Free Cities now features achievements. Since plain old achievements are boring, I've added them disguised as the player character's full formal title, which gets increasingly grand. I finished the final 0.5.3 debugging session as “Gaius Sixtus the Great, Hero of the City, Destroyer of the Daughters, Princeps of the Evocati, Keeper of the Blade and Chalice, Procurator of the Brothel, First on the Promenade, Comptroller of the Arcade, Holder of Slaves, and unquestioned Master of the Arcology.”
Some feedback on 0.5.2 has noted that reputation has limited effects on the game. I understand, and I agree; reputation wasn't originally planned at all, and it was only added once I realized that players were playing the game for far longer and with considerably more attention than I had anticipated, and therefore needed something more to work for than more money and more slaves. Adding benefits for high reputation has been a long term goal. I want to avoid gating content behind arbitrary reputation values as much as possible: the goal is to have a high-reputation game subtly feel more luxurious than at game start. For the eminent arcology owner, the girls are prettier, the milk is creamier, and free people ask you to enslave them.
In past discussions about balance I've warned that unlimited spammability of the “next slave” button in the slave markets wasn't going to last forever. I've tried to approach the problem in a way that should limit frustration while still addressing the issue. The game will now calculate a number of slaves that the player can see each turn without being penalized. The exact number is determined by your reputation: with no reputation it's 10, and at maximum reputation it's 30. The player can continue to view more slaves for sale after this number is exceeded, but a gradually increasing price penalty will be applied.
The in-universe explanation for this is that you're having to hunt increasingly hard, and consider paying steeper prices, to find more slaves on offer. (Also, the word that you're in the market for a specific slave has probably gotten around, so the dealers are jacking up prices when they see you coming.) This should hopefully make more sense than simply booting the player out of the markets after an arbitrary number of looks at merchandise. Furthermore, it allows a certain amount of “I have money, the rules don't apply to me,” since if you have a ton of money you can just ignore the penalty.
Feedback request: If you see the placeholder event that is displayed when a slave isn't eligible for any other individual event, use the slave upload function to post her stats here. Doing so will show me what types of slaves still need events written for them.
Download: Dropbox, Mega. Previous saves will not work. If you have not started a new game with a fresh download, please do not report bugs.
0.5.3 Changelog
Major additions:
Minor updates:
Major additions:
- Spamming through slaves in the markets will now eventually cause prices to start increasing. The increase does not take place until after many slaves have been examined, is always accompanied by a warning, and resets each week.
- A powerful bonus for girls without implants, to model all-natural appeal. Any breast, ass or lip implants are disqualifying, as are rib alteration and second level facial surgery; liposuction and first level facial surgery are not disqualifying.
- Five new societal models: Asset Expansionism (mutually exclusive with Body Purism), Slave Pastoralism, Physical Idealism, Degredationism (mutually exclusive with Paternalism), and Chattel Religionism.
- Eleven new acquisition events, one for each of the society models; more advanced adoption of a society model increases the chance of the related event occurring.
- At least one significant gameplay effect other than reputation gain for each of the eleven society models, all of which are more powerful at higher societal adoption levels. These are listed below to avoid spoiling them for those who prefer to experiment. *
- Now possible to name the PC at game start.
- The economy summary will now display the PC's full title on formal occasions.
- Now possible to apply ¤1000 subsidies to reputation and prosperity from the economics report, weekly.
- Reduced average intelligence of slaves offered by the basic slave market to encourage use of other acquisition options for slaves destined for leadership positions.
- Reworked arcology prosperity calculations to increase the power of arcology upgrades.
- High reputation relative to arcology prosperity will speed up prosperity growth; poor reputation relative to arcology prosperity will slow it down.
- Not giving any slave personal attention will result in better prosperity growth.
- Added personal living expenses, which depend on difficulty and starting options; in combination with the reworked prosperity, overall difficulty should be slightly reduced.
- Added a variety bonus to the promenade and the brothel for offering a mix of all-natural and implanted slaves.
- With slaves with dicks disabled in the starting options, it is no longer necessary to offer varied genitalia to attain perfect brothel and promenade variety bonuses.
- Increased reputation factor in the chances of getting some positive events, and added it as a factor in others.
- Several advantageous new choices for preexisting events that only appear if the player has a Head Girl.
- Additional dairy upgrade that contracts out the cows for breeding purposes.
- Now possible to abandon societal goals and select new ones; progress towards the old goals is not preserved.
- While building muscle, slaves on female hormones will have their gains slowed but will not simultaneously lose mass.
- Nine new encyclopedia articles for the future society models.
- Bugfixes.
* The future society effects are as follows. All assignment-related bonuses also apply to the associated facility.
- Racial Supremacist: slightly better public performance for slaves not of the preferred race.
- Racial Subjugationist: better public performance for slaves of the degraded race.
- Gender Radicalist: much better performance for XY whores and public servants with large T&A.
- Gender Traditionalist: no penalty for pregnant whores and public servants, and slightly better performance for XY whores and public servants (sexual repression is a powerful thing).
- Paternalist: chance to slightly increase devotion, and a chance of accelerated prosperity growth.
- Degredationist: more glory hole customers.
- Body Purist: enhanced bonuses for being implant-free.
- Asset Expansionist: enhanced bonuses for large T&A.
- Pastoralist: better prices for milk and ejaculate.
- Physical Idealist: better public performance for slaves based on musculature.
- Chattel Religionist: chance to slightly increase devotion, and a chance to avoid the weekly devotion cap.
