- 1.40 - 25 May 2022
1.4 is out now. This update adds animals. There are four species including the Crownfish (grazing fish), Barratuna (predatory fish), Buffalope (grazing land mammal), and Liger (predatory land mammal). The first three species are fictional but Ligers are actually real. Ecology Plants provide food for the herbivores. Carnivores eat the herbivores. An abundance of food can cause a population boom. Overpopulation can result in starvation and mass dieoffs. DNA and evolution Every animal has a “genome” (a list of 7 properties including size, speed, and color). All automatically-spawned animals (the ones that appear around the edges of the map) have a default genome. Animals born from sexual reproduction inherit the genes of their parents along with random changes (mutations). Certain genome values (like size and mate frequency) affect the ability of the animal to survive and to pass on its ge…
- 1.32 - 27 April 2022
Main menu Added a new tab called “world controls”. This lets you tweak various aspects of the simulation including solar heat, day/night speed, plant growth rate, and more. Several people have suggested this and I wanted to get it done before 1.4 (animals) since that update will greatly benefit from more control. Removed 6 buttons since their functionality has been integrated into the new tab Removed the “zombie invasion” and “more clouds” buttons since I never used them and don’t think they were very interesting. Zombies still happen randomly. Added a new button called “Snap”. If pressed it randomly eliminates half of all living people. Doesn’t affect zombies since they aren’t alive. Added a new button that toggles displaying the sun and moon. Changes to immortals Increased the chance for a person who just died to resurrect as an immortal from 0.06% to 0.5%. This can trigger after any…
- 1.310 - 3 April 2022
Hello! 1.310 is out now. It's been 8 weeks since the last update. Progress has been slow but steady. This patch brings the save system I promised. This took so much longer than I thought it would. The short explanation is I didn’t plan for expansion when creating this game and it made implementing a save system 100x harder than I thought it would be. But first, check this out: Thanks to manvirarts for this beautiful design. Check out his work if you need a logo for your own project. I found him on Fiverr (https://www.fiverr.com/manvirarts/design-a-fantasy-rpg-cartoony-game-logo). You can also contact him at https://twitter.com/manvirarts or https://www.manvirarts.com/. The save system is simple and functional. It lets you browse through Ardarium saves in the APPDATA folder and select files to delete or load. There is no limit to the number of save slots. Every time you save it creates a…
- 1.306 - 5 February 2022
1.306 is out now. This is a small update that mainly includes the addition of nameplates for civilizations. The next update after this one will be 1.310 and will include a saving/loading feature, but that's not in this one. Changes: Added nameplates for nations. The names change size, color, and location depending on the state of their team. They avoid overlapping each other by having smaller nameplates hide if they contact a larger one. Changed the default nation borders to use a dotted line instead of a solid line. There are already a lot of solid lines in the game so I think this helps with clarity. Balanced border calculations to encourage big civilizations while still giving small ones a chance to carve out their own territory. Added some more detail to the way disease immunity works. Now whenever someone is born there is a 1% chance for them to have natural immunity for life (as o…
- 1.300 - 8 January 2022
New features: Music! Ardarium now features 12 tracks from UK ambient musical artist Dennis Huddleston, also known as "36". In my opinion this is the most important addition so far. The main idea of the game is that you are observing a world from an outside perspective. I imagine it would be a wondrous and lonely experience to look down on a planet and witness its natural drama through the ages. This music sets the mood exactly how I want it. I'm very happy to be able to improve the emotional impact of the game in a way that I couldn't achieve on my own. You can now specify a world seed on the new game screen. A world seed is a 10-digit number that the game uses as the basis for all randomness. It affects terrain generation, natural disasters, ai decisions, and anything else where chance is involved. If you set the number yourself it's like choosing not only one map but one timeline out…
- 1.203 - 11 December 2021
1.203 is out. Changes: Fewer weevils Fewer plagues Fire burns through fuel faster Larger plague infection range People get more fatigue from sex People are more likely to sleep when fatigued Zombies decay faster People get pushed away from the edge of the map more strongly Castles cant build on sand or recently flooded land
- 1.202 - 10 December 2021
1.202 is out now New stuff: Castles under construction now have scaffolding. Changed the "Ageless" tag to "Highlander". This property means someone doesn't physically age. The info window for people now includes "number of grandchildren" and "number of other Highlanders slain". Minor changes: Explosions cause larger tsunamis Fire is more slowed by humidity Fewer clouds in dry areas but more in wet area More balancing of the water cycle in general Less zombie chance to infect humans Slower border expansion Faster castle construction Castles can build closer together Now about 20% of nations will never try to farm or build castles and armies, instead only focusing on gathering and camps.
- 1.201 - 5 December 2021
Castle construction is faster Castles can build new castles 2 cells farther out Less effect of wind/water forces on people Less zombie health degen, especially in cold weather Minor sprite adjustments for new npc Franquito
- 1.200 - 5 December 2021
Update 1.200 is out now. Patch notes below. This update includes balance changes to the simulation and some new features. Also, I made a Discord server. The link is on the Steam store page or here: https://discord.com/invite/Mfc2sHJ8N2. Balance changes to: Plant growth rate Plant die rate due to exposure Chance for new trees Plant harvest rate due to human gathering How much humidity gets transported by wind Cloud speed Chance for new clouds Impact of heat, humidity, and wind on electric charge (used for lightning) Human movement speed, acceleration, and turn rate on land and in water Impact of wind and water forces on human movement Impact of elevation changes on human movement Pathing and movement speed for camps migrating Construction speed for castles Disrepair speed for camps and castles New features: Removed the "Start zombie invasion" option from the main menu (it can still happe…
- Steam Award Nomination Request - 24 November 2021
If you want you can nominate my game for one of the steam awards this year.
- 1.103 - 24 November 2021
Reset version numbers so the last one was 1.102 and this is 1.103. Added visual indicators showing which settlements are at war and who their targets are. Fixed a glitch where if you started a map with the same aspect ratio as your display then the moon turned purple. Many small improvements to pathing and ai. More balancing of temperature, pressure, humidity, plant growth rate, and other things to make the world more dynamic and less homogenous.
- 1.102 - 11 November 2021
Reduced humidity in from evaporation by 33% Made it so fire spreading is more limited by changes in elevation Wind moves people a little more on land and a little less when sailing Soldiers who live at a castle that is under construction will help build instead of patrolling like normal Other minor fixes and updates related to the last update 1.11
- 1.101 - 10 November 2021
Changed the way map size affects draw size and movement speed for many things including clouds, people, and asteroids. Previously everything was normalized to look the same no matter the map size. Now size and speed align with map size more intuitively, with things appearing larger/faster on small maps and smaller/slower on big maps. Added new behaviour where farmers sometimes check if nearby allied settlements are low on food and if so take a harvest to them instead of their own home. This helps big, stable civs form by distributing food more evenly. Lots of small tweaks to pathing, fighting, gathering food, and farming. Slightly reduced humidity in general since I felt like there was too much rain and not enough desert. The map info window now shows stats for the top 3 civilizations. Changed "rough terrain" phrasing to "hills". Hills now block farms and castles from being built. Camps…
- Update 1.10 - 1 November 2021
New features: The biggest new feature is a terrain editor. You can use it to deform land by increasing, lowering, or leveling. You can choose different brush shapes, enable or disable gradient, and change brush size. Windowed mode An option to stop the sun so that the simulation keeps running but the time of day is static. Monsoons now happen. They can occur randomly or be activated manually. The effect is a huge addition of humidity at the edges of the map which creates rain storms all over. An option to disable random disasters entirely. A new option on the launcher called "Chaotic start". It makes it so the starting conditions are way more random than normal. The terrain is basically random noise and temperature ranges from absolute zero to > 1000 C. Things settle down to normal within the first couple in-game days. A start option called "Dry start". It makes it so the game starts wi…
