Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 103: New Game: City Forsaken by Gods (Second Update)

Chapter 103: Chapter 103: New Game: City Forsaken by Gods (Second Update)

"City Forsaken by Gods," this is a post-apocalyptic society survival game.

The story is set in the Western Middle Ages, where players take on the role of the lord of the City Forsaken by Gods.

The reason it is called the City Forsaken by Gods is that beneath the city, a loosened seal of Hell was found. The humans in the city have, whether willingly or unwillingly, embraced Demonic Knowledge and renounced their faith in God. Moreover, with plague rampant and morality decayed, the city was abandoned by the divine.

Angels view this place as the land of impurity and wish to bring down Holy Light to utterly destroy it.

The protagonist, playing as the city lord, must use every means possible to survive the numerous challenges and keep the city alive.

The main gameplay can be roughly divided into two types: one is the growth mode of management and construction, and the other is real-time combat.

In the growth section, the primary focus is on resource allocation and construction planning for the city, such as:

Providing food and water to different units, consuming resources to build defense structures and civilian facilities, dispatching adventure teams to explore outside the city or underground ruins, organizing defense forces, upgrading defense mechanisms, issuing policies, summoning demons for assistance, and so on.

In addition, all sorts of different events will erupt within the city, such as famine riots, church propaganda, refugees seeking asylum, homeland dispatches, epidemic outbreaks, scorching heat, severe cold, strong winds, accelerated corruption, animal migration, angel invasions, divine punishments, and more.

While developing daily, players also have to respond to and handle these events.

Moreover, as players delve deeper into the exploration of the underground ruins, they procure more Demonic Knowledge, enabling them to unlock up to five different "Demonic Skills."

Hell’s Vision: Once activated, it allows seeing the attributes of targeted units.

Hell’s Power: Upon activation, it provides formidable combat strength.

Demonic Knowledge: Once unlocked, it allows for the spread of Demonic Knowledge to control thoughts.

Hell’s Summoning: Summoning demons to bolster the army, raising the Undead for rebirth.

Hell’s Bounties: Temporarily grant one of the above four abilities to others.

In the real-time combat section, there will be a continuous stream of enemies attacking the City Forsaken by Gods, some are bandits and Rogues from the outside, some are Crusaders who come to crusade, and some are powerful angels who descend to join the battle in person.

And the player can control powerful hero characters to participate in the battle like in MOBA games, naturally, this hero character is the city lord themselves.

If it were just so, "City Forsaken by Gods" would still be considered a relatively normal game.

It would simply be about management, construction, and combat, resisting wave after wave of attacks.

But obviously, a game designed by Lilith is never going to be that benevolent.

Within "City Forsaken by Gods," besides the two gameplay aspects of "management" and "combat," they have surprisingly added a "raising" gameplay!

In the storyline, the city lord adopts a little girl named Xia Mi as his daughter, and in between management and combat, players can carry out a series of raising operations on this girl, including five main aspects:

Lifestyle: Choose various standards for the little girl’s food, clothing, shelter, and transportation.

Education: Impart certain knowledge and skills to the little girl or provide ideological education.

Affection: Enjoy entertainment and playtime with the little girl, make decisions in her favor, and improve her fondness for you.

Affairs: Have the little girl help handle various matters within the city and enhance her corresponding abilities.

Special: Make extreme decisions regarding the little girl, such as abandonment, imprisonment, or execution.

Up to this point, things appear quite normal, but the key issue arises: the little girl is a traitor!

She perfectly fits the definition of a "pretentious saint" that everyone had summarized before.

In times of clear food shortage in the city, she also saves surrounding refugees;

She secretly releases imprisoned angel followers from the jail;

She even smuggles out the city’s food supplies and weapons to other villages suffering from famine;

When the city lord wants to increase working hours, she is the first to oppose;

When the city lord wants to delve into the Demon Ruins to gain demonic powers for self-preservation, she staunchly opposes and even sabotages secretly;

And most outrageously, even during an "animal migration" event, she insists on using the scarce resources to adopt and treat these animals!

In short, while the city lord makes toasts, she doesn’t drink, when the city lord offers her food, she turns to another table. The existence of this adopted daughter herself is the greatest obstacle to the survival of the City Forsaken by Gods.

Perhaps, when players can no longer bear it, they would choose to take special actions, imprison her, or simply execute her.

But, it still won’t do!

Because, from the storyline’s perspective, this foster daughter has a significant background; she is actually the human incarnation of Archangel Chamuel. Once she dies, the angels will immediately descend divine retribution, completely leveling the City Forsaken by Gods and ending the game directly.

In other words, players will face a dilemma:

Killing her is definitely not an option. If she’s killed, divine retribution will follow, and the game ends;

Not killing her, but imprisoning her will lead to a dramatic drop in Xia Mi’s favorability. She will even incite the prisoners to riot from time to time;

If not imprisoned, she will often create trouble and make excessive demands that severely weaken the city’s supplies and defenses. Failing to comply with her wishes will still result in a loss of favorability;

If you do everything according to her wishes... then the city simply won’t last long before it falls.

And what’s most infuriating is that every time the player makes a decision that doesn’t meet her expectations, she would launch a moral interrogation at the player.

Even if the City Lord dies due to the city’s fall, she would only feel that it’s the deserved punishment for those who fervently believed in demons, the epitome of an ingrate.

So how should such a character’s AI be completed?

Of course, it still relies on fake-AI technology!

The previous accident with Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon was mainly because it used the Three Kingdoms as the story background. If the AI could be spoiled, how could one play?

But City of the Abandoned Gods is an original story background, and even the designers don’t know how the plot will unfold in the future. Using fake-AI technology shouldn’t be a problem now, right?

The benefits of fake-AI technology are also obvious. It will make NPC behavior more unpredictable and, naturally, more likely to break the player’s defenses.

Of course, this time the fake-AI technology will still need a series of adjustments, mainly to brand Xia Mi with ideological imprints to ensure players can’t easily change her thinking through acquired education.

Players might mistakenly believe that being kind to her and grinding favorability might cause her to have a change of heart, but this is clearly a delusional fantasy.

...

The crowd couldn’t help but exchange glances.

It appears the previous stereotypes were not wrong at all; Zhou Yang’s guess was absolutely correct!

Actually, after yesterday’s brainstorming meeting ended, many people’s attitude towards Lilith had improved.

This young lady, despite giving a poor first impression and seeming like an ignorant leader who likes to instruct the experienced, had a rather smooth exchange with everyone, right?

At least after the discussion about the "Holy Mother" and "Sanctimonious Bitches," she made a quite accurate summary.

The Holy Mother Syndrome is foolish, Sanctimonious Bitches are malicious. The former expresses an over-commitment of benefits without considering the cost, dogmatically adhering to certain moral codes even to the detriment of one’s own and allies’ actual interests; the latter forces others to fulfill the moral codes by means of moral coercion and applies double standards towards themselves and others.

Therefore, what players hate are the Holy Mother Syndrome and Sanctimonious Bitches, not the true Holy Mothers.

Isn’t this a very accurate and apt summary?

Following this train of thought, if you want to shape a friendly unit in the game, it definitely has to be a True Holy Mother, not a Sanctimonious Bitch, right?

But how is City of the Abandoned Gods designed?

Xia Mi is the most important female ally in the game, not only related to all the development gameplay but also involving the management and combat aspects of the game.

Yet, such a character is designed to be a top-notch Sanctimonious Bitch, clashing with the player at every turn, and, like a dog skin plaster, you just can’t shake her off!

The crowd exchanged glances, clearly, they had all come to a conclusion.

Before, they were wondering whether the investor was foolish or malicious.

Was it simply a case of low-level game design, believing their designed gameplay was fun, or was it deliberate?

Now, it seems it’s more of the latter!

Lilith, full of confidence, asked, "How about my design proposal? Isn’t it a genius idea?"

Everyone didn’t know what to say and could only look towards Gu Fan.

Gu Fan was somewhat baffled, "Why look at me? If you have opinions, just speak up. President Li isn’t unreasonable."