Important regarding save games!

We were forced to rewrite parts of the saving and loading system to fix bugs related to it; thus, older saves will NOT be compatible. You will not see unsupported save files in your list of games to load. We apologise for the inconvenience! In the future, if you want to avoid this problem, you can turn off automatic updates of the game through Steam and wait to update until you are confident that you won't need to load any older save files anymore. We will do our best to inform you when new updates break old save files.

Dev Update - Progress on Milestone 3

We started working on Milestone 3 in 2022 and are making good progress. We can't wait to share more about what we have in store for Milestone 3 and the new civilizations. Stay tuned! In the meantime, here's a small teaser:

UPDATE 07085 - General Improvements II

By completing and releasing Milestone 2, we've met some internal goals for the game's foundation. Most standard modern RTS features, like unit stances, select multiple buildings and define your own hotkey scheme, have now been implemented into TFC. However, we still have a lot in store for TFC. Since we released Milestone 2, we have paid attention to feedback, and we wanted to add a General Improvements update after Milestone 2, as we did with Milestone 1, to address some of it. An example is the community request to allow dead bodies to persist for longer, and that is included here.

Early Age building designs

We're introducing further visual feedback about the state of your village! Before constructing the Palace, your village will give the vibe of being rural and crude. Apart from adding variety to the visuals, it also provides quick feedback as to whether your opponent has constructed the Palace or not.
How your village changes after the Palace has been constructed.

Performance Improvements

We've written a new Animation System from scratch, and one of the advantages of this is the performance boost added to the game. With other performance improvements that we implemented as well, we saw our performance improve from 60-80 fps to 100-120 fps in our test case. This means that the game supports more units on the screen before the fps drops, which should be most notable for users on low-end machines.

Target unit type once

When ordering units to target an enemy unit, those units will now keep finding new units of the same type (e.g. Slinger) to attack until there are no more within their vision range. This means that when you target one of a bunch of enemy slingers, your units will continue to pick off those slingers until they are all dead, even when there are other unit types within range as well. It works for both melee and ranged units against either. This was a community request that further streamlines the game. Now you only have to order the attack once to kill all enemy units of the type, whereas before, you often had to manually re-target the enemy unit type every time an enemy unit died.

Dead bodies persist

Fallen units will stay on the battlefield for 60 seconds to show the onslaught that happened.

Clay Pit disappears upon depletion

Once a Clay Pit is constructed, the tiles it occupies immediately turn into Plain. Once it's depleted, the Clay Pit will automatically disappear. This means that a Clay Pit won't block the tiles for the rest of the game, but there's still a consequence for constructing it since it damages the soil quality.

Changes to Code of Law technology

This technology is now named Hammurabi's Code of Law and has changed to the following: Villager training speed bonus from Food Surplus Level increases to 20%/40%/60% (from 10%/20%/30%). Your people starve for 100% longer before revolting.

New sprite showing outpost construction sites

We updated the tile sprite art that shows where you can place an Outpost near neutral settlements by increasing the contrast to the ground.

Skirmish AI

- Ranged units which are standing outside the engagement area and attacking a building will now move towards any unit being attacked to help out with enemy units instead (only on Skilled or higher difficulty levels) - Skirmish AI is better at researching Plough once starting to farm

Other improvements

- Updated art assets for Babylonian Wall, Gate, Watchtower, Palace, and Archery Range

Balance changes

- Elite Battering Ram now gains +3 ranged armour

Bug fixes

- Fog of war no longer persists on metal ore tiles if it spawns in the player's field of view at the start - Hotkey for raze building works for a control group with a single building - When Palace is destroyed villager will no longer keep militia status as long as they stand still or are garrisoned - Palace hotkeys now work if Palace was selected automatically as the last villager in selected group entered it - Neutral Settlement rally point gets correctly saved and loaded - Fixed that nomads or Skirmish AI units could try to target owned neutral settlements which aren't attackable so units would keep running in circles

[ 2023-01-31 11:43:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

TFC is a classic base-building RTS inspired by the struggles of growth, advancement, and conquest in the cradle of civilization. Establish your village near fertile lands, and balance your food surplus against the size of your civilian and military might, as you build your village.

Food is responsible for more than just feeding your troops. It determines the rate your population grows, and how quickly you can gain Knowledge Points. Keeping your village fed will ensure your prosperous expansion, but allowing your farms to be compromised can bring even the strongest economies to their knees.

Inspired by the real history of the Near East Bronze Age era, TFC utilizes classic RTS elements while offering a unique perspective for the genre. Taking technological limitations and advancements into account, players will need to carefully consider how to spend their precious Knowledge Points, as they explore the Village Improvements that are designed to enable players to quickly counter an opponent’s strategy.

Strategic Options From The Beginning

Heavily inspired by the giants of the genre, TFC looks to expand on the mechanics of its contemporaries in interesting ways, giving players multiple strategic actions to explore from the very beginning of a match. There are multiple paths to victory, and players can quickly adapt their strategy to respond to enemy actions. How well players leverage this freedom will determine whether they experience glorious victory, or crushing defeat.

Consequential Fertility Mechanic

Food is the foundation of every successful village. Locate fertile ground and build your village around it to ensure that there is enough to sustain your growing population. Balancing your food surplus against your villagers and growing military is important, and protecting your farms is critical if you want to keep your village alive. Likewise there’s no better way to demoralize your opponents’ populations than by destroying their farms, and decimating their economy.

Advance Your Village

Increase the strength of your village as you explore Village Improvements. TFC features a collection of powerful improvements that allow commanders to spend points to quickly react to their enemy’s advancements, or perhaps create a window of opportunity to strike. With various ways to boost your economy and military, your strategic options are always clear to understand, and easy to implement.

Play Online With Up To 4 Players

An AI can be quite the challenge, but nothing can replace a real player. Available at launch, battle it out with up to three other commanders in order to prove who is the best at managing their village, army and food supplies. Challenge your friends or complete strangers, and visit our Discord to find new rivals. May the most prosperous village win, or perhaps the smarter commander? Everything is in your hands!