Hello! My grandad gifted my partner and I this loom Its been ages since he used it and can't remember what it is...
Does anyone know what kind of loom it is and how we might go about setting it up? TIA
(Actually added photos this time...)
Read the final medieval Monday before this update goes live!
Greetings, medievalists!
Discord Community Spotlight
Before we get into today’s topic, we want to start with a community spotlight. We haven’t done one of these in a while, and honestly, some of the settlements you’ve been sharing on our Discord deserve a moment.
We keep an eye on the screenshot channel and occasionally reach out to creators whose settlements really stand out. So, behold:
MMT
Now back to the subject of immersive experience. Last time, we talked about idle behavior and how we want settlers, animals, merchants, and other NPCs to feel a bit more natural when they are not actively working. This time, we want to talk about something a bit deeper - how settlers behave around each other and how their perks influence those behaviors. But first, we want to talk about what led us to this decision.
Right now, your settlers don’t face many challenges stat and mood-wise. They would easily get happy, annoyance is a rare occurrence and getting rebellious settlers, especially in mid to late game, is nearly impossible. Among themselves, your settlers would mostly get along - there is no real conflict, no friction, no ups and downs. Their personalities mostly exist through background text and stats affected by perks. In practice, they often feel more like workers used for construction, production, and expansion than people actually living in the settlement.
That is fine to a point, but it’s not… exciting. People are not perfect. Communities are not perfect. Even in a well-built settlement, life should have its little problems, awkward moments, bad habits, strange friendships, and occasional drama. Gaming-wise, you can have a lot of fun problem solving such challenges and make the story of your settlement even more interesting and unique. Ideally, a happy and stable settlement should feel earned, not automatic.
BUT!
This does not mean we simply want to make the game more punishing. The goal is not to make your settlers miserable for the sake of it. The goal is to make mood, relationships, and personalities matter more, while giving you more interesting situations to manage.
So how does that tie to Perks?
Perks will have a bigger influence on how settlers behave, both when things are going well and when things are not ideal. Some perks will create positive moments, some will create social friction, and some will do both, depending on the situation.
For example, a settler with Outgoing perk may be pleasant to have around, giving nearby folks a small mood boost simply by being near them.
On the other hand, a more difficult settler may be harder to deal with when things go wrong. If pushed into a rebellious state, they may isolate themselves, insult others, or even start a fight after a bad interaction.
And yes, some settlers will simply be difficult people, but that is kind of the point.
We want perks to feel less like silent stat modifiers and more like parts of a settler’s personality. A settler should not just be “better at a thing.” They should feel like someone who has habits, preferences, flaws, and a way of affecting the people around them.
Some settlers might be useful but unpleasant. Some might be pleasant but not especially skilled. Some might be both a blessing and a problem, depending on the day. You know… average workplace stuff.
But it’s not all doom and gloom! When settlers are in a very good mood, some perks may create additional benefits. A charming settler might have better social moments. Someone who enjoys feasts and entertainment may benefit more from those situations. Certain personalities may even help trading or social interactions when things are going well.
All this ties to proximity, too.
Some perk effects will depend on who is nearby, while others may only appear in specific situations, such as eating, working, resting, sleeping, or being wounded. In practice, this means that who your settlers spend time with can matter more.
Maybe someone makes others feel better. Maybe someone is unpleasant to be around. Maybe two settlers simply do not click because their personalities clash.
Speaking of clashes, we are adding a form of chemistry between perks. Some perks will have positive chemistry with others, while some will have negative chemistry. This can influence how settlers feel about one another from the start, making certain personality combinations naturally work better or worse together.
It does not mean every settlement will turn into a medieval soap opera. At least, not all the time. Yes, getting rebellious settlers seems to be easier now, but only if you ignore their basic needs. Also, the rebel state should not last as long as it did before.
The idea is to create more texture. Some settlers may become good companions. Some may annoy each other. Some may make the whole settlement feel better. Some may be very good at what they do, but also bring trouble with them when their mood drops too low.
And sometimes, that can create interesting decisions.
Do you keep a difficult settler because they are extremely useful? Do you separate two people who clearly do not get along? Do you invest more into entertainment and religious activities because your settlement is full of people who really, really need that structure? Those are the kinds of situations we want to encourage.
The important thing here is balance. We do not want every settlement to collapse because two people had a bad lunch near each other. We also do not want mood management to become annoying busywork. But we do want settlers to feel more like individuals, with traits that matter beyond simple stat changes.
This is another step toward making Going Medieval feel more alive. Your buildings already tell part of the story. Now we want your settlers to tell more of it too. Hopefully this will open doors to other interesting scenarios like marriages, living together, etc.
Since settlers will have more going on outside of pure work, we are also speeding up construction. We feel this gives a better balance between building and simulation, letting settlements still progress at a satisfying pace while giving settlers more room to feel like people, not just walking task lists.
Are you already on the experimental branch? This update (and other cool things) is live there! Check the experimental log and let us know how it goes. Once it is stable, we’ll push it to main branch.
Until then, let us know how this sounds to you. Do you like the idea of settlers having stronger personalities, more social friction, and a bit more drama in daily life?
Stay medieval!
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A pretty relaxed MMT is to here to tell you how settlers will be going to spend their idle time. Check it out at the steam link below...
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1029780/view/672872215678554348
We'll be continuing with the things that are leaning more toward simulation part of the game with the next MMT, so stay tuned. So much stuff to talk about. So so much. See ya in 7 days!🍻
Greetings, medievalists!
This is one of the most requested features from the community, and we know why. You start small, with limited resources but a grand vision. Over time, your small hut turns into a village, and years of work and commitment turn it into a proper settlement, with a castle and all the bells and whistles.
But what about those early constructions? Sure, they are a nice echo of the past and a reminder of how far you’ve come, but raiders and harsh weather do not really care about nostalgia.
Until now, upgrading old buildings meant destroying old walls, floors, and roofs, which could cause plenty of annoyance and complications, especially if those buildings contained dedicated rooms.
But with the Replace Structure function, that process becomes super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Certain building elements, once selected, will now have a Replace Structure option in the bottom-right corner of the screen. From there, you’ll see all the available options you can replace them with. Keep in mind that some replacement options may not be available if the required construction material is missing.
You will be able to replace doors with different doors, and windows with other windows. When it comes to walls, you will be able to replace them with walls, windows, or doors. However, you cannot replace windows and doors with walls.
And best of all? This option works with multi-select. Check out how it works in practice:
Structures that support this function include walls, floors, stairs, windows, doors, ladders, gates, tall gates, pen gates, pen fences, and merlons. In other words, enough to redesign your settlement without breaking a sweat.
And while we’re here, let’s throw in another bonus.
You know that situation where you overdesign a building with beams and extra walls, only to realize later that some of those walls were not really necessary and the space could be used better? The problem was that destroying one of those walls could cause the beams attached to it to collapse, which could then lead to a lovely little destructive chain reaction throughout the building.
Well, in the upcoming update, once such a wall is destroyed, the attached beam will extend its reach, but only by one voxel, and help prevent those collapse scenarios.
It took us a while to implement these features because there were always more urgent things that needed to be done for the game. But now that the core experience is there, nothing is stopping us from adding some much-needed quality-of-life improvements.
So how does this look to you? Let us know in the comments. And stay tuned for more MMTs and don’t forget to…
Stay Medieval!
Better construction, deconstruction and mining!
Greetings, medievalists!
We’ve mentioned before that we plan to improve pathfinding when it comes to handling construction, deconstruction and mining orders. In other words, some of the most common things your settlers do.
These improvements have been live on the experimental branch for a while now, and so far the reception has been positive. Because of that, we feel it’s a good time to bring them to the main branch soon.
So, in this Medieval Monday Talk, we’ll explain what you can expect from the new logic - via videos!
Settlers will reserve up to three construction, deconstruction, or mining spots.
Notice how settlers place buildings in the order the blueprints were placed, as seen in the version on the right. At some point, all reachable jobs for the house on the left are reserved, just before the roof blueprints become reachable. One of the settlers then switches to building the house on the right. Even though the roof becomes reachable in the meantime, that settler will not switch back to the house on the left, despite it being a higher priority. The jobs they have claimed by delivering resources now have a fixed, highest priority.
When it comes to delivering resources, settlers will go to the closest pile first. This logic also applies when taking resources to production buildings and stockpiles.
With this logic, we will finally solve the issue where settlers would not choose the closest production building if there were multiple buildings of the same type. Previously, they would choose the one whose production was set first in the global production list. Yup, it’s happening!
Some frequently reported issues came from situations where someone would occupy a building or mining spot, which could break or delay that action in the process.
Now, humans and animals will try to avoid those spots and let your settlers do their work in peace.
Also, if there is a big gap between jobs, settlers will take a more clustered approach to assignments and prioritize jobs closest to them.
The system is not perfect, and it does not work all the time, as you can see in the video. But this is the best trade-off we could make without affecting or disrupting other systems. Compared to the previous mess, it is significantly better.
In addition to that, if a settler has a “deliver materials” goal, they will prefer to pick up as many resources as they can carry when the goal starts. This helps create a local reserve of resources when building one-wide bridges and similar job sites where reachability opens up gradually.
There are some cases where settlers will only pick up piles for the carry-over scenario if those piles are very close, up to two voxels away. Ideally, you should not see situations where a settler visits ten separate piles of two wood scattered around the area when they only need one wood.
All of this should improve and streamline construction, deconstruction, and mining jobs. Settlers should position themselves better, look for shorter paths, have a much lower chance of getting stuck, and spend less time idle between jobs.
Here’s how all of that works when settlers are working on a slightly more complex building:
There may still be some edge cases we missed during this process, but none of them should be blockers or game breakers. Once this update goes live, please let us know how it feels. Oh and… it goes live tomorrow (today! Its live now!). Yup! Stay tuned, and…
Stay medieval!
Greetings, medievalists!
In case you missed it, we posted a survey about the current state of the game. It would mean a lot to us if you could fill it out. Maybe it influences the next development choices.
Now, time for another round of Medieval Monday Talks. Let us start with some simple but meaningful improvements.
The stability system is the foundation (hehe) of the game’s elements. Each structure has a stability value that determines whether you can attach another structure to them.
When placed on the ground, the structure's stability has a value of 4. Each structure attached to it will have -1 stability the farther off it is placed from the original point (if no other support is provided).
Simply put, if you build a wall and a floor on it, you will be able to put 3 more floors adjacent to each other before you are prevented from placing more due to lack of stability.
A nice visual of this system can be seen within the game by going to Almanac > Systems > Stability.
That is all good and well, but the system can be more intuitive. Right now, you can check the structure’s stability by selecting it. And when there is not enough stability, the game would simply throw this message:
Also, underground waters are a thing and some folks may forget that from time to time, asking “why is stability 2 when I am building on a stable ground.
It’s always good to check lower levels, just in case.
A lot of you like to blueprint the heck out of your settlement and that will be much easier with the upcoming mining/construction update. Some of you like to make adjustments to the existing buildings only for some parts of it to collapse unexpectedly.
All those things pointed out that we need to tweak stabilization visuals a bit. The answer is pretty simple, but the implementation took a bit. We plan to incorporate the stability visualization toggle. Once selected, it will show you stability around your cursor location. Behold:
When you hover over an area or start placing a blueprint, the game checks the nearby construction points and displays their current stability value directly in the world. Instead of having to guess how well a structure is supported, you can now see the stability numbers around the placement area while building.
The technical side is built to keep this lightweight. Behind the scenes, the system gathers stability data from the relevant nearby points, then displays small camera-facing markers over them. Each marker uses a different part of the same texture depending on the stability value, so the game can quickly show values from 0 to 4 without needing separate objects for every number.
In practice, this means the game can show a lot of useful building information quickly, without cluttering the scene with heavy UI elements.
The system also adapts depending on what the player is doing. It can show stability during a simple hover, while dragging a blueprint in one direction, or while dragging out a larger two-axis building area. This should make planning floors, roofs, and unsupported extensions much clearer.
But we are not stopping here, we are also working on a couple of exciting QoL improvements - one that is demanded by a lot of players. But all in due time. Talk to you in two weeks and don't forget about the survey!
Stay medieval!
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Hey folks, we are working on new stuff, but we'll talk about them in the upcoming weeks. Right now we are curious about the current state of the game and what you like/dislike about. We talk about this in our latest blog.
We would really appreciate it you could fill out this very short survey, to share your opinions on Going Medieval.
And expect a new MMT next week! We keep rolling on!
Stay medieval!
