Game & Backstory
What is the backstory of the game?
Originally, the myriad islands of Pagonia were populated by scattered villages where the skilled inhabitants lived in peace. A cataclysm of unknown origin has thrown the world out of balance: Forests are infested with thorny vines, mountain passes are impassable due to landslides, villages are invaded by raiders, and cursed creatures have been sighted in many places. Villages are separated from each other, and their inhabitants face serious challenges.
What is the role of the player?
You lead your people as a visionary, traveling by ship to the myriad islands to aid their troubled inhabitants with your tribe’s advanced craftsmanship and mystical knowledge. Your goal is to reunite the islanders by solving their most pressing problems and eliminating dangers.
What is fascinating about your game?
The player experiences a fascinating anthill of thousands of bustling units that execute orders without individual or direct command. The dynamics of all the interconnected game systems lead to proud accomplishments when things go according to plan, as well as unexpected surprises that challenge the player every time.
Is there magic in your world?
Yes, the world of Pagonia has mysteries, mysticism, rituals, and magic. But these are extraordinary and to common for everyone.
Map Flow
What is the goal of a map?
You are a visionary who wants to unite the scattered tribes of the island. Once all the villages on a map trust you, the map is won… But getting there involves a variety of goals and may be harder than it sounds.
How does a game of Pioneers of Pagonia start? Lumberjack, sawmill, quarry?
Yes, among other things. But maybe you build an explorer first, to explore the surrounding area as early as possible. Or a watchtower, because the guards quickly put up additional boundary stones so that the raspberry bushes are in your own territory and the collector ensures the first source of food. Or set up a treasure hunter to investigate the suspicious clues on the coast… hopefully finding silver coins or something else usable and not rusty nails.
Is there exploration or is the map revealed?
Exploration is a big part of Pioneers of Pagonia. Initially, the entire map is unexplored and a mystery, except for the small area where your landing party arrived.
Gameplay Explained
Can you place everything freely or do you use a hex or square grid?
Buildings and roads can be placed anywhere, at any angle, if there is room. Hilly terrain can increase the effort or even limit the options, as there is a maximum slope.
Is the road network important?
With thousands of goods being transported at once, logistics will play an important role in Pioneers of Pagonia. Bad planning can lead to a collapse due to overburdened transport units or incredible traffic jams at bottlenecks. Details on road types and transport units have not yet been defined and will be revealed later.
Does owned territory exist and do you need to expand it?
Yes, your civilian units will only move within the safe areas of your own territory and will only build buildings and roads within those borders. Only pioneers (such as explorers or treasure hunters), military and mystic units, and merchants can leave your territory.
How can you expand your territory?
Your city guards are stationed in watchtowers and other large territory buildings. They will pick up boundary stones and expand your territory step by step, and you can choose which direction they will expand first.
How does the combat system work?
Units that are patrolling or scouting an area and find a preferred target they are looking for will automatically engage. For example, your guards will chase away thieves, while ghosts will chase your civilians. Your soldiers will attack bandits, but enemy ghosts will attack your soldiers, while your wizards will hunt the ghosts. Depending on the unit types and their individual strengths and weaknesses, there are good and bad matchups.
Can you directly control your armies?
No, we will not offer RTS-style unit control. Instead, military and mystical units will be tied to buildings as their base and will be controlled from there, e.g. by telling them where to claim new territory, which area to guard, or which location to scout for enemies.
Feature Overview
How many different buildings are there?
In Early Access, we will have over 40 different buildings available to players. After that, we plan to continually expand the tech tree step by step.
How many different resources and products exist?
In Early Access, there will be more than 70 different goods in players’ production chains. As we plan to release additional building types over time, the variety of goods will continue to grow.
How many units can the player have?
We do not have the final numbers yet, but the population of the player’s tribe will be several thousand units. The number of buildings will be in the hundreds.
Do we get procedural maps?
Yes, procedural content creation is a major focus of our project. This is very important for replayability and gameplay variety. This is further enhanced by the many interconnected game systems of our simulation.
How can procedural missions be exciting and not repetitive?
Procedural content generation is a very powerful tool that is already very important for many games. Some people confuse procedural generation with complete randomness. Instead, it means that there is a designed set of rules that creates interesting content, and that the quality of the content can be continuously improved by better rules and algorithms.
For Pioneers of Pagonia, a simulation with many different interconnected game systems, procedural content is a great fit. We will procedurally generate map layout and terrain distribution, resource quantity and allocation, locations for hostile and friendly inhabitants and their objectives. The combination of these challenges will be unique to each map. Another advantage of procedural content is that it leads to unusual situations that a level designer may never have thought of.
Will there be a campaign?
No, we are focusing on procedural map and objective creation to ensure high replayability with unlimited variation rather than a limited number of hand-crafted maps.
Is there cooperative gameplay?
Yes, we plan to offer shared cooperative gameplay in Early Access. This will allow you to play your tribe together with a friend.
Will there be PvP?
We are focusing on cooperative gameplay because it fits the game perfectly and allows for constructive and fun multiplayer with your family and friends. We are not ruling out the idea of adding more different game modes during or after Early Access, but it is not on our current agenda.
Does the game offer trade?
Yes, the other factions will have various trade offers. For most offers, you will need to gain their trust first. Of course, any traded item will need to be transported.
How many factions are there?
We are focusing on a single faction for Early Access. Instead of offering multiple player factions with fewer buildings and limited production chains, we decided to go with one larger faction with much more variety.
