The December Update is here!

Good Lords and Fair Ladies!

Meet the December Update! Allow us to tell you about it in detail immediately, without further ado.

Improved Sandbox

The Sandbox mode was designed as a field for experiments. This is where you define the conditions and enemies for battle to come. This is where experienced players can test various strategies. Playing the Sandbox mode is also the easiest way for newcomers to master the basic mechanics. And don't forget about the main goal of any DiNaO mode - to entertain players. That being said, it is clear that setting up the game session should be as quick and as easy as possible.

With the December Update, the Sandbox's functionality is expanded. We wanted to achieve several objectives at once. Firstly, to provide you the opportunity to customize the map settings more finely. Secondly, to give you more tools to take your experiments in different directions. Finally, it was important for us to make the Sandbox mode simpler, more illustrative, and a bit more entertaining. And here's what we came up with.

In the game session setup window, the filters appeared to help you sort map layouts by size, by faction you are fighting against, as well as by enemy density. In other words, you won't have to spend much time searching for the map with the desired conditions in the list.

We added a brand new 'Cheats' tab.

The features revealed in it have been available only to the developers so far. From now on you can get your hands on cheats too! By adjusting the offered options, you will be able to:

• Construct buildings and hire troops immediately
• Construct buildings and hire troops for free (in the case of troops, you won't have to pay for training, although the person who must become a warrior is still required).
• Clear Fog of War
• Remove the requirements for building construction. Build whatever you want whenever you want, as long as you have resources for it.
• Cast spells for free
• Manually add any number of resources
• Play without hunger or disease
• Make research of any level complete right at the start of the game session.

All of the above allow you to save time on modeling the desired game situation. Cheats also provide players with a level of freedom that you just expect, when it comes to Sandbox modes in general.

Innovations came to the attacking wave box. To speed up the setting up process, we added presets. Each preset is called after the enemy faction that you're fighting against. There are several presets for the same faction that differ from each other by the number of enemies in the attacking wave. After selecting a preset, you can further edit the attacking wave: add any enemy (even one not belonging to the faction from the preset), as well as remove or reduce the number of enemies already declared in the wave.

Another important tool has appeared in Sandbox Mode. With its help, you can spawn enemies right on the map, wherever you want. Just select the icon of any enemy and the place where you want it to appear. Then click your mouse and... voila. If you hold down LMB, enemies will appear continuously, following the cursor. And if you press "Shift" in addition, the number of enemies spawning on the mouse click increases, multiplied by a set coefficient. You can control the behavior of the enemies that appear this way. It is up to you whether they will attack the Townhall or stand still awaiting their fate.
We hope that with the new features, you'll be able to do whatever you just might want to do in the Sandbox Mode. Explore how our game is made, experiment with battle tactics, and have fun. In a word, create.

Renewed Market

In Diplomacy is Not an Option, the market plays an important role, as trading resources allows you to manage the economic balance of the settlement. Until now, the Market was not very convenient. Some players complained about forgetting about the order completion and the monotony of trading in general.

The December Update brought changes to solve these problems and make resource exchange more convenient.

We added animation to the Market box. From now on you can track the path of a trade Zeppelin. You don't even have to open the Market to do this: when there is an active order, an additional indication is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

We also brought you two additional options to the Market:

• To open the Market box when there are not enough resources for trading.
• To open the Market box when an order is completed.

With one or both of these options on, the Market box opens automatically, and the game is paused, so it is impossible to forget that you finally got needed resources or to miss that an order placed on repeat cannot be fulfilled.

New building. The Alchemical Transgressor

The Alchemical Transgressor is a building where you can produce soul crystals, the resource needed to cast spells in our game. Until now you could get crystals only for killing certain types of enemies or for destroying enemy camps. Yet still there was a chance to get none. To ensure that the abundance of soul crystals, which are usually quite rare to find, doesn't break the game balance, we developed the following solutions:

• Only one Alchemical Transgressor can operate at a time. To build a second one (for example, in a new location) you'll have to destroy the first one.
• We've expanded the research tree (again), adding the "Ultimate Alchemy" required to unlock an Alchemical Transgressor.
• Producing a single soul crystal is a rather costly and time-consuming process. At the current balance, it takes 4 iron and 40 secs to create one.
• The Transgressor can be built at a specific location, that looks like shimmering blue cracks on the map. There are very few such places on the map, so it'll take time to find one.

All these limitations make the Alchemical Transgressor a worthwhile investment at the late game. After all, when the map is cleared of enemies, there may well be a shortage of soul crystals.

New Endless Mode map layout

Meet "Under pressure". A new version of the Endless Mode with a large map layout! You've been asking us for one for a long time. We heard you and responded, in a way... Yes, the map is large, but it'll hardly please everyone because of the high difficulty.

You'll be surrounded by enemies belonging to the Undead, the Royal Army, and the Rebel factions. You'll be surrounded. So the expansion of your settlement can only come with a cost.

The interval between attacking waves is short, there is almost no time for troop relocation and defense recovery. Opponents of all factions will attack you from different sides. In addition, you won't always be warned about the upcoming attacking wave.

Adjusting formations

A nice addition to the improvements listed above: the ability to change the width and density of the battle formation of troops united in a group. This is just the first step towards delivering more options. This feature will get an improvement in one of the future updates.

A few words in conclusion

That's it for today. The full list of the December Update's changes is under the cut as usual. Thank you for your time, see you soon!

Yours, the Door 407 team