Research and technological progress is a subject we haven’t talked about much earlier, so today I’ll take this opportunity to shed some light on this.
So, in Thea, there will be three categories of technological advancement – in gathering materials, in crafting recipes and in construction of buildings. First category – gathering – specifies what kind of resources you see on the main map and what can be gathered by your people. Some basic resources will be available from the beginning, but to get to the best rare ones you will have to spend some advancement points to unlock them. Second category – crafting recipes – contains recipes for items that can be crafted such as weapons, armor or foodstuffs. The third category allows you to unlock certain constructions that, when built, will benefit your settlement in some way. For example – a cabbage field would produce some vegetables each turn but from time to time your people might find a baby in a cabbage 😉
Unlocking one technology will require one advancement point. These will be awarded in events or by crafting items. Rarity of items crafted will influence the progress speed – common ingredients mean slower progress, rare – faster.
This screen above is a hot mess and I probably shouldn’t even be showing it yet, but I do just to illustrate the resource tree we have in Thea already. All of those will be unlockable, and once gathered (or received in an event) – can be used for crafting. And the crafting category is almost just as big. We don’t think you’ll be able to unlock every tech in each playthrough, but rather specialize – choose what materials you want to gather based on terrain around you, and what to craft from it.
Hope you find our take on research interesting, see you next time!