Winds of Trade Dev Update #10

Lately I've been focused on deciding on a set of features I wanted to implement in order to make a 0.3 version of Winds of Trade. I am almost done with them, so I can send this new development release to some friends for testing. These are the latest changes made after the whole "add procedurally generated countries to the game" nightmare:

• Lots of tweaks to the terrain generation algorithm. Now it's a lot more "island-y", runs faster and crashes less. It's still not perfect, but it's a vast improvement over the previous version.

An example map made with the new terrain generation algorithm.

• Added a basic macroeconomy simulation: countries go through different economic situations (like depression, recession, prosperity and so on) that change the rate at which they manufacture and demand different goods and the overall prices. For example, a country that's going through a depression phase will lower its coffee consumption; or a country that's going through prosper times will increase the output of manufactured goods.
• Added a basic diplomacy simulation: countries have rivalries and may end up going to war with each other. This, of course, affects the economy severely and opens up new opportunities. Nothing better than buying weapons from a peaceful country and selling them at three times their value to a belligerent one.

Just like in reality, people like to find excuses to kill one another.

• Refactoring of the whole trading system in order to remove duplicate code and increase performance. It's something I should have done properly the first time, but I was too busy getting things to work and I made a huge mess. Cleaning it up was pretty satisfying, luckily!
• The loading screen now features witty quotes related to the sea and sailing.
• New tooltips for cities in order to see quickly the resources they have to offer, their population and their relationship with your company.

Information at the tip of your mouse pointer