We’ve been so busy on Hegemony III that it’s hard to believe a whole month has gone by since our last news post. The game is coming together really well and we’re getting close to the point where we can confidently announce a launch date. In the meantime check out the updates below and to see it all in action tune in to Twitch next week (Thursday, Mar 12, 4PM EST (8PM GMT)) for another live playthrough and developer Q&A.Faction Skills
I talked in the last post about adding a skill/tech tree to unlock new units and faction-wide bonuses and I’m excited to share that feature is now in the game. Skill points are awarded for completing objectives so no matter what direction you expand you can choose how your faction will advance. The screenshot below shows the first few tiers of the Etruscan Military tree. There is also an Economic tree that will provide bonuses for resources, city growth and diplomacy.
Farm, Trade and Pillage!
We’ve been doing a lot of work to improve the resource balance in Hegemony III to make sure there’s always pressure to protect your supplies throughout the game. A big part of this is the new city growth feature we’ve talked about before where you’ll need to feed your cities if you want to unlock more recruits, upgrades and income. Additionally, we’ve got a new system where you can buy and sell resources with nearby towns of other factions, plus an all-new pillaging system that lets you raid the enemy when you’re down on gold. Both the trade and pillage mechanics are now possible because, unlike in the previous games, gold in Hegemony III will accumulate allowing for one time transactions.
Everything else …
We’ve also been really busy working on unit movement, grouping, ship combat, the new fonts and textures for the strategy map, and lots of awesome new units (check out Blake’s sculpt for the Celtic nobleman above), but I think it’s really best to see them all in action so I’ll save the rest for Twitch broadcast next week and just leave you with a few more fun screenshots.