Game Update (0.9.95)

22 Aug 2017Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Mega-Maps: The game engine now supports world maps of much larger sizes, removing the previous hard limit of 54x54 hexes. This change opens up a lot of possibilities for more granularity and detail in the generated worlds, with much more detailed kingdoms and continents that don't feel like islands.
The default/medium world size has been increased from 30x30 to 44x44. The large and huge choices even more so. Huge now creates a world four times larger than before! Note that the larger worlds do take some time to generate on game startup - depending on size.
City Pops now affect the resource/gold production. Farmers will produce food, artisans will produce trade goods, hunters will produce bone or fur etc. Cultural traits and tech level affect the composition and quantity of this production, as does pop traits such as Noble or Enslaved.
Expanded the city growth and depopulation mechanics: Growth controls whether and how fast a city grows or depopulates, with smaller cities growing faster and being more resilient to depopulation, while the reverse holds for large cities.
Expanded the mechanics for Pops gaining or losing traits (Noble, Rabble, Warrior, Hunter, Artisan, Farmer, Clergy, etc.) , to take into account additional cultural traits and city attributes.
Updated to Unity 2017, which will improve performance, compatibility and stability.
Units can no longer replenish any losses suffered during the preceding turn. Ie if a unit with a strength of 95 and a max size of 100 suffer 20 losses during battle (putting it at 75), it can replenish up 80 (10 - 20) during the following turn. Recent losses are cleared each turn. Units with Regeneration or Limited Regeneration are not subject to this. This makes it easier to whittle down a powerful army with attacks over multiple turns, makes it harder for a powerful army to blitz through weaker enemies, and makes garrisons slightly less powerful.
Units with Regeneration will gain a bonus replenishment of 20% of the losses suffered during the turn. This is applied even if otherwise unable to reinforce due to logistics/distance.
Implemented Reek (Battle Spell): Target unit gains the Noxious special ability for 10 seconds.
Implemented Shard Storm (Battle Spell): Target unit suffers up to 20 hits for 5 physical damage. The number of hits cannot exceed the number of individuals in the unit. If the unit takes any damage a -2 penalty to Movement is applied for 10 seconds.
Implemented Shadow Encumbrance (Battle Spell): Target unit suffers -3 to Movement and Melee Shock for 5 seconds. Cannot affect Semi-Corporeal, Spectral or Elemental targets.
Implemented Chaos Bolt (Battle Spell): Inflicts 2 x (2 to 8) hits for 4 to 9 damage of two different types randomly chosen from: Arcane, Cold, Corrosive, Dark, Fire, Lightning, Radiant and Physical.
Implemented Ice Bridge (World Spell): Creates a bridge across a river section (ie between two hexes divided by a river), allowing traversal as if there was no river.
There is now a cap on how much Mana a wizard can spend on spells during a battle. The default value is 20, which can be increased through research, quests, events, etc. The current value is shown in the Ruler tab of the Quests and Victory Conditions window and during battles.
The Wizard trait Channeling now gives +25% and Farsight trait gives +10% (these are additive and applied after any increases of the base value, e.g. due to research) to available Battle Magic.
Wizards with Wild Magic have a randomized available mana pool during battle ranging from 50% to 150% of the normal value (including all modifiers). Note that the available mana is still constrained by the actual mana of the wizard.
Increasing levels of Battle Magic (Minor/Lesser/Intermediate/Greater/Supreme) can now be researched as a spellcraft project. This will increase the battle magic cap introduced in this update.
Battles fought at a Wizard Tower allow the Wizard to spend mana unconstrained by the battle mana cap.
The Dark Sacrifice action (related to a Dark Pact quest) now allows choosing which specific Pop to sacrifice.
Rebel factions are now much more picky about what diplomatic proposals they accept, and will reject any proposal from factions having active agreements (alliance, trade pact, non-aggression, etc.) with the faction the rebels are opposing.
Technological progress and cultural traits are now considered when minor realms build resource sites. Savage and primitive civilizations are now much less likely to build Farms, and the 'Master Hunters' and 'Master Farmers' traits are now considered when choosing the resource site type.
Optimized the AI strategic target selection algorithm (for raiding, conquest, war-planning, etc.) to make turn processing faster.
Trade Good base quantities adjusted by a factor of 10 (and gold value adjusted accordingly). This allows for better granularity without resorting to (visible) fractional amounts.
Fixed an issue where the population threshold for expansion for minor realm cities was tuned for the old population model (ie 25% of what it should be).
Fixed an issue where some physical damage sources would cause a crash/hang during battles.
Fixed garrisons and various defensive armies not replenishing losses correctly.
Fixed an issue where Blood Sacrifice was never causing population loss. It has been changed to work like Dark Sacrifice, allowing the player to choose which pop to sacrifice.