Hi everyone! This is our first milestone update of 2021. I consider this more of a consolidation patch - it involves mostly tweaks on existing features, performance improvements and bug fixing. These changes are also partly in preparation for our next two milestones which are going to be quite big and will introduce some significant progression changes to how the game is played. Expect the first of those two milestones in late March.
Merged Regions
Probably the most noticeable change here is that we've done away with regions separated into different maps. A world may still be composed of multiple regions of different biomes but they are all now accessible within one single map.
We had to rework some of our Villager AI to make this performant. The downside here is that the Villagers now lost some of their flexibility in decision-making. There are still some further rework needed for the Villagers to operate better but these will be introduced alongside the Villager Progression update.
This change also does further reduce the necessity of having such a detailed hex World Map so it is likely that it will be replaced by a simpler minimap in the future.
We'll slowly further increase map sizes as we continue improving performance.
Customization Options
We've introduced some additional gameplay setting options to our Custom Games. Changes include:
- instead of selecting number of regions, choose between different Map Sizes. The Map Size dictates the maximum number of regions, starting factions and starting villages
- specify the starting faction's Faction Type, Name and VIllages
- set the Biome of the map's different regions
- modify various difficulty settings such as Cooldown Speed, Mana Costs, Ability Charges, Generated Threat and Villager Migration
- choose Sandbox mode if the player does not want the game to end when there are no more villagers
Updated and New Scenarios
Given the new flexibility of Custom, we feel that the current scenarios require some changes to make them offer unique challenges that you can't encounter from Custom. What we've decided to do is to tweak some scenarios to use custom loadouts and/or have unique win conditions that force players to try different aspects and playstyles available in the game. These unique win conditions should also help us identify what's currently lacking in the player's repertoire - ideally we want the player to be able to accomplish these goals using different approaches. If there is a lack of options, we can introduce tweaks in upcoming updates.
More Monsters and Monster Respawn
We've added 3 new monsters: Scorpion, Harpy and a third secret one. We have also reworked regional fauna list so that different biomes can each have their own possible sets of monster types. Monsters may now also respawn in caves and monster lairs throughout a playthrough.
New Abilities
The following new abilities have been added:
1. Remove Buff - A new miscellaneous action that allows the player to remove any positive Trait of a character.
2. Remove Flaw - A new miscellaneous action that allows the player to remove any negative Trait of a character.
3. Expel - Can be performed on a Villager belonging to a Faction allied with the player. The target will get kicked out of the Faction.
4. Heal - A new miscellaneous action that fully heals the target character.
5. Release - A new miscellaneous action that removes Restrained, Ensnared, Frozen and Enslaved from the target character.
6. Protection - A new spell which applies the new Protection status on non-hostile targets within a small Area. Characters with Protection receive reduced damage.
7. Join Faction - Available on all Cultists. This instructs them to switch to a different valid Major Faction.
Tweaks
- Scheme cooldown is now different depending on the Scheme that was triggered.
- Slightly reduced Night Zombie HP.
- Migrating villagers will more likely spawn away from player structures that are at the edge of the map.
- Quantity of resource piles are also now displayed in their nameplates.
- If Brainwash is successful, the target's Needs will all be fully replenished.
- Characters now very rarely flirt with their husbands or wives.
- Temporary: Monsters now do not spawn in wilderness - they only spawn inside caves and other special structures.
- Divine and Nature Worship will usually only be considered as crimes if the Faction Type is Demon Cult.
- Villagers will take back objects that they assumed was stolen from them.
- Elves no longer like to eat Rats and Ratmen.
- Slightly reduced some plague transmission rates.
- Reduced Plague spell charges to just 1 and slightly increased its Mana Cost.
- Tend Farm action is now removed. Farms can now be harvested daily.
- Villagers can now usually only obtain resources and food when the appropriate resource structure has been built. This is a pre-setup for future Villager Progression updates.
- Sharing Intel that a Wild Monster or Undead ate or butchered a Villager may now trigger Exterminate Quests.
- Cultist trait is no longer considered as a Flaw. Cleanse Flaw should no longer remove the Cultist trait.
- Added a Skip Advanced Tutorial switch in the Settings Menu to disable optional tutorial quests related to new Demonic Structures and other gameplay elements.
- Clicking on Pause button while game is paused will unpause the game.
Bug Fixes
- [FIXED] Booby Trap Character renamed to Booby Trap as it does not fit inside the right click menu.
- [FIXED] Trolls are not eating their prisoners.
- [FIXED] Character selector is misaligned when the selected Villager is sleeping on a bed.
- [FIXED] Bone Golems attack prisoners.
- [FIXED] A Faction sometimes considers a Worship as a crime even though it is still their own Worship ideology.
- [FIXED] Monsters that turn into zombie have the wrong zombie sprites.
- [FIXED] Snatch action is still available on characters that belong to the player's Faction.
- [FIXED] Some characters get stuck when trying to attack doors or walls.
- [FIXED] Wrong crime assumptions can be used as blackmail material.
- [FIXED] Lycanthropes may target and kill their original forms.
- [FIXED] Some characters have a strange glow.
- [FIXED] Some Plagued characters are missing their Plagued particle effects.
- [FIXED] Gibberish text are sometimes seen in Successor tooltips.
- [FIXED] Some instances of failed Preach action logs it incorrectly as if it were successful.