Had to push the planned Kings & Queens patch and instead did some Battle/Combat rework, new Units, new Formation system, completely modular Characters, and the new Horse model that also support advanced things such as Pegasus variations.
Modular Characters
Finally Humans are fully Modular as per Equipment items for Armor/Clothes. This also prepare for K&Q patch. And introduce several new Armor items and new equipment sets for Recruited soldier types.
Horse asset is completely changed to the final version we need. This makes it easier to commit to working more on Mounted Combat and needed melee animations. Dismemberment is still not added to horses but will soon come, where axes will have bonus damage to Horse legs.
Units
New system where any World Character can appoint Officers that control their own Units of Soldiers (Max 12 as default config).
Players build their own Units in the Character Panel (new Tab). And currently are free to make as many as they can (any Soldier already in a Unit can't join another). Unit Name is auto-generated but can be changed for customization.
In Combat the Lord has control of the Army and Officers, but not directly Unit Soldiers. Instead the Lord can "select Unit 1" and command to attack from the side or take Hold Formation on a hillside.
When commanding Charge to Unit Officers they instead start Advancing, where the Officer now tries to carry out the Lords command.
The Lord can place a Banner as Target Point used by the Officer to try advance toward enemy using a Path. Currently the placed visual Banner is the Lords, but in the future it could be special banners equipped on the Officer that can be found in Dungeons. These special Banners will give AoE Status Effects to nearby soldiers.
When giving Hold to Unit Officers they will hold the position, but if heavy fighting occurs the Officer might charge.
Officer/Soldier AI decision is based on Character Stats and Skills.
In the future we will add even more advanced Officer AI using more complex Environmental Query Data to make for example decisions based on Terrain. And we are very open to any kind of feedback and ideas how Units could be used :)
New Formation system
New system that is performant and easy to work with. External tools can visually create Formation structures and exported as local relative positions.
This makes it very easy to manually create any kind of Formation and we added several new ones like Circle, Square, Column etc.
A new Radial Menu is added for selecting Formation. Both Charge and Hold command buttons can now be held to open menu and select what kind of Formation.
If charge or hold are clicked they will use the current Formation you have with your Army.
Be aware that Unit Officers have their own Formations and you can set each Units preferred Formation, but Officers might change it during combat if deemed necessary.
Soldiers holding Formations, they might break out of it depending on what happens, but can most often be called back by the Formation Leader.
AI Lords/Officers will now actively use Formations as a strategy, while also disengaging to gather up the lines again.
Combat
New movement speed added, Sprint, that use Stamina in combat. It is between Walk and Run but can be used while holding weapons. (Players default keybinding is holding shift).
Player HUD now shows hit/recieve floating damage numbers around middle.
Armor is changed to be % based instead of fixed damage reduction. Normal Plate now has around 75% Armor reduction.
Many changes to combat AI making the pace of combat a lot different.
AI Leaders will now actively use Formations to their advantage.
New Death animations for Humans based on direction of death.
Armor breaking in combat will now naturally be visible with new modular character, but also added a breaking Sound.
Other
* Many Rings and Necklaces now have Status Effects and can be found in Dungeons.
* Several important fixes to Character Panel thanks to Amarums extensive testing!
* Faction Lords have been boosted in Stats, got new Titles and sometimes new names. This is part of the updated Family history that Arconde has worked on, more to come in next minor patch.
* All 4 Attack Directions now have key bindings so Player can choose more freely how to play in combat.
* Unequip Armor is finally here thanks to Modular Character, now you can finally play naked (almost)
* Most Weapon items have been re-balanced, and one Legendary got the first visual effect, more to come on visual effects on weapons (based on Status Effects).
* Granaries should now work correctly collecting nearby Fields.
* Settlement Extensions Gold income per day is rebalanced.
* Old Merchant during Weekly Event should be tradable.
* Settlement Population has been capped depending on City/Castle/Village.
* Dedicated Servers fixed small freeze when other Players start combat (2 game instances will be started when starting a Server, one is only handling all the new game instances created for combat).
* Player can now kick Followers, adding them to the Missing state and they might re-appear in the World at a later time.
* Added Time Controls in Single Player mode with key bindings.
* Inventories added Sorting and Searching, along with Pagination (mouse scroll while turn pages too), making them handle infinite large inventories.
* World Map sound is now using the Player character rather than Camera for the "Ear". This makes many sounds be more natural in direction since Camera can be far away from the actual Player position.
Big Thanks for help goes to
Amarum & Arconde
Next Patch
Now we will finally start with Kings & Queens Patch. Basically a big update on World AI and new features such as Contracts, Castle Events, Ruler UI and logic (global world Tax too).
End Game needs fancy Clothes produced to get into Feasts and other Gatherings of Lords and High Society in The Citadel. Attending will give Reputation with Host and Settlement.
