Age of Frontiers: trade, build and character

A new year, and more Age of Frontiers! Three of its core systems have been taking shape over the last months: trading with villages, building them up, and growing your own character. Here is a first look at each of them.

Trade

Trading is a barter at the trader's table. You put the goods you offer on one side, the trader puts theirs on the other, and the trader tells you what they think of the deal: from a flat "No way!" to a hesitant "Mmm..." or "Maybe...", and, if you get it right, a satisfied "Lagom". The bar below the trader's portrait shows how far you are from a deal they would accept.

Age of Frontiers trade screen: a trader's portrait saying "No way!", the goods on offer above and below the table, and the favor and encumbrance on the side

A few things make it more than a price list:

Every village has its own prices, depending on what it produces and what it lacks. Each village's needs are refreshed every few cycles, depending on how much they changed over the last period.
Haggling: when your offer falls a little short, you can still try to sway the trader to accept it. How far you can push depends on your skills.
Favor: the support your band has earned in each village. It can pay for part of a deal.
Encumbrance: everything you carry has a weight, a classic.

Build

Villages are not static. Each one is laid out on its own small map of hexes, with its centre and the buildings around it, and every building gives the village something: a higher maximum prosperity, or the processes we saw in the commodities post (tan, treat, melt, work, prepare...).

Age of Frontiers build screen for the village of Chasse: the village hexes on the left, and on the right what the centre provides and the granary being built, with the wood and food it still needs

Buildings are not free, of course. Each one needs a number of goods to be finished, and that is where you come in: bring the village what it needs and it will grow faster. Drying racks, a tannery, a loom, a granary, a workshop, a smithy, a market, an altar... What a village can build depends on what it already has, and on which faction it belongs to.

Character

Your main character grows by gaining levels, and each level gives you skill points to spend on four groups of skills: Warfare, Leadership, Craftsmanship and Survival. Each group has four skills, and each skill has three levels.

Age of Frontiers character screen for Brom, level 5 Adventurer: the four skill groups with four skills each, and the description of the Trade skill on the right

The skills cover the whole game, not just combat: Loot, Health and Combat in Warfare; Persuasion, Instruction and Discipline in Leadership; Trade, Logistics and Protection in Craftsmanship; Gather, Pathfinding and Endurance in Survival; and a few more. Trade, for example, increases what you gain from every deal, how far you can haggle and, at its last level, the treasure you get from any source. The opposite is also true, as every skill group has its own way to interact with combat: more life, more armour, more talents... I want to avoid the bad design of keeping all of combat in a single track.

The groups also matter on their own: every skill level you put in a group improves your character's base stats. Warfare adds life, Leadership command points and speed, Craftsmanship encumbrance and lighter armour, and Survival movement, perception, stamina and recovery. So the way you build your character also decides what kind of band you will lead.

All of this is work in progress, as always: numbers will change, and features will come and go. I'll keep you posted!

Om