Important regarding save games!
We were forced to rewrite parts of the saving and loading system to fix bugs related to it, and thus old saves will NOT be compatible. You will therefore not see unsupported save files in your list of games to load. We apologise for the inconvenience!
In the future, if you want to avoid this problem, you can always turn off automatic updates of the game through Steam, and wait to update until you are confident that you won't need to load any save files anymore.
We will do our best to inform you when new updates break old save files.
Crescent Cup 2v2 Tournament
This update will be the tournament patch for the upcoming Crescent Cup 2v2 Tournament!
Read more about and sign up to the community tournament:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1674820/view/3224023791138934645
General improvements
Whilst we are planning new content for the game (and we will be talking about this at a later point), this first patch is designed to address the most concerning issues, as well as some of the community feedback and suggestions!
Beginner is more... beginner friendly (community feedback)
Did you rage quit after playing TFC for the first time? Don't feel bad. You were not alone!
We happily admit that we failed to balance the game for beginners. In retrospect, we were too focused on making the AI challenging for seasoned players. Just to be clear, the AI doesn't cheat, but it does know how to play the game and make good desicions.
One of our goals is for TFC to be a great entry point for RTS games. So in this update, we have tried to move closer to this goal, and thus we've attempted to make both Skirmish and Horde Mode less stress inducing (however, Brutal difficulty is still brutal!). We can't promise it's still not a challenge, and we might have to fine-tune its balance further. However, this update should be a good step in the right direction!
More readable font
We have swapped the old font for a font that is more readable. In addition, we have changed the default font color as well as increased font sizes throughout the whole game. This should make the game easier to read. Lastly, the font supports more language specific characters that were previously not supported.
New dwelling sprite (community feedback)
All dwellings are now two stories to make sure they are more distinct from the one storey Resource Camp.
Re-arranged unit stats (community feedback)
The feedback we received was that it was a bit messy, and we agreed. We have re-arranged so that all attack stats are in row 1, and then armor starts on row 2. This should make it easier to read.
Performance improvements
Both detailed pathfinding and updating unit vision is now 3-20x faster, which added up should provide a nice boost for most players when the last wave of hordes amass against your prosperous village, or during 2on2 multiplayer matches.
Other general improvements
- New pomegranate fruit tree sprite (community feedback)
- While holding shift you can now double click any unit to add all nearby units of the same type to group of selected units (community feedback)
- Units in groups move immediately in the correct direction (community feedback)
- Under attack symbol on mini map lasts for 9 seconds (from 6)
- Chat messages stay for longer (25s, from 15s)
- Notifications show for 60s before automatically disappearing (from 30s)
- Spectator panel occupies less screen space
- Improved several tooltips
Balance changes
- Tribe unit (the one you settle with) has 3 movement speed (from 5)
- Walls have 350 hitpoints (from 250)
- Dwellings have 175 hitpoints (from 225)
- Resource camps have 250 hitpoints (from 300)
Skirmish Mode
- Added production and research handicaps to Beginner, Familiar and Skilled Skirmish AIs
- Easier AIs attack slightly less often
- When AI is in starvation mode it will focus much harder on food production to avoid completely starving and losing the game
- Beginner and Familiar AIs no longer flee with villagers that are under attack
- Beginner and Familiar AIs no longer micro defending villagers with low health back to base
- Familiar AI will like Beginner AIs never flee with its offensive army but keep attacking until all are dead
- It is harder to cheese Beginner AI within the first minutes of gameplay
- AI perceives Watchtower as less of a threat and is therefore less likely to flee with its offensive army from it
- AI perceives villagers as less of a threat and is therefore less likely to flee with its offensive army from areas with large amounts of villagers
- AI perceives villagers to be a stronger defensive force and will therefore send less villagers to help fend off enemy attacks
- Skilled and Expert AIs are slightly less inclined to flee in general unless they are totally overwhelmed by enemy forces
- Skirmish AI villagers never skin meat until all boars in a flock are killed (this could cause problems which lead to skirmish AI starving early game)
- Fixed a case where AI would get blocked by lack of dwellings early on which would severaly impact its early game performance
Horde Mode
- Horde Mode is easier on Beginner (more so) and Familiar difficulty levels
- Horde Mode spawn timer starts as soon as you place a building (community feedback)
- The minimap skull icon will keep being a skull after hordes have spawned on the map
- Re-introduced sword icon showing location that under attack for this mode
- Fixed UI issues that would happen if a wave spawned and another wave was still not defeated
- Horde mode UI shows correct information after loading horde mode game where the last boss wave has spawned
- Horde mode UI elements no longer "flicker" while dragging mouse on minimap to move camera position
- Fixed a problem with some units detaching from group on spawn if group had battering ram as member
General bug fixes
- Fixed typo in multiplayer end screen when someone wins Wonder Victory (community feedback)
- Palace description no longer overflows icons below
- Fixed notification regarding enemy Wonder being upgraded to the next stage (community feedback)
- Cost of Wonder matches constructing Wonder tooltip (community feedback)
- Rotation of gate is now correctly saved and loaded (community feedback)
- Starvation timer is now correctly saved and loaded
- Fixed a case that let military units place buildings
- Fixed that Claypit disappears after loading game, if you don't move the tribe unit
- Whenever nothing is selected the bottom hud will never show
- Fixed a problem with villagers occasionally idling when a group of them were constructing walls (community feedback)
- Fixed some weird behavior when attacking boars from another walled in area
- Fixed an issue where units would walk back and forwards trying to get around longer segments of walls because the high level and low level pathfinding systems disagreed on the best path
- Fixed a general pathfinding issue
- Fog of war no longer displays incorrect building state after loading the game two times
- Fixed a case where a villlager would not construct a building ordered to upon reaching destination
- Field of view no longer stays after destroying the Village Center in multiplayer team games
- Selecting a group of villagers to construct multiple walls and watchtower using waypoints will no longer cause some villagers to unexpectedly idle or garrison towers
- Swapping between players' tech trees as a spectator always updates technology costs correctly
- Swapping between players' tech trees as a spectator always updates which technologies the followed player can and can not afford correctly
- If villager production was paused at save, once game is loaded, production % will no longer show 0% until training is resumed
- Villagers attacking animal fires correct projectile sprite
- Pressing NUMBER while chatting no longer triggers spectator setting or group selection hotkeys
- Fixed several typos
- After an online team game and while you're exploring the map, an ally leaving the game no longer opens the end game statistics panel for you
- Revolting Village Center is correctly removed from map after revolting villagers destroy it
- Revolting buildings' health bars are correctly rendered and updated