This update adds the Banshee Queen incarnation to the game and introduces world construction, including settling/building of new holdings and transformation of existing ones with spells.
More world construction and alteration content will be added gradually over the coming weeks.
AI is our primary focus at the moment and is progressing well. It is now harder to banish them, as they have gotten better at both defending their territories and composing more effective armies.
Our next AI step is to teach them more ways to invade enemy territory and we are working towards more customization of matches and opponents.
Improving the UI is another big focus and we are implementing an upgrade for our Manage Armies UI next patch.
Content
- Added new Incarnation Banshee Queen. This ghostly lady can summon different ethereal units to help her and she has the trait Incorporeal which makes her immune to all non-magical attacks. With careful target selection she can be a fantastic early game solo expander, and comes with Ghost Dragon and Ghost Dog scouting/harass options.
- Khaoset got a visual lift, making it easier to differentiate the various units from each other both in combat and on unit icons. Khaoset units are now also proudly displaying their faction colors.
- Panzerbears will now sell their services to all factions that can pay them in gold and food at their respective world holdings.
- Arach spiders are looking for more action, and will now sell their services to food-based factions at nests and hives
- Added new units for recruitment at hamlets, villages, towns and cities by factions with access to generic humans (Mercia, United Tribes, Scaleborne). Catapult, Healer, Priest and Battle Priest are now available options at the largest settlements.
- Added new unit Farm Settler. He can set up a new farm out in the world, and can be recruited by all factions with access to human recruits in villages, towns and cities.
- Added new unit Engineer. He can construct guard towers and trading stations out in the world, and can be recruited in towns and cities by Mercia, United Tribes and Scaleborne.
- The Returned gained the ritual spell Desecrate Grounds on some of their commanders. This ritual will convert a farm into unholy grounds, which yields income they need and has recruitment options for them.
General
- Added desire for AI to keep building stronger and stronger armies in anticipation of late game battles. They have also learned to build leaner and more effective armies, recomposing them and switching out ineffective units and formation rows with higher quality units.
- Added understanding for the AI to min-max with artifacts it finds. Generally placing defensive and combat summon items on frontline units, while preferring to put +range and +dmg items on archers and ranged units.
- Added option to turn off summon visualizations.
- Added zoom in/out hotkeys to PageUp/PageDown. These can be reconfigured under options.
Fixes
- Fixed an issue where having many commanders on one tile and clicking the grouping icon, would snap you back to the top.
- Fixed an issue causing units with the Spawner trait to spawn units into the garrison instead of under its own command.
- Fixed an issue where units with the Flying trait would not correctly stop when running into enemy armies during multi-tile movement.
- Fixed an issue where setting multi-tile paths into fog of war and then canceling them would give a red final movement arrow. This gave information on enemy fog of war movement that should not be available.
- Fixed a rare issue where one of your armies could disappear from the world map until you cycled back to it or moved it. This was a visual bug only and had no impact on gameplay.