Core Systems Update

Overview

This week's development focus has been squarely on three foundational pillars that will shape early gameplay and long-term systemic depth:

1. Crest5-driven river & Nile water system groundwork
2. Game speed implementations
3. Our first level's name: NAQADA – Birth of the Nile

Below is a deep dive into where we are, why the work matters, and what comes next.

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Crest5 River System Integration

Goals

Build a believable Nile-inspired hydrological layer that supports seasonal variance (flood & recession), gameplay mechanics (fertility, transport, risk), and visual immersion while remaining performant alongside dense instanced city content.

Current Progress

• Initial evaluation of Crest5 (Crest Water v5) features for inland river simulation vs. open body usage
• Prototype spline / shape authoring path for carving river channels across the terrain height data
• Early shader/material tuning: sediment coloration gradients, softer specular vs. open sea, foam localization along dynamic banks
• Performance sampling with simulation parameters at target camera distances
• Draft interface point between future Flood Cycle system and Crest water level parameters

Technical Approach (First Iteration)

• Author river geometry using splines -> generate flow-aligned mesh strips or mask textures
• Apply Crest water surface with tuned underwater scattering color to imply silty Nile water
• Bank blending: planned deferred pass or terrain material splat alpha expansion to eliminate hard seams
• Flow direction encoding for future floating debris / barge pathing cues

Challenges & Considerations

• Maintaining stable simulation cost while camera rotates frequently (isometric multi-angle views)
• Synchronizing water height offsets with seasonal cycle without popping (lerp with curve smoothing)
• Edge case: shallow delta branches causing tile walkability ambiguity

Next Steps

• Implement shoreline blend prototype
• Add debug overlay for per-segment flow rate
• Begin integration test with placeholder flood height curve
• Investigate wetness / fertility propagation map export each season transition

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Time Management Architecture

Design Pillars

• Deterministic progression for simulation reproducibility
• Event-driven hooks to avoid per-frame polling by subsystems
• Scalable granularity: fast internal ticks aggregated up to minutes, hours, days, seasons, years

Current Implementation Highlights

• Core tick accumulator decoupled from frame delta (supports time scaling)
• Calendar abstraction layer: configurable season count & naming (proto-dynastic thematic flavor)

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First Scenario: NAQADA – Birth of the Nile

Vision

This is the first level where you will be understanding game mechanics.

Draft Objectives (Subject to Iteration)

• Reach population milestone N (placeholder value)
• Construct first market, prefecture and architecture building
• Establish contiguous road network linking housing cluster and storage

Progression & Teaching Beats

1. Basic placement & movement (camera + roads)
2. Housing adjacency & villager emergence
3. Food production vs. soil fertility indicator introduction
4. Time acceleration & preparing for approaching flood (warning event)
5. Post-flood reclamation and expansion choice

Next Steps

• Money management, water management and fire mangement.

Here is some demo:

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Summary & Outlook

Thank you for reading this week's devblog! More to come on upcoming weeks.