Thrive: Heavy Lies The Crown News

Greetings fair Nysians,

Our February update is almost here!

We’re thrilled to announce that our next update is exclusively available right now to our Discord community ahead of public release. If you’re interested in checking out all the new additions and accessing it early, you can get all the details by joining our official Discord server.

We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to the Thrive community for their invaluable feedback on our update during last month’s early preview weekend, as well as for your incredible support since we launched Early Access. Your time and input are greatly appreciated and a massive help in bringing our game to life. We’ll be posting more comprehensive blog notes when the update goes live next week, but we’re excited to reveal that we’ve added a new Influence System, Decorative Buildings, plus:

Changes:

• Improved wall functionality (movement and destruction)
  
• Improved Wyrmaxa (patrols, attacks and defense)
  
• Fix for conquered Provinces becoming neutral again
  

Known Issues (Fixes in Progress)

• Missing translations from Influence System
  
• Loading into Co-Op - only the host can see the players names
  
• Some minor visual issues
  

We will have more to share in the very near future, so stay tuned for exciting updates. You do not want to miss out!

Now is your time. This is your land. Long may you reign, and long may you thrive.

Chat with us on Discord about your own journey as you play with friends or through the campaign! If you’d like to stay updated with all future developments, be sure to follow us on:

Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown Website - Official Website
X/Twitter - Follow us @thrivehltc
Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

Find out more about PlaySide Publishing on its official website

To learn more about Zugalu Entertainment, please visit its official website

Greetings fair Nysians,

As part of our Early Access roadmap, our latest update is available now!

We also wanted to say a special thank you to the Thrive community in our Discord who have taken the time to be a part of our save and load build testing this week, and to everyone for your support throughout Early Access so far. Your time, and feedback has been truly invaluable in helping us bring our vision for the game to life.

Now is the perfect time for you and your friends to jump in and defend Nysamor together, and experience the quality of life improvements in Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown!

Added:

• Hired militia units for early-game defense
  
• Citizen revolts
  
• Optimizations to the Save/Load system to reduce time taken for each action
  
• Ability to hover on town to display town name
  
• New road rendering system for better performance
  
• Notification when the merchant arrives in town
  
• Notification for when a player creates a trade route with a different team in multiplayer mode

Fixed:

• The defeat screen allowing players to go back to main menu and can no longer continue the game
  
• How happiness items are displayed in the UI
  
• Edicts not activating correctly when loading a save
  
• Missing translations for ‘progress’ text during construction of buildings
  
• Benevolent Quarry graphics
  
• Progress text on Construction module when translated
  
• Units now face the proper direction when rioting, spread out more and move more as a group
  
• Removed unreachable resources from territory borders so villagers can farm those resources.
  
• Baked overworld road pathfinding to have more consistent shorter paths
  
• Translations on Onboarding ‘One Off’ Item displays
  
• Translations on Caravans ToolTip
  
• Texture issues with the building ground decals
  
• Improvements to overworld road pathfinding
  
• Building loading system
  
• Deleting Bridges not updating navigation map
  
• Military unit names not appearing in tooltip on multi military unit UI
  
• Military hotkey UI to show the proper hotkeys
  
• Localisation of narrative event rewards
  
• Localisation of secondary onboarding objective titles (such as the ones triggered by fires and disease)
  
• Missing information from Bevevolent/Tyrannical classes in stats panel
  
• Issues with Tome of Knowledge and Stats panel extending off-screen in 16:10 aspect ratio
  
• Bug where a storage would display a negative amount
  
• Caravan farmers no longer stuck at loading 9/10
  
• 'Caravans' info panel no longer fails to localize in any language in the 'Resource bar' in the top left UI
  
• Cinematic Audio settings
  
• Resource flag AOI and highlights
  
• Z & X keys overriding modified squad controls
  
• Onboarding objective display cut off in 16:10 aspect ratio
  
• Caravan hot key buttons
  
• Crash when host crashes/leaves and a client saves
  
• Win/loss display, and scoreboard
  
• Switching language from Chinese to English leaves blank boxes for revolt warning
  
• Caravan or Military Hotkeys
  
• 'Ctrl+C' not functioning in-game correctly to deploy the 'Caravan'
  
• Z & X Hotkeys Conflicting with each other
  
• Dead units remaining as icons in Barracks
  
• Thralls not using happiness goods
  
• Issue when camera pans over mountains above the cloud height locking the camera above the clouds
  
• Military units no longer get stuck in the center of the map

[h3]Revolts and Riots[/h3]

If the Happiness level of a class of citizens is below a certain threshold for an extended period of time and they do not emigrate or die, the people will find ways to make their voices heard. If 20 or more individuals of the same class are discontent there is now a chance that they may begin to Revolt and eventually Riot.

Revolt Penalties (per citizen class) default: under 45 happiness

• 25% Penalty on Provincial Tax Income (cumulative, per-class)
  
• Associated jobs of that citizen class are ‘Locked’ (citizen cannot be fired)
  
• Locked job slots suffer a 50% Production penalty

Riot Penalties default: under 30 happiness
All Revolt penalties plus:

• Citizens of that class will take to the streets in a large crowd, yelling and waving torches and pitchforks
  
• They will start outside the keep or a random building if there is no keep. After a short gathering period they will move on to start targeting specific buildings
  
• There will be a chance to set targeted buildings on fire. Mainly production buildings and buildings of higher classes.
  
• Thralls have a chance to spawn aggressive units(grimrot) that will attack structures.

Stopping a Revolt
To stop a Revolt, the player can complete an event, or raise happiness back up to safe levels through the provision of Needs, structures, and other means. Once the Needs have been met, the raging population will be satisfied and life returns to normal.

Thrall Rebellions
Unlike the other classes, the Thrall class under the heel of a Tyrant are ready and willing to resort to extreme violence to regain their freedom. When this class ends up in a Revolt they will begin to spawn hostile units that will attack structures, as well as your own military units. The only way to quell these groups is through direct force and fulfilling their needs.

[h3]Hired Militia[/h3]
Before a player gains access to more reliable combat units, they have no way to protect themselves in the event of an attack. To tackle this problem, players are now able to temporarily hire citizens into a militia, aimed at dealing with the incursion.

Units will be hired through the keep in groups of “10” except for the scout as an individual. With a limit of 3 contracts out at time. There will be a 1 day delay in re-upping a contract if one is cancelled. Contracts will cost “x” amount of gold initially and will have a continuous fee per day to be active. If you run out of money and can't pay the contracts are cancelled. If units within the “10” die but not the entirety of the group then they will respawn slowly over time. If the group is wiped out completely the contract is cancelled. These units do not require food to sustain life.

Militia Unit Types

Militia Bowman (Sling or Bow)
Capable of weak ranged attacks. They have a slightly lower range than a Bowman, and inflict a paltry amount of damage in comparison.
Militia Spearman (Spear/Pitchfork)
The standard rank-and-file militia, these fighters lack much of the punch of a higher quality spearmen, but should be able to at least hold off attackers for a brief time.
Scout (Knife)
The weakest overall combat unit, the Scout has a simple purpose: Move faster than anyone else, locate potential threats, and get back to safety. See below.
The Scout
The weakest overall combat unit, the Scout has a simple purpose: Move faster than anyone else, locate potential threats, and get back to safety.

—

We will have more to share in the very near future, so stay tuned for exciting updates. You do not want to miss out! Now is your time. This is your land. Long may you reign, and long may you thrive.

Chat with us on Discord about your own journey as you play through the campaign! If you’d like to stay updated with all future developments, be sure to follow us on:

Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown Website - Official Website
X/Twitter - Follow us @thrivehltc
Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

Find out more about PlaySide Publishing on its official website

To learn more about Zugalu Entertainment, please visit its official website

Greetings rulers - and any travellers passing by that plan to visit the kingdoms of Nysamor!

For a limited time only, you can purchase Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown at 25% off in the Steam Winter Sale now until January 2nd 2025.


Immerse yourself in the lore behind Thrive: Heavy Lies The Crown which is rich and full of mystery. The characters, the provinces and world bring depth into our medieval city builder, where every decision you make defines the rule of your kingdom. There is no wrong path, only your path, your rule.

Does a Benevolent leadership of goodwill, hope and prosperity call to you? Or perhaps as a Tyrannical ruler you’ll take pleasure in exploitation and torture. Will you rule alone, or with up to four friends?

Plus, if you’re looking for players to join a Co-Op or PvP game, join our Discord community and post in our LFG channels.

If you’d like to stay updated with all future developments, be sure to follow us on:
Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown Website - Official Website
X/Twitter - Follow us @thrivehltc
Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel
Find out more about PlaySide Publishing on its official website.
To learn more about Zugalu Entertainment, please visit its official website.

Greetings fair Nysians,

From our entire team, we wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season! The year isn’t quite over yet - so we’re releasing a update packed with significant quality of life improvements, bug fixes and enhancements to Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown.

In your feedback across our Discord and Steam forums, you requested for us to add Edge Scrolling, to span across your provinces with ease. We're excited to confirm this is now available, as well as a complete rework of our vegetation system! Here are the details of everything we’ve released as part of our December update:

Added:

• Edge Scrolling - Found in the setting and off by defaut
  
• Vegetation System improvements (see comprehensive breakdown below)

Fixed:

• Fixed hunters lodge workers trying to hunt outside their territory
  
• Updated tutorial steps for a better experience
  
• Fixed Wyramxa outpost units not targeting player units
  
• Fixed military unit patrol order
  
• Fixed issue with caravans bunching up or setting stuck in towns blocking trade routes
  
• Updated battle report after destroying towns and outposts to be clearer
  
• Fixed bug with wells that stop water production after being rebuilt

Changed:

• Optimized unit pathfinding and terrain detection
  
• Added estimated completion time to building production UI
  
• Updated camera far clip plane to be based off zoom height
  
• Optimized save data
  
• Updated lighting systems

Vegetation System Overview
As the ruler of Nysamor, your duty is to take care of your people. Each province within the kingdom has slightly different resource availability, but regardless of the type of leadership you choose to lead your civilians, providing them with access to the proper resources, open grassland and plains to ensure flat buildable land is ideal for agriculture that will sustain everyone.

Current New

Our team has been hard at work overhauling the vegetation within each of the biomes, and we're excited to highlight the significant improvements and enhancements that this change has had on game performance, frame rate, lighting, and visuals of Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown:

• Improved Gameplay Performance
  
  • Smoother gameplay with most PCs seeing a 10-30% improvement in FPS over the old system, representing a notable percentage increase in performance.
• Increased Grass and Vegetation Density
  
  • Significantly increased the density of grass and vegetation, enhancing visuals without impacting performance on both low- and high-end systems.
• Road Building Enhancements
  
  • Roads now automatically remove grass when being built, improving the overall appearance and functionality.
• Enhanced Lighting Effects
  
  • This update includes visual improvements to lighting for a more polished look.
• Optimized Rendering Performance at 4K
  
  • Rendering performance is significantly improved, ensuring smoother visuals at higher resolutions.
• Improved Vegetation Rendering
  
  • New vegetation assets have streamlined rendering code, paving the way for easier future improvements.
• Ultra Shadows Upgrade
  
  • Ultra shadow settings now use 4K shadows, resulting in much cleaner and more detailed shadow rendering.
• Better Visuals on Low-End PCs
  
  • Low-end PCs using lower graphics quality settings retain more visual fidelity, minimizing the trade-off between performance and quality.

Current New

Now is your time. This is your land. Your kingdom. Your war to win. Long may you reign, and long may you thrive.

Chat with us on Discord about your own journey as you play through the campaign! If you’d like to stay updated with all future developments, be sure to follow us on:

Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown Website - Official Website
X/Twitter - Follow us @thrivehltc
Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

Find out more about PlaySide Publishing on its official website

To learn more about Zugalu Entertainment, please visit its official website

Greetings! We’ve loved seeing you all playing and taking over the world of Nysamor throughout our first month of Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown’s Early Access. As we continue to support the game post launch, we’ve crafted a development roadmap to guide you through what lies ahead.

Your feedback, suggestions and bug reports have been invaluable since we launched, and have helped us shape our plans on the road to full launch in just a few months’ time! We wanted to begin by expressing how grateful we are for your commitment to ensure your kingdom’s survival. The team has worked tirelessly to deliver the best possible experience in Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown and there is plenty to look forward to!



This week, our December update includes the ability to use edge scrolling to span across your provinces with ease - a highly requested feature from the community, and much more.

Amongst the list above, we’re most excited to deliver some major beats in the new year:

February:

• Influence System
  
  • A new feature that limits the amount of provinces, alliances and military units from the start of a new game. This acts like a currency that is spent to acquire more of these items; but once they’re lost and destroyed, the currency returns. When a new game is started, you’ll begin the game with a small amount of influence, which scales with your province's population or upgrade level of your Keep. You’ll never lose influence bonuses even if your population decreases.
    
• Militia
  
  • Before a player gains access to more reliable combat units, they have no way to protect themselves in the event of an attack. To tackle this problem, players should be able to temporarily hire citizens into a militia, aimed at dealing with the incursion. New unit types will include:
    
    • Bowman (sling or arrow)
      
    • Spearman (spear or pitchfork)
      
    • Scout (knife)
• Riots
  
  • If the Happiness level of a class of citizens is below a certain threshold for an extended period of time and they do not emigrate or die, the people will find ways to make their voices heard. Immediately after a Revolt begins, citizens of that class will take to the streets in a large crowd, yelling and waving torches and pitchforks. Property damage and penalties on Provincial Tax Income can occur!
    

• Decorative Buildings
  
  • Including the ability for players to decorate their cities in a unique way, regardless of what level you’re at - neutral, Benevolent or Tyrannical. Giving your structures a new look also combats pollution and improves the beautification of the province, which impacts civilian happiness and the bonus output of the structures themselves.
    

April:

• Improved Wyrmaxa
  
  • Wyrmaxia are the hostile, antagonistic communities of Nysamor that want you off their land and focus on destroying your town. We’ve made tweaks to the intelligence of the patrols, attacks and defences during battle that will improve the combat with each encounter.
• Wall Functionality
  
  • With every wall you place to defend your province in battle, you’ll be able to move them with ease, plus you’ll see an improved destruction animation each time the enemy damages them.
    

These releases are only a part of what's to come - alongside them, we’ll continuously work on hotfixes and improvements to the game. This is a journey we embarked on together and we couldn't have asked for better rulers to lead us to prosperity. From all of us, thank you for your ongoing support!

Trust your instincts, and there’s no doubt that you’ll Thrive.

If you’d like to stay updated with all future developments, be sure to follow us on:

Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown Website - Official Website
Discord - Join our Discord community
X/Twitter - Follow us @thrivehltc
Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

Find out more about PlaySide Publishing on its official website.

To learn more about Zugalu Entertainment, please visit its official website.