Lords and Villeins News

Greetings lords and ladies!

We have exciting news today - the public beta for the awaited Artisan update goes live! All of you can get your hands on the patch right now and test all the great new additions to the game. Please be advised, that while this version went through extensive internal testing and a lengthy closed beta, there are still issues we are aware of and will be fixing them in the upcoming days so if you want to enjoy a smooth experience, please hold off your excitement just yet, until the update goes live on the main branch.

In order to join, right click on the game in your library, select Properties, Betas and find the "artisanbeta" branch. If you encounter any bugs or have any feedback to share, we would love to hear from you! Share them here on Steam forums, or come join our dedicated Discord server.

There is so much to get excited about with this new patch. With significant optimizations for the pathfinding that now runs natively on parallel cores and is managed more efficiently, there is a noticeable improvement in the frame-rate, especially on larger maps. New quest mechanic and redesigned royalty system is a lot of fun, and inviting nobles to host them at your villa adds a nice extra bit of immersion.

Thank you all who have been part of the closed beta, including our community members on our Discord and those participating in the Fulqrum Champions program. We can't wait to hear more feedback from all of you! So let's have a look what are all the changes introduced in this patch.

[h2]Performance Optimization[/h2]

• Path computed in one direction is now used in reverse order for opposite direction.
  
• When world grid changes, only paths that are impacted by the change are recalculated.
  
• Pathfinding is now distributed over multiple frames and threads using a BurstCompile job system.
  
• All visitors now share a common pathfinding map instead of each family calculating their own.
  
• Prioritization of path search for NPC over animals and further limiting animals use of pathfinding in a single frame.
  
• New option in the settings to serialize pathfinding data. It will increase save and load time, but prevents spike on reload.

[h2]Replaced Nobles with Artisans[/h2]

• Chapel is no longer used by artisans. They share the church with everybody else.
  
• The Tavern was removed. Artisans arrive through the inn.
  
• Inn now also serves mead and wine.
  
• Donations to clergy no longer reflect noble families. The clergy simply expects the player to donate a calculated amount of valuables over some time.
  
• Theatre is now visited by everyone, including peasants.

[h2]Added a New Class of Noble Houses[/h2]

• Nobles houses are generated automatically at the start of the game.
  
• Their growth is stimulated automatically outside of the map.
  
• Noble houses can be viewed in the population book in a new Nobles tab.
  
• Noble houses now accept ruling family marriage proposals instead of the previous artisan families.

[h2]New Quests and Deliveries[/h2]

• Noble houses and royalty offers optional delivery quests for extra rewards.
  
• New Loading Site structure added that is used by villagers to prepare deliveries.
  
• Players can also grant resources to noble houses or a royal family which is sent away through the delivery system.

[h2]Hosting at Vila[/h2]

• Players can now invite a noble house to be hosted at their villa.
  
• The noble house will spend a certain amount of days and consume the meals of the player.
  
• After they leave, the relationship with the player will change based on how satisfied they are with the quality.

[h2]Combat Power[/h2]

• Villagers in the military regiments now display their combat power.
  
• Combat power is a function of their equipment, age, health, training, skills, blessings, and other buffs and bonuses.
  
• Total combat power of a regiment is used when delivering military as a royal tax.
  
• Combat power is now displayed in the population book

[h2]Royal Taxes Updated[/h2]

• Royalty now only expresses their demand in terms of the gold value of delivered resources and the total combat power of delivered soldiers.
  
• Players can complete the taxes through deliveries or sending regiments to war at any time during the year.
  
• The Tax Evasion mechanic was removed. Instead, having a Master of Coin appointed will boost the rewards and contributions made through deliveries.
  
• Royalty also offers optional quests that provide extra money and favor points.
  
• Royalty also offers a list of bonus equipment, which boosts the combat power a certain regiment contributes with.

[h2]Changes to Professions[/h2]

• Ropemakers can now utilize Loom to create a new Carpet resource. This resource can be used to build new floor-type carpets. Five different carpet patterns are added.
  
• Alchemists no longer make health, magic, or stamina potions. Instead, they make love potions that peasants consume to boost their pregnancy chance, exotic mixtures which can be used as a cooking ingredient, or transmuted gold, which can be minted into gold coins or granted to nobles as a valuable gift.
  
• Glassmakers now also produce glass bottles, which are required to make potions.
  New options to manage priorities
  
• Priority screen is updated and shows more detailed information.
  
• The player can update how much material a family is stocking for production.
  
• Player can also limit production if a family has stock over a certain amount.
  
• Player can also restrict tax-deductible options, to prevent villagers from consuming taxed resources to produce other taxed resources

[h2]New Cooking Management Options[/h2]

• The accounting management screen has a new cooking tab.
  
• Players can set custom targets for cooking meals and toggle if families are allowed to supplement high-quality targets with a lower quality meals.
  
• Logic for cooking was also updated so that families will continue cooking higher quality meals even if they have plenty of lower quality meals, to meet their targets.
  
• It is possible that families go over their target if multiple people start cooking at the same time.

[h2]Other Changes[/h2]

• Rework the internal system for generating new families.
  
• The notification system was reworked to allow more flexible data transition. As a result, several notifications were updated to provide more information about their context.
  
• Storage management screen now has copy/paste option.
  
• CTRL+Select when clicking on a buildable object will now select that object from the build menu.
  "The number of UI screens was improved for performance.
  
• Inns can now be toggled in the context menu to prevent selling beds and meals to locals
  Small UI changes
  
• Notifications now distinguish between source and target. Players can click separate buttons to move the camera to them.
  
• Zone context menu was reworked to separate the quick-build menu into structures, furniture, and storage. Buttons to switch between tiered collections were added to quickly access different quality furniture and storage.
  
• New option in the settings to display a contrasted version of the HUD

Greetings Lords and Ladies,

we are very excited to announce, that the new Artisan update is close to release! This update is addressing a lot of concerns and feedback that you have been sharing with us in the past months and we can't wait for you to get your hands on it. Thank you very much for talking about our game, sharing your feedback and helping us improve Lords and Villeins!

If you want to be one of the few that try this new update early in the early beta stage before anyone else (and potentially many more, including even other games by Fulqrum Publishing), consider joining the Fulqrum's Champions program! Simply send an email to [email protected] and we'll let you know all the details!

An in-depth look at the upcoming update can be found by clicking this link. To mention a few highlights, it will bring significant changes to Nobles, Royal Taxes were redesigned for more reward based approach centered around freedom of choice. You will also be able to send the taxes to the ruler anytime during the year. Professions will go through some changes as well, Ropemakers, Alchemists and Glassmakers will receive an update to make them more relevant to the economy!

The whole Change Log will be shared once the patch comes out. We expect to release it during the upcoming weeks.

Lords and Ladies,

today, we would like to take the opportunity to celebrate the art of music, produced for Lords and villeins. Adam Bow, a talented composer from New Zealand, who we had the privilege to work with in 2021, contributed a unique palette of instruments and ideas, that shaped a truly beautiful score. So let's take a deeper dive into the creative process that went into producing it!

Lords and Villeins together with its soundtrack are a part of the Steam Spring Sale and they are available with a 30% discount. Buy them both in one bundle to increase the discount even more! The Sale ends on March 23.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/28876/Lords_and_Bards_bundle/

[h2]Seasonal Themes[/h2]
Truly impactful scores for games achieve more than just a pleasant background to fill out the silence. They serve a very deliberate purpose narratively, thematically, and also emotionally. When thinking about what element of our game is best to breathe this sense of deeper purpose into our music, the seasons made a lot of sense.

Seasons in our game impact everything. The themes, gameplay, strategy, focus of the player, behavior of our AI, and different kinds of challenges and events that come with it. They also drive the inner rhythm of the game. Much like any music, while there is plenty of variety introduced, they are still predictable and happen in cycles. Players always know, which season is the next, and what to expect, while still recognizing, that each one is different.

So it made perfect sense, to tie our music to this very core element of the game. We've broken this approach down into three parts:

• Adam utilized a unique set of Instruments that he thought would best convey the feel of each season, along with a primary instrument to play melodies. Flute in spring, violin is summer, accordion in autumn and mandolin in winter.
  
• We also defined the contrast of two emotions for each season, that the harmonies are trying to highlight. In spring, we are waking up from slumber and explore beauty and curiosity, summer is all about festivities, and love, autumn is cozy, but also hard-working, and winter is magical but dangerous.
  
• Finally, we give each element a description of gameplay. Spring is about planning and designing. Summer is a time of harvest and growth, autumn is focused on restructuring and optimization, and winter is focused on survival.

This approach also created a great opportunity, to compose a seasonal transition between every two seasons, slowly blending themes and instruments from one season to another. Each is triggered on a particular day as all vegetation begins to change and the color scheme shifts. This creates an audiovisual spectacle, which is one of our favorite parts of the game!

[h2]Music That Welcomes a New Day[/h2]
Aside from the harmony, instruments, and melodies, we also had to consider the circumstances, in which the game will play a piece of music. There were many options - from looping the music endlessly, tying it to special events or just random timing. What made the most sense to us, was simply an event of passing a morning hour.

This way, the music serves as a reminder, that the player has progressed yet another day. It can signify an important milestone, as that is when our game also evaluates a lot of important things such as taxes or daily events. And since the night is often a time of waiting, it catches the attention of the player, to remain focused. Thematically, the music now also dictates a very specific tempo - each score is starting slow, adding up instruments and themes as it develops, and slowly fades into a regular ambiance, just enough to grab attention, but not too much to set expectations of heavy action. After all, there are many mornings in the course of one game, and one is not necessarily more special than any other.

There is of course also the main theme, which welcomes the player to the main menu. Here, we've let Adam have full creative freedom, to create an attention-grabbing tune, that is melodic and establishes a simple and memorable signature melody.

[h2]Inspirations[/h2]
When creating the soundtrack, we also discussed the style and choice of instruments. While Lords and Villeins drives a lot of inspiration from history, we have always wanted to create our version of medieval times. One that is inspired by historic facts, but not bound to them when we want to prioritize aesthethics or gameplay. So our choice of instruments was rooted in history, but also not limited by it. In our art style, we have also taken a great deal of inspiration from old-school Zelda games and Stardew Valley. In the end, it made a lot of sense to look for similar inspirations also in our music. This led us to a selection of style and instruments, that is reminiscent of medieval tunes, but maintains the magical and mysterious feel of our inspirations. Since Adam incorporated these already into his own signature style, it seemed like a perfect fit to work together.

In the end, Adam created a wonderful soundtrack, one that we are very proud of and continue enjoying to this day!

[h2]Listen To It Anywhere![/h2]
If you share our enthusiasm and would like to enjoy the soundtrack even while not playing, we have great news! Not only you can buy it here on Steam and support the developers, it is now also available on Spotify and Bandcamp, where you can support Adam and his work directly!

Adam is very talented and hard-working and as an independent creator, he deserves a passionate audience of fans! In this way we would like to channel some extra support towards his creative endeavors so please, listen to it on Spotify, and check it out on Bandcamp! You can also follow him on Twitter for updates on his work.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2206190/Lords_and_Villeins_Soundtrack/

Greetings, Lords and Ladies,

We are happy to tell you that the patch you've been testing in beta branch has just gone public! That means the update has become a part of the main game and is available to everyone. Big thanks to our community who helped us by playing the update and shared your feedback. And thanks to also those who have been patiently waiting for the update.

If you wish to keep helping with the testing of Lords and Villeins and other games, feel free to join our Champions program if you have not done so yet! All you have to do is get in touch with Fulqrum Publishing by sending an e-mail to [email protected].

Here we are posting the updated change log so you can see what is getting updated on the main stage. And if you missed our article for our future plans, make sure to read it here!.

[h2]The Initial Change Log:[/h2]

[h3]New Features[/h3]

• Ability to customize difficulty
  
• Ability to customize map creation in various degrees of detail
  
• Ability to customize starting families
  
• Ability to store difficulty and map presets as templates
  
• Added new mountain ore distribution presets
  
• Added new tropical climate, with a warm climate all-year round!
  
• Ability to prioritize blueprints
  
• New "Islands" preset and tweaked existing presets
  
• Added x8 speed (Speed IV)
  
• Added new x32 speed that is available between 10PM and 6AM
  

[h3]Improvements[/h3]

• Refactoring of mouse hover tooltip elements to provide more unified experience
  
• Consolidated UI of priority screen and accounting report with extra bells and whistles.
  
• New construction queue view in the accounting report
  
• New blueprint context menu after clicking on it
  
• Harsh weather module has been converted to harsh weather climate setting
  
• Redesign of the new game menu screen flow
  
• Removal tools are now permanently visible in HUD. This option can be turned off in the settings.
  
• Updated Unity version to LFS 2021.3.17f1
  
• Replaced old UI switches with new ON/OFF switches
  
• Population book now displays specific age with a tooltip about when adulthood and elderly age is reached
  
• Implemented algorithm for dynamic loading of scrollview content. This will be later expanded on all UI screens to greatly improve their performance.
  

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• Fixed multiple bugs with noble marriages
  
• Fixed alchemy not making stamina potions
  
• Fixed alchemist workshop recommending Oven instead of Blast Furnace
  
• Fixed starting resources not being added to generated families
  
• UI Screens are now capped to scale down to fit within screen height if the UI scaling extends beyond the screen border
  
• Fixed number of broken hover effects
  
• Fixed issue with updating UI scaler when screen resolution changes
  
• Fixed issue with animated UI elements for resources not being positioned correctly when UI scaling is changed
  
• Fixed issue with river and sea type not being recognized in created maps
  
• Added mechanism for hover tooltips to be restricted by screen border and automatically reposition
  
• Number of other minor bugfixes
  

[h2]Changes Made Thanks To Our Awesome Community Testers[/h2]

• Fixing incorrect prompt for blueprints saying the family does not have resources even when it does.
  
• Updated algorithm for selecting blueprints for construction and implemented caching. This should slightly boost performance and make behavior more aligned with the priority number assigned to each blueprint.
  
• Fixed the critical error causing frequent freezing
  
• Fixed hover element in population book when changing equipment
  
• Replaced old toggles with new labeled switches in the royalty report screen
  
• Fixed a minor UI issues with a switch in zone context menu starting in on state when it was initialized in the off state
  
• Fixed issue with prioritizing blueprints for construction when higher priority structure that has missing resources would block all other blueprints that are lower in queue but otherwise possible
  
• Blueprint context menu no longer appears when the blueprints layer is not visible
  
• Fixed issue with probability for old people to join clergy being sometimes set to 100% after a reload
  
• Fixed issue with hover element in priority queue on Supply % if the blueprint had no cost
  
• Fixed bug with favor point cost for requested custom families being deducted twice
  
• Fixed bug with population book locking the game when "New Family" request window pops up while the population book is open
  
• Updated algorithm for choosing spawn points and departure points at the edge of the map. The game will now prevent spawns of any animals and NPCs if there is no valid entry point, and the game will automatically update to the nearest clay-terrain type terrain if the original spawnpoints are blocked
  
• Fixed a bug with time to execute task difficulty multiplier working invertedly
  
• Fixed a crash in accounting report screen when a zone is updated in the background
  

Greetings, Lords and Ladies,

As you may have noticed, we have a patch in the oven that's currently available for you to test just before we release it publicly. More details, including ways of how to join the testing, can be found by clicking this link.

Thanks to your participation and feedback, we have been able to locate and address some of the issues already, meaning the beta patch is getting updated right now. Below you can find all the things that we've done so far. Since the list of changes is substantial, we decided to extend the public beta for a few more days. If we don't identify any other major issues, we will be releasing the patch publicly and updating the main build of the game soon. We want to share extensive appreciation and love to everyone of you for participating in the beta. By playing the game and sharing feedback, you are helping us to improve and polish Lords and Villeins above and beyond.

We are extremely grateful for your help! Feel free to join the testing by following the link above and don't forget to join our Discord as well.

[h3]Change Log:[/h3]

• Fixing incorrect prompt for blueprints saying the family does not have resources even when it does.
  
• Updated algorithm for selecting blueprints for construction and implemented caching. This should slightly boost performance and make behavior more aligned with the priority number assigned to each blueprint.
  
• Fixed the critical error causing frequent freezing
  
• Fixed hover element in population book when changing equipment
  
• Replaced old toggles with new labeled switches in the royalty report screen
  
• Fixed a minor UI issues with a switch in zone context menu starting in on state when it was initialized in the off state
  
• Fixed issue with prioritizing blueprints for construction when higher priority structure that has missing resources would block all other blueprints that are lower in queue but otherwise possible
  
• Blueprint context menu no longer appears when the blueprints layer is not visible
  
• Fixed issue with probability for old people to join clergy being sometimes set to 100% after a reload
  
• Fixed issue with hover element in priority queue on Supply % if the blueprint had no cost
  
• Fixed bug with favor point cost for requested custom families being deducted twice
  
• Fixed bug with population book locking the game when "New Family" request window pops up while the population book is open
  
• Updated algorithm for choosing spawn points and departure points at the edge of the map. The game will now prevent spawns of any animals and NPCs if there is no valid entry point, and the game will automatically update to the nearest clay-terrain type terrain if the original spawnpoints are blocked
  
• Fixed a bug with time to execute task difficulty multiplier working invertedly
  
• Fixed a crash in accounting report screen when a zone is updated in the background