Roadmap - What are we doing, what are we going to do?

Hi folks,

So I've been quiet these weeks. I'm going to blame it all on the holiday season and hope you don't all hold it against me :)
So Happy Holidays to everyone!
So what are we doing with Idle Civ and how far along are we with doing it?

I promised a patch before Christmas but I didn't get it in, again because I was gone and didn't finish work in time. It'll be here on the 2nd or 3rd of January (depending on testing being done and hangovers not impeding work). What can you expect to see in the patch as far as content goes?
Well, we're introducing Strange Sightings, a complementary feature to exploration. Each exploration party will have a chance to trigger a sighting. If you decide to investigate it...well...things will happen. Usually good things. Things will happen even if you decide to ignore the sighting.
The bonuses of Royal Blood (for those who come from Kongregate) will be attainable through one of the sightings. We're also introducing the concept of Unique Ornaments (which you will find, for now, through sightings). Your Town Hall (which is now replacing the Advisor tab) will hold a special place where you can show off these unique ornaments and gain their bonuses. You will start off with one slot and eventually gain more slots for these ornaments so you will have to choose which bonuses you want active.
I've also fixed a lot of bugs, typos and other such things.

What can you expect down the road?

We've started work with a graphical artist and the good news is that Idle Civ will be receiving a graphical makeover. The bad news is it's quite a bit of work and I expect it'll take around a month to get it all done. Updates and previews will be posted as the material comes in :)

Music and sound is still pending.

In terms of content, there is a lot of it planned:
- Cultural elites
- Archons - a special kind of Deity-generated unit that will govern your province in unique ways
- Covinari - mercenaries
- Your very own Keep
- Enthusiasm that will exist alongside happiness and will influence your people's moods, combat abilities and other things
- A bigger world map that will keep you interested with things to conquer, places to loot, locations to explore
- Cross-colony accountability
- An overhaul of combat and the introduction of siege weapons
- The City of Gods! Now this will be the biggest feature really and it'll expand the game and allow for you to interact with other players. The City of Gods will get its own discussion thread soon and we will be gathering feedback for it.
- Races
- Other undisclosed things that we need to keep a surprise for now.

Obviously these things won't happen tomorrow but they will be rolled out more or less in the order I've written above. There is still only one of us coding and another of us writing and challenging me with new ideas.

I thank you all very very much for all the support and patience so far and I hope the game will continue to entertain you for a looooong while :)

(THIS MESSAGE ALSO EXISTS ON THE DISCUSSION BOARDS, PLEASE DIRECT YOUR COMMENTS THERE :) )