Hey, friends!
This update gives our cats more personality, brings companies to life on the world map, and adds more atmosphere to cities and nights. I've also spent a lot of time on performance, combat AI, and the issues you've been sending in.
Gameplay
Equipment and progression
Deep Pockets is now available in the Skirmisher and Marksman masteries. It adds two Belt slots. Its existing optional upgrades remain available: one more Belt slot or +1 Endurance.
Deep Pockets — new load subperk: reduces the weight of items carried on the Belt by 35%. Available through the personal perk, Skirmisher, and Marksman.
Backup — new load subperk: reduces the weight of equipment in secondary weapon slots by 50%. Available to Berserker, Infantry, Knight, and Skirmisher.
Flexible Protection — new Backup subperk for Knight and Skirmisher: lets you use the first usable Light Shield in a secondary left-hand weapon slot while wielding a two-handed melee weapon. The shield provides half its normal Defence, its abilities cannot be used, and your left hand counts as occupied. This replaces the Knight's former −5% equipment-weight upgrade.
Light Grip — new Skirmisher Training subperk: lets you keep Double Grip bonuses while holding a Light Shield in your left hand. Bucklers and Targes count as Light Shields.
Martial Training — Infantry upgrade: replaces the +3 Strength option with Martial Weapon Proficiency and +5% Damage. (Gazooki)
All-Rounder — Close Combat Advantage upgrade: reduced from +2 to +1.
Professional — Close Combat Advantage upgrade: reduced from +2 to +1.
Carnage: when the triggering attack costs less Stamina than the follow-up main melee attack, the trigger chance now scales with their cost ratio. For example, a 3-Stamina attack triggering a 6-Stamina follow-up has a 50% chance. Attacks costing at least as much as the follow-up retain the full trigger chance. (Oltopeteeh)
Captured rat slaves can now gain experience. They receive randomly selected eligible masteries on capture, and their stat level-ups and perk choices are applied automatically. (Oltopeteeh)
Flying units can cross impassable terrain such as deep water, provided they can reach a safe landing tile within their movement budget. This applies to units with flight, including Shades, Hornets, and levitating Arcanists.
Charge — new Rage subperk for Berserker and Brawler: after moving from a position with no adjacent enemies to one beside an enemy, make a main melee attack of opportunity against a random adjacent enemy if you have too little Stamina left for that attack. Forced movement does not trigger it.
Black Cat is a new race focused on Willpower and Intelligence. Its base stat ranges are 25–40 for both, and 5–25 for Strength and Dexterity.
Handgonne base value reduced from 1,500 to 1,000.
Escape tiles: your units suffer −75% Accuracy, −75% to all Defences, −75% Morale, −75% Morale Gain, and +50% Damage Taken while standing on an escape tile. The penalties disappear when they leave it, discouraging corner camping.
Upkeep on higher difficulties: newly generated units cost 10% more on Mercenary, 25% more on Veteran, and 50% more on Unfair. Novice, Easy, and Normal remain unchanged.
Delivery and caravan contracts now select destination cities more than six hexes away, for both normal and long contracts.
Generated undead with a one-handed weapon and an empty left hand now have a 33% chance to start with the permanent Missing Arm injury
Gambeson weight increased from 1 to 1.5. (Oltopeteeh)
Simple Gambeson weight increased from 1 to 1.5. (Oltopeteeh)
Blink Morale cost increased from 10 to 15.
Illusory Mark Morale cost increased from 10 to 20.
Weakness Hex Morale cost increased from 10 to 20.
Vulnerability Hex Morale cost increased from 10 to 20.
Mask of Fear Morale cost increased from 20 to 30.
New minor mastery: Thug
Thug focuses on Dexterity. It can appear on recruits from suitable backgrounds, and Town Rabble starts with several Thugs. Its perk roster is:
Deep Pockets: +2 Belt slots.
Light Step: +20% Speed while lightly or moderately loaded.
Footwork: grants Sidestep, which moves one tile while ignoring zones of control and costs 4 Stamina.
Finesse Training: +10% Accuracy with Finesse weapons and +10% Dodge.
Subperks:
Deep Pockets — extra slot: +1 Belt slot.
Deep Pockets — Endurance: +1 Endurance.
Deep Pockets — reduced load: −35% weight for Belt items.
Light Step — Dexterity: +3 Dexterity.
Light Step — Willpower: +3 Willpower.
Finesse Training — Close Combat Advantage: +1 Close Combat Advantage.
Finesse Training — Dexterity: +3 Dexterity.
Finesse Training — proficiency: grants Finesse Weapon Proficiency and +3% Dodge.
Weather, camping, and cities
Aurora is a new night-only weather effect. It grants +25% Morale, −25% Morale costs, +25% Vision, and a 15% reduction to terrain scouting penalties. It also reduces Camping cost by 1. In cities, it increases market stock by 25% and available recruits by 15%.
Camping cost now includes weather and night conditions: Rain, Strong Wind, Heat Waves, Cold Waves, and night each add 1; Snow Storms add 2; Sunny weather reduces the cost by 1. The final cost remains at least 1, and the tooltip shows the contributions.
Rain now increases terrain scouting penalties by 15%, rather than reducing them by 15%.
Snow Storms now increase terrain scouting penalties by 25%, rather than reducing them by 25%.
Rain in cities reduces available recruits and hiring costs by 15%.
Snow Storms in cities now also reduce hiring costs by 15%.
Sunny weather in cities increases available recruits by 15%.
Heat Waves in cities increase buying and selling prices by 10%.
Cold Waves in cities increase buying and selling prices by 10%.
Night in cities now also increases rewards for destroying camps and defeating companies by 15%.
Rain in battle: now also reduces Dodge by 15%.
Strong Wind in battle: now also reduces Dodge by 15%.
Snow Storms in battle: now also reduce Dodge by 15%, Parry by 25%, and Weapon Block by 15%.
Heat Waves in battle: now also reduce Armour Defence by 25%, Shield Defence by 50%, and Weapon Block by 25%.
Cold Waves in battle: now also reduce Dodge by 15%, Parry by 50%, and Weapon Block by 25%.
Sunny weather in battle: now reduces Phasing by 50%.
Hunting Season market-price reduction increased from 10% to 15%.
UI and QoL
You can now overwrite an existing manual save from the save list, with a confirmation dialog. Creating a new save has its own dialog.
Event-option tooltips now clearly separate requirements and rewards and use localized labels.
Weather and status tooltips group world-map modifiers before combat modifiers.
Cats and company visuals
Added more cat appearance variants, including hairstyles and beards.
Reworked race colours. Orange Cats are finally orange, and Black Cats have their own coat colours.
Added subtle breathing and idle movement to unit visuals.
Companies on the world map now display unit figures, including non-player companies. Improved their formation, shadows, and movement between tiles.
Added terrain-dependent footstep sounds while your company travels on the world map. (SplatterCat)
Weather effects are now visible inside city windows.
Added sunlight and Aurora visual effects.
The battle camera moves faster toward distant action outside the current view. (Oltopeteeh)
Improved deployment dragging and camera focus.
Improved performance when switching characters in the Company window, including equipment and mastery redraws. (oltopetish)
Optimized world-map travel, unit generation and equipment setup, visibility updates, and path updates.
Added an optional Multithreading setting for background preparation. It is disabled by default.
Fully filled mastery bars no longer show the vertical reached-threshold marker.
Vision shading now fades more quickly at night, with its duration scaling from daytime to full darkness.
Miscellaneous
Added a new hidden achievement.
Added and updated achievement artwork.
Bug fixes
Fixed range-based accuracy beyond an attack's normal range when extra reach comes from height advantage. Longer-range attacks no longer receive a worse distance multiplier than shorter-range attacks at the same target distance. Accuracy within normal range is unchanged. (chloeprice, 吃枣药丸党)
Fixed enemies repeatedly searching a stale position or failing to react properly when attacked by a concealed unit. (Oltopeteeh, oltopetish)
Improved Shade movement and Howl decisions around enemies on different elevations. (Oltopeteeh)
Fixed missing company banners that could make enemy counts unreadable in combat. (oltopetish, Daerdor, 吃枣药丸党, Mick)
Fixed mastery retraining failing to refund invested perks and upgrades when the same perk was also available as a personal perk or from another mastery. (祈雨)
Fixed captured slaves retaining masteries they could no longer use after their stat penalties were applied. (oltopetish)
Fixed your own destroyed golem dropping a Golem Heart as loot. (Oltopeteeh)
Fixed forced movement behaving incorrectly around bridge layers and height changes.
Improved generated city access and repair of unreachable approaches.
Fixed minor Twitch integration issues.
Fixed perk icons not appearing when opening the city Training window.
Fixed city stock icons disappearing when a category held only one to four items.
Removed empty ability sections from item tooltips.
Localized the Camping Finished and Long Night notifications.
Other minor fixes. (祈雨, RPG World, Too Technical)
Questions – Answers
Some of you use the bug-report form to suggest features and ask questions. We can’t reply through the form, so we’ll answer them here.
Q: I really need a UI panel showing the contracts I've accepted. I loaded a save from several days ago and can't remember what I picked. (Soulrift)
A: Complete the basic controls tutorial in the top-left corner, and the contracts panel will appear.
Q: I started a new playthrough on a small island, and there seems to be no way to reach the mainland. (Lastzro)
A: Please send a save or the map seed. I haven't been able to reproduce this issue.
Q: There are too many weather penalties for ranged attacks. A snowstorm, a long night, and wind — shooting becomes impossible! :) (oltopetish)
A: This is intended. Some weather conditions affect ranged units more strongly.
Thank you for the reports, saves, screenshots, and suggestions! Keep them coming through the in-game report button or Discord!