District Profile: Marketplace

The Marketplace is the first district you must build if you want to move your Settlement beyond Rank 2. People gathered in large enough numbers will create themselves a market place, whether a town square, a church courtyard, or an entire designated field. Your Settlement has finally gained enough momentum that the people both demand and can use this large space in which to conduct their daily necessary trades.

District Action - Bargain Hunt

Step right up! Plunge yourself into the teeming masses of daily trade! Everyone can tell you're packing cash. Every trader will tell you they've got the best deal. By the time you get back out of the bustle, your money is gone and a piece of gear is sitting in your hands. Is it awesome? Can you even wear it? These are the risks taken when Bargain Hunting.

Main Building - Forum

The forum is your center of trade and discussion. People come here to talk, shop, and find out what's going on in their Settlement. Generating Drachma and processing Bricks, the Forum is a uniquely useful main building. Upgrading this building increases Prosperity city-wide, as well as producing yet more Drachmas and Bricks per cycle.

Exclusive Building - Bazaar

Let the people trade! All it takes is building a Bazaar, and the business of the people will generate Drachmas and Litra as commerce commences. Every level of Bazaar increases Settlement Prosperity, while only risking the Security of the Marketplace. Bazaars are the most direct representation of that which pops up on every street corner where free trade is allowed.

Linked Building - Jewelcutter

The Jewelcutter is the only building in the game that processes Raw Gems into Cut Gems. So if you want those incredibly refined decorations (and valuable sparkly trade good), you'd better build some. Gems, while a high end commodity, matter a great deal to some casters and to participation in really snazzy actions/scenarios.

Ministry - Accounting

Concerned only with the fair flow of cash, the Accounting ministry is a key portion of the Department of Commerce. Not everyone can keep those long columns of numbers straight. The Ministry of Accounting is full of those wondrous little counters.

Minister - Comptroller

Overseeing the vast comings and goings of the Marketplace, the Comptroller is a demanding position. Especially since no Settlement can see Rank 3 without one. Comptrollers beware. Everyone thinks they can take if off the top when so much coin is changing hands.

Downside - Crimes of Opportunity

Where there is commerce, there is theft. Every building native to the Marketplace is incredibly good for commerce and an incredible temptation for the criminally inclined. Without Guardhouses, this district can quickly become nothing more than a training ground for new light-fingers.

Dueling in the Streets of Brune

Dueling
As you may have guessed, Dueling is 1x1 combat between players. There are a few basic rules, but in general this is a pure comparison of personal impact in battle

Starting the Duel
To initiate a duel, you need two things. The first is a handful of action points. The second is another character with whom you are enemies or worse. You can't start a duel with anyone neutral or friendlier.

Accepting the Duel
If someone tries to start a duel with you, it is usually considered bad form to turn them down. Even if their only justification is that the two of you already didn't like each other. Refusing a duel of equals or better will always cost you Importance. That said, it's also bad form to freely murder much weaker players, therefore it costs no Importance to refuse a duel started by someone of significantly higher level.

Equipment and Units
Unlike some traditions, Brunelleschi characters do not strip to the waist and fight with fists and knives. Instead, both parties meet clad as they always are. However, the participants must leave their personal Units at the edge of the ring.


Ending a Duel
There are two ways a duel can end. The first is the death of one of the participants, the other is 10 combat rounds having passed. No duel lasts more than 10 rounds and if both players are still standing the duel is a draw. When a player dies in a duel, they acquire a single Death Point and can restore themselves (or get Resurrected) normally. The winner is rewarded with a shower of Importance.

Halfway There!

The BruneGame Greenlight has finally hit 50% ("of the way to the top 100"). Whatever that means, we're excited!

Thanks to the wonderful 846 people who have voted by the time this post was written. Thanks to all the wonderful people who will vote after this post is written.

The first couple days were an absolute thrill. Watching the views and votes stack up has been an amazingly uplifting (but surprisingly tense) experience. Now, we've reached the point known as the mythical steam "graveyard", but it's not that bad! All the "graveyard" really means is that Steam has stopped giving you a bunch of free views. It's up to us now to get your attention, votes, favorites, and follows.




The team has been trying everything we can think of (within reason) to get more views and votes. Our first idea (every time) was more game features, but since we do that every day we had to think of more stuff. We've pulled programmers into demo and video creation, we've written half a dozen blog posts on various topics of interest, and we've tweeted our little hearts out. Hell, some of us even dared enter Reddit and Facebook in the quest for the blessed green illumination.

We are incredibly grateful to those who've taken the time to vote, and especially to those who favorite, follow, and leave comments. :D Thanks again to all our great supporters.  If you want to hear more (or less) from us, help us Greenlight! Tell your friends! So we can get back to what we love best: making you, the player(s), more awesome features.

Scenarios: The Basics

Scenarios

Scenarios are events that occur in one or multiple settlements. The outcome of these events is determined by the participation of the players.

To be completed, a scenario requires generally wants a certain amount of attribute points to be contributed. Each time a player contributes, they pay the contribution fee and stack their score of the desired attributes onto the Scenario. This means higher level players will have a much greater effect, as their Attributes will be higher. Some low-level scenarios can be completed by a single high-level character but that is where heroes come from, is it not?

While Scenarios can be started in a vast variety of ways, they come in two basic varieties: Cooperative and Competitive.

Cooperative Scenarios

Cooperative scenarios have only one direction: done. This means that either the contribution requirement has been reached by the end of the scenario timer or it hasn't. If it hasn't the scenario is failed and negative consequences may arise. If it is completed, the participating Settlements can rejoice and share in the bounty.

Competitive Scenarios

Competitive scenarios have two directions: finished and unfinished. This is a lot more like a tug-of-war game. The "Contributors" try to finish the scenario and the "Detractors" try to push it back and keep it from completing.

Detractors also throw in their attributes, but only to cancel out those already stacked up by contributors. Detractors "win" the scenario if the timer runs out without completion.

Costs and Rewards

All scenarios have an Action Point cost, and many require materials such as currency or horses to participate. Some contribution efforts are considered extreme enough to require Health or Magic points as well.

Contributing is a lot like taking an action. It takes your AP, and anything else it needs, and leaves you with... a contributor prize! (detractors get one too). This is like an action reward and it doesn't matter who wins the Scenario at the end.

Completion rewards on the other hand are determined at the end of the scenario and then divvied up between the top-contributors (or detractors if they "won"). Then everyone deals with the more wide-spread effects (if there are any) of the scenario's result.

Really Important Scenarios

Scenarios are how Brune handles almost all in-game events. That means Government/Society/Economy system changes, revolutions, riots, famine, and holidays are all Scenarios.

So if you see a scenario roll by in your Settlement, you might have a chance to change something really important.

Social Systems

The Society (or Social System) of your settlement matters a great deal. This is how the people prefer to have things done. It represents the kind of freedom the people expect and who they will tolerate in positions of power.

Civic Systems

There are 3 categories of Civic System in the game: Government, Society, and Economy. Every Settlement has one of each.
Each system has 4 basic categories based on power-distribution: Autocratic, Elitist, Egalitarian and Populist.
Each of these categories has 6 options within. The options with a player-class bias give special class-associated bonuses, like Prosperity bonuses for Trader-type systems.

If you don't want a class-biased system, you can always choose the Lord variation.

By setting the society, or having it forcibly set for you, you decide several key factors in the proceedings of your Settlement.


In most cases, Anarchy (caster:populist) is an exception, as (whether or not desks are sat in) the people don't recognize any authority at all.

What Societies Effect

Imprisonment:

How fair is your society? Do they immediately throw you into a dungeon upon accusation, or just keep an eye on you until a trial can be held?
Anarchy: Is Illegal.

Trial by...

Who decides whether you are innocent or guilty? In Autocratic setups, this will be the Sovereign themselves or a single authority holding minister?  In all other society types, your trial is decided by a jury. In this case, "Trial by" determines how many of who is on your jury.
Elitist arrangements allow for player citizens and/or groups of Ministers to decide your fate, with Sovereign/Minister judge to break ties.
In Egalitarian and Populist societies, NPCs decide!
Anarchy: No trials ever

Juy Selection:

Who is selected, out of all that are eligible, to serve as your jury? In populist societies, the selection is completely randomized and Egalitarian societies, the class-bias is the main choosing factor. Elitists favor a variety of qualifiers and Autocratic societies are either Sovereign or pure Rank.

Jury Service:

If called, are you required to serve on the poor sap's jury? This also varies based on the society's attitude. In some cases you have no choice, some you can delicate, and in others NPCs always serve in your stead.

Forced Labor:

Are you allowed to demand forced labor in order to speed construction? What if you offer an overtime bonus?

Minister Eligibility:

Every settlement needs ministers, but who may serve? Autocratic and Elitist societies expect Lords to serve in positions of power. The more equal you make the people, the more common of leaders can serve. Left completely alone, the NPCs will become Populist and elect NPCs to rule them.

Minister Fealty:

Fealty is a powerful chain of pledges to serve another Lord. Some societies require Ministers to pledge fealty to the Sovereign, while others allow a much more complex loyalty webs.

Political Groups:

Who are the great united voices in the Settlement? In most societies, political groups are optional, in some they are mandatory. In a very few, there is only one mandatory party.

Who Gets Importance:

Those who sit at the top of society get an Importance bonus. This is is a little extra reward for those who manage to be in the favored spot.

Election Frequency:

Dictator for life or weekly elections of the people?

Succession and Voting

Who can inherit power when the mighty fall? The people won't accept anything too far from what they're used to, so society also determines who can succeed and who can vote for new leaders.

BruneGame is Thunder-clapping into Steam Greenlight!

This week the Brunelleschi team has been hauling serious assets to prepare for our jump into Steam Greenlight.

Greenlight is a huge step for a small indie studio, and Aesop Games is very excited to be preparing our entry. The central web-game will launch from beta to 1.0 this summer and we're eager to include Steamworks in our release. We're taking this very seriously, not everyone gets greenlit and it's an honor to join the prestigious and popular gaming marketplace.

In order to get through Greenlight, dodging the infamous "graveyard", we need to make sure we start this campaign rolling in votes. That's where you come in, gentle reader. If you've already taken the time to read this blog entry, our team has an excellent use for another few of your precious daily seconds.

Join us in our Thunderclap! More importantly, find us on Steam and help us make it through this awesomely straight-forward ordeal. All we need is votes and you are the voters we care about! Gamers, strategy fans, Ren-fest attenders, we need you!

Click here for Thunderclap and Greenlight links!

Help us get Brunelleschi into Steam! Join the Thunderclap!

Death, Hardcore Characters, and Perma-Death

Death

Character death occurs any time your HP reaches or dips below 0. This can be accidental, intentional, vicious or passive. For whatever reason your character dies, don't panic. While you're dead and before you restore, you can look around a bit and post in a limited way to the forums, but can take no actions and make no game changes. Because you're dead. Just click your portrait, restore yourself, and count your Death Points.

For most players, this matters very little other than a lingering death-feeling. Hardcore characters handle death a little differently, and Death Points have a long term consequence.

Hardcore and Perma-Death

When you create a character in Brunelleschi, you are given the option to make that character "Hardcore".

Eventually, after many less than permanent deaths, your Character can experience permanent death, or "Perma-Death". This means that, while their character records will exist in history, you regain that character-slot and will not be able to play them again.

Why would I do this?

Answer 1) To be a badass. That's why we call them "Hardcore" characters, because by entering the world they take a much more profound risk than their non-hardcore neighbors.

Answer 2) Immediate and long term gratification. One extra Knack upon character creation. That's one more special bonus than cautious non-hardcore players can ever have.

Answer 3) Death Points don't hurt but the once. No penalty for recently accrued Death Points.

How do I get Death Points?

Perma-Death is calculated via a character's Death Points.

Death Points are accumulated with every character death. That means every time you're killed in a duel, encounter, desperate escape from prison or any other HP-draining activity, you gain a Death Point.

Duels in which you are killed can result in a bonus Death Point (2 total) if the person who defeated you chooses to be unkind with your defeated body. Alternately, if they choose to be especially compassionate, you can dodge the Death Point entirely.

What does a Death Point do?

Non-Hardcore characters who wrack up death points suffer a serious but temporary Attribute and AP % penalty, but each point expires after a week. For protection from multi-murdering trolls, a player stops wracking up Death Points if their penalty ever reaches 100% or if they equal their level in current Death Points.

Hardcore characters on the other hand do not suffer this penalty, but their Death Points do not expire. After accumulating 200 Death Points, you start rolling against a % chance of perma-death. This chance increases by 2% per point after 200. Therefor at 201, your chance is 2%. At 250, your permanent death is assured.

Cheating Death

Other than the kindness of your dueling partners, there's only one other way to dodge a Death Point. If you know someone who has gained the holy ability of Resurrection, you can persuade them to use that power on you, rather than restoring yourself normally. This will keep you from suffering from that specific death. Having been Resurrected, you still have all your previous Death Points and will gather then normally afterward. You can be Resurrected as many times as you can talk someone into doing it.