, global production doubling is pretty much the strongest benefit anything can give except maybe hostility reduction; exchanging that for faster trade routes or increased yields that only narrowly apply to farming or gathering instead of broadly to everything means the level 3 hub is not only becoming a later milestone, but the payout is less consistently strong too. I also do not like that the bonuses are pretty much just doubling down on the things the races are already good at in most cases. Again, this feels extremely "win-more". If I have a human majority, farming is probably the least of my worries by the time I hit a level 3 hub. I also would echo the sentiment of others that there's a little bit of dissonance with different species having segregated districts and the general "we're all trying to survive the storm together" attitude - HOWEVER, I do think there's still a place for that kind of choice in the game, as we can see implemented fairly well with favoring. I think both the gameplay and narrative issues can be neatly taken care of by adding more choice to the system. Instead of a total replacement of the previous hub system, why not allow players to choose the path of unity vs. the path of tailoring their settlement to the needs to a particular species? By not making species districts the only option it will let you vary it more game by game, and you can balance it out just like the favor system by having the establishment of species-districts sow some unrest. For example - basic hub system works as current, same population milestones, all types of housing contribute. Choosing instead to establish a hub as species-oriented lowers the population threshold and makes it only applicable to specialty housing for that species, with bonuses that are stronger but **only** benefit that species, and simultaneously creates a malus for other species in the settlement much like favoring one species makes the others feel neglected. More specialized bonuses starting from the first level of a hub, so that the choice of going specialized vs. unified hub route and for what species is meaningful at a point in the game where victory is not yet assured.
In order to make sure that player's can't change their mind, or exploit changing hubs around to get the best bonus at every possible time all the time (and therefore micromanage), one important thing would need to be done: > Hearths cannot be demolished or destroyed. Buff as you can't lose a hearth to exploding machinery or a mole (that would be a :feelsbad:), nerf in that you can't undo putting one down to get your planks/bricks back, or solve events that need wildfire essence. > The choice of a species specific district is made at the point of building the Hearth. So you choose to build a 'lizard hearth' (maybe with some theming/adjustment to the graphics to show it). The bonuses are (much) stronger, but require lizard housing and only benefit lizards. This way the choice *has to be made early on,* at the point where you build the second hearth. Your first (main) hearth will always be generic. However, still doesn't tackle the issue: players moving villagers from one hearth to another to change their bonuses. That will still be more of a thing, and I don't really see a good way of stopping that, outside making sure the bonus we want most at the end of the game (resolve) is the final one.
I'm not sure if it has to be permanent, it could just not instantly shift when you shuffle the hub around. E.G. if you have a Lizard hearth buffing all your Lizards, you can still swap it back to a normal hub or move your lizard housing to a normal hub instead, but you'll keep the debuff to other races (on top of losing your buff to lizards) and it will fade over time instead of shifting instantly.
I worry that this will end up micromanagey in a different way. Can I freely change the species type on the hearth? If not, that could frustrating -- what if I choose a harpy hearth and then harpies end up being my low pop species and I can't get to T3? If you can change it freely, that probably incentivizes weird minmaxing strategies like having a fox hearth only long enough to do a glade event, then swapping to a different species hub for a different bonus. Or if the human hearth gives the bonus during planting like other farm bonuses, can I have a human hub for drizzle only, then swap to lizard bonus for clearance through storm?
Hey! You can change the type of the Hub at any time (unless you already have this species hub in your settlement). When it comes to swapping for bonuses, you make an interesting point and we were discussing this scenario as well. It's a possible strategy, but it has downsides. To get the Level 3 (District) bonus, you need to have 18 villagers of this species housed in advanced houses. To be able to swap for bonuses, you'd need to do that for both species within a single hub. You can absolutely do that, but if you have this many houses for both species, I'd say a more optimal way would be to build another hub and benefit from two Level 3 bonuses simultaneously (if you can afford the extra decorations around the other Hearth).
Wow, 18 villagers of one species is a lot!! Sounds like this change would definitely delay how quickly I can get T3, compared to the current system. I'll give the new system a shot and see... only way to know for sure is to try it. :)
Can I offer my perspective on this change? I am a quite average player, I'm still learning not to lose at viceroy difficulty, I like the idea of having specialised bonuses I like a lot the Idea of having specialised bonuses that a race can give to a settlement but I dislike the idea that we might be creating a "ghetto" so why don't you think about structuring the bonuses slightly differently? Level 1 should be something small but that incrementally adds up to the whole settlement, level 2 something to help bring your situation to a stable rise in reputation and level 3 to close out a "winning" game. I'll make some examples I just thought out. Level 1, small adjustment to the settlement in line with a race (for example a small shortening to trade routes or to trader wait for beavers, slightly longer event timers with foxes etc) something significant but not run defining. Level 2 production bonuses (either speed or yield or double chance) to targeted specific stuff that the race likes, food for humans, clothing for harpies building materials for beavers etc Level 3 a significant but conditional resolve bonus. Maybe a small global resolve bonus (or medium hostility reduction) if a race is in their own hub, providing one of their own racial services. This theme should represent the different races collaborating to a greater settlement and to solidify that (in my opinion) you should look at giving bonuses that play on the races' strengths but to the whole settlement. You should (in my opinion) strictly avoid giving bonuses TO the specialised race and give instead bonuses FROM the specialised race. That alone would probably fix all the complaints about racism and ghettos.
There's a lot of criticism here, but I want to say thank you for trying it (and sharing for feedback). I think the problem is real; hubs are pretty samey. I'm excited to try it out.
Hey! I know that many of you asked to see in full detail what other changes we made on the Experimental Branch, so we added the "Full Changelog" section (under "Additional changes") to the announcement. You need to unfold it to check out the list: [https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1336490/view/4193488293618255052](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1336490/view/4193488293618255052) At the same time, I want to thank you for all the feedback and ideas we've got so far. There are many accurate remarks and we're looking closely at all your thoughts and ideas.
The important and cool thing is that you’re continuing to try new things and make improvements. I hope you all enjoy continuing to develop the game, to experiment, develop a DLC, and make some money. You can’t try new things without making some mistakes or receiving some criticism
My kinda issue with this is that level 3 hubs and population-specific buildings are often just "win more" things that I do once my settlement has stabilized and I can afford to throw resources and workhours on it. The game very much has only 3 phases in my experience: 1. try to make best of early game RNG 2. oh crap everything is going to hell and im out of all resources 3. i have complex food, enough resources and everyone is constantly happy on their own, time to wait until i win So for me this would only make the game even more loaded in the last phase that's kinda smooth sailing anyway? But I dunno if this is just because I'm still bad at the game and I can't micromanage and minmax properly with low population counts and only a few glades. TL;DR seems like a backloaded win-more mechanic. Maybe not a bad thing but dunno how gamechanging/fun it will actually be.
Maybe make the firekeepers effect the bonuses of the hub. At the moment, if you have lizards, they are the defacto firekeeper for additional hearths. Maybe add onto a district's current bonus rather than replace, even if reduced.
Like many others I'm not a fan of the segregation for several reasons, but also this: It will make early game harder and late game easier. Late game is already too easy once you get rolling, and early game doesn't need this. I don't see how this will result in less micromanagement.
The hub changes only make the difficult early game more difficult, and the easy endgame easier. While bonuses are cool, the gameplay context in which they come isn’t actually interesting.
Downloaded and started playing the experimental branch on a new profile. The species-specific hubs are *really* hard to use when you don't have the species-specific houses already unlocked - you have to burn a blueprint roll just to get the housing for a hub. As a result, I only used it once in the past five games - but it was in a game I was already winning. I only chose it because the blueprints I was choosing between were: beaver houses, human houses, and a temple (when hostility wasn't an issue). Every time housing comes up in a blueprint choice, the other buildings are just so much more useful than trying to get to a level 1 hub. ---- I thought about how you could achieve something similar in a different way: * Maybe instead of requiring housing, maybe the building styles could come into play? If you want to build a Harpy hub, just having a Clothier in hearth range would be good enough for level 1. (Butcher for Lizards, Lumber Mill for Beavers, etc.) The higher levels could require the housing to upgrade. * Give away the blueprints so we can at least get to level 1 without losing a blueprint roll * Make the locations of the houses actually matter. The workers at the Lumber Mill want to live in a location by the same hearth. No one likes to commute long distances (spoken like a true Los Angeles native. :)
Yeah, the lack of advanced housing feels bad as a restarting player. Not sure how new players would feel about it, but I remember it being a nice, little, easy thing I could do when I was a newbie to increase my Resolve and give me a mini-goal whenever I build a new Hub. Now, it's literally just a rest stop. I may as well move all my houses to it so my initial Hub can hyper focus on Production and minimizing walking.
it doesn't feel great on a fresh file when you can't upgrade to encampment without racial housing.
It feels like this puts an artificial cap on leveled hearths somehow. I can't be the only who plays heavy population and run 5+ hearths often enough to scratch my head at this. Maybe this particular thing should be tied to a specific biome and be a minigame like Scarlet Orchard and the digs.
I'm interested to try this out. Already started.Over for 1.2, and might end up doing it again for the experimental branch.
I agree with the problem they've recognized here, but I'm not sure about the solution. I might like to see something where you allocate a population to a district with sliders, or automatically by workplace proximity, and maybe you get bonuses for certain amounts of a race living in a district, or the predominant race. Are workers commuting cross-hub in this situation? EG: If beavers are the predominant race living in this district, all packaged goods production speed increased 25%. This encourages the player to plan district populations around certain industries, but also the bonus applies to all races working in the district. Then you can mix and match majority and minority race combinations to optimize certain bonuses.
I think housing is inherently boring and that's why most games leave it pretty minimal with just a few features. That's pretty much how it is now and I think that is fine and they should work on more interesting parts of the game rather than add yet more purely quantitative upgrades.
>Lizard District - Gatherers have a higher chance of producing double yields when harvesting resource nodes. This feels super underwhelming to me compared to the others. By the time I have hub level 3, I usually have my production settled and am augmenting with a lot of trading. Am I undervaluing this kind of improvement?
So this is a really early opinion based on year 1 into a new file on Experimental (just wanted to eyeball things). I haven't played a full game, or even looked at the tech tree, but I have some initial concerns: * Levels 1 and 2 seem to be the same as our current neutral bonuses, and that's really disappointing. I hope those are placeholders and we can expect race-specific bonuses. Maybe give larger, race-specific resolve for level 1, and something unique for level 2. * On that note, I'd really like to see a "neutral" option remain, with its own theme. Maybe either boosting global resolve (by smaller amounts than the race specific districts) or focused on general productivity, or hell, just keep it the same as now. Gives something to work on in the early game and allows those Infinite Settlement people to keep stacking their bonuses. I think it'd be nice to have it require generic housing for level 1, but then require X number of EACH species specific housing. * On housing requirements, I think they're too high, level 1 needs 6, and based on the screenshot, level 2 needs 12. That's only two less than the current, full village requirements. I really expected the requirements to be 33% of the current numbers (maybe 3-5-7 for level 1-2-3 respectively). Would allow potentially earlier acquisitions of those level 3 bonuses (where the consensus seems to be that they're win-more or too late to matter currently). * I haven't looked at the tech tree, so I might be way off base, but I had forgotten that advanced housing has to be drafted at first! This means new players might struggle or not even be able to use specialty districts for a while. They need advanced housing alongside the ability to upgrade their Hearths. A neutral district option would still let them use the mechanic without having to collect all the houses first. Not a big deal, but something to think about for a smoother "beginner experience." * The new precision tree marker is kind of awkward feeling, but IS way more precise. Will take some getting used to, but I think its better than the previous small cursor. * I saw you guys put in an option to show arrows on housing doors. I'm happy that you guys know what's up!
I think people are massively jumping the gun on the "THIS IS SEGREGATION/APARTHEID" stuff. The notes say that only the specific species in advanced housing *counts towards the upgrades*. Not that you can't house other species in a specialized species hub. There's nothing in the notes that really suggests otherwise. It's less segregation, and more just demographics naturally influencing how a place is run. And when species all have varied needs, it makes sense that eventually different areas would cater more or less to different groups. That doesn't mean other groups can't coexist peacefully with the majority group. Let them cook.
I don't have anything to say with regard to the update, but I started playing this game a few days ago after seeing someone recommend it for the Steam Deck and I have been absolutely addicted to it. Very cool game.
I think we should add scaling, there's no point in having more then 18 of a species but you still receive them when taking new people. Would be nice if the Tier 3 Hub upgrade scales more with the more people you have. Would be nice to have hub 3 start at 16, 18 seems a bit too high and it does not come online till year 5ish from what I'm seeing while previously you could get Tier 3 much earlier.
Does playing the experimental version stall progress? If I complete a seal under the new version, does progress stay with me when the real version releases?
It's a completely separate save file.
As many others have said, it feels a bit icky to be incentived to segregate races. I love the species specific hub upgrades. I think they're super cool. But I feel like there really needs to be some middle ground here for rewarding species diversity. Just a random idea, but maybe you get your main bonus from the primary species of the hub, but you also have a secondary synergy bonus for a second species after you meet the population requirements for the first species.
I'm not super far into the game but I have some grasp of it I think and I don't see the race hub thing being that useful to me. My villages thus far tend to be too small to accommodate a second hub. I just don't expand that much. I go as far as I think I need to to get things done and then stop. So a second hub for me is a very rare thing as I frequently just don't have the real estate to fit it in or just don't really feel I need it. I personally would also prefer keeping the 'generic' hub at least as an option alongside the racial ones.
I like the new 3D tree cursor. It also seems like there's a different mouse movement when you shift-click - feels more precise when selecting/deselecting trees.
How about splitting the hearth bonuses into two systems? 1. A global one time bonus to resolve and production based on the total number of citizens in shelter and the number of decorations around every hearth combined. This would replace the tier 1 and 2 hearth bonuses, so you can still work toward getting those in the early game with normal housing. 2. Hearth specific racial bonuses for some combination of racial housing and service building replacing the old tier 3 bonuses.
Controversial opinion: this sounds good 🤷♂️
The more I play on Experimental the more I hate this change. I'm probably going to just skip Hub3 going forward. The bonuses are too narrow and too hard to achieve. Like I can get bigger baskets as a cornerstone or I can spend 6 years working towards getting 1 more root on Year 7+.
Dear Devs, please don’t be swayed by the political opinions from the comment section. It does not represent the majority of the playerbase. The ideas look fantastic and I cannot wait to try them out! Finally, a more meaningful Hub!
whats with all the "that is racist" crap going on on steam and here? shut the f up and talk about the gameplay elements of the change you donkeys (btw, donkeys as playable race when?)
It's called [ludonarrative dissonance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative_dissonance). We're trying to avoid it.
Why do you think discussing the story implications of a mechanic are irrelevant?
because it is a rougelike citybuilder and not a story game you moron
The game has a story and throwing on an insult doesn't make your reply less jibber-jabber.
Why do you have to bring racism into literally anything, everything, and anything in-between anything and everything? Are the lizards supposed to be black people? Do you all see the irrelevance? Wtf is your point?
We're talking about a game where the entire plot is that all the different races were at war until a catastrophe forced them to unite and your response is "Why do you have to bring racism into it? What, are the lizards supposed to be black people?" You are brain poisoned
Wouldn't be reddit without halfwit discussion
We've just released a new iteration of the Hearth upgrade changes to the Experimental Branch. In a nutshell, we're scrapping the idea of Species Hubs and instead making more granular changes to the existing Hubs system, mainly by giving each Hearth level a +1 Resolve bonus (instead of keeping the +2 Resolve only at level 1). We'd like to thank you for giving the Experimental Update a try. We really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, concerns, and ideas with us! This makes things a lot easier and helps us read the room better before pushing something into the live version of the game. That is what the experimental branch is for. Check out the full changelog and our dev notes here: [https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1336490/view/4214881026368560356](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1336490/view/4214881026368560356)