Empires and Tribes News

This hotfix improves the balancing of combat between different unit types and fixes some bugs of the current version.

- Fixed a bug that prevented the player from tearing down paths in savegames
- Fixed a bug in the training of the AI armies that caused the AI to build neither knights nor siege weapons. Knights are now only built by the AI of the highest difficulty level and siege weapons by the very hard and hard AI
- Fixed a bug that caused buildings to be built near the AI
- Fixed a bug that could cause the unit health display to not appear in the battle menu
- Fixed a bug that caused the unit health display in the battle menu to not rotate towards the player, making it hard to read
- Fixed a bug that could cause the icons of enemy armies to be incorrectly displayed at the bottom of the screen
- Fixed a bug that could cause units to be incorrectly rendered as LOD models in the building menu
- Balancing: Attack values and combat modifiers of the units have been adjusted. The advantages over other unit types are now more pronounced
- Fixed a bug that could lead to incorrect triggering of the inhabitants' sleep animation during the day
- Fixed a bug that could cause the display of knights' hit points in the combat menu to be incorrect
- Fixed a bug that could lead to incorrect position calculation, causing the AI's inhabitants to walk across the map

With this update, the charcoal burning plant will be integrated into the game as a new building. The charcoal burning plant produces coal as a new resource, which is needed in the forges and smelters for the production of copper and iron goods and weapons, thus expanding the goods cycle from the population level of the craftsmen. We have also integrated a new encyclopedia into the game, which can be consulted at any time in the game. Game mechanics, buildings, units and much more are explained here in interlinked articles. If you are still missing an article or two in the encyclopedia, you are welcome to let us know in the comments. Furthermore, the menus of the residential buildings now show all the inhabitants living in the building and explain their characteristics such as profession, happiness or personality type via tooltip. In addition to a new map for the free game, we have also integrated two new AI opponents and new functions for the map.

Your team from Empires and Tribes


- New resource added: Coal is now required in the forges and smelters for the production of copper and ironware
- New building added: Charcoal burning plant
- Added 7 new crafting recipes for the production and processing of coal
- New map added: Green Pastures
- Encyclopedia added
- Depth of field effect added
- The building menu now shows when production is at a standstill due to a missing resource
- Added mini tooltips for the names of all resources in the building menus
- Balancing: Archers in the towers now only have 80% of their firepower
- Added zoom function for the map
- Added 2 new AI opponents for the free game
- When mining resources, particles of the mined resource are now displayed
- In the menus of the residential buildings, the current residents are now displayed, further detailed information can be obtained by mouse-over via the icons
- The map can now be zoomed in and out
- Markers and texts can now be set on the map for better orientation
- Options in the menu for setting the cart drivers have been made a little clearer
- Revised display of unit values in the recruitment menu


- Fixed a bug that caused the crafting recipes of the iron smelter not to be displayed
- Fixed a bug that could lead to a glitch in the fire animation of burning buildings
- Fixed a bug that caused catapults and trebuchets to no longer deal damage to buildings after loading
- Fixed a bug that caused catapults to move to the position of the currently attacked building after loading instead of continuing to attack it
- Fixed a bug that could cause the walls of AI castles to be demolished after construction
- Fixed a bug that caused the banners to stop rendering when the player was near them
- Fixed a bug that could lead to a crash when loading old savegames
- Fixed a bug that could cause the player to stop taking damage in rare cases
- Fixed a bug that caused the age, affection and personality type of a resident to not be reset when a combat unit was disbanded
- Fixed a bug that caused the AI's roads to be torn down in the campaign

This update is the first of a series of improvements to the combat system. We have made some revisions to the mechanics of the colliders, to the player's combat animations and to the movement behavior of the units, which means that combat between the player and other units is now more coordinated. We have also revised the dodging behavior of all units. Villagers, for example, now dodge other units and the player if their pathfinding allows it. We have also reworked the function for building gates and towers, making it possible to place them more precisely on existing walls.
In addition to many bug fixes, we have also integrated a new map with 6 enemy principalities, as requested by you, which you can find in the selection of free maps.

Your Empires and Tribes Team



- Added new map for free play with six hostile AI opponents
- Added local avoidance for residents: Inhabitants now avoid other inhabitants
- Improved local avoidance for units
- Improved local avoidance between the player and other units
- Improved collision mechanics during combat for the player's weapons
- Revised combat animations for the player
- Added sprite animation that plays when an enemy unit is hit by the player
- Improved the wolves' collider
- Improved the player's collider: When attacked by enemy units, it now calculates more precisely whether and how the player was hit.
- Added a message that indicates when the system is low on memory
- Animals are no longer spawned near bridges at the start of the game
- Animals now look for a larger unbuilt area when escaping to prevent them from slipping through buildings after arriving at it
- The height of the grass is now slightly randomized in new game states
- Balancing: Archers now have 33% less firepower when attacking buildings
- Movement behavior of combat units on bridges improved
- Collider in the tavern reworked to make it easier to reach the bar
- Added a panel that displays the current task in the tutorial in the HUD
- Tool for placing towers and gates improved

- Fixed a bug that could lead to incorrect color selection of free inhabitants' clothing after loading
- Fixed a bug that could lead to enemy units not recognizing each other even though they were in the attack radius of each other
- Fixed a bug that caused animals to be pushed in the wrong direction when attacked by the player
- Fixed a bug that caused the axe, pickaxe and hammer to not deal damage to animals
- Updated the damage calculation of all weapons against animals
- Fixed a bug that caused an incorrect sound to be played when attacking without weapons
- Fixed a bug that caused the bow to no longer be visible when a shot was canceled with an arrow
- Fixed a bug that caused the bow sound to play incorrectly when equipping the bow if the player had no arrows in their inventory
- Fixed a bug that caused the indoor sounds to trigger incorrectly
- Fixed a bug that caused residents to walk through the wall when entering the tavern
- Fixed a bug that could cause archers stationed in towers to have a shorter sight range than free archers
- Fixed a bug that could lead to incorrect rotation of units when they attacked the player
- Fixed a bug that could lead to an incorrect ballistic curve of arrows
- Fixed a bug that could lead to an incorrect spawning position of the deer in the hunters' huts
- Fixed a bug that could lead to a glitch between walking and idle animation of the deer
- Fixed a bug that could cause buildings to be built twice in rare cases if Shift was held during construction
- Fixed a bug that caused the top floor of towers to be inaccessible if they were built on an existing wall
- Fixed a bug that caused catapults to not turn correctly towards the attacked target in some cases
- Fixed a bug in the attack behavior of catapults

Dear Community,

We are pleased to present our roadmap for the development of the coming time. On the one hand, we will be focussing on improving existing functions and, on the other hand, integrating new content into Empires and Tribes. With our upcoming update at the end of February, we will already be integrating improvements to the combat system and the evasive behaviour of the inhabitants, as well as adding a new map with six AI opponents.

Your Empires and Tribes team



ROADMAP

CHARCOAL KILN
The charcoal kiln adds an absolutely essential building of the Middle Ages to the resource cycle. The charcoal will be used in the forges and in the iron smelter to smelt iron and copper.

COMBAT REWORK
We will gradually revise the combat system to improve situations in which the player is involved in combat in particular.

MORE EVENTS
We will integrate new events such as bear attacks into the game.

NEW MAPS
We will gradually integrate more maps for the free game, with a higher number of AI opponents and interesting locations.

COMPLETE NPC AUDIO
This year's first step of our audio team will be to bring more life to the game by adding many more sounds to the animations of NPCs and animated environmental objects.

IMPROVED PLAYER FEEDBACK
We will revise the sound of the player character to drastically improve the audio feedback of actions, interactions and combat.

This update fixes some bugs and glitches that occurred in the current version. Furthermore, the inhabitants are now animated when speaking during communication with the player and some models have been revised by us. We have also redesigned a large part of the icons in the menu for a better display and added new functions to the audio.
Next week, we will also publish our roadmap for development in the coming period.

Your team from Empires and Tribes



- Fixed a bug that could lead to a crash when trying to build roads outside the map
- Fixed a bug that could lead to a crash in the campaign in Stanwold
- Fixed a bug that caused stones and clay in the area of the clay pit, quarry, mines, merchant and monument to not be removed when these buildings were built
- When constructing new buildings, trees are now felled in a larger area to eliminate clipping errors with these
- Fixed a bug that prevented the player from talking to the town's children
- Fixed a bug that caused female residents to not close their eyes while sleeping
- Residents are now animated more vividly when talking to the player
- Building boundaries are now more visible during the day in winter
- Revised models of the beds in the residential buildings
- The town council meeting room in the town hall is now illuminated again
- Fixed a bug that could lead to businesses not being recognized in the residents' menu when selecting a job
- Fixed a bug that prevented residents from being assigned to the construction sites of the city wall during communication with the player
- Fixed glitches in the residents' clothing
- Fixed a bug in the interior model of the town hall Lv2
- Ambient noises are now gradually faded out in the construction site when the player zooms out further
- The player sounds are now muted in the building menu
- Added a function that uses sound to indicate whether the player is inside a building or outside


UI

- The menus in the main menu can now also be closed via escape
- Resolution button in the main menu revised for better readability
- Fixed a bug that caused some icons in the main menu to have a low resolution
- Fixed a bug that caused the crosshairs to fade in when communicating with residents
- Added a message stating that goods can no longer be collected from a farm when the main warehouse is full
- The texts when creating the character, as well as the texts in the campaign, are now only continued automatically after 60 seconds
- Fixed a bug that caused the icon indicating that a trade cart is under attack to not be removed after an attack
- Fixed a bug that caused the farms to have incorrect Roman numerals when communicating with the inhabitants
- Fixed the delay in the UI that could occur in the residents' menu and when communicating with residents when selecting a construction site as a work location
- Fixed a bug that caused other menus to open while the player was asked if they wanted to participate in a city council meeting, trial or marriage
- The menus for city council meetings, court cases and marriage can now be closed with Escape
- The amount of stored resources is now displayed more precisely in the menu
- UI icons revised
- The menu buttons are now arranged like the keyboard layout