Overview
Hello again Victorians, this dev diary will cover the visual elements coming alongside the Sphere of Influence Expansion Pack. With this pack a lot of effort has been put into putting the grandeur and influence of the newly added Power Blocs on visual display. In addition, a lot of new outfits, characters and illustrations have been made for major events added with the pack alongside a few brand new building types.
Sphere of Influence will release on Jun 24, 2024
Power Blocs
With the major addition of Power Blocs to the game a lot of new visual elements have been added to emphasize their impact and importance, ranging from clothing assets of politicians in the Power Bloc to customizable statues and emblems for the Power Bloc itself as well as a brand new map mode and much more.
The pattern chosen in the emblem customization also represents your Power Bloc on the map
The capital city of a Power Bloc is where the pulses signifying their influence emanates from
The more cohesion, the more complete the puzzle will be
When a player creates a new Power Bloc they will be able to create and customize their own Emblem and Statues, these visual elements will represent your Power Bloc in both interface and in the cities.
Your influence will spread like tentacles over the world
Emblems consist of 7 (including colors and pattern options for the map) different component categories with a variety of different assets within, you can combine these assets in any way you see fit to create an emblem worthy of representing your own Power Bloc in any interface.
The interface for the Emblem customization allows for a lot of variation
Statues consist of 5 different 3D component categories allowing you to compose your own statue monument that can be built in each of your cities to give modifiers aligned with the Identity of your Power Bloc.
Are we the classy baddies?
The leaders and politicians that are part of your Power Bloc will also receive new assets to showcase their unity and influence. Based on what Central Identity Pillar you’ve chosen for your Power Bloc, important characters now wear assets that further showcase their commitment and allegiance with the Power Bloc, ranging from ornate sabers to the fanciest of capes. In addition to the characters, the vehicles within a Power Bloc will also spawn new models on roads or seas depending on your Central Identity Pillar.
Alignment with a sovereign empire grants characters a beautiful ornate saber
Trade union grants various different crowns and earrings as well as a new ship for your trade routes
Different necklaces for the central identity pillars
Religious Union grants some lovely capes and a very ornate carriage for your roads
Ornate cape you say? Hold my top hat and monocle
Military Treaty Power Blocs can soar above the battlefield by mobilizing hot air balloons bearing the emblem of your Power Bloc proudly.
Power blocs really bring some class to the roads, especially the Ideological Union
For the Central Identity Pillars we’ve created a variety of new icons, cementing their importance. In addition there’s also a large variety of new icons made for the principles your Power Bloc can align with.
Central Identity icons
The principles of a Power Bloc vary a whole lot
In order for you to get an overview of the countries and rulers in your Power Bloc we’ve made a new interface screen that shows the axis of the most powerful ones. Within this screen we’ve also made new ranking icons to signify your Power Blocs’ standing among the others and for the top 3 there’s also shiny new effects ranging from bronze to gold.
The rulers of your Power Bloc can all compare beards
These effects also appear on the Power Blocs’ emblems when you switch to the new Power Bloc mapmode to signify the top 3 ranking ones. In addition, this new mapmode features the visualization of Power Blocs’ using the pattern and colors chosen for the emblems. You can also get an insight into a specific Power Blocs’ influence by switching to another mapmode that utilizes a new pulse shader, showing just how far your Power Blocs’ reach is and where it originates from. In addition there’s another new visualization of the cohesion levels of your Power Bloc allowing you to get an overview of the puzzle that is keeping the entire bloc aligned.
Stay golden at #1
See the silver lining at #2
Nobody wants to be stuck in the bronze age at #3
Even your emblems will really shine if your Power Bloc reaches the highest rankings
The Great Game
For the objectives of The Great Game we have created a large number of new event images covering different aspects of the rivalry, alongside of the events we have also created a variety of historical character DNAs’ and new outfits related to all of it. We’ve also created a new animated main menu image depicting some of the involved parties, setting the tone for the narrative of the pack as a whole and some other miscellaneous in-game assets that helps the narrative.
New menu screen featuring a lot of the players of the great game
Cossacks on the prowl
Ancient persian thrones look quite comfortable
A beautiful day at the market!
Alexander III is appearing a lot
Reza Shah Pahlavi
New military uniforms for Russia and Britain
Cossack outfits
New great coats for the people!
New late-era uniforms
Fancy Vivandiere outfits!
New historical characters
Community Collaboration
Aside from the paid characters added with The Great Game we’re also adding a ton of free historical character appearances. These were created by Timothy "Galactic Cactus" Hicks, who made and later donated the Americas Character DNA mod to us for inclusion in the base game for Update 1.5. The 85 characters he provided for the free update alongside Sphere of Influence (full list in the upcoming changelog) were created in collaboration with him as a contractor. We hope that this sort of collaboration is something we can do more of in the future and will be creating some guidelines and benchmarks for interested community members.
Just a few of the newly added DNAs
New Buildings and Ownerships
With the free update coming alongside the pack comes two new building types, Manor Houses and Financial Districts both serving a function when it comes to ownership of other buildings (which you can read more about in DD #110), these two new buildings both have unique looks for each visual culture in the game.
All the financial districts are quite detailed and vary between cultures
Manor houses class up any rural area
The icons for the new buildings
Subject Improvements, Lobbies and Diplomacy Interface
A lot of new interface assets have been made to accommodate the new features and functions of the Subject Improvements, the new Lobbies as well as the Diplomacy improvements.
Get an overview of all your (hopefully) loyal subjects
New Companies
We’re also adding some new companies and their emblems with Sphere of Influence ranging from big oil companies to legendary ale.
Here are some of the newly added company emblems
New Paper Map
Another addition is also a new Paper Map added with Sphere of Influence. This map is inspired by the more minimalistic maps from the era, lending itself well to those seeking clarity combined with a new (old) coat of paint.
Achievement Icons
Last but not least are a variety of new achievement icons, some depicting the exact thing you need to achieve, some that might give you a vague hint and some that contain pop culture references that you might guess.
There are so many easter eggs among these new achievement icons
Summary
So with Sphere of Influence a lot of new visual elements have been added to both interface and map. We’ve put a lot of effort into making Power Blocs feel like they have a presence in all aspects of the games’ visuals, really tried to ensure that there’s a lot of new visual elements for The Great Game and also added some nice details while also collaborating with the community.
Next weeks’ Dev Diary will be detailing the many UX improvements coming with the Sphere of Influence update.
