Becastled News

Hey everyone, we have some great news for you today: the Combat Update will be released on March 24! If you’d like to play it a bit earlier, you can join our public beta starting on March 13. See the end of this post for details on how to join.

Check out our updated game trailer, which showcases our new vision for the game:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Our goal was to focus on improving the combat aspect of the game. Everything has been built from scratch to deliver a deeper and more engaging combat simulation experience. Performance has also improved significantly.

You will be able to create and share your own maps with the upcoming update. Modify the terrain and place resources as you see fit. Share your map with the community or download maps created by others.

And there is also sandbox mode, build and fight without any restrictions.



We've added mini bosses with this update, they are bigger versions of regular units but they are much tougher. Killing one of them will give your units a lot of expirience.



If all of your troops fall in battle, you can summon a militia. Every villager will pick up a weapon and join the fight. However, be careful—this is your last line of defense.



To help you prepare for night battles, we’ve added a feature that shows enemy attack paths. This will be extremely useful when building walls and gates, allowing you to guide enemies into a deadly trap!



There are many other changes as well, and we’ll post a full list on the release date!

How to join the open beta:

1. Right-click on Becastled in your Steam library.
   
2. Select Properties -> Betas.
   
3. Under Beta Participation, choose beta.
   
4. That’s it! You’ll just need to wait until March 13.
   

That's it for today, see you soon!

Hey everyone, it's been a while, and we have some news on the progress of the upcoming combat update.

[h3]Map win condition[/h3]

Now you can win a map! There are 4 enemy towers on each side of the map, if you destroy all of them and survive the final enemy wave you win. You will still be able to play after that if you want to, but if you’re looking for a challenge, now you have it. Make sure you are ready to defend your castle, as a destroyed tower will summon a much bigger wave of enemies at night. And if you will destroy all towers you will have to defend against the final and strongest enemy wave.



[h3]Better unit roles[/h3]

Since the release, we've struggled to find a good balance between our units, but I think we've found a good solution.

Swordsmen will now have shields by default, and they can use them to protect themselves from arrows. Along with better armor, this allows them to take significant damage and still survive



Knights still wield a big two-handed sword that deals splash damage, making them the most dangerous unit in melee combat.



Pikemen now have long spears, which allow them to have greater attack range. By combining pikemen with knights or swordsmen, you can create a squad that fits your needs in terms of damage or defense



Archers are mostly unchanged, but they have almost no armor. So, leaving them alone in an open field at night might not be the best idea, as enemies also have units with shields.

[h3]New levels[/h3]

Levels make units more powerful than before, and you can easily see the unit level icon. Control and position your troops in a way that allows them to gain experience in each fight, and try not to lose too many of them.



[h3]Dead or injured[/h3]

Speaking of that, you will be able to see how many of your troops died during the fight. A skull icon represents a unit that died, and a cross represents a unit that can be healed in a hospital. The more skulls, the bloodier the fight was. You can hire more doctors to increase the chance that a unit will not die in a fight.



[h3]Banners[/h3]

Also we've added banners that you could give to any unit, each banner will have different aura that will affect your troops. So now you will have much more tools to create unique defence strategies.



[h3]Smarter enemies[/h3]

You’ll need to be more creative defending your castle, as there will be more enemies, and they will be smarter this time! Enemies will bring siege ladders and towers only when it makes sense, saving time to reach the castle keep. They will also use rams to break through gate doors now.



You will be able to see the possible enemy paths, which will help a lot when planning your defenses. The visuals are still a work in progress, but you can already see how enemy attack paths change when you place a wall. Enemies will choose to run around if it’s much faster than breaking down the wall, but if the detour is too far, they will try to break through the wall and might even use a siege ram to help them.



[h3]New map[/h3]

All these new combat mechanics need a better world to truly shine. That’s why we’re working on new map types, along with a map editor, so you’ll be able to create custom maps with interesting designs and challenges. If you’d like, you can also share them with others through the Steam Workshop later on.



[h3]When it's going to be released?[/h3]

We wanted to release it much earlier, but as usual, things grew out of scope. We want to ensure this release is the most polished yet and that we deliver the best possible experience with it. We still aim to release it in a few months.

Let us know what do you thinkg about the upcoming update in the comments!

Hello everyone,

We want to share some progress we have made on the combat update.



As we upgraded our AI, we discovered a cool way to make combat more dynamic. You can see in this clip how knights push archers while they fight. This creates more dynamic and interesting battles. You can feel that the knights overwhelm the archers so much that they push them back.



Check out how the troll pushes knights when moving. Cool, right?

This new technique will allow us to create enemies that cannot be stopped by regular troops. It's not just cool visuals, but also a way to create new combat challenges. Knowing that a troll will go through your troops no matter what forces you to come up with new strategies to handle this.



This technique also allows units to move much faster on walls and ladders.



These movement details bring more life to our simple characters, making them more realistic and alive.



We are focusing on significantly improving siege gameplay. Fights at gates, on walls, and with siege towers and ladders have been completely reimagined and improved. With these changes, we aim to create the best strategy siege simulation game out there.



We are also working on new units and combat content, along with rebalancing old mechanics. We will be ready to share more details next time. Our goal is to make combat more challenging and to bring more depth to this part of the game.

See you next time!

Hello everyone!

We want to share with you our progress on the update we are currently working on. Our goal is to bring more depth to combat and siege gameplay. Making it more fun and challenging to defend your city.

Also we are fixing issues related to AI and pathfinding that plagued game experience for many of you. We’ve completely rewritten AI for all units in the game. And it works way faster right now. Though we are not ready to share details on combat changes yet.



We are also working on an upgrade for the game map. The idea is to add more stuff to map generator, so that it will create more unique and interesting defense challenges. And we also want to include a map editor in the game, so that you could create and share custom maps.

Mountains, rivers, water cells and some other stuff. I think we will release these elements gradually with the next updates. For now I can share some concepts and early screenshots on how it looks



And our plan is also to release roads with one of the updates to the map editor.



That’s all for today, see you next time when we share more details on combat changes.