eXplorminate Intro:
This is an article series dedicated to the smaller developers, some of whom may not have managed to get onto the SteamFest. While we at eXplorminate do like the bigger games in the genre (Eo, Old World, Age of Wonders etc) I thought this was a great chance to highlight visibility for the smaller developers. I think the best ideas often come from smaller developers, who are more willing to bend the rules, challenge conventions and take risks.
Game: Steam Link
Developer: Marcel Strbak (Pirate Kook), on the Discord.
Game concept
Theocracy is a streamlined, single-player, 4X turn-based strategy game, where you lead a theocratic empire, conquer and convert enemies by divine power or brute force, cast miracles and enact dogmas. Your main resource is Power (basically faith currency), which radiates from regions, shrines, holy men and sacred mountains and converts nearby territory and regions.
Explore a world of pagan regions, sacred mountains, and rival theocracies. Expand and peacefully convert your enemies by the Power, or raise and command armies and summon monsters to spread your religion by fire and sword. Progress through knowledge, shape your empire by dogmas, amaze and punish infidels by miracles. Choose your path to victory – through conquest and extermination, growth and conversion, or by unleashing the ultimate Apocalypse miracle.
Designed as a “busy person’s Civilization”, Theocracy is a 4X Civ-like espresso, served to provide a quick fix of just one more turn feeling. It focuses on strategic expansion, the Power mechanics, and simple, fast-paced gameplay, without micromanagement and overwhelming game concepts and tactics. On smaller maps a full game can fit into a quick 2 hours session. Grander game setup offers 10+ hours epics.
Theocracy is Civ-like but with unique mechanics and features:
– Focus is on the Power and expansion even without military campaigns
– All regions (cities) exist since the beginning, there are no settlers and workers
– Miracles act like ancient nuclear bombs and can immediately deal significant blows to players
– You’re always under pressure from some annoying folks – Pagans, Heretics, Atheists, and eventually Aliens- forcing you to push toward victory without delay
– Technological progress is tricky – you need to stay ahead of your enemies but gaining too much knowledge will trigger Atheism and game-ending Alien invasion
– It’s relatively easy to conquer, but not so easy to defend what you had conquered, especially due to ever-present danger of miracles
How and why the game was created
Theocracy is a solo project and personal tribute to Civ1 & Civ2, fuelled by my interest in world religions and mythology. I developed and crafted it from scratch, without a game engine, over ten years, in my spare time. It features retro visuals and a square grid map based on antique atlas maps. It began as a small god-game idea: gods don’t build roads and farms, they send prophets and monsters and erupt volcanoes! But I liked the idea and soon it evolved into a full 4X game concept, turning a small distraction into a gargantuan solo endeavour.
It’s a passion project driven by the joy and challenge of making the game – especially designing and coding AI players, which allowed be to transcend to the other side of the mirror of strategy games.
I’m not a professional or even semi-professional developer, my programming comes from elementary and high-school back in the 90’s. Back then, I dreamed about making a strategy game (but I was too busy making a hobby remake of Sid Meier’s Pirates!). Almost 20 years later, I revisited that dream, and spent endless nights coding and pixels-painting. When I realized I moulded from clay a pretty playable, addictive and fun game, I asked a few people what they thought about the game. I got very positive feedback and so I decided to make Theocracy public and released it on Steam, although I had no commercial ambitions.
Future development
Theocracy supports scenarios and mods, and all new improvements are always included in the game for free. I continue to improve the game, as my circumstances allow. Next improvements should be new scenarios (Mesoamerica, Middle ages), translation to multiple languages and AI enhancements.
I’m open to feedback from players and many ideas coming from them have been already implemented.
eXplorminate Thoughts:
Well, this is exactly the sort of non traditional game eXplorminate is proud to support!
At first glance, it looks very retro, almost like Civilization 2. Go beneath the surface, and you see that, like Marcel says, you can win the war, but can you win the peace?
There’s also a Youtube channel for Theocracy.
On that note, this is the last entry in this year’s “notSteamFest” – hopefully we will repeat this feature.
eXplorminate Outro:
As a reminder, eXplorminate is an independent community, all about the games and gamers, but we cannot make things happen without your support. Please donate to the Patreon, visit our YouTube, listen to our podcast and join our Discord, if you want to support us
