Bulwark: Evolving Beta Update

Today i'd like to share a big update to the Evolving Beta, and most excitedly a preview of some of the cool stuff that's coming in the Architecture and Accuracy Update.

It's best not to tell but to show some of the changes as these are new buildings your population can build if they have access to enough resources. Yes, your population will now take resources into account when building their houses and industry, with the topmost result being these larger "apartment building" scale buildings.

On top of that the factions have gotten a few more flourishes to make them unique. Especially the Mancer and Bannerless, their settlements should look more cohesive and well "factional" with more differences. Mancers, for instance, have ominous 'Minas Morgul' style floodlights to enhance their already dark vibes. All of this is still under development but have a gander ;), there is other news as well, nominations and all that (see below).

First up we have a video detailing some previews for some upcoming changes to the Imperial Faction followed by a preview of some changes coming in the future architecture update.


The Imperial architecture will be enhanced with its top-tier buildings, larger scale and stronger interior spaces. Take a look at their settlements


Lighting settings are being improved and I'm implementing expanded colour gradients

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Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles has been nominated for AMD Pixel Award Europe 2024 in the BEST GAMEPLAY and BIG BANG! categories!

Fingers crossed for Bulwark and congratulations to all the nominees, I wish them the best of luck!

Pixel Heaven Games & Pop Culture Festival 2024 will take place on 7-9th June in Warsaw. More info: https://pixelheavenfest.com/en/

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Bulwark players keep surprising us with screenshots they have made in recent weeks. Some have caught our eye in the last few days, so we wanted to share them with you. Look at those magnificent structures and great shots captured by the Steam Community.

captured by Sachiel
captured by Grandmaster
captured by Brokenvegetable
captured by mkrootPL
captured by Final Cipher
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Patch notes (now live in beta):

This is a comprehensive list of changes that have just gone live in the Evolving Beta Branch - Also expect changes and upgrades in: Soul Tree, resources system, inventory, merchants, Gotham City-like buildings, and lots more reasons to use built-in photo mode coming in the full featured Architecture update later.

- trade-posts don't accidentally give resource back without the appropriate captain
- demolishing will recycle resources
- houses build on the inside of breakwater walls can be further away
- resource access is taken into consideration when people build their houses.
- requirements for higher tier houses are more stringent (stone cannot be build upon wooden foundations for instance)
- fixed that npc settlement houses don't de-spawn over time
- suspension bridges and sky-ways won't block ships
- your population will downgrade their houses if resource access is lost.
- your population will upgrade their houses if resource access is gained.
- rewind animation in photo-mode doesn't affect population
- repair cost halved
- late game combat splinters should always be at least 200 splinters
- combat captains have increased impact on trade-route security
- hostile or neutral settlements have reduced impact on trade-route security
- trade-route length has improved impact on trade-route security
- rebuilding surveyor cost reduced to 500
- increased speed and trigger distance of projectiles to improve accuracy/lethality
- increased unit amounts from most commanders (edited)
- changed the ballistics prediction to aim tighter on the target (less predictive) to account for closer distances and higher projectile speed readability fixes for steamdeck
- patrol units spawn higher
- trade harbours connections would get removed in the scenario selection menu, now prevented
- soultree is gets golden color when it is your aligned faction|
- fixed resources not being transported along pathways more than 20 nodes (due to traderoutes for instance)
- turrets reacquire targets from in front of their sights, not general vicinity (less downtime)
- turrets don't fire when obstructed by friendlies
- turrets will engage with an enemy if it is firing directly at them (defend themselves)
- turrets can individually be destroyed on a ship or airship
- tightened enemy raids to stay closer together
- turrets that are part of a hostile settlement are double checked as targets (prevent them not being targeted
- spawning population gives a splinter to your treasury
- removed advisor saying "new units available" when fleet is full
- investigate bannerless inbalance
- special buildings give 40 splinters
- any trade ship will give 1 splinter per journey, merchant princes give 30
- population splinters and trading splinters are added at dusk every day
- fixed a small disbalance where there was a slightly larger chance for bannerless houses to spawn
- splinters from trade and population growth can be accessed in the inventory or collected after dawn from the player citadel
- splinters from trade and population are shown separately in the inventory
- the descriptive texts of the inventory screen is now correct and shows text for all extractor types
- i or left shoulder button opens inventory
- advisor doesn't pop up in settings , controller, game help or twitch menu
- commanders and captains unlocked in your scenario saves are available in freebuild
- splinters aren't shown or triggered in freebuild
- houses don't upgrade or downgrade in freebuild dynamically)
- some VOs regarding for instance businesses where never shown
- removed some conflicts in the resource network where superior resource access wasn't given to a tower because it was closer to a lesser resource acces route that was closer
- changed ship pathing to never be be blocked by small obstacles and move aside if near other ships
- prevented a half working pause menu to appear over the scenario selector menu
- scenario selector menu now fades out when exiting to main menu
- unrest amongst factions will only lead to war if you have a sizeable warfleet, with pirates being the easiest to trigger and mancer the hardest
- minor post processing and sky color changes
- increased bloom and AO a bit
- houses may sometimes have a tiny amount of tilt
- several captains have expanded cargo manifests to help in managing large colonies
- captains and commanders from vassalized factions will always work for you
- prevented a half working pause menu to appear over the scenario selector menu
- scenario selector menu now fades out when exiting to main menu
- unrest amongst factions will only lead to war if you have a sizeable warfleet, with pirates being the easiest to trigger and mancer the hardest
- minor post processing and sky color changes
- increased bloom and AO a bit
- houses may sometimes have a tiny amount of tilt
- several captains have expanded cargo manifests to help in managing large colonies
- captains and commanders from vassalized factions will always work for you
- Mancer Order has new top tier houses/buildings that ar e larger and unlock if you gain their leader, their alignment or a mancer population of 2500 and higher
- Imperial Remnant has new top tier houses/buildings that ar e larger and unlock if you gain their leader, their alignment or a cancer population of 2500 and higher
- Bannerless have a new alternative citadel model
- increased the size of the tier1 pirate foundation

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If you want to be up to date with all news from the Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles universe, make sure you're following official Bulwark Discord and channels on X/Twitter and YouTube!

Discord[discord.gg]
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Play Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/290100/Bulwark_Falconeer_Chronicles_The_Creative_Building_Sandbox/

Perhaps you've noticed the bit of fun I had with the name of the game and the various news articles about it. This post isn't about that but it is related, it's about how you can be part of the development of the next named update "Architecture and Accuracy" and how some of you already have.

So with regards to the name and all that, Bulwark certainly has strategy, but it doesn't have a proper campaign. And adding the words creative sandbox to the title just gives people a better expectation for the game. This wasn't about players miss-tagging, you can tag how you feel, that's the system, but rather about the store page needing improvement. And you'll notice the short description has changed to clarify this as well as the top level genre is now 'simulation'. All of this is fairly normal store optimization to make sure players get the right info, didn't expect it to go viral ;) Tho 'nuff said about that.

Just to sign off on the matter, I did make a new video to explain the ideas behind Bulwark in 60 seconds, check that out here :


I've been paying attention to the reaction to the roadmap reveal and taking a look at what people have been saying within the forums and Discord as things they feel are a priority. As such, whilst the roadmap currently has the planned "Naval Command" update landing next, I've decided to invest a bit more time and build it out into something that should satisfy those of you that want a bit more challenge, combat and ways to challenge yourself within the Great Ursee.

With this in mind, I'm going to bring one of the architecture updates forwards, and start fleshing out the creative sandbox a bit more to ensure the framework of building and politics and resources and everything else in between is solid and in a good place before heading over into a world that incorporates a bit more strategy.


1. A rework of the housing system.
2. A rebalance and refactor of the targeting systems for units and turrets.

So a bit of a weird combination, but thanks to some really good detailed feedback the last few weeks I've been able to re balance combat, repairs and rework a lot of the targeting, making combat quicker , more punchy and less of a slog. So that gets added to what was an architecture focused update, no need to withhold that.

New floodlight flourishes and new top tier houses unlock from your faction Leader, in this case making the Mancer look even more ominous.

And here comes how you can involve yourself with this update. One of the main reasons Bulwark was as well loved as it was on launch, was because of the incredibly valuable feedback gathered from the Evolving Demo. Given the importance of the upcoming updates to the game, I'd like to step back into that feedback loop - Informing you of what's coming in a named update, pushing it out into a constantly updating Beta, and then letting your feedback as to whether you feel it is achieving what the update sets out to do, or requires a little more tweaking to really shine.

Accessing this Evolving Beta branch is simple - go to game properties on Bulwark in your library and then the tab BETAS and select the beta patch. That will update your game to the version I am making as we speak - and voila!

The upcoming architecture update isn't finished by any sense of the word, but those who participate will see updates nearly daily and be able to deliver feedback on the housing and balancing to make the update better and ultimately ensure what goes into the final update release, comes out making as many people happy as possible.

Regardless of my failures in tagging and storefronts, I do honestly thrive on feedback and player participation, here and on discord, so lets re-open the floodgates and let everyone try the work in progress.


improvements to housing:

• demolishing will recycle resources
  
• resource access is taken into consideration when people build their houses.
  
• Top tier houses appear from the Mancer Order under certain conditions (all factions will get this)
  
• Top tier flourishes (floodlights) appear from the Mancer Order under certain conditions (some factions will likely get unique flourishes)
  
• your population will upgrade their houses if resource access is gained.
  
• requirements for higher tier houses are more stringent (stone cannot be build upon wooden foundations for instance)
  
• your population will downgrade their houses if resource access is lost.
  
• houses build on the inside of breakwater walls can be further away

Accuracy Content:

• increased speed and trigger distance of projectiles to improve accuracy/lethality
  
• changed the ballistics prediction to aim tighter on the target (less predictive) to account for closer distances and higher projectile speed (
  
• turrets reacquire targets from in front of their sights, not general vicinity (less downtime);
  
• turrets don't fire when obstructed by friendlies
  
• turrets will engage with an enemy if it is firing directly at them (defend themselves)
  
• turrets can individually be destroyed on a ship or airship
  
• tightened enemy raids to stay closer together
  
• turrets that are part of a hostile settlement are double checked as targets (prevent them not being targeted)

Balancing

• repair cost halved
  
• late game combat splinters should always be at least 200 splinters
  
• combat captains have increased impact on trade-route security
  
• hostile or neutral settlements have reduced impact on trade-route security
  
• trade-route length has improved impact on trade-route security
  
• rebuilding surveyor cost reduced to 500
  
• increased unit amounts from most commanders

General Improvements

• readability fixes for steamdeck
  
• soultree is gets golden color when it is your aligned faction|
  
• new "tomas" explanations in the scenario menu

Bugfixes:

• patrol units spawn higher
  
• trade-posts don't accidentally give resource back without the appropriate captain
  
• fixed that npc settlement houses don't de-spawn over time
  
• suspension bridges and sky-ways won't block ships
  
• rewind animation in photo-mode doesn't affect population
  
• trade harbours connections would get removed in the scenario selection menu, now prevented
  
• fixed resources not being transported along pathways more than 20 nodes (due to traderoutes for instance)

So lots going on and the cadence of updates is still going on, do expect the naval command to take longer than scheduled, I've learned to be a bit more careful on the strategy side, so trying to make it count, not just new content but really make it good. More new on that and opportunities to test that in the future.


p.s I do wanna add, I am sometimes short or hurried with my questions, they are never sarcastic, if I ask or suggest something it is with the honest intention of getting the most precise feedback from you all.

That said I have asked the community folk from wired to jump in and assist, as it's getting to be a bit much for one person who also has to do all the development. So if you see them on the forum treat them kindly and know that all the info they gather also ends up with me.

Cheerio and as always keep the feedback coming.

Join the discord here: https://discord.com/invite/falconeer