Payment Planner Update is out now!

Greetings, Viceroys!

We have come here to chew jerky and talk about the new update. And we're all out of jerky. Curse you, Lizards!

In other news, here's what's new:

• Payments panel
• New glade layouts
• Perks rebalance
• World Map difficulty rings
• Match Trader's offer
• Auto-stop sacrificing
• And more!

Continue reading for our design notes, the full changelog, and a mystery announcement!

P.S. We extended the Summer Sale discount, so if you don't own Against the Storm yet, you can get it 35% off until July 29.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1336490/Against_the_Storm/

BEAVER VILLAGER MAKESHIP CAMPAIGN

We've got a little surprise for you! On August 12, we'll launch a crowdfunding campaign for a Beaver Villager plushie on Makeship.

We're extremely excited as this is the first-ever official Against the Storm merch and we can't wait to welcome our lovely lumberjacks into our homes.

You can learn more about the campaign here:
https://www.makeship.com/products/beaver-villager-plush

We encourage you to subscribe on the page to receive updates about this campaign.

As with all other plushies on Makeship, the Beaver Villager will cost $29.99 plus shipping costs. A few days before the campaign launches, Makeship will also host a giveaway in which you'll be able to win the plushie.

Stay tuned for more news!

DEVELOPER NOTES

The main theme of today’s update is payments, because who doesn't love to think about taxes when they want to have a good time playing a video game? Fortunately, we’re not adding any new system that will require you to pay the Crown regular fees, we’re simply adding a tool that will help you manage payments triggered by already existing effects (such as Land Tax).

With this update, we also bring you numerous balance changes, new unique glade layouts, a lot of UI improvements, and of course bug fixes. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

First of all, let’s talk about payments. There are already some effects in the game (such as Land Tax, Vassal Tax, or Cloudburst) that require you to make more or less regular payments. And most of the time, missing a payment triggers a negative consequence (such as a villager dying). We’ve always felt that this mechanic was very promising, as it created a lot of unique interactions, but at the same time it was extremely frustrating - payments would appear seemingly out of nowhere, and players didn’t have a say in whether they wanted to pay a fee or intentionally miss it.

So because of this (and because we want to make room for some interesting effects and perks in the future), we decided to add a dedicated Payment Panel to the game. From now on, payments will no longer trigger instantly, and will instead appear in a new window (located in the top right corner of the HUD, same as all the other control panels). There, you will have the option to pay right away, wait, or simply ignore a fee. You will also have more time to collect the required resources, as most payments are due at the end of the next season.

Payment panel

This new panel offers a lot of information about your payments - what is their source, how many resources you need, how long do you have, and what the exact consequences are for not paying. You can also choose from two “auto payment” options in this panel - instant and last minute (you can also set a default auto payment value in the Options menu).

But enough about taxes, let’s instead talk a bit about exploration. This update brings 8 new unique layouts for small and forbidden glades. You might have already encountered something similar in the past, in the form of glades with a lot of ruins and stone roads, but this time we wanted to diversify the pool a bit. That’s why from now on, you might find a forbidden glade filled with egg deposits, with a giant Stormbird in the middle, or an abandoned mining town filled with ore and drilling equipment. Our overarching goal here is the same as with a lot of previous changes to glades - to make small glades more viable and to make forbidden glades more interesting and rewarding.

In this update, we also bring you some minor balance changes. Most notably, we rebalanced a few over and underperforming Cornerstones, like for example Hidden from the Queen, which was given a unique drawback to change the way it influences the run. Similarly, some underpowered perks (like Economic Migration) were slightly buffed. Our goal was as always to expand the pool of viable choices and bring some less frequently used Cornerstones to the forefront.

We also added a new Forest Mystery, changed the reward for the Crashed Airship World Event, moved the Loremaster World Event closer to the Citadel, and slightly tweaked map generation during a run. Additionally, we had to revamp the Fishman Soothsayer’s working effects to accommodate the new payment panel (the old effects wouldn’t work too well with the option to delay payments).

As with every update, we again took some time to improve the UI in various places. Most notably, we added difficulty rings to the World Map (narrow dark lines that show where a difficulty level ends), introduced a “minimum difficulty” section to map field tooltips, implemented an “auto-match” button to the trading screen, and changed a lot of descriptions and names to make some aspects of the game less confusing.

Lastly, there are of course a lot of bug fixes, corrected typos, improved translations, and minor adjustments in this update, as well as a new Ghost Chest mesh, and a graphically refreshed Brickyard.

Difficulty rings

Auto match the offer

Updated Ghost Chest and Brickyard

As always - thank you all for providing feedback and suggestions for the new update. If you’d like to share your ideas for upcoming updates, here are some useful links:

• Steam Discussions, Discord, Reddit - discuss the game with the community and share your impressions
• Feature Request Tool - suggest specific new features

May the storm be gentle on you,
Eremite Games

P.S. One of the best things you can do to help indie games is to leave a Steam review. If you’ve had a chance to play Against the Storm, we’d love to hear any feedback, positive or negative. Thanks!

CHANGELOG

Number of changes: 66
Inspired by community: 78%

Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by the community.

New content and features

• ⚡ Added 6 new unique Forbidden Glade layouts.
  • These glades are thematically different from the usual Forbidden Glades and contain a bit more resources or treasure than usual. They are also very rare.
  • We won’t spoil all of them here, but here are two examples: a glade filled with big and small egg deposits, and a giant Stormbird in the middle, or a destroyed mining town with a lot of ore, drills, and a Rainpunk Foundry.
  • Our goal was to add more variety to exploration and to make Forbidden Glades more interesting and rewarding in general.

• ⚡ Added 2 new unique small glade layouts.
  • The new unique small glades are similar to already existing unique Dangerous and Forbidden Glades, as they contain a themed layout of ruins and/or resources (the only difference being that they are of course smaller and less rewarding than their bigger counterparts).
  • With this addition, we wanted to take yet another step in a series of many recent changes to the content of small glades. Our goal is still the same - to make small glades more interesting and less punishing to interact with.

• Added a new Forest Mystery.
  • Rotten Vapors - Machinery has to be cleaned with specially prepared Drizzle Water. Otherwise, Blightrot will spread. Once this effect activates, you have to pay 5 Drizzle Water (multiplied by the number of years). If you don't, 3 Blightrot Cysts will spawn in your settlement.

Balance

• ⚡ Rebalanced multiple Cornerstones.
  • Rebellious Spirit - added a drawback. Now every time a villager dies, Impatience is increased by an additional 0.2 points.
  • Protected Trade - increased the amount of Amber required to trigger the Hostility reduction from 25 to 30.
  • Hidden from the Queen - added a drawback. Now Impatience will grow 600% faster after year 8.
  • Burnt to a Crisp - this perk was promoted from Epic to Legendary quality (without any numerical changes).
  • Economic Migration - introduced an additional positive effect. Now every level of standing also increases the amount of resources brought by newcomers by 10%.
  • Force of Nature - buffed the numbers and introduced an additional positive effect. Now this Cornerstone increases Storm Water production by +3 instead of +2, and increases tank capacity by 50 (the Stormforged version was also buffed accordingly).

• ⚡ Changed the reward given for solving the Crashed Airship World Event. It no longer gives the Guild Logbook blessing. Instead, the player gets the Guild’s Sigil effect.
  • Guild’s Sigil - A ring given only to the closest friends of the Merchant Guild. Traders will arrive 25% faster, and perks and blueprints will cost 25% less Amber.

• Changed the consequence for missing a payment with the Vassal Tax Forest Mystery.
  • Vassal Tax - adds an Impatience point as a consequence of a failed payment instead of making Impatience growth faster by 33%.

• Changed the working effects of the Fishman Soothsayer glade event.
  • Rain Sorcery - A powerful spell that feeds on the insatiable anger of the forest. Hostility is increased by 50 for every scout in your settlement. This includes idle scouts and workers assigned to this event.
  • Blood Sorcery - The comforts of the civilized world are disgustingly unnatural to the Fishmen. Every time 10 Complex Food, Clothing, or Service needs are fulfilled, 2 random villagers are killed.

• Changed the map generation for Settler difficulty. Previously, there was a chance of no Forbidden Glades spawning (and Dangerous ones taking their place instead). Now, a few Forbidden glades are guaranteed to spawn in every game (just like it is for higher-difficulty games).
  
• The Obsidian Loremaster World Event can now spawn closer to the Citadel.

UX/UI improvements

• ⚡ Added a dedicated payment panel to make tax/maintenance effects easier to keep track of.
  • The payment panel is located on the top right of the HUD. It’s represented by a round icon, like all the other control panels. It will only appear once payment is triggered.
  • You can navigate to the payment window from any other panel (like Consumption Control or Orders) using the tabs on top of the window.
  • All so-called “payment effects” (Vassal Tax, Land Tax, Cloudburst, Sacred Flame Rituals, etc.) will appear in the payment window once they are triggered.
  • Once you trigger a payment (for example by discovering a glade on Prestige 19), you will be required to pay it before the next season ends. So if a payment request started in Drizzle, you have time until the end of the Clearance to pay it.
  • The payment window contains a lot of useful information - the required resource amount, the source of the payment, when it’s due, and what the consequences are for not paying it.
  • There is also an “auto payment” option in the payment window. Using it, you can set a payment to “instant” (paid the very moment it’s triggered), or “last minute” (paid just before the deadline).
  • You can set a default “auto payment” value in the Options menu, under the Gameplay tab.
  • There is a reminder notification that appears when a payment is due at the end of the current season. It can be turned on or off in the Options menu, under the Alerts tab.
  • Due to this change, we had to adjust a few payment effects in the game. You might notice that some descriptions were rewritten, some penalties were changed, and the Fishman Soothsayer (the only glade event based on a payment effect) was given new working effects.
  • We added this panel to make it easier to manage payments, and to avoid surprising players with a sudden negative consequence that triggered in the background. Additionally, this should allow us to create some new and interesting payment perks in the future (without worrying about readability issues).

• ⚡ Added visible difficulty rings to the World Map. From now on, a faint black line will show you where exactly a difficulty level range ends and starts.
  
• ⚡ Added information about the minimum difficulty to the tooltip displayed when hovering over a World Map field.
  
• ⚡ Added retroactive effect previews to perks displayed in the Forsaken Altar panel.
  
• ⚡ Added a button to match a trader’s offer in the Trading Post. If there is something selected on one side of the barter UI, you can simply select a resource on the opposite side and press the “auto” button to automatically add enough goods to balance out the deal.
  • You can also use the Middle Mouse Button. Simply press MMB over a resource and it will be added to the offer in an amount that is enough for the deal to become acceptable.

• ⚡ Added a checkbox to the Hearth UI to automatically stop sacrificing resources after the Storm. There is also a way to set a default value for this checkbox in the options menu.
  
• ⚡ Added the Game History button to the lower panel in the Smoldering City.
  
• ⚡ Added town names to the Game History panel.
  
• ⚡ Added a checkbox for auto-pause on newcomer arrival in the Options menu (under the Gameplay tab).
  
• ⚡ Changed the Seal entry in the in-game Encyclopedia to be more accurate and in line with the most recent changes to the system (added information about attempting a Seal run early, and when years are added to the Cycle).
  
• ⚡ Changed the description of the Ghost Chest to be clearer and more understandable.
  
• ⚡ Changed the wording of the Deserted Caravans Cornerstone description to be more accurate.
  
• ⚡ Changed the names of the Harpy Resolve, Lizard Resolve, and Fox Resolve Orders to avoid confusion (as the objectives have nothing to do with Resolve).
  
• ⚡ Changed the name of the Seal Fragment Cornerstone to Forbidden Seal Shard to avoid confusion.
  
• ⚡ Added a tooltip to the Amber icon on the “decline” button in the Cornerstone Choice Popup.
  
• ⚡ Changed the wording in all Orders and Deeds tied to Abandoned Caches found in the forest. It should now be clear that both opening and sending caches counts.
  
• ⚡ Changed the description of the converted Stonetooth Termite Burrow decoration to describe its effect more clearly.
  
• Changed the descriptions of the reconstructed skeletons in the Scarlet Orchard to unify them with other converted decoration descriptions (with the decoration tag, a clear indication of the positive effect, and the decoration score).
  
• Changed the wording on tooltips for Embark Resources taken away by World Events. From now on there will be a full sentence saying a good has been taken away (instead of a simple “- 20 Eggs”, etc.).
  
• Removed the names of unlocks in the level-up popup. This information was moved to the tooltip.
  
• Changed the name of the Stormbird Nest resource nodes found in glades to avoid confusion with dangerous events and effects tied to Giant Stormbirds.
  
• When first coming up with Stormbirds, we had two subspecies in mind - the regular one, and the giant variant.
  
• To avoid confusion, we renamed the harmless Stormbird variant to Drizzlewing. So from now on you will collect eggs from Drizzlewing Nests instead of Stormbird Nests.

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the trees in the Sealed Forest not giving Leather as a byproduct.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Wandering Eremite World Event subtracting 5 years from the Cycle instead of adding them.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with resource nodes in glades not being generated correctly (they were spread too evenly).
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the “sell goods” objective description for the Ancient Tablet showing an empty “obtained by” section.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Stormforged version of the Lost in the Wilds Cornerstone showing incorrect Hostility values.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Seals being generated right next to each other on the World Map.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Stormwalker Tax Cornerstone being offered for releasing a Treasure Stag.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Haunted Forest modifier spawning next to the Cursed Royal Woodlands.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with missing names for neighboring towns in Training Expeditions.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Blight Incantation working effect (Altar of Decay) not having a state preview in its tooltip.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Followers of the Forsaken Gods World Event objective being listed in the Deeds panel.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with old icons still being visible in upgrade effects in the Archaeologist’s Office.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the “Fuel Burning Rate” stat in the Citadel being incorrectly labeled.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the old Weather Anomaly modifier still being generated on the World map.
• ⚡ Fixed a discrepancy between the objective description of the Somber Procession World Event and the goal displayed once the settlement was started.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with some farms spawning additional fertile soil when destroyed by lightning.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the trader notification staying on the screen after the Trading Post was deleted.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Russian translation of the “No Strangers” bonus in the scoreboard at the end of the game.
• ⚡ Fixed a typo in the description of the Barren Lands modifier in Italian.
• Improved numerous Deed descriptions in French.
• Fixed a bug with Ruined Small Farms and Ruined Herb Gardens having a lower-than-expected spawn rate on certain glades.

Other

• Changed the mesh of the Ghost Chest. It no longer looks like a normal Abandoned Cache.
• Slightly refreshed the Brickyard’s visual representation (both the building and its ruined version).

The current game version is 0.55.1.

COMMUNITY CORNER

Click to unfold:

We wish you lots of fun with the new update and a great weekend!

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