Hmm, the option to spend more than one season on a specific activity might be an option. For example, studying a summa for x number of seasons. Some activities are multi-season anyway. The covenant can grow with characters when there is more space/tribunal reputation allows for optional recruitment of additional magi so it is really unlikely that a ‘everyone skip x seasons’ would really be viable.
And yes, ignoring a story/event is possible in almost events and most will have short or longer term impact because of it.
What I don’t really understand here is whether there is some larger story arc, some large problem the characters are trying to solve or something they want to accomplish. Is it just mages trying to live their lives an get better an magic and then complications happen?
Early store page, targeting a release date of Q1 in 2027. Not going to go the early access route. Adding the game on Steam will also allow me to generate some playtest keys and a demo when the game is in a stable state.
Looks good so far! I really liked the "Covenant Ambition" menu during the initial setup; I don't remember seeing it in the earlier screenshots, and I think it's a great addition.
One thought that occurs to me - in the far future, once the core gameplay is in good shape, would it be feasible to add maps?
It does look amazing. I like the idea of having a covenant ambition that gives you the game's 'win' condition being something you can choose.
Does the game have a single magi you control on the council, or is the player simultaneously running an entire council? How much control do you have over the actions of all the magi in your covenant?
What I would love to see is individual magi striving for their own goals, not just covenant goals (vaguely reminded of Gloomhaven's personal goals as retirement reasons). I think if I had to control the seasonal studies of a council of 6 magi (let alone any companions) I would probably start to feel a grind, because each magi feels less like mine.
I'd probably like something more CrusaderKings-ish, where I control the country and king (Or Covenant and lead magus) but only have some guidance for the other magi on the council.
I briefly looked at trying to use the Mythic Europe map to show where tribunals are and could not get my code to work properly to use that kind of complexity for area boundaries. Or do you mean maps in a different sense?
The game starts with 2 magi, 2 companions and 2 grogs (and of course other unnamed covenfolk). You can recruit more if you wish, or just play with the ones you selected. You would need more housing to add more people. Magi and companions have individual actions per season and grogs act as a collective. Magi can pursue renown within their house and later pursue mysteries. Having more personal goals is a feature I have planned (yes, you might regret having that Tytalus in your covenant).
If you enjoy having lots of stuff happening at once, then have more characters. If you only want 4 characters to govern per season, that is good too.
Something I might add in future is the ability to add your own magus/magi in RAW mode when starting a game. Not really through that through yet - and open to ideas. It might also be worthwhile to give the option to set a goal for a character that they can auto-target for a few seasons, like study a book on rego till you have obtained max xp from it. Or for a companion to practice a skill till they have a score of 5 or something (with covenant service inbetween).
You also could have a build-a-magi function that isn't a full RAW: Select one of these apprentices. Select a house package. Select a personal goal.
You have selected Brilliant Apprentice | Tytalus Politico | Kill my Parens. Congratulations, Magus Eduardo of Tytalus.
You could also just have a default option be repeating the same as last season, with an alert if you cannot (it was an adventure, you finished your enchantment, you cannot read that summa, your teacher turned into a fish).
I know that a lot of people like the more granular choices and control, though I personally like the idea of more limited guidance and control of non-primary characters.
Might I suggest handling grogs as 'group assigned particular task'? If your covenant has a fishery, some grogs can be fisherfolk & produce food, while others do laundry and other maintenance duties, some care for the sheep, and etc. 'Grogs', 'Lords of Men', and 'Art & Academe' might have usable material or provide inspiration.
True, I could allow that for story mode too, but I'd like to give the RAW players some extra bits for playing the game closer to Ars Magica rules
The RAW character creation would be slightly package orientated to simplify - not going to replicate Ars Magica Manager...
I like the idea to allow 'do the same as last season', will add on the todo list.
Grogs are grouped and having grogs of a particular role gives the covenant certain benefits. For example, if one of them is a farmer, you have a bonus for food production. A healer gives health benefits, guards/mercenary adds security, etc. I am not keen on making grogs too granular.
I was thinking more like a map of your chosen tribunal (or maybe even just your local segment of it) that shows locations of other covenants, story events or hooks, and anything else important. This comes from my original idea (before I was directed to this thread) having been partly inspired by Heroes of Might and Magic, where traveling around the map to collect resources is a major part of the game.
I'll add it to my list of things to consider, but keep in mind I am not a professional developer and I have a lot to dev work to still complete on this. If I have time before I release, maybe
No, I wish I did. But I make extensive use of micro functions that I can chain/pass code to so it can handle similar things for me. Like events, vis management, library management, etc. Extending those are a lot easier than trying to code for every single situation. Add randomization, weighting and certain flags and attributes for different things, along with scriptable objects to hold content, and it becomes a lot more manageable. Also means my husband helps me with the content since he does not need to understand the code to help me. When I made Ars Magica Manager I had zero design docs or thoughts of architecture and it cost me dearly when I had to make certain complex changes. I have learnt that it is worth doing a proper design first
Yeah, seeing how this is developing, so far, a map definitely feels like an optional feature (if not altogether superfluous). I was just curious since it had been something I thought of before I saw what you are doing here. And my own Creo Ludum is incompatible with electronics, so I have no desire to put more on your plate that I'm not able to help with myself
