City Planning - new difficulty/game mode

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Filip Kudroń

Detailed description: https://www.reddit.com/r/Against_the_Storm/comments/yvvebp/city_planning_a_new_difficultygame_mode/

Intro

The ideas in this post would completely warp the way the game works and increase difficulty significantly, that's why I think it would be best to make it a separate Difficulty (P21+) or a game mode.

As a game mode, I think those changes would be best conjoined with a settlement by settlement meta progression. Below I'll describe my idea of this game mode.

New Game Mode: The First Storm (Unlocked after completing P20 game)

Story: The prophecy foretold a great cataclysm. The first signs are already here - the rain never stops and it makes every living thing sick. The Queen gathered her most trusted viceroys to send them on a quest - find a way for her people to survive.

Mechanics

I. Citadel does not exist yet - Citadel Upgrades take no effect in this game mode. Player starts with a very limited pool of available blueprints (Shelter and Camps, Crude Workstation).

II. The Queen has a plan - complete series of settlements in the locations selected by The Queen (random biomes). You must find a way for the people to survive the approaching calamity (as in finish a number of settlements).

III. In order to finish each settlement you must find the Forbidden Glade and solve the galde event. The Forbidden Glade events grow in difficulty and complexity(something like new Scarlet Orchard events, but more) with each settlement. Reputation and Impatience need to be repurposed/adjusted to fit the mode. Glade/Dangerous Glade events award Citadel Resources(random mix of Stockpiles, Artifacts and machinery) instead of reputation. After finishing the 'Main Event' the player gets to choose rewards (Cornerstones and Blueprints) that will carry over to the next settlement. At this stage the player can also spend citadel resources and ancient tablets they gathered to buy more Cornerstones/Blueprints that will stay with them for the rest of the run. The last settlement Forbidden Glade event is to rebuild The Citadel that requires a vast amount of various resources.

IIIa. The world map is full of question marks, but they are not revealed and don't take effect until they are. The Player can order a scout to discover a question mark. After being revealed, the question mark becomes an additional mod to the nearest settlement and grants additional rewards (cornerstones, blueprints, resources) when the settlement is completed.

City Planning

Intro

My biggest 'pain' in the game is that the placement of the buildings and decorations matters very little. The game does not incentivise nor rewards for building a pretty settlement. Most of the time I clamp houses and decorations together in one corner and forget about them. This is not ideal for a city builder. I wish there was more meaning in how the buildings are placed. The suggestions I'll make would probably make the game extremly difficult - but with a proper balance changes - I think they would make it a lot more fun.

Mechanics

Houses rework - players can no longer build species specific houses. Houses need to be upgraded. Each upgrade provides various bonuses that apply to its inhabitants. Houses upgrade automatically. Houses can be placed outside of the Hearth range if they are connected by a Paved or Enforced Road.

Hearth Upgrades - hearth upgrade now depends on the number of houses connected to it by road.

Decorations rework

Decorations are awesome - but unfortunately rarely worth building (outside of hearth upgrade). What's even worse, tha placement of the decorations does not matter, so they can't perform their main function.

To make them more awesome, I suggest the following ideas.

Mechanics

Decorations add bonuses to the adjacent buildings. Some decorations can be placed ON ROADS, giving bonuses to villagers that walk by them for a short time (stacking duration per each decoration passed, up to a maximum).

It would be super cool if pipes could be used to connect building with other buildings to make their storages joined (so no resource transport needed) - but I'm not entirely sure about planks being transported by pipes ;)

Outro

These ideas simply won't work with the current game. Runs are too short and there's too many things going on that require constant attention already. A possible new mode that would revolve around building settlements in a chain, each more advanced than the other, but also less limited by time, could make it possible to shift the game more towards a city builder. The amount of features suggested here in my opinion is paid DLC worthy - but - AtS devs, please, take my money :) If you reached this sentence, thanks for reading, and have fun!