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Changelog v0.87 – September 11, 2023
Changelog v0.87
Notable additions
Adaptive simultaneous turns
We have implemented a new system for handling playing simultaneously in online multiplayer. This replaces the old “everyone always plays at the same time” approach. The basic thought is to try and allow as many players to play simultaneously as possible, but avoid situations where players would benefit by doing something as fast as possible (for example: frantically buying troops to defend your town before the enemy player clicks to attack). In a broad sense, human players are grouped together in as few groups as possible, each group sharing a turn (playing at the same time). Here is an overview of how we group players together:
If two players are on the same team (playing co-op) then they always get to play at the same time
If two players both have indicated that they want to be in a “non-aggression pact” (see below) then they can play at the same time
If two players don’t have any wielders with enough movement to reach each other’s wielders, towns or settlements then they can play at the same time
The last point here involves us doing a type of pathfinding search from players’ wielders in order to see which parts of the map they can reach. If this “reach” doesn’t overlap for two players then we can let them play at the same time. This “reach” ignores pickups and goes through portals, but it does stop at neutral armies on the map. It is also re-calculated when a player buys a new wielder or a neutral army is defeated, so it is possible for you to be playing your turn but then suddenly get “kicked out” and have to complete your turn later on in the round. When this happens you will see an “Enemy nearby” notification on the screen.
We want to be clear that we can’t give 100% guarantees that players will not be able to attack each other while sharing a turn because of the amount of things in the game that can affect a wielder’s movement. We take a little extra movement into account, but there can always be situations where a wielder levels up their March skill, visits two Cozy Taverns, and picks up some magic boots on the same turn, giving them vastly more movement than at the start of the turn. The option is still there to either start the game without simultaneous turns or for the host to toggle it on or off during the game.
AI teams still always take their turns one at a time at the end of the round.
Non-aggression pacts
When playing with simultaneous turns on there is an icon on other human players’ banners in the turn queue. This is used to handle “non-aggression pacts” between players. Click it to toggle whether you are “friendly” or not towards another player. If two players both have indicated that they want to be “friendly” to each other then they can play at the same time, even if their wielders are close by. Be warned though, there is nothing to stop a player from backstabbing someone that they are in a pact with! Attacking wielders or towns, pillaging, claiming mines etc, all works as normal even if two players are in a pact, although the pact is broken if that happens and the game will recalculate which players get to play at the same time.
Notable bug fixes
Weakling AI wielders should no longer approach your base.
The bug where AI would go back and forth between two portals has been fixed.
Teleporting to a portal blocked by a wielder should no longer send you to undesirable locations.
Troop slots should no longer auto-fill after battle.
Exception soft-locks when attempting siege battles should no longer occur
Attacking troops stopping abruptly while going through a zone of control should no longer occur.
The most frequent cause that lead to the adventure AI getting stuck on its turn has been resolved
Adventure
Show icons and tooltips on skills in “select one” popup
Use “select one” popup when retrieving a single skill as reward from a map entity instead of animated text next to wielder
Updated hostile join menu with an additional mass move button and clearer info for when discarding troops
Added tip to marketplace menu
Added a divider to visited map entity tooltips to separate title from rewards
Updated wielder and map entity selection markers to use yellow color if standing next to a building with no interaction cost
Close kingdom menus when panning world or opening a building "mini-menu"
Fixed bug where error text wasn't shown when trying to upgrade troops but there is no available slot
Changed Viljas's starting skill to creation
Modified Commander skill pool
Updated hostile tooltips to look like hostile town tooltips
Added inventory highlights when hovering gear in the artifact market
Added "walk closer" hint to hostiles with Unknown difficulty
Fixed issue where you could not claim the last settlement in the first loth campaign map
Fixed issue with stop signs not updating the pathfinder immediately sometimes
Fixed issue with wielder sometimes getting stuck after building a building or a wall
Fixed issue with troop stacks being merged together automatically after battles
Fixed exception being thrown when attacking a walled town with a full defending army and garrison
Added VFX when receiving Risen troops
Added tooltip to large artifact image in artifact market
Centered artifact name in pickup tooltips
Fixed bug where the game becomes stuck in a soft lock when a player initiates an attack against an enemy but gets interrupted midway due to another enemy's zone of control
Update layout on artifact pickup tooltips
(Hopefully) Fixed wielders spawning with all their artifacts stacked on top of each other in the inventory
Added 40 new random events for Loth and a few new event types for all factions
Improved tutorials for wielder-sheet and for Beacons of Power
Fixed bug where troops would seemingly “disappear” when unequipping artifacts that give bonus Command
Battle
The battle queue should now correctly display troop order based on initiative from temporary effects
Hide status from battle troop tooltips (to save space)
Fixed issue with game soft-locking if Adult Crawler dies while underground
Fixed issues with targeting magic-immune troops with teleportation spells
Fixed ending up with un closeable codex menu if battle completes while it is open
Added ability to battle troop tooltips
Updated size of hellbreath/roar attack and ability vfx to match the size of the actual impact
Fixed not adding spell scaling to the spell preview for poison cloud
Multi-target attacks now have attack previews
Common
Map Editor
Enabled placing magic barriers and keys
Fixed issue with troop sizes reverting back to their former max value when larger stack sizes were turned on in the options menu
Enable spawning town portals using trigger effects
Allow drawing decorations underwater to make it look like a flooded area
Made large settlements block 3x2 tiles instead of 3x3
Added being able to force a player to belong to a certain team/alliance
Made it possible to force a player’s faction, name, and AI setting independently
Modding
Multiplayer
You should now be able to replace any team with a human or ai when loading a multiplayer game
On disconnect, you now get the option to try to reconnect or leave the game through a menu
Reduced amount of traffic sent during an online game, so there should be fewer disconnects
AI - Adventure
Fixed various bugs related to the AI getting stuck when recruiting
Fixed an issue that resulted in the AI exhausting movement moving in and out of the same portal pair
Commander troop recruitment tweaked to reduce exaggerated disband
Commander troop recruitment is better at returning home to “just upgrade troops”
Commanders are better at recruiting when locked in by hostiles
Commanders are better at continuing to explore if they have things to do, to avoid returning home as often without an actual reason.
Make sure the AI is better at determining “easy” breakout regions to explore early
Fixed various issues with mule commanders not actually giving troops to their target commander
Improved muling behavior
Tweaked stack size scoring when putting a value on troops
Increased likelihood that commanders avoid paths that pose a threat
Tweaked threat assessment slightly to make the AI braver
Tweaked offensive scoring to increase the chance of making attacks less suicidal
Tweaked defense scoring to trigger more often, i.e. an enemy is getting close to your towns
Optimizations to reduce wasteful calculations
Try to predict some option is going to win and throw away the rest even before their scores are calculated
Updated how regions are built, in an attempt to make them larger, and more natural and to avoid small isolated pockets
Various assumption changes and tweaks related to region changes
AI - Battle
Disallow melee attacks for low aggression defenders as long as no troop are in enemy attack range
Allow saving essence as long as no troop is in enemy attack range
Disallow using Quicken spell on troop that can only reach targets too strong
Allow Repel spell to target ranged troops
Allow Chain of Lightning spell to target less than three targets if worth enough
Increase the chance of ice bolt spell if target can't be killed but is worth enough
Will no longer waste Justice spell on troops of very low value
Will no longer cast Onslaught spell only on troops that activate after the enemy
Will no longer consider Tempest a high-prio spell for low-aggression defenders
Fixed bug causing Burst of Strength spell to always be valid for low aggression defenders
AI will no longer think it can stop ranged attacks by standing next to troops with Stealthy trait
Will no longer apply a bonus to defenders for moving to a higher elevation when in enemy attack range
Auto battle AI will be better at holding back player troops when fighting neutrals
AI will be better at holding back melee troops with defensive roles when having very low aggression
Faey Ragers is now much better at deciding when to use their Magic Immunity ability
Random Map Generator
Misc
Added popup messages for when the town portal scroll fails to execute due to a lack of towns or space
The game lobby will now remember previously selected custom maps, not just official ones
Fixed “Generate map” button in the lobby not deactivating it as it should
Added the ability to load an online save as a hotseat match from the load online save menu.
Added the ability to load an offline save as an online match from the load save menu
Images in savegames are now a snapshot of the minimap and don't show the full map anymore
Known Issues
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