Fortresses! news

For the first time in living memory, my prediction about this week's update was spot on - fortresses. Where hunter-gatherers dwell in settlements and feudal civilizations dot the landscape with cities and towns, their nomadic brethren survival via a combination of caravans (which will be implemented later, probably in 0.8) and fortresses. These are dotted throughout the deserts of the world along what will later be major trade routes the caravans pass through. Whilst they are home to some people, the population count of nomadic civilizations is small compared to feudal nations, and many of their people live "in" the caravans anyway. Aside from some homes within these fortresses, however, much of their land is given over to military barracks and facilities, and open-air markets - yes, that's right, open air markets will exist! Several people have asked for these, and whilst I felt I wanted everything in feudal nations to be focused in distinct shops (black markets, once implemented, will still roughly follow the "shop" model), open-air markets and bazaars seem very appropriate for nomads. For now, these markets are shown by the white %s in the images in this post; these stands will display items with a shopkeeper "patrolling" the area around them. Whilst each fortress has a lot, not all fortresses will spawn with markets (though most will), and some "stalls" might be shut, or unused, whilst others will contain useful things. My intention is for most stalls to be akin to general stores in feudal cities - almost any item may spawn - but possibly a few specialists in the mix as well.

Now on to the layouts of these fortresses. There are twelve different presets for fortress shapes, as shown in this illustrative and highly detailed diagram I created in the leading contemporary graphical software package, MS Paint:

Most of these are self-explanatory - the ones with dots are ones where the entire fortress is not "enclosed" within walls, but many of the buildings surround the main towers of the settlement instead. It's a rare variant, but one that I thought would add some nice variety. At time of writing five of these have been coded, and I hope to have the remaining ones finished in the next fortnight, then probably moving back to cities for a while. Below is one example of the "concentric circles" archetype. In the outer layer we see housing, and in the inner layer one region of barracks and military buildings with a second region of open-air markets. Gates in this case happen to have spawned in the west and east, and there are bridges for crossing the rivers, making sure every region of the fortress can be reached on foot. In all fortresses areas near the core are likely to be of soil or even have some plantlife, whilst the outer areas will remain covered in sand. Bear in mind, as ever, that screenshots of an entire map grid always look wildly different from a close-up (which you'll have at the end of this post). Nevertheless:

As you can see from that picture, the web of bridges and gates ensures that every area of the fortress can be accessed. In future versions once caravans are implemented there will be buildings and encampments around the fortress which will come and go as caravans and seasons pass, but these are the "stationary" parts that will remain constant.Lastly, here's two more screenshots, one from me entering a "square" archetype fortress, and one from a square fortress which had a river running through it, and its inhabitants had evidently decided to use it as a form of extra defence or a way to separate the different areas of the fortress, rather than just considering it something that had to be built around like those who crafted the circular fortress above.

TWO FINAL VERY IMPORTANT THINGS

Firstly, I'm going to be submitting my thesis within, I hope, a month (or at the most, perhaps a month and a half). This means the next 4-6 weeks are going to be very academically busy whilst I do the final edits to my hundred-thousand-word abomination masterpiece. I don't yet know how many edits my supervisors will want (we're meeting on the 4th of July to discuss this) and how long these will take to do, but whilst weekly updates will continue as ever, they may be shorter, or I may deploy some non-URR pieces I've had in the works for a little while. I think August remains a realistic target for 0.6, but we're probably looking at the end of August, though it must be said this is the biggest release in some time. 0.7, by contrast, I would expect to be significantly shorter in duration.Secondly, some absolutely incredible news has just come through regarding the next year of URR's development (starting in two months once my thesis is submitted). I'm not really allowed to say any more on this topic yet, but by next week (or if not, definitely the week after) I should be able to make the appropriate announcement. GET HYPE.

Until then you can keep up to date on my devblog, Facebook page, or Twitter feed. The devblog is updated weekly on Saturdays (or sometimes Sundays), Facebook a few times a week, and the Twitter roughly daily. Stay tuned...