V0.9.79 – Bug Fixes & Quality of Life

This first post-Early Access update (discounting the emergency fix for issues affecting Linux and Mac) contains mostly Bug Fixes and User Interface improvements. It’s been a great experience launching the Early Access, and I’m truly humbled and actually a bit surprised at the reception the game has gotten. It’s been almost naught but intelligent, patient, encouraging and insightful feedback and bug reports. I hope to do this justice by delivering quality EA updates and eventually a great finished game.

The patch notes for 0.9.79 can be found on the forums or on Steam, so I won’t repeat them here, but instead focus on what is coming. There are two main areas that improvements will be focused on during the coming updates (apart from addressing the known issues and any new bugs that pop up):

The ‘New Player Experience’:

There is little to no help for a new player when it comes to figuring out the UI, the goal of the game and what the mechanics are. Especially as it is not always obvious if a mechanic is fully, partially or not at all implemented.

A Steam user, AlguLoD, has been awesome enough to make a guide on Steam which goes through the fundamentals: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=886192013.

I’ve been adding tool tips and “NYI” tags (which indicate not-implemented mechanics and/or content) in some places for this latest update, and will continue to do so. But this is of course not enough, and there needs to be a proper tutorial-like experience for new players. Rest assured, this is very high on the priority list, but for this update I’ve had to focus on various game-breaking and/or very annoying issues.

To make the game more approachable while waiting for the tutorial to be added, I’ll do my very best to get a video up soon where I go through the various elements of the user interface and how to play the game. I had hoped to have this ready by now, but the work of getting .79 ready took more time than expected.

Wizard Trait Mechanics:

There are a lot of traits that need work, and I’ll try to do a mix of small, gradual improvements across the board combined with focused, bigger improvements of specific traits.

The Warlock Dark Pact mechanics will be expanded, building on the work done in a recent update. The Favor gained from completing quests will be translated into various gifts. The various actions required to complete the quests will also have a bigger impact on how the various factions view the Warlock. The diplomatic landscape should reflect that most cultures are not particularly fond of blood sacrifice, holy sites being defiled and dark powers being fed morsels of arcane energy.

On that jolly note, I will end this update. The next you hear from me should be a Video update with some guidance on how to play the game.

V0.9.77+V0.9.76

Features/Content/UI:

• Tooltip added for battles fought during the previous turn on the world map, with a brief display of the sides and the result.
• Dark Pact details added to the Ruler panel in the Quests and Victory Conditions window. It shows the name and nature of the dark benefactor and the current favor and wrath stats.
• Beseech Dark Patron now generates a quest that when completed gives favor and reduces wrath. The quest objective is randomized but based on the type of dark benefactor. (note that the effects of Favor and Wrath are not yet implemented, but will be in a coming build).
• New Cheat actions: gain 10k gold, gain maximum mana (up to cap).
• Units can now be disbanded.
• When researching Worship, the follower gained will have a religion which better fits the player faction traits: Demonic wizards will receive demon worshippers, warlocks with a religion-related dark pact will receive a follower of this religion.
• Distribution of religions in a city has been added. The break down can be seen on the City window, in the same panel as the Ruler and Notables are listed.
• Cultural affinity for various religions has been added. This is generated based on the cultural traits and spheres/power of the deity. These affinities are used when determining the religion of the inhabitants of a city and other relevant entities during world generation.
• Followers who have the Religious type can be sent to Proselytize their religion or cult in a city. The success chance (and risk of injury or worse) depends on the cultural affinity for the religion, various cultural traits and the attitude towards the character carrying out this task.
• Destroyed or routed units are now removed from the unit list during battles to make it easier to identify the remaining combatants.
• The leader of a site being attacked will now take command of the defending armies, if no other general is present.
• Further balance tweaking of damage calculations. Ranged attacks are now slightly stronger, and damage has been increased for most weapons – especially against armored opponents.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed Army General and Site Leader assignments not removing the character from their party.
• Fixed issue with < 0.9.76 save games not loading properly.
• Fixed some Ancient Evils being displayed without a space in their type in the Dark Pact summary.
• Fixed issue with Tyrannical taxes on a city sometimes giving less gold than intended.
• Fixed issue where conquering a city did not trigger the Conquest event/choice.
• Fixed issue where multiple battles in the same hex during a turn (and the previous for AI initiated battles), would be “stacked” in the same message, preventing the player from watching the battle report for any but the first.
• The text in the battle report window now moves to the top when clicking next round after scrolling the text of the current round.
• Fixed issue with battles where they sometimes continued past one side retreating, with the winning side having unit lose morale despite no opponents remaining and suffering no damage.
• Fixed next party button not reacting to clicks on the entire area of the button.
• Fixed selection of recruitment sites after the first not highlighting the selected site in the list (despite being selected).
• Fixed issue where many unit types incorrectly had 1 hit point per member. This also required some rebalancing of damage calculation, with further balance passes to come.

• Fixed issue where cultural traits were not always being applied correctly to generated cultural unit types.
• Added Hit Point display to Army window. Previously only the Military window showed it.
• Fixed issue with flickering tool tips if the sources were very close.
• Fixed issue where predefined cultures and religions (ie demons, elementals, demons worship) were re-created on game load, causing them improperly be treated as randomly generated cultures/religions and not equal to the predefined ones. While schisms within demon worship would be a cool feature, having an automatic schism every time you load the game was unintended (and caused erratic event and task resolution).
• Added more context-specific tool tips.

V0.9.75 – Bug Fixes, Army UI

A small patch with mostly bug fixes, but also with two UI additions related to armies: Renaming of armies and tool tips indicating move cost and moves remaining when moving the mouse over the map with an army selected.

UI

• The Army window now allows renaming armies.
• Added tool tips showing movement cost for the selected army on hex mouse-over.

Misc

• Volunteer regiments generated by city events are now 25% of the default regiment strength.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue with toggles on the Follower window
• Fixed issue with Dungeon window party sending, where you could get wounded or recovering followers to join if there was a valid party member.
• Fixed an issue where it was possible to get the same party sent to multiple dungeons at once through clever shenanigans
• Fixed cycling through selectables by clicking on a hex multiple times being broken
• Fixed bind/recruitment time for Giant Albino Alligators to be 5 instead of -1
• Fixed an issue with worker unassignment not processing correctly
• Follower death now always gives a notificaton
• Fixed an issue with empty parties lingering in various parts of the game
• Fixed an issue where dungeon exploration always gave loot as if it was success. A failure can give loot, but it will be lower.
• Fixed an issue with context-specific data (e.g. hire cost) lingering in the character window
• Fixed an issue with destroyed Wizard Towers causing a hang of turn processing
• Fixed an issue where hired followers caused a hang when travel time was being calculated for them
• Fixed undead units using incorrect upkeep costs

V0.9.74 -Military & Army UI, Attitude Mechanics, Ledger

New build is up soon. There was another slew of bugs reported, a lot of which were fixed, but there are still some remaining. But the main focus this time is on UI:

• A new Unit Transfer Window, so you have better control over your armies (having only “Split in Half” and “Merge” was pretty weird).
• Custom filters on units in the Military Window, so you hide/show specific units.
• Show Ledger in the Economy Window, which gives a break down of income and expenditure for each resource, so you can see where all your food and gold is going.
• Various bug fixes and quality of life fixes.

On the feature/mechanics side there is the addition of Attitude, which controls how various entities view other entities. This is separate from diplomacy, describing attitudes on a cultural and social level, rather than a geopolitical. For example, a culture may have Attitude: Abhor towards Demons. Factions belonging to this culture will probably not respond positively to being sent a Demonic ambassador, even if they are otherwise on decent terms with the faction sending the character. This system will be expanded to influence how individual characters view each other and have additional effects on diplomacy, trade, events, and so forth.

A new spell has been added allowing Necromancers to turn their followers into the Undead. This may result in the beneficient running away or dying, but will heal and give experience if it succeeds. It may not be the best thing to use on your diplomats, though, as most cultures are not particularly fond of the living dead.

The full patch notes:

UI

• Custom filtering of units in the Military window has been added. Use “Hide/Unhide” on the units to control whether they are shown. If the “Hidden” filter is on, they are always shown (which allows you to unhide).
• A window has been added which allows transfering units been armies in the same hex. This is now also used to merge armies, replacing the previous action button. With a valid army selected, click the “Transfer Units” button on the world map to access this.
• Recruitment no longer resets and scrolls the list in the Military window.
• Improved the battle results message text. Instead of the verbose log-like text, a summary of casualties and kills per unit is now shown.
• First iteration of a Ledger added in the Economy window, which displays a breakdown of income and expenditure for each resource.

Mechanics

• Cultures and Factions now have Attitudes. These control how the entity feels about other cultures, races and important concepts. A faction will fall back to using the attitudes from it’s main culture, if it has any. These attitude are generated based on cultural traits, alignment, social structure, philosophy, etc.
• Factions with Attitude: Hostile or worse towards the culture or race of an emissary will reject them.

Magic

• When casting a spell the results are no longer given in a notification that has to be clicked, but in the floating message window.
• A new spell, Gift of Unlife, has been added. It turns one of your followers into an Undead. But be careful, the ritual may result in the more permanent death or the beneficient may decide to flee your employ. If it does succeed, the follower is healed of all damage and gains some experience.

Misc.

• Enable Cheating is now disabled when restarting or loading a game.
• Wizard Tower upgrade cost tweaked.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue with outposts not extending the control zone of a faction.
• Fixed resource site (farms, mines, etc.) graphics not appearing when loading a game.
• Fixed an issue with Temple building types being locked to the deities of the first game played in a session – which meant Temples to deities from a completely different game world could be built.
• Fixed an issue with Garrison armies fleeing and turning into super-fast ghost armies with no units if their city or fortress was conquered while they were absent.
• Fixed a world generation bug related to province generation.
• Fixed a few buggy costs that were off by a factor 100.
• Fixed some overflowing text in the outliner.
• Added missing back and close buttons on Game Setup, Game Settings and Wizard Selection windows.
• Fixed an issue with filters in the Military Window not always being applied.

v0.9.73 – Bug Fixes and Usability Improvements

A new build is in the pipes, with a lot of bug fixes and usability improvements. The market window has had a lot of bug fixes, now also has tool tips with additional info on buy/sell and a slider to accompany the amount entry field. There is also a “Cancel Task” button for followers, so you can get them to stop what they’re doing without having to give them a new task. Here’s a repeat of the release notes with the full list of tweaks and fixes:

UI

• Colors in drop downs tweaked to increase readability.
• Tool tips added to the economy window for extended info on buy/sell (reason for not being able, total price, etc).
• Slider added to the economy window amount field.
• The “activity” text in the outliner is now shorter, to avoid text overflowing.
• The message when construction cannot begin has been improved to more clearly describe why.
• The character window now has a “Cancel Task” button.

Misc

• An action to split an army into two has been added.
• Non-player armies can no longer be inspected.
• Improved faction start location seeding to greatly reduce the chance of adjacent start positions for major factions.
• Generals now receive XP when participating in battles.

Bug Fixes

• Parties on “resend mode” no longer create a new expedition on every revisit to a dungeon.
• Fixed issue related to cancelling a dungeon expedition.
• Fixed issue related to merging armies.
• Fixed issue related to the (resource) selection being invisibly lost in the economy window.
• Fixed issue preventing sale of resources if the total price was less than the faction treasury. Ie you could not sell anything worth more than your current amount of gold.
• Fixed outliner not updating recruitment progress for many unit types.
• Fixed world generation crash related to knightly orders and not being able to find suitable chapter house locations.
• Fixed world generation crash related to duplicate forest names.
• Fixed an issue where increasing the supply of a resource dramatically on the world market caused prices to become unstable and grow
  exponentially.
• Fixed inventory and character list tool tips being placed behind the window.
• Fixed issue with filters in the recruitment window not being applied.
• Fixed issue with construction times in the outliner being very incorrect.
• Fixed issue with wizard tower upgrades not unlocking new expansion slots.
• Fixed issue with Find Mana Node quest not progressing.
• Fixed Custom Construct Artillery weapons not being usable at range and being usable in melee.
• Fixed Custom Construct Beam weapons not being usable at range. They are now usable at range and in melee.
• Fixed outliner not updating on generals being appointed.
• Fixed clicks on actions in the left lower section not triggering on subsequent clicks until a different action had been clicked.
• Fixed issue with quest window showing completed quests as in progress.

v0.9.72 – Diplomacy, AI, Bug Fixes

Sorry for the lack of frequent updates on the blog. I’ve been quite busy getting ready for Early Access on Steam, so while I’ve kept the various progress posts on the forums up-to-date, the release notes didn’t made their way to the blog for 0.9.71.

Speaking of Early Access, the regulars among you may remember the tentative date of February 15th. I didn’t quite hit that one, but all the approvals and stuff from Valve have been run and passed, so the remaining tiny little formality that needs to be in order is an offline one. Hopefully within the next few days I’ll hit the Early Access Release button, and it’ll be in the store for those of you who want to join.

Which is yet another opportunity for me to stress that this Early Access is not for those who want to play an “almost-finished” version of the game. The game is still in development, it has bugs, it has missing features and content, stuff will change, etc. This isn’t to speak badly of my game and convince you all to stay away.

I really hope you will join the Early Access, giving feedback, thoughts and/or ideas, or even just to support the project while you wait for the final release. But I want it to happen in good faith, with expectations aligned and no one feeling they’ve been tricked into buying an incomplete product.

Anyways, enough of the boring stuff. There’s a new build heading to Steam for the beta testers, and the patch notes can be found either on Steam or the forums. Here are the non-bugfix contents of 0.9.71+72:

Diplomacy

• Declare War action added, and the state of being at war is tracked for all factions explicitly (was previously an aspect of the relations stat).
• Non-aggression Pact added. Violating this will have a negative impact on a faction’s “global” diplomatic reputation, in addition to the usual bilateral diplomatic effects.
• Trade Pact added. This has an initial cost based on traits,research, and faction type. It gives a small constant (not necessarily equal) amount of income to both parties.
• You can no longer send emissaries to independent realms that you are at war with or who are hostile to you.
• Independent realms are now more consistent and immediate in declaring war on you if you attack them.
• A tab has been added to the Diplomacy Window which gives an overview of diplomatic stats and current agreements.
• Diplomatic reputation added as a faction stat. Breaking agreements will reduce it. Keeping agreements will improve it over time.
• Relations with minor factions will begin if an emissary is sent – even if the minor had no previous knowledge of the sending faction.
• The text for minor factions requesting an emissary for an extended stay has been adjusted to recognize if you have already sent the emissary.

Map

• Tooltips added for hex specials and strategic resources.
• Tooltips added for armies.
• Map resource icons have had the shader code reworked to remove some glitches and make more of the icon visible inside the frame.
• Pyramids now have a full-size map icon which is centered in the hex. (the previous icon was small and in the lower part of the hex, potentially overlapping any resource icon).
• Non-player armies now have the owner shown in the tool tip.
• Mana Node icons are now aligned along the top of a hex (to avoid overlapping resource icons). Tool tips have also been added for them.

Misc

• There are now tooltips during wizard customization showing research prerequisites
• During wizard customization the trait/research description will change based on mouse over, rather than selection.
• Armies will now prefer retreating to the hex they moved from prior to a battle. If this is not possible, the most accessible and unoccupied hex will be chosen.
• You can now choose to keep playing after winning or losing the game. All victory and loss conditions will be ignored after this.
• There are now tooltips for the top row of buttons.
• In order for army to enter a hex which is fortified or settled, all units must be amphibious or flying, or the general must have the Amphibious Assault skill
• Social structure/government type Simple Feudal has been removed.
• You can now organize characters into parties in order to more easily and intuitively assign several characters to a task. This has been adapted from the dungeon expedition logic, and the dungeon window has changed accordingly. Characters can be grouped into a party via the relevant Party buttons on the right side of the Followers window, or by shift-clicking in the list of characters.
• “Add unit” cheat action added for testing purposes. It adds a random unit to the selected army.

AI

• When the AI has moved an army to respond to an enemy siege, it will now immediately attack the besieging force, instead of sitting around waiting for an assault on the site.
• The AI no longer considers exhausted armies a valid asset for responding to attacks or executing offensive/expansion plans.
• Characters assigned to a party will offer suggestions for tasks or act independently.
• Followers will now make suggestions for assignments if left idle.
• Followers can now be given the freedom to choose their assignments, if the player prefers not to micromanage them.

UI

• Double-clicking in the Character window when in party-selection mode will now add a character to the open party.
• Idle Characters waiting for their party members to recover, meet up, or similar will show as ‘Waiting for party’ and not ‘Idle’.
• A party which is recuperating is now shown as such in the Dungeon Window.

V0.9.70 – Tooltips, Map Icons and Bug Fixes

This build has some new and improved tool tips for various parts of the game. I will continue adding more in subsequent patches, as well adding more icons and links. Speaking of icons, the map now has icons for various strategic resources instead of the (mysterious) ‘circled M’. And as usual some bug fixes, including some pretty nasty save game bugs, which caused omission of important world data when saving. Here are some screenshots of the icons and tool tips.

Next I am going to be working on the character AI, making non-player characters more active and giving the player controlled characters a kind of agency. This will allow your followers to request assignment to certain tasks or the freedom to act independently. Not only can you use this to avoid micro-management – it also works to create a deeper and more interesting game world and story, where the characters have goals and motivations.

If we take Mayor Nzaich from the above screenshot, the personality traits Lusty and Greedy should be more than just modifiers to some skill and event rolls. They should drive his choice of actions. Will he choose to focus on what is best for his city or will he spend his time acting on his more base impulses?

There are a couple of steps needed to enable this. I have done a first pass at reworking traits and challenge mechanics – creating a more reusable framework for creating assignments and events. Next up is the basic character AI, setting up some motivations and goals for every character in the game, and tying this into the character relationship engine which already exists. Finally the range of actions and assignments needs to be expanded to allow characters to actually act upon their motivations.

If all goes well, the next patch will see your idle followers ask for permission to set off in search of adventure, to keep order in your realm or maybe to seek and out and vanquish your enemies.

That is probably also going to be one of the last patches before Early Access, where I hope more people will join in and give their feedback and ideas.