Hey Everyone,
With release date approaching, we continue to make great progress and today have an exciting new update for you.
Today`s update covers many areas, with well over a hundred changes, but what truly stands out is the new reworked AI. Get ready to be surprised. Nothing says 'Game Over' like several full stack AI armies landing on your shore at once, or the gates of Paris opening and a dozen Hospitaller battalions rushing your siege camp. AI is out for blood, so get ready!
Our next update will bring more diplomacy options, as well as finally unveil reworked pathfinding and much better unit behavior in combat. And yeah - we got a bit a delayed with this pathfinding update, but we are almost ready, just fixing the last issues and bugs.
And so presenting Update 68:
BIG AI CHANGES
-New town defense AI - will employ different tactics, and often ride out to meet weaker opponent
-Town Defensive AI will launch a counterattack vs weak besieger, or if it sees an opportunity
-In Battle AI units react to player attacks much faster, charging at archers or other melee units
-New smart world map AI - will look for weakness, and try to go after weak towns and armies
-AI armies on the world map will work together a lot more
-Tough new world map AI - in later years will utilize 2, 3 and even 4 armies when assaulting the player
-Weak or damaged AI armies will retreat to gather new units, or pursue new targets, or await reinforcement
-AI will only attack if it believes it can win a battle - no more suicide attacks
-Fixed various issues with AI armies standing still on the world map
-AI armies will now properly position them on the world map and not bundle up all in one place
-AI will now attack from further away on campaign map
-Having remote enemies will no longer be as forgiven on the world map - AI will come after you
-Completely reworked how AI progresses through the years on the campaign Map
-AI stars campaign slower with lower tech armies
-AI will never send powerful armies to attack players in the first year of the Campaign Map
-AI is a lot more challenging in later campaign years
OTHER BIG CHANGES
-Major Auto-Resolve change - if attacking army or armies have 3x more strength, they will never loose a unit, only health
-Buildings now show player owner colors on them
-Added first part of King diplomacy - ability to directly declare war, offer terms or signing a white peace
-Diplomatic relations changed to one way - no longer displaying two sets of relations icons
-Translated all the recent text, still waiting for Chinese translation - couple more days
-Fixed lag issue when assaulting large towns like Nantes or Paris
FIXES AND ADDITIONS
-Fixed major bug during civil war, allowing player to attack his own towns
-Fixed another civil war bug with player army defending AI town
-Fixed a civil war bug with player unable to attack his kings armies
-Fixed a rare civil war bug where player army would join the enemy
-Fixed extremely bright textures on heavy armored unit shields
-Improved the look of winter ground textures
-Greatly improved the look on world map mountains during winter
-Fixed a bug with selecting world map army sometimes showing ugly portrait in the left corner
-Town Hall starts at level 1 for both attacker and defender, fixing various bugs
-Manor now shows correct building level
-Every morning a rooster will sound to mark the end of nighttime
-Added ice and mini icebergs to naval combat during winter
-World map campaign quests now pause the game
-Fixed rare bug when entering battle just as relations with King drop, breaking the game
-Fixed bad shadowing issue on the pig
-Improved the pigs visual
-Added additional tutorial at the 1st campaign dialogue
-Cleaned up localization files
-Chicken portrait no longer covers buttons
-A lot of polish to camera scrolling and zoom in speed
-Camera scrolling and zoom in speed is now different for world map and RTS views
-Snow and rain is now well visible on all zoom in and out levels
-Rain and snow now don`t disappear when scrolling the camera
-Improved the look of snow and rain FX
-Corrected description of sheep and mines not to mention gold
-Music volume reduced less during tactical pause or pause on the world map
-Ballista bolts will no longer fall way short of the target unable to ever reach it
-Fire Cart is not longer just unlocked by constructing Storehouse, but by Liquid Transport tech
-Fixed Academy being unlocked too early by an incorrect tech
LEVEL DESIGN CHANGES
-Major change in Paris - just 1 outer gatehouse now
-Major change in Nantes - just 1 outer gatehouse now
-Nantes, Caen and Paris - palisade barricades only have 1 gatehouse
-Norwich - removed excessive bastions, with 12 per wall, max 6 now
-Caen - cleared the ground by the middle stone walls to make easier to assault
-Dover - fixed problem with ultra bright sandy beach
-Dover - added more eye candy to the level, ship harbor and so on
-Aberdeen on the world map now uses correct level, also changed Glasgow town design
-Nantes - player can now easily use attacker camp, without map edge getting in a way
-Updated tutorial menu background in the main menu
-Updated main menu background
-Fixed a bug with AI towns replenishing units fastest on easy, and slowest on hard - other way around
-Orleans reworked the central keep in the middle of the town
-Nantes, Dijon e.t.c levels - fixed missing wall segment and added more staircases
-Fixed various problems when rebuilding iron gates on stone gatehouses
-Fixed all mounted and tower siege weapons crew members twitching when attacked by archers
-Fixed wall mounted trebuchet having 4 tiny crew members, instead 2 proper size crew members
-Main menu now works great on ultra wide monitor
BALANCING
-Ranged units gain experience in combat twice as slow now
-Loosing and Winning auto-resolves with even odds, now removes a bit more units, on average 1 extra unit more
-Looting and Raising gives a lot more silver
-Other battle types give a lot less silver
-AI and player units are healed about 20% slower overtime on the world map
-AI armies that drop down from 20 strength will get defeated and removed
-Cost to upgrade buildings re-balanced to consume a lot more stone
-Increased Palisade wall and palisade tower hit points by up to 40%
-A bit more starting resources for battles, enough to start building a palisade wall
-Hospital is a lot more effective at healing units
-Monks healing spell is less effective
-Removed Healing Potion from Templar Knight
-Hospitaller Knight healing potion is more effective, but costs more stamina
-Palisade towers and stone towers take significantly longer to build
-Increased world map view for towns and armies
-Tech upgrade that increases world map view is more effective
-Changed starting enemies for Burgundy, Aragon and Spain,