Empires and Tribes News

This patch provides performance and memory management improvements.
Optimizations in the area of models and textures will improve stability and support on systems with 8GB Ram.
The performance is improved in the area of the CPU by a more optimized pathfinding (for the nerds among us: we have extended the pathfinding from the traditional A* to the JPS+ pathfinding) and a revised Dynamic Occlusion. In rendering, new LOD models of the units and the use of shared materials provide further improvements. We plan to continue the work in the area of optimization with the next updates.

Your team from Empires and Tribes


Optimization:

- Added LOD models of all units
- Shared Materials for all residents added
- Dynamic Occlusion System optimized
- Pathfinding of the inhabitants optimized
- Added new optimized models of lamps
- Optimized models of market stalls added
- Memory footprint reduced by optimized textures
- Memory footprint optimized on systems with 8GB RAM by using smaller textures
- Optimized display of the map and minimap, which has a positive effect on the performance during the movement of the player especially on large maps

Fixed:

- Fixed bug that could lead to a crash after loading if there was a thief in the city
- Fixed a bug that could lead to a crash when the market cart manager was overloaded
- Added message that indicates when a farm cannot be reached when the city gates are closed

This patch revises the unit combat system and integrates a new revised building model: the clay pit.
The options in the combat menu have been expanded by a few functions. For example, the player now has the option to directly select enemy units as attack targets. Furthermore, information about your own and your opponent's armies is now displayed directly in the HUD. In addition, sword and lance fighters now have the option of defensive behavior, and archers have the option of volleys.

Your team from Empires and Tribes



Added:

- Added maximum render distance for units. This improves performance especially on large maps with AI enemies in Middle and Late Game.
- Performance optimization when rendering combat units
- Material properties of armor and weapons of the player and combat units revised
- Units can now attack enemy units directly by right clicking on them
- Added position marker for armies that shows the individual target positions of the units when a new movement target is set
- When creating armies in the battle menu, they are selected directly afterwards
- Added defensive behavior for sword and lance fighters: The behavior of the units can be changed in the battle menu. Defensive units move slower and do not automatically attack enemies from a distance, but they have higher defense values
- Added volleys for archers: Archers can now be assigned a freely selectable area on which they fire salvos over a wide area. However, only units and no buildings will be hit. The hit rate decreases the further away the area is from the archers.
- Added trailrenderer for arrows, which makes the attack behavior of archers more visible
- Combat power of archers stationed in towers increased
- When multiple armies are given a new movement order at the same time (by selecting multiple armies), units no longer move to the same target, but maintain distance and formation from each other
- Cooldown before the first fire breaks out in the settlement increased
- New building model added: Clay Pit
- Added LOD data and occlusion data for the clay pit
- Added LOD data and occlusion data for the woodcutters
- Replaced clay objects in the landscape


UI

- Added army icon in the combat and construction menu, which shows the position and troop strength of the armies of both the player and the AI
- Unit name is now displayed in the battle menu when units are selected
- The trader's character is now no longer displayed during the transition when closing the inventory menu
- If the player is at war with an AI opponent and exceeds the maximum number of units allowed by the nobility title when recruiting units, now only the opponent the player is at war with will complain.
- It is now possible to switch directly from the construction menu to the battle menu and back again.
- In the construction menu, the destination and the resources to be collected from the market carts are now displayed when hovering the mouse over the market carts

Fixed:

- Fixed a bug that caused the building menu to open when a new castle building site was created
- Fixed a bug that caused the wrong number of units to be displayed in the battle menu when new units were trained and an army was selected at the same time
- Fixed a bug that could cause battle units not to cross bridges after loading
- Fixed a bug that could cause combat units not to react when buildings were attacked
- Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when armies were moved and units were dropped in combat at the same time
- Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when units did not find their attack target
- Fixed a bug that could lead to incorrect selection of involved armies when selecting combat units, resulting in incorrect unit movement behavior
- Fixed a bug that could cause tooltips to sometimes not appear in the combat menu
- Fixed a bug that could cause archers to fire multiple arrows in immediate succession
- Fixed a bug that could cause archers stationed in towers to stop attacking enemies
- Fixed a bug that could cause goods to stop being picked up by cart drivers when the finetuning of goods pickup in the town hall was disabled
- Fixed a bug that could cause objects, especially tree trunks, not to be picked up if they were located at the junction of two terrain objects
- Fixed a bug that caused pressing "e" to open the building menu of construction sites by mistake, even if there was no construction site nearby
- Fixed a bug that caused weapons to be created again in the player's inventory after being sold when the weapons were scrolled through
- Fixed a bug that caused the weight of items in the inventory to be displayed incorrectly

The current patch adds new features to the UI, integrates two new armor types and fixes some bugs.
The building menus can now be opened from the construction menu. This enables the management of resources/workers/upgrades from the bird's eye view. Buildings now also have hitpoints which are displayed in the menus. If necessary, these buildings can be repaired, which restores their condition. Furthermore, we have integrated a function with which buildings can be tagged on the map to find them more easily in the world.
With the armor of the Guard, a new particularly strong armor type is available to the player. Unlike the other armors, this armor cannot be crafted, but must be acquired from NPCs through achievements, such as attaining the highest level of nobility or achieving a particularly strong religiosity.
We were also able to fix some bugs related to the farm and in the UI, and fixed a bug that could cause a crash when loading.

Your team from Empires and Tribes


Added:

- Added new objects: Iron armor and armor of the Guard.
- Guard armor can be acquired by reaching high nobility levels, achieving strong religiosity, solving court cases and building a cathedral
- Buildings can now be repaired to restore hitpoints after a fire or attack
- Camera movement speed is reduced in the building menu when the camera is close to the ground

UI

- The individual building menus can now also be opened from the construction menu when the farms/buildings are clicked on
- Hitpoints display added for all buildings
- When the market cart menu is closed, the construction menu is no longer closed automatically
- Added tooltip explaining how to supply residents with food and trade goods
- The menu of the dwellings now shows which types of food the inhabitants have access to
- Slight adjustments to the position of text blocks in the resource bar for better consistency
- Slight adjustments to the building interaction menu and its tooltips
- Tooltips in the overview menu revised
- Buildings can now be tagged
- Color for tagging inhabitants and buildings changed from red to orange
- Added shortcut button in diplomacy menu that leads to nobility privileges
- In the diplomacy menu the names of the AI opponents are now displayed below the coats of arms
- Added info panel for the court sessions


Fixed:

- Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when loading if the AI's units did not find their way to the target
- Fixed a bug that could cause the farm not to be built after loading
- Fixed a bug that caused the camera to misbehave when opening the city menu from the market cart menu
- Fixed a bug that resulted in not being able to declare war/offer peace to AI opponents when the diplomatic relationship was broken
- Fixed a bug that caused missing resources to be displayed in the building menu even though there was no construction site on the building
- The marketplace can now be cleared by the player and the water carriers
- The texts in the menu for loading game saves in the main menu are now translated correctly
- Fixed a bug that caused the menu buttons to stop responding from the building menu if Escape was pressed beforehand
- The shield can now be correctly activated with the right mouse button on Windows
- Fixed a bug that caused the damage of the arrows to not be displayed in the player menu
- Fixed a bug that caused the strength values of shields to be deleted when the player manually removed a shield from the equipped inventory
- Fixed a bug that caused the strength values of shields not to be displayed in the player menu and its tooltips
- The shield can now be applied even if the player is holding tools in his hand
- Fixed a bug that caused the shield to be applied at the same time as the bow when the last arrow was shot
- Fixed a bug that caused the wrong icon to be created on the map when building the grain farm
- Fixed a bug that caused the monks to run in circles in front of the town hall warehouse
- Fixed a bug that caused the farm not to be demolished correctly
- Fixed a bug that caused paths and walls to be built accidentally when the player clicked on a new building in the building panel of the building menu
- Fixed a bug that prevented the farm from being selected in the market cart order menu

With this patch we release the first part of the UI Rework. But not only that: At the same time, Empires and Tribes gets a new building with the farm and the player gets new items with new leather and copper armor.
The player menu has been cleaned up and made more logical, the resource panel has been graphically adjusted and the tooltips have been revised a bit. We also added some tooltips and panels that explain the game mechanics in more detail. You can now see the effects of legislation directly during the city council meeting and the effect of religiosity while talking to the priest - just to name two examples. As always, we're really grateful for feedback from you about the changes or features you'd like to see - especially if you notice other things in the UI.
The farm is now available as another building for food production. Shortly before leveling up to artisans, the size of the city could quickly cause supply shortages, and recruiting an army was almost unthinkable before building a bakery. This gap is now filled by the farm, which lies between the hunting lodge and the grain farm in its efficiency. Last but not least, we have started to integrate armor types into the game. There are five different items per armor type, which can be produced by the player and then worn to get an armor bonus. With this patch, the leather and copper armor come into play.

Have fun playing and happy Easter!

Your team from Empires and Tribes

Added:

- New building added: Farm
- Added new farming animation for residents
- Added new resource: Cabbage
- Food supply expanded: residents can now be supplied with cabbage as well
- The player can harvest cabbage at the farm
- Added new resource: Leather - Obtained from eviscerating animals or can be purchased at the marketplace. Is needed to make leather armor
- Added new objects:
Leather armor, leather helmet, leather boots, leather arm guard and leather leg guard, copper plate armor, copper helmet, copper boots, copper arm guard and copper leg guard - Items can be worn by the player to gain armor protection
- Crafting for new leather and copper armor added
- Siege weapons can now be built only after the player builds a palace in the castle
- The cost of recruiting units has been increased slightly
- Revised objects of flags created when building roads or buildings


Fixed:

- Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when the grain farm was expanded
- Fixed a bug that could cause items to not be picked up in the grain farm area
- Fixed a bug that caused the crosshairs to activate and the buttons in the Main HUD to stop responding when the player dropped an item via Escape
- Fixed a bug that caused the buttons in the main HUD to stop responding when the player accessed the build menu via the shortcut.
- Fixed a bug that caused parts of the menus to be responsive even though they had no interactive function
- Fixed a bug that caused unit recruitment costs to not be refunded when training was cancelled
- Fixed a bug that caused the buy and sell prices in the mini tooltip to not be displayed in the market menu
- Fixed a bug that caused the icons of farms to be displayed above the menus in the construction menu
- Fixed a bug that caused items to be doubled if Escape was pressed while selecting the item


UI:

Added:

- Revised resource display in the main menu
- Player menu reworked and adapted to the standard menu design
- Menus of the buildings revised and more clearly arranged
- In the menus of the buildings is now displayed when a building is fully developed
- Menu of military buildings extended (training time and availability of units are now displayed)
- Position of buttons in the communication menu changed so that twice as many buttons are visible without scrolling
- Tooltips graphically revised
- Added tooltip in the recruitment menu that shows the required resources and the training time of units
- The colors of the panels in the tooltip of the items now show the effectiveness of the item on the color scale from red (bad) to green (very good)
- Added tooltip explaining the impact of the city councilors' opinion
- Added info panel during the city council meeting, which shows the current legislation and its impact
- Added info panel during communication with the priest and monks, which explains the effect of decisions on religiosity
- Font size of the buttons of the farms adjusted to each other
- The progress of harvesting crops is now displayed
- The name, damage and armor value of the worn item are now displayed in the player menu next to the player character

Dear Community,
we are pleased to now publish our roadmap for the upcoming quarter.
In addition to the redesign of some old farms, a completely new building, the farm, will soon be added to the game. We also plan to dedicate the next few months in development to specific topics and align the patches accordingly. We will start with a UI revamp month in April and will take a closer look at the menus. Of course, we are always happy to receive criticism and suggestions. So if you've been annoyed by this menu for a long time, or if you can't find a certain piece of information with the best will in the world... now is the time.
Of course, in addition to the features, we will continue to bugfix and improve the stability of Empires and Tribes.

Your team from Empires and Tribes