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[ThtblovesDF]

The only reason i am not kickstarting this is of how burned I am from "that which sleeps" but damm does it ever look promising. Will properly kick in later : ) - keep up the good work!

[geoffroypir]

The only reason i am not kickstarting this is of how burned I am from "that which sleeps" but damm does it ever look promising. Will properly kick in later : ) - keep up the good work!

Wow, I have just read the drama around "that which sleeps". I'd rather commit seppuku or refund every single penny by working on a shitty job than bear such shame for my entire life.

I am always happy to receive encouraging messages, so thank you. I never get my fill of encouragment

I am very humbled by the generosity of backers, many of them did it just to support me. I am myself not a very generous person and very careful with any non-essential expenses, so I am very impressed and in disbelief.

[Craftsdwarf boi]

Congrats on starting a kickstarter!

[Trolldefender99]

As of time of this post, the kickstarter has hit 100 backers grats

[geoffroypir]

Almost 4000€ already with 107 backers !

The campaign is going very well indeed

I really hope we can reach the 10k€ goal and it seems feasible with enough pressure.

[Glloyd]

Just a gentle suggestion, but before the game goes on steam, it would help greatly to have a native English speaker review both the game and marketing materials to edit for grammar/spelling/consistency. It seems like something small, but people make snap judgements on that sort of thing, and I would hate to see a game like this go unnoticed because of something so petty.

[Mephansteras]

Good suggestion.

And I'm glad the kickstarter is going so well!

[geoffroypir]

Just a gentle suggestion, but before the game goes on steam, it would help greatly to have a native English speaker review both the game and marketing materials to edit for grammar/spelling/consistency. It seems like something small, but people make snap judgements on that sort of thing, and I would hate to see a game like this go unnoticed because of something so petty.

Hi, early proofreading is already planned as mentionned in one of the update , and will be conducted before any version of the game goes public.

[The_Explorer]

Looks like its probably not gonna make the terraforming goal, its not 5k euros yet  and only 16 days to go

[geoffroypir]

Looks like its probably not gonna make the terraforming goal, its not 5k euros yet  and only 16 days to go

Probably not, yet the usual spike at the end of the campaign and a bit of luck (a very high pledge, a press article etc...) make it a probable outcome.

And funding process won't stop with kickstarter, I intend to pursue it through my website along with developpment.

Furthermore, the 10k€ goal makes me liable to my promise of integrating terraforming but does not prevent me to develop it later, it all depends on how the first version of the game will sell and how much time I will have.

[The_Explorer]

Looks like its probably not gonna make the terraforming goal, its not 5k euros yet  and only 16 days to go

Probably not, yet the usual spike at the end of the campaign and a bit of luck (a very high pledge, a press article etc...) make it a probable outcome.

And funding process won't stop with kickstarter, I intend to pursue it through my website along with developpment.

Furthermore, the 10k€ goal makes me liable to my promise of integrating terraforming but does not prevent me to develop it later, it all depends on how the first version of the game will sell and how much time I will have.

Yeah, it could happen still to reach. I think your campaign started with 30 days? or was it 31? Either way, pretty much halfway through and also at the halfway point to the goal. I'll be kickstarting once I get paid next month.

[geoffroypir]

Yep, halfway X 2 
It is a 30 day campaign it started at noon (gmt+1) on tuesday.

Thank you in advance, by the way.


EDIT (30/09) : Speaking of luck, for some reasons the kickstarter algorithm likes me better since 2 days.

[geoffroypir]

A dev update, at last! Here is the transcription of the post I made on kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/geopi/antimatter-a-city-builder-and-4x-game/posts/2976027)

Today's update is about very important pivots in the city-builder : jobs, population, education and policies, this involve a lot of complexe interactions to support the economy system of the game.

I worked the past two weeks on these topics, and after dozens of source files and about 10 000 lines of codes, I am getting close to completition.

There is still a lot of work to make everything work together, there is so much interdepency that it is hard to evaluate how well the whole system works, it will surely need a lot of work on balance.

Populations
Each population is separated by its job and race (yes other sentient life will be implemented). 1 population represent an individual capable of working, it exludes childrens, the elderly and the sick and any excluded sex(I will introduce discriminatory policies on sex).

This is a work in progress of the population UI, there is also an elite class we can't see on this picture. Some icons are reused as placeholders for different jobs.


WIP of the population panel.


Jobs
Jobs have an education requirement and are used for industries. For exemple, one factory may need 100 laborers and 25 technicians to operate correctly, therefore, the building will generate a demand for these jobs.

However, each job has a weight value and may be marked as essential. For exemple a research facility may need 100 laborers, 40 technicians and 30 scientists but the laborers may be considered non essential or/and will have of course much less impact on the productivity. Scientists on the other hand are marked as essential, and a research facility will not operate at all if no scientist is employed.



Now the good question is how the population reacts to job supply ?

If a population has enough education, and if the happiness of the targeted job is high enough and if the job is in supply, the population may have a chance to promote to this job. On the other hand if a job is destroyed, someone can become jobless. A population that stays jobless too long has a risk of being demoted to a job (still as a jobless though) of a lower rank. Of course you can counter this with unemployment benefits and other welfare policies. There is also a chance that he will get what I call an « horizontal promotion » meaning he will be employed at a different job of the same social rank.

Therefore, you don't want a jobless population, for obvious reasons, but also because it consumes much less consumer goods, may cost money for welfare and it indicates that your economy is too unstable or shrinking in a sector. It takes times for a population to change job, and this is a poor utilisation of education ressources if they end up doing a job at the lowest rank.

Consumers. Vital, basic and luxury needs.
Each race has preset vital, basic, and luxury needs. Same for culture, social rank (determined by job) culture and job.

The needs of a population is the additions of all these needs, it can be any goods and the game will have a broad range of good recipes to produce.

Vital needs aremostly food and clothing. It affects health which in turns affect mortality rate and hapiness.

Basic needs are things such as furnitures. Each fullfiled need adds hapiness to the population.

Luxury needs are often the basic items needed from a upper class, it provides happiness * the fullfilment level of basic needs. It means luxury needs will only impact happiness if the basic needs are fullfilled as well.

Consumption of goods has a very important impact to the economy, each consumed goods gives 25% of its base value back to the city. This is the sales taxes / VAT. A stimulated and well supplied economy is key to generate cash, if you have ever played any of the Anno game you know how the system works.

Education
Educating a population is key for an advanced economy, the instruction value of a population gives more chance to be promoted if a job is needed. It will also provide some bonus to research when I will expand this.

Education also serves as a propaganda tool, to influence the ethic tradition of the populations.

3 kind of education focuses are now available :

 Propaganda : big bonus to tradition shift toward  the city ethics. Small bonus to instruction .
 Balanced : Medium bonus to tradition shift toward  the city ethics. Medium bonus to instruction .
 Open minded : Small bonus to tradition shift toward  the city ethics. Big bonus to instruction .

Slavery / serfdom
Slaves is one particular hum … « job », they can fullfill any job as long as the instruction rating of this population is enough. However the amount of jobs required is doubled for each rank above the lower class (the one with laborers and soldiers etc ...). Slaves don't cost any money to the facility, so this is great for you. and a bit less for the slave himself as this job position does'nt provide much benefit to him. Allowing or enforcing slavery is usually a huge shift toward an « Elitist » ethic.

You will be able to acquire slaves through trade with or by "interacting" with the native populations and also directly in your society. One that I have already implemented is a policy that force any beggars job type, (which is at the bottom class and is usually the consequence of a very poor economy ) to be slowly "promoted" to a slave job. It is basically a society where you are not allowed to be poor. I will add the same policy for prisoners as well.

This happened often in history, when being dressed too poorly could encourage roaming slavers to eagerly offer you the job position. This was the good old time of full employment.

Policies
I have already talked about policies in this old post, I have improved the interface and also included the ethic shift consequences of adopting a policy.


Policy will be the core of managing your city as my main goal is to make city-building a macro-managment task, not a micro-managment nightmare with pop-up windows every seconds.


Terraforming
I Added a tool to dig the terrain or create flat surface for building placement or to create a draining system.


I improved the building production panel, we can see the recipe and the productivity that depends on job and ressources fullfillment.


The future of the UI
Once all the data are binded to the interface, I will conduct an overhaul of the user interface to make it more generic and consistent.

[Mephansteras]

Makes me wonder, how much of the turmoil of changing a society are you going to implement? Say, player comes down in their fancy death-ray ship and decides to end slavery in a more primitive colony, how does that play out in game?

[geoffroypir]

Makes me wonder, how much of the turmoil of changing a society are you going to implement? Say, player comes down in their fancy death-ray ship and decides to end slavery in a more primitive colony, how does that play out in game?

Slavery policies buff the "elitism" ethic a lot so removing such policy could cause a lot of dissent among the population if their tradition value had time to shift to an elitist ethic.
However, if you have a large population of slaves they may dilute enough the tradition of other pop they will join provoking less dissent.

Say you liberate a population, acustomed to a rather egalitarian ethic, that has just been enslaved, they will be grateful for such liberation.
But if you liberate slaves in a population used to exploit them, don't expect the pop to be grateful for it.

Also the economic consequences could be dramatic, it is hard to tell how the economy will react if you rip appart an established order, with stabilised job supply/demand.
For an economy very dependant to cheap and unskilled labor, ending slavery could have bad consequences.
For an economy relying on a educated workforce and trade, this could be beneficial to end slavery, as slaves are less efficient for each rank above the bottom class, and because slaves don't stimulate demand for basic and luxury goods. It would take time for the economy to stabilise and let the population promote, as any liberated slave start as a beggar pop.