[previewyoutube=vIqiXhvUZXY;full][/previewyoutube] [h2][b]Salutations, Industrialists![/b][/h2] In today's Dev Diary, we are excited to share a first look at Diplomacy in Gilded Destiny! We will walk you through the basics of the UI and some of the core features of Diplomacy. Also, in this video, we'll show you a first look at the foundational map rework to improve performance. However, please keep in mind that it is far from finalized in terms of how it looks. We intend to change many of the features you currently see displayed on the map. Performance has been significantly improved, resulting in higher fps, lower processor and GPU load, and more. Stay tuned! We will share more once the map artwork has been more finalized. Also, Check out our fifth Alpha Roadmap Update: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2189430/view/4613462911404128936?l=english [i]You can find the full script for the Dev Diary below.[/i] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Let us know if you have any questions or feedback over on Discord. And be sure to wishlist us to stay up to date! [b]Join our Discord community today![/b] https://discord.gg/3d77T9gxDF Speaking of Discord, we have started rolling the Discord roles to our Kickstarter backers! If you have not yet completed the Kickstarter survey we sent out, please do so. If you have filled it out, and are not yet in our Discord server, join and say hello in the main channel to let us know you're there to claim your role! Our Kickstarter officially ended in April, and brought in a total of £31,974 GBP, which is 159% of our goal! We offer the most gilded appreciation to all of our backers and our community. Your support, positive feedback and encouragement, and our growing vibrant community of industrialists motivates more than ever to make Gilded Destiny the most moddable, immersive, fun, and grandest GSG out there. You can access the survey on the Kickstarter website: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gildeddestiny/gilded-destiny-a-grand-strategy-game?ref=bjurrh Finally, if you are interested in what we do and want to join us but do not see a relevant job, send us your resume at jobs@aquilainteractive.io! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [h2]Script for Dev Diary 20:[/h2] Greetings industrialists. I'm Marc, a producer working on Gilded Destiny at Aquila Interactive. I first wanted to thank everyone for their support as we get the game ready for the Alpha build, which we intend to release in the coming months. Also, we had a successful time at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, showing off Gilded Destiny to many enthusiastic visitors to our stand. We had players of all ages come by to check out the game. For the demo build, we focused on adding initial basic content for Prussia, so that our players could get a sense of what gameplay will be like as one of the great powers of the nineteenth century. We estimate that over the four days at Gamescom, we had a couple hundred players visit our stand to play the Gilded Destiny demo. We even had a few Kickstarter backers and members of our Discord community stop by! One of the most popular things to do across the board was to wage war against neighboring countries and seek to expand Prussia—where players loved being able to move individual troops across the map or set a general order for some troops so they could attack or defend automatically. Some players united East and West Prussia, some conquered Saxony, some conquered Poland, some invaded Hanover, and one player united Germany and renamed it "Disneyland" and created a Mickey Mouse flag to match—using the in-game flag editor! Of course, to wage war, you need to interact with our Diplomacy System, which is the topic of today's video! And just as a final note, we have realized that we need to rearrange our development priorities slightly before the Alpha releases. Our priority for the Alpha is to have a build that allows Alpha testers to have a meaningful, fun, and complex gameplay experience, which is not overshadowed by UI, UX, and system mechanics issues that we intend to fix soon anyway. Also, of course, the Pre-Alpha is coming soon to a closed group of 50 randomly selected Kickstarter and Modian backers. Now, on to Diplomacy. First, I'm excited to show you a first look at the new map for Gilded Destiny. We have been working on a foundational rewrite to the map to improve performance. However, please keep in mind that it is far from finalized in terms of how it looks. We intend to change many of the features you currently see displayed on the map. Performance has been significantly improved, resulting in higher fps, lower processor and GPU load, and more. Stay tuned, and will share more once the map artwork has been more finalized. Ok... NOW, on to Diplomacy! Let's take a look at some of the key parts of the main Diplomacy UI. You of course have your list of countries present in the game—some of which will be friendly towards you and some will hostile. The data can be sorted by column, as well. You can see the current value of your Diplomatic Relations here, in this column. Generally, the higher the number, the more favorably this country views your nation; and of course, lower numbers signify a more hostile attitude. Countries will be ranked by their Global Ranking, which you see in the left column. The rank will generally be determined by three elements: Prestige (which you can see in this column, bear with us as we are still working on the icon), Military (which is in this column), and Economy (here). Ranks 1 through 8 will be considered Great Powers, 9 through 24 are regional powers, and 25 and greater will represent minor powers. You can of course increase your own prestige by researching certain technologies, achieving war goals, winning wars, expanding your empire through creating subordinate countries, conquest, or colonization, and other actions. You'd lose prestige through the opposite—losing wars, breaking alliances, declaring bankruptcy, failing or refusing to join a war when an ally is attacked, failure to meet diplomatic obligations, and so on. The overall strength of your Military will influence the values in this column, which will reflect a comprehensive look at your army and naval units. And the size of your economy will be in this column, which is largely determined by GDP. You'll also notice we have War Exhaustion, which represents the readiness of your military to carry on fighting. This will be impacted by the duration and outcomes of an ongoing war—for example, losing a battle or city or province will increase War Exhaustion, and it will generally increase until peace is proclaimed. As War Exhaustion increases, higher levels will have increasingly negative effects. Another feature to point out is Infamy, which represents negative attitudes and sentiments held by other nations towards your country. Infamy will be influenced by actions you take that are seen as hostile or unjust, such as breaking alliances, not honoring alliances, enacting certain policies, plotting against another country, and so on. Infamy may also be influenced by certain events within the Events system. And AI countries will generally exhibit a more hostile or unfriendly attitude toward countries with high Infamy. Now, let's talk about some of the Actions you can take against other countries. You can "Send an Ambassador" to improve your relations with a country. Conversely, you could damage your relations with another country by "Expelling their Ambassador." There will of course be various advantages and disadvantages from increasing or decreasing your Diplomatic Relations with another country. If, for example, you want to ally with a Great Power, you'd need to improve your relations. On the other hand, you might want to damage your relations with a country--for example, if you want to provoke them into declaring war on you. Fabricating a Casus Belli allows you several different options for declaring war on another country. There will generally be some conditions to each one, such as not being current allies and that you are not currently a puppet state. Things like that. But, you'll have several options: Conquer Province, Reclaim Territory, Abolish Slavery, Liberate Country, Independent War, Establish Puppet Regime. We are currently inputting the new UI into the system, but you can see that you can fabricate one to conquer a province, or several provinces if you'd like. Once you've successfully created a Casus Belli, which generally requires a few days to develop, you are ready to declare war! When you click on Declare War, you are able to set your War Goals. You will be able to select more than one war goal, but this means that you will need to reach a higher war score to win the war. You will also invite any subordinate countries, vassal states, and puppet regimes automatically, and you can also choose to call your allies to join the war. We'll skip ahead here and go straight to the end of a war. If you are interested in seeing some warfare in action, take a look at the last Dev Diary showing Gameplay and stay tuned for a future Dev Diary where we will go into more detail about the Military and War. Now, to end the war, you can of course send a peace offering at any time, and depending on the progress of the war and the state of your opponent, the other country may accept or not. Also, you are able to offer unconditional peace or you can surrender. Unconditional peace is a good choice if both sides have high War Exhaustion scores and have not yet achieved their war goals. Of course, you can decide to surrender at any time to end the war, but this will come with a cost of Prestige for failure to achieve your war goals. Finally, if you feel like accomplishing your goals is possible through peaceful negotiations, you can go to the negotiation screen. Here, you will be able to make demands and offer concessions to another country. Essentially, you must ensure that the sum of the condition values for your concessions is greater than those values for your demands. Keep in mind that some of these values are still being balanced and will likely change. Higher diplomatic relations will also lower the values required for the other country to accept the demands. Options will include establishing a Treaty (Trade Agreement, Non-Interference Pact, Defensive/Military Alliance), Request/Cede Province, Financial Support, Inviting Join the War, and so on. Alright, that's all for now on Diplomacy. We look forward to sharing more details with you soon. If what I mentioned in the Dev Diary was interesting to you, and you have experience with historical research, mapping, writing, game design, and have an interest in figuring out the "why" of history, we are always looking for new talent to join our team. Lastly, remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel and, if you have not done so already, add Gilded Destiny to your Steam wishlist. Until our paths converge once more, we bid thee farewell! Thank you for watching. May your destiny be a gilded one. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [h3]Also:[/h3] Be sure to listen closely to the backing tracks in all our videos—they are the pieces you will come to hear in the game, composed by John Skoog. Also, the solo clarinet on this track was performed by yours truly, Marc. Listen to some of John Skoog's other work on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3PGd3lmURa72oFasqK3N7N?si=nDl4DUTRQGKKLaDtGcHBJw John Skoog Music: https://www.johnskoogmusic.com/