Age of Blocks v1.0 is out

The block strategy game I’ve been building for months hit v1.0 today. It’s no longer a prototype; you can play it from the first villager to the last siege. Here’s a rundown of what changed along the way, partly so I have something to look back on.

Civilizations

Every match starts from one of five roots: Sumer, Old Kingdom Egypt, the Indus, Shang or the Minoans. To finish an age you raise that civilization’s masterpiece, then choose your next civilization from three candidates. Your army and every bonus you’ve picked up come along.

There are 65 civilizations across five regions, with 195 heritage studies between them. Each has its own masterpiece, training centre and a legacy that sticks with you for the rest of the match. If you want to see it all laid out, there’s a Library in the menu with every path, an identity card for each civilization and short history notes with sources.

Signature units

In earlier builds, some “special” units were just barracks troops with a new name. That’s fixed. The barracks, archery range and stable now train the same general units for everyone, and a signature unit only comes out of its civilization’s own centre. Each one has a single ability: charge, shield wall, fire, volley, trample, banner, hit and run, piercing, discipline, terror or long reach.

None of the 65 is a reskin of another, and the names come from history: Janissary, Immortal, Phalanx of Ur, Macedonian Sarissophoros and the rest.

Taxes and morale

Passive gold from buildings now depends on a tax rate you set at the town centre. Push taxes up and the treasury fills, but people drag their feet and gather and build more slowly. Bring them down and income drops, but everyone works harder. Morale changes gradually after the tax rate is adjusted, so repeatedly moving the slider has little effect.

Gathering feels more physical too. Lumberjacks fell trees at the forest edge and carry the wood back to camp, and quarries, mills and mining depots work the same way.

300 units without the stutter

Big fights used to stutter. In my test scene with 300 units fighting at once, a single frame took around 139 ms to draw; now it’s about 30 ms. The game logic was never the problem, the drawing was: every frame redrew every soldier from scratch. Now each unit pose is drawn once and reused from a cache, and it looks exactly the same.

Sound and music

I redid every sound effect. Mining was far too loud and woodcutting was barely audible, so I evened them out. There are fourteen new music tracks covering the menu, day, night, the ages, tension, battle and siege, and the music now crossfades between them instead of cutting off.

Interface

The main menu is new, with a painted valley behind it, a simpler single and multiplayer setup, and a news section. In a match you get a small heritage badge, a “New age ready” notice, an objectives panel you can close, and hints if you want them.

Single player covers 1v1, 2v2 and free-for-all. Online rooms hold up to eight seats, filled by people or bots. The whole game is in Turkish and English.

What’s next

Balance passes, new maps, feedback from players and any issues that come up. New releases will show up here under the #age-of-blocks tag.

Have fun.