Hey. This update took a while due to applying for a government release funding, adding a new language to the game and finally adding a native Linux build.

I tested as much as possible, but expect this version to be a bit more unstable than usual, as a lot of under the hood changes have been made.

I have also added the NPC spawner feature to the game, but it needs a bit more polishing, balancing and testing, so I decide to not add this to the playtest map yet.

Sorry for not including any pretty pictures this time. Once I talk a bit more about the NPC spawner features this will change.

Find below all the changes made in the last couple of weeks:

Game Additions

• Added German localization to the game.

• Added several localization tools to automatically include new strings from quests, enums, dialogues, etc.

• Added a native IL2CPP Linux version. It's about 20% faster as the Windows 11 build on AMD graphics cards.

• Added a new NPC spawner feature with lots of interesting gameplay changes. This feature isn't utilised in the playtest map yet. More info will follow on the next update.

• Added an Advisor UI showing an icon and intro text for quests, with an option to display the tutorial.

• Added the following quest triggers: "Province Has Wizard Platform", "Player Has Wizard Platform", "Player Wizard Active", and "Player Building Upgrade Built".

• Added a new player message for receiving troops or workers as a quest reward.

• Added a new quest action that can trigger adding population to a province.

• Added a new player message for the quest action that adds population.

• Added a standard ruin worker value to global game data (set to 0 for human players) to mitigate the issue of maximum workers being assigned to ruins after conquering a province.

• Added a convenience function to the Squad Manager that can fully heal a squad, including armour.

• Added a function to extend building attributes to prevent save game corruption during attribute extension.

• Added a check for formation state regarding ambush chances, including the new province ambush attribute (e.g., as modified by the corruption simulation).

• Added a fire suppression icon and value to the aura tooltip.

Game Improvements

• Improved the Province UI building tab; it now separates defensive and civilian buildings.

• Improved: Ruins now adjust their loot when the province owner changes to the player who conquered it.

• Improved: Unit model views now have a clickable collider on a non-collision layer to mitigate performance issues. Previously, the unit simulation object was clickable but not always 100% aligned with the model view, leading to missed clicks.

• Improved all descriptions and names for research, buildings, units, and spells.

• Improved font character ranges for all fonts to support extended ASCII.

• Improved: Reworked win-condition checks so that a player can have 0 population but still play if there is a chance to recover.

• Improved the "game on focus" function; the RTS camera was previously enabled after a refocus even when inappropriate.

• Improved: Player messages can now handle quest actions.

• Improved: Wizard customization UI now only shows the tutorial quest if tutorial quests are available and can be toggled off.

• Improved: Wizard customization UI now only shows random player start position options when enabled inside the Map Editor.

• Improved the "Recover Squad" function so that it works without consuming resources for NPC players.

• Improved: When sending a formation, squads are now sorted by weapon range and released frame-by-frame from the reserve building, which significantly improves formation movement.

• Improved: Formation radar now ignores invulnerable buildings.

• Improved: Formation radar now sorts building attack priority by safety value.

• Improved: Fixed an issue where the Building and Research tooltip "Exclude" section was not localized and used the wrong text format.

• Improved: Research tooltips now correctly show alterations, equipment, and special abilities in the secondary tooltip.

• Improved: All tooltip statistics entries now have improved formatting.

• Improved: Unit tooltips have improved formatting.

• Improved: Optimized Radar and Squad Radar by removing old, redundant code.

• Improved: Squad overhead UI is back with showing alteration again. Either enable/disable in settings or press left or right alt key to toggle.

• Improved: Map Data Structure

  • The old structure was outdated and caused too many save game version changes when only minor map adjustments were made.

  • The new map data uses an attribute array approach, which is more flexible, faster, and prevents unnecessary save game version changes.

  • Map serialization now features a function to load specific map information very quickly (previously impossible) for use in screens like Skirmish Map Selection and Wizard Customization.

• Improved: Unit Charge Behaviour

  • Melee units only enter neighbouring provinces when they are attacked by a ranged unit.

  • Ranged units never leave the attacking base once they have entered.

• Improved: Upkeep Calculation and Penalties

  • Only the squads and buildings missing a specific resource are penalized, rather than all buildings/squads.

  • Reduced the health and morale impact of failed upkeep to make the mechanic less punishing.

• Improved: Reworked formation handling and creation.

  • Formations now eject their squads out of reserve buildings and do not start their journey until all of them are ready to start.

  • As the ejection process can take several frames to mitigate slow down issues, this is also a process which can go on after loading a saved game.

  • Formations eject missing squads from reserve if the process was not finished during a save game creation.

  • Formations can now also be selected inside their starting base and split of to other provinces or the province they started via the send squad UI.

  • Squads now also eject at better places to prevent bleeding into foreign provinces during formation building.

• Balancing: Slightly increased Mill food storage.

• Balancing: Research points are no longer granted via loot if the player’s research point generation is still at 0.

• Balancing: Gold loot is now "Common" instead of "Rare."

• Balancing: Reduced push-back effect on catapult shots.

• Balancing: Most of the building upgrades and some of the buildings are now a bit cheaper.

• Balancing: Crop fields have higher pest rates and a bit less yield.

• Balancing: Workers need draft now and scouts are slightly more expensive.

• Balancing: More traps appear inside ruins.

Game Bugfixes

• Fixed a crash when attempting to move characters in for a story dialogue.

• Fixed a very rare crash in province utilities when checking if the grid is free at a specific position.

• Fixed a very rare crash in repairable behaviour.

• Fixed a bug very rare crash bug, when the AI is moving units from one province to another sometimes using the same province.

• Fixed a very rare crash bug in effect base.

• Fixed some bug in map serialisation when trying to load outdated maps from local file system instead using the internal map data which might be newer.

• Fixed a bug in effect base where dot properties would not correctly reset after the effect was reset.

• Fixed freeze effect as it was not working as intended. Completely rewrote how the effect works as it was outdated code.

• Fixed a bug in mobile behaviour when stopping movement of a unit.

• Fixed a bug in push behaviour where freezing units would resume their ability to move.

• Fixed some issues with the Unit UIs, also showing on foreign units.

• Fixed a soft lock that occurred when dragging/dropping worker priorities while a tutorial or story quest popped up.

• Fixed a bug in the Hamlet UI where it would display while the Town Hall was still under construction.

• Fixed several issues in the player input, as the selection of formations was in some cases not correctly recognized and would open the send squad UI with wrong parameters.

• Fixed a long-standing issue where ruin search workers would not react to changes in worker numbers or follow priorities as expected.

• Fixed several issues where the incorrect number of standard workers was assigned to buildings in certain situations (e.g., after conquering provinces).

• Fixed a bug where ranged units were never released from the reserve building during a province attack if a ram unit was still in the tent.

• Fixed a bug where text would not wrap in the Hamlet UI.

• Fixed a bug where the "last spy cycle" attribute for provinces did not function correctly for different players.

• Fixed a bug where clicking a Town Hall would sometimes open multiple overlapping UIs, including the Minimap UI.

• Fixed a bug in the Data Manager when calculating gold upkeep.

• Fixed a bug in the formation state where target validation did not consider the current attack, leading to certain buildings not being targeted.

• Fixed a bug in movement behaviour when removing squads that are out of navigation bounds.

• Fixed a bug where the AI caster did not check if a spell was unlocked before attempting to use it.

• Fixed a bug in the building class that reset the "destroy on conquer" attribute for non-defensive buildings, even if explicitly set in the Map Editor.

• Fixed a bug in the Trigger Manager when checking if a building upgrade had been completed.

• Fixed a material bug for stone drop-off particles.

• Fixed several issues in the editor scroll content class.

• Fixed several issues in the loot utility class occurring when the loot list was empty after applying a filter.

• Fixed a pathing problem with road decals.

• Fixed a bug in the Earthquake event where resources created were not updated in the province data collector.

• Fixed a bug in the Settings UI preventing the world ambience volume from being set correctly.

• Fixed a bug where projectiles shot from close to the ground would sometimes collide prematurely.

• Fixed a bug occurring when removing wizards from a skirmish map and then selecting a different map.

• Fixed a bug where quest messages were assigned the wrong message category.

• Fixed a bug in the player message history UI where the message area was set to 0, preventing messages from appearing.

• Fixed broken material settings for ponds.

• Fixed a bug in the Trigger Manager when checking camera movement.

• Fixed a bug in the game class where application focus was not respected under the DEV_DEBUG compile-time variable.

• Fixed a bug for quest actions when changing province attributes.

• Fixed a bug where formations did not adjust their morale when attacking an unexplored province.

• Fixed a bug where tooltips would sometimes fail to appear when hovering inside the Province UI.

• Fixed: Applying attack morale modifiers did not respect the current attack type.

• Fixed an unnecessary separator showing in aura and spell tooltips.

• Fixed a bug in the Squad UI showing extended info even when the UI was not set to extended mode.

• Fixed: Corrected wrong equipment type settings on several research options.

• Fixed: Corrected wrongly assigned alterations on several research options.

• Fixed a bug when calculating average morale in formations.

• Fixed a bug where the "Eagle Eye" spell did not properly unlock exploration milestones.

• Fixed a bug in province UI showing military attack buttons on provinces owned.

I know players do not have access to the map editor yet, but at some point this will also open up to the community so I will also talk more about it in the future:

Map Editor Improvements

• Added an "Ambush" attribute to province details in the Map Editor.

• Added more brushes and province layouts for faster map editing.

• Added a re-import function to import data such as triggers, quest actions, and quests from other maps.

• Added: Editor scroll content toggles (used in most editors) can now be navigated correctly using arrow keys.

• Added: The editor unlock data screens now feature a search text filter.

• Added: The camera now pauses whenever a quest, trigger, or quest action editor is open.

• Added: "Draft" can now be configured in the Player Details editor.

• Added an option to set random player start positions in the Map Details UI.

Map Editor Bugfixes

• Fixed several bugs in the map trigger and quest editor.

• Fixed several bugs when moving props, resources, buildings, and loot.

• Fixed a crash in the Map Editor when selecting certain buildings.

• Fixed a rare crash in the rally line when destroying a recruitment building within the Map Editor.

• Fixed a bug where info dialogue details were not removed after a prop, building, or resource was deleted.