Settle The World - inspired by Colonization

[TheoTheoderich]

The new -Settle the World- farm update is available for free download at the following link:
https://theotheoderich.itch.io/settle-the-world

We would be happy if you would follow us on Discord:
https://discord.gg/UJyZSJJqYg


What's new in the -Farm-Update-:

The -Farm-Update- lays the technical foundations for the future development of the game.
For this purpose, a large part of the programme code was rewritten, which unfortunately took several months.

But now to the game itself...
Pioneers can now build farms after the citizens of your cities have reached the worker class for the first time.
Farms are needed later in the game to supply the aristocrat class with meat and wine.

There are new units to make the best use of farms:
-- Cowboys for cattle breeding
-- Grape pickers, to harvest grapes
-- Winemakers, to produce wine from grapes (luxury good for the aristocrat class)
-- Butchers to process cattle into meat (food for the aristocrat class).

- New buildings:
-- Wine press (can be built on farms)
-- Slaughterhouse (can be built in cities)

- Breeding horses is now only possible on farms.




What else is new in the game:
- Integrated help texts/unit info (but it's still early days).
- More sound effects.
- More intermediate images for events.
- New function "Move to town". Moves units via pathfinding to the selected city.
- New terrain type "Plains".
- Millitary supply wagon to heal/repair damaged millitary units outside cities or to equip colonists to soldiers.
- Soldiers can mount horses outside of cities and thus become dragoons.
- Map generator completely rewritten. No longer generates diagonal land bridges and creates varied landscapes.
- There are now more whales, horses and bison on the map.
- Unnecessary transport units (ships and trade wagons) can be destroyed in cities and the player gets half of the construction costs back.
- Citizens of higher classes of citizen now need more food types per turn (fish and meat in addition to wheat).
- Large ships can now only anchor in cities if at least one dock is available.

- The entire graphics system has been reworked to free up more chip mem memory for more future in-game music.
- Countless things have been added, changed, tried and thrown away since the last update in February 2023.
And of course, bugs were always searched for, found and fixed.







What's still "missing" in this update:
- Elections
Keeping citizens happy does not yet have a big impact on the game.
In the future, there will be regular elections, which the player must win in order to
remain in power.
The technical foundations for such an election system have been laid in the current version.

- Native people
Here, too, the basis for integrating native tribes into the game has been created in the current version.
The plan is to place native villages and units on the map with which the player can interact.
Unfortunately, I did not manage to include this feature in time.

- Computer opponents
CPU-controlled opponents are very complex to implement. I have been working on this intensively for several weeks, but I have to put this feature off until later. With the programming of the natives I will hopefully be able to gain enough experience to be able to realise computer opponents later.

You see...I am far from finished with the development of -Settle the World-


So that the next update doesn't have to wait for months, there will be two versions available for download on the project page in the next weeks.
One is the "official" update and the other is a current development version.

The development versions will hardly be tested, but most of them are compatible with the game state.
I hope this will give me some more feedback on the game


The -Farm Update- does not contain all the changes I had planned.
The development of the game is getting more and more complex and it is a hobby project (...but I work on it between two and six hours every day).

So the current update is just another step towards a complete game.
With the -Farm Update- it is now possible to play much longer than before and the programme structure is "ready for the future".

[CodyJarrett]

Looks great! I've tweeted about the update:

https://twitter.com/AmigaAbime/statu...56798857605345

[TheoTheoderich]

Originally Posted by CodyJarrett

Looks great! I've tweeted about the update

Thank you very much

[Seiya]

impressive work for one person only.
This game is comparable to Civilization/Colonization both for graphics, sound and gameplay.

[TCD]

Very impressive update

[Megalomaniac]

A brief play tells me that this is promising. A1200 with 4Mb fast RAM spec in WinUAE seems to perform well, and one person doing a game for that spec will always be a bigger job than for a 512+512 A500. Certainly similar to Colonization, but with a few ideas of its own, and more in the pipeline clearly. Not many people make strategy games in the homebrew era, but they make a nice change from action titles.

[TheoTheoderich]

From now on, the latest development version of Settle the World can be downloaded from my project page:
https://theotheoderich.itch.io/settle-the-world

You can find more details under the following link:
https://theotheoderich.itch.io/settl...of-development

Note / Disclaimer:
Please do NOT use development versions to publicly review / rate the game.

Development versions are often barely tested and contain features that are not yet fully implemented.
This can lead to bugs, crashes or incorrect gameplay.
It can happen that newer development versions can no longer read the savegames of previous versions.

You are welcome to report bugs / confusion or other problems here in the forum, or in our Settle the World Discord.
https://discord.gg/UJyZSJJqYg

[Seiya]

but the Harddisk version is farm update or it's already new version (not development version)?

edit:
i checked and normal version is the Farm Update.

[TheoTheoderich]

Originally Posted by Seiya

but the Harddisk version is farm update or it's already new version (not development version)?

edit:
i checked and normal version is the Farm Update.

Yes, the latest official version is still the "Farm Update", because the "Native Update - Part I" is still under development, because not all planned features are already included and many other features are still not perfectly working and tested

The download file 20231116_SettleTheWorld.hdf - Development Version contains the latest development version.
The main menu should look like in the screenshot here.


EDIT:
Thanks for your input. I named the download files more clearly now. See second screenshot:

[Blake00]

Hah I had a feeling you'd already have a project thread here on the Amiga boards Theo as where better haha! Was cool to read the previous 4 pages and see where this amazing project all began. Truly one of the finest fan projects I've ever seen! Keep up the great work mate.

[AlphaAmiga]

Yeah, this project & resulting game is great. I enjoy it a lot although haven't been able to play it last couple months due to lack of time and a shaky system.

I'm hoping to hear how people with pistorms are finding it in terms of custom map generation and overall performance

[Seiya]

Originally Posted by TheoTheoderich

EDIT:
Thanks for your input. I named the download files more clearly now. See second screenshot:

yes, and i see that you have made another little update (build 9336). In this way we can follow your updates easily

[Blake00]

Yeah the recent update added support for the AROS kick Rom which is a nice touch.

I've been mucking around with it and there's a lot of classic Colonization's gameplay here but with interesting little differences and additions.. Theo's attention to detail is remarkable.. and the game is just full of gorgeous artwork. Apparently he's been using the Midjourney AI to make and then he 'demasters' to Amiga colours & resolution.. and it just.. friggin.. works lol! Obviously we're seeing plenty of people using AI for upscaling old games but this is the first time I've encountered a developer using AI to create brand new artwork (that looks like it could have come from the 90s) for a retro console/computer game.

[TheoTheoderich]

A new version of Settle the World is now available for you to download for free, the « – The Election Update –« :
https://theotheoderich.itch.io/settle-the-world


In the game, the population of cities can now vote every few years on whether the player should remain in power.

Elections become available as soon as the citizens of a city have reached the worker class for the first time.

If the player wins the election, he can continue playing, if he loses the vote, the game ends for him.

The integration of the new election system is far from complete and will be expanded in future updates.


If you like, you can also follow us on Discord. You can find the link on the project page linked above.
I would be very happy to receive some feedback on the game

Please test if the LHA and/or the HDF file works everywhere.

An Amiga compatible system with at least 1 MB ChipMem and 4 MB FastMem is required.
KickROM 3.x or AROS is also required.

[TheoTheoderich]

Tom from Loco's Welt Gaming did an interview with me about my Amiga game "Settle the World" and also recorded a Let's Play video about it.

Note: Both videos are in German language!

Interview:
[ Show youtube player ]
In the LetsPlay I play and explain Settle the World for about an hour and answer Tom's questions.
Settle the World LetsPlay:
[ Show youtube player ]

Settle the World can be downloaded here for Amiga computers or emulators for free:
https://theotheoderich.itch.io/settle-the-world


I can recommend Tom's Loco's Welt Gaming channel to anyone who is interested in retro gaming.
Everything is covered here, from old console games to home computer games from the 80s and 90s.
https://youtube.com/@locosweltgaming

[gimbal]

Just in case you haven't spotted it yet, little typo in that election result game over screen - *disappointed.

The still image in that same screen is amazing by the way. Nothing says defeat more than being rained on.

[TheoTheoderich]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Just in case you haven't spotted it yet, little typo in that election result game over screen - *disappointed.

The still image in that same screen is amazing by the way. Nothing says defeat more than being rained on.

Thank you very much.
Yes, took me round about 6 hours to create and edit "Election lost" picture with the Midjourney AI, Paint Shop Pro 9 and PPaint.
I am happy that you like it.