- Development Update - 29 May 2023
Hello everyone! Today we’re going to give you a general update on the studio and our progress on Grey Eminence. As you know, we’ve been continuously trying to raise capital behind the scenes to finish the game – both from venture capital funds and from publishers. During this time, we maintained a slow but steady pace of development thanks to the generous contributions of our patrons. Since we’ve been unable to raise the necessary capital and since our Patreon isn’t large enough to crowdfund the game on its own, we feel it’s time to move on to Plan C – obtaining the capital to finish the game ourselves. In practice, this means that the development of Grey Eminence will be paused, since it consumes capital rather than producing it. We want to stress that this does not mean that Grey Eminence is cancelled, nor does it mean that we’re disbanding the studio or have gone bankrupt. While Grey…
- Dev Diary #19: Trade Pt. 2 - 1 April 2023
Hello and welcome to the 19th development diary of Grey Eminence! Today, we’re continuing the series of dev diaries dedicated to trade. In the previous edition, we gave a high-level overview of the structure of the trade system (markets and infrastructure) - now, we’ll explore two of the most important processes within the system, pricing and transactions. Pricing At any time within a single market, each good has a particular price - determined by the previous monthly iteration of that market (so pricing updates monthly, same as logistics). This price drives the behavior of all economic actors within that market for the next iteration - and that behavior in turn impacts the price for the iteration after that. So, how exactly is the price of a good calculated? We mentioned before that it’s primarily driven by supply and demand, represented by production and consumption respectively in ea…
- Dev Diary #18: Trade Pt. 1 - 4 March 2023
Hello and welcome to the 18th development diary of Grey Eminence! In today’s edition, we’ll be taking a look at one of the most anticipated mechanics in the game, trade. It is the crown jewel of Grey Eminence’s economic simulation - a process that transforms an otherwise static world of disparate populations and goods into a massive, interconnected network that ebbs and flows like a living organism. Markets The fundamental unit of the trade system is the market - by default, a market is composed of all tiles owned by a country in a single geographic province. Those of you who have read our previous dev diaries will notice that this is the same definition as the one we’ve used for political provinces - and that’s exactly right, in 1356 markets and (political) provinces are one and the same. Each market has a market capital from which all its connections originate (more on that later) and…
- Closed Alpha Announcement! - 10 February 2023
Hello, everyone! One year has passed since we announced Grey Eminence to the world! The past 365 days have truly been a rollercoaster of ups and downs, but the one constant has been your unwavering support and faith in our vision for the historical grand strategy genre. The year was certainly not without challenges – and we had to make many difficult choices along the way. But we remain resolute in the face of adversity and have embraced this challenge wholeheartedly. Over the past two months we have made tremendous progress on the development side and it is therefore with great pleasure that I would like to announce Grey Eminence’s upcoming Closed Alpha! Watch a preview of the alpha and its gameplay here: Access to the alpha is the first of the unannounced rewards for members of our Patreon! Specifically, to gain access you must have maintained your subscription long enough to obtain a…
- Dev Diary #17: Bankruptcy - 3 December 2022
Hello and welcome to the 17th development diary of Grey Eminence! We’re continuing the series of dev diaries dedicated to the economy with another spicy topic, bankruptcy. While the word bankruptcy might evoke images of modern financial institutions, in Grey Eminence this phenomenon can occur for any production building - as opposed to default, which is the tangentially-related process for countries that we’ll cover another time. Bankruptcy is the process through which an unprofitable building goes when it runs out of money. Thanks to bankruptcy, building owners aren’t locked into eating losses from an unprofitable venture indefinitely and workers aren’t locked into working for lower wages than they deserve (though some can attempt to migrate, if their country’s laws allow it). Bankruptcy is the cleansing fire that makes room for new buildings and ends up resulting in a more efficient a…
- Dev Diary #16: Inflation - 5 November 2022
Hello and welcome to the 16th development diary of Grey Eminence! We’re back with another entry in our ongoing series of dev diaries dedicated to the economy: this time around, we’re taking a look at inflation. It’s one of those mechanics that you might not think much about if you don’t get excited by economics - and that’s perfectly understandable, which is why we’ve designed it to fit with our optional complexity design paradigm! Nevertheless, inflation has a very important effect on every country’s economy, so understanding how it works and how you can interact with it will help you achieve your economic goals. Sources Let’s start by going over where inflation might come from in an economy. We already mentioned one of the biggest culprits in the previous dev diary on the budget: minting. Every country, by default, creates a small amount of money out of nothing (proportionate to its G…
- Dev Diary #15: Budget - 1 October 2022
Hello and welcome to the 15th development diary of Grey Eminence! We’re continuing the series of dev diaries dedicated to the economy today by looking at the budget. Unlike the two systems we covered previously (production and consumption), the budget is a system that you’ll have to interact with quite frequently through every run if you want to be successful. Funding your country’s various expenditures is of crucial importance and it can also have significant consequences depending on just how far you’re willing to go in extracting wealth from the different layers of society. We’ve designed the budget to be the central location where you can see all the revenues and expenses of your country at a glance, with a detailed breakdown of what each item consists of and what it does. You also get the opportunity to configure most items to suit your current budgetary needs (with varying effects…
- Dev Diary #14: Consumption - 3 September 2022
Hello and welcome to the 14th development diary of Grey Eminence! Today, we’re continuing the series of dev diaries dedicated to the economy with consumption. As with the production system we covered last week, consumption is a core element of Grey Eminence’s economy: after all, buildings ultimately exist to produce goods to satisfy your population’s needs. We’ve designed the consumption system with optional complexity in mind, so if you’re not a fan of micromanaging your economy, you won’t be forced to interact with consumption (unless the situation gets particularly dire). To give you a general overview of how consumption works: every social class in every tile has specific essential and discretionary needs that it tries to satisfy. The social classes use whatever wealth is available to them - usually their income from wages and their savings - to buy goods and services from their loc…
- Dev Diary #13: Production - 6 August 2022
Hello and welcome to the 13th development diary of Grey Eminence! With the summer holidays out of the way, we felt that now is a good time to proceed with the series of dev diaries dedicated to the economy, starting with production. The economy is one of Grey Eminence’s strongest suits and we’ve dedicated a large part of the game’s performance budget to it. While the majority of the system will run on its own most of the time, you can interact with the simulation as much (or as little) as you want - in line with our optional complexity design philosophy. Let’s start with a high-level overview of the production process. The entirety of the production system happens through buildings, where each building has an owner, employs workers, produces goods and hopefully earns a profit at the end of the day. Buildings All buildings, whether they represent industry or non-commercial property (like…
- Dev Diary #12: Succession - 2 July 2022
Hello and welcome to the 12th development diary of Grey Eminence! Today, we’ll be covering the topic of succession. The process of succession determines the future rulers of every country, so it’s a very important mechanic to consider. Every country’s succession can be either dynastic or electoral. The specifics of which characters are eligible to rule and how the top candidate is selected upon the death (or expiration of mandate) of the current ruler are defined by the country’s succession laws, which we’ll explore in a moment. Dynastic At the start of the game in 1356, the majority of countries on Earth practice some form of dynastic succession. The mechanics of this type of succession are similar to those you’d find in other grand strategy titles. There are three laws which govern how a dynastic succession works: kinship, gender, and partition. The kinship law determines what kind of…
- Dev Diary #11: Titles - 18 June 2022
Hello and welcome to the 11th development diary of Grey Eminence! Today’s topic is titles, one of the defining features of every country. Titles contain a lot of important information about a country, like its name, map color, rank, type and flag. More importantly, titles are also the key component in reforming existing countries or creating new ones (though we’ll get to that in a bit). Increasing the rank of your country or claiming a more powerful title is one of the most visible manifestations of progression in Grey Eminence, so knowing how titles work is important to success. Name The most basic feature of every title is its name, which is the collection of noun, adjective, prefix/suffix that combines with the country’s rank to form its full designation. By default, titles use whichever designation structure matches most closely to the way those countries are referred to popularly.…
- Dev Diary #10: Elites - 4 June 2022
Hello and welcome to the 10th development diary of Grey Eminence! Today, we’ll be taking a look at elites, the power-holders of society. Every country contains multiple elites, groups of characters with common socio-economic roles. While characters have their own individual personalities and goals, their collective behavior exerts a strong influence on their country’s stability and power: loyal elites can be leveraged to assist your plans, while disloyal elites can become dangerous saboteurs. Elites Let’s start by defining how an elite is structured. An elite’s existence, rights, and obligations are defined by their country’s laws. These laws apply only to tiles the country owns directly, so the tiles of subject countries might have other elites if their laws differ from those of their overlord. As long as a country’s laws dictate that a given elite should exist, a fixed number of elite…
- Dev Diary #9: Technology - 21 May 2022
Hello and welcome to the 9th development diary of Grey Eminence! This time around, we’ll be taking a look at technology, the system through which we model scientific and social progress in the game. Grey Eminence's 600-year span saw the emergence of numerous game changing inventions and ideas, so managing your country’s technological progress will be pivotal in ensuring your country’s long term success. Techs The technology system consists of numerous individual techs (currently ~300, but this number is not final), each with its own unique conditions for invention & spreading. We strive to make the technology system meaningful, so we’ve purposefully avoided adding techs that offer only passive stat bonuses. As such, most technologies in Grey Eminence either expand existing mechanics (e.g. unlocking a new building) or give access to altogether new ones (e.g. political parties). Techs in…
- Dev Diary #8: Diplomacy - 7 May 2022
Hello and welcome to the 8th development diary of Grey Eminence! Today, we’ll take a look at diplomacy, the system through which countries can secure (or doom) their future. Like in real life, diplomacy in Grey Eminence is the art of compromise: very rarely will the situation between two parties be so lopsided that unilateral decisions can be made. Diplomacy almost always happens through negotiations - or their failure, which can escalate to war. The diplomacy system manifests itself in diplomatic relationships. These are binding contracts that exist between two countries - some with expiration dates, some without - that mandate certain actions or behaviors. There are four types of relationships in the game: subject, dynastic, military, and economic. Subject Subject relationships involve one country giving up some of its sovereignty to another in exchange for certain benefits (usually,…
- Dev Diary #7: Characters - 23 April 2022
Hello and welcome to the 7th development diary of Grey Eminence! In today’s edition, we’re going to take a look at one of the more intimate systems in the game: characters. They’re the primary agents of change across the world and as such are something you’ll be interacting with frequently over the course of the game. Let’s start with a recap of what we’ve said about characters so far: they represent people with agency (or with the potential for agency), which usually means rulers, elites or their families. Their behavior is driven by explicit goals, which are in turn determined by their personality and life circumstances. Every character has a culture they identify with, a religious denomination they profess, and at least one language they can speak. In addition, characters also have a sexuality and health (which, when reduced to 0, results in their death). They are always physically l…
- Dev Diary #6: Culture - 9 April 2022
Hello everyone and welcome to the 6th development diary of Grey Eminence! Today, we’ll explore how culture works in the game. As one of the primary demographic properties (alongside religion, social class, age, and gender), culture is inexorably linked to a lot of other mechanics, including some systems that we still haven’t announced yet! We’ll tease some of them a bit farther down, but for now let’s start by examining how cultures are structured. In real life, culture is an umbrella term for a variety of concepts that relate to a given group of people. In the vast majority of historical cases, culture wasn’t codified or organized systematically, which makes it difficult to model in accurate and discrete terms that can be applied universally. Nevertheless, we’ve come up with a system that attempts to fairly represent as many cultures as possible. In Grey Eminence, each culture is compr…
- Dev Diary #5: Religion - 26 March 2022
Hello everyone and welcome to the 5th development diary of Grey Eminence! In today’s edition, we’ll explore the various mechanics around religion. Prior to the emergence of popular nationalism, faith was the binding force for civilizations across the globe. As such, religion interacts with many other systems in the game and will be something you’ll definitely want to keep a close eye on. Let’s start by defining what a religion is. In Grey Eminence, religions are not monolithic; instead, they are a collection of individual denominations with shared common beliefs. For example, Christianity is a religion with a lot of denominations, and while all Christians believe in the Abrahamic God, there’s very little agreement on the finer details. The majority of religious game mechanics are expressed at the denomination level. Each denomination is defined by its combination of doctrines, stances,…
- Dev Diary #4: Geography - 12 March 2022
Hello everyone and welcome to the fourth development diary of Grey Eminence! Today, we’ll take a look at the geography systems that are the foundations of our game world. Specifically, we’ll explore how land tiles work, what differentiates them from one another and how their composition impacts other game systems. We’ll also briefly cover some related systems like weather and rivers. Apologies to the naval aficionados among you, but we’ll cover sea tiles and their related naval mechanics in another diary. Let’s start by going through the properties that define a land tile and then we’ll see how those properties interact. So, what makes up a land tile? It’s the union of four different parameters: terrain, climate, land size, and forest cover. Terrain The first parameter we’ll cover is a tile’s terrain. It encompasses a tile’s topography, and also certain hydrological and elevation featur…
- Dev Diary #3: Countries - 26 February 2022
Hello everyone and welcome to Grey Eminence’s third development diary! This time around, we’re going to explore how countries work in Grey Eminence. A country is any polity that rules over a given set of tiles. It’s what you, the player, will attempt to control and direct throughout the game. The 600-year span between 1356 and 1956 saw the rise and fall of a staggering variety of states, many of which weren’t fully independent. In Grey Eminence, countries (usually) aren’t monoliths: the kingdoms and empires of 1356 are composite states with multiple layers of vassals, each of which is a playable country in its own right. The exact interactions between subject countries and their overlords will be the subject of a separate dev diary, but we felt it was a good idea to clear this up. For now, we’ll describe the inner workings of a country in Grey Eminence. In order to properly represent th…
- Dev Diary #2: Population - 15 February 2022
Hello everyone and welcome to the second development diary for Grey Eminence! Today, we’ll be taking a detailed look at one of the most important aspects of Grey Eminence: its population system - how it works, what drives it, how you can interact with it, and how you can mod it. Population At its core, Grey Eminence is a game about people, both collectively and – for certain notable characters – individually. Modeling their lives is the first step towards being able to simulate more complex phenomena, so we’ve tried to track as many demographic properties as possible. We mentioned previously that every tile could have its own population. This population is broken down into segments based on age, social class, culture, religion, and gender (in this order). The order is important because we have a specific number for every possible combination of these parameters. In essence, each tile is…
