The last prototype build

As we first wrote in The future of TFC: The Fertile Crescent, this will be the last substantial update to the current itch.io version of the game. We will continue to maintain it, but it will no longer receive feature updates.

Reworked wall and watchtower

Previously, wall and watchtower occupied 2 tiles each and could only be placed on "odd" tiles. The reworked wall and watchtower only take up 1 tile each, making them easier and more satisfying to place on the map.

Balance changes

Walls

The reduced cost and manpower required to construct walls makes them more rewarding to set up. For example, it's now a better strategy to wall your base against early rushes. You might therefore have to expect more siege battles, such that battering rams and sappers might become more important to consider as part of your attack plans.

Wood

Trees now have less wood. This means it's slightly faster to clear land. Since farms also cost more wood, you're less likely to have excessive amounts of wood early game. You will have to work slightly harder to transition from hunting and foraging to farming, and you might have to expand earlier.

Food consumption

Advanced units now consume more food. This puts a sharper limit to the amount of elite units in your army, as you will have to work harder to maintain an elite army. This also means you will now have to consider hiring a larger and cheaper army versus a smaller elite one. Or maybe a combination of both?

The end of an era!

We have uploaded updates to this itch.io version since June 2018, making it over 3 years. Multiplayer support was released in September 2018, almost exactly 3 years ago! Since then, we have made slow and steady progress on the core gameplay loop of TFC: The Fertile Crescent, carefully building it block by block, evaluating every step, and listening to community feedback along the way. It has been a slow and, at times painful, process, but this is how we envisioned developing this game, and we are thankful to have been given the opportunity to do it this way.

The community has played an important role in keeping us going for all this time, so thank you for your support!

We hope to see you for our next chapter, which we will release more information about soon. :)

Change log 0.6.8.4

General improvements

• Wall and watchtowers now occupy 1 tile instead of 2 and are therefore much easier to place on the map
• Gate now occupies 3 tiles and has improved values for z-buffering
• New gate and watchtower art
• Improved pathfinding behavior (eg. villager is much less likely to find longs paths around to other side of walls to construct them)
• Militia and idle villager indicators show through all buildings parts
• Performance improvements for updating map when opening or closing gates
• Adjusted sprite offsets for tree, rally point, select tile, and select building rectangles

Balance changes

• Each tree has 20 wood (from 25)
• Farm costs 50 wood (from 40)
• Wall costs 2 clay per tile (from 2.5)
• Wall requires 25% less man power to construct
• Spearman, Heavy Axeman, Archer, Javelin Thrower, Sapper consume 2 food (from 1)
• Battering Ram, Swordsman consume 3 food (from 1)
• Copper spear, axe costs 75 metal (from 50)
• Bronze spear, axe, arrowhead now costs 100 metal (from 75)
• All equipment now costs as much wood as bronze to produce

Bug fixes

• Holding SHIFT to queue construction of buildings now work for wall, watchtower and gate
• Correct upgraded sapper icon
• Correct icon for selecting single idle villager
• Garrison command works with palace like it does for villagers to garrison watchtower
• Fixed a problem that occassionally wouldn't let you select a tile close to fog of war
• Fixed a problem with battering rams not moving to target
• Fixed wrong notifcation message if produced equipment message showed at the same time as wonder was constructed
• Fixed a problem when a group wanted to access a target in an inaccessible area