Glorious Companions News

Hello there, Companions!



We continue with improvements to the core aspects of Glorious Companions. We know that weird behaviors and actions taken by the computer-controlled opponents may instantly put you out of immersion and that’s why we’ve decided to focus on reworking the AI system early on.

We’d love to hear your feedback on how the new AI plays, along with reports of any bugs or odd situations you’ve encountered during your playthroughs. You can either post those on the Steam forums or on our Discord server.

So, without further ado let’s get to changes in the game’s newest version.


The biggest problem with our old approach was the behavior of the enemy captains, which is crucial for balanced and challenging gameplay - we wanted the captains to focus on surviving the battles. The AI will now move all its units in a tight formation and will no longer leave the poor slow Gunners behind right from the get-go. We’ve also spent a lot of time deciding how to value different actions in varied scenarios, for example enemy units shouldn’t decide as often to move out of melee combat zones (which in turn caused them to receive opportunity attacks) or rotate ‘randomly’. The AI has also learned how to utilize covers and will use them to safely reload their guns when needed.

We’ve also made a lot of groundwork for the AI to use abilities which should come in the near future.


We’ve connected the world map clock with battles and thus you won’t have to play through whole battles at night time. Each turn will last an hour (of the game’s time) and you’ll see a smooth daytime transition at the beginning of your round.

This feature also allowed us to customize each battle location’s lighting settings more easily and give them a more distinct look.




You might also notice that your party will move slower through rough terrain from now on. Keep that in mind while traversing mountains or water. In the future (with World Map 2.0 update) this will get more sophisticated but it’ll do as it is for now.


The previous Scale and Plate armors weren’t on par with the other ones and so we’ve decided to remake them from scratch. Check out the new Valrenay looks below:



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If you notice anything report-worthy please let us know about the issue in the Bug Reports forums board.

• Remade Scale and Plate Armors.
  
• Added dynamic lighting (day & night system) in battle maps.
  

• Fixed a bug with the party size not updating in the world map tooltips.
  
• Fixed a bug with recruited Gunners displaying the beard/hair from the playable character’s customizable options.
  

• Battle AI: AI will now move in a formation instead of leaving the slowest units behind.
  
• Battle AI: AI will react to flanking.
  
• Battle AI: AI Captain will now play much safer, will try to stay in the second line of formation.
  
• Battle AI: AI will favor positions behind covers when their enemy has a lot of ranged units.
  
• Battle AI: Ranged units will no longer favor walking into the enemy melee range.
  
• Battle AI: Fixed AI doing random rotations.
  
• Cities will value different item types differently from now on. (small tweak before the fully fledged resource / region based system)
  
• Movement speed on the world map will now depend on the terrain you’re traversing.
  

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We’re working on a pretty big update that might take us some time to finish (don’t expect it to arrive in 2 weeks time) but we’re really excited for it. You might need a friend to play through it, if you catch our drift ;) Along with the new update we plan to release a new (and much better) trailer for the game. So… stay tuned for what’s coming!

Also here’s a couple of work in progress images from the upcoming Scarre race:

Hello there, Companions!



We’re back with the first content update for Glorious Companions - the Captain Update. We’ve mostly focused on strengthening the game’s core mechanic and the main goal of the battle, which is to kill the enemy team’s captain before yours dies.

IMPORTANT: Save files from the previous version won’t work on the newest update. Unfortunately you’ll have to start a new playthrough, although the changes we’ve made would impact the game’s beginning and its balance so it’d be wise to start with a new company anyhow.


We’ve always wanted the captains to feel like something more than just ordinary soldiers, and thus each captain will now possess a special ability that’ll improve their survivability (as long as your allies are still alive) as well as provide an active skill enabling some clutch plays. Keep in mind though that using your Captain’s Call’s active part will make you vulnerable afterwards, as the passive part won’t work while the ability is on cooldown.




At last you won’t have to decide between only fighting bandits or wolves, as we’ve added a bunch of new neutral opponents for you to challenge and, most importantly, have some easier targets to chase in the early game. We’ve also changed the Wolf model so say goodbye to the good ol’ low-poly one.
In the future updates you can expect the neutral parties to gain their own cool Captain Calls to differentiate them even more.




We’ve added the first batch of firearms, weapons mainly utilized by the Valrenay men and women, although their technology has already spread throughout the continent and a sight of a Scarre Raider with a musket in his hand isn’t exactly that shocking to the common folk. In the future the Valrenay units will gain even more abilities that can utilize these weapons to their fullest potential, but you can already give it a try in a regular battle.




Based on the feedback we’ve received from the community we decided to add a new panel window where you’ll be able to find grouped information on all your units, how much do you have to pay them and how much food they eat. It’ll also come in handy when you can’t recall in which city you’ve left one of your companions to train a new ability.




The food system is finally here and you may now stress about your companions starving to death (or more likely leaving the company as it’ll get them quite unhappy). Coupled with this change we’ve also added Happiness meters to your companions so you can closely monitor their mood.

Extremely content companions will gain additional EXP boosts while the unhappy companions will suffer adequate penalties.


The character customization got a little more interesting with the addition of different hair options for the player characters. As mentioned on launch, the customization system is something that we’ll keep expanding on incrementally as we progress with the Early Access.

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If you notice anything report-worthy please let us know about the issue in the Bug Reports forums board.

• Added a new type of abilities available only for the Captain units, the so called Captain Calls:
  
• Last Stand - Engineer / Wise,
  
• Berserk Rush - Mercenary / Wise,
  
• Covering Fire - Gunner / Tough.
  
  
• Added new neutral enemies:
  
• Bears and Bear Cubs,
  
• Stags and Does,
  
• Foxes,
  
• Boars,
  
• New Wolf models.
  
  
• Implemented the first few firearm weapons.
  
• Implemented a Company Overview window panel.
  
• Implemented the Food System.
  
• Implemented Companion Happiness.
  
• Added different hair options for Valrenay Player Characters.
  

• Fixed a bug connected to having only captain in your company and the weekly upkeep window showing up.
  
• Fixed the notification panel on the world map.
  
• Fixed a bug where you could take back a companion after training even when you didn’t have space in your company.
  
• Fixed Engineer’s shield socket position.
  

• Added keyboard shortcuts for controlling the game’s speed on the world map (1, 2 and 3)
  
• Added an option to delete save files directly in game.
  
• Added a popup window when a companion leaves your party.
  
• Tweaked captain generation for the NPC parties.
  
• We’re now displaying special status effects under the units’ HP bars.
  
• Added a popup window after a companion died in battle.
  
• Animals can no longer parry melee attacks. So can’t your fists.
  

Hello there, Companions!



With the weekend in sight we’ve decided to hotfix a few other bugs that have been missed previously as well as implement another batch of QoL tweaks. Hopefully you’ll be able to play without any game breaking interruptions! Meanwhile we’re returning to work on the next week’s content update which you don’t want to miss. Stay tuned!

If you notice anything report-worthy please let us know about the issue in the Bug Reports forums board.

• Fixed a bunch of bugs with the unit equipment screen and item management.
  
• Fixed a bug with the battle result screen, where switching to the loot tab quickly would cancel all the companion animations.
  
• Fixed the incorrect battles won value in the “it’s time to pay your dues” interaction.
  
• Fixed the equipment tab of the unit screen not refreshing on stat level up.
  
• Fixed a bug with units not firing death animation when killed with the second hit of the Blade Furry ability.
  

• Added a popup message about a completed quest in the city screen
  (NOTE: You might be getting some of them retroactively on your old save files - it’s not a bug).
• Changed the name of a neutral creature “Wolf” to “Grey Wolf” for clarity.
  
• Added Action Points icon in the equipment tab of the unit screen next to the armor’s AP penalty value for clarity.
  
• Added Dodge/Block/Parry skill values to the equipment tab of the unit screen.
  
• Made the Captain’s crown icon show above all other health bars.
  
• Slightly increased the font size in the tutorial.
  
• Added the number of units currently in training to the Manage button in character training facilities.
  

Hello there, Companions!



Today we’re pushing the very first update that should address all the game breaking bugs and issues you have reported so far. We’ve included a bunch of small QoL changes and we’ve already started working on a bigger update that should come next week.

We’d like to send a big Thank You to all the people who have already bought the game and are supporting us with positive feedback, suggestions and bug reports. We’re very aware that the game is still in an early stage of development and would like to say that it’s totally fine to wait with purchasing GC until it’s more fleshed out / a more complete experience. Nonetheless, we’re very happy to see that a number of players are already having fun with the game in its current state and believe in the final product we’ve envisioned.

• Fixed a bug with the forever-alive tooltips.
  
• Fixed a bug with battles not loading after teaching the Agile captain an ability.
  
• Fixed a bug with not being able to select the captain unit in the unit panel.
  
• Fixed a bug with swapping Unit Stash Right Hand item with the Right Hand item.
  
• Fixed a bug with langs not loading in the character creation screen.
  
• Fixed the lang NOQUESTS not showing properly.
  
• Fixed long names overflowing in the Tavern screen.
  
• Fixed a bug with Rotating costing AP even when rotating to the current direction.
  
• Fixed a bug with NPC Lords sometimes giving you the same quest twice.
  
• Fixed the level and exp UI elements in battles.
  
• Fixed a rare bug with overlapping music from the world map in battle.
  

• Tweaked the world map HUD “hitboxes” to hopefully be less annoying when scrolling.
  
• Disabled the camera following player projectiles.
  
• Using all of your unit's AP will now switch to the next one.
  
• Lords now acknowledge you’ve completed quests for them.
  
• Tweaked the camera’s tilting in battle so it works smoothly when zooming in and out.
  
• Added Volume options. (!)
  
• Added a tutorial popup explaining Quests after the first one is taken.
  

We’ve disabled the auto update of the langs database feature at the game’s startup for now since a number of users have reported issues with missing strings (the large traffic at the release might’ve caused this). Instead all the strings will now be always included in the build itself.

• Expanding on the Options menu with rebindable input settings and some graphical settings.
  
• A bunch of new abilities
  
• New neutral enemies
  
• Food System
  
• ...and more!
  

We can’t believe it’s been almost 10 years since the first time the initial idea for Glorious Companions sprinkled into our minds. We had been dabbling in pen-and-paper RPGs for a while and we thought it’d be really cool to one day create a video game, where we could share the vision for all the mechanics and the world of Navaroth with a broader audience. At that time, the game was really tiny. 2D avatars moving around the board in an awkward and sluggish way and yet we were so happy to our ideas come alive. This is why we have stuck with game development as it’s a very satisfying medium to share your vision.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWTGDnHtST8
Today marks a very special day. We’re releasing Glorious Companions in Early Access - the first milestone out of many others to come. While the day in itself is special, we want to stay humble and treat it as a beginning of something new, not a finale to the whole journey. We’ve got amazing plans for this game and we’d love to invite you all to get on that ride with us.

Here’s a rough content & feature plan for the Early Access. There are all the planned features that we want to complete before moving out of Early Access. Keep in mind that depending on the game’s financial success, some of those features and content might be out faster and some of them might take a little bit longer to roll out.





Valrenay Abilities Updates
New Weapon Types Updates
AI Updates
Hair Style Options for Player Characters
Bug Fixes & QoL tweaks
Balance Patches



Scarres Fully Playable Race Update
Camping System
World Map 2.0 (region based, roads, simulated trading, new environment assets)
Settlement Management and Sieges Update
Procedural Generation of Battle Locations (based on their position on the world map)
Anderia Fully Playable Race Update
Trigoths Fully Playable Race Update
Politics & World Map AI Update
Peer-2-Peer Multiplayer Update
Mercenary Faction Update
Ancient Guardians Uprising Update

The first few months are going to lay a lot of groundwork for the future and we want to take that time to see what the community thinks of the game and the direction you guys would like to see it go. Ultimately, our aim is to create something that people can legitimately have fun with for a long time, and we’re not afraid of criticism of our ideas. That’s why for now we’re committed to the following 6 months plan while the further future is something we intend to craft with your feedback in mind.