Against the Storm: Keepers of the Stone Review (impeus)
Important context: I have been playing AtS for 9 months now, with over 400 hours in game. I love it.
This is actually a really impressive piece of complex game balancing. There are quite a lot of moving parts in any AtS settlement, due to the effects of RNG on species types, biome, glades, blueprints, orders, events, etc. etc. etc.
It's A LOT to keep track of, and A LOT to effectively balance.
The base game comprises 5 species, the DLC adds one more.
Given that any particular settlement contains three of these species, with the base five, there are ten different combinations of species possible. These interact in various ways with synergies and contrasts across their varying needs and preferences, strengths, comforts, and service requirements. Balancing those ten combinations across the range of other variables must be really difficult, and I've always admired the way the dev team have taken that balance seriously throughout the game's development from Early Access to where we are now.
Adding one more species, to bring the total to six, actually increases the number of possible species combinations to TWENTY - that's twice as complex.
Not only have they had to balance the game with six species, they have also had to ensure that all the changes brought in to update 1.4 to manage this STILL leaves the base game balanced with the original five species.
This is an amazing accomplishment, and I think they've done it really well.
The new species and biome add a really nice twist. It's a thoughtful addition to the game. I'm glad I bought it.