Let's dive a bit deeper into one of the core ideas in Times of Progress. As you know, the Industrial Revolution was a global phenomenon and in ToP that is represented by the fact that your city does not exist in a void.

As I discussed in a previous announcement (if you missed it you can read more about it here), new inventions are happening throughout the game world, not just in the local Research Institute in your own city.

You can import those new technologies by spending Research Points. One of the ways in which you can earn them is by showing to the world that your city is at the forefront of industrial progress, in terms of quantity, quality and efficiency of your industries, products and transportation networks. You can do that by setting, and achieving, quantitative Goals for your city and building a sort of reputation in the game world.

This is how choosing new Goals works:

You will be given some alternatives of what you would like to obtain, and for each Goal there will be a Reward associated with it, as well the corresponding amount of Research Points that will be earned.

Goals can be reached, for example, by reaching a certain population, or transporting a specified amount of a resource, or upgrading a predefined number of houses to their next level.

On the other hand, examples of Rewards can be an increase in efficiency of a specific building, or a reduction in the cost to build a new factory, or a type of vehicle traveling faster or transporting more.

Rewards are usually incremental quantitative improvements to your buildings. They are designed so that individually they don't contribute a whole lot, but by choosing wisely which ones to pursue, their effects can definitely stack up and in turn make certain future Goals easier to achieve.

You can set more than one Goal for yourself to work on at the same time and once you reach one, pick another. There are also upgrades that let you increase how many active Goals you can have, as well as expand the choices available when setting them.

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Times of Progress is part of the Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Fest!

Trains are a key mode of transportation in the game. They are used to deliver materials and goods, as well as extending the area of effect of relevant buildings, if there is a passenger train station in range.

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Let's dive a bit into the Laws mechanic and the City Hall building.

They are the administrative equivalent of Research upgrades and the Research Institute building. I talked about those in a previous newsletter issue. If you missed it, you can read up about it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2628450/view/5997186379223382084?l=english

The City Hall is a building that allows you to start signing Laws for your citizens that unlock new buildings, change stats and affect the needs of the population.

Signing Laws requires Political Points, which are obtained by completing Goals (like Research Points) or passively via various buildings.

Here are some examples of Laws that you can decide to sign in Times of Progress, with their implications and the chain of laws that are made available:

• Public Health → Disease Prevention and Anatomy Act.
  
  • Public Health increases the efficiency of Infirmaries and makes available a few new possible laws.
    
  • Disease Prevention unlocks laws that reduce Health risks (having good Health is one of the citizen's Needs).
    
  • Anatomy Act (donating corpses to science) allows Infirmaries and Hospitals to passively produce Research Points.
• Citizen Assemblies → Trade Unions → Safety Regulations in Mines.
  
  • Citizen Assemblies allow to produce Political Points at Pubs (a building used for Entertainment Need).
    
  • Trade Unions allow workers to unionize, giving a permanent efficiency boost, but making them more expensive. They also play a role with worker strikes, one of the possible events in the game.
    
  • Safety Regulations in Mines decrease efficiency in mines, but reduce the negative Health effects for their workers.
• Police Act → Prison Reform → Law & Order.
  
  • Police Act unlocks the Police Station building, needed to prevent crime and address the Safety Need.
    
  • Prison Reform increases the Police Station number of workers needed and its efficiency.
    
  • Law & Order allows Police Stations to passively produce Political Points, but decreases Safety and Health of citizens in range.

Hope you find this mechanic interesting! As you see from the examples, it's very interconnected with other systems in the game, contributing to its sandbox nature.


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Times of Progress is part of the Automation Games Sale in the upcoming category!

Have a look at the other games that are part of the event here:
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/AutomationGamesSale

It's in great company:

• Timberborn
  
• The Wandering Village
  
• Against the Storm
  
• Foundation
  
• Clanfolk

And many more. If you liked any of the above, you will likely enjoy Times of Progress too.

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Times of Progress is part of the Games Baked in Germany Steam Event!

Have a look at the other games made here in the Steam page event: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/games-made-in-germany-2024

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Let's talk about the Research Tree. As you know, the game is set during the Industrial Revolution. It starts in 1800 and the research upgrades are planned throughout the century, mimicking real-world inventions that happened during the period.

However, it won't be the scientists in your city who all invent the Steam Engine, Cement, Organic Chemistry, the Typewriter etc etc. That would be a handful of very formidable scientists!
Instead, your city is part of the Revolution happening throughout the (game) world and unlocking technologies in-game means importing them from outside of the city.

New inventions are scheduled along a timeline, but don't unlock until you spend points on them, like in any tech tree.
What your scientists at your local Research Institute can do, instead, is accelerate the arrival of this new tech, meaning that you will actually be able to change the location of nodes in the research tree.

Here are some chains of inventions and their effects:

• Electrolysis → Atomic Theory → Dynamite → Tunneling.
  For example, Dynamite gives you the ability to remove small Hills and Mountains on the map that block your way, Tunneling allows you to place Railways inside Hills and Mountains directly.
  
• Water Frame → Spinning Mule → Sewing Machine → Jeans.
  For example, Sewing Machine improves efficiency in clothing industry buildings but reduces the number of workers needed, increasing unemployment. Jeans improve miners efficiency and health.
  
• Aluminum → Food Canning → Hall-Héroult Process.
  Here Aluminum unlocks the Smelter and is a new tradable material. Food Canning unlocks the Cannery and the ability to store and distribute Food more efficiently. Hall-Héroult Process increases the production rate of smelters and the number of workers needed, so more employment is possible.

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Times of Progress is taking part in the Steam Endless Replayability Fest 2024!

Here is what makes it endlessly replayable:

• Procedurally generated maps: this is self-explanatory: they will depend on some parameters that manage the amount of resources and terrain types available on the map.
  
• Randomised starting conditions to choose from: This means that apart from the amount of resources available on the map, you will also be able to choose some buildings you can start with, the resources available at the start in your storage, the resources that immigrants will bring with them etc.
  
• Randomised goals and rewards to choose from: A key part of the game loop is setting Goals for yourself to achieve (eg: transport 100 Coal by Train) and you will receive an associated Reward from it. It can be an increase in efficiency, or your industries will process goods a bit faster etc. These are the small increments that help you improve your city. There are other more sizeable upgrades, such as unlocking new buildings but that happens via a typical Research Tree.

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With Labour Day having been celebrated a few days ago, I thought that this time I would go into some details about one of my favourite mechanics in the game: Worker Strikes.

Strikes are one of the Issues that can happen in Times of Progress, along with Crime, Emigration, Prison Evasion and others.

To trigger them, a certain percentage of the Workers in a specific place of work needs to not have received "payment" (in the form of Food) for a few consecutive weeks. The thresholds are variable, based on upgrades and debuffs, but they are deterministic, there's no RNG involved.

Once the conditions are met, the Strike starts, which means that Production stops at the affected building and you get notified in the Events panel.

What can you do about Strikes, you ask? Well, once they happen you can choose between:

• You can meet the demands of the Workers (get a one-off extra Food portion, plus they'll consume slightly more going forward but they'll go back immediately to work).
  
• You can send the Police to force them back to work (you save on the extra rations, but they'll get a productivity debuff).

But there are also other mechanics that influence Strikes:

• An upgrade allows you to choose to let them Unionise (per building type). This means that Workers will have a permanent efficiency boost, but will consume more.
  
• University educated workers are slightly more likely to go on Strike (but they have other benefits from being highly educated).
  
• Some Workers never go on Strike, for example those in Infirmaries and Hospitals, but instead their Health decreases more quickly when they skip meals.

As a development update: I am currently busy working on the UI and some game mechanics. To get to the closed beta I still need to wrap up what I am doing and move onto polishing, making the UI look good and adding sounds and soundtrack. Progress is steady, but there's a lot to do! I will keep you posted as always.

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I’ve been busy with the Orders System lately, so I thought I would tell you a little about it.

In “Times of Progress”, like any other resource management games, resources need to get from warehouses to industries and back.

There are no manually set routes though: an industry that needs a certain Resource will look for the closest Depot (or its larger version, a Warehouse) and issue an Order to it, requesting a certain amount of the Resource they need (eg: Coal).

The Depot then sends to the industry their Coal and the industry starts producing.

Depots also issue Orders themselves: they are constantly trying to refill their stock from nearby industries.

The system is very flexible: if you decide to delete a Depot, industries will look for another one, which might be a little further away. The same goes for industries being deleted, or not being currently active: the Depot will try to refill its stock from somewhere else, fully dynamically.

The same goes when adding new Depots, or expanding the Road or Railway system: as soon as there’s a more efficient route to get the resources needed, it will be chosen automatically by the game, giving maximum flexibility and avoiding any tedious manual adjustment, so that you can focus on what makes the game fun: expanding your city, reaching your goals and unlocking new content.

Take good care of yourself and until the next one!

---

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