Woo! Update time.
I have done much research, and restructured the entire first two-thirds the story, covering three out of five years of the timespan so far. The last two years are still being outlined - it’s not easy to keep escalating things over multiple scenarios. Shows you how unprepared I was walking into this! There’s a lot of timeskips there when they’re just sitting around bored with nothing happening, but you’ll definitely see them when action happens. These consist of several adventures, somewhat episodic in form. Making friends and enemies, fighting, exploring, and there’s going to be some plagues going around, too. Ah, good old-timey crowded living.
Now for the not so good news. I’ve just had a major setback last week, losing all my research when all my files randomly disappeared off iBooks. So please be patient, the next update could take a while yet. Luckily I’ve read most of the sources and made corresponding notes on where I needed, and my main historical reference, a giant 1000+ page book (I applaud the author’s dedication to this publication), is backed up. But most of the small individual scholarly journal papers were not, and by this point I don’t remember anymore what they are or where they are from. Oh well, at least now I do know what exactly I need to be researching when I need to confirm any details, instead of going about it aimlessly like the first time.
If there’s a plot point you’re particularly interested in seeing, let me know! I’m open to ideas, and I’ll see whether I can fit it in.
The major decisions I’ve made for this update:
Genderlocked male:
I have decided that the story in its current form will be genderlocked male. The more I go into this, the less I think a female hiding her gender in the Foreign Legion would plausibly go undiscovered, especially considering how physical things are. Not just the lack of privacy, hard labour, and the fighting, but also how medical issues are handled (which you really can’t hide from) and the punishments. To have a female PC means either she is the sole exception among an all-male cast which is not very believable (or even allowed), or writing different scenarios for her so that she’ll remain incognito, which I don’t think would be fair. If I’ve gotten your hopes up before, I’m sorry!
Perhaps for the balance of things I’ll write in an incognito female soldier at some point in the future, just not the PC. It’s difficult to justify situations when you’re constantly following the character around and can’t magically handwave details away. It would have to be a minor character, someone with a distance away from the main story, so it’s something that’s not really focused on.
No RO:
This game is not currently written with any character as being an RO. You will be able to befriend characters, but they are not ROs - at least, not until I know my characters better as I write along. I’m a pantser, so my outlines are only the broadest strokes of the plot without much detail of what actually goes down (think one-word plot points like “malaria”… and I’ve just given away what I intend to include in the future). Maybe you can help me with this later on once the characters are established, by letting me know who’s popular.
European PC only:
For simplicity sake, your choices for country of origin as of now will be limited to eight European countries. But since the work behind the scenes has included streamlining the coding (the startup file has been completely rewritten and the corresponding code in the chapters themselves improved), I believe I will add back inputting your own in the future!
For the same reason that the startup file has been rewritten, Chapter 2 has currently been removed because the godawful messy coding is now very broken.
Save system:
I’ve gotten the save system figured out, but it’s too early to implement it now because there’s one chapter of content. For a game this linear (think Choice of the Dragon linear), I don’t expect it to be used a lot, though. The game ends if you die, and I’ve already put in one game over so far (although it’s not really a death this time, but refusing the call of adventure).
Would you like me to add checkpoints within a chapter (or at the beginning of a chapter), or is that not necessary if the save system is implemented?