Players of Earth, welcome to your monthly update on Athena Crisis!
First, Athena Crisis will be on sale for 20% Off during the Steam Autumn Sale, so let your friends know! We're biased, but we also thinks it makes a great gift.
This month, we’re featuring the Commander. Armies are composed of master strategists and troops on the ground executing orders. Then, there's the Commander unit, who specializes in making the worst slide decks you’ve ever seen. They’re not just bureaucrats though, as Commanders do provide your units with an attack bonus when they are adjacent.
The Commander’s associated skill, Commanding Force, further buffs your leader units with a 100% attack bonus. Now that’s synergy!
We’ve made quite a few changes across the multiverse, which include: a new curated campaign from the community, new skills, quality of life improvements, and some exciting news about the future of AC on mobile platforms. We’re also testing a new demo experience that will allow players to try out the prequel campaign. Let’s get to it!
NEW AND IMPROVED
New: Curated Campaign - Pressing Onwards This beautifully crafted campaign is a joy to play, and adds its own take on how the story might continue after the conclusion of The Athena Crisis campaign. By making this campaign curated, 47 more stars are now obtainable in-game. Completing the campaign will unlock the Seatbelts On skill, described below.
New: Official Athena Crisis Mobile Apps for iOS & Android We are ready to start beta testing the official iOS and Android apps that will soon replace the current mobile web apps. If you'd like to test the beta apps, please inquire in the official Discord.
New: Prequel Campaign Demo Experience We built a new demo experience which allows playing the full Prequel Campaign before buying Athena Crisis. If you haven't bought Athena Crisis yet and would like to give this new experience a try, inquire in our Discord.
New: Favorite skills are now also displayed in the skill selector for invasions.
New: Seamless Updates Athena Crisis will now automatically apply updates as you navigate to another screen. This should result in more seamless, faster and fewer broken updates. The update banner will no longer be shown on the main menu after the next update.
New: You can now click the campaign name/copy icon on the top left of the campaign editor to share the link to a campaign with someone (e.g. for playtesting).
New: You can now open the game info dialog while another player takes their turn
New: Transported Unit Flyout When focusing on a transport unit, carried units are now shown just below the unit name.
New: Content Reporting You can now report users or community maps and campaigns directly in-game. Please use this feature if you find any offending content or if you feel like something shouldn't be part of Athena Crisis.
New: Improved Connection Handling The connection handling after restarting from an update or a loss in connection should be better now.
New: The primary cards at the top in the campaign screen or in the map editor now have icons, indicating that you can interact with them similar to how you can expand the player card in-game.
New: The Damage Chart now has number inputs next to sliders similar to the Entity Panel in the Map Editor.
New: Actions to Increase Funds and Charges in the Editor You can now add actions to increase funds or charges for a Start effect or when achieving an optional objective. As always, you can choose which player will receive the funds, including allowing you to use dynamic player ids like "self" and "opponent". This also enables the ability to set asymmetrical funds at the start of a PvP game.
New: The overlay menu now may have a "< Back" button which will bring you back to the previous screen. This is especially useful on mobile where you cannot easily press ESC/B to go to the previous screen.
New/Changed: 4 day timer added, 1 hour timer removed Added the option for a 4 day timer. The 1 hour option was removed given low usage compared to the 1 day and 7 days options, and because it was closest to the real-time option in that it required constant attention.
Changed: Changed the real-time turn timeout from 15 seconds per entity to 10 seconds (+60 seconds +small buffer).
Changed: All number inputs (mostly in the editor) were changed to have slightly better number handling behavior.
Changed: Damage Chart Updates
When navigating from a game to to the damage chart via the unit card, it will now show locked units that are present (and visible) on the current map
The damage chart now allows you to choose skills for both units. If you navigate from a game, it will preload the skills of the current players. Note that skill selectors are not shown if you aren't logged into the game.
The damage chart now shows buildings.
Changed: Power animations sped up slightly.
Changed: Labels from hidden objectives are no longer hidden when a visible objective also uses the same label.
Changed: The map now grays out while you undo your turn.
Changed: Settings menu layout is improved.
Changed: The map list on a user's profile now has a share link.
Changed: The power section of a skill description now has a background color to distinguish the description from the day-to-day effect.
Changed: Sped up damage animations when activating a power.
INVASIONS
New Invasion Skill: High Tide This invasion-only skill raises the water level and shrinks the map on each power activation, requiring 3 charges. The new skill is available in the shop.
New: In a map with production and air or naval units, a Valor or Phantom invader may now receive an Airbase or Shipyard.
Changed: Invasions no longer give out crystal rewards if the game was too short. Increased the time between chaos star reward reductions. The actual timing is likely to be changed.
Changed: Spawns Significantly changed and improved unit counts, spawn locations and faction composition when invading. Invaders should now spawn further away from opponents and far away from HQs. Units are more spaced out, and more factors are considered when deciding on the unit count and unit types.
Changed: Crystal Power Activations Various skill powers now activate when consuming a crystal, such as Defense Up, Commanding Force, Alien Invasion, More Power and Super Counter. This is meant to further encourage Power Crystal usage.
Changed: Biome Change The first use of a Phantom Crystal may change the biome.
Changed: Buildings Valor and Phantom invaders may receive Barracks or even an HQ on larger maps.
Changed: Medic You might receive a Medic and more initial funds.
Changed: Bubble Wrap The Bubble Wrap power is no longer activated when using a Command Crystal.
Changed: First Invasion Improvements When somebody activates a Power Crystal for the first time, the first invader must use a Valor Crystal. Once a Valor player invades, Phantom and Command invaders can join too. This restriction is automatically lifted once the player receives their first Chaos Stars.
Changed: The number of skills that can be brought into an invasion is now determined by the number of unlocked skill slots the Power Crystal player has.
Changed: Various small improvements to the invasion panel.
Changed: Wild Companion The skill now activates when consuming a crystal, and when the skill is equipped while invading a game, you may receive a Shelter instead of a HQ/Barracks.
Changed: The shop now explains more clearly how the stars calculation works, and that Campaign and Chaos Stars are equal.
Fixed: Buildings no longer spawn on top of ships.
Fixed: Spawning buildings in an invasion no longer makes the units on top of those buildings disappear for a brief moment.
Fixed: Charges are no longer instantly used while more than one invasion skill is equipped and when consuming a crystal or firing.
NEW SKILLS
New: Loose Cannon Power This power allows completed unfolded units to act again for 4 charges.
New: Sneaky Dragon Ever wanted to turn a Saboteur into a Dragon? Well, now you can! You can obtain this skill by beating the Sneaky's Impossibly Lethal Challenge campaign in the community campaigns list.
New: Seatbelts On Completing the Pressing Onwards campaign will reward you with the new "Seatbelts On" skill, a fun skill focused on Jeeps and their leader, Remy.
BALANCING
Changed: Bubble Wrap Skill Increased the required charges from 6 to 8.
Changed: Rocket Launcher Increased cost from 275 to 300, decreased defense from 20 to 15, debuffed attack against ground, artillery, low air, and rail units by 5.
Changed: The AI will no longer move supply units towards units with supply needs if it can't actually supply them.
Changed: Status effects can no longer become negative, (e.g. when you have 5 skills equipped).
Changed: Dragon Fire The power now also applies to completed Dragon units.
Changed: Attack Up When activating this power, Soldier units now receive +1 range.
Changed: Blood Moon Blood Moon was refocused to apply to soldiers only. Its day-to-day and power no longer apply to other units, but Air Soldier units are now explicitly included to all status effects from this power.
Changed: Last Resort The power now spawns one Pioneer prior to converting units to Zombies, and it activates when using a Phantom crystal. Given this change, the chance of spawning with Zombies in invasions was slightly reduced again.
Changed: Surge of Vitality Medics now receive a 50% attack boost. The power now gives a 200% attack boost to medics instead of 250%.
Changed: Alien Invasion Reduced the cost for Aliens from 450 to 400.
Changed: Bubble Wrap When a Medic or Support Ship unit heals another unit, that unit receives a bubble for one turn.
Changed: High Tide Add a day-to-day effect that increases the attack power of ships by 20%.
Changed: Sneaky Sabotage Reduced the defense buff for Saboteurs from 300% to 100%.
FIXES
Fixed: Turn order is no longer mixed up when a power activates by consuming a crystal.
Fixed: Rescuing a unit that is tied to objectives of an opponent now ends the game if the opponent can no longer win the game in another way.
Fixed: An issue where the amount of stars in the shop was not instantly updated after a campaign game.
Fixed: The zoom button is now always on the bottom right in a game instead of the top right.
Fixed: Fixed an issue with the objective dialog on narrow screens.
Fixed: Recent skills that are auto-selected in the campaign should work correctly regardless of how many skills you unlock within a campaign game or whether you have these skills unlocked or not.
Fixed: The display of the overlay menu on narrow screens has been adjusted.
Fixed: The game info dialogue and the opponent attack radius buttons were swapped as a result of some playtesting. Feels better that way.
Fixed: Opposing long range units that cannot move/act now overlay their movement and attack ranges.
Fixed: Crystals as part of story effects no longer accidentally activate powers.
Fixed: The Maximum Sniper skill can now be used in the Map Editor again.
Fixed: An issue with number inputs for map stars in the editor.
Fixed: An issue where an invasion attempt failed accidentally.
Fixed: When activating a power while other powers are active, it now only highlights the units matched by the current skill, not all the units that get a buff from all powers.
Fixed: The escort by amount and label objective no longer triggers when there are no units with the associated labels on the map.
Fixed: Some issues with number inputs related to map stars, and added the ability to remove stars from a map.
Fixed: An issue that prevented using the Maximum Sniper skill in the Map Editor.
Fixed: Inferno Jetpack power activations during invasions now properly spawn additional units. More on this skill soon.
Fixed: You can no longer undo a turn after activating a power crystal.
Fixed: Optional objectives that are the same as a win condition are now always fired when they both trigger.
Fixed: An issue where triggering an optional objective would show a different optional objective as triggered.
Fixed: You can no longer undo a turn after activating a power crystal.
Fixed: Optional objectives that are the same as a win condition are now always fired when they both trigger.
Fixed: An issue where triggering an optional objective would show a different optional objective as triggered.
Fixed: Blood Moon Skill The heal effect of this skill is now additive to healing at a Repair Shop, etc.
Fixed: The Leaderboard now scrolls entries into view when using the gamepad.
Fixed: Restricted skills are no longer pre-selected for campaign maps or invasions.
Fixed: When navigating between apps on mobile and audio is paused in the game, the music no longer accidentally resumes.
Fixed: The note and link to the damage chart in the UnitCard is now only printed once, not once per weapon.
Fixed: Undo/redo in the editor now also considers effects, fixing an issue when resizing maps with spawn effects and undoing the resize.
Fixed: Many improvements to layout on narrow (mobile) screens were made.
Fixed: An issue that accidentally allowed a player to spawn as a defeated AI when using a Command crystal.
Fixed: Tons of mobile layout fixes. Athena Crisis should now work even better on any screen size.
Fixed: Clicking the link to the wiki or discord on the tutorial menu no longer opens two tabs in your browser.
Fixed: When viewing the Damage Chart while being logged out, the player color for columns was fixed to be orange again.
Fixed: An issue where units in fog would sometimes reappear on the client. This was one of the major fog desyncs that we couldn't figure out for a long time.
Fixed: Attack previews for Commanders were corrected.
Fixed: When toggling an objective from non-optional to optional, it sometimes accidentally removed effects for another optional objective.
Fixed: Improved behavior of pressing "escape" in the campaign editor.
Fixed: Dialogue is no longer accidentally skipped when entering a new campaign map.
Fixed: On mobile, tapping the description of a skill or crystal using touch input no longer activates the skill/crystal. The previous behavior led to confusion because most of the screen is occupied with the skill/crystal description and it was easy to accidentally activate them.
Fixed: An issue where a player would lose visibility in a PvP game where all other human players were defeated.
Fixed: Damage number animations should no longer get stuck.
Fixed: Additional mobile fixes.
So, just a few things. We’re dedicated to making Athena Crisis the best game it can possibly be, so if you have any questions or feedback, please join the official Discord and let us know your thoughts, and thanks again to all the players who have contributed so far.