Empires and Tribes News

Since we've been getting more feedback from you lately that you'd like to see a more intense RPG component, we've decided to implement new content in Empires and Tribes with a new feature patch this time. The next patches will be more focused on bugfixing and improved feedback. However, some fixes from the last few days have made it into the patch.
But now to the new features:
This patch introduces the court sessions. Your residents now commit various crimes from time to time, which a court, consisting of the town councils and you, must deal with at regular intervals (every 3-6 days to be exact) at the marketplace. However, in order not to throw innocent defendants into prison or pillory, it is up to you to solve the crimes as completely as possible. To do this, various quests await you, such as searching for evidence or talking to certain witnesses. If you are convinced of the defendant's guilt, you can determine the sentence and thus prove yourself as a particularly kind-hearted or merciless ruler. But beware: some punishments are tied to your titles of nobility. After all, not every simple lord or lady should be allowed to pronounce the right of banishment, right? Moreover, your population keeps a close eye on how justly you decide and whether, for example, you just fine the poor peasant brewing herbal juices or throw him in jail. And if, on the other hand, you can't adequately punish a serious theft in court because you don't even have the necessary title to pillory the guilty, a dissatisfied population is probably only the least of your problems....

Have fun in court,

Your team from Empires and Tribes


Engine

Added:

- Added court session at the marketplace with the council members and defendants and defense lawyers
- Added 12 new crimes with variable outcomes
- Added evidence search as new quest functionality to find out if the defendant is guilty or innocent: search items in different buildings, talk to specified people, talk to random people
- Added 5 different punishments: Fine, blasphemy stone, pillory, prison, banishment.
- Pillory, banishment and veto in trials are unlockable as new privileges through the nobility titles
- Justice in trials added as a new variable that affects the satisfaction of the population: Unjustly judged sentences (especially severe or especially light) have a negative effect on satisfaction. Convicting defendants who are actually innocent or acquitting guilty defendants also has a particularly negative effect.
- Books added as new items


Fixed:

- Fixed loading bug that occurred when Lv1 ramparts were burning.
- The buttons in the diplomacy menu now work, so declaring wars, concluding trade treaties,... is possible again
- Fixed bug that disabled the building icons after loading the second tutorial
- Fixed bug of the camera movement into the city council meeting
- Fixed bug that made it possible to be late for the city council meeting only once. The player could not attend any subsequent sessions if he was late.
- The city council meeting now always starts at 8 p.m.

UI

Added:

- Added menu for the court processes.
- Added menu for overview of current trial, assessors and current state of evidence search

Fixed:

- The panel of selection buttons when communicating with residents is now always zeroed out

Small hotfix that fixes the problem of the market cart drivers getting stuck in front of the town hall.


- Fixed a bug that caused market cart drivers to get stuck in front of city hall
- Fixed a bug that in rare cases caused villagers to float in the air in front of the houses

With this patch, the daily routine of your inhabitants will be more varied, because we have finally invented the leisure time. Depending on the legislation, your inhabitants will now stop working between 7 - 9 pm and pass the time in your city - either by trading at the marketplace, visiting the church or the tavern, or reading the news on the bulletin board. For this we have not only written a number of new animations, but have also extended the speech texts of your inhabitants, allowing you to get direct feedback on church politics, for example. In addition to a number of bug fixes, we have also added new footstep sounds for all your residents, making sure that your town is not quite so quiet anymore.

Version 1.12

Engine

Added:
- Added leisure time activities for villagers: between 7/20/21 pm (depending on legislation) until midnight: villagers now stop working and spend time in town doing various activities
- Church attendance, tavern attendance, trading at the marketplace and reading at the bulletin board added as activities
- Added sitting, drinking, communication and trading animations for all villagers
- Added 3 different images of the clock to show the division of the day into working time, free time and night in the HUD
- Added a tooltip for the clock showing the exact time, day and current mode of the day (working time, free time, night)
- Residents' answers in the church now reflect their feelings about the current church policy
- Individual answers of the residents in the church, in the tavern and on the bulletin board added
- The current working hours are now displayed in the tooltip in the overview menu

Fixed:
- The menu from the town hall and the store is no longer opened immediately after picking up resources at the same, if the player accidentally pressed "E" again
- Fixed a bug in the priest's animator that occurred when the church was demolished
- Fixed a bug that caused the priest to disappear in the bottom of the church after loading it
- Fixed a bug that could cause the water carriers to get stuck at the fountain
- Fixed error prone calculation of the time when loading game states
- The water carriers are now no longer pushed off their stools by the player due to Local Avoidance
- The crates and lamps of the villagers' quests are now no longer stretched in the immediate vicinity
- Market cart riders now no longer walk directly through resources spawned at the town hall
- After loading game states, resources were not transported to construction sites if the player used them for other construction sites - construction workers now independently fetch resources from the main warehouse in this case and use them at the construction site
- The player's local avoidance is now no longer calculated when the construction menu is open
- Backup for older tutorial game saves implemented to be able to skip outdated tutorial steps
- Fixed a bug that could cause a crash in rare cases when units die due to famine

UI

Added:
- Added new textures for the clock that color codes the working time
- Added message when construction workers independently pick up resources from the main warehouse for use at construction sites


Sound:

- Added NPC footsteps with underground detection for all villagers

This hotfix fixes two errors when loading savegames and some minor bugs.

Engine

Added:
- Improved resource mining system (wood, stone, clay, copper and iron) from the player's side.
- Added scrollbar that shows the progress of resource mining

Fixed:
- Fixed loading bug
- Fixed a bug that caused a crash in rare cases when training combat units
- Fixed a bug that caused more lamps to be stretched incorrectly when lumberjacking
- The player's hands are now hidden in the construction view
- The most effective tools to mine copper and iron are now pickaxes

This patch replaces the models of wooden gates, towers and walls and replaces the stone textures of all stone walls, gates and towers. We've also integrated a new Local Avoidance System between the player and the units, so the latter won't run through you like crazy anymore. Furthermore, we have reworked the combat system and made the feedback, both auditory and visual, a lot more intuitive. And last but not least, we've reworked the markers of quests, fires and attacks, and have integrated new icons in the compass direction indicator, making it much easier to find tasks and events.

Version 1.11

ENGINE

Added:

- Added Local Avoidance between all units and the player
- Added wooden wall model Lv1
- Added wooden gate model Lv1
- Added wooden tower model Lv1
- Added new texture for all gates, towers and walls Lv2
- Added LOD for wooden and stone walls
- Added new hairstyle models for player's character
- Added new sounds for impact sounds when fighting
- Added UI that shows when the player is hit
- Walls can now be fixed to special anchor points on already built towers or gates during construction and therefore no longer cross the center points of towers
- Added graphical representation of anchor points of towers and gates
- Fires, wolf attacks, attacks and the items of the villagers' quests are now also displayed within the compass direction display


Fixed:

- Convincing town council members now works for church tithe and poll tax decisions
- Changed building system so that building dummies "stick" a bit more to the streets
- Residents now walk forward down the stairs
- If the marketplace was demolished, it is now easier to rebuild a new marketplace in the same place. The colliders of the surrounding buildings now no longer prevent this.
- Specularity of the lashes of all units adjusted
- The wells can now also be cleared by the water carriers
- When selecting the male char, the same hairstyle is now no longer available twice
- Flag in the campaign start menu no longer disappears into the wall
- Hit collider of the wolves enlarged
- Life point display of units now no longer jumps instantaneously to the new display. The deduction of health points is animated instead.
- Unit health display is now slightly larger and easier to decipher
- Fixed a bug that caused a crash when a town hall was newly built and the player was in its immediate vicinity
- The slope of the terrain is now calculated correctly when building paths and walls
- The hitboxes of the walls have been reworked and are now easier to access
- The well keepers are now slightly stronger when extinguishing fires
- The items in quests of the inhabitants are now always spawned inside the map
- Fixed a bug where some road pieces in front of the surrounding farms were not demolished when they were destroyed or demolished
- Fixed a bug where additional road segments in front of bridges were instantiated when loading a save state
- Fixed a bug that caused the respawn of residents after loading a savegame to not work
- Fixed a bug where the sleeping time for farms and construction sites was calculated incorrectly when the maximum working time was selected in the city council meeting. This could result in nothing being produced or built during the day.
- The battle menu can now also be closed by "Escape" if units have been selected previously
- The building menu is now completely closed by Escape
- Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when the AI has expanded the grain farm
- The position of the lamps in the woodcutter's hut has been corrected