Update 1.3 "The Battle"

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since our last update and I'm really excited to share all these new features and fixes with you! The cosmetic system is on the way and will most likely be arriving on Monday or Tuesday, so consider that part of this update. We will not add microtransactions as a form to purchase these cosmetics for another few weeks, but even when we do, all cosmetics will be earnable with Merits without needing to spend any money at all.

Since so much focus has been placed on stabilizing the F&M battle system in this update, we have thematically called version 1.3 "The Battle." We've been naming updates after famous 19th century orchestral pieces and so this one is named after Tchaikovsky's piece in Act I of the Nutcracker.

There have been some major mechanical and balance changes which should make defensive strategies less overpowered and that make melee a more viable strategy again. Read about these changes specifically under the "Quality of Life & Mechanical Changes" section. We wanted to add more maps in this update but we spent all of our time making bugfixes and balance changes. Next update, you can expect to see some new maps! 😊

Note, we plan on doing a big sale for all of our DLCs on Monday!

Balance:
- Units with the breakable trait no longer die when their path is blocked. They also don't automatically fall back a tile when their cohesion is 0. Instead, they take 1 point of HP damage for every turn they have 0 cohesion. This makes them far more viable.
- Charge vulnerability has been changed to +1 instead of +2, making melees less extreme.
- Range vulnerability has been changed backed to +1 instead of +2, making march columns, attack columns, squares, and cavalry more resistant.
- Melee drill now deals one damage at the end of each turn in melee instead of reducing charge impact damage by one.
- Melee drill cost penalty is now 30 points instead of 20.
- Units with 4 HP are now 10 points cheaper.
- Italian Grenadiers now have the rugged trait.
- Italian Militia now have the rugged trait.
- Italian Bersaglieri now have efficiency instead of rugged.
- Max unit count in games changed to 24.
- Confederate Stonewall brigade now has melee drill.
- Bavarian Line Infantry is limited to 6 for the Prussians instead of 4.
- Horse Artillery now costs an additional 20 points for all countries.
- Breakable trait now reduces a unit's price by 15 points instead of 20.
- Removed maps Monte Villa, as it was unpopular.
- Removed map "Heights" as it was unstable.
- Removed map "La Moncelle" as it was poorly designed.
- Auto resolving now considers the weapons you have equipped.

Fixes:
- Fire at will is now removed when a unit changes into marching column (a non-combat formation)
- Leaving a melee or entering a reserve no longer causes a rubberbanding effect where the unit snaps back to his original position and then corrects itself onto the new tile.
- Attrition now applies to units who have 0 cohesion and move even when they aren't bordering an enemy unit.
- The client's turn timer now is fully in-sync with the host.
- Issues with vulnerabilities have been fixed, no longer will you charge into an open order formation and take full frontal damage.
- Units with the cumbersome trait can no longer utilize fire-at-will when they move.
- Visual issue where sprites would face backwards after winning a melee has been fixed.
- If your army goes into a campaign battle and takes losses, the game will no longer count those casualties against you in every subsequent battle. Previously, your losses would compound and the casualty reports would include any losses you took in previous battles which would continuously stack casualties.
- Cinematic mode has been improved and no longer can glitch your unit's UI.
- Reserve units should no longer be able to have their fire orders go through.
- Units shouldn't change direction when charging now.
- Fixed an AI glitch where if an AI had an order to charge you, you wouldn't be able to shoot it.
- AI would sometimes detach itself from tiles and break which is now fixed.
- Broken buildings would not update with the correct broken/scratched model.
- Percentage kills at the top of the screen has been fixed and now displays properly.
- Players are no longer loaded into a scenario battle instead of the tutorial.
- The ordering system has been improved, you will no longer have orders that float off your page and execute incorrectly, or orders that linger from previous turns.
- This entire time the German DLC music has been unplugged and instead been playing French marching music. So now, if you own the Franco-Prussian War DLC Music pack, you can finally hear all the famous German marching songs!
- Some fixed have been made to cancelling orders, which often results in the wrong positioning for the units who were reverted.
- Fixed crashing that would result from range calculations on hills breaking the game.
- Austrian Dragoons would spawn in with breech-loaders instead of their sabers, which has been fixed.
- You can now quit the tutorial at any time.
- Fixed tutorial bugs that would freeze the game.
- Cavalry & Artillery can no longer change formation.
- Formations would sometimes appear as greyed out completely requiring you to unselect your unit and reselect him several times to fix.
- Fixed artillery being able to launch charges.
- Fixes for players getting stuck on the loading screen into custom battles and quickmatches.
- Supply map mode fixes in campaign.
- Fixes for save game files in the campaign mode.
- Fixed the AI from repeatedly attacking the same area over and over in a loop in the campaign.
- Quickmatch stability fixes.

Melee Rework:
- Melees no longer change direction when additional units join a melee fight, instead they just fall back into reserve which makes melees more stable.
- Lots of melee-related bugs have been fixed, including game-breaking ones.
- Players can no longer order retreats THROUGH an enemy unit, now you must retreat backward out of melees.
- Units with fire orders can no longer use those fire orders if they are engaged in a melee. Same with fire-at-will.
- Order preview fixes when it comes to charging (previously showed the wrong angle a unit would be charged in the ordering phase).
- When the defender of a melee charges in an extra unit he won't charge himself anymore, that damage will go to the enemy.
- The new simultaneous turn changes (read more under Quality of Life) now results in a new mechanic called "Clashes" happening when two units accidentally move to the same tile at the same time. Both units will take frontal charge damage.

Quality of Life & Mechanical Changes:
- The game is now FULLY simultaneous. This means the host will no longer receive an advantage when two units are given fire or charge orders at the same time. Previously, two units told to charge each other at the same time would result in only the host's order going through. Furthermore, if two units were told to occupy a tile at the same time, the host would always get their first, but now both units will enter the tile in an accidental melee brawl.
- Enemy units can no longer block your fire orders by moving an untargeted unit in front of your men. If an enemy is blocking your target, the fire order will still go through but it will apply to the new enemy unit that is in range.
- Fire-at-will has been redone. Instead of being able to leave fire-at-will on for as many turns as you want and getting as many hits with it as is possible, it now expires at the end of every turn. This means you can no longer rely on setting your army on fire-at-will and not engaging the enemy actively. Fire-at-will can also now be broken by artillery barrages.
- An error sound and popup now appears when you run out of orders for the turn.
- Formation button should update to whatever formation your unit is currently in.
- Prices now calculate properly when buying AND trading weapons in the armory system.
- All terrain bonuses and penalties now update in real time instead of receiving a bonus at the end of the turn. This means the moment you occupy cover, you will receive the protection.
- Player names are now displayed in the lobby.
- Health bars over buildings now always display even when they're occupied.
- Multi-page order system has been made into one long order which you scroll through. It makes it clearer to navigate when you have a lot of orders. This also opens up the opportunity for us to make order counts limitless instead of having 16 at a cap (since that's all that 2 pages could hold).
- A new after action report has been added which tells you about your battle!
- You can now edit the AI's composition for their army!
- The AI has seen massive overall improvements.
- A notice will appear when you've played the maximum battles that you're allowed to against AI to gain merits for the day.
- Tapping right click on an enemy unit counts as a fire order, holding right click counts as a charge order.
- Right clicking units always reveals their range.
- Shift + left clicking a unit marks them.
- Shift + right clicking a unit opens their info tab.
- NEW controls menu added so you can rebind all controls in battles.
- The new tooltip system has been expanded into the custom battle lobby.
- AI now recovers more wounded men after battles on harder difficulties.
- New formation hotkeys, change formations easily by using 1,2,3,4,5.

Content:
- New multiplayer campaign system added. WARNING: I do not recommend playing it right now as some game-breaking bugs were discovered which don't let players progress past their second battle. We are going to patch this out immediately and get multiplayer campaigns working again very soon.
- New multi-day battle system has been added which allows you to adjust the starting time of day, amount of days that can be fought across, and the speed of the day/night cycle. Players will now need to redeploy their forces for the next days of battle, with an animation to go along with each evening.
- New "Getting Started" video tutorial added.
- New "Choosing your Nation" video tutorial added.
- New "Formations Overview" video tutorial added.
- New "Utilizing Terrain" video tutorial added.
- New "Intro to Combat" video tutorial added.
- A tab for Steam guides has been added in the "learn" tab.
- New song "Blue Danube" by Johann Straus II added as a generic battle track.
- New song "The Battle" by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky added as a generic battle track.
- New historical map "Saarbrucken" added which is also in the Quickmatch pool.

Graphics & Optimization:
- The bloom effect no longer effects roads, so they no longer glow.
- Turning off post-processing settings no longer makes the game oversaturated, it's now perfectly viable to play without post-processing and you could gain an extra 10 fps.
- The game has seen a massive optimization update with some players reporting they've gained anywhere from 10-20 fps. We are still working on improving larges-scale battles though which still result in a lot of lag. One option we're considering is reducing the sprite count in 2v2s.
- Animal nation flags as well as the flag UI in-game now shows the correct flag depending on the time period you're playing in. No more German Empire flag shown in scenarios taking place in the 1850s or early 1860s.

The following flags were affected (listed in the early period --> late period)
Prussia --> North German Confederation
Austria --> Austria-Hungary
USA --> USA (more stars)
CSA --> CSA (new design)
Russia --> Russia (new design)
- A new minimap UI has been added in-game with a day tracker.
- UI at the top of the screen has been improved.
- UI has been redone in battle to appear clearer and players can move their cameras closer to units to see the UI up close. Resolution of all trait icons have been reuploaded in HD.
- Melee-only trait now appears as an icon under sabres in the armory.
- Unit card fixes, some were holding the wrong model rifle.
- Fire-at-will has a special activation and deactivation animation.
- Credits added to the main menu.
- New Civil War loading screen added.
- The main menu map has been completely redesigned.

Known Issues:
- Units can charge an enemy that more tiles away than that unit has movement points.
- Units can bypass bogged down tiles through exploits using efficiency.
- Fire-at-wills can sometimes cause lagspikes.
- Multiplayer campaign system not stable.
- Units are spawning with the wrong weapons in the campaign system.
- If you play a battle, and then try loading into a scenario, your game will freeze.
- Attack column still isn't doing +1 on charges.
- When melee drill is in the reserve it's not doing +1 at the end of each turn in melee.
- Units with a lot of movement speed that move through each other's path now clash but then immediately walk through each other.
- Fire-at-will icon sometimes lingers on the screen even after deactivation.
- Sometimes the client and host see units with differing HP's when they fight in melee.
- Crimean Campaign is missing flags (will fix asap)
- There are some menu issues when you back out of certain menus repeatedly.

Next Up:
In addition to addressing bugs and the "Known Issues" list, our next focus will be adding a ranked mode and quickly getting cosmetics working. Next, we want to allow cavalry to dismount and change formations. After that, we will be making massive changes to the animations of units and the sound effects in-game which haven't received much work at all. We also want to add more maps and overhaul the scenario system. Lastly, we will be giving away a free campaign for the Caucasus in the Crimean War and we will be redoing the two Civil War campaigns to be more zoomed out areas, which will be free for all Civil War DLC owners. We also want to flesh out the Union and Confederate rosters with more units being added to those nations, as well as one new unit coming to the Italian faction. We also want to give players the ability to target specific tiles.