Unlocked 3 New Guild Tokens and New Stretch Goal!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 04:10:28 AM

**Current Gold Coin Count = 129

New Stretch Goal Unlocked!

Our newest Stretch Goal will be for 200 gold coins. Note that this weekend, we will be adding 1 or 2 more ways you can earn gold for the campaign to unlock those Stretch Goals.

New Guild Tokens

We have unlocked 3 new Guild Tokens for the game! I will be working with our graphic designer to get you some final files but let's talk about Guild Tokens and give you some insight into what they are.

Guild Tokens are a major part of the engine building aspect of the game. You can recruit them from the Guild Hall on the main board and when you do, you place them onto your player board in the appropriate Guild Workshop. Whenever you take a die from the board to gain resources, etc., you will place that die in a matching guild workshop. This is done by matching the color of the die to the workshop portion of the board. Then you will activate all of the actions your guild members can do from that workshop.

Designing Tokens

When designing Guild Tokens there are 3 major elements: the guild they belong to, the resources gained, and the cost. 

The Guild

Each guild has 3 elements that identify it as being a part of a certain guild. The top left symbol, the color of the token, and the resources associated with the guild. In this example, this Guild Member or Guild Token, is part of the Harvester Guild. They have the Harvester Guild symbol, the color green associated with that guild, and the gaining of Goods (Wood, Charcoal, Ore, Leather, Steel). Note that the guild symbol is not strictly needed but is used to aid those that may be colorblind to better help them navigate the boards.

The Resources

Each guild in the game specializes in a type of task. The Alchemist's Guild (Yellow) works with Mystics (Talisman, Dragon Scales, Mithril, and Embergems). The Harvester's Guild (Green) works with Goods as mentioned above. Then finally the Merchant's Guild (Purple) works with all of the resources and gold. Their abilities are based around exchanging resources for gold or gold for resources. 

In the above example, since it is a Harvester, they will gain Goods in some way. However, in this case, they also gain a one time bonus. Anything in that grey stone area means you get that resource or bonus when you initially recruit them. You will not get that bonus again when running your guild workshops.

The Cost

Every guild member has a cost associated with them when recruiting them to be in your workshop, gold. In Forges of Ravenshire, you win the game by having the most gold so be careful how you are spending those well earned "Victory Points." However, when recruited and used properly, they can provide powerful benefits for your engine (your ability to gain resources).

Until next time, keep forging on!

-Sam Stockton

Coin Purse and Polls!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 02:43:57 AM

**Coin Status for Stretch Goals = 72**

Understanding Guild Tokens

Our next Stretch Goal unlocks at 100 Gold coins and with it comes 3 brand new Guild Tokens. We will be giving you some better pictures of those once the graphic designer finishes them but here is a brief idea of how they work in the game.

The basic flow of Forges of Ravenshire in the Gathering phase is the following:

#1) Place a die on the main board and take the resources.

#2) Take a different die on the main board and take the resources.

#3) Then based on the color of the die you took, place it into your guild workshop of the matching color. 

#4) You may run all of the guild token actions in that workshop (column) once each.

During the game, you can recruit new guild tokens by either placing or taking dice on the VI spot on the main board (the Guild Hall) or by using Action Tokens. You will need to spend those hard earned coins to get them but every time you take a die of that color, you get EVEN MORE resources to help build all of those lovely contracts.

The guild tokens are a major component of your engine building experience. You can recruit a variety of different guild members to help you focus on different resources or go all in on a single guild or resource. 

This part is personally one of my absolute favorite parts to the game! A continuous engine that immediately kicks in to give your engine a boost!

Two Polls!!!

In case you are new, below is from our second Update.

Naming Weapons, Armor, and Shields!

During this campaign, we will be running several polls to name contracts and to decide on the front cover. On each poll we offer a couple of suggestions, but we left a space for you to enter a name of your own. 

When the poll closes, we will gather all of the answers. We will not use all of the submissions (sorry Swordy McSwordface) but will take the names that fit the theme. We will then release another poll to allow backers to organize the names in order from most to least favorite. This will continue until that poll closes and we then announce the winners in a future update.

The above procedure will happen 3 times for the different contracts (weapons, armor, and shields). The first poll for the weapon contracts is below!

How Does the Polling Work?

Now we are about to have our second poll for weapons. Here is how this poll will work.  Each question will list of the names that have been submitted. In the answer we need you to rank 5 names from favorite (1) to not as favorite (5).  At the end of the poll (which will be Saturday afternoon) We will take the rankings and give points as follows. 

1= 2.5     2=2     3=1.5     4=1     5=.5

Names that are ranked but were not on the question will receive no points. I will publicly post the results this upcoming Sunday, April 30th.

Rank the Weapons! (poll runs until Saturday Afternoon)

https://forms.office.com/r/VDH7KftVFi

Name the Armor Contracts! (poll runs until Saturday Afternoon)

https://forms.office.com/r/HKfAHAyjT2

Until next time, keep forging on!

-Sam Stockton

The BIG Change and More Shipping News
over 1 year ago – Sun, Apr 23, 2023 at 07:11:36 PM

Greetings fellow smiths! 

It is now time to talk about the BIG change.

What is Changing?

We will no longer be doing the old way of doing Stretch Goals where we keep track of money on the Kickstarter. The new ones will be tracked in 1 of 2 ways.

#1) Social Activity - As a community, we will be tracking the coins you have earned in order to unlock new content and upgrades for the game. Our goal is keep the momentum going and let people know that we have an awesome game here and they should come check it out. Here are some examples:

Now, all of these social actions are going to help reach out to people and engage with the board game community but I ask you to NOT SPAM groups or people. DO NOT just link and run. Find ways to talk to people in groups, ask questions, etc. The goal here is to raise awareness and invite people to join us.

**Note: We are discussing social goals directly with Board Game Geek to make sure we don't break any terms of service.

#2) # of Backers - we will also be introducing a new stretch goal that aims to help people feel more confident about dealing with the shipping costs.

We believe in this game. We know this game is good.

The more people we get to back the game, the better everyone will benefit from decreasing production costs as well as a shipping cost reduction. This is for everyone. ALL BACKERS!

A few notes:

• this is a shipping discount only.
• this discount will only apply to those who back the campaign and order at least 1 copy of Forges of Ravenshire. This will apply to dollar backers who add a base game in the pledge manager. This will Not Apply to Late Pledges when the campaign ends! 
• the final discount will be based on the final number of backers successfully charged from the Kickstarter campaign.

 Shipping Updates for Asia

Shipping updates for Asia are still being woked on. We hope to get back to you early next week with an update.

The New Assistant

Last update, I eluded to the new Assistant Card, the Cleric. Here is our graphically updated clergy friend.

Until next time, keep forging on!

-Sam Stockton

Stretch Goal Reached and BIG Changes Coming!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Apr 21, 2023 at 05:45:08 PM

**This update was intended to be a full reveal of all the new things we will be implementing but there have been a lot of moving parts in the back end and we didn't get to finalize all of it. However, as our backers, you deserve good communication so here is the update with exciting teases of what is to come...**

Alright my fellow smiths!! We reached our goal of $30,000 USD and have unlocked a new Assistant card. Now, we are only going to give you a teaser right now as there has been a lot happening on the back end. A bigger reveal will happen over the weekend. Keep reading below to find out more but there will be some major changes to the campaign.

However, let's talk about our new Assistant Card, the Cleric. 

New Assistant Card

In Forges of Ravenshire, the Talisman mystic resource allows you to change the dice in the game up or down by 1. Which is nice when you need to change a 4 to a 5 to get that extra mystic resource or that extra good. However, if you have a 1 in an area but want a 5 or 6. That would cost you 4 or 5 Talismans! That's a lot to spend to get that extra good or mystic. 

This is where the Cleric comes in, they can flip a dice worker to their opposite side for only 1 Talisman! So a 1 can become a 6 and a 5 can become a 2! This gives the Cleric a great deal of control over the dice workers in the game; so, with a little effort and engine building, you can help mitigate inefficient placements. But that's not all! What if you spend 2 Talisman and a charcoal to temporarily have a Merchant die (purple) work in your highly developed Harvester guild workshop (green)? That should be impossible! Only Harvester dice (green) can work in the Harvester guild workshop. With the Cleric, all things are possible...

More information and imagery will be coming over the weekend so stay tuned!

Shipping Changes Imminent

This is one of the major changes we have been working on in the background this week that has taken the lion's share of our time. We will be updating the page over the weekend with nice graphic design work and a better presentation but here are the changes for Europe.

One of the biggest winners in shipping is Germany going from the old shipping of approximately $27/$32 USD to $20/$20 USD. There are other changes, some small, some big but across the board shipping became cheaper, even if it is by a $1 USD.

Why the New Shipping Numbers?

To keep it short, we have split the shipment and have opened another hub to better service Europe for shipping purposes. What this means is we have to pay more as a company to freight product to different locations. However, we believe in this game. We know this game is good. It is going to be a high quality board game, just ask our Cult of the Deep backers. 

In order to help deal with the cost, we need more backers to help offset the load. Many hands make light work and that is so very true for shipping. Which leads to our next major change.

Stretch Goals Are Changing

We want to bring you the very best possible game and stretch goals are ways to help us, help you. By having more backers, we can decrease the cost of the game overall and provide more content for backers. 

We are changing our stretch goal focus starting next week from being money focused to a focus on more backers. To do that, we need to spread the word about the game, especially since the more you share, the more content will be unlocked.

Starting Monday, we will be starting social stretch goals. In the example below, by you following us, sharing, and posting on Facebook, you will earn coins. We will have goals of 100 coins, etc. that will unlock content. We are finalizing all of this over the weekend but come Monday, this is how all stretch goals for the campaign will be unlocked. This will include: Kickstarter comments, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and potentially more.

The first new Stretch Goal will be 100 coins and unlock 3 new Guild Tokens.

More Coming Very Soon...

We will have more details coming very soon but if you have any questions, please let us know in the comments below or on the main campaign page.

Thank you for believing in us. 

Keep Forging On!

-Sam Stockton

Shipping, Add-ons, Polls, and Updates
over 1 year ago – Wed, Apr 19, 2023 at 03:19:54 PM

Shipping

We have had a lot of feedback from a variety of people about shipping; so, we are re-attacking shipping with our fulfillment partners to see what we can do. Please stay tuned as we try to find a way to make things better for you, specifically Europe and outside USA, Canada, and the UK.

Add-ons

We have been listening and we have uploaded all of the add-ons into Kickstarter. Those are now available to be chosen when you pledge. You should also be able to adust your pledge as well if you so choose.

Naming Weapons, Armor, and Shields!

During this campaign, we will be running several polls to name contracts and to decide on the front cover. The first poll will be naming weapons in the game. We offer a couple of suggestions but we left a space for you to enter a name of your own. This poll will run until Saturday afternoon (21 April).

When the poll closes, we will gather all of the answers. We will not use all of the submissions (sorry Swordy McSwordface) but will take the names that fit the theme. We will then release another poll to allow backers to organize the names in order from most to least favorite. This will continue until that poll closes and we then announce the winners in a future update.

The above procedure will happen 3 times for the different contracts (weapons, armor, and shields). The first poll for the weapon contracts is below! 

https://forms.office.com/r/ZbRH4KAxvD

Updates

We want to thank you all for being here and joining us on this campaign! We will be updating the page with more images and sharing videos throughout the campaign so please let us know what you would like to see.