Diplomacy is Not an Option News

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.

This year, from June 23 to July 7, you can get "Diplomacy is not an option" with a 20% discount.

It is time to put your strategist skills to the ultimate test. Become a medieval feudal lord, forced to hold the defense against countless hostile hordes. Gather resources, manage the economy, develop your city, and don't forget about your army. Because the enemy will come to destroy everything you've built for he knows no mercy. Your task is to survive at all costs.

Thank you for your time. Enjoy the Summer Sales!

Greetings!
For the last month and a half our team has been working on a major update, and today it finally saw the light of day. In this article we will briefly tell you what was added to the game, and what was improved and fixed. So, let's start!

Not everyone was satisfied with the Endless Mode, as no version of it could be completed. The game, one way or another, ended in defeat. For some of you, it didn't really matter whether it happened on the first or the hundredth day. Here comes the solution to the problem:

1. Meet the Challenge Mode.
   [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
   Like in other game modes, you have to build a settlement and hold the defense against superior enemy forces. Except now you'll get a chance to win.
   
   We've prepared 13 new missions, divided into 4 thematic sections: 'Epic Battles', 'Marathon', 'Piece of Cake' and 'What the...'
   
   'Epic Battles' challenges you to repel a single, but very powerful enemy attack.
   
   'Marathon' section contains maps designed for long walkthroughs.
   
   'Piece of Cake' is designed specifically for beginners. Here you'll find challenges that you can pass without even trying. As a nice bonus - in one of the missions you can become an overpowered mage, single-handedly destroying crowds of enemies with spells.
   
   'What the...' - is an experimental section. It is not easy to say what exactly unites the challenges that fall into it. Perhaps the most correct would be to characterize these missions as unusual, requiring a special, unusual approach to completion.
   
   
2. Performance has increased significantly. We've improved the logic of the system of movement of troops and civilians (optimized algorithms for determining the path, finding targets, etc.). In other words, the game will be less demanding on computing power when processing the movement of crowds, both enemy, and player-controlled.
   
   
3. The long-awaited Photo Mode is here. If you like to make screenshots with picturesque medieval views from Diplomacy is Not an Option or make videos about battles of incredible scale - this is an innovation for you. All the UI elements can now be hidden by pressing the "F11" key.
   
   
4. Many of you have asked us to simplify micromanagement related to Marketplace. Thus, we've added a "Repeat the last order" button to the Marketplace interface. It will hopefully help you to manage your resources more efficiently and save you time and nerves as well.
   
   
5. By popular demand to simplify army micromanagement, we added the Mass recruitment option. Enter the barracks or engineers guild, press Shift, and select the troops you want. Voila - you're recruiting 5 units at a time, assuming you have enough resources.
   
   
6. We completely reworked the mechanics of the order queue. From now on you have the ability to queue up Move, Attack, and Patrol orders. However, we should warn you that the visual component of the order queue is temporarily disabled. We are working on it and will try to implement it in the game with the next update.
   
   
7. You have been complaining about the fact that it is difficult to aim ballistae or catapults at enemy siege machines. Well, it was a bug associated with the 'Attack the strongest target' priority. We fixed it. Now it will be much easier to shoot enemy catapults, even if they are covered from the front by numerous enemy infantry.
   
   
8. 'Mass Healing' spell strengthened. With the June update, it not only heals multiple friendly units, but also temporarily puts on them the effect of regeneration (for 25 seconds troops get a few health points).
   
   
9. 'Enhanced foundations' research now increases the durability of all buildings that share the 'Civilian building' armor type, not only the durability of Houses. This is done to provide more strategic value to the research.
   
   
10. Another innovation to save your time. If there is a problem with one of your buildings, which is informed by the indicator icon on the right side of the screen, clicking on this icon not only focuses the camera on the building, but also selects it.
    
    
11. A small, but, from our point of view, essential change was made in Endless mode. Now it will be even more interesting to compete with yourself, and the Personal record table will fill up faster. After the June update, you don't need to finish the game for your result to show up. The best attempt will appear automatically after each save, and in addition, updated every 24 hours.
    
    
12. When we added the ability to categorize buildings (such as "under construction", "damaged") to Group management, we missed something - buildings that are being upgraded. Thanks to your feedback, we've noticed this oversight, and in this update we've fixed it. The buildings that are being upgraded can now be grouped together.
    

Finally, about some of the lesser things. After reading your feedback, we found that not everyone understands why Diplomacy is Not an Option has a working radius for extractive buildings (like Lumbermilll). Since this is an important gameplay element, we've added a step to the Tutorial introducing you to working radius mechanics. We also worked on textures, which led to some visual improvements, and we fixed the 'Hold' order for siege machines under your control. In addition, artificial intelligence became smarter in some cases.

That's all for today. As always, a complete list of changes is attached below.

[expand]
Update 0.9.49

Features

• New Challenge Mode: 13 new different missions to complete;
  
• Photo mode that removes all the elements of the in-game UI. (We've also bound 'F11' hotkey for this action);
  
• Complete rework of the order queue mechanics. Now it works as designed (though it still lacks some visual polishing);
  
• Mass hiring feature: hire 5 troops of the same type at once by holding Shift and clicking on the troop's icon in the Barracks or in the Engineer guild;
  
• From now on clicking on some indicators at the right panel not only focuses the camera on the building but also selects it;
  
• 'Repeat the last order' option added to the Market's interface.
  

General

• Performance significantly increased;
  
• Additional Tutorial step;
  
• 'Mass healing' gives a temporary regeneration effect, apart from instant healing;
  
• 'Advanced foundation' research affects all the buildings with 'civilian building' armor type (not only Houses of all levels).
  

Improvements

• Personal records table of the Endless mode updates daily and after each save. The result appears automatically, players no longer need to lose the game to see their best attempts;
  
• Buildings that are being upgraded became a separate category that can be managed with Group control tools;
  
• 'Hold' order works perfectly for siege machines as well;
  
• Mouse click on the mini-map while having a spell-casting cursor now focuses camera instead of casting a spell;
  
• Significant AI improvement;
  
• Balance improvements (including some cost rebalancing);
  
• Multiple visual improvements (e.g. added animation for siege machines wheels).
  

Bug Fixes

• 'Attack the strongest target' priority for siege machines fixed. Targeting enemy siege machines using your ballistae or catapults became easier even when dealing with a large army;
  
• Bug that prevented homeless people from settling in even if there were free Houses;
  
• Incorrect work of 'Workers can't reach the building' indicating icon. In several cases the indicating icon appeared after the actual issue with builders had been already solved;
  
• Incorrect work of the 'Pause' indication icon (when dealing with the building that contains ill workers);
  
• Trebuchets' navigation bug that caused them to rotate after reaching a destination point instead of standing still;
  
• 'Population numbers go wild' bug. (sudden and unpredictable changes of your population on the stats panel);
  
• Bug that refunds the full cost of a damaged building after player destroyed it;
  
• Rare bug that caused enemy attacking wave to stuck;
  
• Bug that caused ill people to automatically become assigned to the Hospital in the Tutorial;
  
• Multiple UI and UX fixes and improvements;
  
• Multiple localization fixes.
  

[/expand]
We continue to work on Diplomacy is Not an Option. Thank you so much for being with us!

Door 407 Team

Greetings. Today is the day to talk about the further development of Diplomacy is Not an Option.

In the recent announcement we've mentioned the 'Single wave' mode. In this mode, you will have to survive a single, but extremely powerful strike. As we continue to work on this mode, we decided to add the Unique Missions section to the game. Over time, it will include not only maps for the Single Wave mode, but much more. We want to diversify mission objectives and victory conditions to compensate for the short duration of the campaign, as we understand that for some players it is important to win. (And one can't win in Endless mode). As for Campaign itself, let us remind you that it will be fully available once the game leaves Early Access. We will not be adding story missions piecemeal. We won't be adding story missions piecemeal to keep the narration intact.

In the post that came before the last announcement we promised you a photo mode. Many of you have asked for this feature, so it'll definitely be added to Diplomacy is Not an Option soon. The photo mode completely removes all the UI elements, so that nothing will distract you from picturesque views on screenshots.

We continue to work on the visibility of what is happening on the screen to make life easier for newcomers and anyone who has not yet figured out the game basics. The Tutorial will soon include more steps; also we will create a special panel with detailed economic statistics.

Increasing performance is always one of our main goals. We expect the upcoming improvement of the crowd's motion processing to make the frame rate slightly higher.

We've received a significant number of complaints about difficulties and broken balance in the late game. For example, when all the iron and stone is mined, resource management becomes a frustrating task. This problem will be solved; you are not going to do any more inappropriate micromanagement with Market anymore. Both, Market and University are now being revised. Sooner or later we will provide you with some new branches of improvements. Many have noted the ability to hire a large number of Trebuchetes as a balance failure. Yet we came up with a solution: it will soon require more than 1 of your citizens to produce any siege machine, greatly limiting the number of troops in the late game.

The "Shift" key will finally be implemented in queued commands control, as it is in many of our favorite strategy games. Based on your feedback, we are also fixing input issues (both, keyboard, and mouse).

For a dessert, a purely visual improvement: the appearance of mountains. Right now our team is remodeling them, so that the terrain on the map becomes more diverse and interesting.

That's not all we are currently working on, and it's unlikely that all the described features will be there in the nearest update. However, since we're getting requests about the roadmap, we felt it right to share with you what we're up to. Thank you very much for your attention.

- Stuck (spinning around) workers fixed
- Two major crashes fixed

Diplomacy is Not an Option was released in Early Access on February 9th. Before going on a short vacation a month ago, we've been actively supporting the game, releasing hotfixes and patches. Lately we shared our plans for the future. As for today, we want to reveal the details about what changed in Diplomacy is Not an Option with the latest update. Besides fixing bugs and solving a lot of crash cases, we've prepared tons of features and improvements. But first things first.

To begin with, an exceptional visual metamorphosis happened to the game. It became possible thanks to the new render core implementation (the technology known as Universal Render Pipeline). Instead of talking about the wonders of modern graphics processing, we'll show you how this technical solution affects the perception of what is happening on the screen.
From now on the grass is greener and the light is brighter (metaphorically), or, to put it directly, the grass grows thicker and seems much prettier. The light actually has not changed, but we made the shadows more believable. Lakes and rivers shine in new colours. The sharpness of image increased by an order of magnitude, which is especially noticeable when camera zooms in on objects on the map, no matter buildings or people. Naturally, there may be legitimate concerns: whether all this pleasant, yet redundant glamour affects the performance. The answer is yes. The performance of the game is increased. Of course we added antialiasing, rendering, and other graphical options to the settings menu. So those, for example, who will be distracted by our beautiful updated grass, can turn it off. With that, let's move on to the second package of changes related with endless mode.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We created four new endless mode versions. The first one was designed according to a lot of user requests. It's called 'Troublesome valley', and it is a bit harder than 'Born to chill' but easier than 'Labyrinth of Pain'. There is more. Previously, versions of Endless Mode differed from each other solely by their difficulty. You always fought against rebellious peasants, and the key factors were the amount of resources and, obviously, the number of enemies. In the May update we offer you two endless mode versions in which you play against royal forces and another one with zombies as your main enemy. We also experimented a little with landscapes. In 'Of lakes and hulks', besides common troubles, players will have to deal with the problem of rugged terrain. In addition to a brief description, users will see an infographic that gives an impression of the size of the procedurally generated map and of enemy types they are to fight. The personal record also shows up, indicating how many days the player managed to survive in a particular endless mode version. For certain, this will raise your sporting interest.


There is also a whole list of other improvements. In this article, we dwell only on the main ones, focusing on the changes, which fans of 'Diplomacy is Not an Option' especially asked for. It happened occasionally that players could not realize which workers were attached to the selected building. From now on, this problem is a matter of the past. After selecting a building, all the workers assigned to it will be highlighted.

We took a responsible approach to the burdens of newcomers to the genre as well. To help them get acclimated, we've provided the loading screen with useful tips on basic mechanics.

We also simplified economic planning by adding information on the amount of production and consumption for each type of resource.


Requests from more experienced players were also not left unheeded. Previously, you had to spend a lot of time placing troops on defensive structures. With the May update, you'll be able to deploy squads on multiple walls at once with a single mouse click.

In addition, you can place Rebel catapults under your control on Towers. We also improved Tavern and Workshop: from now on the strength of their effects depends on the number of workers assigned to them.
Changes also affected troop management: "Hold" order now works as a mode that can be toggled on or off. This innovation significantly eases the relocation of forces from one front to another, and also allows you to temporarily "forget" about the problems in this or that section of your lines of defense. In case you did miss enemy units, a notification would appear for each enemy strike. Pressing Enter will automatically focus camera on the location of the attack.

This concludes the story of the May update. After all, we want to say that we keep on supporting and refining the game. Adjusting the balance, improving the interface, polishing the visual part, so the big update after the team vacation is just the first step. There is a lot more to be made before "Diplomacy is Not an Option" leaves Early Access.

Yours, dev team.

Version 0.9.39 patch note:

[expand]
[h3]Features[/h3]

• Major graphics and performance improvements due to the new render core implementation
  
• New graphics settings to change (SSAO, Anti-aliasing, fidelityfx super resolution, image sharpening - render scale setting)
  
• 4 new endless mode versions: now you can choose to fight peasants, royal army, zombies and lake hulks in the endless modes. Various difficulty layouts has been added.
  
• Workers highlighting added (you can see all the workers attached to the selected building)
  
• Improved troop deployment: you'll be able to place soldiers on multiple walls at once with a single mouse click
  
• 'Loading screen' tips added
  
• Improved interface: you can tell from info-graphics about the attributes of endless mode versions; personal record shows up.
  

[h3]General[/h3]

• Detailed resource extraction statistics added
  
• From now on rebel catapults can be placed on Towers
  
• From now on Tavern and Workshop work as intended to. In particular: their effects depend on number of workers; Workshop speeds up foresters)
  
• Camera can be quickly focused on the location of the attack by clicking on the poped-up notification or by pressing [Enter] hotkey
  
• Major group control improvement
  
• Hold order works as a mode (can be toggled on/off)
  

[h3]Improvements[/h3]

• 'Close' option added to the Tutorial pop-up screen
  
• Improved map generation (no more isolated isles, no more overlaying for different resource extraction points)
  
• Orientate camera to the North works more smoothly and rotates faster. Also, a hotkey [\] has been added for this action.
  
• UX improvements (double-click, cursor)
  
• Minor UI fixes
  
• Visual improvements
  
• Sound system improvements
  
• Selection system improvements
  
• Hotkey sytem improvements (Alt can be reassigned; right Ctrl, Shift, Alt work just fine)
  
• Localization improvements
  
• Order response improvements
  
• Balance improvements (E.G. Some of 2nd and 3rd tier buildings cost increased; farms and lumbermill productivity reduced; Between a rock and a hard place medium difficulty decreased; Feat of the resistance's late game became harder)
  
• From now on, training troops management is available via the mouse button holding
  

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• Impossible to win a mission bug (false wave counter)
  
• Negative wave timer bug
  
• 70% on loading screen freeze
  
• Inability to deploy troops on towers (especially wooden ones)
  
• Incorrect work of 'Some of your workers can't reach the building' indicator
  
• Cursor stuck when auto-placing walls (with the whole inability to build as a consequence)
  
• Workers aren't doing a thing after being cured from disease (didn't become free workers without a reason)
  
• After-match stats screen bug in endless modes (some waves didn't count before the fix)
  
• Incorrect 'Esc' key work on the Research screen
  
• No iron in 'Children of the revolution' and 'Between a rock and a hard place' missions
  
• Game crashes when building in certain spots
  
• Unexpected hunger amongst newcomers to the settlement bug
  
• Workers fear the enemy in a proper way (Unseen enemies don't frighten them anymore)
  
• The disappearance of arrow that reduces the number of buildings/ troops in selection
  
• Game freezes when saving to an existent slot
  
• Multiple crash fixes
  
• Indication system bugs (like false appearance of “No builders nearby”)
  
• Workers slow down after loading a game
  
• Construction menu glitch (spontaneous reset to the previous menu state)
  
• Sick people bug: (when they stand still instead of going to Hospital)
  

[/expand]