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[KingDinosaurGames]

Everything happens at the POI level, movement between them occurs on the Hero/Agent's turn and results occur after they've moved.  Not every POI is a city, there are many that the Forests, Crossroads, Plains, and the like - which give you those more isolated squares to ambush heroes or raise troops.

Cursed items are in the game, and yes there are certain heroes who are sensitive to it and will help the other hero get rid of a cursed item - though often that requires a quest.  You definitely can create artifacts with a curse that still have a beneficial effect, though it doesn't function like an editor there are simply a few base choices.

A ritual that opens up gates that spawn demonic armies all over the place?  We have exactly that - several rituals of that caliber exist and, just like you said, they spawn massive threat which leads to fantastic dramatic battles to shut them down. 

Plague is actually part of the Death God who is "put aside" for balance purposes, it is extremely fun but just extremely hard to balance. 

Because our builds cycle through the features I need people to test, it's hard to add new testers who aren't already familiar with the game and where we're at.  I'll definitely reach out here before anywhere else when we're ready to add a larger group, which would probably be around the time of the demo.

On other map generation methods - not really feasible for us.  There's the now famous minecraft method, there's voxels, and more traditional 3D terrain generation - none of them would be able to plug and play into our system.  As for algorithmic generation of a 2D image, you can see on our DevLog some early results for that and they just didn't work out well.

[Scoops Novel]

By rival old ones, do you mean multiplayer?

[KingDinosaurGames]

Multiplayer is off the table until (if ever) post-release - rival old ones presents the threat of your fellow defeated Old Ones who want to establish themselves as the one true god.

[ScriptWolf]

Woooo KS this month if I'm correct when the kickstarter comes out this will be released along with a demo ?

What sort of rewards are we going to have ? You already have $100-150 from me

[TTHSK]

I'll echo the "this looks amazing" sentiments. This looks amazing.

Stretch goal preferences as requested: procedural, endless, cults, rivals. Cults before endless if it's possible to setup a 'long' game without the endless mode.

[KingDinosaurGames]

Woooo KS this month if I'm correct when the kickstarter comes out this will be released along with a demo ?

What sort of rewards are we going to have ? You already have $100-150 from me

Alright so the Demo was originally supposed to be out already, in fact last weekend - then we got the RPS article and a ton of followers so we threw some more money into the game and updated all the GUI visuals, added some effects, and started redoing some of the AI systems.   The end result is our actual demo build is so far behind we don't want to release it - but I don't think given what's on our plate we'd be able to finish the demo and launch the KS this month. 

What we decided was we'd finalize features for testing this week (which we are doing now), get that out for a week for bug fixes, spend the week after preparing KS, launch KS, and then try to get the demo out halfway through.  We don't want the KS to push any further because a lot of metrics suggest launching closer to Christmas is a terrible idea, and also we want to get the money, if any, for improved assets as soon as possible so as not to delay our Q4 launch.  Hopefully people will be interested enough without the demo, but if not they'll stick around long enough to see the demo in action when it's released.

We're talking this week about the Tier rewards, I'm a huge fan of "in-game" rewards like naming Heroes, Countries, and Agents as well as working with us to make new abilities and scenarios, but my business partner sees those somewhat as a "cash grab" and thinks we should limit ourselves to some physical rewards and then the more usual round of digital rewards like soundtrack, wallpapers, extra copies and the like.  Not sure if you guys have an opinion on this - suggestions are always welcome.

[dennislp3]

My personal opinion is that I am against physical rewards. While they are neat they are pointless and ultimately a waste as I am no collector. I am willing to pay for in game rewards and the such. Physical rewards put me off.

One solution I have seen before is one tier list of physical rewards and one tier list of digital only rewards

[nenjin]

We're talking this week about the Tier rewards, I'm a huge fan of "in-game" rewards like naming Heroes, Countries, and Agents as well as working with us to make new abilities and scenarios, but my business partner sees those somewhat as a "cash grab" and thinks we should limit ourselves to some physical rewards and then the more usual round of digital rewards like soundtrack, wallpapers, extra copies and the like.  Not sure if you guys have an opinion on this - suggestions are always welcome.

I see this two ways:

#1: Physical rewards are an inducment to pledge. But because there's so much overhead involved, you're actually getting LESS than the pledge value if it does in fact motivate people.

#2: I just got back from a wedding, where they held "the dollar dance." It's an excuse to give the bride and groom money, with the sort-of-reward of getting to dance with them for like a minute. I see in-game names ect... as that kind of thing. You give those rewards because they're easy to accomplish, and really it's just an excuse for someone to pad their pledge a little.

Lastly, people making merch for their completely new title has always struck me as putting the cart before the horse. Well-known games can get away with making money on swag because there's brand recognition. For completely new IPs? I'd think it'd be a huge money and logistical sink with no real guarantee of paying out at the end.

That and lots of Kickstarters have wasted tons of money in their production and distribution chains, because they weren't prepared for how much that stuff costs to manufacture and ship.

So my take is: screw physical rewards, it's the junk food of Kickstarter. I think a nerd's heart is more drawn to seeing their name in game, designing monsters or POIs, and all that stuff that costs you guys nothing but your time to do.

[KingDinosaurGames]

I'm glad you guys are coming on so strong against physical rewards, we really had NO desire to do them.  I've always held the same opinion as you, it seems pretty ridiculous - but we were judging based on existing metrics for successful kickstarters and they "seem" a popular choice. 

[nenjin]

About the only physical rewards that interest me are maps and printed game manuals. The rest is rest is pure swag, to me.

[Kaitol]

Well. I imagine part of the appeal of physical awards is, that even if the game somehow is a huge disappointing mess that you hate, at least you have a spiffy model/map/artbook/misc.swag to show for your cash.

(Also, Sauron was a two bit magician with a tiny army. Melkor/Morgoth though, now THERE'S an evil overlord.)

[Jalak]

Well. I imagine part of the appeal of physical awards is, that even if the game somehow is a huge disappointing mess that you hate, at least you have a spiffy model/map/artbook/misc.swag to show for your cash.

I think it would more likely serve as a reminder of what you just wasted your money on, from my point of view anyway.

So, yeah, my vote is on in-game rewards only (unless your referring to that collectors addition crap that Mass Effect 3 pulled with the "pay more for another character for your game only" at game launch. Of course, I fell for it since I was so sure Mass Effect 3 would be worth it...It wasn't).

Edit: So on a happier tune, two more questions; these ones about how the quest and infiltration-order systems work.

When a hero accepts a quest and goes off to do his thing, what are the ways they can actually fail it (besides dying)? How determined are they to get things done? If a hero consistently fails a part of a quest due to getting their asses kicked every time they come across that Orc Warband or whatever (whether you're personally intervening in that failure or not) do they just give up and do something else, or is literally a "do or die" thing for them?

Also, when you destabilize the order of a POI or corrupt a VIP (for given value of important) is the infiltration permanent, or is there a "fading" effect of the infiltration/corruption going back to the status-quo over time? Is it a case where, so long as no one goes out of their way to specifically raise the order or stop the corrupted VIP (such as a hero on a specific quest to do just that), that POI/VIP is going to be "mine" forever until someone tries to challenge that?

[Cthulhu]

I mostly agree.  Cosmetic in-game rewards (Having your name in the credits or on characters and such) is probably the best way to go.  Physical swag is a pretty nasty trap a lot of kickstarters fall into.  I remember more than a couple that found most of their earnings sunk into the costs of producing and distributing hundreds of t-shirts and commemorative mugs and shit.

[KingDinosaurGames]

Heroes see quests based on threat, and if it matches their "desires" they'll decide "I want to do that!"  If no such quest is around, they'll do some relatively default action, such as training, researching a spell, hunting down monsters, etc - so now let's say they see a Quest they want to do.  They see its "Danger Values" (and this is the public number, anything you've done to increase the danger is a nasty surprise) when they get there the complexity of the quest gives them X number of dangers + any dangers you've put there.  So they may have "getting lost" "battle with monster" etc.  This pretty much all goes on behind the scenes though yo ucan see the list of Dangers they faced - Heroes in  battle can get wounds, decreasing their hitpoints.  Hit points ONLY COME BACK by resting for multiple turns in cities or villages, so hp loss at least can slow them down, and if they lose enough they can get a permanent (relatively) injury.  If a hero feels like the Quest is too hard, but still wants to do it - they will try to either "Strengthen themselves" or "Find an Adventuring Group" to help - if neither of those will do they'll just wander off disconsolate with a -1 to their spirit.  Hero personalities play heavily into how an Adventurer pursues quests.

Campaigns are multi-stage quests that have specific requirements, but they also have an added component of "level of victory" - if the heroes beat all 5 quests in a large campaign they get the best ending.  They fail all 5 they get the worst ending (yay for you).

When you do something to destablize it adds as Condition with a type, types stack and increase one another - generally they have a timer where they will go down, but others have an "until X occurs" condition for them to end.  Corruption of a leader or to gain influence depends on the type - some of them are "Expended", some of them are permanent unless heroes undo it, some decrease over time.  The easier it is to get the influence generally the faster it will go away, whereas very complex actions will result in permanent effects.

[Jalak]

Hold on, just thought of another one...

You mentioned before that you get more powerful the more "awake" you are. Is there any real reason to try not to be? I remember you said that a sage would find it easier to follow ancient clues to you and make anti-elder spells more effective. Is there any way being dormant would be to your advantage, or is it simply a case where we could, but it doesn't compare to the sheer power you would have by being awake? Also, if you were to try and take over the world very openly, fail, but have the alliance take out your scapegoat and disband, is it possible to gather your strength for a comeback or would the heroes and nations be too high level by that point, since you need to catch up to them by scratch.
By the way, what happens if all your agents/commanders die? is it, essentially, a game-over?