[Update 3 March ’15] : Race Command has been extended to be part of a bigger system and renamed to Race Governance. It will be part of the upcoming expansion and not released with a free patch.



Happy New Year! Today we resume our Dev Journals, this time it is one of the new mechanics for the upcoming expansion: Race Command.

Race Command will unlock race specific bonuses as you spend more time with cities of that race in your empire. Those bonuses fit the overall race theme, thereby strengthening race diversification. Each race has five levels of race command upgrades, which come in two flavors for a total of ten bonuses per race. At each level you get to choice between the two mutually exclusive perks: which are either Empire or Military upgrades. The top level race command upgrades are designed to be ultimates and will likely have a big effect on the end-game

New race overview panel in the diplomacy interface. Note you can now see the % each race takes up along with happiness and an XP bar per race. While we were at it, we also revised to top part of the leader info in the diplomacy screen, listing all a leader’s class picks with ToW shortcuts.

Some examples of the upgrades you can get are:

Lvl 1 Halfling Empire: Store Houses are 35 gold cheaper to build

Store Houses are 35 gold cheaper to build Lvl 1 Dwarf Military: All Dwarf Crossbowmen units now have an additional +2 range damage

All Dwarf Crossbowmen units now have an additional +2 range damage Lvl 3 Human Empire: Builders, Roads, watchtowers and forts cost 60% less to build.

Builders, Roads, watchtowers and forts cost 60% less to build. Lvl 3 Dwarf Military: All First Born get the Ancient Ancestor ability (+300 morale to adjacent dwarven units) and +2 Fire Melee Damage

All First Born get the Ancient Ancestor ability (+300 morale to adjacent dwarven units) and +2 Fire Melee Damage Lvl 5 Goblin Empire: All Goblin Cities generate an additional +1 gold for every Wetland Hex in their domain.

All Goblin Cities generate an additional +1 gold for every Wetland Hex in their domain. Lvl 5 Draconian Military: All Draconian Infantry, Irregulars and Pikemen get fire weapons and deal an additional +3 fire damage

So, how do you get a race command upgrade? Well, each turn you gain race command xp for each city you own of a particular race. The bigger the city, the more xp you gain. The xp you get from cities is multiplied by a modifier determined by how much a race likes you. Yes, that’s linked to the upcoming Race Happiness feature. I’ll be telling you more about that in a future dev journal. The xp for each race is added each turn and when you hit the amount required for the next race command level you get an upgrade.

The Race Upgrade list. You’ll be notified via an event similar to Hero Upgrades.

As for impact on game play, if you focus on a single race you will likely get an upgrade every twenty turns. Which means race command skills will spice up multiplayer. When you spread attention across several races, it will take a pretty epic singleplayer game to max out race command for all races on the map.

We’ve are still testing and balancing race command based on feedback, so let us know what you think in the comments below.