AdWarrior:
Just recently a new employee was hired for 1100AD project – a game designer, responsible for conceptual development of game content and for directing its further development, a person with a fresh view on a developed game and with a clear idea of “how things should be”. New employee’s name is Vladimir (nickname on the forum – vladimirt).

Vladimir, hello, could you answer several questions about upcoming changes in the game that the game community is interested in?

Vladimir:
Hello, sure thing.

AdWarrior:
Please tell us in which direction work is done at the moment, what are you working on and what should we expect in the upcoming updates?

Vladimir:
So many questions Well, let’s start with myself. Since the game is called 1100AD, which is 12th century, it should resemble that century, resemble it as much so that the player could immerse into its atmosphere. Therefore, my primary responsibility in the project at the moment is to increase the historical resemblance in the game with the epoch, to add more historical background and related knowledge, events that help the player to feel that the world is alive, that some events occur by themselves, and that they – players – are a part of something bigger, common, larger.

As many understand (at least I hope they understand), this is not a fast process, but it is already going at its full pace. With the next – nearest – updates, players will receive a large amount of new, historically correct artifacts that will be targeted not only towards the hero and armies in general, but towards specific parts of armies.

Amount of existing artifacts will be increased by at least two times, and they will not be limited geographically only to western Europe, players will see items that originated from Scandinavia, Byzantium, middle east, Spain, Italy, and other countries.

Speaking about heroes and artifacts, there is already a possibility to change basic stats, including the range of attack, which will help the character with a bow, for example, to start shooting from distance 3 and help squads of archers to rain down arrows on the enemy.
Besides ordinary artifacts, very soon the game will be introduced to new, so-called artifact buildings . What is it and how will it work? Pretty simple. Just like in the past, players will be able to get specific items, but in comparison with ordinary artifacts they cannot be worn by the hero or “used”, they will be required to build new types of buildings in your cities. Just like existing buildings, artifact buildings will be built with levels and to build another level of the same building the player will need the same artifacts of different levels. These buildings will be able to give different bonuses at the same time, for example – reputation, population and mercenary points, which will make them very valuable and cherished. I think I should say one more time that all buildings will be authentic, real, and will correspond to the 12th century.

While reading the forums and suggestions from players, I saw a lot of requests that the development team should change the appearance of many types of troops (for example Dark Knights) and introduce new unit types. The only thing I can tell right now is that we always read suggestions of this sort and we have already set these goals for ourselves. New types of units will be introduced, and the first will be Knight Hospitaller, but I tell you the set date for introducing them. Since one of the tasks is to make the game more authentic and real, real historical prototypes will be used when re-working the appearance. So don’t worry, we remember.

Also, in the nearest time we plan to increase the amount of existing quests (Kingdom events) and make them more historical, but that’s not all. In addition to kingdom events we plan to introduce so-called temporary quest locations. These locations will appear from time to time in all valleys and will exist for some time, then disappear and reappear somewhere; therefore locking it in a contour with water will bring no benefits, even on the contrary. You will be able to get into that location by sending a campaign together with your hero. When they arrive, the hero will need to explore the location and find a specific building where they would receive the quest. These locations will be able to hold a specific amount of troops, thereby limiting the difference in strength of new and old players’ armies. Experienced players will have the theoretical advantage, but with proper scouting this advantage will be very limited.

For players without subscription a relatively cheap method of finding out the information about campaigns that enter their cities and forts will be introduced (exact price was not discussed yet, but it is known that it will be just a few gold coins). This will be realized with the help of new watchtowers that can be built in the valley map and improved several times. We plan to warn the player of upcoming campaign based on the level of the tower, for example, tower level one will be able to warn the player 10 minutes before the campaign comes, second level – 20 minutes, and so on, but precise figures are yet unknown. Last-level tower will enable the player monitor the amount of troops in enemy’s territories, but it will not be easy to build such tower.

AdWarrior:
All right, thanks for the detailed answer. Are you planning to change anything in the technical aspect?

Vladimir:
Yes, we have such plans, right now we don’t have an “intuitive” mechanic of troops’ actions when they are set to Aggression: Low in combination to Attack Range: Adaptive. We plan to change it in the following way:
1) Attack Range: Adaptive will make your troops open fire from the distance that all your ranged squads can attack, including units with small range, for example with distance 1 for Marauder of Elite Guardsman. Therefore, your army will not fire until the enemy reaches distance 1, and only then they will start the battle.
2) In the settings of the game new option will be introduced that will enable the player to manually set the minimum value for Attack Range: Adaptive with which the army will start to fight.
3) Game settings will have one more option that will enable you to set the formation of your army when they are at a set distance from the enemy (the distance will be calculated based on the army the player is currently attacking, so with this function the player must still pay attention to the battlefield). Therefore, let’s assume that you can change the setting that when you reach the enemy’s army (distance 0) your swordsmen would go to third row, and spearmen to the first.
We also have plans to rework the battle game engine and make special locations where archers will shoot very poorly point-blank, and where forest would hide with additional fog of war those that hide in it and where other tactical changes in battles will be present.
One more important thing we will work on in the nearest time and that is worth mentioning – new system that will let specified players to control your troops on the battlefield will be introduced. This new feature will enable the fights to be better from the tactical point of view, allowing more experienced players to help each other, increasing the overall level of attention of players to armies during the battle.
After analyzing the Royal Citadel we came to the conclusion that such events should be introduced not only to the most powerful orders, but also for those that are building up their strength. For this objective, special citadels that are different by shape will be introduced for beginning and medium players. I hope you will like this decision.

AdWarrior:
Thanks, I think these are wonderful news and players will be very happy! Is anything being done to improve the social aspect of the game, to develop and increase game community?

Vladimir:
Absolutely. At the moment we are discussing the introduction of so-called achievements, that each player will be able to obtain and that could be seen to all players. With these small rewards, players will be able to personify their game style and show it to everyone else, as well as compete with each other when obtaining these achievements. So, let’s assume, a person that trades well will receive an achievement named “Successful Trader”, and the ruler that faithfully supports their allies and did not break any agreement for a long time will be able to obtain the “King’s Promise” achievement and so on (it doesn’t mean that these achievements will be introduced into the game, they are mentioned just as an example to understand the concept). We do not have the set date for introducing this feature, but it is one of those in priority.
Besides the system of achievements we plan to make regular discounts like those that is currently present for subscriptions and update the knowledge base of the game. At the moment I am personally responsible for adding content to English game Wiki. I already have two articles (one is written from scratch, second one was completely rewritten), that will enable starting players to quickly and easily develop in all aspects that the game offers.

Those who are interested are welcome to see these articles:
Game setting - http://www.1100ad.com/wiki/Game_Background; 
Game guide — http://www.1100ad.com/wiki/GameGuide. 

We also want to help players in creating side communities of the game, right now only in English, Russian, and Latvian languages, but we hope that this range of languages will be larger soon.

AdWarrior:
I see, thanks, you’ve listed a very large list of different things and upcoming changes, and I think that we can end our interview on this pleasant thought. Maybe there is something else you would like to share with the players?

Vladimir:
Well, I would like to say thanks to you, AdWarrior, for the opportunity to tell the players what the team are working on with huge enthusiasm and say thanks to all players for their letters, suggestions, and patience. I hope that with my arrival into the project the development path where 1100AD is heading will be even better and that there will be more of you, dear players, and the game will be interesting.
A few teasers to close off
Besides everything listed, we are working on improving the interface, to have order-chat in a separate window, creating replays (records) of battle that allow to view records not only via statistics but also on the battlefield (observing the player actions as it appeared in real-time), introducing automatic supplies to own cities and forts, allowance in “attack screen” for armies to take resources from the city and bring them to allied settlements and (drum roll, please!) naval warfare and creating a new naval valley

I’ve said too much already, thank you everyone, and see you soon!