DevDiary #12 – “Be firm in your faith” – August 2020

Hello everybody!

A good month has passed since we lifted the curtain on the first three of the eight new professions. And we also told you a little about what else we are up to. Before we provide you with a little bit more information, we would like to point out again that bug fixing, multiplayer and AI keep being our top priorities 🙂

In the last developer diary we talked about the differences between village and town. And we let you know that we plan to change and expand the privileges for your characters and the possibilities you get through your residence. And last but not least, we revealed a bit about three of the new professions.

For the production of some items the water gained from a well is needed. However, there is usually only one well per village or city district, which is why it can be a long way to get there. There are also actions like “poison well” *coughing* …
As soon as you have achieved a certain title, you will be given the opportunity to build wells yourself where it makes the most sense to you. But be aware that everyone can use your well.

One of the innovations for noble dynasties will be that you will be able to erect statues. Statues are expensive and will astonish passers-by. After a while statues will decay. We still have a few ideas about what else you can do with statues, but we don’t want to spoil the surprise yet 😉

But now let’s give you a first insight on two more of the eight new professions:

– The orchardist
This profession gathers and/or produces honey, fruit, cider and some more. You will find the orchardist in the food preparation skill branch. And of course you can also choose it as your starting profession.

– The preacher (and religion!)
Many of you have missed a clerical profession. So do we. But without the Catholic and Protestant faith, the preacher made no sense to us. Now that the necessary core systems are largely final, we have decided to implement the Christian denominations into the game.
In The Guild 1 and The Guild 2, faith was a large factor in calculating reputation among characters. A Catholic would have felt less sympathy towards a Protestant than another Catholic.

For The Guild 3, however, we decided not to take faith as a further factor in the calculation of reputation and instead to go a new way: a Catholic will have a lower chance of success in social activities with a Protestant. And vice versa, of course. So if you are a Catholic but your beloved is a Protestant, your romantic advance will be more difficult.

As a preacher, you can convince the city dwellers to join your faith. And when you preach, then you will have significantly more coins in the collection if your listeners belong to your faith.
All members of a dynasty have the same faith. And if you change your faith in a church, it applies to all members of your dynasty. The NPCs, however, all have their own faith.
As faiths we will implement Catholic, Protestant and Secular – the believers in the last faith are more or less neutral Christians and most NPCs and some dynasties will start the game with Secular faith.

You can initially build the preacher’s hut only in the village and initially only “convert” the villagers and collect donations from them for your godly activities. But later in the game, you will also be able to build a preacher’s hut in town.
The churches remain as urban buildings with no denomination. Regardless of your beliefs, you can continue to adopt orphans there and use the other actions. And we will add one or more actions relating to religion.
You will find the preacher in the scholar skill branch. You can also choose this profession at the start of the game.

In the next developer diary we will reveal the last three of the new professions.