Lorenzo il Magnifico News

Howdy folks!

It's that time of the year again, when the weather gets cold (at least here in the northern hemisphere) and Steam, by relentlessly asking me to nominate games for "The Steam Awards", reminds me once again that since starting working in the videogame industry more than 10 years ago, the time I actually spend playing videogames is getting closer and closer to zero with each passing year. So when I opened up the nominations page, not having played anything released in 2021, there was only one title I could nominate without hesitation, and that's "Factorio" in the "LABOR OF LOVE AWARD" category.

But...Having done that for the last two years at least, I changed my mind at the last moment and decided to be consciously lame for once and nominate the game that, for me, takes the meaning of "LABOR OF LOVE" to a whole new and personal level, "Lorenzo Il Magnifico".



So yeah, I just thought I would let you know because if I have to be lame, I want to score at least 9 out of 10.

Cheers,
Cody

Howdy folks!
Due to an unfortunate series of minor reworks in the last update, our leaders lost their covid passport and our AIs, being very strict refused to let them in their courts resulting in a tedious "UnavailableLeader" game-breaking bug.

All is good now though; booster shot done, passport ok and everything should be back to normal!

Thanks to all the people that pointed out the nasty bug, have a nice one everybody!

Cody

Hey there people! Cody here.
Apparently just like the Red October, we activated our caterpillar a while back and went silent out of everyone's sonars.

Ok not the best analogy for a game like Lorenzo, long story short, we are back with a quick and secondary update; just small things that you'll figure out by yourself with a quick game :)

Yes, the hard AI isn't here yet and this hunts my nights but, I'm confident we'll get it done before Half-Life 3 publication!

Cody

Good news everybody,

Lorenzo hits version 1.1 today, so let's review what's in it:

• Fixed some major cases where the Experimental AI crashed and/or froze while thinking.
  
• Added a new kind of AI, called "Experimental #2", for you people to try out (more on this later).
  
• The Religion track was moved from the church to the UI, where it's more readable. Also, the Cathedral dome is now bigger and allows the excommunication icons to be seen more clearly.
  
• Updated the priority of messages that appear under the log, so it should be clearer why some actions are unavailable according to the game state.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused buildings highlights to disappear after the first game.
  
• Minor fixes on glitches, animations timings, typos, etc.
  

[h2]What's with the new AI?[/h2]
The "Experimental #2" AI is yet another approach to solve the many issues the current AI has. While we are still collecting data about #1, thus figuring out how to enhance its decision-making (especially when it comes to Leaders), we decided to release this other synthetic brain to see what you people think.
Experimental #2 has a high disregard for Religion and Vatican but a higher chance to take advantage of combos, thus making it a diabolical (or at least heretical) personality overall.
And yep, you can guess it from the name, it's still experimental, so expect some bumps along the way. Speaking of which, don't miss the chance to send User Reports if you see it play dumb or make weird actions instead of obvious, more favorable options.

[h2]About the city design[/h2]
As many of you probably will notice, we took the chance to slightly change proportions to make information more readable. Towers now occupy a bigger portion of the screen and the other buildings have been moved as much as possible to accommodate a bigger space.

We are really doing our best to satisfy as much feedback as possible, so thank you for your patience. Here's to hoping we'll be able to fiddle around even more in the future.

That's it for now. Let us know what you think!
And as always, take care.

(PSST! Shoutout to our top player Reggie for having spotted a last-minute bug before publication! The gameplay scene in your resolution should be back to normal.ːsteamhappyː)

Hey folks,

as the migration on the new Unity version went smooth and with no significant issues, we are finally ready to release the update on the stable branch, thus making it available for everyone.

Moreover, the issue when starting 4-players multiplayer matches should be fixed now. If you are still experiencing problems, however, reach out and we'll help as best as we can!

[h2]What about the AI?[/h2]
The hard "Experimental" AI will be available for everyone, too. But meanwhile, we keep fiddling with it, so expect some other upgrade in the future.

[h2]I was on Experimental branch, what do I do?[/h2]
If you opted-in on the experimental branch, you may want to go back to the Stable version to enjoy all new updates. Just do the same passages you did previously:
From your Steam Library, right-click onto Lorenzo il Magnifico, then choose "Properties...":

Then from the dropdown in the "Betas" tab, pick "None":

The game should then update automatically (if not, you can force it by restarting Steam). Once it's done, the label "[experimental]" should disappear from the game name in the leftmost list of your games.

As always, thank you for your patience and your support. Lorenzo wouldn't be the same without your precious feedback.
Stay safe out there!