1. Empires and Tribes
  2. News

Empires and Tribes News

Release and Winter Update

Dear Community,

After 3 1/2 years in Early Access, the time has come: We are going into the release! We would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for all the great help, wonderful ideas and constructive criticism we have received from you during this time.

But of course the journey doesn't end here for us. We will of course continue to take care of the maintenance, polishing and optimization of Empires and Tribes after the release.

Having said that, let's now move on to what is probably even more interesting for you: As announced, we are releasing our biggest update to date with the release: the Winter Update!

Empires and Tribes now features seasons with different effects on life in the city and the production of resources. While apples can be harvested and mushrooms gathered in late summer and fall, players must make long-term provisions for the winter and stock up on food, as the farm and grain farm cease operations during this time.

The player gets cold after a while in winter. This can be counteracted by warming up at torches, ovens, campfires, in the town hall, in the keep, in forges or by holding a burning torch. In addition, armor now offers protection against the cold, with leather armor performing best. If the player does nothing against the cold, their health will be affected, which can lead to death by freezing. This can also be counteracted by eating food, which is now available to increase the player's health.

We have also reworked the models of the town hall, the chapel and the bakery and added colliders to all models of the construction sites. We have revised the shaders of the buildings, which now gives the models a better look, especially in close proximity. In addition, all units now no longer automatically attack all enemy buildings in their vicinity, but must be specifically sent at them by the player. This allows for much more intuitive control of the units during combat. In addition, the old autoattack function is now available as an option in the combat menu.

We have also been able to integrate a major audio update with this version. The world of Empires and Tribes is now soundtracked by many new sounds in the UI, during battle or in your city's businesses. And finally, we have integrated a new map for the free game, the Archipelago.

We hope you have fun in the cold and wish you a Merry Christmas.

Your team from Empires and Tribes



- Seasons added
- Winter now reigns from December to March. During this time, the grain farm and the farm do not produce any goods. However, both farms produce 1.3x as many goods during the rest of the year, so that the balance for supplying the population remains basically the same.
- Autumn and spring are also graphically represented in the rendering of the terrain and vegetation
- Added cold mechanics
- Added cold protection values for all armor pieces
- Food mechanics added: Meat, cabbage, bread, apples and mushrooms can now be eaten by the player to improve health
- Added mushrooms - these now grow mainly in forested areas and can be harvested from September to November
- Apple trees can now be harvested from July to October
- Mushrooms and apples can be sold at the market

- Added new models for the town hall
- Added new models for the bakery
- Added LOD's and shadowcasters for the town hall and the bakery
- Windows are now displayed transparently
- Function for adding items to the menus has been revised: Items can now also be picked up with a single short click, or one item each is added for picking up. The scrolling option remains and is activated when the item is clicked on for a longer time.
- The player can no longer be attacked during city council meetings, court cases or marriages
- Units no longer automatically attack buildings in their range, but must be instructed by the player to attack them
- Added autoattack function, which allows units to resume their old behavior and attack all buildings within range
- Units now regenerate their health when they are near a keep
- Construction sites now have colliders
- The effect of sleeping is now represented by a vignette effect instead of a motion blurr effect
- The dweller's task in which wooden planks must be made to repair a roof is now only assigned once a carpentry workshop has been built
- The thief can now also be attacked while breaking into the town hall warehouse
- When selecting a new map, the default settings such as time, resources or game mode are no longer overwritten
- Added function to halve or turn off the display of the grass for better performance and lower RAM consumption

- Added an icon in the building menu that shows whether the building is affected by a strike, a rabbit plague or the effects of winter
- The names of the buildings are now always displayed in the tooltips in the building menu, even if they are not yet available
- The weight is now shown in the tooltip for the items in the inventory
- Scrollbar added, which shows the current mood in the city and the trend in the HUD
- Shader of the buildings revised
- New map added: Archipelago
- Extensive audio update integrated

- Fixed a bug that led to incorrect waypoints for the construction workers when building the castle extension buildings
- Fixed a bug that caused the beds in the keep not to be highlighted
- Fixed a bug that caused units to always automatically join an army after being recruited
- Fixed a bug that could cause the servants menu to open from the combat menu
- Fixed a bug that could prevent the Tribok from attacking new targets after an attack
- Fixed a bug where no sound was played when selecting new targets for the units and the waypoint was not displayed when the targets were on bridges
- Fixed a bug that could cause units to run through walls after destroying a building near the wall or when attacking the player near a wall
- Fixed a bug that could cause units to walk through walls after destroying a building near the wall or when attacking the player near a wall
- Fixed a bug that could cause units to be pushed through walls when attacked by the player
- Fixed a bug that caused the rain sound and road building sound to continue playing even when loading a new game or returning to the main menu
- Fixed a bug that caused the settings to be saved in the savegames instead of globally
- Fixed a bug that could cause the time window for selecting a different resolution to be too small, preventing the button from being activated
- Fixed a bug that could lead to a crash when building stone towers if the player was near them when they were completed
- Fixed a bug that caused the demolition model of the Lv2 farmhouse to rotate incorrectly
- Fixed a bug that could cause the mini-panel to open incorrectly at the start of the game
- Fixed a bug that could cause the game to continue at normal speed after exiting the settings menu, even though the accelerated speed was previously selected
- Fixed a bug that led to incorrect rendering of the grass, which did not match the height of the terrain
- Fixed a bug that could lead to the inhabitants not playing a movement animation when running
- Fixed a bug that could lead to cart drivers not being rendered
- Fixed a bug that could cause cart drivers to drive to the edge of the map in rare cases
- Fixed a bug that led to a short-term incorrect calculation of the player's stamina after loading
- Fixed a bug that caused the player's stamina to be replenished while the game was paused
- Fixed a bug that could cause the messages about required resources at construction sites not to be hidden again
- Fixed a bug that caused the crosshairs to appear in the settings menu
- Fixed a bug that caused a wrong walk animation of the deer in accelerated game mode

New trailer and upcoming release

Dear Community,

Big events are casting their shadows ahead:
We have released our new trailer today, which introduces the latest features of Empires and Tribes. You can find it here or on YouTube on our channel https://www.youtube.com/@whitevertexstudios9521/videos.
At the same time, it's going to get cold in Empires and Tribes in the near future. In two weeks, we will be releasing our biggest update for Empires and Tribes to date: the Winter Update! This will bring the four seasons with different effects on production and life in your city. You can look forward to a new cold weather feature, a wintery look, new models, lots of new sounds, new gameplay mechanics and much more.
And last but not least, we are pleased to announce our upcoming release date on 12/21/2023. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for 3 1/2 years of Early Access! It was your ideas, your suggestions and your criticism that kept driving us to rethink and develop Empires and Tribes. And before anyone gets the idea that this is it: Of course we still have plenty of ideas in mind and will continue to provide Empires and Tribes with regular updates.

So save the date: winter is coming on 12/21/2023! We can also announce that we will be holding a release sale on 12/21/2023 at launch and offering Empires and Tribes at 35% off.

Your Empires and Tribes team

Patch notes for Version 1.46

This update replaces all the castle extensions with new models. Furthermore, the error that the castle could not be expanded has been fixed. The appearance of the field paths has also been revised. The paths in the simplest version now have a grass strip in the middle and can later be extended to simple roads, which, like the stone roads, have a speed modifier for the cart drivers. Finally, we have added a new function in the construction menu that displays the construction grid as a visual aid.

Your team from Empires and Tribes


- Field paths now have a grass strip in the middle (does not support old savegames)
- Added a function to convert dirt roads into simple roads. Simple roads have the appearance of the old dirt roads without grass strips and give market carts a speed modifier of 1.25.
- Added a function to activate a grid and the display of contour lines as visual aids in the construction menu
- Added a new model for the Lv3 keep
- Added new models for the stables
- Added new models for the unit quarters
- Added new models for the archers' quarters
- Added LOD's and shadowcasters for the stables and quarters
- Added horses standing in the stables


- Fixed a bug that prevented the castle extensions from being placed

Hotfix notes for Version 1.45

This hotfix fixes some errors that could occur when game saves were corrupted. Among other things, this could lead to new games not being able to be started.
We also smuggled a small update for the dynasty system into the patch: All members of the dynasty now have their new home in the keep and the palas extension of the palace. The units now go to sleep here at night and spend part of their time in the palas during the day. We have also revised the associated building models and integrated them into the patch.

Your team from Empires and Tribes


- Added new models for the keep
- Added new models for the palas
- Added LOD and Shadowcaster for the keep and the palas
- Added new animations and new behavior for the dynasty members inside the keep
- Added button in the menu of the town hall that opens the menu of the civil servants


- Children are now spawned in new buildings only when the population size reaches 40 instead of 15 inhabitants
- Fixed a bug that could lead to not being able to load new maps if a savegame was corrupted
- Fixed a bug that caused savegames not to be displayed if one of the files was corrupted
- Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when saving if the savegames were corrupted

Patch notes for Version 1.45

With this update, the Dynasty system is implemented as a new feature. You now have the possibility to search for a partner among the townspeople or among the single nobles of the surrounding countryside and to woo them. For this purpose, we have integrated four new personality types, which play a decisive role in courtship, for example in compliments. After marrying your fiancé(e), you can now found a dynasty with up to three offspring and watch your children grow up. They can succeed you after they reach the age of 18 if you die of old age or in battle. Age also now plays a role in the population. Thus, from now on, you will have to take care of children among the population to a small extent, and you will be able to employ them in the city's businesses only after they reach the age of 18.
Furthermore, we have been able to fix the bug of empty cart drivers thanks to your help. If you still have a problem, we would be grateful for your reports in the forum.
Last but not least, we have integrated two new maps for the free game. On the map of the 4 kingdoms you can play against three opponents at the same time for the first time. On the map of the Island of Kings, a charming settlement site on an island in the middle of a river awaits you.

Your team from Empires and Tribes


- Dynasty feature added
- Residents of the city as well as nobles from the surrounding countryside can be courted as spouses
- Added the possibility of marriage and divorce
- Added the possibility to give compliments
- Added possibility to give gifts
- Added possibility to have children
- Possibility to send children to education added
- Added possibility to continue playing with an heir after the death of the player


- Added aging of the player and his natural death
- Added aging of NPC's
- Added affection of NPC's towards the player
- Added 4 different personality types for the NPC's that affect the behavior of the family options
- Added children as new NPC's - they are randomly generated instead of new residents and can be assigned to city works only when they reach 18 years old
- Added feature that increases the priority of farms for pickup by cart drivers when the farm warehouse is overcrowded
- Added 2 new maps for free play

- Fixed a bug that could cause goods not to be picked up from farms if the cart drivers were in the wrong state
- Fixed a bug that caused the sound not to play when creating roads
- Fixed a bug that could lead to incorrect calculation of starting resources after restarting campaigns